And while the children are making their way to catechism class, let me invite all of you, members of our congregation, to take a Bible in hand. Tonight we are celebrating the great gift that God has given to First Presbyterian Church in the faithful ministry of David Felker. He and Lauren are a great team and they make an enormous impact for good in our fellowship. Not a day goes by when I’m not thankful for David’s friendship, for his wisdom and his godliness, his calm demeanor, his sound judgment, his good humor, his personal integrity – make him a very fine pastor. He is a trusted friend, he is an effective leader. There is no one I would rather see become the first Associate Minister in the history of this congregation than David Felker. By elevating David to this new status, from Assistant Pastor to Associate Pastor, called by you, the congregation of this church, we are making David a voting member of the Session. That’s the name to our elder board. He becomes a voting member, an elder among the elders, voting with them, and we’re giving him the status and the authority for the work that we’ve asked him to do on our staff as our Executive Minister. And yet for all that, we’re not actually changing his job description at all. He’ll continue to do among us what he has already been doing. In fact, while there are some First Pres specific components to his every day work, really David is called by the Lord Jesus to do what every minister is always called to do.
And it would be a mistake, I think, if tonight our attention were to fall on the unique tasks required of David that arise from the special circumstances of his work in our particular congregation. What we should focus on is what the passage highlights for us, to which I want to direct your attention tonight – the basic job description of every faithful minister of the Lord Jesus Christ. So take a copy of God’s Word in hand please and turn with me to 1Thessalonians chapter 2 at verse 17 reading through verse 5 of chapter 3. First Thessalonians chapter 2 at verse 17 through to verse 5. If you’re using a church Bible, you’ll find that on page 986. Now 1 Thessalonians, as you may know, is unusually full of personal references from the apostle Paul concerning the conduct of his own ministry. So you learn a great deal about what a faithful minister ought to be and to do from 1 Thessalonians.
And I want to highlight six things from this often overlooked little section of the letter that I hope will help us all to think again about the work of the minister. First of all – and I really went to town on the alliteration! I’ve been restraining it for such a long time and the banks burst with this sermon so please forgive me! But first of all, the pastor’s perplexity. Don’t laugh! Paul can’t get to see the Thessalonians personally; he’s stuck in Athens. And he’s really concerned that Satan will derail all the good work of the ministry that he has done among them or God has done through Paul among them. His perplexity. We’re going to see him filled with concern. Secondly, the pastor’s partnership. He can’t go so he sends Timothy his brother and God’s coworker. Perplexity. Partnership. Then, the pastor’s privilege. Since Timothy is called God’s coworker, we ought to linger over that phrase a little bit. It is an extraordinary title for a minister, isn’t it? God’s coworker. God’s coworker. That is surely the height of privilege. Perplexity. Partnership. Privilege.
Then, the pastor’s provision. Since he is God’s coworker, God is at work while he works. He does not work under his own steam, by his own strength, but rather it is God who works in and through him to will and to work for God’s own glory and praise. Perplexity. Partnership. Privilege. Provision. And then, the pastor’s position. Paul says that Timothy is his brother and God’s coworker in the Gospel of Christ. That is where Timothy resides. That is the sphere of his ministry. In the Gospel of Jesus Christ he becomes Paul’s brother and God’s coworker. And then finally, the pastor’s project. What is Timothy to do when he gets to Thessalonica? What is his work? Paul says he is to establish and exhort them that their faith might not be moved. So that’s where we are going. Have you got it? The pastor’s perplexity, partnership, privilege, provision, position, and project. Before we look at each of those themes, let’s bow our heads and pray and then we’ll read the passage together.
O Lord, send us now the Holy Spirit. Give us teachable hearts. Give us ears to hear what He would say to the church. Instruct us. Make us freshly grateful that the Lord Jesus, King and Head of the church, gives Gospel ministers for our care, to establish and exhort us that our faith might not be moved. May we see in all that we do here tonight, as David is installed to this new role, may we see in it all a fresh token of our Good Shepherd’s care for the sheep. For Jesus’ sake, amen.
