Taking Advantage of Your Leaders

Continue our series, that we've entitled Through the Eyes of Jesus, Seeing Your Church as Jesus sees it. And the title of this morning's message is Taking advantage of your Leaders. we can also title the message, seeing your leaders as Jesus, sees them. Taking advantage of your leaders, taking advantage of your pastors, your care group leaders, your elders.

That's the basic, concept this morning and the result, this message is really a result of a number of conversations amongst our staff. So the things I shared this morning, come out really from the heart of the whole pastoral staff and so I hope that you'll all receive it as such. Milton asked the question if anybody was disappointed with what they got for Christmas. Who raised their hand?

Was there somebody that it was Terrence. OK. All right. Nobody else.

Everybody was satisfied. OK. I, I don't know about you, but I, I get a lot of gift cards during this time of year. And one of the gift cards that I was most excited about was a gift card to the Cheesecake Factory.

And I got this gift card actually from the church. Carlos Limtiaco got all the care group leaders a special gift and so I was really excited about that particular card and not just because it was to the Cheesecake Factory, but because it was for $50. And, which may have gotten me a half a cheesecake, but, But no, I was gonna take, I could just imagine taking Katie down to the restaurant, was really looking forward to that. And I put it on top of the ledge in our living room and then we had some folks over and there's a big flurry to clean up the house and the next day, lo and behold, we cannot find the Cheesecake Factory gift card.

And dad is not happy. Papa's asking all of the children, what did you do with the cheesecake gift card? And it was Anna that took it upon herself, my seven year old daughter, to clean off that ledge. And so we tried to track her steps.

Where did the gift card go? And the best that we could figure out is there were some red pieces of trash that looked somewhat similar to the color of the Cheesecake Factory gift card that we think got into the trash and then the trash got out to the trash in the garage and we put our garage trash out on Monday night and it got dumped Tuesday morning and we were asking these questions Tuesday afternoon. So, we were, I was sick to my stomach. My wife was upset.

But we tried to say to ourselves, what, I, I actually got out that morning for devotions. We read Luke 15 about the parable of the lost coin. And how that the woman sweeps the house and gets the lamps out and I said, children, we're going to sweep the house and look all over the place for this, this gift card. And and then, but the ultimate, purpose of that parable is lost souls, right?

When you find the lost soul, then the Lord's really excited. So if we don't find this gift card, we'll still be excited about the the souls that will be reached during Christmas time. Well, when I opened up my A card for Christmas, from the children. I opened it up and there is the gift card to the Cheesecake Factory.

And so the kids had found it in Joshua's room. Somehow it ended up in Joshua's room and so we're really excited. I, I tell that story just. I was looking forward to taking advantage of this gift that was given to me and without being able to access that gift card, there was no way to take advantage of that gift.

but there, it was in my heart to take advantage of that gift. we have been given a great gift in the church by the Lord Jesus Christ called our pastors and teachers. And the Lord calls upon us to take advantage of those leaders, take advantage of those pastors and teachers, and we want to just speak a little bit this moment about how to take advantage of that great gift that Christ is excited about, and he wants us to be excited. I don't know if you'll be as excited about us as Cheesecake from Cheesecake Factory, but if we understand this gift biblically, we should be excited about the great gift that Christ has given us because He is excited about it.

Let's go ahead and pray and we'll get into the, the main aspect of our message this morning. Lord, we thank you for the gift that you have given us, the gifts of pastors and teachers, and we pray, Father, that we would be as excited about them as you are, that we would see them through your eyes. Take advantage of this gift you've given, for all that it's worth so that you could be glorified in this church till you come in your kingdom. In Christ's name, we pray.

Amen. We're going to look at 5 ways to take advantage of your leaders, and while we'll focus primarily upon our pastors, teachers, elders, this also applies to our care group leaders in a number of ways because our care group leaders are really, they extend the shepherding ministry of our elders. One of the purposes for our care group. Leaders is to help the elders in their in their shepherding ministry.

And so if you're in a care group that is led by someone who's not necessarily an elder or a pastor, many of these things apply to them as well. So let's look at the first of these 5 ways to take advantage of your leaders and open up to Ephesians 4 with me if you would. Ephesians 4. We're going to look at verse 11 and following here for a bit.

