The Pastor’s Two Masters

This message is subtitled "Caught between The Rock and a Hard Place".

I've never been responsible for a church staff or budget. I've never been a paid church employee. But I can tell you what I've observed. Please take this as a warning, as a light shining into a dark place. 

This isn't a rebuke...that would have to come from the Lord Himself. If this applies to you, I'm honored if you think of me as little more than Balaam's donkey (Numbers 22:21-35). This is God's message, not mine. If you don't like what I'm saying, take it up with the Bible.

Hang on, this could hurt. I may ramble a bit, but I'm making what I believe to be very valid points. Some Pastors manage to avoid this trap, but many don't.

The more staff, operational overhead and building debt that a Pastor is responsible for, the greater the pressure to avoid anything that might slow attendance or lower the church's cash flow. The church budget can become a monster demanding to be fed.

That monster pushes for diluted and even unscriptural teaching. Why? Because keeping the attendance and cash flow up becomes a bigger driver than the truth. The monster becomes a big motivation behind many superficial "feel good" messages from the Pulpit.

That's serving two masters.

Matthew 6:24 No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.

Mammon is ambitions for the things of this world that divert our attention and love from God. Having two masters in the pulpit infects the congregation and hurts God's flock.

Many Pastors are under constant pressure to keep people feeling good and never offended. There's pressure to keep growing numbers for ambition and budget's sake rather than purely to grow people in God's Kingdom.

I've seen young men start in ministry with a pure desire to serve the Lord. A church will then hire a guy like that to be on staff. Over time, he gets married, has children, a mortgage, and bills. The pressure builds to protect his job, his paycheck, and grow his career. I’m not saying this is easy to be fixed, but fixed it must be. It may be subtle, but there’s no question it impacts the purity of serving the Lord.

How did Jesus handle the money thing? In the story of the rich young ruler, Jesus deliberately set the bar high before the young man could join Jesus' followers. There's a lot to unpack here, but I'll stick with the money issue for now.

Jesus told the rich young man "Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me...When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth."

(Matthew 19:16–23; Mark 10:17–22; and Luke 18:18–23).

In today's church world, it's likely we'd say to the rich young man, "Welcome aboard!"

But that's not what Jesus did. He went straight to the grip that money had on this guy's heart. The rich young man walked away, taking his money and influence with him.

I can almost hear today's church managers saying "But Lord, he has money and influence. We need a guy with money and influence like him. He can be fixed up little by little after he joins us, right? Why send him away?"

Two thousand some odd years ago, Jesus kept His motivation towards the rich young man pure, undiluted by anything to do with the fellow's money.

As a young man, I had a close relationship with a wonderful Pastor, Dr. Hong Sit. If there was ever a man not motivated by money, it was him. I was about to graduate from College with a Christianity degree. He asked what my post-graduation job plans were. I didn't have anything firm in mind, but said that maybe I would look around and try to catch on somewhere as a Youth Pastor.

He said that if I had a true ministry calling, I would feel compelled to serve and minister whether or not it was connected to a paying job. You know what? He was right. His response made me realize I didn't have a clear sense of calling.

If I had shopped around for a job that would pay me to serve the Lord, I would have started out compromised. I've since observed what seems to be other people in ministry who've compromised their calling. Maybe some were never truly called in the first place. 

Let me be clear. It's good to have a paying job. But serving the Lord without compromise should happen with or without a safe paycheck or a big church budget.

So, what's the solution? Start in prayer. Ask the Lord to clearly reveal and then cleanse your heart from any compromise. You must be willing to accept His response, no matter the personal cost.

Teach God's standards, His demands for righteousness and the coming, unavoidable judgement on unrighteousnes.

Acts 17:30-31 God now commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has set a day when he is going to judge the world in righteousness by the man he has appointed.

2 Peter 3:7  By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.

Years ago in a secular job, I had a coworker who had been taught at her church that abortion was okay because God was pro-choice. She even referenced Joshua's message telling the Israelites "choose for yourselves this day" (Joshua 24:15). She'd been taught that God was okay with our choices.

