I feel like a young man who has
ambitions to be a pitcher and is used to pitching from the
pitcher's mound, and suddenly is put out in right field, up above you and away from you,
such a distance. But I hope this will not in any
way be a barrier to a sense of mutual sharing of heart and mind,
as together we seek to discover that which the Lord would say
to us from his own infallible Word. As often as I am privileged
to address groups of ministers and students in similar situations
as this, I confess that the mental and spiritual trauma of seeking
to ascertain what would be the best and most significant contribution
that I could make increases with each such opportunity rather
than decreases. However, I have chosen to limit
myself in the four sessions that I will be privileged to share
with you to one basic passage of Scripture which will form
the foundation and, in a sense, the framework of all that we
consider in the four sessions that I will share with you. And
this passage of Scripture is found in Paul's letter to Timothy,
1 Timothy, and chapter I shall read the entire paragraph
in which the particular text that will be the focus of our
study is found, 1 Timothy 4. While you're turning to it, may
I suggest if you, as ministers and prospective ministers, do
not make a habit of regularly reading through the letters to
Timothy, the first and second of those letters, and the letter
to Titus, you are robbing yourselves of that constant exposure to
the one inspired manual on pastoral theology ever to be found. There is much to be gleaned from
the whole spectrum of divine revelation concerning the principles
which should govern the ministry of a true gospel minister. However,
the letters to Timothy and to Titus have this unique quality
about them that they are, in a very strict sense, letters
to preachers, to those engaged in pastoral ministry. And because of this, there is
a distillation of directive and counsel not to be found anywhere
else in the Word of God. Now then, reading 1 Timothy chapter
4, verses 12 through 16. Let no man despise thy youth,
but be thou an example to them that believe in word, in manner
of life, in love, in faith, in purity. Till I come, give heed
to reading, to exhortation, to teaching. Neglect not the gift
that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy with the laying
on of the hands of the presbytery. Be diligent in these things. Give thyself wholly to them,
that thy progress may be manifest unto all. Take heed to thyself
and to thy teaching. Continue in these things, for
in doing this thou shalt save both thyself and them that hear
thee." If there is one text of Scripture
that ought to be etched into the consciousness of every preacher
and every aspirant to the office of a teaching elder, if there
is one text that ought to be made into a neon sign and hung
outside the study door of every preacher to flash and blink in
bright psychedelic lighting every time the preacher entered that
study, I believe it's the text that we're to look at in these
sessions together. It is verse 16 of this chapter. Take heed to thyself and to thy
teaching. This text is, to practical directives
for the Christian ministry, what a text like Romans 8, 29, and
30 is to doctrinal comprehensiveness. In Romans 8, 29, and 30, You
have brought together great and sweeping theological concepts,
all of them pressed together in a few short statements. showing
the magnitude of salvation in Christ as it stretches from eternity
in the electing purposes of God unto eternity in God's act of
glorification, and all of it made certain because of the power
of the God who has committed Himself to the salvation of the
people. Now, those truths are taught
elsewhere in Scripture. Many passages treat one aspect,
some another, but in Romans 8, 29, and 30, you have a distillation
of the heart of that salvation which comes to sinful men in
a context of gracious sovereignty. Now, I say what Romans 8, 29,
and 30 is to doctrinal statement 1 Timothy 4.16 is in the realm
of practical directives for the Christian ministry. There is
nothing in this passage that is not found elsewhere in Holy
Scripture. However, in this brief statement,
the Apostle Paul brings together and sets before us in a very
concise and succinct manner every major duty of the Christian minister
throughout the entirety of his life. and ministry. Commenting
on this very paragraph which I've read, Bridges, in his classic
work on the Christian ministry, says, This paragraph condenses
in the smallest compass the most important body of appropriate
instruction and encouragement to ministerial devotedness. This
paragraph in the smallest compass gives the most important appropriate
instruction for ministerial devotedness. And so we're going to look at