And the first way to take advantage of your leaders is to own them as gifts from your Lord Jesus Christ. And that's exactly what Paul says in Ephesians 4:11. Where it says, and he himself gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers. Well, we could talk about the apostolic gift, we could talk about the prophetic gift, we could talk some about the gift of evangelist, which is a special gift that the Lord has given to the church.

I want to focus this morning on the gift of pastors or gifts of pastors and teachers. Jesus Christ himself has gifted the church with pastors and teachers. And this is part of his ministry after his ascension. He ascends to the right hand of the Father, sends the Holy Spirit, and then creates this thing called the Church of Pentecost, and gives to the church, pastors and teachers as a special gift.

And I just want to encourage you to own that gift. Jesus Christ has given us the gift of pastors and teachers, but do we own them as a gift? Do we look at our pastors and teachers as a gift card to the Cheesecake Factory? Or do we look at our pastors and teachers as some block to the things that we want to accomplish in our lives?

Or do we look at our pastors and teachers as some mistake made by the Lord Jesus Christ? Obviously Jesus Christ has given gifted this gift to the church, but he hasn't given perfect men to the church. But in His sovereignty and in His love He has carved out. men to gift to this church and it said this is a love gift to you, Cornerstone Fellowship Bible Church.

And he calls upon us to own that gift. To see it as ours, a gift from the Lord Jesus Christ, that we claim as our very own. I would assume that most of you, once you opened up presents on Christmas morning, you no longer viewed them as the property of the person who gave it to you. It now became your property.

there's a sense in which you are appreciative of the gift. You understand it came from them, but now you began to use that gift as your very own. my children, it's interesting. they got up Sunday morning and we came out to the, to the Christmas tree and my children, Josh and Anna said, mom and dad, why don't you open your presents first?

Eyes got real big and so we said, all right, we opened our presents and then they said, Mom, can we, can we open up our presents after we go to the convalescent home? One of the things that we do on Christmas morning the past several years is we'll take the kids to the convalescent home at Plymouth Towers, and this is Josh and Anna Christmas morning playing their instruments for the elderly at Plymouth Towers here. the Limtiacos, I think the Cheryl Riding and her kids joined us this year.

Had a great time.

So our children said, Can we open up our presents after we go to the convalescent home? We went there and blessed some folks at Plymouth Towers and then came on back and lo and behold, we get back to our home and the kids say absolutely nothing about their presence. And Katie and I look at each other and we want to see how long this is going to go on, so we just don't say anything. They go about their business, start cleaning up around the house, putting dishes away, and we're just amazed.

Now folks, did that really happen? Absolutely not. Well, we did go to the convalescent home, but as soon as the kids get out of bed, they're ready, they're ready to go. We stop, have a little devotion time, and then they're ripped and roaring and having a good time.

It's appropriate for children to be excited about their gifts, right? It's appropriate for anybody to be excited about a gift that's given to them. And nobody looks at children who want to open their presents on Christmas morning as selfish little beasts or monsters. We just say that's, that's what we give gifts for.

We're excited. I'm excited to see my kids excited about their gifts, and Jesus Christ is excited to see his. Church excited about the gifts and one of the gifts that Christ has given to His church is leaders, pastors and teachers. And when he looks at his church and sees a church that's excited about its pastors and teachers, that makes Jesus excited like a father or a mother on Christmas morning.

Amen. And praise the Lord. I, I, the Lord has blessed us here at Cornerstone with, with folks that I think generally are excited about the leaders that Christ has gifted to this church. But there's always room to grow and I just ask you to listen to the Holy Spirit this morning and see if there's a way that you can grow in taking advantage and being more excited about the gift that Christ has given to you., one of the things that we see, in the Bible is the sense of ownership that Christ speaks of for the church or that Paul speaks of, for the gospel.

Jesus says, I will build my church. He, he says, I am the good shepherd, and I know my sheep. Paul, when he's out preaching the gospel, he refers to it on a couple of different occasions as my gospel. Why, why, why does Christ speak of his church?

Why is, why is Paul speaking of my gospel? Why is there a sense, the sense of ownership that we see on the pages of Scripture? I There's a sense in which Christ is excited about the church and he owns the church. Paul's excited about the gospel and he owns the gospel, and I think the Lord would call us to be excited about this church and its leaders and own those leaders.

It's not just that pastor, it's my pastor. It's not just that church, it's my church. We should speak about this church the way we speak about our favorite sports teams. In this offseason, I'm an Angel fan and when I talk to other Angel fans, we don't say the Angels did this, the Angels did that.

