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January 27, 2002
Pastor Stensberg's 40th Anniversary
Hebrews 13:7
Pastor Joel Zank

Remember Your Leaders

(Hebrews 13:7) Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.

In Christ Jesus who gave some to be pastors and teachers to build up his body, the church, dear fellow redeemed and especially you, my dear Pastor Stensberg,

If I were to ask you to describe the model minister, what would you say he'd be like? How would he act? What sorts of things would he say? Some time ago, I ran across a description of the model minister. I thought it fitting to share it with you today.

The model minister is the individual who preaches for only 15 minutes each Sunday, and yet in that span of time is able to thoroughly expound upon God's Word each week. He is a man who condemns sin, but in doing so never hurts anyone's feelings. He's 26 years old with 40 years of preaching experience under his belt. He has a burning desire to work with teenagers and spend all of his time with the older members of the congregation. He smiles constantly and yet manages to do so with a straight face because he has a sense of humor that keeps him seriously dedicated to his work. He makes 15 calls a day on church members, spends all of his time evangelizing the unchurched, and is always in the office when you need him. He's the model minister. Or is he? Since it is God who calls and equips men for ministry, we really ought to see what he has to say about model ministers. He tells us today here in his Word. As we study it together we take these words of our text as our theme: Remember Your Leaders, noting that in this section of Scripture, God even tells us how to remember our Leaders. He says: 1)call to mind their message; 2)consider their way of life; and 3)imitate their faith.

I've been reminded recently just how much called workers dislike observing their anniversaries in ministry. Pastor Stensberg is no exception. The mere mention of this event put a sour look on his face, the kind a person gets when he has to take some bitter medicine. But we found a way to get him to swallow it. We told him it would be good for God's people. And so it is. An observance such as this is very much in keeping with God's directive-"Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you." "Who spoke the word of God to you." These words not only identify those leaders we are to remember, but explain what it is we are to remember about them.

It's so tempting for pastor and congregation alike to measure a man's ministry in terms of results and accomplishments. How many baptisms did he perform? How many marriages did he save? Did the churches he served flourish or dwindle under his charge? Did he have a great youth group? Were his Bible classes well attended? These are the standards by which we sinners tend to judge a pastor. By such standards we have proclaimed some men great and others poor. Shame on us! We've been using the wrong standards. How can we measure a man's ministry by its results when the results are God's business and his alone? Ministry isn't about results, it's about serving God's people with God's Word. Remember your leaders who spoke the word of God to you.

Most of you have only known Pastor Stensberg for about a year now. But whether you've known him for one year or for nearly forty years he represents the same thing to all of us-the grace of God. That's what we're celebrating today.

When we told Pastor Stensberg that we'd like to observe his anniversary, he said, "Don't go making a big deal about it. Remember, I am what I am by the grace of God." And so you are! You're one of those jars of clay we heard about from the Apostle Paul (2 Corinthians 4:7), a fragile vessel just like everyone of us, born to die a sinner's death in hell. But God rescued you from that awful fate. His grace found you and through Word and sacrament he connected you to Christ your substitute, giving you the credit for the life Jesus' lived and the death he died in your place. By grace alone, God chose to pour the gospel's all surpassing power into you-the power of salvation. Yes, you are what you are by God's grace, his own dear child, redeemed from sin's punishment by your crucified and risen Savior.

But God's grace didn't stop there. What it worked in you, it then determined to work through you for the benefit of your fellow redeemed. The same grace that saved you, moved you to hear the voice of Christ through his Church and accept his call into public ministry-a ministry he designed in order to deposit the riches of God's forgiveness into the hands and heart of every poor sinner. What a tremendous privilege for you these forty years. What a gracious blessing to us!

For as a called servant of Christ you are a living reminder to all of us of the love God has for every soul. Isn't that true my friends? As if God's grace had not done enough for us by sending us Jesus and giving us his gospel, in his boundless love God thought to give us earthly shepherds, men working under Christ, whose only purpose in life is to bring God's law and his gospel to us week after week, year after year. God has done this for he knows how we sheep like to wander. He knows how prone we are to turn and twist his Word, using it at times to even justify our sin. God knows how apt we are to doubt his promises and despair of his love. So he calls pastors into his service and says to them: "Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage--with great patience and careful instruction" (2 Timothy 4:2). Pastors are called to show us our sins in the mirror of God's law whether that be public worship or in private counsel. The pastor's duty is to point out sin and error wherever they exist, so that through his law, God's Spirit might drive us sinners to our knees; and then when God has done that, it's the pastor's privilege to announce God's free forgiveness to us and promise us all the blessings of God's love so that once again his Spirit might go to work filling our hearts till they overflow with God's peace and joy.