it this afternoon, seek to grasp the main content, set the framework
of our study, and proceed as far as we can in fleshing out
this exhortation until the clock catches up with us. So much,
then, for that introduction. Now, turning to the text itself,
Will you notice, first of all, the three natural divisions of
the text? Not three, because the homileticians
have said there must be three, and if there aren't three, make
three by hook or crook, or by cleverness, but three because
whoever divided up the verses, the scripture into the verses,
happened to make the division at the right place. It's one
of those happy coincidences. First of all, you have this command
to intense watchfulness in two areas. Take heed to thyself and
to thy teaching. The word take heed is a word
which means pay close attention to. It's the word used in that
historical narrative in the third chapter of Acts. where Peter
and John are on their way to the temple, and a man who's been
lame from birth is sitting there asking alms. They say, look on
us, and the Scripture says, and he looked to them, expecting
to receive something from them. And Luke, in describing that
activity by which a beggar, who is utterly dependent upon the
benevolence of those who pass by for his very sustenance, he
describes the activity of turning and fixing his gaze upon them
with this same word. And he looked upon them with
that focused gaze of expectation. That's the word that the Holy
Ghost is seen fit to use to underscore this responsibility of every
Christian minister to take heed to himself, that is, to pay close
scrutinizing attention to himself and to his teaching or to his
doctrine. The second main division of the
text is a charge to continue in this course of two-pronged
watchfulness. continue in these things. What things? Well, all the things
that he's been mentioning in general, but more particularly
these two things—watchfulness over himself and watchfulness
over his doctrine. And these are two verbs that
come to us as present imperatives. These are things that come to
us with all the weight of divine authority, and they come to us
couched in a way that reminds us that this is to be our constant
concern. So then you have the command
to intense watchfulness in two areas. Secondly, you have the
charge to persevere in this course. This is not to be done by fits
and starts. Timothy's not to get the letter
from Paul, and in the flux of that excitement say, oh, I just
must do what the apostle has said, and then two weeks later
forget about it. No, no. He is to continue in
these things, and then the text concludes with this gracious
promise of the blessing of God, the blessing of God even unto
salvation. For in doing this, that is, taking
heed to yourself and to your teaching, and continuing therein,
thou shalt save both thyself and those that hear thee." Now,
the Scriptures everywhere assert the strictest, strongest form
of monergism, that salvation is of God from beginning to end. No one in the New Testament is
more clear in asserting this fact again and again than the
Apostle Paul, and yet it's Paul who uses this kind of terminology. Save thyself and save your hearing. Oh, what is he doing? Has he
just sort of had a little bit of theological amnesia and forgotten
all that he believed and taught elsewhere? I know some preachers
that seem to have periodic fits of theological amnesia. They confess one thing when they're
before Presbytery to be examined for ordination. But when you listen to them preach,
the kindest thing you can say is, they must have had some periods
of theological amnesia. Well, shall we accuse the Apostle
Paul of this? Saved by self? I thought salvation
was of God from beginning to end. Well, it is. But this God,
as we shall see in a subsequent study, has so bound together
his saving purposes with the means by which those purposes
are accomplished, that there are times when he speaks as though
the means were accomplishing that end in and of themselves.
And so the Apostle Paul, concerned to underscore in Timothy's mind
How closely related is the matter of his taking heed to himself
and to his teaching, was the accomplishment of the saving
purpose of God that he states it in these very bold terms,
Thou shalt save thyself and those that hear thee. He knew that
to the heart of a man like Timothy, no motive could exert a more
profound influence than that the saving purpose
of God would be realized in him and through him. He didn't say,
now Timothy, do this and you'll be promoted to a larger church.
Do this and you'll be accepted in the eyes of men. No, no, he
holds before Timothy that motivation which is the most powerful influence
in the heart of a true servant of Christ. without which nothing
else satisfies Him, but with which He can bear almost everything.