What you hear is we lost Lackey to the Red Sox. Right? Or you hear Charger fans say, we beat the Titans Christmas Day, things like that. Or you hear other fans say we lost to the Raiders last week.

Right, the Bronco fans. It's always in this sense of we and our and my. And I personally, I'm so encouraged whenever I'm talking to brothers and sisters and they speak of their local church that way. They talk about my local church or even when we're talking about problems.

I love it when I'm talking to brothers and sisters and, and they say, we've really got to, we've got to do something about this need to reach out to the poor, and they, and they're talking about in we terms. I want to encourage you to do that. it can be somewhat disconcerting for us as leaders when you hear people come and they say, the church really needs to And that's the way they phrase it. Now.

I don't want to pick on you. I've used that terminology, but But what does that say about our heart as far as our ownership of this body? Do we just see this as that church that those guys run and I attend, or is this our church? Is that my senior pastor?

Are these our elders? Is this my care group leader and my care group? So we, we need to own these gifts as from the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the first way I would challenge you this morning to take advantage of your leaders.

A second way to take advantage of your leaders, your pastors and teachers is to be equipped by them. And when you're equipped by them, it's not just so that you can be equipped, it's so that you can join them in their labor. That's exactly what it says in the next verse, Ephesians 4:12. Jesus has given these gifts to the church.

Why? For the equipping of the saints. He's given Pastor Milton and Alvin and Pastor Kumi, and Mike and Carlos, and the other Carlos, and all these guys, Kevin and Bill. He's given these guys to the church for the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry, so that you guys could be equipped to go out and do work for Christ.

For the edifying so that the body would be built up. And then in verse 16, he says, from whom the whole body joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share. Causing growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. And so one of the ways that you can take advantage of your leaders is to just be equipped by them, be in the places where the equipping is going on.

And obviously, you're here. So this is, this is one of the main places where we're doing the equipping is in the pulpit ministry at Cornerstone we make a big deal about the pulpit ministry on Sunday morning and so be here on Sunday mornings. It's one of the reasons why we try to really encourage if you're involved in a Sunday school teaching ministry one service, try to make sure you're here and able to attend the next service. Try not to get yourself in a situation where you're doing so many different ministries that you can't be in.

Hearing the preached word of God. This is where the main equipment is going on. This is where we're making strides forward as a church. The Holy Spirit leads our pastoral staff and our elders through the week and through the months as we're trying to pray about what are we going to preach on and where's the Lord leading us as a church.

And if you're here 50% of the time or you're at the lake 50% of the time and here 50% of the time, then you're not marching forward. With us and how the Holy Spirit is leading us. But it's another thing that we do praise the Lord for here at Cornerstone is, is we have a body that is committed to the equipping ministry on Sunday mornings. We're very thankful for that.

So just one application you might think of we want you to be involved in different ministries here at Cornerstone and Children's ministries and this and that, but if you've got to make a decision between being involved in a ministry and not attending one of the services to hear the preached word, pretty easy. Don't be involved in that ministry. You need to be involved in hearing. You need to be here to receive the preached word as many Sundays as possible.

So be equipped by them in a, on a sunny morning setting. It's also why we provided the care group setting so that we can get together and talk about what's going on. It's where our pastors and care group leaders can see if the message is really taking shape in the hearts of our people the way we hope it will. Pastor Milton or myself or Carlos, we get up here and preach on a particular Sunday.

We're hoping for a particular intent and response, and then we get to our care groups and sometimes we find out that what was intended did not come across and it's in the care group setting where we're able to fully, more fully equipped and take that message and say, OK, here's, here's what we need to do with it. Here's how we put rubber to the road, so to speak. And so the care group leaders help in that shepherding ministry and trying to make sure that the preached word is getting into our hearts and forming in our hearts the way it was intended.

This is also why we've created the Adult Equipping School is in order to equip our people with things like theology.

Like Bible knowledge, we're preaching through verse by verse here on Sunday mornings. But when's the last time we did a full survey of the New Testament from the pulpit? We haven't as far as I know. When's the last time we did a full survey of the Old Testament?

Very important for Christians to have a survey knowledge of the Old Testament. When's the last time we've done that from the pulpit? We haven't. We've done that in the equipping school setting.

When's the last time we did a full sweep of systematic theology from the pulpit? We haven't. We do that in Sunday equipping school. When's the last time we did a survey of church history so that we know our connection to brothers and sisters across the ages?

