Text: 1 Timothy 3:1–13
Liturgical Dte: Pentecost 16, Proper 21 C
Calendar Date: September 28, 2025
Preacher: Rev. Dr. Christopher D. Jackson
Location: Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church in Door County

The following transcript was generated with the assistance of AI. It doesn’t match the sermon as preached 100 percent.

Invocation

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Community Garden Tour

About 15 years ago, I was taking a garden tour, community garden tour in Lexington, Kentucky. The congregation that I was serving there was considering starting up a community garden, and so there was an organized community garden tour, so I went around and saw all the various community gardens that had sprung up around the city there.

And I noticed there were two models of community garden. There was what you might call the communal model. So in the communal model, basically there was one huge garden and everybody participated in, had to share equally in taking care of the garden and also share equally in the produce of the garden.

So that was one model. And then on the other hand, there was another model, you might call it the micro garden model. So basically there was a big large community garden, but that big community garden was subdivided into small plots. And it wasn’t that everybody took care of the whole thing together, but each household or each group that bought one of those plots or rented one of those plots had that plot as their responsibility to take care of and to steward.

Comparison of Garden Models

And guess which one looked way better than the other one, the one where it was one person’s job to take care of it. The gardens where it was everybody’s communal responsibility without fail looked terrible. Weeds were everywhere. The ground was all cracked and crumbling because it hadn’t been watered in weeks. Things were diseased and overgrown.

The gardens on the other hand where each person had their task to take care of that particular thing looked beautiful. Down in Kentucky, you can grow big, huge tomatoes. You know, we’re lucky to eke in a tomato crop here by the end of August down there. Man, these tomatoes were just big. And my goodness, the tomato vines were just cracking under the pressure of the big, huge, beautiful tomatoes. The corn was higher than my head. They were gorgeous.

And I would guess that each individual household that had one of those plots had not only enough produce for themselves, but enough to share with others as well.

Diffuse Responsibility

In the military, I was talking to my son about this and in his military leadership class, they talked to him about the dangers of diffuse responsibility. And basically, if you would sum it up, it’s this: if something’s everybody’s job, well then it’s nobody’s job and it doesn’t get done.

And that has everything to do with what we’re talking about today. Today we’re taking up the doctrine, or rather the Office of the Holy Ministry. We might otherwise just call it the office of pastor. We’re going to be talking about it today, not talking about me, but rather talking about the office or the job that I fill as a great blessing that the Lord has given us, and it’s related to the central task of the church.

Church Architecture and Teaching

One of the reasons I love this congregation, I love this church building, is because just about everything in this place teaches us something. One of the wonderful things that teaches us stuff are our stained glass windows. And as you’re walking up and down from communion today, maybe you take a look at this stained glass window over here.

It’s one of our least prominent ones, unfortunately, ’cause it’s a very meaningful one. And if you come up and you look at this window over here on the left side of the organ, you might remember it in your mind’s eye as we talk about it, there is a church building and it’s sitting on top of a set of keys.

The Office of the Keys

What is that teaching? It’s teaching about the central foundational job that the church has, the church as a whole, which is the exercise of the Office of the Keys. You might think, Pastor Chris, what? That’s a strange word. Office of the keys. What’s that?

Matthew Chapter 16. There we find that Christ says these words. I give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

In a pretty similar passage, very similar phraseology, Jesus spells out a little bit more clearly what that means to have the keys of heaven. John chapter 20 to his disciples gathered in the upper room. Jesus says this. Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them. If you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.

The Office of the Keys is this: the Lord has granted his church here on earth the power and the authority to forgive sins, and that is the central foundational cornerstone of our life together as a church because in the church is the only place we can get the forgiveness of sins.

The Church’s Activities

The church does many other things besides forgive sin. There’s other things, and praise be to God for this. In our announcements it says that we gathered enough men gathering for 82 kits to go out around the world. It was school kits this last time, right? We do school kits in the hygiene kits, so we sent 82 school kits around the world. Praise be to God for this.

The church ought to be involved in providing material assistance to others. Praise be to God for that, but the church is not the only institution that offers material assistance. Now it’s probably the greatest purveyor of material assistance. The Christians provide more charity worldwide than anything else, but there are certainly secular organizations which provide material assistance. Right.

