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Haggai – Sermon Manuscript

-There was a movie that came out in 2004 that no one expected to take off like it did! It was a classic “coming of age” story of a guy who was trying to figure out life in high school and family dynamics that go along with that. I saw it in theaters and I haven’t been the same since! It was a movie called Napoleon Dynamite, and I feel like it’s one of those movies that only worked in a certain time period, because I know people who have tried introducing it to their kids and the kids thought the parents were crazy. One of the funniest characters is a guy named Uncle Rico, who claimed to be able to (and I quote) “throw the pigskin a quarter mile.” Look at that form! I doubt he could throw that a quarter yard! But part of the reason he was so funny is because we all know someone like him, someone who is always pining for the “glory days” of the past. And what’s craziest is their interpretation of the past doesn’t always line up with reality!

-Haggai is a message of encouragement for God’s people who were discouraged about not living during the “glory days” of Israel. They look around them and are living as a remnant, a shadow of the former glory of the nation. They’re subservient to a different nation, they don’t have a temple to worship in, and they don’t even have enough food to eat! What are they hoping in? Let’s read the first chapter and find out:

READ/PRAY (pg. 839)

  1. The Message of Haggai: The Presence and Blessing of the Lord

-We have more information about what’s leading up to this event in Ezra and Nehemiah. We sometimes miss the connection between books in the OT because of the ordering of them. Ezra & Nehemiah are prophesying and writing at the same time, and some people believe they were the people who compiled the OT together for God’s people. But Ezra tells us that because the people faced opposition to the building of the temple, they stopped working on it, and that stopping remained for 16 years, while the people focused on building homes and raising crops, getting the rest of their lives in order.

-Then the Lord sends Haggai and Zechariah to light a fire under the people and call them to begin building the temple once again, and Ezra 6 tells us the celebration they had at the completion of this new temple. So Haggai tells us the message the Lord gave to get the people going. Just to give some perspective, Ezra 5 also includes these prophets as part of his description of what was going on, and he tells us that Haggai helped rebuild the temple! 

-Not a ton of information about this prophet (apart from the note that he is a prophet!). But we have VERY explicit information about when these words came to him, allowing us to date this book to a 4-month period in the year 520 BC. Here’s where all the dates are listed throughout the book, and what they correspond to in our Gregorian calendar! 

-Who was this word give to? Zerubbabel and Joshua: civil and religious leaders. We’ll learn more about Zerubbabel throughout this book, so for now just note that these are supposed to be the recipients of this prophesy. And right away, we see the problem God is addressing:

-This house is in ruins. The problem is they had stopped building the temple. They had faced some difficulty with it, but instead of persevering, they gave up and focused on building out their own homes.

-God draws attention to these issues by saying “think carefully about your ways” which he repeats 3 other times in the book (1:7, 2:15, 18) It’s a way of telling the people to learn from these things and draw near to God through them. Honestly, I think this is a picture for us of how we’re supposed to respond to difficult seasons in our lives. If God is sovereign (in complete control) than we can trust Him even when things don’t feel like they’re going to work out, or we don’t feel like we’re flourishing. God isn’t the author of evil, but He’ll allow evil in our lives to grow and stretch us, just like any parent has to sometimes let their kids fail in order to help them grow.

-God has prevented His people from flourishing in their work. They’re hungry, they’re thirsty, their clothes are wearing out. And this isn’t an accident or incidental thing, God is still in control, including over the times and the seasons, and He has prevented their crops from flourishing. And why is that? Look at vs. 8-9. The reason the people were living in ruin was because it was meant to be a picture to them of the ruin God’s house was in.

-The answer is: build God’s house, if you do, He will be pleased and glorified. Sounds easy enough, right? Put this building up, be done, and watch the wealth come in! But it’s never that simple, especially (I would think) as the people are struggling.

-I don’t know about you, but if I heard that God was the one that was preventing my flourishing, I don’t think I’d be very happy about it. Think about how many stories you hear or read about people who get angry at God for things not working out how they wanted them to. It’s such a common story! But that’s not how the people responded here! Look at vs. 12.

-The entire remnant obeyed and feared the Lord. This is the description of a revival! A particular season of repentance and turning to the Lord, and many times it comes after particularly difficult seasons.

-Have you ever had a season in your life where it felt like God was intentionally leaving you in a desert place? Where you kept crying out to Him and asking for some level of relief, but it never got better. Where you were reading the Bible, but it felt like it didn’t make sense, where you pray but it feels like you’re praying to the wall, where you go to church but it feels like a waste of time. It doesn’t take long in your journey with Christ to reach some level of crisis. And sometimes it’s God stretching and challenging you to grow through it. It hurts, in the middle of it, it feels like it will never end, but God’s call to His people is to continue trusting Him and persevere.

-And look how God responds to them: “I am with you.” That’s basically a summary of the whole story of Scripture. What is God’s plan from the beginning? To be with His people! That’s why He doesn’t ever give up. Even when the entire world was in rebellion against him (except for the family of Noah), He still moved toward His creation and created a way for them to be redeemed through the floods. Friends, this is the best news in the world! God’s first move is always towards, not running away which is why God came down to Earth.

-So the people obey, and the work on the temple began again.

-God (through Haggai) asks the people who saw the old temple. This new one wasn’t going to be as nice or as beautiful or even as big. Here it even says, “Doesn’t it seem to you like nothing in comparison?” God doesn’t even try to be “MN nice” about it!

-There is a human temptation to live like Uncle Rico in Napoleon Dynamite and pine after your “glory days,” to look to the past with rose colored glasses, and the people of the Lord are no exception. Ezra 3:13 tells us exactly what the response of the people was to this event: half were thrilled and excited that this work had begun, and the other half were weeping because it was so bad in comparison. Even though those former days had idolatry and sin, and there was the impending destruction of the nation coming, they wanted to go back, instead of celebrating what God was doing here and now. We see this today, too! There is a church I drove by in Rochester that has a giant billboard that says, “We sing hymns.” Technically, EVERY church sings hymns, because I’m going to assume that every church is singing songs to God! And there’s nothing wrong with singing hymns, but there’s also FANTSTIC new songs that are being written all the time! If you want to talk about my thoughts on music, send me an email! And it goes beyond music that too, I’ve had people tell me that they wish they could go back to the morality in our country of the 50s. I wasn’t alive then, but I’ve read enough history to know that the 50s was the time of MASSIVE segregation in our country, a time when the color of your skin could have prevented you from voting. Do you really want to live in that time period? That doesn’t mean today is any better! While the color of your skin doesn’t prevent you from voting, our culture is debating what it means to be male or female. Friends, the reality is whatever time you live in: people are still people, sin is still sin, and God is still sovereignly ruling and reigning, so the call for His people hasn’t changed, look at what God goes on to say:

-What’s interesting is this is the same exhortation that Joshua got when they were about to cross into the Promised Land, encouragement to be remain strong and faithful because even though the temple wasn’t done, His Spirit was with them. It’s hard to persevere, it’s hard to remain faithful, so God exhorts His people to continue pushing through, to not give up.

-I will shake: there’s allusions to Ex. 19:18 here that shows that when God comes, the earth can’t stay still. Someday in the future, God will judge the nations, and what will they do? They’ll bring their treasures into this house. And I think we see this in 2 places, first when the wise men “from the east” bring their gifts to Jesus, and second and more explicitly in the new heavens and earth. Rev. 21:24 says the kings of the earth will bring their glory into this new Jerusalem. The external glory of the temple is meant to reflect the inner glory of the Glorious One.

-The final glory will be greater than the first. You haven’t seen ANYTHING yet, because for a Christian, the best is ALWAYS yet to come. One thing I’ve been trying to do more since preaching through Revelation is spend time contemplating heaven, and just how wonderful that will be. I heard someone onetime say he ended his devotions each day thinking about heaven until it brought a smile to his face! One of the most amazing things about heaven is the joy and happiness is unending. Each day is a new opportunity to try something new, to get to know someone in a deeper way, to taste a new food, to go on a new adventure. And each day we’ll grow in our awareness and understanding of God, which will never leave us bored because God is infinite (which is why I think we get eternity to spend with Him). 

-Then Haggai is asked to go to the priests and ask him a couple questions about Levitical law (vs. 10-19), and the summary of these questions is: defiling is contagious, while holiness is not. And you can kind of make sense of that with sickness, you can “catch” a cold (or the flu, or COVID), but you can’t “catch” health, can you? And God says that because the people aren’t holy, even their offerings are defiled by their sin.

-Which is some of what makes Jesus’s arrival so amazing, because the opposite is true with Him. Jesus comes along and sickness flees from Him! So now under Jesus, suddenly holiness is contagious. Mark 1 tells this story of a leper. Under the law, lepers were completely segregated from everyone else, and if anyone got too close to the leper, they were unclean. But do you notice how Jesus heals this leper? Mark is explicit: he reaches out his hand and touches the man, a man who likely hadn’t been touched by another human in YEARS because they didn’t want to catch his leprosy. And what happens when Jesus touches the man? Instead of Jesus becoming unclean, the unclean man is made clean (which Mark explicitly says). God says in Haggai that this is coming, blessing instead of cursing, and it’s dependent on God, not anything the people can do.

-The final word to Haggai comes on the same day with a promise to once again “shake the heavens and the earth.” The purpose of this shaking is to overthrow the Gentile kingdoms, with allusions to the Exodus when they overthrew the Egyptian army (Ex. 14), and the conquest of the promised land, when the Midianites killed each other in their confusion (Judges 7:22).

-Who’s going to be sitting on the throne? It says Zerubbabel, but one of the issues at this time was that Darius was the king, even though Zerubbabel was the descendant of David.

-First, a signet ring is the marker of royal authority, think of it like an official stamp. But the reason that’s significant is because of something God revealed to the prophet Jeremiah about Zerubbabel’s grandfather. In Jer. 22:24 God says that even though Coniah was (past tense) God’s signet ring (that is, bearing God’s authority), God was going to rip him off, cast him away, and the prophesy ends by the Lord saying his offspring will be cast off, which leaves in doubt whether or not David’s line would continue.

-But then we see here at the end of this book that God will renew His covenant with the Davidic line and make Zerubbabel His signet ring, promising that the David’s line would continue. And Zerubbabel comes up again in Matthew 1, do you know why? Because he is the great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandpa to Jesus (yes, I counted). This is just a reminder to us that Jesus is the main point of the whole Bible. It all centers on Him, it all points to Him, and He is the answer to every promise that God makes. Which also means we need to talk about what this future temple is that God tells Haggai about.

  • The Temple of the Lord

-What was God talking about here that could be better than the temple Solomon built? What’s amazing is He’s talking about what we’re doing today. Now, I’m not saying that this building is the new temple, but God is talking about this new temple that exists worldwide, that is too big to fit in one building, and it’s called “the church.” Let me show why I think that.

-First, Jesus literally changes everything! So we need to think about the reason God has his people construct a tabernacle, then the temple to begin with. It was so He could live with His people. In fact, the ordering of the nation while they were traveling through the wilderness put the tabernacle in the middle of them, signifying that God had the primary place among them. But what’s fascinating (at least to me) is that God was living with His people before then too, but He was living with them as a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. My reason for bringing this up is because of the way John describes Jesus in John 1. I don’t usually leave the footnotes in my slides, but it says it right on there: Jesus is the better tabernacle, the place where God’s full glory dwells (Col. 1:19). The reason God had His people build the tabernacle and then temple was because people would die if they were given unmediated access to God’s glory, but that changed with Jesus.

-Next, and a subset of this, is that Jesus says He is building something new with His disciples. So we begin with the reality that Jesus is the new and better tabernacle, but then He goes on to build something brand new which He talks about with Peter (Rocky! If you’ve read or watched Project Hail Mary yet). He affirms Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Messiah, and that confession is the foundation for the church. So Jesus’s new idea for the place where God’s glory will dwell is in the church. But hold on, it gets even better than that!

-Paul continues this idea about what’s being built together in Eph. 2. Building up to this part, he’s been talking about the death we all lived in because of sin, and the separation we had between each other (Jew and Gentile) but how that division has been broken down by Jesus. Then he goes on to say that because of what Jesus has done, we are no longer foreigners and strangers, instead we’re citizens and members of what? God’s household. Turns out this has been God’s plan from the beginning! God living among His people, not in a temple built by human hands (Acts 7:48)

-But it gets even better. Look at what this house is built on: the apostles and the prophets. So we’re supposed to think back to prophets like Haggai as the foundation God was building 600 years before Jesus. And who’s the cornerstone, who’s the one who began the construction? Jesus. Paul is saying there is continuity from the beginning to the end. The tabernacle, then the multiple temples were in place to point to this reality that’s taking place today, because if you are in Christ, you are now a part of His holy temple. 

-And Peter talks about this reality as well. Not only are we the temple, we’re also being built to be the priests, the ones who can approach God to offer spiritual sacrifices through Jesus Christ. Friends, this means ALL of us are priests, this isn’t referring to some special “class” of Christians who act as a mediator between humans and God, there’s only 1 mediator: the God-man Jesus Christ. But Peter continues just a few verses later with a long list of descriptions of the church, all of which are direct quotes from God to Israel in the OT. God’s plan has always been to live among His people, not be constrained by a temple. God’s plan has also been to be the God of every tribe, and tongue, and nation, not just 1 ethnicity. 

-As I was studying this week, a verse from Psalm 27 came to mind. Think of what David asks the Lord here. The one thing he wants is to dwell in the house of the Lord and seek Him in His temple. Friends, we don’t just dwell in the house of the Lord, we ARE the house of the Lord, and where do we go to seek Him in His temple? We go here, because together we make up the temple of God. But just as the people during the time of Haggai had left the temple in ruins, there are ways that we today can leave the church in ruins. 

-An early church father, writing in the 3rd century, Cyprian of Carthage, wrote a treatise titled ‘On the Unity of the Church’ where he said: 

-There are 2 key issues I see today where we can leave the church in ruins. First is by treating it like a consumer, where we sit in judgment on what takes place, or we pick and choose the areas we want to be involved. I’ve seen people who would go to 1 church because they liked the music, then hop in a car when the music was done and drive down to another church because they liked the preaching there. That’s like a husband going over to the neighbor’s house because he doesn’t like his wife’s cooking (or the wife going over, I don’t know all your cooking arrangements). Pick a church and plug yourself in and don’t give up when you get offended or hurt. People are sinners, and when you throw a bunch of people together in close proximity, the sin is going to come out, we can’t help it. I wish I could say the church is immune from that, but until Jesus returns the church will continue being made up of a bunch of sinners. Which gets me to the second key issue:

-Don’t marginalize or belittle the church. The church is the 1 earthly institution that Jesus paid for by shedding His blood, and when you either speak poorly of the church, or complain about the church, or even worse if you just ignore the church completely, you’re dismissing the thing that Jesus loves the most. Picture this: my kids are starting to get a little older, which means they’re getting harder to correct. They’re using logic and reasoning to point out our inconsistencies. But the other thing they’re doing is starting to talk poorly about us, and I’m fine if they’re upset with me, but I don’t have much toleration for talking bad about Cara. When we are upset about the church or complain about it, it’s complaining about Jesus’s bride, and I don’t think He appreciates that. See, the call for all of us who claim to be Christians is in the name, it just means “little Christ.” We’re supposed to work to be like Him in every area of our lives, including the things that we love, and Jesus loves His church with every ounce of His being, so we should love the church with every ounce of our being.

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by mikethestrand on April 19, 2026  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on April 19, 2026

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2026/04/19/haggai-sermon-manuscript/

Zephaniah – Sermon Manuscript

-I think that stories based on events that happened during WW2 have led to some of the best movies: Fury, Unbroken, Saving Private Ryan, Darkest Hour, Life is Beautiful, Midway, Dunkirk, Hacksaw Ridge, The Pianist all incredible movies of the resiliency of humans, and the destruction of war. But all those movies are from the perspective of the Allies. Where we celebrate the victories, how do all those movies portray the Germans? As the bad guys. We look at those various battles in triumph, but how would the other side view those events? As humiliation, right? Think of D-Day, when the Allies cross the English Channel and began their attack of the Western Front of the Nazis. Do you think the Germans were celebrating that day? Absolutely not! See, every war has 2 sides to it. Similarly, Zephaniah is going to give us 2 sides to the Day of the Lord. We talked about this back in Joel, but this is the book that talks about it the most.

READ/PRAY (pg. 835)

  1. The Message of Zephaniah

-The intro to this book gives us the opposite of what we’ve seen for a while: 4 previous generations of people! Why is this significant? 

-3 names: Cushi, Hezekiah, and Josiah, intending to give us a starting place for Hezekiah

-Cushi: refers to the land of Cush, significant because of what God promises and it would make Zephaniah bi-racial

-Hezekiah is described as the best king of Judah in 2 Kings 18, he destroyed the competing “worship” sites in Judah. One of the most fascinating things about him is in preparation for the Assyrian invasion, he dug a tunnel under Jerusalem to reroute a river and provide water for the city during the siege, and you can go visit “Hezekiah’s tunnel” today!

-The last significant name is Josiah, who led a major reform movement in Judah and became king when he was a child (2 Kings 22). When he was king, he began repairing the temple, and in the repair the book of the law was uncovered (Deuteronomy) which gave the stipulations the people were supposed to follow and obey. And Josiah took this seriously! He re-enacted the covenant ceremony with the people, who recommitted themselves to obeying God’s laws.

-These names are pointing out that Zephaniah is going to be in the same line as his great-great grandpa Hezekiah, one who is faithfully following God and encouraging the people toward obedience of God’s law. There’s debate about how far into Josiah’s reign this takes place, with most people I read saying it’s most likely shortly after he found the book of the law and began enacting it, but it hadn’t yet taken root in the people.