To know that in my life, that which Jesus Christ died to accomplish
is actually being realized, and wonder of wonders, that which
He died to accomplish in others is being fulfilled through my
ministry. And so, the Apostle encourages
obedience to the command and to the charge by this gracious
promise that God's saving purpose will be realized in Timothy and
then through him in his hearers. Now, let me say before we move
on to focus on the command that we dare not touch the inherent
structure of this text. The promise is contingent upon
compliance with the command and obedience to the charge. Therefore,
our concern should not be to, quote, claim the promise, but
to understand and submit to the command, and to walk in the light
of the charge. For as we walk in its light,
then God is committed to his own promise, one of those promises
that is yea and amen in Christ Jesus, sealed with the very blood
of the new covenant, thou shalt save thyself and those that hear
thee. Now having looked briefly at
the natural divisions of the text, Let us now focus on the
command itself. Take heed to thyself and to thy
teaching. And the first thing I want us
to observe with this command is the inseparable relationship
between the two facets of that command. Take heed to thyself
and to thy teaching. And God has joined these two
parts of the command inseparably, and they must be inseparable
in our thinking. Now, the problem is that all
of us, without exception—starting right here, extending through
every faculty member, every visitor, every preacher, every professor,
it matters not who you are—all of us, by virtue of our temperament,
our background, our training, and the climate of our ecclesiastical
associations, and many times, somewhat colored by the mood
of our own age, all of us will gravitate to one facet of this
command at the expense of its counterpart. I'm speaking to
some men who, by temperament, training, reaction against something
that turned you off, regardless of what it was, you have a tendency
to what I would call devotional or experimental imbalance. And when you look at a text like
this, this is what you see. Take heed to thyself and to thy
teaching. That's what you see. Now, you're
looking at the same text as somebody else is, but that's what you
see. take heed to thyself." And you say, that's the key. If I
would save myself and be an instrument in God's hands to see His saving
purposes wrought in the lives of others, then I must, above
all else, I must be a man of God in all the true biblical
sense of that phrase. When this individual picks up
the biographies of the mighty men of the past, what does he
He sees their careful walk before God with a sensitive conscience. He sees their earnestness in
prayer. He sees how they labored to be
true men of the closet. And this individual says, if
only I can learn to cultivate the spirit of prayer, as did
this man. If only I can learn to cultivate
that sensitive, intimate relationship to my Lord, as did, say, a Rutherford,
then really it doesn't matter if I spend or expend energy on
laboring at the art of clarity in my preaching. It really doesn't
matter if I submit myself to the torture of hearing myself
untape in order to analyze my sermons and say, well, is this
really coming through with light? Is it coming through with vigor
and with color? Is it the kind of thing that'll
make that dull, half-sleepy saint or half-saint on the back row
perk up his ears and listen? You know, this individual thinks
all such concern is rather carnal and fleshly. He reasons this
way, if I would but take heed to myself. This is all that really
matters, and if I had the gift of caricature, and I had a big
blackboard here, I'd like to visually conceptualize this individual. He views the ministry primarily
as the effusions of a large heart, a heart that beats with love
to Christ and love to men, but on top of this great big beach
ball-sized heart, I put a little shriveled prune for a head. You've got the picture now. I'm
not an artist, but I've tried to describe it for you. And when this man is encouraged
that maybe he ought to have a little bit more up there in terms of
the intellectual demands of an effective ministry, he's tuned
out for that type of emphasis, because certain influences have
been brought to bear convincing him that this is the one great
prerequisite for an effective ministry, take heed to thyself. On the other hand, And I think
this is more the practical danger of the majority of you here present.
There are those who go off on what I would call the intellectual
or the technical and academic imbalance. And it's interesting. They can read the same text,
and this is what they see. Take ye to thyself and to thy
doctrine. Ah, that's it. That's it. Take
ye to thy doctrine. And they pick up the same biographies
of the same men, and what do they see? They don't see Edward's
intense godliness. They see his incisive, lawyer-like
logic. And they say, that's the secret
to his power. If I can only cultivate that
incisive logic in my preaching, that just carries people by the
sheer weight of its logical consistency. They pick up the same biographies
and say, a man like Spurgeon? And they say, no. That man's
walk with God was not the thing, it was that vivid though perhaps
in some ways outdated, Victorian, poetic imagery, but he had that
ability. As an old, I think it's an old
Arabian saying goes, the most effective speaker is he who can
turn men's ears into eyes, and he reads Spurgeon, and he says,
that's the secret, and if I can cultivate that ability, then
God-saving purposes will be realized through me. He picks up the sermons
of McShane, and he says, ah, there's the secret to his power,
that simplicity. Why, he hammered out his structure
so clearly that little children could go home and give the outline
of the sermon to their mom and dads when they met for their
Sabbath meal. And he says, now I must work
and labor in the area of my doctrine, of my teaching. There must be
a ring of contemporaneity in my preaching. There must be an
articulation to the times, a true biblical pronouncement in relevancy.
