Steve Ma Installation Video.MOV: Video automatically transcribed by Sonix

Steve Ma Installation Video.MOV: this MOV video file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

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Well, it's a great delight to be joining you today in this fashion, my greetings to Pastor

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Lau, Pastor Ma, all the members of Christ Church of China, how I wish I could be with

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you today, how my family wishes they could be with you today.

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That would be our great joy, because we want to celebrate a great day.

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And this is indeed a great day.

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It would be our delight to be rejoicing in God's grace to you.

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And pastors are a gift from the Lord.

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And therefore, that's why we want to be there, because we like these celebratory

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things. We wish we could rejoice with you.

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I want to be concise, which you know me well enough to know that's going to be a

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challenge. There's a lot of praise the Lord for today.

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So I want you.

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What I'd like to do is read one little verse and I'm not wanting so much to exegete the verse

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as kind of launch out from there and give you some very practical suggestions on what it

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means, what your responsibility is as the members of Christ Church of China to your new

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senior pastor, Pastor Steve Ma.

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So I'm going to read from Philippians, chapter two, verse twenty nine.

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Paul writes this, So receive him in the Lord with all joy and honor such men.

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For He nearly died for the work of Christ, risking his life to complete what was lacking

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in your service to me, receive him in the Lord with all joy, honour.

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Such men very nearly died for the work of Christ.

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It sounds when you read that verse like this guy must have been one of those, you know,

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preach Jesus in the face of a Roman soldier kind of dudes.

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But he wasn't.

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This is actually in reference to Epaphroditus who was a courier.

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He was bringing information back and forth to Paul and to the Philippines.

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And as he's returning with this letter to the Christians in Phillipi, Paul instructs the

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members of the church to honour this man, to honour him, a man who wasn't some great

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radical. He was just faithful.

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And that shows me that when I see that the level of honour is not based on the size of

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his audience or the supposed results to his ministry, it's just based on one thing his

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faithfulness, honour, Epaphroditus because of his faithfulness.

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And I think I know why Paul says to honour him, to honour him is really the full

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expression of love.

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And the older I get, the more the Bible seems to be telling me about the love of God.

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God, our father acted in love when he sent his son Christ in order to save us in love

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for God and for us.

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Christ gave his life in our place.

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Love is the primary fruit or evidence of God's Holy Spirit.

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But the fruit of the Spirit is love.

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The Apostle John, the Apostle Paul writes so much about the Christians love Paul would say

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in Romans twelve nine.

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Do you remember this?

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Let love be genuine.

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Abhor what is evil.

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Cling to what is good.

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Hold fast to what is good.

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Love one another with brotherly affection.

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Outdo one another in showing honour.

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Now you may read your Bible and think I need to love my husband or my wife.

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Check. I need to love my kids. Check.

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I need to love my church mostly. Check. But love my pastor?

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I need to love my pastor?

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Isn't it my pastor supposed to love me?

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Members of Christ Church of China.

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Can I give you one job?

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And it is this: Love your pastor.

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I can think of a lot of things to tell you.

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I have very strong opinions about how people should listen to sermons or give their money

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or support the decisions of their pastors, because I get lots of opinions about a lot of

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things. But I want to tell you one thing and that one thing should guide all those other

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things. Love your pastor.

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I'll give you seven ways to love him, because as we all know, seven is the biblical number.

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So, Number 1.

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Number One: love is preaching.

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Love is preaching.

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Now, your pastor may not end up being the most remarkable preacher you ever hear, but I

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can't..I can't find a single Bible text that tells me you must only love the supreme

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preachers. I see a lot of texts that tell me that your pastor needs to be faithful.

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And I can tell you that nothing is going to encourage his faithful, deep, prolonged

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study of God's word and his pulpit ministry, than your love for his preaching, if you love

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his preaching, tell him so you don't need to worry about puffing him up.

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There's enough things in pastoral ministry that'll pop that bubble, but you will help

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him and you will strengthen him.

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If you tell him regularly how God is using his preaching of God's word in your own life.

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What's more, if you love his preaching, you will pray for his preaching.

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And if you're praying every week for the preaching of God's word, then you better hang

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on to see what the Lord is going to do.

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Number 2, don't just love his preaching, love his wife.

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This is an easy thing to do in your case, but it's not always so.

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In Jane Austen's book, Emma, there's a character of Mrs Elton, the pastor's wife.

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She has described this way, Augusta Elton.

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She is a boasting, domineering, pretentious woman who likes to be the center of

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attention and is generally disliked by everyone.

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That's something else.

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Perhaps you have been sometime in your life.

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It wasn't in this church, but in the church where a good pastor married poorly.

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I've been in one of those churches.

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It's no picnic for anybody.

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More men have lost churches due to unruly wives than I care to mention.

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So how blessed you are to have a pastor who can look at you and say, hey, I may not have

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done a lot of things right, but I know I did one thing right when I married Debbie, says

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Pastor Steve.

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I did one thing right.

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And everybody says, amen.

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Let me tell you a big secret for pastors.

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One great way to have a happy pastor is to have a happy pastor's wife.

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Few things are going to encourage your pastor more than when you love his wife.

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You got to remember she helps to carry the load of pastoral ministry, but she's not paid

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for it.

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Now she enables him to be hospitable, which he has to be in order to be a pastor.

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She carries the brunt of raising faithful children, which he must have in order to be a

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pastor. So honor, love, Debbie.