  1. The Day of the Lord in Judgment (1:1–3:8)

-Zechariah mentions “The Day of the Lord” 22 times throughout it, which tells me it’s his primary point in writing! One scholar said, “There is a compelling simplicity about Zephaniah’s message: he has only one topic, and he never digresses from it.” (Alec Motyer)

-We’ve talked about it before, because it’s a theme that’s been running across all these prophets, so just as a refresher, “The Day of the Lord” is a future moment where God would come in judgment to pay back the enemies of His people. Throughout this time period, the Israelites were excited for the day of the Lord because it was viewed in a completely positive light, where the other nations who had attacked God’s people would be judged. But the warning from the prophets is that the judgment would be negative, not positive!

-And that’s where Zephaniah begins his rebuke of the people. Look at this first description from God: He says He’s going to completely sweep away everything! And there’s intentionality in the way this destruction is described. If you think back to Gen. 1 when God created the world, this is the opposite of creation, it’s meant to make us think that the day of the Lord is going to be a de-creation. But it doesn’t take long for Him to remind the people that this isn’t just for people “out there” because right after this promised destruction of the world, look at vs. 4

-God is also angry with Judah, the 1 remaining people of God, and even worse He’ll destroy the promised city of Jerusalem. But notice how God describes the problem: the people are worshipping Baal, a fertility god who was thought to bring rain to them which they needed in order to live. And apparently there’s no difference between the pagan priests and the supposed priests of Yahweh. And if that’s the priests, the one who are supposed to be leading people in the worship of the one true God, what about the rest of the people?

-They’re worshipping the stars instead of the one who made the stars. On the one hand they’re worship God, but at the same time they hedge their bets and also worship Milcom (the false god of the Ammonites). This is called syncretism that is combining the worship of the true God with the worship of all these false gods, and we do the same thing today! We say we trust God completely, but we also make sure we don’t get too sold out to following after Him. Both Baal and Milcom are gods that the surrounding nations worshipped, and as I have read about the Israelites, you can take them out of Egypt, but the rest of their history is working to take the Egypt out of them. And that’s the same journey for all of us in our Christian life: God has taken us out of the world, but the rest of our earthly lives is working to take the world out of us. Unfortunately, the temptation is always there! Also unfortunately, it’s incredibly hard to find those areas that you’re still holding onto worldly ideas, we often don’t even realize them until either someone points them out or we react poorly to those areas being inconvenienced.

-I think I’ve shared this story before, but when one of the idols of my heart that I have to be conscientious of is when I feel dumb, and one of the precipitating reasons that has come to the surface in my life is because we drive older vehicles. Towards the end of me going to seminary, my car started having these weird issues where it would suddenly lose all power and acceleration, so the fastest I could go was like 15 mph. First time it happened, I pulled over, waited about 15 min, and suddenly it started and drove with no issues. But over the next week it KEPT happening and I just got ANGRY. And in one of my angry outbursts, I realized my reaction wasn’t the corresponding to the situation in front of me, and then it hit me: cars aren’t that complicated, I should be able to figure this out, and the fact that I couldn’t made me irate! Now I know you all already know this, but I needed to remind myself that I’m not God! I don’t, can’t, and won’t know everything, which means there’s going to be areas in my life that I am just ignorant about. This is an area where I know that I’m not God, but I don’t want to have to rely on Him, much to my shame and disgrace. And we all have areas like that in our lives, where we need to pray for the strength to fight those idols, those places where we struggle to trust God, where we still want to do our own things and live our own ways. The only consolation is we’re not alone in that! We see it in Zephaniah, which means it was true 3,000 years ago, so humans are still humans.

-Notice that in the very next verse, Zephaniah gives us the right response: be silent. Have you ever noticed that’s the response of people in the Bible who encounter God? Every time they realize that God is so much more holy than they are, so they fall on their faces and acknowledge their sin. Which is why it always make me chuckle to myself when so many songs that we sing in church are asking God to be present here, to reveal Himself to us, to show us His glory, because the Bible shows us that it’s a terrifying thing! With 1 caveat: if we’re covered by the blood of the sacrifice (Jesus) we don’t have to be afraid of approaching God. In fact, the book of Hebrews tells us we should have the opposite approach to God: we come before Him in confidence because of what Jesus has done, which is exactly what Zephaniah is talking about here.

-I think I mentioned him a few months ago, but I watched another interview with former Senator Ben Sasse yesterday where he was asked if he’s ready to die. He was diagnosed with stage 4 terminal pancreatic cancer in December, and you can tell if you watch this interview. But his response was fascinating, and it caused the interviewer to begin to cry, because he said, “I don’t feel ready, but to whom would I go? I have confidence that when Jesus said to the disciples, he didn’t want to be identified as the Messiah yet, keep these crowds away, don’t tell them about the water into wine miracle at the feast, but he says you can’t keep the children from me. And we’re told that we get to approach the Almighty, we get to approach the Divine and call him Daddy, Abba Father, that’s pretty glorious. And I know that that’s what I need.” 

-That’s someone who understands this reality here: we approach God in reverence and silence because He is so far above us, but that same God welcomes us in as His children, with open arms, for those are following Him, but for those who aren’t, it’s a completely different story.

-On that day, there will be punishment from God on those who have been disobedient to Him, but the punishment from God ALWAYS fits the crime. He calls out those who take on the habits and practices of the nations (foreign clothing) instead of living as God has commanded them. He also promises to punish those who take on the superstitions of the nations (skip over the threshold, like “don’t step on a crack or you’ll break your mother’s back”) No one will be left out of this persecution, and the rest of this chapter describes all the ways God will bring about this punishment. And do you remember what I said earlier about the day of the Lord? Look at the warning about this day in vs. 14-15:

-It doesn’t sound like the greatest day in the world, does it? It sounds horrible! But it gets even worse: distress, their blood poured out.

-And this day will also reveal where people are putting their confidence. Look at the beginning of vs. 18: even in Zephaniah’s time people were thinking their riches would save them. Once again, we see that the human heart hasn’t changed, has it?

-The beginning of chapt. 2 is a shift in focus, because in the middle of this promised punishment is a change of tone. Here the call is to repent before all this punishment comes. One of the reasons we have these warnings in the Bible is to prevent people from continuing on in their sin and facing this punishment. 

-And do you see what repentance looks like? It looks like seeking the Lord, AND it looks like seeking righteousness and humility. Another way of saying this is if you seek after the Lord, you will start to look like the Lord (although imperfectly). And this section ends saying PERHAPS you’ll be saved, but we know from the message of the NT that this sparing is guaranteed because we know how to be on the right side of history (which doesn’t mean going along with whatever is trendy in our culture), it means we’re obedient to the Creator and Sustainer of everything. 

-The rest of chapter 2 is God continuing to talk about the punishment coming to the nations, but there’s a specific ordering to this following the 4 points of a compass around Judah: Philistines to the West, Ammonites and Moabites to the east, Cush in the south, and Assyria to the north. And who’s in the center of that compass? Judah, but remember, they’re assuming that the Day of the Lord is going to be the destruction of everyone else, so they would hear this expecting everything to be ok for them! But then God focuses His attention on 1 city, and contextually you would expect this to be something like Ninevah or another one of the Assyrian cities, and look at how terrible this city is: 

-Rebellious, not obeyed God, hasn’t responded to God’s discipline, hasn’t trusted the Lord, and hasn’t sought after God. Not only is the city running away from God, but her leaders are even worse! Princes and judges have become like wild beasts who are looking to exploit other people. The prophets and priests aren’t leading people to follow the Lord, they’re only looking to their own interests (which is a perennial problem in Israel, and as the leaders go, so goes the nation). So remember, I said contextually that it seems like it’s talking about the rest of the nations, but then look at the first line in vs. 5:

-This is talking about Jerusalem, the city where the Lord lives. God’s own people weren’t spared from the punishment, in fact theirs is even worse because they were supposed to be different from all the surrounding nations, but instead they’ve acted exactly like them. But in contradiction to the His own people, God is completely righteous and holy. Even when His people are running away from Him, God stays the same and continues being faithful to Himself and His promises. God never changes, that’s one of the greatest realities about God. 

-The last thing God says in this section is that in that day, there will be people from every tribe and tongue and nation who will stand condemned before Him because they refused to follow Him. This is the reality of life in the world God created, which is why He gives us all these warnings. Follow and obey Him now, because someday it will be too late.

  • The Day of the Lord in Salvation (3:9–20)

-The best news about this book is that while the ending is bad news for those who haven’t followed the one true God, for those who have listened and obeyed Him, the ending is joy and salvation.

-Do you see how great this day will be? The end goal is that everyone will be able to call on the name of the Lord and serve and obey Him perfectly. And it’s interesting that the Lord mentions Cush here, because that would include the family of Zephaniah, the people who were once spread out will come and worship the Lord together from all areas of the world. AND there’s a story in Acts that shows the fulfillment of this promise. 

–Acts 8 tells the story of Phillip who was told to go to a specific place and share the gospel message with an Ethiopian. Ethiopia is the same place that was called Cush during the time of Zechariah. God’s promises always come to pass, as we see here from Zechariah. 

-But that’s not all! Look what God goes on to say:

-The punishment has been changed. Those who trust in God are spared from this suffering because the king has come and lived with them, which changes everything for His people. Now that He is with them, they have nothing to fear. Then God doubles down on this promise, but look at the description He gives: 

-A warrior who saves. This helps us understand some of what the early disciples were expecting when Jesus came, a conquering warrior who would overthrow the shackles of oppression from the Romans. What they didn’t realize was the enemy they were thinking about was too small. The Romans were nothing compared to sin and death. God’s plans are so much bigger than anything we could come up with. And look at how God responds to His people: rejoicing,  quieting us, and delighting in us. Isn’t that amazing? God delights in spending time with His people.

-And the very last verse, God tells us what the last day will look like for those who have followed after Him: He will gather His people together to honor them, to encourage them, and to give them a place in His kingdom forever. And we know this is going to happen because of the last phrase in this verse: if God has spoken, it’s guaranteed to happen.

  • The Day of the Lord for You

-But now that we’ve looked at this book, we’re left with the question: which side are you on? For some, the Day of the Lord is something to get excited for because it means everything we’ve been hoping for will come true! But for others, it’s a day to fear. I heard a pastor onetime say that for those who are following Jesus, this world is the closest to hell we’ll ever live. And the reverse is also true: for those who aren’t following Jesus, this world is the closest to heaven they’ll ever live. 

-The Day of the Lord isn’t just a topic that’s seen in the prophets, we saw it when we looked at Revelation together last year. Look at how John describes that day in Rev. 6: 

-Notice that no ones left out, just like God promises in Zechariah that He’ll be looking EVERYWHERE for those who haven’t followed Him. These people are begging to be buried alive in an earthquake because God is that much more terrifying. When that day comes, if you aren’t walking with the Lord, it’s going to be the worst first day of the rest of your life. But you have a choice, right here and right now to not have that day be terrifying.

-For those of us who are walking with the Lord, we have a different reality, a completely different response to the Day of the Lord. For us, it’s going to be a day of celebrating, rejoicing, and giving thanks for because our faith is now sight. Everything we’ve hoped and prayed for has become real. But in this in between time, where we live between Jesus’ two comings, the book of Hebrews reminds us how we’re supposed to live with an eye on that day. 

-It begins with a reminder of how we’re supposed to follow God: through a confession that Jesus is that Warrior King who conquered Satan, sin, and death through his victorious resurrection, and now provides the way for us to come boldly before the Father. That confession is what saves us and makes us new people. And once we’re new people look what we’re supposed to do: consider one another. This is a way we imitate our God, by looking to other people above and beyond ourselves! But then it gets weird! Because we’re supposed to provoke each other. I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of a situation where it’s positive to “provoke” someone else (this may be a reminder that I have young kids at home because there’s a LOT of provoking that goes on!) but have you ever considered that provoking can be a good thing? According to this text, there’s a way of provoking each other that can lead to love and good works. Now I don’t know about you, but I feel like I could use more of that provoking in my life! Most of the provoking I have around me is to get angry about what’s taking place politically or socially. That doesn’t make me more holy, that doesn’t make me more like Jesus, and that doesn’t help me to represent the one true God to the watching world. And the author doesn’t stop there, do you see the way we provoke each other positively? By gathering together. Friends, this weekly meeting is more than just a social hour, this gathering around the throne of Jesus Christ is a spiritual battle where we provoke each other positively to grow in our love and our good works. This gathering is meant to be the place where we’re encouraged to continue following faithfully after Jesus. Out there, we’re going to be tempted to question, tempted to doubt, tempted to reflect the world instead of the Creator of the world. But in here, we get to encourage (provoke) each other to love and good works. 

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by mikethestrand on April 12, 2026  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Blog, Church, History, Life, Sermon, Worship
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Posted by mikethestrand on April 12, 2026

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2026/04/12/zephaniah-sermon-manuscript/

Jonah – Sermon Manuscript

-If anyone knows any of the minor prophets, it’s probably this one! VeggieTales movie, topic of a host of debates about whether or not this could really happen.

READ/PRAY

  1. Jonah’s Journey

-Fact or fiction: one of the biggest questions about this book is whether or not this really happened. I had a friend in seminary who was convinced this was a myth, written just to teach a story and wasn’t historically true. I’ve read all sorts of commentaries arguing both sides of this, and even saw a video of a kayaker in Patagonia who got swallowed by a humpback whale and then immediately spit out! So apparently it is possible to be swallowed by a fish and spit back out. But the primary reason I believe it’s a true account of a real historical event is because Jesus seemed to think it was, and anytime there’s a debate going on, I want to side with the guy who’s the author of history!

–Matt. 12:39-41 Jesus is asked to perform a sign for the Pharisees, and here’s how He responds: the prophet Jonah is referred to as a real person, and it says not only did it happen in the past, but the people of Ninevah will in the future condemn those asking the question for their lack of repentance!

-Another component to this is we tend to view the world with an anti-supernatural bias, or question whether things we consider miraculous can actually happen. Is anything too hard for God? Think of just a few other things God does in the OT: He makes a donkey talk, He makes food both fall out of the sky and appear on the ground, and walls fall down in response to people shouting. Do you think it’s outside of God’s ability to have a fish swallow a man in the sea? I don’t!

-We also see Jonah appear in 2 Kings 14:25. So with all that evidence, I think we should take this as a real, historical account.

  1. Down to Tarshish (1-2)

-Jonah is an anomaly in these prophets. The other prophets willingly obeyed God, there wasn’t any questioning or doubting of God’s call on their lives, Jonah is literally the opposite of everything else we’ve seen.

-Jonah also has very different content than the rest of the prophets (which is part of the reason we tend to gravitate towards it!) Jonah tells a story, and it’s a story that feels bigger than life, doesn’t it? (theme of “great” throughout) A prophet (who is supposed to represent God to the people) who attempts to flee to the ends of the earth to escape God who gets swallowed by a big fish, then reluctantly preaches the bare minimum of God’s word to his assigned city and leads to a revival. The whole thing it crazy! And pay attention to the way the book intentionally contrasts Jonah with the rest of the characters.

-One of the ways Hebrew builds suspense (and so do we) is through repeated words. Another one of the comparisons in Jonah is down vs. up. The Lord calls to Jonah and calls him to go UP to Tarshish, and he responds by going DOWN to Joppa. And this isn’t just a casual “on the way I accidentally” this is an intentional running away from. He goes down even lower into the boat and stays down while the storm is raging. The captain tells him to come UP to pray, pick me UP throw me DOWN into the sea. But I’m getting slightly ahead of myself! God’s command is 1 thing, but Jonah’s response is another. He’s commanded to go to the northeast, and he goes southwest, and then finds a ship going to what would have been considered the ends of the earth! Jonah’s not only disobeying God, he’s running as far away from God as he possibly can.

-One thing I noted in my sermon scraps for Amos is that the tendency at this time was to view gods as tribal deities, not dissimilar to the way we have NFL teams today. Yahweh was the God of Israel, Baal was the god of the Canaanites, and when they went to war it was seen as a battle of the gods, and whoever won the battle was the superior god. And that also impacted the sea! There was a specific god of the sea people would appeal to for safe travel.

-So when the text goes on to tell us that there was a great wind and a great storm, they all started appealing to any god they could think of for mercy, but it didn’t help. So they continued going on to throw out all the cargo. Compare the sailors to Jonah here. They’re doing everything they can to save the ship, and what’s Jonah’s response? He doesn’t care at all! He’s treating this like a cruise and decided his best course of action was to take a nap.

-So the captain wakes him up. He’s the only one who’s not trying to contribute to the crisis! Even though Jonah’s the main character of this story, he’s taken a completely passive role in this account. The prophet, who’s supposed to be speaking on behalf of the one true God is silent. They decide to do some work to find out which god is upset with them by casting lots. Jonah, as a good prophet, should have seen his chances of escaping getting even smaller. Prov. 16:33 tells us that God is even in control of this seemingly random event.

-This gambling (which God was in charge of, but friends, don’t gamble today! We have the Holy Spirit indwelling us as our guide!), but this gambling leads to Jonah being found as the guilty party. They didn’t know much about him, and if you remember back to our first week, I shared that the role of the prophet is to speak on behalf of God, but Jonah remains completely silent until he’s forced to open up. They’d been calling out to all these random gods, but Jonah is supposed to be worshipping the 1 true God, who even rules over the heavens, the place where they thought all their gods were. Not only is He the God of the heavens, he’s also the one who made the sea and the land, so there’s no where you can escape from Him! But Jonah’s trying to do exactly that and run to the furthest reaches of the earth to try to escape!

