preach
The Heart of a Leader
By Linda Rex
November 5, 2023, Proper 26 | After Pentecost—In last week’s message we took a look at the heart of a shepherd, which is meant to be formed after and by the heart of the Great Shepherd, Jesus Christ. The heart of a shepherd was likened by the apostle Paul with that of a nursing mother tenderly caring for her child.
Moving into the passage for this Sunday, 1 Thessalonians 2:9–13, we find that the apostle Paul is still feeling the need to defend his ministry from the criticisms of those who opposed it. The apostle explained that he cared for the members of the church as a father would train and teach his children, encouraging and exhorting them to grow up in Christ. At the same time, Paul and his co-workers worked day and night doing hard labor in order to provide for themselves, so that the believers in Thessalonica would not have to support them. Any preaching or teaching had to be done while they were working or in the late afternoons and evenings when their other work was done.
This pattern of physical labor, self-support, and pastoral ministry was an important mark of Paul’s love and concern for the believers he ministered to and cared for. Additionally, Paul and his co-workers were diligent to live in such a manner that it was obvious to the believers, as it was to God, that they were behaving “devoutly and uprightly and blamelessly” toward the believers in everything they said and did. And it was also clear to the members of the church at Thessalonica that Paul and his co-workers weren’t just preaching the Word—they were living it out in their lives, doing their best to model self-sacrificial service and love just as Jesus, the living Word, had done while here on earth.
This is a profound contrast with the spiritual leaders Jesus confronted in the Gospel reading for this Sunday, Matthew 23:1–12. Jesus told the crowds and his disciples to beware of the spiritual leaders of his day who were more concerned about the adulation of the crowds and stuffing their pouches full of money than they were the needs and concerns of the people they cared for. They wanted to be elevated to positions of prominence at events, to be called “rabbi” or “teacher”, and to be greeted respectfully in the public square. While demanding strict legal obedience from their followers, their own hearts were filled with greed, selfishness, and pride. No wonder Jesus told his listeners not to follow their example.
What struck me when reading these two passages together was that, apart from Christ’s intervention in Paul’s life, he would have been one of those people Jesus described. In fact, he had been very much like those spiritual leaders Jesus said not to follow, for he had, as a law-abiding Pharisee, persecuted the early church and had sought the death and imprisonment of the believers.
But the miracle was, by the time the apostle was writing this letter to the church at Thessalonica, Paul had become a gift from God to the church at Thessalonica and the other churches of his day. Christ, by the Spirit, had done a transformational work in Paul’s mind and heart. This knowledge did not make Paul proud. Rather, it humbled him and gave him a powerful gospel message, one of salvation, redemption, faith, and patience for those to whom he ministered.
Our best witness for the God of Jesus Christ is the work the Spirit is doing and has done, in our own hearts and lives as God’s children. Authenticity, transparency, humility, and service are a hallmark of a follower of Jesus Christ.
Many pastors today are bi-vocational pastors who work a full or part time job while pastoring their churches. In many ways, they are following the model of Paul and the early church leaders. As they and the members they serve live out an authentic Christ-centered life within their community, each person has many opportunities to share the good news with others just as Paul did. As believers follow Christ and open their hearts and minds to the Spirit, growing in their own personal relationship with Jesus Christ, they are able to share the good news of Jesus Christ with those they meet just as Paul and his co-workers shared it with the people of their day.
Heavenly Father, thank you for those you have called and gifted to serve as pastors and spiritual mentors. By your Spirit, make us humble servant-hearted believers who care for others, and enable us to live out and share the life of Christ you are forming within us with others. Grant us the grace to be transparent, authentic, humble and ever willing to serve, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
“For you recall, brethren, our labor and hardship, how working night and day so as not to be a burden to any of you, we proclaimed to you the gospel of God. You are witnesses, and so is God, how devoutly and uprightly and blamelessly we behaved toward you believers; just as you know how we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring each one of you as a father would his own children, so that you would walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory. For this reason we also constantly thank God that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe.” 1 Thessalonians 2:9–13 NASB
[Printable copy: https://lifeinthetrinity.blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/olitthe-heart-of-a-leader.pdf ]
[More devotionals may be found at https://lifeinthetrinity.blog ]
[Subscribe to Our Life in the Trinity YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/@ourlifeinthetrinity ]
The Whole Message
By Linda Rex
I recall when I was growing up being told by ministers the true gospel preached by Jesus was about the kingdom of God to be would be inaugurated when Jesus came back to earth after the great tribulation had occurred. I remember these men ridiculed the messages taught by mainstream Christian faiths, saying that the gospel preached by such churches wasn’t the true gospel but a false, misleading one.
Since that time, the Spirit has been gracious and has helped me see there was a lot of misleading information I took in and believed which I needed to reexamine. And when I did reexamine the gospel message Jesus and his disciples preached, I found that it wasn’t at all what I was being told it was. In fact, it was something entirely different.