When's the last time we did that from the pulpit? We haven't. We do that in an equipping school types of settings and so we really try to encourage people to take advantage of our equipping school offerings and and things like that, what's going on on Wednesday nights with our men and Thursdays with our women. These are all opportunities for equipping.

And so we encourage you to take advantage of these equipping opportunities. And then to join us in the labor. To join us in the labor of extending the kingdom of Christ. And again we're very thankful for this body and how many people are connected to ministries.

The last time I went through our membership, I think we had about 85% of our membership were involved in some identifiable ministry right here at Cornerstone, which is a very high number. Most people, you hear the statistic, people say 20% of the people are doing 80% of the work. That's not happening here at Cornerstone. We've got over 80% of our membership that are involved in ministry, and we're very excited about that.

And if you've been coming to Cornerstone here, if you're, if you're newly attended to Cornerstone, we really would encourage you to take opportunities to get involved in some ministry right here at Cornerstone, whether it's in the context of a care group or children's ministries and so on. But join us in the labor that what happens on Sunday morning, the preaching and the equipping and things like that, obviously is not just so that we can feel better about ourselves, we can all go home and feel more informed.

It's so that we can go out and do business, eternal business for the king. So that we can bring souls into the kingdom so that we can build up the body and encourage people.

Pastor Milton and Carlos cannot handle the counseling load that is, that is here at Cornerstone. The counseling and discipleship needs at Cornerstone go well beyond what the staff can handle. And so that's why our care group leaders step, step in, but what, the counseling, discipleship needs go well beyond what our care group leaders can handle. And that's why we need people within care groups and within our whole body that are discipling one another and counseling one another throughout our church.

Now let me just give you an exhortation here in respect to this joining of them in their labor here at Cornerstone. There's there's several different ministries that you could be involved in and not be an official member of the church, but to take full advantage of this equipping ministry and to be able to get out and join us in that ministry to its fullest extent, you need to become a member of this church. And at Cornerstone, here's what membership means. I'd really encourage you to get some of these talks that are going on downstairs in our Sunday school settings.

One of the ones that I did is called Church Membership in Church History, and I'd encourage you to try to get a copy of that and listen to that to gauge why we talk about church membership at Cornerstone. We're not just doing this out of a vacuum. Church membership is something that's been going on since the Book of Acts all the way to this modern day. The form of church membership is taking place in different ways.

but at Cornerstone, here's what we mean when we talk about membership. When we, at Cornerstone speak of a member, we mean a Christian who is a member of the universal body of Christ. And acts out that reality by committing himself to a particular local body of believers in order to be equipped for ministry. Use his, her giftedness and resources for the benefit of the body, be held accountable by other believers, and be shepherded by the pastors.

You could be an attender here at Cornerstone and get lots of benefit from your leaders and even be involved in some ministries, but there are certain ministries that you will not be able to be involved in unless you become a member. We're not going to put nonmembers into certain teaching roles because we want to make sure that you agree with our doctrine. We're not going to let you vote on certain issues because we want to make sure that you've come and joined us. By the way, membership is one of the greatest accountabilities for leadership.

If you have a church out there that's a non-membership church, you will almost always find that it's pretty much, it's, it's pretty much an oligarchy. It's a rule by the few and because you're not going to give power to people that don't become members and don't, there's not some way to determine who has voting power in a church. If you give no, if you don't have any process for people to determine who's going to vote and who's going to be involved in the leadership and running of that church, then the pastor is going to call the shots and he's gonna, he's not going to have the type of accountability that you have in a place where the membership is the one that votes in their leadership.

Does that make sense?

And what we're talking about here is is form issues. let me just do a little quick church history lesson here. Back in the 1st 3 centuries of the church, the type of church membership we have is voluntary church membership. Basically, people, they believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Let's say, let's talk about the 1st 50 years, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. They get baptized. Baptism was the big thing. Once you get baptized, you're recognized as a member, you were added, the Book of Acts says to the numbers, and then received into the church.

As long as the church was primarily Jewish, it was a very quick transition. Once the church became more and more gentile, by the end of the 1st century, you have a 2 year process before people are allowed into membership. 2 years. Why did they do that?

Well, the early church, by the end of the 1st century, the main thing they were concerned about is the Gentiles were not coming in with the same morals and background and knowledge of theology that the Jews were coming in with. You had to train these guys on who the real God was. You had to, they were working on them as far as morality and so on and so forth. By the end of the 1st century, if you wanted to join a local church, you came and made application and you became what was called a catechumen, which allowed you to attend the services, the first half of the service.