-When the men hear it, they’re seized by a “great” fear and realize they’re toast! Remember what I said earlier about the various gods? They assumed that Jonah was just running away from a little land god, not THE God who you can’t escape! Since Jonah is the only one who knows this God, the sailors ask him how to deal with the problem. And Jonah says: it requires a human sacrifice. Do you see how Jonah’s trying to die? He would rather be thrown into the sea in the middle of a hurricane than go to Ninevah to tell them to repent. And not only is Jonah trying to die, he doesn’t even care if the sailors are taken with him! Do you see how even though the sailors know what’s going on, they still try to help him? They worked as hard as they could to save Jonah, who’s still passive.

-And now who cries out to Yahweh? The sailors! Jonah still doesn’t care! Where previously Yahweh was unknown to them, as soon as they learn which God it is, they’re all in. They throw Jonah in and the sea is calm. So what’s their response? They worship the one true God! Do you see how even in Jonah’s sin God is still working? Jonah, the guy who’s trying to escape God’s call on his life just mentions the name of this God, and their entire worship changes. Keep in mind what these sailors do: they offer a sacrifice and make vows (assuming to Yahweh)

-But Jonah can’t catch a break; God STILL won’t even let him die!

-This next chapter needs to be read with a strong level of irony. First, do you hear how much this sounds like the Psalms? Jonah knows the Bible! He knows the truth about God, but it hasn’t transformed his heart. Second, do you see how self-centered it is? Who’s the focus of this “prayer” God or Jonah?

-Look at what he says in vs. 2, he waited until he was in Sheol, the place of the dead to call out to God. Why didn’t he call out to God while he was in the boat with all those pagan sailors? And it gets worse! Look at 3 he says God threw him into the sea! He’s blaming God for his current situation. Just when it feels like it can’t get worse, he keeps going!

-Let’s look at the end of the prayer. He talks about those who cherish or love worthless idols and says they’re terrible and wrong. Who were the ones who cherished worthless idols in this story? Wasn’t it the sailors? But where did we leave them? Offering sacrifices to Yahweh and making vows to Him. Jonah’s saying the sailors are the problem, meanwhile He’s in the right standing before the God! He continues deluding himself! One scholar said, “these are the right words coming out of the wrong mouth!” We don’t see any accounts in this story of Jonah offering a sacrifice of any vows. The final irony is salvation does belong to Yahweh, which is good for Jonah because if it were up to him, no one except him would be saved.

-But God is faithful and shows His complete control once again by commanding this fish to vomit Jonah up. We see this as gross today, but I think it has deeper significance than just the disgust: throughout the OT, this word is used to describe God’s punishment on the Israelites for disobedience, the land vomits them out. This may be a way of saying this is a continuation of God’s punishment on Jonah.

  • Up to Nineveh (3-4)

-Déjà vu here, as God tells Jonah once again to go to Nineveh, but this time he’s learned his lesson and finally obeys.

-Just to catch us up again and understand this, Jonah has spent who knows how long trying to run away from God’s call on his life. He’s been swallowed by a great fish, been vomited out, then recommissioned with the same task, and the journey to Nineveh would have taken him about 30 days of walking to get to. So this story for us is condensed, but how happy do you think Jonah was on this journey? Do you think he spent the time skipping and jumping along to get to Nineveh as quickly as he could? Remember: God wouldn’t even let him die previously! I picture him grumbling the entire way!

-So Jonah finally arrives at Nineveh, and begins proclaiming the incoming destruction of the city. Other prophets had similar tasks warning that the day of the Lord was coming, a day of darkness and destruction. 2 things to note here: first the description of the size of the city: it’s huge! It would take 3 days to walk it! And how far does Jonah walk? 1 day, which means he doesn’t even get to the middle of it! And what is his message? 5 words in Hebrew, 7 in English. He doesn’t mention which god he’s preaching on behalf of; he doesn’t say why they’re going to be destroyed, all he says is destruction is coming. All he does is predict a certain destruction.

-And what’s the response of the city? Immediate repentance! Friends, this has to be the most unbelievable part of this story! This city of people devoted to destroying the nation of Yahweh responds the right way when they’re faced with the realities of their sin. They don’t make excuses, they don’t ignore it, they work to get right with God. And the repentance is universal! It says the greatest to the least: no one is left out! And the king led the way! Here’s the decree he made the everyone:

-Everyone (even the animals, keep that in mind) is to fast and put on sackcloth (a way of grieving), AND begin crying out “earnestly” to God. Do you notice that they’re not even sure which God they’re crying out to? Think back to the sailors, as soon as they heard his name they started crying out to Him, here they’re only told that a god is upset but it’s STILL enough for them repent. Notice the ending here: they’re concerned that it’s too late and they don’t know how God will respond. They don’t know which God, they don’t know how to please Him, but they’re willing to try doing whatever they can!

-And we know God, we’ve seen that He’s slow to anger and quick to forgiveness (we’ve seen that repeatedly through these prophets). So God responds as He always does: he relents. The certain destruction doesn’t happen. And if this were the ending of the book there may be a glimmer of hope still for Jonah. But we’re not done.

-Jonah is now great with displeasure, and contrast this with the question of the king. Who knows what this God will do? And what does Jonah say? I KNEW IT! This was the whole reason he tried running way! God always forgives, God will always relent from sending disaster for those who respond correctly. But that’s not what Jonah wanted. Jonah wanted grace and mercy for himself, but not for his enemies. Keep that in mind, we’ll come back to it in a minute. Jonah here is so upset that he finally just explicitly asks God to kill him. He tried running away, tried sleeping through a hurricane, tried drowning and none of those worked, so he goes straight to the source!

-And God asks him a question in response: but Jonah (as we’ve seen previously) just goes with the silent treatment. He goes to build a little shelter and watch the show. I picture him setting himself up like this:

-And God is once again kind and gracious. Jonah goes from being greatly displeased to greatly pleased because of the shade. Unfortunately the shade turns out to be a lesson for him, and God sends a worm (compare that to the whale!) to kill the plant. AND THEN God throws in some nature to make Jonah even more upset. So how does Jonah respond this time? Once again, he asks God to kill him. And God asks a similar question to His previous one: is it right for you to be angry about this plant?

-YES! I’m angry enough to die! That’s the last word from Jonah in this book. Jonah’s anger keeps bubbling up to the point where he’s so angry he wants to die because of a plant. Doesn’t that seem a little misplaced to you?

-But God gets the last word. Jonah CARED about nothing in the book except a plant. He didn’t plant it or water it; he was just the benefactor of it. If Jonah cares about this little plant, isn’t it even more important for God to care about Nineveh, a place with more than 120,000 people who are all created as the image of God? God’s people are commanded to care for humans above all the rest of the created order, but Jonah’s missed that reality and was only worried about himself.

-Not only is this city full of people, but it’s people who don’t KNOW the right thing to do. Jonah is the only one in this story who knows the right God, the right ways to live, and is the only one who responds with disobedience and sin. Every other character obeys; did you notice that? The sailors believe, the whale obeys God’s command, the Ninevites repent, the plant obeys, the worm obeys, the scorching east wind obeys, meanwhile, Jonah gets angry. The worst prophet in this series!

-And God’s final request is: if you can’t care about the people, would you at least care about the animals? And that question leaves the book unresolved, doesn’t it? We don’t know what happened to Jonah, and the ending of the book is meant to force us to ask that same question: who do you view as outside of the bounds of God’s mercy and grace?

  • Grace for Who?

-The question at the heart of this book is: how do you view your sin? Do you know that you need God to be gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding I faithful love TO YOU, or is that just needed for other people who are worse than you? Isn’t the temptation for all of us to grade ourselves on a sliding scale? We compare our strengths to someone else’s weaknesses and determine they MUST be worse than us.

-You can see this with the whole NIMBY phenomenon, have you heard of it? It stands for not in my backyard. I’ve read it referring to someone that’s pushing for low-income housing, as long as it’s not in my backyard. They want to appear virtuous, but don’t want it to affect them. I think we also saw this during COVID: good for thee not for me, we excuse ourselves but enforce strong rules for everyone else.

-There’s a fantastic quote from a Croatian theologian named Miroslav Volf (who’s a professor at Yale Seminary) who wrote a book on reconciliation where he talked about forgiveness in this way:

-What’s he’s saying is we all place people in 2 different camps: those who are opposed to us (or we view as opposed to us) are less than human, meanwhile we elevate ourselves to the place where we’re more than human. That’s normal! We all do it! But Jesus gives us a different way: He goes on to say that when we look to Jesus our perspective changes. We go from wanting condemnation for our enemy to wanting resolution and reconciliation with them, and we go from pride to realizing that we, too, are in need of God’s grace.

-After all, this is what Paul says in 1 Tim. 1:15-17.

-He’s not saying he’s done the math and he got the worst grade, he’s saying that when you use the right standard, we’re all the worst! When we’re all comparing ourselves to perfection none of us can stand. At the end of the day, we’re all like Jonah, the temptation of the human heart is to give grace to yourself and condemn everyone else. But there’s a second piece to this that I think we also need to look at:

  • When Religiosity is the Problem

-Did you notice how when Jonah finally “prayed” he essentially just quoted the Psalms? He knew the right things to say, but it hadn’t gone the 18” from his head to his heart. Often Jonah is used to preach about ethnocentrism (or racism, if you want to talk about why I prefer the former term let me know), or it’s preached about the need to go into the nations and do cross-cultural missions. But I think that’s missing the purpose of this book. I think the warning is to those of us who are like Jonah, who haven’t let the truths of the gospel trickle down into our hearts and begin to transform us from the inside out. Jesus had some strong words to people like Jonah, who judged other people based on external compliance but didn’t take the time to look at the deeper reality.

-2 examples back-to-back in Matt. 23:

-First is the picture of people who clean the outside of a cup but leave the inside. One of my cousins when we were growing up was a major germophobe. He didn’t want to shake hands, refused to ever share snacks or drinks. But when he was done eating, he would literally lick his plate clean and stick it back in the cupboard. Do you see the inconsistency!? I know he sometimes listens to these sermons, so sorry if you catch this one! The point is: it’s gross, right!?

-The second one is making the exact same point: Jesus is accusing them of whitewashing tombs. Think of a house that looks beautiful on the outside, fresh paint, brand new roof, immaculate lawn, but you walk in and it’s a hoarder’s house. Jesus isn’t asking us to clean up our mess to present to Him, He invites us to come to Him so He can clean up our mess.

-Friends, this is why we need Jesus and not Jonah.

-Jesus, who also slept in a boat during a storm, but then cared more about saving his friends than himself.

-Jesus, who asked NOT to be killed, but willingly went to His death anyway, not because He was angry, but because we were angry.

-Jesus, who knows everything, and asked for God to forgive those who “didn’t know what they were doing,” even as he bore the penalty for every sin on the cross.

-Jesus, who then spent 3 days and nights in the belly of the earth, and then was “vomited” out because the punishment was done. Forever. Aren’t you glad that in a world full of Jonahs, we get Jesus?

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by mikethestrand on March 8, 2026  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Blog, Church, Life, Relationships, Sermon
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Posted by mikethestrand on March 8, 2026

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2026/03/08/jonah-sermon-manuscript/

Joel – Sermon Manuscript

-One of the interesting things about these prophets is that all their names have specific meanings that tend to correlate to their role. Hosea’s name means “salvation” or “deliverance” which shows the way God’s people were saved or delivered from their sins. Joel’s name means Yahweh is God. But did you know the Jesus wasn’t the name of God’s Son? Jesus’s name in Hebrew was actually Joshua, which means “Yahweh is salvation.” So when the angel appears to Mary, he tells her that she should name her son Joshua because He will save His people from their sins. So why do we call Him Jesus?

-When the OT was being translated from Hebrew into Greek, there were some words that were transliterated (moved from Hebrew into Greek without translating, each letter for the corresponding letter in Greek). We saw this last week when our Bible’s transliterated the names of Hosea’s children. So Jeshua in the Hebrew became Iesous in the Greek. Then English came on the scene, and the first English translation put the name as Ihesus, which in the KJV became Iesus. So Jesus comes from a transliteration of a transliteration, and because of the impact of the KJV, we refer to Him as Jesus in all our English Bibles today.

-We’re going to look at the significance of Jesus’s name today, and it may surprise you that it comes up in Joel!

READ/PRAY (pg. 807)

  1. The Day of the Lord

-One of the repeated phrases throughout this book is, “The Day of the Lord,” a future moment where God would come in judgment to pay back the enemies of His people. It’s used in a number of other prophets in the OT, but it also makes some appearances in the NT. Some people call it just “that day” or will refer to it as “the great day of the Lord”

-Talked about in Isaiah, Ezekiel, Amos, Obadiah, and most explicitly in Zephaniah. Now, this gets to one of the biggest questions surrounding Joel. Think back to last week when I talked about the dates of these books. Many of them begin with the name of the prophet, followed by the kings who reigned during their ministries, see here’s the first verse from Hosea. Compare that to the beginning of Joel. So there’s debate about where we should historically locate Joel, since there’s similar themes to some other books, is Joel using terminology from them or are they borrowing language from Joel? If you remember this chart from last week that placed the dates of the various prophets, you can see a question mark next to Joel. The big event in Joel is a famine due to a swarm of locusts, which could place it in any of these centuries.

-We’ll talk about this more thoroughly when we get to Zechariah, but I think we need to build a foundation of this “day” that the prophets are talking about here to help us understand the message of Joel! 

-At the time, the Israelites were anxious for the day of the Lord because it was viewed in a completely positive light, where the other nations who had defeated God’s people would be judged. But the message of the prophets is that the judgment would be negative, not positive! Look how Isaiahdescribes this day:

-And this isn’t just an OT focus, look how Revelation both describes the day and what that day is referred to as. So instead of being a positive thing, the prophets warn us that that the Day of the Lord is going to be terrifying! And where that Revelation passage ends is the question Joel will help us answer: Who can stand?

  • The Message of Joel

-The focus of this book is trying to prepare people for the day of the Lord by using the picture of the current disaster from locusts as a picture of what will someday be coming from an invading army.

-Now, because it’s the Bible and probably the most studied and dissected book in the world, there’s debate about what’s being talked about! The debate is what exactly is Joel talking about, and is it different between chapters 1 & 2, or is he just talking about the same event? Either Joel uses locusts to describe an invading army, or there’s no army he’s just talked about how destructive the locusts are, OR 1 chapter is locusts and 2 is an army of people. Again, it doesn’t help that we can’t specifically date this book, which slightly complicates figuring out what exactly Joel’s talking about. BUT I would take the position that Joel 1 is referring to a real ecological disaster that serves as a picture of what an invading army would do in Joel 2, followed how God will redeem and restore His people in Joel 3. Remember, Joel’s name means “Yahweh is God,” and it fits with his primary message of God’s upcoming judgment of the wicked and restoration of the righteous.

  1. Judgment in the Day of the Lord (1:1-2:17)

-The first reminder is that this event is supposed to be significant for the people, significant enough that it becomes a part of the family story. What’s amazing, to me, about this is that throughout the Bible, God commands His people to repeat stories down through the generations. 

-2 brief examples. My mind has been in Joshua a lot the past few weeks, and one of the amazing stories in that book is that the nation is able to cross the Jordan river on dry ground because God stops the river from flowing (similar to what He did when they left Egypt). Once the whole nation had crossed, God tells Joshua to take 12 stones from the middle of the river and bring them to their camp, and then set up another 12 stone memorial in the middle of the river as a reminder of what God had done for them. And notice how God describes it: 

The nation is supposed to talk about God’s provision for them.

-Second is in Deut. 6, as God tells His people how they’re supposed to live (just so you keep this in mind from last week, don’t miss that the one true God doesn’t leave us in the dark, He tells us how we should live!) And look what God says they’re supposed to do with these words: repeat them to your children. This is God’s way of saying: know your history, know your story, so that you can know how you got where you are today. AND as we see in Joel, don’t just repeat the good stories! Share the difficulties and struggles God has taken you through, don’t just give your kids or your friends the Instagram reel of your life, talk about the times and seasons where you weren’t sure if God was going to show up. 

-I’m not sure if you know this yet, but life is HARD! And one of the things I think we need to teach kids is that it’s possible to navigate and persevere through difficult things. Sometimes the difficulty is because of our own stupidity, and sometimes things just happen to us, but let your kids know that you survived!

-In the case of Joel, what has happened that the people had survived is a plague of locusts. Just a few years ago, locusts were actually in the news because in Kenya they were facing the destruction of their crops from locusts, the BBC called it “The biblical locusts plagues of 2020.” And look just how complete this plague is for Joel 1:4:

-Nothing is left, they’re facing starvation in ways that we can’t begin to comprehend today! And when their entire economy depends on agriculture this is like facing the great depression of 1930s (close enough that we have to specify which century now!) Joel goes on through this chapter to say the grapevines have been ruined, fruit trees are destroyed, even the animals are grieving and groaning. 

-And this was something that God had promised! Remember to last week where I said the primary role of the prophets was to remind the people what God had said and to call them back to uphold their end of the covenant? God always keeps His Word, both for His blessings and His curses. And in Deut. 28, God says:

-And what’s the proper response of the people? They’re supposed to wake up! (5), grieve (8), be ashamed (11), dress in sackcloth and lament (13), announce a sacred fast and a solemn assembly (14) Why? Look at vs. 15. This is the first time that phrase is mentioned. And unfortunately, even though this day is terrible, it’s not THAT day! It’s near, this plague is a picture of the judgment and devastation that will come from God on THAT day, so brace yourself! Look at the way the Lord is spelled out in your Bible, do you see the smaller font, but uppercase letters? In the OT that’s the way our modern Bibles note where the divine name “Yahweh” is being used, you can see it previously in vs. 14, 9, & 1. If the letters aren’t capitalized it’s using a different Hebrew word.

-And that warning continues in chpt. 2, he doubles down on the reality that the day of the Lord is coming, and look at how he describes it in vs. 2, and part of the reason I think this is referring to something in the future is because of his description of something that “never existed in ages past and never will again.” He’s using the plague as a picture of what THAT day is going to look like.