First Thessalonians chapter 2 at verse 17. This is the Word of God:
“But since we were torn away from you, brothers, for a short time, in person not in heart, we endeavored the more eagerly and with great desire to see you face to face, because we wanted to come to you—I, Paul, again and again—but Satan hindered us. For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it not you? For you are our glory and joy.
Therefore when we could bear it no longer, we were willing to be left behind at Athens alone, and we sent Timothy, our brother and God’s coworker in the gospel of Christ, to establish and exhort you in your faith, that no one be moved by these afflictions. For you yourselves know that we are destined for this. For when we were with you, we kept telling you beforehand that we were to suffer affliction, just as it has come to pass, and just as you know. For this reason, when I could bear it no longer, I sent to learn about your faith, for fear that somehow the tempter had tempted you and our labor would be in vain.”
Amen, and we praise God that He has spoken in His holy and authoritative Word.
Let’s look at the pastor’s perplexity first of all in verse 17 of chapter 2. Paul expresses his longing to be back with the Thessalonians. He is in Athens and his departure from them, he characterizes as a terrible tear. You see that language in verse 17? “Since we were torn away from you.” The root word that’s translated here “torn away” is actually the word from which we get our English word “orphan.” Unlike today, the word “orphan” applied in Paul’s day not just to children bereft of parents but also of parents bereft of children. Paul has described himself earlier in chapter 2 verse 7 as like a nursing mother, gentle and nurturing toward the Thessalonians, and in chapter 2 verse 11, like a father, careful to instruct them and encourage them. He is a parent toward them. That’s how he feels.
And now he says, “Since I can’t be with you in person, I feel like an orphaned parent. My children who I so love are far away from me and I can’t see them to help them. My heart is still with you,” he says. “I am here and you are there.” In the sense of being orphaned from them, he says in verses 17 and 18, has moved him again and again with passion and urgency to try and get back to them to see them at last face to face.
Now I have these six alliterated points, these six “P”s, but I could add a seventh here, sort of sneak it in and hope you didn’t notice. The pastor’s passion. He’s passionate for them, isn’t he? He is full of love toward them. “You are our glory and our joy. Everything I want most is bound up in your welfare and the prosperity of the Lord’s cause in your midst.” He loves them passionately and fervently and profoundly. David Felker, the Lord has called you not just to do your duty, not just to grease the skids of the organizational machinery around here. He has called you to love these people, to love them. That’s what Pastor’s do. That’s what you see in Paul. That’s what you do so very well. You love us and that is the Lord’s call on your life.
But of course, love like that, as every parent here knows well, comes at a cost. It brings perplexity, doesn’t it? It comes with anxiety, with a burden of care for your children. Paul wants to come to them but he can’t. And if you look over at chapter 3 verse 5, you’ll see what’s got him so anxious, so worked up, as he thinks about them. “For this reason, when I could bear it no longer, I sent to learn about your faith for fear” – here’s what I’m worried about; here’s what I’m afraid of – “for fear that somehow the tempter had tempted you and our labor would be in vain.” He is full of concern that their walk with the Lord might actually have been derailed by the temptations of the evil one, the great tempter. In fact, this is the second time he references the devil in this passage, isn’t it? He mentions Satan earlier in verse 18. He was unable to reach the Thessalonians because he says “Satan hindered us.” And while he has been away from them, Paul has been riddled with concern lest the tempter who has been working overtime to hinder Paul’s ministry in Athens would also be effective and successful in leading his beloved Thessalonians astray.
God gives us ministers because we are living in a spiritual warzone. The devil opposes both pastor and people. He is assailing Paul in Athens and the Thessalonians in Thessalonica. Your ministers and all of you, we are the targets of Satanic opposition. He seeks to hinder our ministry among you and he seeks to tempt you in such a way that all fruit from our labors might be spoiled. All your growth might be stunted and all your progress halted. Isn’t it easy, pastors, elders, deacons, spiritual leaders of this congregation, members of the presbytery of the Mississippi Valley, isn’t it easy to show up for committee meetings and participate in the GroupMe and go to the ministry events and do all the things we’re supposed to do and do them in a sleepy, unengaged, same-old, same-old kind of way? Isn’t that easy to do? And forget, while we are dozing our way through the routine, Satan is working hard to hinder us and undermine in the lives of the people of God all our labor for their good. The pastor’s perplexity. Do you see why Paul is concerned? The devil is at work, and because he loves them so, he is anxious for their welfare.
