The Person and Work, of the Holy Spirit lesson 27

We are in Lesson 27. Everybody got the 27? It has to do with Chapter 4 in the personal work of the Holy Spirit. And the pages, if you want to look at the pages, is 132 through 136, or if you have the PDF, 57 through 59. And in line with what JD was teaching last week, it kind of just parallels over.

The first question is, what are the roles of an evangelist, and then a pastor, and then a teacher? And Rideout does a pretty good job of simplifying them. What is the role of an evangelist? What's his occupation? What does he do? Do you think we have some evangelists around here? Yeah, we do. Anybody know who they are? I tricked you with the third question. Evangelists is a specific gift.

But everybody is an evangelist, don't you think? Like we were talking last week, we all are to some extent, because of the life we have in us. And so, the write-up says, evangelist gathers in souls from the world by the preaching of the gospel. And as we've talked about a lot of times, preaching of the gospel sometimes is an epistle for all men to read on your heart, and that's a nonverbal communicator. So an evangelist isn't necessarily all the time talking.

It'd just be the way he lives or she lives their life. People are attracted to the Lord Jesus through that. I've had phone calls from people over the years that would say, I'm a friend of so-and-so's and I want what he has. And the person that he was referring to wasn't some sort of high-powered Christian person. It was just a person that had rest about him and had faith in their heart. And this other person said, he told me to call you.

I want what he has. What does he have? He has the Lord Jesus Christ. Mike, one thought on the fact that everybody possesses evangelism. When we talked about that last week, we talked about it being a role of ambassadorship. And we also referred back to 1 Peter, I believe, be ready for the hope that you have. Be prepared to give a reason for the hope that you have.

And I find that, you know, for us today, it's not, for those of us that have gone door to door with our little tracks, and I mean, I was so specific about my track that I figured out how to use my design skills to redesign the track. I wanted it to be perfect. And I even got some of my buddies in college to get together, and we rewrote that track so that it more reflected the way that we wanted to speak to people as we went door to door.

If you don't know, I fell in love with my wife doing mission work along the coast of Texas. You can call it mission work, but what we did is we put together a big band on the beach and we played Christian music and we waited for people to walk by. You can imagine these folks are partying, they're doing their thing at spring break and the conversations were pretty limiting in that regard.

But what we found is that, and this carried over to the rest of my life, is that people have their felt needs and those felt needs just are significant, right? It could be family, it could be different relationship issues or health or whatever. If you spend enough time with someone, they're going to start talking about those felt needs that really are at the top of mind for them.

We all know what they are for us, but for an unbeliever, those areas rule their life. It's hard to be an ambassador and get to the gospel the moment you have an issue with someone that's dealing with such a big felt need. It's still one of sharing the truth, right? They're being confronted with the truth of God's word, and that might not be the gospel at first. There could be more fundamental concerns that they don't understand. Where is their authority coming from? Based on their authority, how do they even view morality? And how do they know that something's wrong happening with them?

So there's a worldview around which a person approaches their felt needs. And for those of us that are believers, and not just with what we might call the full gift of evangelism, if you want to look at it that way, there's opportunities for us to come alongside and share and be ambassadors for truth. that lead up to the gospel.

And for that reason, there's pre-planting, too. There's soil prep. And then there's that evangelism as it expresses itself in different phases of an unbeliever coming to the knowledge of the truth. And so when you think about that for yourselves, it maybe impacts you a little bit more. It's like, when do I talk about the Lord with my unbelieving friends?

And how do I How am I leading them towards communicating what their root need is, not their felt needs, but what their fundamental need for salvation is? I was reading Henry Ironside's book the other day, and it talks about how there are so many folks in the world, especially in the U.S., that know how to behave like believers. They know how to put on the trappings of the lifestyle, but they don't have the life. They have a lifestyle, but they don't have the life.

And that's really what evangelism is doing, is looking for opportunities to share God's word, to introduce them to the life in Christ that you have, and you know that they desperately need. And so it becomes a much more practical relationship expression of that gift when you think about it as the ambassador, whether it be soil prep, planting, or watering.

There are opportunities that we all face in life with the unbelieving folks that Lord has brought us into contact with. So, a little bit of a soapbox there, as you can imagine, but I do see that in everyone that we fellowship with at Holly Hills. Opportunities are always present and at different phases and at different points in life. And so, yeah, I just wanted to add that thought.

You know, Jim, when you were talking, I was thinking, do any of you here or on the Zoom get the, it's like bi-monthly publication from Duluth Bible Church. It's called the Grace Family Journal. I used to get the printed version, but I haven't received the electric in a while. It's been moved, yeah. Yeah, I get the printed version, but almost every one of those publications, when they come out, has a section in it.