-And to see how complete this destruction is, look at vs. 11. Nothing can stand in the way of this army, nothing can stand against them, leading to God asking the rhetorical question: who can endure it? The answer is no one!

-And friends, apart from God’s miraculous intervention that’s where we’re stuck. Paul in Eph. 2 describes us as dead in our sins. If God hadn’t brought us from death to life no one would be able to stand in His presence. And we know that about God! The fact that we preach a “gospel” which means “good news” means there must be hope in the midst of this destruction, right? Let’s see the way God answers that question, who can endure?

-God’s people can, if they follow through on God’s commands to seek repentance. And do you notice that Joel calls out a false repentance? Friends, how easy is it to act remorseful but not actually be repenting? To grieve that you got caught, not that you were sinning. God invites us to repent and provides a way of dealing with that sin, not just looking the other way and ignoring or penalizing and holding it against you but casting it as far as the East is from the West. And how often do we see a fake response in our world? People apologizing “if you were offended,” or apologizing for hurting you, but not admitting that what they did was wrong. And that’s only if someone actually apologizes! Think of what we’re seeing with the release of all these Epstein files! I’ll be honest, it’s pretty hard for me to take most of the apologies seriously when these people have had years or decades to apologize, but they waited. Is there actual regret for what they participated in, or is it merely posturing – putting on a show so you look good to others. That’s the kind of “repenting” that God is calling out here. He wants true repentance from the heart, not a show of repentance without any inner transformation.

-And notice how it describes God: gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in faithful love. Church – this is why it’s so important for us to have good theology, a good grasp on who God is. Since we know that God is gracious and compassionate we can respond with repentance! If God was malicious or angry we should be afraid to admit we’re sinners, but that’s not our God. Our God is slow to anger and overflowingwith steadfast, faithful love (Hebrew words chesed which is very hard to translate). Sally Lloyd Jones calls it: “Never stopping, never giving up, unbreaking, always and forever love.” Think about that comparison: slow to anger. God’s first reaction isn’t in anger, it takes Him a LONG time to get angry. But God’s first reaction to true repentance is forgiveness. He’s slow to anger but QUICK to forgiveness. And if you think about that, isn’t that exactly what you’d hope for from Him? You don’t want him to be quick to anger and slow to forgiveness because we’re ALWAYS going to sin! If He weren’t slow to anger we’d be toast!

-Then with that reminder of who God is, the priests can call people to a true repentance (vs. 15-17) where once their sins are dealt with, God can be with them again.

  • The Mercy of the Lord (2:18-3:21)

-Now that the people know what God is like and they move to respond in repentance, how does God respond? Just as He promised! He will restore everything they’ve lost. God spares His people because they have responded in repentance. 

-God says He will repay His people for the lean years. God’s blessings will pour out on His people, but even more importantly than the blessings: 

-God will be present with His people. They won’t be looking to idols as their source of comfort anymore. BUT that doesn’t happen on this side of Jesus’s return! Which is what God goes on to predict, and this gets us to those near and far future fulfillments that we talked about last week but hold onto that for just a minute.

-The next key to Joel is that when that day of the Lord comes it will be marked by a revival among the people. Look at what He says in 28-29:

-Previously, God’s Spirit only indwelt people for a short period of time, not permanently, and it was primarily those who were tasked with leading the nation (kings, priests, prophets). But now God says He’ll pour out His Spirit on ALL humanity, and when He says ALL he means it! Sons and daughters (suddenly there’s no gender divisions in salvation), old men and young men (suddenly there’s no age or generational divisions), and male and female slaves (suddenly there’s no class or economic distinctions). God’s Spirit can live in any and every one! I think this is what Paul’s talking about in Gal 3:28 when he says: 

-And back to Joel, that’s what God says too: EVERYONE. 

-The final chapter gives the other perspective of the day of the Lord. There’s a different response from God to those who don’t turn in repentance to God. If you look at the footnote of your Bible, you’ll see that Jehoshaphat means the Lord will judge. God is reminding His people that even if it looks like the nations around them are flourishing in their defeat of them, the end result will be completely different for them. God will respond to their lack of repentance with judgment. But even in the midst of that judgment, look at how God describes Himself for His people: 

-A refuge and stronghold, a place where they can be protected and preserved from the incoming judgment and destruction of the nations. And look how God promises to pour out His blessings on His people:

-In order to understand how we should respond to this book, I think we need to see how the NT writers interpret Joel’s words, so there’s 3 key passages that I think help us understand what God is teaching to His people through all time:

  • The Use of Joel in the New Testament (Acts 2; Romans 10:13; Revelation 9)

-2 key changes that Peter makes:

-Peter says it is IN the last days, where Joel says “After this.” Peter is saying this is the sign you’ve been waiting for! The last days have started NOW, but those last days aren’t fully realized, just like the 2 mountains.

-He also adds in 18 that “they will prophesy.” Peter is saying what is taking place is prophesying, we think it’s just the future, but Peter is showing us that it is speaking in the power of God in unique ways, sometimes speaking to what’s happening right now. 

-More importantly, after quoting from Joel, Peter does a bit of logic building in the Greek to point out exactly how this salvation comes through a name. In the Greek, the word for Lord is kurios (no special marker in our English Bibles), so he begins with a reference to Yahweh from the OT, then he goes on to talk about God raising this Jesus in 32. Then he goes on to equate Jesus with the Lord (this is a key verse Jesus uses to describe Himself in Matt. 22) and lands by saying in vs. 36: God has made this Jesus the kurios, the Lord God. 

-The people are convicted, and they ask what they should do, and what does Peter say? Repent and be baptized (those are connected to each other), in what name? The name of Jesus. The promise that those who call on the correct name will be saved was hidden to Joel, but with the arrival of Jesus has been revealed! We know that name! We know who we should call to if we want to be saved!

-This is exactly the same argument Paul uses in Rom. 10.

-Lastly, just so we can begin to understand the way the day of the Lord works, listen to one of the things John sees in Rev. 9. 

-And there’s more descriptions of these locusts in later verses. In Joel, the locusts are described as lions (1:6), complete destruction in the front and back (2:3) perhaps like a scorpion, like horses specifically war hoses (2:4), their sound is described like chariots (2:5). Do you think there might be some parallels between what God revealed to both Joel and John? I tried emphasizing this point when I preached through Rev. in 2024, but how much of Revelation do we misinterpret because we don’t catch these OT references and allusions? And what if the verses in Revelation are supposed to remind us of what we just talked about as an application from Joel? Unless you call on the name of the Lord, you will be destroyed.

-So friends, as we conclude this sermon, the question before you is: what’s going to happen to you on the Day of the Lord? Today we’ve seen the reminder that unless we repent and believe in the name of Jesus we will not be saved.

-Peter says that there is no other name we should look to for salvation, there’s no hope for salvation from anyone or anything else.

-And because God is slow to anger, Paul tells us in Rom. 2:4 that that trait is God’s kindness and is meant to lead us to repentance. If you repent and believe, then the Day of the Lord is something to get excited for! It’s the day where our faith will be made sight, where the spiritual realm will be visible to us, where we’ll see our Savior and King returning to bring us home!

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by mikethestrand on February 15, 2026  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on February 15, 2026

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2026/02/15/joel-sermon-manuscript/

1 Timothy 4:6-16 – Sermon Manuscript

-There was an incredibly influential Scottish Pastor that served as a pastor from 1835-1843 named Robert Murray McCheyne. He died before 30 of typhus, was a beloved pastor for all of 5.5 years, came up with a daily Bible reading plan that’s still used by thousands across the world today! Another one of my favorite quotes from his is “Learn much of the Lord Jesus. For every look at yourself, take ten looks at Christ. He is altogether lovely.” But another quote of his was written to pastors, and I want you to be thinking about how you think he’ll finish this as we work our way through this text. What does the church most need from a pastor?

READ/PRAY (pg. 1052)

  1. Labor in the Word (6-10)

-If you read Paul’s letters, there’s a general overview that starts to take shape. He begins with this rich and robust theology truths about God that warrant all sorts of study that lead to all sorts of debate, and then about halfway through he turns to the practical outworkings of that rich doctrine. We’re now at that place in this letter. We’ve seen all these debated things like: the proper use of the law, praying for everyone, including ungodly rulers, the ordering of men and women in the church, the leadership offices of the church, and a reminder to follow the true Spirit instead of the spirit of the devil. 

-This section, I read as Paul pointing a finger at Timothy. We’ve talked about some ways people distort the truth, but as for YOU! You have a job to do! What does it require?

-Point these things out: all the truths Paul’s been talking about previously, and then continues to talk about! Continue bringing these things up to the church. I had the privilege of conducting 2 weddings this month. One of the couples asked me to make sure I talked about Jesus during my message, and I told them you pick the passage and I’m going to connect it to Jesus! The whole thing is about Him. I love the way Spurgeon summarized this: preach the text, then make a beeline for the cross! Friends, every week you’re going to hear about Jesus! 

-The goal of Paul’s instruction: so that Timothy would be a good servant of Christ Jesus. 

-Servant, not the leader, not the king. Same word as deacon, but in this reference talking about the general practice, not the particular office.

-How do you know if you’re a good servant?

-Have followed: there’s a path that you’re supposed to follow, there’s others who have faithfully served throughout the centuries who have ministered and dealt with the same issues we face today! It’s imperative to remain on this well-worn path, not being distracted by the enticing things around you.

-But notice the way Timothy is nourished: words of faith, and good teaching. Those 2 things go together to remind Timothy that he can only endure by keeping the Bible his primary focus.

-He’s talked about these myths before in 1:4, there he said don’t pay attention to them, here he takes it even further: have nothing to do, here it’s translated pointless and silly myths, lit. he says “reject pointless myths and old wives tales”

-Blogs, influencers, mega-churches, “pastors” all these places that perpetuate ungodly nonsense. Have nothing to do with them!

-Unlike all these false teachers, Timothy is supposed to train in godliness. Notice all these actions that Paul uses in this section: train, (10) labor, strive.

-Have you ever gotten frustrated at how difficult Christianity can be? Do you ever feel like you were sold a false bill of goods that ended up being a lie? Turns out Christianity isn’t a cakewalk! 

-Christianity is simply, but it isn’t easy. There will be times and seasons of sweetness, where every time you open the Bible it’s like the Words jump out of the page and meet you right where you’re at. And there will be other times where it’s a grind. Paul knows that, he’s been a believer long enough, and he’s taking time here to remind his child in the faith, Timothy, that even when it’s hard, continue pressing on. 

-The training of the body had limited benefit. But it still has benefit! 

-I can’t tell you how many pastors that I respect seemed to have neglected this verse. Paul doesn’t say there’s no benefit, he says it’s limited, but the limitation is in reference to eternity. John Calvin died at 54 from overwork. Charles Spurgeon died at 57 (started getting gout regularly at 33), had to retired to the French Riviera every winter to recover from his schedule (plus the guy was huge! His chest measured 41”), I read a book that every pastor I respect has told me to read and I got so angry reading it because the guy said pastors must exert every ounce of energy on their ministry, and if they die from it, all the better because they died for Christ. Utter nonsense! Steward your body.

-But keep the physical training in check. Don’t let it consume you. Yes, take care of the body God gave you since it’s the only one He gave you, but don’t treat it as the ultimate thing.

-Instead, train yourself for godliness. But why? And friends, this is something that excites me more than anything else. Did you know that what you do today has eternal implications? 

-That’s what Paul is saying here: pursuing godliness will give you gains here and in eternity. That means every day, every decision you make has eternal consequences. I don’t know about you, but I feel like that just increases the potential of everything I do here!

-This gets to our whole purpose as a church, friends. We’re here to help people prepare for eternity, to help people take 1 step closer to Jesus today, because whether we realize it or not each day is 1 day closer to the day where we’ll see Jesus face to face. 

-That’s actually where Paul turns next in this section, too. And this should comfort you! We don’t have to come up with some creative campaign slogan, we don’t need a marketing department, or the best graphics. What we need is the Bible. Friends, the Bible tells us exactly what we’re supposed to be pursuing as a church!

-Here he says exactly why we work hard in our faith: it’s an overflow out of our relationship with the living God, who expects our everything. Our hope is in the one true and living God.

-Is Paul arguing for universalism here? Is he saying that everyone will go to heaven? Is he contradicting himself from Rom. 1:16-17? No! He’s saying that God’s common grace is extended to everyone, but there’s a different kind of grace given to those who put their faith in Him. 

-And there are literally cosmic implications to the realities of the gospel message Rom. 8 says that all creations groans waiting for Jesus’s return!

  • Live out the Word (11-16)

-Paul has just reminded Timothy to always keep eternity in view. Live as if we’re living for eternity! And then he has 2 verbs: command and teach. 

-Command connects to Timothy’s authoritative role. Remember: a faithful church will have a certain structure and ordering to it, with 2 leadership offices of elder and deacon. These 2 offices are God’s chosen means of helping the church to flourish, and we need to be careful who is chosen for those roles because they will determine the direction of our entire church body. Don’t affirm leaders that you don’t want to be like, but at the same time, when leaders have been elected, Scripture tells us to submit to them, to listen to them, which is why Paul tells Timothy to command things from the Word. 

-Some of where this gets difficult is the application of God’s Word is situational. Now, listen carefully: God’s Word never changes. Period. But the way we live that Word out does change. That’s one of the incredible things about the Bible! I’ve lost track of the times I’ve read through it, and still every week there’s something that I’d never noticed before. This is what Paul’s getting at when he says to teach these things. The application of this Word is going to change based on our people, our culture, our needs, and God’s Word is big enough for us to handle those different applications. Do you trust it?

-This verse has been the verse that has been preached at me for most of my life, and I figure I’m 3 years away from no longer qualifying for this verse. I’ve shared this story before, but before I was called here, I was told from another church that I was too young to be a pastor there. And it was an issue that came up when I was candidating here (believe it or not!) And just so everyone knows, when I was candidating I was 32, but as a professor at seminary says, don’t forget Jesus accomplished his entire ministry before the age of 33.

-And friends, there’s some truth to it! I get it! I haven’t had as many life experiences as some of you. But it’s also true that God’s Word doesn’t change, and I’ve devoted my life to the interpretation and application of this book. And as I said back then, I promise that I’ll do what I can to keep getting older! And I’ve kept my word!

-But the point to this verse is some commands, and they’re things that I’ve been praying for myself for the last few years. See, the way to ensure no one looks down on you in your youth is by setting an example. And the things that Timothy is called to are things that should be true of everyone who claims to follow Christ, but let’s look at them.

-Speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity. Now, I would argue that these are things that are particular temptations for those that are young. 

-Speech: it can be easy to be flippant or careless with words, not realizing the way that words can make or break a person and relationships. 

-Conduct: it feels like life is going to last forever, so why should there be any delayed gratification? 

-Love: you’ve probably heard that youth is wasted on young, and I think this is a particular area because there’s a level of pride of self-centeredness that comes with youth. I don’t think people know how selfish they are until they get married. 

-Faith: similar to love, there can be a thinking that you can wait until later to start taking Jesus seriously. Don’t wait! It’s worth it to chase after Jesus with all you’ve got now. 

-Purity: this feels like it could have been written today! With the rise of pornography use, the careless approach to sex. Church leaders must be marked by purity in all their relationships.

-And this is especially true of those who are young! And unfortunately, many who are young emphasize the first part without realizing they condemn themselves with the way they live. It’s on the young to not let anyone look down on you, but it requires you living a holy life that is faithfully following after Jesus. If any of you are young in here, don’t waste your youth on things you’ll regret as you get older. Choose today to set an example by pointing people to Jesus.

-Then Paul gives Timothy some more marching orders to focus on until he comes: Devote yourself, focus on, give everything you’ve got toward these things. In the Greek, these words have no conjunction, so one commentator said these 3 things are meant to be intertwined and inseparable, and notice that it’s again centered on the Bible.

-Public reading: we see examples of Scripture reading all throughout the Bible, and it’s supposed to take place every time we gather. One of the most discouraging things to me about our current church culture is how little the Bible is read! Friends, if you’re ever looking for a church count how many minutes it takes them to open the Bible. Same thing with the sermon, how quickly in the sermon is God’s Word read?

-Exhortation: God’s Word is supposed to be a mirror. We read something God says which has implications for us. Scripture is supposed to be used to exhort, to encourage to push us closer to Jesus. Similar to:

-Teaching: explaining what the text means. I’ve heard people say that what we do on Sundays is a modern invention, too influenced by education models. That’s just not true! This was adopted from the 1st century synagogue practice of publicly reading Scripture, then exhorting and teaching from the Bible. And in the 2nd century, Justin Martyr, an early Christian apologist and philosopher, said this:

-Friends, the church has been fixated on God’s Word since the very beginning, and the act of preaching has been the primary focus of the church since then.

-Don’t neglect the gift that was given.

-This will come up again later, but I’m going to approach it from a different perspective there. Church leaders are called to be people of the book, but the book is also supposed to lead to a different way of living. Pastors must be people of the book, both in their study and in how they live. John Calvin begins his institutes saying:

-We have placed a high emphasis on knowledge of God for pastors. Looking for a seminary degree, an ability to know the Word. But how many pastors don’t actually know themselves? You’ve probably heard of IQ, but have you ever heard of EQ? We know about God, but who are you?

-The public affirmation of Timothy’s call – you can’t be a pastor without a church. You can claim whatever you want, but a pastor by definition needs a church, a pastor doesn’t get to self-identify. There are 2 aspects to a call: internal and external. Both of these are critical, if it’s just external you’ll question and doubt all the time, if it’s just internal you’ll probably end up disqualified from ministry.