You could hear the preaching and then you could sing. Once they went into the communion part of the service, all of the nonmembers were dismissed. Imagine at Cornerstone Fellowship Bible Church if we allowed you to be here for the preaching and the singing, and then after which everybody who wasn't a member was dismissed, and the second half of the service was members only. That's what happened by 100 AD.

so and then for 2 years the catechumen went through training, one on one discipleship on scripture memory, doctrine, morality, the gospel, how to lead someone to Christ, and so on and so forth. After 2 years they were allowed to be baptized and then were added as members into the church and were allowed to participate in the second half of the service. One of the reasons. for that obviously was the morality issue and so on and so forth.

One of the other reasons was persecution in the early church. If people were getting persecuted. Some people would cave in to the persecution. They would turn over copies of scripture.

They would rat out other Christians and say, Yeah, they're meeting over there in the catacombs. And so the church said, Whoa, whoa, whoa, we're not going to just receive anybody into the church. What if they're a spy from Rome? And so they set up the system that basically said you have to go through a 2 year process to prove who you really were, and then you were allowed to come into the church.

Now you could debate whether that's biblical or not. The fact is it was going on by 100 AD. The fact is, is that the New Testament doesn't really tell us anything about the form of adding people to church. It just talks about being joined together.

The form issue has varied throughout the last 2000 years. In the 1st 300 years, you have a voluntary church membership. Once Constantine comes to the throne, you have a state church membership which we might have quibbles with. It means, basically if you are a Roman, you are a member.

It was just like citizenship. Even into the Reformation. If you, if you were born German, you're part of the Lutheran Church. It isn't until the Anabaptists in the 1700s, 16, 1700s that there's this return back to voluntary church membership that we have today where people can actually decide, I want to join this church or I don't want to join this church.

It's voluntary. We think that's, that's the way it ought to be. Coming to Christ is voluntary. It's not part of your citizenship, according, I, I believe according to the Bible.

All that being said, if you want to get the most out of this church and out of its leadership, then you need the form here at Cornerstone, the way the Lord and the Spirit is led. these leaders at this particular time in our church history, is there's a process of becoming a member. Is that, is that holy or sacrosanct? Are we saying this will never change the particular form?

No, but you will always need to be a church member. If you leave Cornerstone and go somewhere else. follow their form but be joined to that church. If they don't have an official form, then do it that way.

If you go to a Presbyterian church and follow the Presbyterian form, if you go to a Baptist church, follow the Baptist form. Don't get hung up on the form, just become a member and take advantage of your leaders. anyway, get that message if you can on the history of membership in church history. Let's talk about a third, way to take advantage of your leaders, and that is submit yourself to their shepherding ministry.

Submit yourself to their shepherding ministry. Hebrews says, obey those who rule over you and be submissive, for they watch out for your souls. As those who must give account, let them do so with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable for you. The Bible calls all of us to submit ourselves to the shepherding ministry of someone.

And that even applies to our elders. Our elders are called to submit to one another. I'm not just a lone wolf. I submit myself to our elder board.

Pastor Milton submits himself to our elder board, and God calls all of us in this room to obey and submit to our leaders, for they watch out for our souls as those of us give an account. one of the, one of the other things, to backtrack a little bit. One of the other reasons why some official sense of church membership is so important is because I'm going to give an account for somebody. And I want to know who that somebody is.

If you're, if you're coming around Cornerstone and just hanging out, do I know that I'm, that I'm accountable for you? Once you become a member, once you become a member of Cornerstone Fellowship Bible Church, then we know that you are a soul that we're going to give an account for because you have stated according to the form of this church that you want to be held accountable and you want the shepherds of this church to watch out for your soul. And so God calls us as pastors to shepherd the flock.

He calls the flock to obey and to submit to those who watch out for their souls and to make this a joyful thing for your leaders.

Make it a joyful thing for your care group. Leader, when your care group leader is trying to make decisions and trying to involve you in those decisions but has to make the final call, make it a joy for them to lead you. Make it a joy for your ministry leader to lead you. Make it a joy for Pastor Milton or the elders to lead you.

and by and large, again, this is something that we praise the Lord for, and I think Milton says this frequently, we praise the Lord for this church because you guys are a joy to lead. You guys are a great joy to lead. We sometimes get together with pastors at other churches and periodically we listen to some of the stories that they're telling about some of the difficulties that they're having at their churches, and we walk away and pray for them and then we say praise the Lord that we're a cornerstone.