And if I can cultivate some of these things, then I will know
an effective ministry." And whenever this individual hears any emphasis
upon the inner life, when anyone seeks to hammer out this passage
that we touched on earlier with the other brother in his imbalance,
about the necessity of cultivating a sensitive conscience, of learning
what it is to grow in the art of intercession, he runs it off
as pietistic. He writes it off as something
that's just a halfway station between being a good, reformed
teacher and being on all wooly-headed funding. Any emphasis that deals with
the inner life, what's his problem? Well, you see, his problem is
this imbalance. He's only got half the text,
and the first thing I want to underscore with regard to formation
of ministerial duty and responsibility is that what God hath joined
together in this text. Don't you put asunder in your
experience to heed to yourself and to your teaching. Then, in the second place, will
you notice, as we look at this command, not only the inseparable
relationship of the two parts, but the inspired order of the
two parts. What comes first? Take heed to
thyself, and then take heed to thy teaching. And if there were
no other passage in Scripture in which this order was set before
us, I believe this text, coming where it does in these directives
by the aged Paul to his son in the faith Timothy, it would bear
all the weight that I'm putting on it. But we have a parallel
passage in Acts chapter 20, in which we find the same perspective. The apostle Paul has gathered
the Ephesian elders together. And having first of all vindicated
and described by way of remembrance his own ministry, the purity
of his mojits, the content and manner of his preaching, he then
turns to charge these elders with their responsibility. And
as he does, will you notice the order of that charge, Acts 20
and verse 28? and to all the flock in which
the Holy Spirit hath made you bishops or overseers, to feed
the church of the Lord which he purchased with his own blood."
And then he goes on to say, after my departure, wolves are going
to enter in, and then there will rise up people right from your
own nest. Well, if you're ministering in
a situation in which you are conscious that there are those
who would come out of your own ranks to draw people away. There
are the wolves coming in from without. You think certainly
your first responsibility is to guard the flock. No, it isn't.
It's to guard your own relationship to your Lord. Take heed to yourself. First of all, this stands in
the place of primary emphasis in the directive of the Apostle. And so what do we deduce, then,
from the inspired order in these commands? Well, I believe this
is a warranted deduction. My first and greatest responsibility
as a Christian minister is the nurture and the cultivation of
my own heart and life in the presence of my God. And greatest responsibility is the nurture and the cultivation
of your own heart and life in the presence of God. Your first and great responsibility
is not the preparation of sermons. It is not to lead in the mechanicism
class, and go in the presbytery, and take in care of this ecclesiastical
responsibility and that. You are not some kind of an ecclesiastical
educator sitting up there at the front of a train, making
sure that everything's going well. No, no. Your first and
great responsibility is to take heed to yourself. And I say, brethren, now to the
painful experience of my own sin and failure in this area,
concerning which I have had to repent again and again and again,
until this perspective grips us and becomes the dominating
concept of our lives as ministers, we will not be prepared to exert
the spiritual disciplines necessary to maintain obedience to this
command. There are just too many influences
arising, first of all, from our own remaining corruption, from
our official duties, and from the world about us, and from
our domestic sphere, too many pressures that will move us aside
again and again and again, until we are as convinced as we are
of our own name. that our first responsibility
is to take heed to ourselves. And I wish there was some way
I could say it so that it would be indelibly impressed upon the
mind and heart not only of every man presently engaged in the
ministry, but I think particularly of you young men aspiring to
the office of being leading, teaching, ruling elders in the
Church of Christ. All that now, before you become
crippled with unscriptural patterns and habits, that you get this
perspective and pray into your spiritual bloodstream, so that
when you take that first charge and you begin to find out that
old Sister Jones over there, she expects the preacher to do
this, this, and this, and old Elder Smith And as you begin to find out
all that's expected of you, and all that you're supposed to do,
and be in and without the assembly of God's people, that you'll
never, never forget, God has laid upon me my primary task. Long before I met you, Sister
Jones, long before I met you, Elder Smith, my God has put me
here with a mandate to be to myself. But as I begin to know
what it is to get acclimated to my responsibilities and control
the weight of the ministry, one thing I must not do, at any cost,
I must not relinquish the time, the necessary disciplines upon
my time and my activities, so that I can no longer take heed
to myself. And a man who once lived and
preached with the freshness and fragrance of an intimate acquaintance
with Christ has become a very acceptable parcel, keeping all
the machinery running well. But it's been months and years
since there's been anything of the fragrance of a Christ-anointed
ministry. Has he been running around with
his organist? He's been out shooting crap in the back alley with the
boys? He's not been guilty of any gross,
scandalous sin. Has he relinquished doctrine?