-Just had my ordination council this past week, every person I know struggles with imposter syndrome in some area. And let me tell you just how affirming it is to have a group of your peers tell you that God has called you to ministry and a church, having both an internal desire to teach the Bible and an external affirmation from other pastors and a church that confirms that internal call.

-Not only are these things supposed to be markers of Timothy, he’s also supposed to grow in them, to get better at them. He’s supposed to practice them, and be committed to them. To continue growing in his understanding of God, and the way he’s living his life. And why? So that everyone can see his growth.

-Friends, you should see your church leaders continually growing. If your church leaders aren’t continually acknowledging their sins, working to fight against them, and finding new things to learn about God, something is off. One of my favorite questions to start asking potential pastors is: tell me about the last time the gospel emotionally moved you.

-There’s a pastor I really like (from afar) named Ray Ortlund. I onetime heard him say that he prays every time he preaches that it’s the best sermon he’s ever preached. Not out a sense of pride, but because he wants to live out this verse.

-This next verse really captured my mind a few years ago, and in particular the way the NIV translates it. 

-Life and doctrine: the 2 things that every Christian needs to be growing in. The way I think about this is like a train. Trains need 2 tracks in order to remain moving forward, just like we’re called to grow in both life and doctrine. That’s why we renamed our small groups to life groups, that’s why we offer equipping classes. These 2 things are meant to be linked together, but you also need to be taking time to pray and ask the Lord what you should be focusing on in at the stage of life you’re in. Maybe you need to be stretched to learn some new things about God, attend one of our 9 AM classes, or read a theology book (if you need suggestions reach out to me!). Maybe you need to work on applying something you’ve learned about God to your life – get involved in a small group, or ask to meet with someone sitting nearby you, or maybe start meeting with a group of friends to talk about what God has been teaching you. Friends, this can be done in a variety of ways, both formally and informally, but it requires intentionality and effort, as well as commitment to a local church where you’re forced to rub shoulders with a bunch of people who may not think or act exactly like you! And you need that to grow closer to Jesus. Friends, Christianity is a team sport. When God saves you, He brings you into a new family comprised of people from every tribe, tongue, and nation.

-And the reason Timothy is supposed to watch his life and his teaching (doctrine) is for the salvation of himself and his church.

-Once again, we know that salvation is by faith alone through grace alone, in Jesus Christ alone, but Timothy can help in God’s mission of seeking and saving the lost, or he can hurt it. There’s a pastor I really like named Kevin DeYoung who has shared that one of his pieces of accountability is thinking about his congregation, and fearing what would happen if he gave up. When I first heard him say that it bothered me, but as I’ve thought about that more, it’s absolutely true! The number of friends I have who have left the church because of a pastoral failure continues to grow! And the pastors who fail will someday give an account for both their failings and the ways their failings affected the whole body.

-Back to Robert Murray McCheyne. 

-So friends, as we come to the end of this, I want to leave you with this phrase: watch your life and doctrine closely. Where is God calling you to focus on in this season of your life? What things about God do you have questions about? Or what areas in your life are you struggling to live out what you know God has called you to do? Take some time right now to ask God to reveal to you what you need to be focusing on in the days and weeks ahead, and then I’ll close in prayer.

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by mikethestrand on October 26, 2025  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on October 26, 2025

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2025/10/26/1-timothy-46-16-sermon-manuscript/

1 Timothy 3:8-13 – Sermon Manuscript

-One of the biggest struggles I have in my life, and ministry, is with delegation. It depends on the specific issue, but I generally just like to do things myself instead of asking others to do it, which has often not worked well for me. Yes, things get done in the way that I want them done, but I cheat others out of using their gifts, and I wear myself down. 

-And part of what has kept me going is that I’m in good company! In Ex. 18, there’s a story about Moses (who lead Israel out of Egypt and through their wilderness wanderings). Moses gets word that his father-in-law was coming to visit, and during the course of his visit he sees Moses’s work, where Moses would deal with any complaints people had. His father-in-law chews him out, and tells Moses that if he keeps trying to do it all he’ll wear himself out, that he needs to set up delegation who can deal with these little petty issues that people have.

-That picture is what we see in today’s text. Delegating various roles to people who are gifted so that all of us can use our gifts for the good of each other and the honor of God.

READ/PRAY (pg. 1052)

-Recommended books

  1. Deacons, Servants, Ministers

-Right out of the gate, we need to deal with what is the word for this role? Last week it looked like the NT writers were the confused ones, this week it looks like we English speakers who are the confused ones! Because the word is translated 3 different ways in English! And by the title of this point, you can see all 3 of them!

-It’s important to note that Paul is beginning a new train of thought here that is a subset of what he said last week. Last week was the qualifications for an elder/overseer. That thinking continues with this text as he says “likewise” to signify it’s a continuation of his previous thoughts. Remember what I said last week: a church that believes the 4 Gospels will organize itself like is described in the Epistles (letters), by calling elders and deacons as the leaders of the church.

-But just as there’s some confusion about what to call last week’s role, there’s some slight nuance to what we call this week’s role, and to demonstrate that, here’s a few verses that point that out. First, let’s go back to a passage I read last week to talk about leadership in the kingdom of God, Mark 10.

-Usually most translations have “serve” here, but it’s the same word that Paul uses to talk about this office in 1 Tim. And then, just so we get it, Jesus says it again in the upper room during His last night with His disciples. So right out of the gate we see that this isn’t something demeaning or belittling, this is something that Jesus Himself does!

-It’s also a word Paul uses to describe himself. In Col. 1 he’s talking about the church, and then describes himself as the church’s deacon (servant). And later in this letter to Timothy, Paul tells him that Timothy will also be a good deacon of Jesus. 

-So if we see all these examples of so many people being deacons, why do I think this is a separate office similar to Elder? Because of the logic of this passage, 2 other passages from Paul, and church history. Let’s work through each one of those.

-The logic of this passage. The purpose of this book is so Timothy can know how the church (household) is supposed to operate, with leaders called by God and affirmed by the rest of the congregation. The leaders begin with elders or overseers who “oversee” the church. But in order to receive help, they also need deacons (which we’ll see throughout this passage) to help manage the church. That’s why Paul connects this to the office of elders.

-The 2 other passages: the first (less convincing, but still necessary) is Rom. 16:1, where Paul (I believe) describes Phoebe who is a deacon of the church (hold on to that, it’ll become important later). The second passage is what clinches it for me, Paul writes a letter, but notice who it’s written TO: all the saints, including the overseers and deacons. 2 offices expected in the church.

-The final reason is church history. The early church quickly adopted and recognized these 2 offices in the church. In a document referred to as the Didache (teaching), they stated: And Pliny the Younger, a Roman lawyer toward the end of the 1st/beginning of the 2nd century said: 

-So what I believe we start to see through the Bible is 2 offices, 1 focused on the Word, the other focused on the works. Elders are to ensure the church remains committed to God’s Word, they teach and correct using the Word, while deacons focus on the physical needs to allow the church to be able to hear and receive the Word. So I would argue that many things people think the elders should do are better done by deacons! But we’ll get there at the end.

-While we’re all called to “deacon” each other, there’s a unique role reserved for qualified people that is recognized by the church. And just as Paul had a list of what should be true of elders last week, this week he has another list that sounds very similar to what we read last week. And this shouldn’t be a surprise to you if you’ve been coming the last few weeks, but there’s once again debate about the best way to interpret this passage!

  • A Faithful Deacon Is…

-Paul begins saying they should be “worthy of respect.” This word includes things like dignified, or worth following after. Similar to what we saw last week with elders, just as we need to be careful in our selection of elders, we also need to be careful in our selection of deacons, because we become like our leaders! And it only takes 1 bad leader to corrupt the rest of the group!

-Not hypocritical. While there’s many overlaps between this list and the elder list, this one is unique to deacons, and I think there’s a reason for that! Because of the focus on the “works” that need to be done, deacons are going to be aware of some sensitive information that’s going on in people’s lives. We don’t want someone who either doesn’t follow through on commitments or someone that’s going to be sharing that information with other people. 

-For example, one of the areas that I think should fall under the oversight of deacons is benevolence requests, money set aside to help church members in need. This means there’s going to be some people who know a bit about someone’s financial situation. You don’t want that person to be a blabbermouth, or to tell you they’re going to be helping you and not follow through! That’s why it’s so important for them to not by a hypocrite!

-Then we’re back to the same thing as elders: not drinking a lot of wine. As I said last week, this is someone who is self-controlled. 

-Not greedy for money. The word Paul uses is literally “shamefully greedy.” Someone who just wants more and more. I would connect this to the hypocritical piece: if this is someone who’s involved in the “works” of the church, some of them will have access to some level of finances, and if they’re greedy for that money they’ll look with suspicion on anyone else.

-This next one is where I believe we see the biggest difference between elders and deacons. Whereas elders are expected to teach, deacons are expected to hold onto the faith.

-Mystery isn’t like Sherlock Holmes, it’s a technical term that Paul uses to refer to the realities of the gospel message, something that had been hidden in the past that was revealed in Jesus.

-Clear conscience. Jonathan Edwards (American Pastor before the Revolutionary War) said the conscience is like a sundial, it only works when it’s viewed in light of the sun, other lights give false readings. Requires the community of faith living together to help you see yourself in light of the true Son of God! Our hearts will continually pull us away from that source of truth. That’s why we need Sundays and other people to pull us back and remind us who God really is! And deacons are supposed to be people who do that exceptionally well, who work to continually align their hearts with God.

-Last for this slide, they must be tested. This is similar to what we saw for elders that they must not be a new convert. This means they should have a life that models faithfulness. We’re not looking for someone who’s the best facilities person, the best finance person, the best business person, we’re looking for someone who is faithful in their walk with the Lord. Let’s not miss that Paul emphasizes this for both elders and deacons! Friends, churches aren’t just another nonprofit or institution! The requirements are different in the household of God.

-Are you ready for the biggest debate of this section? It’s the first word in vs. 11: wives or women? Dan Doriani (professor at Covenant Seminary in St. Louis) summarizes all the proposals under 4 options, with the most ink being focused on options 1 or 4.

-First option is that Paul is talking about male deacons, then focuses on women, back to men, then all deacons. There’s no distinction between men and women. 

-Second option is a different office that Paul is referring to, some people make a distinction between deacons and deaconesses as 2 unique roles the church is meant to fill.

-Third option would be women who help out the deacons, a lower role .That would mean they’re not the same as deacons, they come alongside to help the deacons.

-Fourth would be just translate this word as “wives” and call it a day! 

-I would argue that it’s option 1, for a number of reasons. First, what I mentioned earlier about Paul calling out Phoebe in Rom. 16 as a deacon, and church history also backs up the idea that deaconesses were a part of the early church. The second reason is I don’t think it makes sense for deacons to have stricter requirements than elders, if Paul was referring to their wives here then I believe he also would have had something about elder’s wives in previous text. 

-Additionally, I think Paul’s logic in the text is pretty easy to follow if you pay attention to a repeated word. This whole chapter is focused on leadership in the church, beginning with elders, which were supposed to be selected at every church. Then he continues his thoughts on church leadership with a word “likewise” when he starts talking about the second church office of deacons. And did you notice that he uses it again in this verse? So his flow of thought begins with elders, moves to deacons, then he has some specific expectations for women who are deacons before going back to male deacons, and finally ends with encouragement for everyone who serves as a deacon. Which gets me to the last reason I think it’s women and not wives, in vs. 12 Paul talks about their wives!

-All that to say, I believe Paul in this chapter is giving us principles for how to structure leadership in the church of Jesus Christ. Every church is expected to have elders, and then as the church grows a second office is introduced to help the church continue to pursue unity together: deacons. Deacons are comprised of men and women who meet these qualifications. And friends, some of where I think we’ve gotten off in the church is by not holding to these 2 offices as something God has called us to hold to. I think the whole women in ministry conversation becomes much more difficult when you don’t recognize that God has called women to leadership in the role of deacon. It is different than elder, but it is still an official leadership office.

-Now for the qualifications for these women deacons: I think it’s basically what we’ve seen of the expectations for the male deacons, it begins with literally the same word: respectful. Not slanderers connects to not being a hypocrite, self-controlled connects to not drinking too much, and faithful in everything connects to holding to the faith.

-Then Paul shifts back to the male deacons who (like the elders) are to be faithful at home as husbands and fathers because the church is just a slightly bigger family. 

-Finally, everyone who serves as a deacon acquires a good standing and are encouraged in their faith as they serve the church and point others to Jesus.

  • What’s the Difference?

-One commentary stated the difference as: elders serve by leading, deacons lead by serving. I think that’s a helpful summary! And part of the reason we need to talk about this is because there’s not a lot of clarity in the Bible about what each of these offices are supposed to be doing. AND there’s nothing in the Bible about what it means to be a nonprofit in the 21st century (nor is there a class in Seminary about that!)

-Language used: elders oversee, deacons assist. There’s recently been some linguistic work done on the Greek word translated as deacon, with the argument that it should be understood assistants to the elders. So the elders are tasked with leading the church (a Word based leading), and then they call and recognize deacons who help the elders focus on their ministry by partnering together for the good of the entire body. If you have questions about that, email me, I’ll send you some articles.

-Before we start to define what they should be doing, I want to briefly share some things that a Deacon is NOT. 

-Elders in training: these are meant to be 2 distinct offices that complement each other and minister in different but overlapping spheres of influence. This isn’t meant to be a steppingstone on the way to something bigger and better. Just like the youth pastor doesn’t just have to be a starting point for those in ministry (we had former Pastor Bruce there for 40 years, so we should know that!) Some people who are called to serve as deacons shouldn’t aspire to become elders!

-GCs: I believe facilities can be a part of the ministry of the deacons, but it’s not only that. So just because someone is good at fixing things doesn’t mean they should be a deacon, especially if they don’t fit the characteristics of a deacon that Paul gives us here.

-CPAs: once again, I think finances is an area that should be under the oversight of deacons, but that’s not all the deacons are supposed to do.

-CEOs: there are some business things that we need to do to function in the 21st century, like nonprofit laws, employee practices, etc. But just because someone is good at managing a secular business does not automatically mean they should be a deacon!

-And I added this last one because I’ve heard of too many people who say the elders are just “yes men!” Sometimes I wish that were the case! Deacons aren’t supposed to be a “check on power” of the elders, like the various branches of government. 

-So what is a deacon supposed to do? I think we see a glimpse of it in Acts 6. Now, this is contested because this passage doesn’t actually use the term “deacon,” but I believe it gives us the starting point of what eventually becomes deacons in the early church.

-It begins with a contested issue that’s threatening to divide the church. Things were not equal in the ways widows were being cared for. So the 12 (apostles) called a members meeting (see friends, even the early church had disagreements that required discussion at members meetings!). We see what the 12 are focusing their ministry on: prayer and the ministry of the Word. Don’t read the waiting on tables as a lesser than thing. That’s how we read these things, but that’s not how we’re supposed to. It’s not better or worse, it’s distinct. Plus, in God’s kingdom, the lowest is the person who’s going to get the most recognition in heaven!

-Now, keep in mind the complaint that led to this: Hellenistic Jews (Greek speaking) were upset about the Hebraic Jews neglecting them. So then we get to the next verse, and all 7 names are Hellenistic names, meaning the Hebraic Jews were working hard to preserve the unity in the church, laying down their preferences for the good of the rest of the body. So part of the role of deacons is to help preserve unity in the church.

-So the way I would summarize the distinction: elders are to focus on the ministry of the Word and prayer, the deacons are to serve in a wide assortment of ministries to help the church preserve unity.

-Most churches function this way, they just don’t use these terms, and we actually have people who have been operating like deacons, we just don’t call them that! People like: Erin, Tami, and Molly on staff, Glenn Sonnee and Roger Thelen. 

-While some people called by God and recognized by the church to serve in this office, let’s remember that all of us are called to “deacon” each other each time we get together. In fact, every time we gather as the church, we should be looking for opportunities to “deacon” each other, just like Jesus “deaconed” us.

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by mikethestrand on October 12, 2025  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on October 12, 2025

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2025/10/12/1-timothy-38-13-sermon-manuscript/

1 Timothy 3:1-7 – Sermon Manuscript

-Leadership in the kingdom of God. James and John’s mom asks Jesus to sit at His right and left hands in heaven.

Matt. 20:25 “24 When the ten disciples heard this, they became indignant with the two brothers. 25 Jesus called them over and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those in high positions act as tyrants over them. 26 It must not be like that among you. On the contrary, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave;28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

-Church leadership has gotten a really bad reputation over the last decade, and I would argue it’s because many churches have gotten away from what we read in today’s text.

READ/PRAY (pg. 1052)

  1. Elders, Pastors, Shepherds, Overseers

-Paul begins by commending those who want to be leaders in the church, but we have to admit that being overeager probably is a disqualification! There should be a level of reverence and trepidation in approaching any leadership because the Bible has some harsh words about those who are in leadership. Look at what James says in James 3:1, or if you want a stinging rebuke, read Ezek. 34!

-There have been moves throughout the church recently to try to flatten any sense of leadership or authority within the church, and we should admit that anytime you have people in positions of authority, there’s going to be the risk of abuse. You’ve probably heard the phrase “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” But friends, believe it or not, that is antithetical to the message of the gospel! The gospel message is that the one who had absolute power wasn’t corrupted, but instead took corruption on Himself and then gives His power to His followers to accomplish the tasks He gives them.

-Part of this flattening is good and right and true, the ground is completely level at the foot of the cross, it doesn’t matter your academics, your genetics, your personality, your gender, or whether or not you were a leader in the church. There there have been times in the past where the pastor was put on too high a pedestal where no human is meant to be! But in response to that, to say that there is no distinction is also incorrect! The Bible assumes that Christians will organize into churches, and that those churches will have leaders who meet the qualifications listed here!