So how does he respond? What is he going to do about it? He can’t get to them but he can send them Timothy. He can send them Timothy. So here in the second place is the pastor’s partnership. Chapter 3 verse 1, “Therefore, when we could bear it no longer, we were willing to be left behind at Athens alone, and we sent Timothy our brother.” We sent Timothy our brother. You get the sense, don’t you, that Paul was doing some very difficult calculus in Athens. “I love Timothy. I love him. He is my brother. We are family. And Satan is really working overtime to hinder me in my work here in Athens. It’s hard, discouraging work. I could really use Timothy’s friendship and his support right now. But then what about the Thessalonians? I love them too. And the tempter is scheming to destroy them too. If I keep Timothy here to myself, I’m going to leave them without the pastoral leadership that they need.” And so he arrives at his conclusion – “I know what I have to do. I’d rather be left alone here in Athens to muddle through as best I can and deal with the devil’s schemes aiming at me, I’d rather do all of that alone than leave my beloved Thessalonians without Timothy. I’ll take the hit so they can have the help.” And he sends them Timothy. He trusts Timothy to do the work. He can’t go, but Timothy can go.
Paul is not like some leaders who can’t delegate, can’t trust someone else to lead; they’ve got to have their hands on everything. That’s not Paul, is it? He sends brother Timothy. Here is ministry in the New Testament mold. Do you see it as ministry done in partnership? It’s done together. That’s part of what tonight is really about, isn’t it? As pastors and elders here we have the wonderful blessing of serving together as a team, as partners in the cause of Christ. And so it’s right to pause on this occasion and give thanks to God for David Felker’s ministry and for the Gospel partnership that it represents. We can do so much more, we can reach so much further than whatever we could on our own because we do it together. We do it together.
But that’s not all Paul has to say about Timothy, is it? He is Pual’s beloved brother, his partner in the work of the Gospel. It hurts to lose Timothy from the mission field in Athens, but look at chapter 3 verse 2 again. “Timothy is our brother and God’s coworker.” That is an extraordinary title for a minister. Here’s the pastor’s privilege now – God’s coworker. Is there a more exalted title for a Gospel minister than this?
In 1945, moved by a great desire to do something for the war effort, a young woman enlisted in what was called “The British Auxiliary Territorial Service.” She became second subaltern, Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor and she trained to be a mechanic working on truck engines. Now second subaltern, Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor was of course, Her Royal Highness Princess Elizabeth, who would go on to become Queen Elizabeth II. She inhabited, naturally, the most exclusive world, moved in the most elite circles, was familiar with the highest officers in the land. She called His Majesty King George VI, ruler of the vast domains of the British Empire, she called him, “Daddy.” And here she was, changing spark plugs and emptying oil tanks. Imagine showing up to work in the shop and popping the hood of an old truck and there to help you with a wrench in her hands and oil under her nails and a dark smudge of grease on her cheek is second subaltern, Elizabeth. Forever after that, you could tell your children and your grandchildren you’d spent hours working closely with the queen. “Oh, wow! You must be an awfully important person to have spent so much time with Her Majesty. What lofty work were you engaged in?” Her presence would make the most mundane duty special, wouldn’t it? A mere mechanics job becomes the height of privilege if you are second subaltern Elizabeth’s coworker.
Timothy is God’s coworker. God is working and Timothy is working on God’s project along with God Himself. Ministers are God’s coworkers and His presence in the tasks and the duties of every day ministry beautifies them and elevates them and fills them with an exalted status. It’s not that ministers are, in themselves, all that special – sorry David! Or that our work is intrinsically complicated or specialized. We have emails to write, people to talk with and pray with, meetings to lead, Bible studies, sermons to prepare. It’s not the man. It’s not really the work. It is the presence of God whose coworkers we are that transforms these things and makes them rare and lofty and sacred. As we install David into this new ministerial relation, we affirm that David Felker is God’s coworker. The dignity of his office is not measured by his not inconsiderable gifts, nor by the unusual difficulty of his duties. The dignity of his office is measured by the greatness of almighty God by whose side David works at all the tasks entrusted to him. This is God’s work and David Felker has a share in it and that is privilege beyond words.