Oh, no! If questioned, he could give
a good account of himself. What's the problem? He has failed
to take heed to himself. And there are gray hairs here
and there in his spiritual experience, and he knows it not. Like a Samson
whose locks have been spurred, he faces himself and goes forth
to battle, and knows not that the Spirit has left him. Why? He failed to take heed to himself,
where once conscience slowed him. In certain areas, now he's
impervious, and no longer winces. where once he felt an ache, if
a day passed, and he didn't know what the old writers called real
access in prayer, not just mouthing his prayers, but really pledging
that he lay hold of God. That was a wasted day as far
as he was concerned, but now he can go through days and weeks
and feel no pain, though there's still no access. And where once
he knew what it was to grieve if he left the pulpit without
some sense of conscious assistance in his preaching, now that he's
learned the art of sermon construction and sermon delivery, he can go
through the round, sermon after sermon, week in and week out. No pain when he preaches an unfelt
Christ. Am I talking to some such men
here today? Could it be that God has brought
you here to bring you up short and face the fact that you've
relinquished your primary responsibility? And that's why you are where
you are today. You have failed to take heed
to yourself. That is the first and the great
responsibility. As we seek to break down into
some practical directives this matter of taking heed to ourselves,
in what sense, in what ways is it necessary for us as ministers
and as those aspiring to the office of the ministry? I say,
what ways are we to take heed to ourselves? And I want to suggest
three distinct ways. I think we'll cover just one
this afternoon and then the Lord willing, pick up the other two
in the first session tomorrow morning. I would suggest that
we are to take heed to ourselves, first of all, making sure that
we ourselves are in a state of grace. Secondly, taking heed
to ourselves in that we are diligent to grow in grace, and thirdly,
Take heed to ourselves being careful that we manifest the
reality of grace. First of all, then, take heed
to thyself in this distinct way, in making sure that you yourself
are in a state of grace. Timothy, you are not only to
be concerned with the salvation of others, you are to be concerned
with your own salvation. For in doing these things thou
shalt save both thyself," and, of course, in the context the
apostle is speaking primarily of the present and future aspects
of salvation. But it doesn't trouble him at
all, on the one hand, to say, Timothy, my true son in the faith,
and yet say to that same Timothy, Timothy, lay hold on eternal
life. The whole biblical doctrine of
the perseverance of the saints is woven through the fabric of
the apostles' exhortations. Timothy, you're a son in the
faith, behold an eternal life. And so I would like to bring
this very sobering exhortation home to the conscience of every
man, every young man, every mature minister gathered in this building
today. Take heed to yourself. that you
yourself are in a state of grace. As long as a text, such as Matthew
7, 21 to 23, is found in the pages of Holy Scripture, no man
in the ministry should assume in a careless, cocky, flippant
way that all must be well, since I am in the ministry, and I have
ministerial gifts, and I have a measure of success. Listen
to the sobering words of our Lord, Matthew 7, 21. Not every
one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom
of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father who is
in heaven. And this is the word that troubles me in this text.
If one word were changed in this text, it wouldn't trouble me. But it's the next word that deeply
disturbs me. Many will say unto me." Many
will say unto me. The same word he used earlier
when he spoke of the broad road that leads to destruction, and
many there be which enter in thereat. He uses the same word
and says, many will say unto me in that day. In other words,
of the many on the broad road, there are but a few who fit this
category and notice their claim. Many will say unto me in that
day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in thy name? And by thy name
cast out demons, and by thy name do many mighty works? What do
they claim? Well, implicit in their words
is some measure of theological orthodoxy. In this context, The
last day, every Jew knew that the one who sat on the throne
was God. And if Jesus is sitting on the
throne and is addressed as Lord, it's one of those instances in
which the giving of the title Lord to Him is nothing less than
an ascription of deity. They acknowledge Him to be Lord. Their confessional statement
on the person of Christ is orthodox. Another thing that's implicit
in their statement is that they believe in the supernatural.
They don't call demons psychological hang-ups. They believe in spirit
beings called demons. Yes, they believe in demons.