-The other piece that I want to mention that also applies to last week’s text (women in the church), is I think we have tended to get leadership in the church backwards. Friends, the church isn’t like the world, so adopting worldly ideas and definitions of leadership is at best unhelpful and at worst sinful. If Jesus serves as our model, then church leadership is actually about service instead of power. The call to be a leader in the church is a call to die so that others can be raised up. I worry that we as the church instead tend to look for people who are impressive by worldly standards instead of impressive by God’s standards.

-There is some debate around what these leaders should be called, and even today different denominations (or even sometimes churches) will use different titles to refer to the same office (Baptist churches for a while only had 1 office that they called “Deacons” which is a different and distinct office from Elder, it’s vs. 1-7 or 8-13). And some of the debate is because the NT uses different words in different places. In our text today, it’s translated as “overseer” episkapa 

-But even he seems to alternate between a couple different titles, because if you look at Titus 1, Paul refers to the same office with 2 different words, this time adding in presbuteros (if you’re thinking about various ways the church has ordered leadership, you may have heard the similarities to 2 church governance proposals: episcopal, and presbyterian, taken from these 2 words)

-Just like Paul uses different words to describe the same office, Peter does something similar in 1 Peter 5, but this time he uses the word for shepherd, which he goes on to use a bit of a descriptor for who elders should model themselves after: the chief shepherd (Jesus). He also says something similar to what we saw in 1 Tim. This should be done willingly. 1 other piece here, is the call for elders to be examples. Hold onto that thought, because it will come up again!

-To further confuse you, in Acts 20, Paul uses all 3 words to refer to the exact same office! He summons the elders, then calls them overseers, then tells them to shepherd. Something else we now learn about this office from this text is that they’re supposed to be able to defend against false teaching. That idea will come up again later, too!

-The last passage to look at before we continue in our text in Eph. 4, there again Paul uses the word for shepherd (pastor), but includes it in the list of other provisions to define all the things God provides to the church. But it’s not just to have leaders, the goal is maturity in the body of Christ. The other thing we learn about pastors in this section is they’re connected to a teaching ministry. He has this list going, but then he connects pastors and teachers together as if the role of a pastor is to be a teacher.

-We see these 4 words used interchangeably throughout the NT to refer to this leadership office in the church. This structure isn’t meant to be applied to other organizations or institutions; it’s God’s design and structure for the flourishing of His people between Jesus’s 2 comings. The day is coming when the Chief Shepherd will come and we’ll all live in a theocracy, but until that day, we’ll need faithful elders to lead our churches. 

-We’ve already started to see some of the descriptions of what and elder is supposed to be and do, but Paul gives us more in 1 Timothy:

  • An Elder Is Faithful in His:

-And I hope what stood out to you as we read it this morning how basic it is. Like the bar (at first blush) doesn’t seem to be very high. He says things like: “he must not be a drunk.” Nailing it! All but 1 thing in this list is supposed to be true of every follower of Jesus. Carson quote. 

-Friends, this should comfort us! What that means, at least at the start, is that this is something that’s attainable for real life people like you and me. He doesn’t say he must have gone to Harvard or Yale (or the 1st century equivalent!), he doesn’t say he must manage a fortune 500 company, it doesn’t even say he needs to be incredibly successful, or even manage a business. What Paul describes here is what I talked about a few weeks ago: a normal, dare we say boring Christian. 

-And I would argue that we can summarize this whole this as faithful. I’ve shared with you all before that each year I have a word of the year that helps me focus my heart and mind for the year, but it’s always in addition to the word: faithful. And I get that from a parable Jesus tells in Matt. 25. These are the words I hope to hear when I see Jesus for the first time: well done. 

-What we should be looking for in a leader is faithfulness. Are they faithful in following after Jesus in their lives? When they fail (and they will), how do they respond? Do they repent and run to Jesus or run away from Him?

-And that gets to another piece we need to consider before looking at the list, and that is that as the leader goes, that’s where the church will go. You see that idea all over Scripture! When Israel has a good and faithful king, they prosper. When Israel has a wicked king, they suffer. And churches follow the same pattern, they reflect their leadership. In fact, in every membership class I teach, I tell those who attend to PLEASE take their affirmations of elders seriously, because that’s the only way we as a church are going to remain healthy! Our leaders must faithfully point others to Jesus in what they say and in how they live.

-Once again, D.A. Carson helpfully summarizes why this is important: “Christian character is as much caught as taught—that is, it is picked up by constant association with mature Christians.” Basics for Believers

-Church, you will start to become like your elders! So be careful who you pick!

  1. Character

-I spent way too much time this week trying to figure out how to condense this list down, so take this a proposal, subject to change in the future! We begin with faithfulness, but then move to character, which again could summarize all of them! And combining those 2 things gets us even closer to summarizing the whole message: faithful character. But in order to help us think through this list a little more carefully, I condensed the character piece to 6 of them: above reproach, self-controlled, sensible, respectable, not an excessive drinker, and a good reputation among outsiders (above reproach in the church, good reputation outside the church).

-First, are any of these things just for elders and not for the rest of the church? Nope! We’re all called to be holy just like God is holy, self-control is a fruit of the spirit, sensible is used to describe men and women in Titus, respectable is used to describe all women in last week’s text, Eph. 5:18 says no one is to get drunk, and Jesus in Matt. 5:16 says that we’re supposed to let our light shine before others so that they’ll see our good works and give glory to God. So these things aren’t unique to an elder, they’re just what Christians are all called to be!

-So why isn’t everyone an elder? I would argue that what sets elders apart is that they live the ordinary Christian life extraordinarily well. Elders are called to be normal Christians who are faithfully following after Jesus. People that you would want to be like in your faith! So let’s look at each one of these:

-Above reproach: does this mean that elders are going to be sinless? Ask any of our elders if they’re sinless, and if they don’t laugh at you, they probably shouldn’t be elders anymore! 

-Which gets us to another piece to remember in this: no leader is Jesus. I know that sounds kind of obvious, but let me tell you, as a pastor and leader in multiple churches it can be easy to start to think or feel like the church needs me. I have a friend who said a professor at seminary would regularly have the class repeat after him: “I am not the Christ!”

-This is someone who’s life is actually worth trying to copy. It’s someone that serves as a model Christian. I didn’t say perfect, I say model. Someone who is daily working to take steps closer to Jesus, daily striving to become more holy, daily confessing their sins and asking for the Lord’s help to remain faithful.

-Self-controlled: someone that can control their own appetites is the way one commentary summarized it. Instead of making hasty reactions to something, this is someone who steadfast in their responses. 

-Sensible: Paul uses an interesting word here that can be translated “holding no wine,” which doesn’t make complete sense since Paul talks about that issue later. Some scholars translate this as sober, that is careful in the way he approaches life, could maybe even say steady. Doesn’t easily get worked up about things.

-Respectable: this refers to someone who is held in high regard by others. Not sure if you’ve heard the leadership maxim that I think this gets to is: if you claim to be a leader, and look back and no one’s following you you’re not a leader! Elders are people that others actually look to and call out as leaders.

-Not an excessive drinker: as I said earlier, Paul talks about this for all believers in Eph. 5. Christians are not to be marked by drunkenness, or you could say a lack of self-control. Someone who is a drunk can’t control their urges or their appetites, so they shouldn’t be asked to be in leadership. Now, it’s important to note that Paul doesn’t say it’s wrong to drink at all! Drinking alcohol itself isn’t a sin, it can be a sin, but it isn’t a sin in and of itself. Story of Spurgeon and Moody. 

-Lastly for this section: A good reputation among outsiders. The church is meant to be on the front lines of evangelism. We’re always supposed to be sharing the gospel with those we come into contact with in all areas of our lives. How would it look if the church elects leaders who even those outside the church don’t respect? I’ve talked to pastors who have had men who were known as bullies in the community be brought up as potential elders in the church. Based on what we see in this list, do you think someone like that should be called to be an elder?

-I would summarize all of these as: faithful character! But we’ve got 4 more to go:

  • Marriage & Home

-How does he manage his house? What kind of a husband is he? Do his wife and kids flourish? Now as we’ve seen many times, there’s some debate about these expectations! And it’s led to no small amount of controversy through the centuries!

-Husband of one wife: does this mean that if someone has gotten divorced, they’re automatically disqualified? Some would say yes! But even Jesus said that divorce is permitted in some cases. The Greek is literally “one women man,” so you could translate that as “devoted to his wife.” Other people argue that this means elders are required to be married. But that would automatically disqualify Jesus and Paul from serving as elders (and someone like John Stott – a British pastor who served faithfully until he died), and bringing in vs. 4, I don’t think we’d argue that they’re required to have kids. Others argue that this is a prohibition against polygamy. And while it is that, I don’t think it’s only that! The way I would interpret this is: is this man faithfully devoted to caring for his wife. If he is divorced, there would need to be some more questions asked, but it doesn’t automatically disqualify someone.

-Hospitable. Here’s one we don’t often think about! In the 1st century this would have been literally opening your home to having people come stay with you, since hotels weren’t always reliable, and if you became a Christian it often meant social alienation from your old friends and family. Today, I would take this as someone who regularly has people in their home, do they welcome others in? And I think it connects to vs. 4:

-If an elder is hospitable, people will be able to see how he manages his house. Do his kids thrive under his leadership? Does he love on them, play with them, and train them up to follow after Jesus?

-And notice why Paul says that: because the church is just a larger family! The nuclear family is the proving ground for elders. Does this mean that if someone has unbelieving children they’re automatically disqualified? Again, no! Church, we need to remember that we can’t force anyone to become a Christian! As much as I would give anything for my kids to know Jesus as their Lord, I can’t, that’s the Holy Spirit’s job! What this is getting at is does this person create an environment in their home where their children are regularly hearing about God? Think of the shema (called that because of the Hebrew word for hear), does this father talk about God: in the house, when you walk, when you lie, when you get up, is God the way he orients his entire life, so that the children know who God is and what He’s like?

  • Teaching

-The 1 gift he MUST have. Doesn’t say business savvy, doesn’t say charismatic personality, doesn’t say gifted communicator, it says able to teach. And if you think about how God has chosen to reveal Himself, it makes sense. God has revealed Himself to use through His Word! That means that church leaders should be able to point people to His Word as our highest authority for life and doctrine! This doesn’t mean that they’re required to preach, teaching is done in a wide variety of contexts, but they need to be able to explain the Bible to others. Which leads perfectly into:

  • Correcting

-One of the primary purposes of having leaders is to ensure commitment to the Word. So not only is the positive given previously (able to teach), but they also need to be able to correct those who are teaching wrongly.

-First, not a bully. I love the way the NASB translates this word: not pugnacious! That is not someone who is quick to fight or argue. I actually just read an article this week that shocked me (I’m not even going to link to it because it was that bad), but the “pastor” who wrote it said some pastors today “are not pugnacious enough.” In contrast to that, Paul here commends being gentle. That’s not taking a soft stance, that’s someone who knows how to correct people in a loving way.

-Also, not quarrelsome. Not looking to fight.

-And also not greedy, not looking at benefit from this service, which connects to what I said earlier about leaders being the number one servants! 

-And why are these ideas so important? Well it’s up to the elders to help in matters of discipline! Look at Paul says what we’re supposed to use the Word for 2 Tim.: to correct, rebuke, and encourage. This means that there’s both the positive teaching what is good, true, and beautiful, and correcting, which is pulling people back from following what is false and pointing them to what is true. And all this gets back to the need for elders to know the Word! 

  • Faith

-Finally, how do you ensure that someone is living these things out? It takes time! Paul says this shouldn’t be someone who’s a new convert. Don’t take someone who has just recently been saved and throw them into leadership positions! They’re not ready for it! And I can tell you, as someone who was called into ministry young, this is absolutely true! You start to think you can do things in your own power and strength instead of relying on God!

-And this is why the author of the Hebrews holds church leaders up as such a high example. This connects to what we studied last week: we’re all called to submit to the leaders of the church because the leaders are keeping watch over our souls. 

-Leadership isn’t a bad thing, nor is it such a high bar that no one can reach it. We need to look for those who are living the ordinary Christian life extraordinarily well, and then follow their lead!

“Tom Carson never rose very far in denominational structures, but hundreds of people in the Outaouais and beyond testify how much he loved them. He never wrote a book, but he loved the Book. He was never wealthy or powerful, but he kept growing as a Christian: yesterday’s grace was never enough. He was not a far-sighted visionary, but he looked forward to eternity. He was not a gifted administrator, but there is no text that says, “By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you are good administrators.” His journals have many, many entries bathed in tears of contrition, but his children and grandchildren remember his laughter. Only rarely did he break through his pattern of reserve and speak deeply and intimately with his children, but he modeled Christian virtues to them. He much preferred to avoid controversy than to stir things up, but his own commitments to historic confessionalism were unyielding, and in ethics he was a man of principle. His own ecclesiastical circles were rather small and narrow, but his reading was correspondingly large and expansive. He was not very good at putting people down, except on his prayer lists.

When he died, there were no crowds outside the hospital, no editorial comments in the papers, no announcements on television, no mention in Parliament, no attention paid by the nation. In his hospital room there was no one by his bedside. There was only the quiet hiss of oxygen, vainly venting because he had stopped breathing and would never need it again.

But on the other side all the trumpets sounded. Dad won entrance to the only throne room that matters, not because he was a good man or a great man—he was, after all, a most ordinary pastor—but because he was a forgiven man. And he heard the voice of him whom he longed to hear saying, “Well done, good and faithful servant; enter into the joy of your Lord.””

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by mikethestrand on October 5, 2025  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on October 5, 2025

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2025/10/05/1-timothy-31-7-sermon-manuscript/

Church Offices – Sermon Manuscript

-Pre-marital counseling, part of the goal is to break down some bad ideas about what healthy marriage looks like

-Most of the time people either adopt the way their parents relationship worked, or react to that and refuse to do anything like their parents! But no 2 couples are the same! And all the best plans about splitting everything 50/50 get thrown out the window in about the first week of marriage when reality sets in. But it’s still important to talk about and ensure you’re on the same page: who cooks, who does the dishes, who cleans, who does the laundry, who balances the budget? 

-The reality is in marriage there’s no such thing as both person giving 50%, it takes both people in the marriage giving 100% every day, and the same is true in the church (of which the marriage and the family are supposed to serve as an example, a picture, as we’ll see later in this sermon). The church requires that you actually give something, it requires that you give of your time, talents, and treasures, and it requires all of us to do that so that we can be a healthy body. But when we think about the church, the way we structure and organize the church tends to be assumed instead of explicitly talked about (just as a husband and wife can begin to assume things about their spouse!) So today we’re going to explicitly talk about the roles in the church, the offices the Lord has given to us to function well, and the requirements of those offices in the life of our body.

READ/PRAY

  1. What is Church Polity?

-Just a fancy word to say structure of the church. Taken from GRK polis (city) think of Minneapolis: water (Dakota word) + city

-Many different ways the church has been organized throughout history, and all of them appeal to the Bible (in some form) for their position! 3 primary positions (of which there are some subsets of positions)

-Episcopalian (Episcopal and RCC) argue more for a natural outgrowth from the Bible instead of explicit biblical texts. Make a big deal out of the “bishop” title and make it distinct from elder (I, and many other scholars, would argue they’re synonymous) 

-Presbyterian: church elects elders (called a session), those elders are part of a “Presbytery” (state, city) (taken from GRK), some of the elders from the Presbytery are a part of the General Assembly (nation)

-Congregational: congregation itself is the highest governing body of the church, from the doctrine of the priesthood of ALL believers, corresponds to the way the early church functions (things are presented to the whole church), but among congregational there is a WIDE variety of thoughts and opinions, here’s the list of examples from Grudem’s Systematic Theology.

-I would like to propose a slightly different approach than any of these, and if you have sermon notes, you’ll find some blanks to fill it: Christ ruled, Elder led, Deacon served, Congregationally governed. I’m sure I stole all those pieces from somewhere, but I’ve lost track of where I found it! 

-I tried to make it look like Grudem’s chart here:

-First and foremost: Christ ruled. Unlike the way we Americans tend to think, the church is not a democracy, the church is a theocracy with a King who rules over us. That means our job isn’t to vote people in and out of office, our job isn’t to try to find a constituency who represents us, our job is to submit to His will. 

-Story of person who voted no to everything because nothing should be unanimous. 

-If we’re working to submit all our decisions to the will of God, and we’re all keeping in step with the Spirit, there should be unanimous votes on a regular basis! And notice the arrows connecting God to each position below: since we’re a theocracy, God is the one who appoints, the church looks to affirm and follow where God has called.

-Congregationally Governed: this means the highest form of authority in the church is the congregation, but again, this is not a democracy. The congregation is charged with affirming leaders in the church, looking for ways to honor each other, working to keep the unity of the Spirit in our midst, but it’s not their job to make every decision in the church. Instead, the congregation is called to submit to the leaders of the church (I realize that’s a 4 letter word today, that’s a topic for a different time)

-Elder led: God raises up qualified men to serve in this office (listen to last week for why I said men), and I put them at the bottom because in God’s kingdom those who are called to leadership roles are called to be the servant and others oriented. The world views authority through solely through the lens of power, exploitation and selfishness, but that’s not the way God’s kingdom works.

-Finally, Deacon served: God also gifts certain people in His body to help in various service-oriented roles to help the congregation operate well. We’ll get to that one in a minute too.

-I don’t see these offices as optional in the church of Jesus Christ – if God has given us instructions for how best to operate and function as His bride, we should follow them! So what are each of these 2 offices, and how did we come to have only 2 instead of the many others something like the RCC has?

