Take Heed: Beware of Yourself, Oversee and Feed

Paul said, look. I have I have given you every morsel of what I possibly can give you. I've invested much into you. I've poured a lot of energy into you. And like any investment in our lives, if you invest a lot of time, a lot of energy, a lot of money, a lot of, shall we say, blood, sweat, and tears. Right? Right. If you if you invest a lot of that in anything, you don't wanna see it crumble. Right. [01:01:06]

some some place that maybe you used to work or maybe you have some fond memories of your time there, and you go by and it's just all run down and broken down. And you're like, man, that used to be such a fun place or such an enjoyable place or so many memories. Maybe you go buy an old house from your childhood and and you see it and it's just, maybe it's gone completely. You go back to find it and it's been torn down and something else has been built there in its place or or they just let it fall in disrepair. That hurts your heart, you know, a little bit to see that. [01:01:39]

That's that's one of the reasons why I came to you last year. We talked about that church over there in in Pontoon Beach area at Central Baptist Church. I said, we just can't let a church die in our area. We can't do that. We need more churches, not less. And, thankfully, they've got kind of an an evangelist church planter there who's there now trying to help that church and revitalize it again and and praise God for that. But it's sad to see something you pour so much energy into. [01:02:42]

But it's sad to see something you pour so much energy into. And and, honestly, folks, we we should feel that way. If we if we pour a lot of energy here into our church and and we go through a downturn, I'm not saying you shouldn't be sad about that. You should. I'd be more afraid if you don't care. Right. Right. You know, if our church collectively just felt like they didn't care, I'd be like, well, you know, then what are we trying to accomplish here then? [01:03:04]

There that's a real problem. More so than the downturn or more so than attack or more so than something that happens or falling away. We ought to care. It ought to bother us. Amen. Right. Yeah. And Paul says, I poured a lot of time and and energy into you, and and so I got some things I wanna make sure you're watching out for because I don't wanna see you falling down. I don't wanna see this place crumble. Amen. Amen. [01:03:31]

And, of course, parting words are always powerful words. If someone tells you, look. I I don't think I'm ever gonna see you again, but I've gotta tell you this. You should take it to heart, you know, and and say, okay. You're picking your words very carefully. So we as we look at the end of chapter 20 through all these verses, we we look at the heart of a preacher, a church planter, in some ways a pastor. [00:58:25]

Because I just I want you to understand a few things that are very, very important, and I can't think of it of a better crowd for that than a Sunday night. A Wednesday night might be even better, but we're so scattered everywhere that it wouldn't be as effective. But for those who are here tonight, some things we've gotta be aware of Amen. be careful of within our church. And I'm just gonna go by what he says here. [00:59:13]

Take heed. Amen. That is the advice of the apostle Paul. And and you could you could spend that a lot of variety of different ways, but he's gonna give us very specific things that we need to take heed of. We'll get into one of them tonight. Well, don't think we'll get any farther than that. But but he says that there's some areas we need take heed. Take heed is a fancy word for saying, beware. [01:04:52]

Because there are some things that are dangerous, not only to our personal life, but to the life of our church. And what God wants to establish here, what God wants to do here. And so let's look at these together and see what he tells us to take heed of, to beware. You might be surprised by this, but the first thing he wants us to beware of is to beware of yourself. Look at verse number 28. Take heed therefore unto yourselves. [01:05:17]

And he's saying the before you get worried about, well, this, you know, this member is not doing this and this this worker over here is not doing that, and and and I wish they would get better at this, wish to get better. He says, no. Hold on now. You need to worry about yourself. You are the leaders. And I'm trying to talk to folks in our church that have been either Christians for a very long time. [01:06:11]

I do consider working in the ministry, you're part of the leadership team of our church. Whether you realize it or not, I've had people push back against me on that. Well, why do we have all these rules? You know? I don't even work for the church. Blessed guy, if you're gonna stand up in front of people and represent our church, you are leading. You are responsible. You are the influence. [01:06:40]

You are responsible. You are the influence. And with that does come responsibility, and with that does come expectation. so he's talking to these leaders. Said, look. I I want you before you worry about what the the the Gentile Ephesians are doing out there, before you worry about what the the the the polytheistic society is doing, before you worry about what Rome is doing, you need to worry about yourself. Right. Right. [01:06:55]