There's a woman, I think it's a woman, that goes to like the county fair and that kind of thing in the summertime, and she has a booth, an evangelistic booth, and she has great stories to tell about, just like you're talking about, Jim, somebody walks in, to, you know, she's, you know what a fair is, it's like a carnival. She walks, they walk in and they're just inquisitive. And she'll go on and tell the story about it. Well, they'll sit down and they'll talk and they're given the gospel, but not pushy. They just, there's a conversation going back and forth.

And how many people have, who get saved through that one ministry? to go to a county fair with probably a table and some tracks and just a couple of chairs and you go in and sit down and what drew somebody in there? And why that person? It's the same thing in Seward, Alaska in the seafarers mission up there. They have a place where the people that work on cruise ships, when they're docked, they'll come in there. And they're all from all over the world, different languages and everything. But how many people get saved through a ministry like that? Strictly to seafarers, people that are, who work on cruise ships, Filipinos and people like that, that have never heard the gospel and they either met somebody on the boat or something that piqued their interest.

So they go. And so where these evangelistic efforts take place, and the Lord leads them, they're amazing to me. Well, even at Camp Elam, you know, all the kids who are bringing their friends, you know, they're being evangelistic in that, you know, they love Camp Elam and they want to share that, and they're bringing their non-believing friends. So that's a huge evangelistic ministry.

Yeah, I didn't think about Camp Elam. Yeah, for kids, it's just amazing. And probably them. Effect on their parents if they're not one or both parents aren't believers Oh, no, we get reports all the time like from parents My child came back and you know has changed and having an impact on the parents all the time. We get that. That's cool so An evangelist I agree with Jim evangelist is a you know a gift but evangelism goes on you know do a lot of different ways all the time and you know, all the time. So how about a pastor? What is he, how do you describe, what's the role of a pastor?

And boy did I learn about being a sheep herder from Miles. He has great stories about sheep and how dumb they are, but what their activities. He says you have to be around them a lot to kind of figure out. He said you, to herd sheep is a learned exercise. And there are certain characteristics. He said, like if you herd sheep into a narrow spot and you want to get them to go through a gate, they'll stop at the gate and they won't move. And if you press them, they'll get bold and try to go by you on the side.

So he says you have to wait. Sometimes you have to just stand there. They're right up next to the gate. And you have to just wait. until the one goes. When the one goes, they all go. You know? And you just don't go out and, you know, try to force sheep. There's a whole technique to it.

And how they, like a sheep can, two sheep can get separated from a herd and be in visual sight of the herd and they're lost. They are lost. And if one sheep, Donna said, yeah, the story J. Vernon McGee tells is that one sheep, two sheep got separated from the herd, and a wolf came and killed one of the sheep. And while he was eating it, the other one was running around in a circle around a wolf.

He was deserved. And it makes so much sense with how the body of Christ works, you know, that God was knew what he was doing when he created or empowered guys to be shepherds. And it's learned. Yeah, I suppose it's a gift, but it's a learned behavior.

How do you herd the sheep? How do you get them to go this way? Or get them through the door? Or get them inside when it's raining? They have, Miles used to own a farm and he had a barn that was 300 feet long. And he could get 60, 70 sheep in there. But you just don't push them in. You got to get them to want to go in.

Mike, I think there's differences too with the pastor or the shepherd. You know, biblically too, versus the hired one who has no care for, no desire for the sheep. That one runs away when the wolf comes or, you know, the attack comes. Pastors have a heart for the sheep. That's that that's different than a higher, you know And you can see that in some churches the hired hired hand versus a pastor who cares? Yeah, and it's there's a distinct difference in being a pastor or a Hired pastor, you know, and I think as an elder to it's your shepherd the same thing You have to have a heart for the body.

Yeah, and you don't survive. He says he that they have laid look after a The sheep and the lambs. The lambs are interesting. I found out all this great information I found out this week. A lamb is born and it just totally needs protection, right? But they feed it out and within nine months it's 120 pounds and it's ready for the slaughterhouse. And a little tiny lamb this big, in nine months it's 120 pounds. And to protect them because they don't, like a lamb that's away from his mother, is lost.

Totally lost. Interesting to see. So I think the metaphor that the Word of God uses Shepherd, sheep, and lamb is really a good one, as good as you could find, because it's better than the hireling. It's better than the employer, employee, because, you know, most employers could care less about the employee, and vice versa. But that's really what it is. It's a lamb, and I think the gift there that God gives a shepherd is They really care for the lambs.

They're really serious about that. It isn't a job. You find in the 30 years I've been here, we've had guys come around that are looking for pastoral jobs. Shepherd is not a job. You either have it or you don't. And then the last one is a teacher. What's a teacher do? So we have evangelist, we have a shepherd, and we have a teacher. What's the teacher's job in God's family? Feed. Feed. That's a good answer. They feed. They feed the Word of God to the sheep and the lambs. That's what they do. And they make it as clear as possible. And there are a lot of there are a lot more teachers than there are shepherds. And you don't necessarily, you see in Ephesians people combine pastor, teacher. Yeah, a pastor needs to be a teacher, but a teacher isn't always a pastor.