There are so many awesome people here at Cornerstone, and you guys are a great joy to lead.

Let me just mention a couple things by way of application. That over the years as a staff, That we have tried to emphasize and that people would come and submit themselves in some fashion to our shepherding ministry. And sometimes this does not always happen, sometimes it does, but there are certain issues that seem to come up on a regular basis. They come up regularly enough to where we find ourselves saying, man, I wish.

Our people knew this or I wish our people knew that. One of the things that comes up. It just has to do with just basic counseling issues. You're having a, a problem in your marriage, you're having a problem with a child, or you have something where you need help.

And, one of the things that sometimes people can do is, is just hide that issue until it becomes just this big cancer, and we really wish that people would keep shorter accounts in our congregation and come talk to their leaders sooner than later. A lot of times problems that we're having in our marriages and in our parenting and so on and so forth, the relationships in the church, if they're handled right out the gate, they're very solvable. But when they go for 5, 1015 years before they're uncovered, now it's a crab grass mess.

It's, you got crab grass in the hearts of two people, very difficult to work through those issues.

And so that, that's one of the things that we would really exhort you guys with. the other thing is, is, is that our folks would understand that there are gifted leaders throughout our body. And And that you don't necessarily need to take an issue to a leader first. That's the reason we have care groups.

within the context of your care group, you can be sharing a prayer request or privately take someone aside and talk to them about an issue that's going on with a child or an issue in your own personal life, maybe a sin issue you're struggling with, and there's lots of things that can and probably should be handled right there in your care group context, context with just another brother or sister in your group that can help you and identify those, those things. We're all Holy Spirit filled, filled here.

And the Holy Spirit can minister through very unlikely sources. And so be willing to open yourself up.

Don't automatically demand that you see the top dog., I need to see Pastor Milton. Nobody in my care group can help me. If I can't see Pastor Milton, then nobody can help me. Now, start with your care group and, and then take it to your care group leader.

And, and then if there's, if your care group leader really feels like, what, this is a little beyond me, I'm gonna try to get Pastor Carlos in here to, to help out in the situation, then, that would be the, the way to deal with it. Another thing that we are encouraged by and would continue to encourage is when people are thinking about going into ministry or trying to make ministry decisions, they're thinking about going to seminary or they're thinking about going on the mission field.

more and more we're finding people that are beginning to understand the biblical procedure that ministry and missions or full-time ministry and missions doesn't just happen. within your circle, it's like, Christ has given this prerogative to the church, the local church.

And so if, if you think the Lord is calling you to go into ministry, then that's something that you probably want to bring up. like we see in Acts chapter 13, when Paul, Paul had received this revelation from the Lord to go out and be a missionary, but he doesn't just head out, even though he's an apostle all on his own. He waits until the Holy Spirit said to the Church of Antioch, Set apart from me, Paul and Barnabas and Saul, for the work to which I have already called them.

There's this subjective and objective call that takes place when it comes to ministry.

You get a subjective call. I felt a subjective call in my life as early as 15 years old, but I didn't get the objective call until Cornerstone laid their hands on me right here in this church back in 1996 and sent me off to seminary and then brought me back in 1998 to be a pastor of Cornerstone Fellowship Bible Church. I could have had this subjective call all I wanted. But until you recognized that I was called, until our pastors and elders recognized that I was called to be a pastor at this church, I needed to go get trained, it would not have happened.

And so you've got an objective, you've got a subjective call, and we're very blessed that we've got folks in our church right now. We've got Vince Greene that we're we're preparing to send to the Philippines, and we've recognized the call on his life and Life we've got other men that are beginning to train and go to seminary and we're seeing gifts that are rising up. And so if you believe that the Lord is perhaps calling you, let us know and let us know early so that we can put you in situations to give you the type of training and testing to see whether you're called and let the body view you and see whether your gifts are actually ministering to the whole body.

So there's those types of things, theological issues.

you're hearing something in the sermon, in the sermon. And you're not sure exactly what Pastor Milt means or you think you're not sure that you agree with that. please make that part of the community discussion, don't make a, don't come to your care group and just make a big stink in public, just to be, just, just to be argumentative. But if you've got a question, ask a question to your care group.

