Ephesians 4:11 It was Jesus who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, 12 to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. 15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. 16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
observation
If you were going to write a job description for our pastor there a hundred things that you may be tempted to put on his list of job duties and as a pastor you may lose your focus and you may adopt some of those things from the list that your church members have created.
Every pastor and teacher wants to please those that they serve but sometimes you may get so busy working on pleasing the people that you are leading that you may lose sight of the work that Christ gave you to do.
Here is what Paul said that your job is:
· the training of the saints for works of service
· the building up of the body of Christ
And you are supposed to do this work until we all:
· reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God
· become mature
If you follow this plan then the saints that you have under your care will be able to stand up against false teachers by speaking out in love.
Another benefit that the saints will experience is that we will grow to maturity in Christ which will cause the whole body to grow in love as we do our works of service that each of us were created for.
application
It is a big job to be a leader of God’s flock and one that is to be taken very seriously since a day is coming when every pastor and teacher will have to answer for how well they took care of the sheep that they were given. I must take my role as a church leader with great caution.
As a part of the flock we have to be careful that we don’t bog our pastor down with a job description that God did not intend for him to have.
prayer
Thank you Lord for my pastor, I pray that we will be good followers as he leads us on to maturity, help me to be a good leader in the ministries that I work in.