-Other passages: Phil. 1:1, Titus 1:5, 

-Church history: Didache (GRK Teaching) (“The Lord’s Teaching Through the Twelve Apostles to the Nations”)

-Definition of the officer, PUBLICLY RECOGNIZED. That means a pastor can’t be a pastor in his own mind, it requires the affirmation of a church, which means someday when I retire, I lose the title of “Pastor” and just become “Mike.” 

-1 office that no longer exists today is that of Apostle, because it requires 2 things: being an eyewitness of the resurrected Jesus (Acts 1:22) and being specifically called by Jesus to be His Apostle. The Bible doesn’t have any other leadership offices described in the Bible.

  • What is an Elder?

-First up the name. Throughout the NT these 4 words are used to refer to the same office (pastor is the word for shepherd, think of pasture)

-What you should immediately think of when you think of this office is a shepherd, which is connected to the word “Pastor.” These words have become incredibly convoluted today, with people using all sorts of different words (clergy, minister, teacher). My personal preference is: pastor to refer to those who are paid elders, elders to refer to unpaid (lay) elders. Same office, different time commitment and time expectations. But the primary focus is shepherd:

-Peter, in his First Epistle writes to the elders of the church:

-Notice a few things here, after the shepherd. First is whose flock is it? God’s! We’re only here for a season, Jesus oversees His flock forever. 

-Willingly: called by God and affirmed by the congregation (Hold onto that, we’ll come back to it)

-Eagerly serving, hence the elders being on the bottom of my chart

-Being examples: do you ever tell someone to be like you? Seems prideful at first glance, doesn’t it? But the Bible tells us to! Paul even says to imitate him just like he imitates Christ. And the reality is we’re all copying someone, the question is does the person we’re copying make us more or less like Jesus? This is why voting to affirm elders is such a weighty issue that should not be taken lightly! It’s not a popularity contest, not looking for representation of your pet project, we’re looking to affirm the men God has appointed to serve as the examples of this body. 

-Which gets me to another passage (briefly, then we’ll go to the main one!) Paul commands Timothy to not be quick in appointing elders, and that’s because of what I just said: we’re going to become like them, so be careful as you affirm elders in the church! Since we’re now in 1 Timothy, we’ll go back a couple chapters to the section we read at the beginning:

-There’s a similar list in Titus 1 that adds a few pieces, and putting it all together in a running list you get this (broken down into do and don’ts)

-There are 2 big things I want you to notice about this list, first is what in this list is unique to an elder that’s not the call of every Christian? 

-Carson quote

-Able to teach! Maybe “not be a new convert” because that would leave some believers out, but the rest of the pieces in here are what every Christian should be striving for, there are other passages that explicitly command these other pieces of all Christians. Let’s think of just a couple:

-Hospitable: 1 Pet. 4:9 “Show hospitality to one another without grumbling.” That’s for everyone! 

-Not be an excessive drinker. Do you think this means that because this is on the list for elders the rest of you can go get rip roaring drunk all the time? No! Eph. 5:18 “Don’t get drunk with wine, which leads to reckless living, but be filled by the Spirit.” 

-One more: self-controlled. Gal. 5:23, if you are Spirit filled (all Christians) then self-control should be evident in your life. Do you get the point? The 1 exception is “able to teach” because eventually everyone will stop being a new convert.

-The second thing I want you to note is how many of these are character traits, and how many of them are gifts/skills? Once again, the 1 gifting or skill required is “able to teach.” That’s it! The rest is character traits that should be the markers of any Christian who is growing in Christlikeness, as Carson said the list is fairly unremarkable, isn’t it?

-Now, one piece connected to last week: because the skill is teaching, that limits this office to qualified men, which is why our elders are only men here. That’s not a way of looking to denigrate or demean women, it’s a way of following God’s good design for His church.

-Where I would argue the church has run into problems is by NOT using this list and instead adopting other expectations for what should mark leaders, and in many cases the other list is worldly.

-I think back to some of my experiences with elders in previous churches. One church I served at was in an area with an Air Force Base nearby, and the military’s idea of leadership is a little different than Jesus’s idea of leadership! One of the elders decided he needed to teach a Sunday school class on leadership because the church just didn’t understand it. He said leadership was about taking charge and telling people what to do (not a bully?), when I asked about Jesus’s example about washing the disciple’s feet I was told that was for a different context. 

-Friends, this list that God has given us isn’t an optional add on. And how often do our expectations for leaders adopt worldly models instead of biblical models? We look for a CEO or someone with business experience instead of someone who’s faithfully following after God, and what we read in Scripture is God chooses what the world thinks is foolish. 

-But as you remember, this isn’t the only office listed in 1 Timothy 3! Paul goes on to 1 other:

  • What is a Deacon?

-Once again, we start with the name. Deacon is used all over the NT, but most of the time it’s translated as “servant,” and once Latin became the common language, it got translated into “minister” (do you see why I think everyone’s confused about terms today!) Here’s a couple verses that you may recognize where the word is used:

-So in one sense, every one of us is called to “deacon” each other, we’re all supposed to look for opportunities to serve each other. But there’s a difference between a general gift and being called to a church office, and this is also true of the elder/shepherd role. I know some women who are MUCH more gifted than I am pastorally (as shepherds), but that doesn’t mean they should be serving in the OFFICE of pastor/elder. Same here, just because all of us are called to serve each other doesn’t mean everyone is called to serve in the OFFICE of deacon, offices are recognized by the church to help serve in some specific way.

-Not mentioned a lot in the NT (unless you count all the times “servant” is used), but notice that Paul specifically says “likewise” in 1 Tim. Connecting it to the office of elder, and I would argue that we see it develop in 1 other place that we’ll get to after we look at the qualifications of a Deacon.

-First, do you see all the similarities between the 2 lists? Again, nothing extraordinary about this list, someone who is living a faithful Christian life.

-Now, one thought that may be slightly contentious, but I would argue that the flow of this section matters greatly, because I would argue that this office is open to women. See, God’s design for the church doesn’t prohibit women from all leadership in the church, women are VITAL to God’s good plans, but the office that is also open to women is Deacons. Why do I think that?

-Vs. 11, I would argue should instead be translated at “Women” referring to women deacons, so then the flow of this passage is:

-If this office is only mentioned once, what should deacons do?

–Acts 6, while it doesn’t list the office of Deacon, most people believe this is the origination of the office, where we see what Deacons are called to do, as well as a glimpse of what Elders are to focus on. Remember, not better/less than, both are essential for a healthy church to flourish, and both are appointed by God and recognized by the congregation.

-Unity was being threatened, so a group was set apart from the congregation to work towards building the harmony that only comes about through the gospel.

-In our Western ears this sounds like it’s creating a class system: Twelve are too good to wait on tables, but that’s not what’s happening, it’s splitting the needs up so everyone can better serve in their giftings and callings. If the elders were busy dealing with the daily food distribution it would take time away from them focusing on prayer and the ministry of the word (their primary task), doesn’t mean they’d never wait on tables, it means that’s not their primary focus.

-I’ll tell a personal anecdote from my ministry. In my first role, I was tasked with leading a children’s VBS. Can I do it? Sure! But I absolutely despised every piece of it! I wasn’t particularly good at planning it out, wasn’t good at coming up with a theme, wasn’t good at engaging the kids, I’ll be honest this was not in my top 5 skill set (probably not top 500 skill set)! But it succeeded when I recruited someone who was both passionate and gifted at it! It wasn’t below me at all, but it wasn’t the best use of my time. Similarly here: elders are primarily called to Word based ministry (of which I’d say prayer is a piece) and deacons are primarily called to service based ministry, and look at the outcome of this:

-“The Word of God spread.” Because the church was following God’s design and plan.

-So my proposal: Christ ruled, Elder led, Deacon served, and congregationally governed so that the Word of God may continue to spread, that the church may be built, that the saints can use their gifts, and that most importantly God would be honored and glorified in us and through us. 

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by mikethestrand on January 26, 2025  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on January 26, 2025

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2025/01/26/church-offices-sermon-manuscript/

Gender Roles in the Church – Sermon Manuscript

-Swimming, going off into the deep end today, as there’s some issues that we can’t paint with a broad brush on. Today’s message is one of those. 

-Make sure you have your Bibles out! We’ve got a bunch of texts to look at today!

-We’ll also be dealing with some difficult hermeneutical issues where some verses at first glance seem to be contradicting each other, so it’s important for us to understand the way all the pieces of the Bible fit together, otherwise the Bible is prone to misinterpretation and mis-application. 

Today’s topic is: gender roles in the church. We have talked about gender roles in marriage before, in our series through Ephesians, but today’s topic is a little different, and the question before us is: what does the Bible say are the appropriate roles to which we’re called? Is there anything that’s off limits to anyone? 

-This is not a major, but it is a distinctive of the EFCA and of our church. Even if you don’t agree with us on this issue, you’re welcome to join us, get plugged in and involved, as long as you know this is where we land. 

-Before we dive in, let’s read the first thing the Bible tells us about gender:

READ/PRAY

As we begin to think through gender roles, there are 4 primary “camps” that have different conclusions about this issue. We’ll begin with those 2 on the outside: first – feminism. 

Feminism argues that women are superior to men, thus women should lead everything. 

-I’ve actually gotten into trouble with people on this label before, so let me clarify. If your mind goes to women voting, working outside the home, or being fully equal to men when you heard the word “feminism” that’s not what it means today. If you search “fifth wave feminism” you’ll see a few articles talking about the way feminism has shifted over the past 100 years to focus now on things like intersectionality, or some even argue that 4th wave feminism is reacting to being “postfeminist”

–Within feminism, there’s a tendency to appeal to cases of abuse, of domineering, and of aggression and use that as the reason why all men are evil. They also have a tendency to throw out the Bible for the sake of experience or philosophical ideas. NOW – experience in and of itself is not bad, nor is philosophy, the problem is when those become the measuring stick instead of using the Bible which is dangerous! This leads them to generally be pro-abortion and pro-homosexual marriage because the standard of judgment is simply what feels right or fighting for whomever is marginalized. 

Patriarchy is the other side that we want to avoid. 

This takes the opposite approach in that men are superior to women, thus women are expected to remain passive and unengaged while the men make all the decisions. This has led to some immense oppression and neglect for women, and has led to the detriment of the church because women have not been encouraged to use their gifts, meaning half of the church isn’t involved in the life of the church. Think of what it would be like if you neglected or marginalized half of your body! Unfortunately, many people view this and complementarian as synonyms, but they are distinct positions, and some who claim complementarian are actually patriarchalists, so it gets difficult to define.

-Neither of these are good, so we’re down to these 2:

Egalitarianism argues that gender distinctives were part of the Fall, thus in this New Covenant area that we currently reside in, there is to be no distinctive anywhere. 

Any role that is open to men should be open to women as well. Where this is distinct from feminism is egalitarians will actually argue from the Bible, which is good! They appeal to passage like Gal. 3:28, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave not free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Their basic premise is that any gender role distinctive in the Bible are exclusively cultural, thus they are not applicable to today. This was the view of the college and seminary I attended, thus I’ve had to wrestle through this issue pretty intimately!

Where the EFCA, and South Suburban land is:

Complementarianism:

Coined in 1987 in Danvers, Massachusetts leading to the Danvers Statement, Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CAVEAT) 

-QUOTE

-Complementarians believe that men and women have distinct and unique roles to fulfill in the home and in church. This is based on passages that we’ll dig in to later, like 1 Timothy 2:12 “I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man; rather; she is to remain quiet.” 

-‘Where We Stand in the EFCA’

-Part of the difficulty, then is the old question: how far is too far? It’s one thing to ascribe to complementarianism theoretically, it’s a different thing to ascribe to it in practice. That’s where some who claim to be complementarian are practically patriarchs, and others who claim it are practically egalitarians. Within complementarianism there is a different scale. So those are waters we’ll be swimming in during our time together today: what does it mean to be complementarian, and what does that look like?

  1. Both Men and Women Are Created in the Image of God (Gen. 1)

This is where God begin, thus it’s where we’ll begin, and it should be a bit of a “well…duh!” but if it’s important enough for God to say it, it’s important enough for us to be reminded of it. 

-Both men and women are created in the image of God. Neither sex can claim to be “better” than the other because we both are created in the image of God. And both being created that way is “very good.” It is very good that we have men and women. 

-But let’s look at 2:18, A helpmate, a companion, a suitable other. This isn’t demeaning or belittling to Adam or Eve, this is necessary. In fact, this word ezer helper here is used to describe God in places like Psalm 54:4 “God is my helper; the Lord is the upholder of my life.” Psalm 118:7, “The Lord is on my side as my helper; I shall look in triumph on those who hate me.” Adam needed Eve to fulfill God’s mandate in his life, just as Eve needed Adam to fulfill God’s mandate for her life. This is not a greater than/less than, this is a beautiful outworking of our genders for the fullness that God has intended in our lives. 

-This is why we throw out feminism and patriarchy, BOTH sexes are equal in dignity, value, and worth. There is no better or less than in genders when it comes to salvation, to gifting, or calling. “The ground is level at the foot of the cross.” In God’s eyes, no gender is superior. 

-At the same time, notice that Eve isn’t the one held accountable for her sin in Gen. 3, God comes to Adam and asks him what he’s done. 

-This means that for men, there’s liability or accountability that women won’t have. 

-Men – you will be judged for how well the set the spiritual climate of your home. Yet both men and women are called by God and used by Him, let’s look at some examples of that.

  1. Both Men and Women Are Used By God (Judges 4, John 4, Rom. 12, 1 Cor. 12)

-This point should be another “Well…duh!” point for you! 

-Nowhere in the Bible does it say that ONLY one gender can be used by God to fulfill his mission of spreading the gospel to the ends of the earth. Think of just a few chapters later in Genesis 18 when the Lord tells Abraham and Sarah that they would have a kid in their old age. Sarah isn’t treated as lesser than or ignored, but God addresses her directly in confirming that they’d have a kid.

-Or think of Miriam, the sister of Moses in Ex. 15 after Pharoah and his army have been rushed by the Red Sea:

-Or one of the most often mentioned people is Deborah in Judges 4. 

-This is one of the most cited examples by Egalitarians for their position that every position should be available to men and women. 

-Question in seminary: “Deborah was a prophet, judge and leader in Israel. Does this affect your view of women in ministry today?” I didn’t score very highly on my answer, and the prof who generally didn’t interact with our posts sent me a lengthy reply about why I was wrong. So as complimentarians, what do we do with this idea that Deborah was a leader? It’s a GREAT reminder that we NEED to be encouraging women to use their gifts for the sake of the body! 

-Imperative to distinguish between that which is DEscriptive and that which is PREscriptive. 

-There’s a lot of things that are descriptive in the Bible that we shouldn’t emulate. Abraham had multiple wives. Moses had a temper and killed an Egpytian. Notice that after those stories it DOESN’T say “go and do likewise.” Or even closer to the story of Deborah – Samson, who was a hot mess! His life reads like a season of The Bachelor. Again, doesn’t say “go and be like Samson”

-One thing the text does NOT say: Deborah was a priest. Those who served as Priests in the OT HAD to be men. There is no instance of a women “priestess” in the Bible. So we already see that there is some distinction between the roles of men & women in the OT. But does that change under the New Covenant, as some have argued? 

-John 4 the woman at the well. Verse 27 Think of this woman’s testimony! And she willingly runs and shares it!

-Jesus thought both men and women were crucial for faithful ministry.

-Think of Mary and Martha and Lazarus in John 11:5, Again, we see that Jesus ministered to both men and women, and both men and women were used by God. 

-We also read that women traveled with Jesus and the 12 and supported Jesus during His ministry (Luke 8)

-BUT there’s again a distinction. 

-How many of the 12 that Jesus called were women? 0 

-Some have argued that Jesus didn’t want to upset the social norms, but do you really think Jesus had any issues upsetting the social norms that weren’t applicable to them? He seemed to push back to any and every issue that needed! Sabbath, tithing, lusting, giving, the law, relationships with Gentiles…to name just a few. So all that to say, that again there seems to be a distinction between the roles of men and women, even in how Jesus ministered to people.  

-Also important, is that spiritual gifts are not gendered.

Romans 12:3-8. Prophecy, service, teaching, exhortation, giving, leading, mercy. None of these say only for women OR men.

-At the end of Romans, Paul beings by thanking Phoebe, a woman, and in the list of names are both men AND women who are using their gifts for the sake of the church. 

-1 Corinthians 12:4-13.

Wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, distinguishing between spirits, tongues, interpretation of tongues. 

-Again, doesn’t say only for women OR men. Open to everyone, regardless of the gender.

-We’ve seen God doesn’t care about which gender you are in order to use you, and that God equips everyone regardless of their gender for the sake of the church. But, that doesn’t mean that any role in the church is open to anyone. 

-One of the greatest disservices in the church is encouraging people in areas of weakness for the sake of being “nice.” Front row seat to this with music, but you’ve all seen it on American Idol! I had a friend who only watched the first 2 episodes every season. 

  1. Everyone Isn’t Called to Every Role (Eph. 4, 1 Cor. 11 & 14, 1 Tim. 2)

-Before we dig into this, one note for us to keep in mind. God’s Word is sufficient, and I would argue a lot more clear on how the church is supposed to be ordered than many people want to admit. One of the things we need to realize is the church isn’t like any other earthly institution, it’s actually completely alien to the world! The church is supposed to be an outpost of heaven, therefore we need to order ourselves differently from the world and follow the Bible where it commands us, but no further, that’s where we start to get into trouble and start demanding people follow man-made rules.

–Eph. 4 Notice how the body builds itself up: “proper working of each individual part.”

-Don’t belittle or diminish your role and gift in the church! I think this is part of where confusion about gender roles come from, in God’s alien kingdom, one gift isn’t better than the other. Many of those gifts that aren’t seen are the most important. There are people that come here on a regular basis just to clean and organize this room! Yes, some gifts are more visible than others, but don’t belittle your gift at the expense of wishing you had a different gift. (1 Cor. 12:27-31 addresses this issue)

-There are a couple key passages that we need to deal with to understand this issue, and as I said, we’re going to go wading through some weeds here. 

