A Red-Hot Recommendation
Ahead of welcoming Christ Church’s new Sr. Pastor, Rev. Paul Lawlor, Interim Sr. Pastor, Bro. Chris Carter has two recommendations for our congregation.
What an exciting week for us as our new senior pastor, Rev. Paul Lawler, and his wife, Missy, begin their ministry among us.
In Romans 16, another Paul, Apostle Paul, writes a letter that carries a tone of great appreciation. That’s the same spirit in which I want to preach this message to you.
Love appreciates people and shows it! Real love is filled with expression and demonstration. Sometimes we are clueless when it comes to knowing how to love and appreciate people; but it is really quite simple.
Paul shows us how in Romans 16 through his letter of recommendation. These letters were called commendatory letters and were well known in the ancient world just as they are today. This chapter is the greatest example in all of Scripture of a letter of recommendation.
Paul asks the church at Rome to enthusiastically and wholeheartedly welcome “Phoebe,” a leader and teacher in the early Christian Church, who would soon be making her journey to Rome.
He says, “I commend to you Phoebe” (16:1a) and then goes on to call her a sister, a servant, a saint, and a helper – credentials of the highest order. He compliments, endorses, gives her a good word.
He gives her a red-hot recommendation before he makes a specific request of the Church.
“I commend to you our sister, Phoebe, a servant of the church in Cenchrea. I ask you to receive her in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints and to give her any help she may need from you, for she has been a great help to many people, including me.” (Romans 16:1-2)
I, and everyone else who has met and interacted with Paul and Missy give them a red-hot recommendation.
As we prepare to welcome them, I am going to ask the same two things of you that Apostle Paul asks from the Church at Rome: Receive and Help.
1) Receive
The phrase “receive in the Lord” means to welcome into fellowship who God sends with an open heart because we understand that God has bound us together in the Lord. We are to welcome Paul and Missy because they are our brother and sister in Christ. God hasn’t called us to check them out, but to let them into our hearts and lives. The search team has already checked them out and found them worthy of our acceptance and love. We are to receive them as God’s gift!
Scripture says God has given many gifts to His Church and one of those is called “pastor” (Ephesians 4:11). We are to receive Paul as a fellow believer, but also as our pastor.
No good pastor that I know faces his or her calling without gratitude or humility. Sometimes it feels like an impossible job! To surrender to the call brings all kinds of blessings (More than I can count) but also challenges that stretch a pastor beyond your imagination.
Preachers face all kinds of challenges and should expect that. Ministry is a fiery ordeal! And sometimes it can cost a lot: pressure, loneliness, difficult decisions, rejection, betrayal and unrealistic expectations.
“Ministry that costs nothing accomplishes nothing. In ministry that is a blessing there must be some bleeding.”
We are in a time of church history where doctrine is critical and must be upheld. But it’s also a season of temptation to be sidetracked by silly skirmishes and pick fights over jots and tittles. It is amazing how petty we Christians can be over things that really don’t amount to a hill of beans in the final analysis. But there we stand, ramrod rigid, nose to nose, as if heaven is holding its breath with an attitude.
My recommendation: Receive Paul, don’t pick at him.
2) Help
A little boy said to his father, “Dad, what does it mean that we’re going to install the pastor? Does it mean that we are going to put him in a stall and feed him hay?” His Dad said, “No, son, it means we’re going to hook the church to the pastor and make him pull it.” (Elton Jones 2/5/92).
A pastor can’t pull without the people’s help! Help him, pray for him, love and appreciate him. Help him, don’t hurt him.
Help doesn’t mean telling Paul every suggestion you have and expecting him to take it. He is open, a great listener and practices collaborative leadership. But his primary goal will be to listen and please God.
My recommendation: God has prepared Paul to lead us. Let him lead!
“I urge you, brothers and sisters, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them. For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naive people. Everyone has heard about your obedience, so I rejoice because of you; but I want you to be wise about what is good, and innocent about what is evil.
The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.” (Romans 16:17-20)