Go to your care group leader and say, hey, what did Pastor Milton mean by this? And if they don't know, send an email to Pastor Milton or me and say, What did you mean by this? And, and, and carry on this discussion. in a public setting and give us the opportunity to dialogue with you about issues of theology.

Don't just assume what you think we know. let's talk about it. And then lastly, one of the things that we are encouraged by and we want to continue to exhort you with is just when you're making major life decisions is that you would submit those decisions at least for counsel to those in your, in your care group and care group leaders and maybe even pastors. the Bible says that one finds wisdom in the multitude of counselors.

And, major life decisions like, we're thinking about picking up and moving out of the Inland Empire across the country to another place. That's a major life decision. Have you thought about things like is there a good local church there? Have you thought about how this is going to affect the rest of the body?

we're always encouraged when people would come to us or the care group leader and say, Hey, I'm praying about moving and doing this stuff. Would you pray for me and could I get your counsel? And not that somehow the elder board's going to give you some ex cathedra revelation from God that says, boom, here's what you ought to do, but that you include your pastors in your counseling in these major decisions., so things like moving or things like, you, for me personally I, I, I, would really love it if, if, if we had some forum, for our young people as they're trying to select colleges.

Sometimes I hear about certain colleges that our young people are entertaining and,.

I and I know about those colleges from a theological viewpoint, as a, as a person who has a degree, a master's degree in theology, who has interacted with people from lots of different schools all over the country, I have a little bit of knowledge about where certain schools land theologically. And and I'm always really encouraged when someone comes to me and says, hey, I'm thinking about this school or that school. Could I get your input? to go to people in the church or leaders in the church, Pastor Milton, and say we're thinking about this seminary, thinking about this Bible school, do you have any ideas?

And, and sometimes because we're doing so much study in, in somewhat academic circles, we're aware of things that, the average person may not be aware of pertaining to certain schools. And even in the, in the brochures that are put out there by Christian schools, they don't tell their donors, they don't tell everybody out there that are making donations to their institution that they no longer believe in inerrancy. they don't say that they've hired a, an Eastern Orthodox professor.

they don't say that we no longer ascribe to the traditional view of justification by faith alone.

but when you're reading journal articles about these institutions, you find out this stuff. So, those are some other items that we'd encourage people to just seek counsel on as you're making decisions about places to study. Many things else that we could say. Let me just finish with the last couple of items here.

A 4th way to take advantage of your leaders is to pray for them and seek their prayers. Pray for your leaders. Paul says in a number of different places, pray for us. your leaders are sinful human beings, and they need your prayers.

Your pastors also need your patience because we are sinful human beings. Pray that our progress may be evident to all. and that is to your advantage. If you pray for your elders, pray for your pastors, then you are, Lord willing, going to get better and better service from them.

But also seek their prayers. James, we, we're real big here at Cornerstone about James 5, that speaks of praying for the sick. And on a regular basis, our elders will gather together and anoint someone with oil and pray over them. This happened to my own wife about a year ago.

She was in the hospital and had an infection after the delivery of our son, and it was severe enough to where she had gone through so many different antibiotics. The infection specialist was talking about last resorts. Well, if this one doesn't work, we'll try one more antibiotic and then, she wasn't sure what was going to happen. The elders came down and anointed her with oil and prayed for her, and that same day as they came down to pray, a bunch of doctors, about 30 doctors got together to talk about my wife's case, and they decided they were going to lance her and open up this abscess, and after that day she got better and within 3 or 4 days she was out of the hospital.

In I know our family was just very grateful for this ministry, and we took advantage of this ministry of seeking the prayers of the elders, which is a biblical concept in James 5. If you have a sickness, if you have something that needs prayer, certainly you can get your whole care group to pray for you and have them lay hands on you and whatnot, but According to James 5, there is something special that God has given a special ministry to the elders, where call the elders together and have them anoint you with oil and pray for the sick, and we've seen this happen.

Araceli. We've got to pray for Aracely when she was in the hospital here this last year, and we're very thankful that she's in our service this morning.

Lastly, a final way that we can all take advantage of our leaders is to honor and double honor them. And let's look at 1 Timothy 5:17 here, where Paul says, let the elders who rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in the word and doctrine. For the scripture says, you shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain and the laborer is worthy of his wages. I always loved being referred to as an ox.

on the pages of scripture, But seriously, the Bible speaks of honoring your elders. But then also double honoring those who rule well, those who rule well, especially those who labor in the word and doctrine. Now double honor, if you look at the context here, it doesn't mean two pats on the back. Double honor means that you pay those who rule well.