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You don't deserve her, but you got her and she is a blessing.

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Don't take her.

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Don't take advantage of her and God's great gift to you in giving her to you.

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Love his wife.

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Thirdly, love his children.

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There is a silent pressure on every single pastor.

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It can weigh on him like a bag of wet cement, and that is his children.

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He knows that he's called to prioritize these children and teach them the ways of God.

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But like you, he has to learn all this stuff on the fly.

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And so here he is trying to learn how to be a dad while he's trying to teach you how to be

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a dad.

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I've been in some churches where things are not going all that well with the children of

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a pastor.

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Why churches know just what to do in those situations.

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They play the long game.

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They realize that there are seasons in any family's life where things are difficult.

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And so they come alongside that pastor with encouraging words and they actually get down

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on their knees and they pray for the children of that pastor.

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If you're going to love Steve and Debbie, if you're going to love Steve as your pastor,

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then you will really, really love his children.

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You're not going to judge Andy and Davy.

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You're going to hold them to some kind of higher standard.

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You're going to expect them to be just like all the other kids in this church who hear

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the gospel.

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And you're going to pray that they respond to the gospel.

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You're not going to be fooled by their Sunday school answers to questions, and you're not

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going to demand of them that they all become pastors and deacons.

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You will love them for who they are.

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Let Andy and Davy be sons of the church like all the other sons of the church that you

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pray for and you love and you encourage. Number 4: for love him with all your complaints,

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Christians have a really, really hard time with this.

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But I want to call you to it.

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We have lost the art of disagreement.

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We've become numb to Bible texts that teach us to speak the truth in love.

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We're more discipled in our methodology, sometimes by cable news than we are by the

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Apostle Paul.

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But if you love this man, you will learn to come to him in all humility and speak

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privately to him with in gentle tones of your concerns about the church or issues in church

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life. You're not going to be one of those people who make snide remarks or gossips or

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spreads disunity or holds

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Resentments that spread into gangerous bitterness, when you truly love someone, you

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can really come to them quietly submissively with honest questions, not presuming or

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assuming, just coming and saying, this is how I'm seeing it.

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Am I right?

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Am I wrong?

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You'll come and you'll learn to have these disagreements in Romans 14 kind of way where

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you can maybe walk out the door and say, well, I think it should be otherwise, but I

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love you, brother, and I'm with you.

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And I'm 100 percent unified with you.

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Paul, again, if we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.

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Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

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Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual

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Should restore him in a spirit of gentleness.

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Keep watch on yourself, lest you to be tempted, bear one another's burdens and so

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fulfill the law of Christ. Five: love them when you don't understand them.

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It is an odd thing to be a pastor.

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You need to love him when you don't understand him.

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Pastors, elders become involved in all the intricacies of other people's lives.

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Sometimes we know things about other people and their situations that we simply cannot

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divulge. That would not be loving to give all the information.

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And sometimes it's in these situations where misunderstandings grow.

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Why weren't, you know, why aren't you doing this or putting a stop to that?

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Where were you when this happened?

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Why didn't you come when we asked how come I have to wait so long to meet with you?

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These are the kinds of questions that easily grow.

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But brothers and sisters, if you love your new senior pastor, then you will remember

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that love hope's all things.

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It bears all things, believes all things, hopes, all things endures.

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All things.

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You're going if you have that kind of love, then you will assume that your pastor is

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using his time wisely.

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You will expect there's things he knows that you don't know and you don't need to know.

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And you will bless him even when he seems to be going in a direction that you find less

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than compelling.

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Love him when you don't understand him.

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Six: Love him for a long time.

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Love never ends.

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There is a curse on the pulpits in Canada.

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Men are afraid to stay in one place for a long time or they stay long that they stop

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growing in Christ.

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Both of these things are a scourge.

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But a wise church will set her heart on loving her pastors for a very long time, not

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just putting up with them, but loving them.

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I'm a big fan of Wendell Berry, the author, and he has one novel called Jayber Crow.

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But I'm not a Christian.

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But he makes this very astute observation about churches and pastors.

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The preachers were always young students from the seminary who were, you might say, the

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mantle of power, but not the mantle of knowledge.

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They wouldn't stay long enough to know where they were.

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Now, this is not the case for you.

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You have a young man who's come to you from the seminary and who is staying long.

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And this is a blessing.

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You want a pastor who's going to be there long enough to bless your babies and baptize

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your believers and bury your dead.

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You don't want a stranger to do that.

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And if that's so, then you must commit to so much more than tolerating this man.

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You must love him, love him, love him so much that on his worst days he's going to think I

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would be nuts to leave this church.

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Finally, Number 7: love him because God has loved you.

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The final and great motivation to our love is never what it gets us.

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True love is seen in Christ.

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Therefore, this is Paul in Ephesians chapter five.

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Verse one. Therefore be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love as Christ

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loved us and gave himself up for us a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

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Did you catch that?

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Be imitators of God. Copy God.

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Be a God copycat.

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Do what he does be like him.

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What does that mean?

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He goes on, walk in love.

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You want to be like God.

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You will walk in love. Love one another by all means.

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But remember to love your pastor too.

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And as you do this, your church will continue to be a beacon of the gospel on the other

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side of our great country, For the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and

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the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit.

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Be with you all.

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We love you all from Toronto.

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Can't wait to see you again.

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