-1 Corinthians 14:32-35. (1020)

At first glance, this seems to be quite restrictive, doesn’t it? So how do we faithfully exegete these verses, and then apply them to today? 

Remember: spiritual gifts are not gendered, so now turn back a page to 1 Corinthians 11. 

1 Corinthians 11-14 are all a part of the same section dealing with the question: what should we do when we gather as the church? What does it look like? 

-1 Cor. 11:2-16. (1017-1018)

-Notice especially verse 5. So this is in the gathering where women are praying and prophesying. 

-So how do we reconcile these 1 Cor. 11 with 1 Cor. 14? 

-Some have argued that Paul’s prohibition here is exclusively cultural, and not applicable to today. They compare it to a passage like: 1 Corinthians 16:20. “Greet one another with a holy kiss.” One commentator said, “Greet each other with a hearty handshake!” 

-3 words: context, context, context. 

-This whole section is a reminder that what we do when we gather is supposed to build each other up. Even the spiritual gifts that we are given are supposed to be used to build each other up and help us in our walk with the Lord. 

-Let’s read 1 Cor. 14:26-35. Orderly Worship.

-We’ve got this leadership that oversees and judges the prophecies that are being made. This is a position of authority in the church, thus it impacts who can serve in this role. Paul’s prohibition here doesn’t mean that women aren’t supposed to do anything but attend on Sunday morning, instead he’s saying that in the judgment of prophecies, women are not to oversee. We don’t have time to get into the nuances of what constitutes a prophecy today, that’s a discussion for a different time, but we do see that women are encouraged to pray and prophecy in church, but not sit in judgment about the validity of the prophecies. There’s a big distinction between the 2! 

1 Timothy 2:8-15 (991)

-Specifically verse 12, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.” 

-Once again, people have argued that this was contextual, and thus does not carry weight for us today. Letter was written to Timothy who was at Ephesus, primary god was Artemis who was a woman, thus many women in Ephesus were what we would call feminists. (false argument, Artemis also had male priests) But Paul doesn’t ground his reason for this in the Artemis worship – it’s grounded in pre-fall creation, signifying that as long as man is created first, and then Eve created second, this prohibition remains in effect. Meaning, it’s still in effect today, and will continue to be until Christ returns. 

-There is an element that is counter-cultural here, look at verse 11: “Let a woman learn” Women had no place to be taught and learn apart from the home.

-Now, we have to ask the question here: what kind of teaching? Because once again this cannot be an absolute prohibition because we’ve got other passages like:

Titus 2:3-4

2 Timothy 1:5

Acts 18:26

Colossians 3:16

-We see other places in the Bible, even in Paul’s writings, women are encouraged to teach! 

-Then what kind of teaching is Paul talking about restricting in 1 Tim.? Remember that we saw in the spiritual gifts passage that some people are given the gift of teaching. But not everyone is given that gift! So not everyone is called to teach. So just because you’re a man doesn’t mean you should be teaching in the church if that’s not your gift.

-James 3:1

-Doug Moo, “While the word [teaching] can be used more broadly to describe the generally ministry of edification that takes place in various ways, the activity usually designated by teach is plainly restricted to certain individuals who have the gift of teaching. This makes it clear that not all Christians are engaged in teaching. In the pastoral epistles, teaching always has this restricted sense of authoritative doctrinal instruction.” 

-Thus 2 Timothy gives us 2 restrictions: women are not to teach Christian doctrine to men, and they are not to exercise authority over men in the church. 

-That being said, when does a boy become a man? Where do we draw the line where we should be encouraging women to teach and serve in various areas, and not others? What constitutes Christian doctrine? What does it mean to “exercise authority over”? Great questions! I don’t have time to answer them today! I’m just trying to give an overview of this! 

-Part of the difficulty is this position and idea has been used throughout history to marginalize women, which goes contrary to what the Bible commands! I think part of it is because many people are scared to disobey the Bible (good concern!) but that leads them to forgetting to encourage and foster women to serve in the church. (except for in women’s ministry and the nursery…)

-So what does that mean for us? Here at South Suburban, you’ll see women helping us worship God through singing, encouraging us through praying, reading Scripture to us, sharing their testimonies of God how is working in their lives to encourage us, in fact our staff is primarily comprised of women using their gifts, BUT you won’t see a women preaching. Again I don’t have time for this, but part of it gets to the role of preaching in the church being one of authority and speaking on behalf of God to his people (not something to take lightly!)

But this is also why I don’t want to end with the prohibition passages! Because:

  1. Everyone Is Called to Serve Within Their Gifts (1 Cor. 12)

-Everyone here has been uniquely gifted by God for the sake of building each other up. Within the spiritual realm there is a unique sense of equality between all the gifts where we all need each other to function in a healthy manner. 

1 Cor. 12:21

-Similarly, men cannot say to women “I have no need of you,” or women to men “I have no need of you.” Instead, we all need each other to build each other up and encourage each other to become more like Christ.

-Friends, this means none of you are off the hook from using your gifts to serve Christ’s body here! It requires all of us to give of ourselves, it requires us to be obedient to what God has commanded, even the sticky and difficult parts, but, it’s also completely worth it. God’s ways are best, and it’s only be faithfully following in His ways that we’ll find life to the full.

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by mikethestrand on January 19, 2025  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Church, Relationships, Sermon, Theology
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Posted by mikethestrand on January 19, 2025

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2025/01/19/gender-roles-in-the-church-sermon-manuscript/

The Called Out Ones – Sermon Manuscript

-Starting a new series for January that’s a continuation of what we’ve done the past couple years, “Theological Tune Up” but the tune up is only going to be connected to 1 thing: the church. 

-The 1 thing I’m most passionate about is the church. The church is what Jesus died for, the church is what Jesus promised that the gates of hell would not prevail against, and the church is what is going to last into eternity.

-The church isn’t viewed with a lot of trust today! Most people like to complain about the church, point out the problems in the church, run away from the church, but if God has promised that He will build His church, then if we claim to follow God that includes following Him in working to build His church.

-For today’s sermon, the most helpful book, and what I’m borrowing heavily from is The Local Churchby Edward Klink (EFCA Pastor in Roscoe, IL)

-We’re going to be looking at some important things about the church over the next few week: next week we’ll look at the practices of the church (baptism and communion), we’ll also look at how the church functions with men and women working together (complementarianism), and finally we’ll look at the implication of that in the offices God has called for the church to function (elders and deacons)

-It’s been interesting over my life seeing the engagement of people toward the church shift in some pretty dramatic ways.

-Growing up it was fairly trendy to engage in church. Even if you weren’t super involved, people still wanted some associating to the church (90s) but that’s looking back with slightly rose-colored glasses, because I was told that we were facing increasing hostility and persecution from the world (hence my parents homeschooling me to provide a safe environment for me). I even have a distinct memory of my mom telling me in early Middle School that it would break her heart, but even if someone were to take me away from her she wouldn’t be able to deny Jesus. You want trauma, let me tell you about it! 

-Starting in the late 90s into early 2000s came what became known as the “emergent church” movement. One of the leading churches was in Minneapolis called “Solomon’s Porch” (to the surprise of no one, it no longer exists). They started asking questions about the way church was run, so at Solomon’s Porch they sat on couches and had conversations, not sermons. I got to attend another emergent church called Mars Hill in Grand Rapids, where instead of having a platform on one side, they had a platform in the middle of the room. Asked TONS of questions of Christianity, but never seemed to resolve any of them, so pretty soon they tore down even the essentials of the faith (which is why many of them now are self-proclaimed speakers, writers, and activists)

-After that was what was called the “missional church” movement, where it was thought that the problem was the buildings and institutions, so we need to focus our energy outside the walls and become “missional” in everything we do. After all, God is a sending God (sent His Son, sends the Spirit, sends us as his missionaries). But if that’s true, then where and why do we ever meet? And why does Paul talk about the churches meeting in specific locations in His letters?

-And all this was before every church went livestream during COVID (remember those days??) and I think that even further revealed the ways we think about the church are so broken. I talked to some people who enjoyed being able to “attend” different churches each week because everyone was online!

-Also add in the rise of the EX-vangelical, the deconstructing of faith (including famous people like Joshua Harris who write I Kissed Dating Goodbye), the general distrust of institutions, and the church looks to be on either the losing side, or the wrong side of history. I even know of someone who used to be a pastor at an EFCA church nearby that is now working on trying to create “micro-churches” which are basically Life Groups that are all independent.

-So why on earth would someone devote their life to working in the church? What’s the point of fighting against these cultural tides and what should the church actually look like? Is the micro church more accurate than us gathering in a large room each week? 

-The reality is there are benefits to every component that I’ve mentioned, but they take either an implication or a periphery of what the church is called to be and make it the primary identity marker, which means everything is going to be off because of that.

-If you ever mow your lawn and pick the wrong spot in the distance to aim at, doesn’t your entire mowing line get thrown off? My back yard is a weird shape so I make it work, but it still bothers me! 

-We need to understand what God has called to the church to do and be PRIMARILY so that we can distinguish between the essential, the good or helpful, and the things that we really shouldn’t be spending our time on. 

READ/PRAY

-Let’s begin with what is essential: Belgic Confession of Faith (1561): 3 markers according to this. 

-EFCA:                

-Here we see some additional pieces, such as “all who have been justified” that is the members of the church must be believers. We also see the interplay between the invisible church and the invisible church. See every believer is immediately brought into the invisible church, but that also means they must look to live out that spiritual reality in the physical reality of a local church. 

-This is why I’ve talked so much and so regularly here about church membership since I first came! Whether you want to admit it or not, membership is the expectation for a Christian, it’s not salvific (just like baptism isn’t salvific), but it’s essential to your sanctification (growth in holiness). I’ve preached on this before, and we’ve got a membership class coming up on Feb. 9, so if you want to hear the whole reason I think membership is important come to that class! But to summarize, I’ll quote from the book I mentioned earlier: 

-Gospel, ordinances (sacraments), church discipline (which is a subset of the sacraments, and requires church leadership, we’ll get to that next week)

-These are the things that MUST be in place for a church to be called a church, if you don’t have 1 of those 3, by definition you don’t have a church. What’s fascinating to me is how often 1 of 2 of these get thrown out for convenience.

  1. Called Out By God

-When we talk about the church, we’re referring to the Greek word “ekklesia” which is a compound word made up of “from” and “to call” so literally the church is to be “called out from” or the “called out ones.” Generally in English we translate it as an “assembly,” “gathering,” or “church.”  

-But the key I want you to remember from this is that the church is meant to be those who are called out, and not just called out, but called out by God Himself. This is what the EFCA SOF is getting at when it says “The true church is manifest in local churches, whose membership should be composed only of believers.” 

-The difficulty is that there are people who come to church each week who aren’t believers, and each church is going to have strengths and weaknesses, just like individual Christians have strengths and weaknesses. 

-One of the most helpful things the elders have used on a regular basis in the midst of our conversations about the way we structure our church is this graph. On this side of eternity, there will be no perfect church ever! Even when people who are Christians spend time together, there’s going to be conflict and issues because sin impacts all of us. But that doesn’t mean we run away from the church, it generally means we need to double down on our commitment, confess were we’ve sinned against others, forgive as Jesus forgave us, and work through the issues TOGETHER. This is how we move to a more pure church, TOGETHER. You literally can’t have a church by yourself! And at the same time, at some point the lack of purity in a church means they move from being a church to not being a church. However, the bar there is fairly basic, remember 3 things: gospel is being preached, sacraments or ordinances are being practiced, and church discipline is taking place (often we don’t know when it’s happening, Matt. 18)

-Back to the called out idea, God has always had a group of people that He has called out to be His faithful representatives to the world. Starting with Adam and Eve, then calling out Noah, then calling out Abraham from among the nations, then calling out the nation of Israel, then calling out His Son, and then now He calls out people to move from the world into being a part of His Kingdom, which is represented by the church, as we heard when we read through 1 Peter (we’re getting close to getting there!) But first, a brief overview of God’s calling out throughout Scripture.

-First, God calls out to creation in calling it, he separates the skies, the waters, the lands. Then He calls out to a person (Adam) and commissions Him to join with God in caring for the creation and expanding God’s rule over the rest of creation. But then Adam wants to BE God instead of obeying God, and He chooses sin instead of obedience, and then we read this fascinating account of God’s response.

-Even in sin, God’s response is to continue moving toward His people.

-Then God calls out a specific person, and tells Abram His plans.

-And the book of Hebrews tells us that Abraham did this by faith, and in Galatians Paul tells us that this promise is fulfilled in the church.

-History moves forward, and Abraham’s descendants are sold into slavery in Egypt, but then God decides to save them through Moses, and God calls out to him from a burning bush while he’s working as a shepherd for his FIL.

-Last picture I want you to see of this is when God speaks to Isaiah to remind His people who has created them. 

-Friends, this is vital for us to understand. God is the one who calls and creates a people. It’s not something we do in our own power or strength, it’s only done by God’s sovereign hand. This is also true of the church! No person can create a church in their own power, it’s only done by God’s sovereign hand. So when we talk about the church, we ALWAYS need to remember that we are talking about God’s church. We’re just stewards, tasked with caring for a church in this time and place, but God is the only one who can claim ownership of every church. That’s why it’s so important for us to focus on the church!

  • By God We Are…

-With that, we can now come to Peter, where we see that the church has been called out from darkness into marvelous light. Look at all the descriptions: chosen race, royal priesthood, holy nation, people for his possession, proclaim the praises, God’s people.

-4 things, seen in your outline, but before we see what we are, what does this mean the church is NOT:

-Church is not: 

-a social club. Not gathering to socialize around any human activity. Socializing is a component and will happen naturally, but that’s not the definition of a church. 

-a community organizing group. Not meant to create community, community is the byproduct of being brought into the family of God, but it is not a church

-merely a building. As we’ll see in a minute, the church needs a building, some kind of place to meet, and it helps to have 1 spot where we can gather, but the church can gather even without a building

-a voluntary society. This is why we need to remember that God is the one who creates the church. If we’re a Christian, we commit to the church.

-a political action committee. As Chuck Colson used to say “Salvation doesn’t come on Air Force One.” Jesus rules above any political conversations that take place in our world. Earthly kingdoms rise and fall, but Christ sits forever on His throne ruling through His church.

-a metaphor. We tend to talk more about the invisible church and give secondary importance to the visible church of which we’re participating now. Church isn’t just a reference to a theoretical idea, it’s referring to a real thing.

-coffee with friends. That’s an outworking of it (especially when it’s good coffee), but that’s not a replacement for the actual weekly gathering of God’s people.

-A human endeavor. Only done by and for God.

-Look at how the NT describes the church.

  1. Present – a chosen race 

-A component to being a part of a specific lineage or family is location. Think of how much time people spent on their ancestry (I’m 100% Norwegian, thank you very much). This idea that we are a chosen race means that we’re supposed to be God’s ministering presence in the world.

-Think of it like a country and an individual. Anyone who owns a home has a spot to call their own within the boundaries of a country. Similarly, each local church is a part of the universal church (visible vs. invisible), but God places each church in a location for a purpose! To shine as His marvelous light into the darkness.

-This means the south metro should know that we’re here! If we’re commissioned by God to shine as a light, we must bring that light into the world with us. We need to look for ways to be present and engaged in the area God has placed us. This is where we need to acknowledge the reality that the church is an institution AND an organism. NT wording lean toward organism (body, flock), but the rest of the NT writings lean toward institution (a way of conducting ourselves)

-Believing the truth of the Gospels will lead to organizing yourself by the way the Epistles describe.

  • Priests

-Priests work as a go between so humans can meet with God. 3 components to this: corporately, individually, restricted.

-Corporately: we are to be a blessing to the world. We work to bring good into every sphere of human endeavor in which we participate. If we believe God is God then nothing is outside His oversight. Work, play, eating, resting are all to be brought underneath His Lordship. 1 Cor. 5 describes us as ambassadors, God is working to reconcile the world to Himself through the church:

-Individually: each of us is responsible to do that in our lives. All of us are meant to know God’s Word and be changed by knowing and applying God’s Word.

-Restricted: some people are set apart, recognized by God and the church as leaders, we call these pastors/elders. Not better, just called to a higher level of service. I have the freedom to read and study with the hours that many of you spend working to provide for your families or take care of your home. It’s not better, it’s a different calling, we’ll get to that in a few weeks!

  • Pilgrims

-Not Thanksgiving pilgrims, “a holy nation” a people who aren’t at home here. The early church was actually described as living as foreigners, only making use of their earthly citizenship when it served to help them spread the gospel. We need to be careful to regularly remember that this world isn’t our home. We’re not primarily Americans, we’re primarily Christians, our heavenly home will never disappear! 

-Church is supposed to be a picture of that! An embassy in a foreign land where we’re reminded what our home looks like!

  • Proclaimers

-“So that you may proclaim the praises of the one who called you.”

-Our response matters in light of who God is. We proclaim the truths of the Bible in order for us to be reminded each and every week who we are, why we’re here, and what our aim in life is. On top of that, the Word of God compels us to proclaim to the world those exact same realities: Jesus is the King, and only by obeying Him and entering into His church can the world make sense.

-The church matters, and should matter to us because it matters to God. And God also has told us how the church should function and operate, and it comes down to us living in the reality of God calling us out of darkness and into His marvelous light, where we’re now a part of a body, a temple, a new people who are under God.

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by mikethestrand on January 5, 2025  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Blog, Church, Sermon
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Posted by mikethestrand on January 5, 2025

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2025/01/05/the-called-out-ones-sermon-manuscript/

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