I was stunned by the mishandling of God's Word she’d been taught from the Pulpit at her church. It's true that God gives humanity freedom of choice. But it's not at all true that He is okay with our choices. He will judge our choices. Among many other things, He hates murder of the helpless and innocent.

We will all have to answer for our choices. It's imperative to repent, trust in the transforming forgiveness Jesus bought for us, and surrender to His complete Lordship.

Let me reiterate a few points.

There is pressure on many Pastors to feed the Mammon monster, build personal kingdoms, build bigger buildings, and add more staff.

There is a damaging focus on maintaining the business and cash flow of the church. Many started with hearts set on serving God but became guys protecting a career.

• They're afraid to say or teach anything that might reduce cash flow and will instead preach things to increase the cash flow. 

• They will use baptisms and attendance numbers as body counts to justify the policies and preaching, claiming that as evidence they have God's approval.

• They won't endorse the baptism in the Holy Spirit, not because they think it's wrong, but because it could drive some folks away.

Jesus said we can't serve two masters, God and Mammon. Remember the Church in Smyrna that was poor but commended by Jesus. (Revelation 2:8-11)

Remember that teachers of the Word will face a higher standard of judgement (James 3:1). Remember that we must be about our Father's business, not our own. Even at age 12, Jesus was clear in his heart about that.

Luke 2:49-50 He said, “Why were you looking for me? Didn’t you know that I had to be here, dealing with the things of my Father?” But they had no idea what he was talking about.

Remember Ezekiel's condemnation of spiritual leaders who were in it for themselves and claimed they were speaking for God when they really weren't. God had a very strong rebuke for them. Ezekiel 13:6-7.

Remember that New Testament writers dealt with unrighteous church leaders. Among them, 

• There was Jezebel in Revelation 2:20 who spread sin and false doctrine.

• There were leaders who rejected Paul, mentioned in 2 Timothy 1:15 and 2 Corinthians 10:1-2.

• There were bad pastors and good ones, contrasted in 3 John 1:9-12.

• There were pastors who boasted about themselves and flattered others for their own advantage, warned about in Jude 1:16.

Pastors should be teaching the congregation to register and vote, supporting God's ideals. They should pray for Israel and teach the people to do the same. That's big-time Scriptural. Psalm 122:6-9

Don't be afraid of man or of man's government. That makes me think of Proverbs 29:25. 

The fear of man brings a snare, But whoever trusts in the Lord shall be safe.

If you believe like I do that God speaks to humanity through the Bible, you must conclude that He is very unhappy with antisemitism, transgenderism, gender fluidity, the LGBTQ+ agenda, sexual perversion, the wicked indoctrination of children, and murder of the innocent in the womb, among quite a few other things. I could go on. 

As I said earlier, if you don't like what I'm saying, take it up with the Bible.

In the United States, God has given us rare ability to influence government and determine the direction of our culture. I'm not telling you who to vote for. I am strongly encouraging you to research and support the political positions that come closest to righteousness.

Don't support anti-Bible, pro-censorship, anti-constitution and anti electoral college ideas. Those are all very bad ideas that you’d better believe will be used to spread evil and restrict true Christianity. Guess where the Lord God Almighty will take His stand on that. For more on the spiritual battle behind anti-semitism, read my message at godsclaygodsway.com titled Israel Under Attack: The Real Battle, Part 1 and Part 2.

No political platform or politician is perfect, so Believers should research and actively support what comes closest to God's heart. I believe that how a Believer votes will be brought into judgement.

God hates abortion, so whoever reduces it the most should get your support.

Jesus said in Matthew18:6

If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.

Always be watchful for distractions. The enemy uses all kinds of distractions to dampen the truth. Mark 4:18-19 says

Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful.

I will finish with this passage from Mark 13:35-37:

Watch therefore, for you do not know when the master of the house is coming—in the evening, at midnight, at the crowing of the rooster, or in the morning—lest, coming suddenly, he find you sleeping. And what I say to you, I say to all: Watch!