Alexander Whyte, the powerful Scottish preacher of another generation, famously said: “Only once did God chose a completely sinless preacher. There hasn't been one since!”
Yes indeed…there has been only one perfect preacher, His name was and is Jesus. He has been and will be the only Perfect One. He is the perfect preacher; He is the perfect pastor. All mortal men of God are flawed and frail. If you haven’t noticed that, just wait long enough and you’ll get to see the picture.
Through the years, I’ve listened to people ‘shred’ their pastors because of ministerial imperfections. ‘Roast Pastor’ can often become the staple for Sunday lunch. Oh, may God deliver us from too high an expectation of any other human being.
Surprise, surprise, pastors and preachers can fall into sin. Yes, and it is shocking when they do. And yes, we do hold leaders to a higher standard. But, some people drop out because their Pastor or leader failed morally. Unfortunately, these people have had their eyes on the wrong pastor. If their eyes had been on Jesus, they would have seen that He was tempted in every way, just as we are - yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15). He is the Perfect Pastor. He has never failed us.
Yes, we preachers can be a sorry lot. I’ve known preachers who at the drop of a hat could spin an inventive pack of lies without blinking an eye. One man I was witnessing to said that he had no time for preachers. He explained that, as a pastime, he watched Christian TV and counted the numbers of people that evangelists claimed to have saved in the Philippines. To date, the evangelists had saved 3 times the entire population of those Islands.
But, there was no deceit with Jesus. He did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth (1 Peter 2:22). He is the Perfect Pastor!
Some people get mad at ministers because, at times, they just don’t seem to care enough. They are too busy to listen. But, in Jesus, we have a Pastor who can and is actually touched with the very feeling of our infirmities (Hebrews 4:15).
Before we begin condemning everyone, we would do well to remember that we all are sinners. No one but Christ is perfect. We all need Grace.
Just in case you don’t see how sinful we are, here’s a bit of Biblical commentary about our condition:
"What is man, that he should be clean? and he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous? Behold, he puts no trust in his saints; yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight. How much more abominable and filthier is man, which drinks iniquity like water?" (Job 15:14-16).
That is talking about you and me. We are in no position to set ourselves up as condemners. In the New Testament, the apostle John cautioned, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us” (1 John 1:8, 10). The apostle Paul summed it all up when he said, “there is none righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3:10).
So why is it then that we expect everyone around us, especially our pastors to be perfect? There has only ever been one perfect man, one perfect Preacher, one perfect Pastor
Speaking of Christ, Nicholas Batzig says:
“In a life that spanned three decades, our Lord never entertained a thought, never uttered a word, and never carried out an action that was defiled by impure motives. He always honoured His Father in heaven, always honoured His earthly father and mother, never lusted, never uttered a word in sinful anger, never gossiped about or slandered His neighbour. He never stole, never lied, and never coveted. In short, He submitted to every commandment of the law of God without wavering. He loved the Lord with all His heart, soul, mind and strength, and He loved His neighbour as Himself. The Scriptures bear manifold witness to this truth, and it is one of the most profitable truths upon which we ought to meditate.”
What a Perfect Saviour!
What a Perfect Pastor!
What a Perfect Hope
And that’s the Gospel Truth!