Moral Guidance

What about moral guidance? The church ought to give moral guidance as well. It’s critical for the church to give moral guidance. But it’s not only in the church where you can get moral guidance. The law of God is written on the hearts of all people.

And I have been struck at how similar in many ways the accounts of the moral life can sound among different religions. And that’s not to say that their understanding of God is true or their understanding of salvation is true. It’s not. But I’ve read texts from ancient Egypt. People who worship the ancient Egyptian gods and goddesses.

And guess what? You’ll find descriptions of a moral life which sound a whole lot like the 10 Commandments. I’ve heard sermons from preachers of other religions, not because I believe what they believe, but just simply out of interest to know what they believe so that I can be a better witness to Christ.

And once again, a lot of times the accounts of the moral life they give sound in many ways similar to what we preach in the church. Now, the church has a very clear understanding of what the moral life is because we do have the 10 commandments, and praise be to God for this, but the fact of the matter is that you can hear moral exhortation from other directions.

The Unique Gospel

What does the church have that no other institution on earth has? It’s the gospel of salvation in the blood of Jesus Christ, our savior, who has fulfilled our righteousness in his righteous life, who has taken the just punishment for our sins in his atoning death. You won’t hear that from any other institution in the world save for the church.

And the Lord has marvelously equipped the church for this work of the Office of the Keys in conveying grace and mercy. The Lord has given the church the holy scriptures. The Lord has given the church preaching. The Lord has given the church holy absolution. The Lord has given the church baptism and the Lord has given the church the Lord’s Supper.

Gathering for Grace

And when we gather here at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, this is what we are saying. We are saying, brothers and sisters in Christ, give me the gospel. Give me grace. Give me forgiveness. That’s why we gather here.

And when our brothers and sisters in Christ gather here and plead, give me grace, we collectively are saying, yes, I will give you grace. I will give you mercy in word and sacrament.

Appointing Men to the Task

But as we said earlier, if something’s everybody’s job, then it’s nobody’s job. And this is why the church appoints men to this task in extending grace and mercy and forgiveness.

Let me put it this way. A hospital board gathers together and forms a hospital and it’s their responsibility to heal the sick. But how do they do that? They appoint doctors, nurses, technicians, and it’s the same for the church.

The Lord has granted the church the power and the authority to forgive sins, to enact the means of grace in word and sacrament. And the church therefore appoints men to fill that role which Christ instituted.

Institution of the Office

And Christ himself did in fact institute the office of the Holy Ministry. We have many texts which talk about this. Matthew Chapter 28, the great commission there, Christ our Lord says to the apostles, the 11 apostles, he says to them, all authority in heaven on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

In other words, Jesus told the apostles, go make disciples through the means of grace, and we believe that this is where Christ instituted the office of the Holy Ministry or the office of Pastor.

Ephesians chapter four. There as well we see a description of the office of pastor. He says, and he, who’s he? Jesus Christ. And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ.

And there once again, we believe that in this place, it’s an indication that Christ himself instituted the office of the Holy Ministry.

Exercise Through the Church

The Office of the Holy Ministry was instituted by Christ and it’s exercised by means of the church. And here’s where we come to our epistle lesson for today. There, St. Paul told Timothy these words, if anyone aspires to the office of overseer, which is another term for pastor, he desires a noble task.

Now, what’s interesting about this, Paul is empowering Timothy and his congregation to appoint pastors among them. Timothy was a pastor in Ephesus, the leading city of that region. And in all likelihood in the villages and the surrounding areas, other congregations would come up and it would be necessary to appoint pastors to take care of the people in that place.

Paul empowers Timothy to do so. It’s an indication of the power to make pastors is in the church, and that’s critical in the church. Simply desiring to be a pastor doesn’t make you a pastor. Pastors don’t make themselves pastors. They don’t assume the office. They don’t take that yoke upon their own shoulders, but rather it is placed upon them by God’s people when a congregation calls them, calls them to be their pastor.

