Touré Roberts - Shepherds and Thinkers

So, we’ve covered the Apostolic grace, the prophetic grace, and last week we discussed the evangelistic grace. Today, I want to cover the final two graces in that passage, which are the pastor and the teacher. If you will allow me to bring this into a context that may be more suited to where I’m headed today, I’d like to refer to them as the shepherds and the thinkers. So, let’s talk about the pastor. If you really study the Scriptures, you’ll find that the words «pastor» and «shepherd» are used interchangeably. They ultimately concern those who guide, nurture, protect, and care for the sheep. Pastors are nurturers, and we will discuss what pastors look like both in practical terms and in the modern context of people who are actually doing the work of the pastor. Some function in the pastoral grace but do not even consider themselves pastors. Sometimes it is a matter of semantics; they may feel like they’re running away from it. Have you ever been that person who thinks, «Okay, I’m out?» No, that’s not it. They start running from it because they do not fully understand what it means. Quite frankly, they do not understand what is expected of them, and they feel like they are still working things out. They do not want to be called «pastor» and then back off or whatever. But the reality is that we’re talking about a function, a grace, and sometimes you’re walking in that divine function and grace, so you might as well embrace it and affirm the fact that God is using you in that way.

The pastoral grace is, ultimately—if you’re taking notes, you can write this down—about maintaining the fish that the evangelistic grace attracts. We talked about how the evangelistic grace ultimately wins people to the Lord, which means that everyone here, everyone under the sound of my voice, has already been touched by the evangelistic grace. You wouldn’t be here. Even if you haven’t quite embraced Christ yet, you’re here for other reasons. You haven’t fully taken the plunge, so to speak; you’re checking things out, and you’ve been drawn and stirred. You would not be here today if the evangelistic grace hadn’t touched you. That’s what it’s designed to do; it goes out into the world, touches people’s hearts, intrigues them, and causes them to follow others. You’re following the church on social media, and right now you’re watching via livestream. You’re an online member who hasn’t even been in the building yet, but somehow, you got drawn to us. You have been captured by the evangelistic grace.

However, that’s just the first step. The evangelistic grace is meant to get you to a place of, quite frankly, elementary faith—the basics of your faith. From there, you have to grow. Jesus talked about making you a fisher of men. One thing I was thinking about is why pastoral care is so important. Again, the pastoral grace is about nurturing, creating community, and fostering a culture that gives people a sense of home—"This is my church home; this is my church family.» The pastor obviously oversees that because while escaping the sharks is essential, getting saved is just the beginning. You may escape the shark, but the sharks are always after you. We don’t escape just once and call it a day. What I’ve learned is that I must keep swimming away from the sharks because they have a sense of ownership over you. I feel this for someone: even when you get away, even when you get free, even when you get delivered, the enemy is on your trail. Bad habits are on your trail; old addictions are on your trail; and old people are sometimes on your trail trying to get you back. You have to keep swimming away from the sharks because they do not give up easily. Are you hearing me? So, what pastors do—what the pastoral grace does—is maintain what the evangelistic grace has accomplished.

That’s why, even regarding evangelism, we cannot be overly critical. Let me share something with you: this doesn’t happen here, but it occurs in some places. Those who function in the evangelistic grace often have more followers than in any of the other graces because God anoints them to cast a very large net. This means they may not be extremely deep theologically and so forth. At the end of the day, when you’re running from a shark, you don’t care about theology; you’re just trying to escape. Come on, Nemo! Those who function in that grace aren’t going to delve deeply into eschatology or necessarily discuss tongues and prophecy.