For example, in Acts 4, Peter and John were put into prison because they were “teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead.” (Acts 4:2) Later when the Council threatened them and told them not to preach in Jesus’ name any longer, they replied, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to give heed to you rather than to God, you be the judge; for we cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard.” (Acts 4:19–20) In other words, they were telling people what they had witnessed in Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, not about some new kingdom, or some laws they were to live by, or some days they were to keep.
The apostle Paul, after his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus, “immediately … began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, ‘He is the Son of God.’” (Acts 9:20) His message had to do with who Jesus was and what he did when he was here on earth. And whenever Paul made a defense in regards to why he was doing the ministry he was doing, he told who Jesus was and what he did, but also what Jesus had done in his life, and how Paul had been changed by his encounter with Jesus. The gospel he shared had to do with the life of Jesus, and how the living Jesus impacted his own life in a powerful way.
When Stephen was taken before the Council and was accused of speaking against the temple and the law, his defense did not involve preaching about some soon-coming king or kingdom. His defense involved telling God’s story—the story of how God worked with Abraham and his descendants to bring them into relationship with himself, and how they had over and over rejected his love and grace, and how in that same way they had rejected his Son Jesus Christ. Stephen died because he told God’s story—the story of God’s life with Israel and the Spirit’s work to bring Israel into a loving, obedient relationship with their covenant God through his Son Jesus Christ. (Acts 7)
When the high priest and the Sadducees put the apostles in prison out of jealousy because the crowds were being healed and delivered from evil spirits, we read an angel came and released them from prison. Then the angel told them, “Go, stand and speak to the people in the temple the whole message of this Life.” (Acts 5:20) And so they did what they were told. And they were found again in the temple preaching the “whole message of this Life”. The high priest and the Sadducees were upset not only because they were preaching about Jesus, his death and resurrection, but they were also angry because the power behind that message was being experienced through people being healed and delivered.
When Peter was sent for by Cornelius, he obeyed the will of the Spirit. Cornelius and his household were prepared to hear the word of the Lord from Peter—he was going to preach the message they needed to hear. And when he spoke, he began with God’s acceptance of all men, but then told them about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and he finished his message by telling them that all who believe in Jesus Christ receive forgiveness of sins. As they listened to this message, God poured out his Holy Spirit on Cornelius and his household—this was a transformational event in the life of the church.
Jesus called certain people to be eyewitnesses of his whole human existence. They had seen, heard and touched him. They knew he was both human and divine. They would truthfully tell “the whole message of this Life” they had experienced firsthand. As the apostle John wrote: “What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life—and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us—what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.” (1 John 1:1–3)
So part of this message which includes the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the good news we all have forgiveness available to us through him. We learn in this message about who Jesus is—the Son of God and the Son of man. We learn that in Jesus Christ we all died and rose again. This message includes God’s story—his life with humanity, with Israel and with his disciples, and with the Church through the ages—as God has interacted with, healed and restored and delivered people by his Holy Spirit. This “whole message of this Life” is so much more than just a message about some king and a kingdom or some rules to live by.
This “whole message of this Life” is life-giving because it is the Spirit who gives the words life. The good news of who Jesus is and what he has done and is doing is transformational because in Christ, we are all forgiven and are given new life. In Jesus Christ we have a hope and a future, no matter what we may be going through right now.
Just as Jesus has become a part of our daily life, he becomes a natural part of our conversation with others. The early persecuted church, “who had been scattered went about preaching [bringing the good news of] the word.” (Acts 8:2) Sharing the good news of Jesus became a part of their everyday life they took with them everywhere they went, no matter their circumstances. As we go about our daily lives, we tell others about who Jesus is and what he has done and is doing. We share with others the ongoing story of what God is doing to transform our lives and the world we are living in.
Even though we have not personally lived with Jesus or personally witnessed his crucifixion and resurrection, we each have our own story of how Jesus met with us and transformed our lives by his indwelling Spirit and his intervention in our lives. We can tell how our lives intersected with God’s life through Jesus and by his Spirit. All God asks us to do is to tell the story, to tell the “whole message of this Life.” Jesus and his Spirit will do the rest.
Holy Father, I pray by your Spirit you would enable us to share with others the “whole message” of your love for humanity expressed to us in the gift of your Son and your Holy Spirit. Empower us to speak with courage and conviction as we tell your story and our story, and the story of Jesus and his transforming and healing power through his life, death and resurrection. I pray more and more people would come to know and receive the forgiveness available to them through Jesus Christ. In his name, we pray. Amen.
“But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the gates of the prison, and taking them out he said, ‘Go, stand and speak to the people in the temple the whole message of this Life.’” Acts 5:19-20 NASB
“’It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.’” John 6:63 NASB
Our Life in the Trinity 