But it’s more even simply than privilege. It’s also provision, isn’t it, surely. If we are God’s coworkers, we mustn’t imagine that we do fifty-percent of the work and God does the other fifty-percent. If I’m honest, I have a hard time imagining Princess Elizabeth really doing the most menial, difficult parts of a mechanics job. I suspect she likely left those things for others to do. But when Paul calls Timothy God’s coworker, he wasn’t describing a 50/50 split of labor, nor was he suggesting that we do all the dirty work and God gets all the credit, like I suspect was the case for Princess Elizabeth. Actually, what he’s saying is God is doing all the work, all of it, and He equips and calls and empowers His ministers and uses them in His service, working through them for His great glory and our everlasting good. He does the gruntwork. He does the menial stuff. He does the heavy lifting. He does it. And when the work is finished at last and all the ransomed church of God are saved to sin no more, there will not be one single Gospel minister gathered in that great company around the throne of God in glory to come who will stand back on that day and say, “Look what I did.” Not one. We will all say, “Look at what God, look at what God has accomplished despite all my weakness, all my sin, all my misunderstanding, all my ignorance. Despite all my incompetence and disobedience and my selfishness. Even with my countless limitations, God worked among the people that He entrusted to my care. And here they all are now at last, arrayed in white robes with the masses of the redeemed adoring their Savior with me!” Every minister on that great day will say, “God did it all. He did it all.” And we’ll be right.
And yet still the holy Scriptures say we are God’s coworkers. They say it, I think, to remind us that God does His work as we work, not instead of our working but through our working, in our working. We have work to do. There’s no slacking off in the Christian life nor is there any in the Christian ministry. God works in our working. He works in us to will and to work for His good pleasure. But we’re also called God’s coworkers because unless God was working then our best efforts in His service would only ever make things worse, not better. Unless God works to take our feeble service, and by His grace accomplish all His holy will, what a liability we would be. What a liability. The very best minister would be a terrible liability in the church of God unless God was at work in him and through him for His glory. Ministers have hard work to do, but they do it by God’s rich provision, God enabling them, God Himself working in all their work. The pastor’s perplexity, his partnership, his privilege and provision.
Now, fifthly, notice the pastor’s position. Look again at the phrase Paul uses to describe Timothy in verse 2. He is our brother and God’s coworker “in the Gospel of Christ.” The Gospel of Christ is the sphere within which Timothy is called Paul’s brother and God’s coworker. It is the Gospel that makes these things true about Timothy. It’s not that Timothy applied for the job and pressed Paul in an interview, had a dazzling resume, impeccable references, and so he got the job as Paul’s brother and God’s coworker. No, the Gospel of Christ made Timothy these things and the Gospel of Christ will provide the fuel to enable Timothy in the hard work to which he is sent in Thessalonica. And it will be the substance of his message as he goes to teach and to preach there. Ministers are nothing, they are nothing. We are glorified social workers and motivational speakers and life coaches and organizational managers and that is all we are unless we are God’s coworkers in the Gospel of Christ. It is the Gospel of Christ that makes our pastoral care and our pulpit ministry and our counseling and our leadership fruitful and enduring and eternally significant. It’s not the gifts or the rhetoric of the man but the Gospel he proclaims that causes his ministry to bear fruit.
David Felker, plant your feet on the solid rock of the Gospel of Christ and never, never move from it. You cannot be useful to anyone without the Gospel. Let this next phase of ministry at First Presbyterian Church be consecrated to the proposition of the Gospel of Christ. Make this your singular focus, your motivation – to preach good news for the world and to leverage every asset that we have, that God has so richly lavished upon this congregation, to make Jesus known. Be a Gospel man. Your whole usefulness depends on it. Be a Gospel man. The pastor’s perplexity, partnership, privilege, provision, position.