And they believe in the power of Christ, whose name they wield
to cast out the demons. So they have some right view,
not only of Christ's person, but of His power and His place
and authority over all other spiritual power. So much for their basic orthodoxy,
their hints at it. But notice their claim to ministerial
gifts. Did we not prophesy in thy name?
They were not just common people, but their gifts were recognized
and they came up to the ranks of their fellow believers and
ascended to places of public ministry. Prophesy in thy name. In thy name cast out demons.
In thy name do many mighty works, fine works, supernatural works. So they had ministering gifts,
and secondly, they had very manifest success. That's what they pleaded before
the Lord. We not only had gifts, but we had success attending
the exercise of those gifts. In Thy name, we cast out demons,
and in Thy name, mighty works were wrought. But though they
had a measure of Orthodox theology, They had some measure of ministerial
gifts and some measure of manifest success. The one thing they lacked
was sanctifying grace. Notice how our Lord answers them.
And then will I profess unto them, I never need you. I never
regarded you with distinguishing love and affection. I know, my
sheep, I have entered into that intimate relationship with love
and affection, but I never knew you depart from me, ye workers
of iniquity." Workers of iniquity? I thought they did mighty works. They were workers of iniquity.
They were strangers to inward, sanctifying grace. the one indispensable
evidence that we are in a state of grace. The Apostle Paul, in that extended
treatment on not so much a definition but a description of Christian
love in 1 Corinthians 13, assumes the possibility of rising to
great prominence in the exercise of many gifts if I speak with
the tongues of men and of angels. give up my body to be burned,
give away all of my goods to feed the poor. But if I am devoid
of the inward workings of the grace of love, I am nothing,
if profiteth me nothing. How, then, is a preacher to ascertain
whether or not he will fall into this category? How is he to ascertain,
as he seeks to take heed to himself, as to whether or not he is in
a state of grace? Why, he is to ascertain the same
way anyone else is. He is to look beyond all of his
ministerial activity, and he is to ask himself this very simple
question. What is there about me that has
no explanation, but that Almighty God has made me a new preacher
in Christ Jesus? That's the question. What is
there about me in my essential mode of life in the motives by
which I'm governed, the concepts which mold my life. What is there
about me that has no other explanation other than that God Himself has
made me a new creature in Christ? Well, it can't be that I preach
because here there are people who will preach. It can't be
that I preach with success, that I have, in some measure, the
gift of public utterance. These are not evidences of special
grace. If God wants to, He can lay hold
of the mouth of an ass to seek and get one of His disobedient
prophets back into the way of His purpose. No, no. The ability
to speak or to speak in Christ's name and to speak with success
is no evidence of inward special saving grace. No, I must strip
away all of these things and come to a text such as Philippians
3 and verse 3, and I only pick that out almost arbitrarily,
where the Apostle Paul describes the essential characteristics
of a true Christian. And he does so in these words,
we are the circumcision, we are the true people of God, who what? And then he gives these three
characteristics of the true child of God, who worship God by the
Spirit, or as it could be rendered, who worship by the Spirit of
God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in
the flesh. Here these Judaizers are going
around saying, now look, you may be little eeny, eensy, beensy,
half-baked sort of Christians, but if you want to be the real
full-blown thing, get the mark of circumcision, then you'll
really be a full-blown Christian. False is no more. We are the
circumcision who what? Who worship by the Spirit. whose dealings with God are not
based upon carnal ordinances. And whatever involvement we may
have in carnal ordinances, we break through them and go beyond
them, and there is living contact with the living God. I ask you,
my preacher friend, do you know what worshiping God in the Spirit
is? When you pray your Sunday morning
pastoral prayer, Is that a professionally intoned exercise, or is it but
a reflection and an overflow, that exercise to which you are
no stranger in the closet day after day? If you do not pray
in the secret place, as one who has come to the knowledge of
the living God through His Son, Jesus Christ. For this is life
eternal, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus
Christ. And Thou hast said, If you do
not know that it is to worship God in the Spirit, in the secret
place, seeking His face, praising Him, bowing before Him, in adoration,
in love and wonder and awe. If that is not your experience
in the closet, day in and day out, week in and week out, and
all you know of worship is that formal thing that you call your
pastoral prayer and your invocation and your benediction, my dear
