Chris Collins talks about how, as leaders in our churches, and also as believers, we must be in God’s Word. The Bible helps us resolve conflict, fight sin, and trust God’s faithfulness in difficult circumstances.
Here are some of the main points:
One of my roles as a worship pastor, as a worship leader, is to call people to personal holiness. But we must first seek to do that ourselves. We can’t lead others to listen and obey the Word of God unless we’re constantly listening for ourselves from the Word of God.
When we use shortcuts and are inconsistent, then we are honestly setting ourselves up for attack. And the enemy, what does he do? Aaron alluded to it. He is aimed at, and seeking to kill, steal, and destroy, not only you but your entire church.
That’s some heavy stuff. That’s what we’re up against. And he can’t have your salvation, this enemy. He can’t steal it, can’t take it. But what he will do is make you completely ineffective for the Gospel of Jesus Christ as a pastor.
That is the worst thing that could happen to you. In the one way, I think the worst way and the sneakiest way, that he does that is he slowly, through other means, just entices you away from the lamp that you’re holding. You set it down and pick up other things. You convince yourself a mirror is just as good as a lamp itself.
Psalm 119:9. It says, “How can a young person stay on the path of purity? By living according to Your word.”
Guys, that’s not just a pornography verse. That’s a personal holiness verse. “By keeping it according to Your word.” If we aren’t in the Word, then how are we gonna handle conflict? How are we gonna handle sin? How are we gonna handle the person that comes up after service and is grieving? Hard circumstances are going to come our way. Are we going to handle them like shepherds that we’ve been called to, 0r are we going to be imposters?
What the Bible calls us is “wolves.” I’ve met a lot of worship pastors over ten years of us being here, and a lot of the time – lunches, coffees, whatever – probably will talk with you guys about, “I’ve got this situation, this person, and this is happening, and I just don’t know what to do with it.” And I start, “Okay, give me a little bit more about it,” and get a little more details, and they start bringing more color to the situation, but then I start digging into them.
What I usually find is that they have such a superficial knowledge of God – a superficial rhythm of daily time in the Word. It’s not that their intention is out of the way. They want to engage the situation, they just don’t know how.
We have to be in the Word of God for our people. We have to call ourselves to holiness – to be set apart by God through His Word before we call anyone else to do the same thing.