Right. Right. What are you doing? How are you acting? Where is your heart? Where is your commitment level? He says, take heed unto yourselves first. The leaders must take heed of their own lives. Listen. No leader is perfect. We all understand that. I have I have never once tried to project that out to you in any particular way. And if I did, you would have you would have dispelled it years ago. [01:07:26]

No leader's perfect, but we must we must demand consistency out of our lives. Amen. Yeah. And maybe we're speaking to you tonight as some type of a giant staff meeting or this is workers training all over again. I don't know. But Paul is telling us that you need to take heed unto yourself. That's right. And we we have to have some type of consistency out of our own lives if we're to lead others. Amen. [01:08:00]

One of most frustrating things to me is I I'll have someone come up to me in my church, and they they talk about what they wanna do or what they wanna start or what they wanna be. And I'm like, this is the first time I've seen you in, like, four weeks in church. Right. But you wanna lead this ministry or let's start this other ministry or let's be part of this or why can't we do this or that? How about you just be faithful in the things that are already established? [01:08:33]

need consistency, and we ought to demand that out of ourselves. And as a church body as a whole, we we ought to demand that out of our leadership. And leadership is be just the pastor, and I'll have the greatest demand, and I've accepted that. I don't run from it. But as a whole, the elders of the church, those who are not just getting some money from the church so they can live or have some title or whatever it may be [01:08:58]

leaders need to be consistent. If you're not consistent, you're not influencing. You are not leading. People spot hypocrites mile away. You could say all the words. You can do whatever you wanna do. But if you're not leading in that way, your walk talks and your talk talks, but your walk talks louder than your talk talks. You can say that you care about souls, but showing up to soul winning on Saturday morning proves that you care about souls. [01:10:17]

Hypocritical leaders are powerless and they're resented. They're powerless and resented. I believe in soul winning. I I lead our church in soul winning. Therefore, I go soul winning. I I believe our church, we ought to be reading the bible and studying god's word. Therefore, I study god's word. Amen. I believe that we should be praying. Therefore, I pray. I believe that we should hold ourselves to a good standard of of holiness and righteousness. [01:10:53]

I believe that we should hold ourselves to a good standard of of holiness and righteousness. Therefore, I do my best to hold myself to that standard of holiness and righteousness in my life. My perfect dad? Oh, no. But it is a fight. We've gotta be consistent in some things. We are determining how God wants to bless our church. Right. If we're wishy washy on everything, then we we deserve every wishy washy person that if we're wishy washy as leaders, we deserve wishy washy visitors that come in, never come back. [01:11:16]

How can we promote good works unto them and we're it'd be terrible. Hey. Why don't you come to church? Come to church with me. They show up, and you're not even here. That's weird. Hippo crit. We've gotta be careful. We gotta take heed into ourselves first and make sure that we are following Christ as he intended for us to, and that's giving our all to him. Now all is different. Some people have more all than than others. That's just true. [01:11:54]

A great song is compelling us to give our all to Christ. We must beware of ourselves. I know this can come out of left field, but believe it or not, there's a verse in the Song of Solomon about this. Song of Solomon chapter one verse number six. Look not upon me because I'm black because the sun hath looked upon me. My mother's children were angry with me. They made me keeper of the vineyards, but mine own vineyard have I not kept. [01:13:08]

Solomon, in that wonderful poetic way, so many analogies and so much allegory and all those things that he into that particular book. He says, you know what? One of the regrets I have is I was given all these things, but I didn't really take good care of a lot of it. Things were given unto me, but I wasn't keeping my own heart. That's what the vineyard represents right there. I was given the hearts of the people, but my own heart I had not kept. [01:13:35]

We're moving on into a new generation now. We're moving on into a new phase of our church. That is where we are. Like it, love it, doesn't matter. We all hate it, but that's where we're at. And we have gotta lead it forward, and the only way to do that is for us to first take heed unto ourselves. Amen. Is there anything is there anything that we are doing that is hindering our church from receiving the blessing of God? [01:14:25]