preacher friend, you're on dangerous ground. Dangerous ground. We are the circumcision who worship
God. by the Spirit, who glory in Christ
Jesus, who not only speak of Him, but who glory in Him, who
have been brought to that discovery of themselves that, then having
been brought to a discovery of God's grace in Christ. Christ
is not a theological concept. He is not just a word upon our
lips. He is that One whose glory we
have seen and beheld, and our hearts have been ravished. And
though at times we mourn our lack of love to Him, and though
there are times when we say, Lord, do I really love You, the
undergirding current of our lives is one in which we glory in Christ
Jesus. So that if there are apparent
successes in our ministries, it doesn't turn the head, or
we're not using the ministry as a pedestal upon which to parade
our own proficiency. No, no. We glory in Christ Jesus. And in times when our faith is
tested, and there's very little evidence of the smile of God,
we continue to glory in Christ Jesus. As our only Mediator,
our only Lord and Savior, the one who reigns at the right hand
of the Father, we glory in Christ, and we put no confidence in the
flesh. No confidence in the flesh for
our acceptance after we've preached for twenty years and have perhaps
seen dozens or hundreds brought to Christ through our ministries,
and the people of God do nothing to face We can still sing, even
with more earnestness than when we were first brought to the
Savior. Nothing in my hands I bring. Simply to thy cross I cling. Thou lie to the fountain fly. Wash me, Savior, or I die. Is that your experience, my dear
preacher friend? You answer with judgment day
honesty is in the presence of God. Take heed to yourself. Take heed to yourself, that you
yourself are in a state of grace. And that's to be determined by
asking the question, what is there about me that only special
saving grace can produce? And part of the answer is a text
like Philippians 3.3. Part of the answer is a section
like the Beatitudes. Let me put it this way, in the
most pointed way I know. If you were to strip away from
your life all praying that was directly related to ministerial
duties, what would you have left? What would you have left of prayer
that was rooted in the fact that you were a sinner whom God had
rescued by His grace and set on the pathway to glory, and
into whose heart there had been implanted a hungering for conformity
to the image of Christ. What prayer is left that is the
breathing house of your longings for greater conformity to Christ?
Any prayer left for that? Strip away all the prayer connected
with your official ministry, official call and duties. What
kind of prayer is left that is involved with true spiritual
mourning over your sin, with hungerings and thirstings after
God? Anything left? That's the question
you and I must ask ourselves. Strip away all my dealings with
the Scriptures. that are prompted, triggered
by the official responsibilities of my clerical office? What do
I have left of dealings with this book simply as a Christian
who longs to see the face of my Savior reflected in its pages? Simply the dealings of a disciple
who wants to know the mind of his master. And I venture to
say, in a group of this size of so many ministers and potential
ministers, there are more than the ones of the truths who have
little, if any, dealings with the Scriptures apart from those
dealings triggered by official ministerial responsibilities. Take heed, myself. If someone
should come to a preacher who has saving grace as well as ministerial
gifts and rip his tongue out so he never could speak again
in Christ's name, his basic relationship to that book would not change
one iota. Because his essential dealings
with that book are rooted in his saving relationship to the
God of that book, not his special office as a preacher of that
book. Well, the time has gone, and perhaps this is the best
place to just break off rather abruptly and leave the question
with each of you. One seasoned servant of God has
said, it is a frightening thing to perish beneath the shadow
of a gospel pulpit. It is more frightening to perish
from the pulpit itself. Oh, my dear friends, and it's
in that spirit that I address you, take heed to yourself, that
you yourself are in a state of grace. The Spurgeon said in speaking
to his students in his collection of lectures, he said, it is no
child's play to ascertain so vital an issue. Perhaps that
would be the best way to close by just quoting a paragraph from
Spurgeon. Listen to the words of this seasoned
servant of God. The possession of this first
qualification is not a thing to be taken for granted by any
man, for there's a very great possibility of our being mistaken
as to whether we are converted or not. And believe me, it is
no child's play to make your calling and election sure. The
world is full of counterfeits and swarms with panderers to
carnal self-conceit who gather around a minister as vultures
gather around a carcass. Our own hearts are so deceitful
that the truth lies not on the surface, but must be drawn up
from the deepest well. We must search ourselves anxiously
and thoroughly lest by any means, after having preached to others,
we ourselves should be cast away. May God help us to take heed
to ourselves. Amen.