Qualifications for the Office

Not anybody just gets to be a pastor, but rather ones that a church recognizes is well suited to the task and therefore places that yoke upon him. And what are these? Well, Paul lists some of these.

An overseer must be above reproach, not perfect ’cause we’re all sinners, but rather someone in whom there is no sort of stumbling block of sin that would, that would a gross sin, a great sin that would keep them from being able to exercise the ministry in a way that would be trustworthy.

Speaking of trustworthy, the husband of one wife, he must, in other words, be faithful, faithful to the bride of his youth so that he might be known as one who would be faithful to Christ’s own bride, sober minded. In other words, not carried to and fro by winds of false doctrine that blow in and blow out, but rather rooted and grounded in good Christian doctrine, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable.

In other words, someone whose conduct is not a stumbling block, but rather is something that can be admirable. Here’s a crucial one. Able to teach, someone who is, in other words, who knows the scriptures and is able to convey the meaning of the scriptures to others, not a drunkard, not violent, but gentle, not quarrelsome.

In other words, the pastor must conduct himself well. His words ought to have good impact. With drunkenness comes words which are futile, and words which are impure. He ought not be quarrelsome because he ought to know which fights ought to be picked, and this is why he ought not be violent but gentle.

He ought to defend the congregation from false doctrine, but also at the same time know when things are not worth arguing about. Not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well with all dignity, keeping his children submissive because if he is going to manage the household of God, he must be well known as one who takes well care of his church.

Must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Now that I’ve got a lot of gray in my beard and a lot of gray on my temple, something has become very clear to me. I’m a much weaker person than what I thought back when I was a younger man.

And so in the same way that an adolescent considers himself to be someone who has no weaknesses and babies are even more self-confident than that. They’ll just straight on run into traffic. Babies think they’re supermen, right? Nothing’s gonna kill them. In the same way, pastors, they don’t have to be of age, but they must at least be spiritually mature enough to know that their strength is not in themselves, but rather their strength is in God.

Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil. The pastor represents the congregation as we’ve been talking about, to give grace to the congregation and in like manner he represents the congregation to the community outside as well, and therefore ought to be thought well of by outsiders.

Personal Reflection and Call

Brothers and sisters in Christ, I say all this not to build myself up. If anything, I ask for your prayers that I can fulfill this noble task even better than I already do, to fulfill these qualifications more and more.

But I preach the sermon to you for your own wellbeing. Why? Unfortunately it seems like many churches consider the office of pastor to be well, nice, but not necessary. That’s why we set this display up for you. Like I said, our church building here, almost everything has meaning.

Why do we make our stole look like our altar, our pulpit, our lectern? Why does that match? Basically, it’s a statement that the pastor is just a part of the furniture and that if the pastor is missing from the church, something’s missing.

That’s why we have the pastor’s chair there, the pastor’s throne. It’s not my throne, that’s the office’s throne. When I’m far gone and I hang up my shepherd staff, that’s gonna stay here. And my prayer is that St. Peter’s Lutheran Church always fill that chair, always fill that throne and consider that crucial.

Even if you eventually, and I don’t think this will have to happen, but even if you have to sell this building off, keep that chair, take that around to your houses, wherever you’re gonna have church. That should be the last thing to go because if you don’t have a pastor to take care of you, you’re missing something critical and crucial for your wellbeing.

Pastoral Shortage and Encouragement

Around the world there are churches where that chair sits empty, and maybe we’ll sit empty in the future. There’s a bit of a crisis going on where we’re not recruiting enough young men to become pastors, and so I preach the sermon to you so that you might encourage the men in your life, whether this is a nephew, or a son, or a grandson, someone that you think might be suitable to the ministry.

I encourage you to pray for him, to verbally encourage him to consider becoming a pastor, to give him the education necessary and the moral formation necessary as well, so that he might fill that crucial role.

Pray and support our seminaries so they can raise up men for this noble task so that together as God’s people we can continue to nourish each other with the gospel of Jesus Christ because we are the only place in the world that people can get this life-giving message of grace, mercy, and forgiveness in Christ Jesus.

And so therefore, let us pray and work so that this message goes forth through this crucial role.

Benediction