Amen. I wanna be on the wagon. I wanna be there and say, man, I I've been committing to this too. And finally, we saw the power of God fall. We saw revival in our church. We saw God great blessings in this way. I can't make you want that, though. That's something that's gonna happen in your heart between you and God. I can't I can't make our church want greater things. I've preached it. I've talked about it. I want it. I desire it. [01:14:59]

You know, a firefighter can't help anybody in a burning building if their own oxygen tank is empty. You gotta fill yourself up. You gotta you gotta prepare internally before you can go into that fire. A leader must be faithful to watch the lives of the flock. And we we don't portray love by laziness or indifference. Just take it under yourselves. It's very it's very easy to get so outwardly motivated in our life if we what about them or their cause of problem? Or, it would be better if we just had this or that. Are we looking inside? [01:15:41]

We've gotta get on to oversee, believe it not, that means you've gotta rise above and get on top of the situation. Amen. Amen. You don't oversee from underneath. Right. Right. You oversee from above. Right. And, look, anything that's worth having is worth protecting. Amen. And that's where I'll push back. I get pushed back sometimes when I stand up as our pastor and I use more pointed language or I'm in my office and I say, this is the way it needs to be. This should not be that way. I get looked sometimes. [01:17:56]

And I promise you, my face may be smiling, but I'm burning with rage on the inside because I'm trying to protect our church. For twenty seven years, God has been we're almost twenty seven years, God's been working on this church. And and it's in a fragile state. Spiritually. Right. Right. It is in a fragile state. Right. Right. And I'm trying by will and by preaching and by spirit and by prayer to motivate us back into the right direction, but we gotta take heed unto ourselves. Amen. [01:18:28]

Like, we should know when we're serving. We shouldn't be checking schedules and things like that right before the service. Right. That doesn't inspire confidence into me that you've prayed about your ministry and prepared your heart for that ministry if you don't even know you're serving right before then. Right. I guess we can sing or I guess we can usher. I guess we can serve in this ministry, that ministry. I guess we can do without god because we didn't have to pray beforehand. Right. [01:19:20]

Oh, god. Send us more people. Are we are we serving god's people now with his power and his might? Why should he send us more if we're winging it now? That's being an overseer. It's not fun. It's not fun to oversee, and it's not fun to be oversought, if that's a word. But that's what we're called upon to do. Anything that's worth having is worth protecting, and that means someone's gotta oversee things. Amen. Human nature always leans towards degradation. Always. Always. Always. [01:19:52]

If you leave something alone, it will degrade. Anything left unattended, it naturally declines. I had at my house, my my my barbecue, my grill, I bought it almost six years ago now. Last year, we had a real bad storm come through, ripped the cover off my grill. I mean, it was tied down and everything, but that wind got underneath it and, whoo, all it went. And I don't even ended up in the grass and got all moldy and messed up, and I had to throw it out. And, silly, I didn't win I didn't even go get a cover when I needed to. I should've went out and got another one, but I didn't. I just waited and waited and waited. And now guess what? This is the last year of my barbecue. It is rusting. [01:20:28]

when you look at your ministry, if it's not where you wanted to do, where where you want it to be, if it's not as effective as you want it to be, my question is, are you overseeing it like you should? Amen. If you're a worker and you don't think things are the way they are, have you spoken to your ministry leader about that, or have you shown up and been the example to other ministry workers as well to see what a good overseer looks like? Are you doing your part? [01:21:33]

Most oversight is preparation. Most of it is just plain old preparation. The rest of it is healthy boundaries. No. We don't do this that way. And a boundary is there for our help. It's there for our good. How however, oversight, it may require correction if being out of bounds is dangerous. So if I come to somebody in our church and say, hey. We can't do that. [01:22:13]

It's not just some arbitrary thing where I well, pastor just doesn't like that. Believe it or not, there are a lot of things that go on around here that I don't like, And I just choose to pick my battles. But if I stand up and I say no, we are not gonna do that. I know I'm I'm I'm withdrawing some capital out of the relationships I have with the life here, but if I gotta do it, it's because it's dangerous. Right. This is not honoring the lord. This is not who we're supposed to be. This is not helping people. It's going against our mission. That's right. Oversight is not control. It's care. [01:22:55]