You know, it's a separate, it's a separate I was going to say job description, but it's separate in terms of a person's heart. As a matter of fact, if you go into Duluth and listen to some of their, like the conference we went to, and you listen to all six tapes, there's a lot of great teachers. But one of the great guys there, J.V. Hickson, he just admitted, he said, I'm a terrible pastor. He said, I'm a good teacher, and I do my homework, and I'm ready, but I'm a terrible pastor.

Hey, Mike, on that thought there, anyone who can drive a tractor can feed the sheep, but if you're going to pastor them, you've got to be right in there with them and get dirty. You know, that's a good point. Are you willing to get dirty? I said, Courtney stands on the well and barks orders. He doesn't want to get dirty. No, I know exactly what you mean. Well, you get dirty, you know.

So teachers are, I marvel sometimes that if you're a public school teacher or private school teacher, does that qualify you to be a Sunday school teacher? If you're skilled at putting a syllabus together and you're skilled at organizing your thoughts and communicating your thoughts, does that make you a biblical teacher? No, it doesn't. Because the information that's communicated, the food, in essence, that's fed, has to be spiritual food. presented to and given to spiritual people. You know, Mike, one of the thoughts we've talked about many times is maybe this is where the distinction between pastor and teacher, and maybe Hickson or whatever, you know, maybe he's not the personality, he can give the lesson.

Right. The flip side is on a pastor, if you're that way. We kid about, they're going to have all their books in heaven, and they'll walk right by Christ and not know him. That's right, Courtney. I agree with that. That's kind of the difference on a pastor-teacher. A teacher can be maybe less personable, I guess, maybe, and give that, or not have the pastoral side. Sure. So I think there can be a pastor-teacher, but a teacher can I don't know how to say it, not less personable, but... No, I think that's the best way to say it. He can be, or she, can be much less personable and be a really terrific teacher, but is not a pastor, not a shepherd.

The first suburban church I went to when I was first saved was out in Aurora. And they marveled at, you've got to come and hear this pastor preach. And the guy was amazing. He could give you 20 lines of scripture without ever looking at the book. He could memorize it, and he could emphasis. And his sermons were great.

But I wasn't there very long. I couldn't stand the placement. It wasn't long before I learned that, boy, you never go to this guy for counseling. He's terrible one-on-one. We all know people like that. I do have a question for you, Mike. Do we think that those personality traits, though we may have encountered them with teachers, are not true of every gift to some degree? So I guess what I'm asking is that we've looked at it as teacher maybe is getting a maybe a lesser role compared to pastor, in the sense that it's not getting dirty. Maybe there's a personality where you don't want to come alongside people and really shepherd them through the burdens that they're dealing with, potentially pointing them to the Word of God. So I just wanted to clarify that it's not my opinion that teachers tend to have this type of personality or pastors tend to have that type of personality or Even if it's not really about getting dirty.

It's just a matter of where God has a person with regards to the gifts They've given them. I agree. So yeah, I don't think that those are Because you can have blends of the two right you can have I mean it can scale you're more of a pastor than a teacher You're more of a teacher than a pastor, but at the end of the day do they where is their heart right? Where where has God placed them?

What is he what circumstances has he? given to them so that they might be a light in a dark place. And though we might attach personalities and certain amounts of weight to work or time on the phone or things of that nature, I think it's important to realize that each of those roles are specific and needed and they depend upon one another. And while they may blend, they don't necessarily have to have those personality traits or the lack of desire to get dirty, so to speak.

Well, the good example, and I don't know if you, did you ever know Hal Malloy? I didn't. I know him by the wonderful testimony. Hal Malloy was a guy who was a really good teacher because he was an electrical engineer and when he put something together, he didn't miss anything. But to verbally communicate it, he stumbled over words and stuff like that, you know, but the content was terrific. And he was probably the best counselor I've ever been around, because he just had a heart for people, but he used the Word of God to help people.

That's an interesting word, counsel. I know we're past time here, but... Yeah, I know. It's a worldly term. That's a worldly term, yeah. Well, no, but I think there is a sense of counseling involved in those two roles. It could be a blend, but I agree. We can talk about that a little bit more next week, maybe. Yeah, so I think you do have people who have I use the word smattering of both.

I think the most important one in the middle of the three that we talked about is the shepherd. The shepherd has to have the heart, and that's the gift. That's the gift that God gives. Will he lay down his life for the sheep? I don't know. At least he cares enough about them to sacrifice something that's important to him for them. Okay.

Well, hopefully I'll bring my notes next week and we can get moving here. Father, we thank you for your grace and we thank you for your word and your spirit to teach us. And we thank you for the life that we all share in the Lord Jesus. We pray in his name. Amen.