And so if you notice here, there's elders who rule and they're doing a great job and they're worthy of honor. Then there's elders who rule well and they're worthy of double honor. And then there's especially those who labor in the word and doctrine. So you have this category of what you could call lay elders, and then you have this category of elders that aren't necessarily doing the bulk of the teaching and preaching who are worthy of double honor, but then especially those who labor in the word of doctrine.

So you can see 3 different. Categories of elders right in this very passage and that's why at Cornerstone we try to pay our elders, especially those who labor in the word and doctrine. We pay those that rule well and those who labor in the word and doctrine. And this is to your advantage.

Imagine, when I was teaching junior high school years ago, I was an English teacher. Imagine that I had to go work 30, 40 hours a week in order to teach junior high school kids out in Grand Terrace. I had to go do 30, 40 hours a week just to make enough money to come do the voluntary business of teaching kids. It wouldn't be to the advantage of the kids and families in that community.

That's why they paid me to teach their kids, and that's why it's to the advantage of Christ's people that you have certain folks that are set aside to give the bulk of their time or all of their time to ministry, and this is set up right on the pages of Scripture. There are certain denominations out there that I can think of one in particular where they have no paid pastors at all. They pride themselves that they're a totally lay run ministry. The consequence of that in this particular sect is they're not well taught.

They're prone to deception of the leadership, and, and in many people's minds, in my mind, I think in most of our minds, they're a cult, and the people that are being taught in the church don't know any better. The leaders don't know any better. They don't have anybody that's out there that's a full-time shepherd watching out for the flock. And, And so it's to our advantage to make sure that we have folks in this church that are being double honored to where they can give full time to the shepherding of the flock, watching out for the flock, watching out for false doctrine, trying to oversee and set the pace for the future, and so on and so forth, and so as as you give.

And as your children give, I'd encourage you to help your children see that as they take money out of their piggy bank and bring it to church, that they're giving this to the Lord, and as they give this to the Lord, this is helping pay for the fact that Pastor Milton can prepare to preach and doesn't have to take a second job. And he's able to give himself to the word and doctrine instead of out working at the printing press like he used to back in seminary. I think you'd want to hear sermons that Pastor Milton preached if he was out working at the printing press 30, 35 hours a week.

But we're able to be blessed by this man on a weekly basis because he's able to give full time to it.

So, these are just, again, these are thoughts that have come out of many, many different staff meetings as we've looked at the scriptures and, and, this whole series. We want to lay before you for your consideration and prayer and we just ask you guys in summary here to take advantage. Of your pastors, take advantage of your leaders. Own them as gifts from the Lord Jesus Christ.

join them and be equipped by them. Join them in their work. Submit to their shepherding ministry as human centers. Again, you want, we want to be Beans.

We want to follow your leaders to the extent they're following the word. We're not just talking about blind folks following people and whatever they say, but submit to their, your leaders to the extent that we're following the scriptures. pray for us. come and seek the prayers of the elders and then honor every one of your elders and then be thankful that this church double honors those that particularly labor in the word and doctrine.

Well, I was hoping to, we don't normally have Q&A. I was hoping to leave some time for Q&A, but unfortunately, we are out of time. How convenient. let's go ahead and, and pray and we'll have our ushers come forward, for the offering.

Lord, we thank you so much, for this time to consider, these gifts you've given to the church. You've given many gifts, but one of the gifts you've given as pastors and teachers, and we thank you for them. We thank you for, Pastor Milton. we thank you for Pastor Carlos.

And we thank you for Kumi and Alvin, and Bill, Kevin. Carlos Cuellar, we thank you, Lord, for every one of our elders and ask, Lord, that You would bless their ministries. We pray, Father, that we would take full advantage of their ministries. we pray, Father, that we would be joined to them in their ministries.

we pray, Father, that you would raise up more, leaders and elders in our church. We are going to need, more pastor teachers, more care group leaders, and we pray, we thank You, Lord, for the men, that are starting to go to seminary now. We pray for those that have gone through the, the training. we thank You, Lord, for those care group leaders that are also, working with assistance.

We just pray, Father, that you'd raise up more and more leadership for your glory and for the extension of your kingdom. Receive this offering now, we pray in Christ's name. Amen.