And finally, the pastor’s project. What is Timothy to do when he arrives in Thessalonica? Is he to rush into committee meetings, start work on the budget, plan a social media campaign to get the word out, “I’m here now”? What is Timothy’s project? Chapter 3 verses 2 and 3, “We sent Timothy our brother and God’s coworker in the Gospel of Christ to establish and exhort you in your faith that no one be moved by these afflictions, for you yourselves know that we are destined for this.” They were suffering, so was Paul. Paul told them previously that was what to expect. Verse 4, suffering is the normal Christian life. Affliction is ordinary, not unusual, for followers of Jesus. God’s going to help you through it. The Lord Jesus, your compassionate High Priest, will pray for you in it. The Holy Spirit, your Comforter, will keep you no matter what and bless your sufferings to sanctify you and make you like Jesus. But suffering is coming, so get ready. That’s what He had told them when He was with them.
And yet Paul knows the human heart very well, doesn’t he? And he knows the strategy of the devil that he often uses. And so when he says in verse 3 that he is worried that they might be moved by these afflictions, the word he uses is “to be deceived.” He’s worried that Satan is going to seize on the opportunity of their suffering to bring them to wrong conclusions and twisted convictions and to lead them astray. Despite all his instruction and training, despite many warnings about coming suffering, he knows how when it finally comes and suffering moves from theory to personal, painful reality, he knows under the pressure, in the crucible of suffering our convictions sometimes waver, sometimes even collapse. Our faith is shaken, doubt and discouragement and defeat too often prevail. So what can be done? That’s his concern. What can be done? He sends Timothy to “establish and exhort them in their faith that they might not be moved.”
That’s the basic job description of a Gospel minister – to establish and exhort you that you might not be moved. The word translated “establish” means to consolidate, make firm and sure and stable. To exhort, it’s the word sometimes translated “encourage,” sometimes “comfort.” They’re both preaching words. They’re Word-ministry words. Brothers and sisters, tonight God is doing something wonderful, something wonderful. He is setting apart David Felker for a new season of Word ministry among us, to establish and exhort us in our faith that we might not be moved. That’s what tonight is about. David is not being set apart for an administrative role, he’s not being installed a manager of people. He is a minister of Word and sacrament. And as such, as you see what’s happening tonight, you need to see it as a token, a great token of the kindness of God who gives us Timothys and Felkers to establish and exhort us so that though Satan seeks to assail us and derail us and tempt us and undermine us and deceive us, He gives us Gospel ministers to teach us and show us the way.
As you listen to the vows David will take in just a moment or two, I want you to hear in each, “I do,” an echo of the marriage vows of the Lamb who weds Himself to His Bride, the Church. “I do. I will. Forever and ever. Forsaking all others. I am yours. You are mine.” Here is the Lamb, the Lord Jesus, reminding you that He loves you, people of God, and He sends you Gospel ministers to care for you.
So we see in this passage, don’t we, not just the great love of the apostle Paul. Actually we see in it the great love of the Lord Jesus Christ for His Church, His Bride. Here is a penned portrait of a faithful minister. Do you see it? Satan perplexes, no doubt, but God brings a team together in Gospel partnership. We are so blessed by the team of leaders we have here that God has assembled. May He use us for His glory and your good. And He has given His ministers a high privilege indeed, to be His coworkers. And provided for us. He works in all our working. By His strength, His kingdom advances, even as He uses weak instruments like us. The position in which your pastors find themselves that dignifies our work and makes it lasting and eternally significant, we are in the Gospel of Christ, that is, the good news of Jesus that changes everything. And our project, it’s not social, organizational or political, it is to establish and exhort you that your faith might not be moved. How great is the love of Christ for you to give you faithful Gospel ministers like David Felker. Here is a token of the unfailing love of the King and Head of the church. Receive His goodness with a glad and thankful heart.
Let’s pray together.
Our God and Father, we bow before You and we adore You that the Lord Jesus is indeed King and Head of His Church and He loves His Church, His Bride. And as we set apart David to this sacred task, as he renews his vows, as he moves into a new phase of Gospel ministry, we ask that You would indeed fill him with a sense of renewed wonder that he should be called God’s coworker. Strengthen his hand. Make his labors fruitful. And bless us under his ministry that together as a congregation we might bring You praise and glory for Jesus’ sake. Amen.