Somebody's gonna watch. I've had a few different people, and I don't say this to pat myself on the back at all because thankful by the grace of God, it's his wisdom that he gives me sometimes. But I have I've had people present situations to me just in the last couple of months. I looked at it said, well, hold on. But see, if we do it this way, then this is gonna you know, it affects this and and and we've gotta consider the long term effects of that or we're setting a precedence here that I don't think we can continue on long term. And they've said, guys, I don't even think about it that way. You know, it's just because God's helping me oversee. That's all it is. Right. Right. Right. Helping me see the big picture sometimes. Right. Right. It's not fun. I don't like it. I know you don't like it either. [01:23:46]

But as as as your pastor and as ministry workers and ministry leaders, we've gotta submit to oversight whether we are the ones doing it or we are the ones receiving it. It is part of the will of God for our church. Amen. Amen. [01:24:26]

I'm I'm just standing in your life as a guardrail saying, oh, no. No. You don't wanna go that way. You don't wanna go that way. That way is down a steep cliff. Right. You may not return from this trip. Right. Right. Biblically, oversight is a protective responsibility. Some people, they hear oversight, they think it's something of domination. I'm I'm trying to control my own life, folks. I really am not trying to control yours. I promise. I've got enough to worry about in my own personal life. Right. But there are dangerous things that we need to take heed of. [01:24:58]

A dictator, which is what everyone is afraid of in churches these days, and there are those out there. I I know it. A dictator controls for their benefit. Right. Right. You do this because it's gonna help me. I'll get to buy the jet. I'll get to buy a boat. I'll get to buy another mansion somewhere. That that's what they do. However, a shepherd, which is what God is calling upon me to do, it oversees for the sheep's benefit. You know, I I don't really get a lot out of telling somebody that they're wrong. It doesn't make my day any better. It doesn't make my day any better. In fact, it usually tears up my day or my week because I'm like, I wonder how they took that. Are they gonna be okay? Am I gonna ever see them again? Because I put a guardrail up. It doesn't benefit me. [01:26:49]

A church must be beneficial to our spiritual lives. It's not just about an emotional boost. We may get that. We sang some songs tonight that may have provided some form of emotional boost for you, but that's not all our church is about. Amen. If it's just well and in in that food, some foods are enjoyed more than others. That's certainly true. You know that. If we have just sweets, we don't get the nutrition that we need. [01:28:44]

But before we blame, before we point fingers, before we get concerned about what anyone else is doing, we need to take heed to ourselves. So that means if it's his church, all the oversight, all the feeding needs to be done as he would do it. How would Jesus run the nursery? How would Jesus run our ushering? How would Jesus invite guests that come in? How would you would Jesus show up to soul winning on Saturdays? How would Jesus sing in the services? Amen. I'm not talking about his quality. We can never match his quality. But we can match his commitment. We can give our all. I can't give his all. I can give my all. We need to be doing it with his spirit, and we need to do it pointing to him. Amen. [01:30:23]

It's his church. Right. So we ought to lead and oversee and serve as Jesus would do it. We often see the greatest danger in a church as being some type of outside enemy. Oh, someone's gonna come into our church, and they're gonna start stirring up trouble. That has never been my experience. It has always been from within. Right. Yep. We need to take heed to ourselves first. The greatest enemy comes from the within. [01:31:16]

We've gotta take heed unto ourselves. And, Sumi, you do such an amazing job. If you take it personally, that's good. That's okay. It doesn't mean I'm upset about it. I don't think I'm upset about anybody really here tonight. I'm trying to oversee the direction of our church. And, yeah, it's not fun to get punched in the face. We've we've took a couple blows. It is not fun, but we're not out. I've not heard the bell ring yet. Amen. There's still some fight left. That's right. And I gotta get up, wipe my mouth, wipe my nose, say, alright. The battle's still on. I'm still trying to get our church back to where god wants us to be. [01:34:14]

But no oversight, no commitment, no direction, apathy, that's no. It's not gonna make it happen. God, he makes up for our insufficiencies, but he doesn't make up for our lack of commitment and our lack of a our lack of caring. He will not make that up for us. That must be here. And then God will take what little we have, and he'll turn it into something big and amazing. Oh, Lord, would you help us, please? [01:35:06]