This is the pastor's role in God's work, the role for which we are to remember our leaders, gauging the success of their ministry, not by statistics, but by calling to mind their sweet message, faithfully delivered from God's Word. Pastor Stensberg, I can think of no greater compliment to pay you this or any other day, but to say that you are a faithful messenger of the Word. As I call to mind your message, I praise the Lord of the Church who has called and equipped you for ministry that you are speaking the same truth of God today that I heard from you in my childhood, the same truth you taught me in confirmation class, and brought to my hospital bed and preached at my wedding and now are sharing with me again. You've been pointing out my sins for a lot of years, and as a faithful ambassador of Christ you have proclaimed everyone of them forgiven in his name.

Dear Christians, I trust that God has blessed all of you in the same way. As you remember the men who have served as your pastors, as you call to mind their message of God's pardon and peace, thank God today and always for the love he has shown you through their ministry. And as you remember those spiritual leaders, call to mind not only their message, but also consider their way of life. Or to quote our verse exactly, "...consider the outcome of their way of life."

Now there's a statement that will make us pastors squirm-an invitation from God himself to put the pastor's life under a microscope for all to see. But the invitation shouldn't surprise any of us. Paul's words to Pastor Timothy apply to every pastor. Through the apostle's pen, God says to every called servant, "...set an example for the believers, in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity" (1 Timothy 4:12); and again God says to pastors, "Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers" (1 Timothy 4:16). God is not demanding pastors to be holier than the people they serve. He's not suggesting that pastors work out their own salvation. That is not possible and it is not necessary. Christ's saving work is full and complete for one and for all. But God does want pastors to be an example of his Word in action. If they fail in this regard, God's people might imagine the Scriptures to be powerless and ineffectual and thereby stumble in their faith.

So where does the shepherd find the strength he needs to be an example to the flock of God, only from God himself through Word and sacrament which alone keep him in a state of humble repentance and which alone fill him with the forgiveness of God, forgiveness that daily refreshes his spirit, restores his hope, renews his strength and fortifies his resolve to live a holy life as God's grateful servant. Pastor Stensberg, the very fact that after all these years of service you are still a servant of God, still setting an example for his people, still practicing what you preach, is a tribute to God's grace and power alone. For I know how often you have prayed these words of Luther's sacristy prayer, "Lord God, You have appointed me as a Pastor in Your Church, but you see how unsuited I am to meet so great and difficult a task. If I had lacked Your help, I would have ruined everything long ago. Therefore, I call upon You: I wish to devote my mouth and my heart to you; I shall teach the people. I myself will learn and ponder diligently upon Your Word. Use me as Your instrument -- but do not forsake me, for if ever I should be on my own, I would easily wreck it all."

As we celebrate your anniversary in ministry, we join you in thanking God for answering this prayer of yours, even as we ourselves go to him in prayer and ask him to help us live holy lives to his glory. For certainly this is what the inspired writer has in mind for us when he says, "Remember your leaders...imitate their faith."

Like it or not, Pastor Stensberg, I have been watching you this past year. We all have. We see the joy you find in ministering to God's people even after 40 years of ministering. I want that same joy always. We all do. And I want to be content like you are. I see how you handle the ailments that come to us as we mortals age-how comfortable you are to commit body and soul to the Lord's care, trusting that his plans for you are always best. I've watched as you've turned your eyes heavenward, saying with the Apostle Paul, "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain" (Philippians 1:21).

I want that same confidence and contentment every day. We all do, don't we? That must mean we want to imitate our leader's faith, not by pretending to be joyful, confident, and content but by turning as he does to faith's source, by holding to the teachings he and others like him have shared with us from the Scriptures. As Paul says to Timothy so he says to us, "Continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it" (2 Timothy 3:14). We hold to what our pastors say, not because we follow them blindly, but because we follow Christ. We see what he has done with the Word our pastors have spoken to us. We know the faith it has worked in our hearts and we see evidence of the faith it has worked in theirs. And so we have every confidence that as we continue to hold to the Word we've been taught, it will continue to do what God has empowered it to do, that is, build us up in our faith and see us all safely home to heaven.

To this end, may God continue to bless your work, my dear Pastor. May he keep you faithful to his Word and give you strength to lead his people in all you say and do always to his glory and always for Jesus' sake. Amen.