The following sermon was delivered
on Sunday morning, January 6, 2008, at Trinity Baptist Church
in Montville, New Jersey. May I urge you to turn with me
in your Bibles to Paul's letter to the church at Colossae, the
book of Colossians. And while I will not be expounding
these verses in detail, but making reference to them in the earlier
part of the sermon, I do want us to get them before our minds
in a fresh way. Colossians chapter 3, verses
1 through 4. The word if, the little Greek
word eon, also can be translated since, and this is one of the
places where since would be more clear in what the Apostle is
saying. Since then you were raised together
with Christ. Seek the things that are above
where Christ is seated on the right hand of God. Set your mind
on the things that are above, not on the things that are upon
the earth. For you died, and your life is
hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life,
shall be manifested, then shall you also with Him be manifested
in glory. Let's again pray and ask the
help of God in the preaching and hearing of His Word. Our Father, we're so thankful
that we stand in that great continuum of your people through the ages,
that we have been able to take the words of men and women long
since dead. and put them in our mouths and
minds as though they were our own did we have the ability to
put them together as they did. We thank you that the work of
your grace is the same in every generation. We thank you for
the timelessness of your truth. Therefore we come pleading that
by the Holy Spirit light would be given to us this day that
we may be able to embrace things that, by the enabling power of
the Spirit, will be our companions throughout the days of the coming
year, should you spare us and should you delay the coming of
your dear Son. Speak to us then with clarity
and power, we plead in Jesus' name. Amen. Now those of you who have been
among us for any length of time know that I have almost always
used the occasion of the first Lord's Day of the new calendar
year to preach what could be called a New Year's sermon. In fact, there are several times
when I have used that occasion to even bring a brief series
of sermons focused upon aspects of God's truth particularly suitable
to our entering into a new calendar year. In the light of these facts,
I believe I am right in assuming that many of you have come to
this place today expecting and perhaps even desiring what you
would call is a New Year's sermon. Well, I will not disappoint you. This is the first Lord's Day
of the year of our Lord, 2008, and I purpose to preach, in my
original introduction that I wrote, preach a sermon as I labored
to bring it to its final substance, it became evident to me it would
take me far too long to preach to you what is upon my heart
in one sermon, so this is the first of what will be two or
three sermons on a very, very unattractive, plain-Jane title,
Crucial Counsel for the New Year. Again, those of you who've been
around here for a long time know that one area in which I was
shortchanged remarkably as a preacher is the matter of coming up with
clever, catchy sermon titles. I have precious little ability,
but at least I'm honest. It's a plain Jane title, but
I hope Jane herself will be attractive to your eager, waiting heart. I've chosen those aspects of
biblical truth which I believe have a peculiar, we as a people
have a peculiar need to refresh our understanding of them or
to come to grips with them for the first time, particularly
in the light of where we are as a congregation and where we
are as men and women living in our nation and in this crazy
world as we enter the year 2008. And so I want to preach to you
two, possibly three sermons on what I am calling crucial counsel
for the new year. And I want to begin, first of
all, by setting before you what I'm calling the undergirding
biblical principle which supports and warrants the counsel that
I will set before you. the undergirding biblical principle
that supports, that warrants the counsel I will set before
you. Each of the three words of counsel,
the first of which we'll concentrate on this morning, but each of
them will begin with these words. At the beginning and throughout
the coming year, fix your mind upon. You're going to hear those
words three times with respect to these crucial counsels. Each one of the three words of
counsel will begin with these words, at the beginning and throughout
the coming year, fix your mind upon. Now, on what biblical basis
am I counseling you to fix your mind upon this or that thing? Well, the basis is found in the
passage that I read to you and read in your hearing from Colossians
chapter 3. Paul asserted in chapter 2 and
verse 12 of all the believers at Colossae, he says of them,
having been buried with him in baptism wherein you were also
raised with him through faith in the working of God who raised
him from the dead, and you being dead through your trespasses
in the uncircumcision of your flesh, you, I say, did he make
alive together with him." In this particular text, Paul says
that all of the true believers at Colossae have inwardly, spiritually,
truly experienced that to which they bore witness in their baptism. In their baptism, they symbolically
and sacramentally declared, I have entered into union with Christ
in His death and in His burial. I have entered into union with
Christ in the power of His resurrection. And here now in chapter 3 he
says, since then you were raised together with Christ. In other
words, these words go back to what he's asserted in chapter
2 verses 12 and 13 that all true Christians in union with Christ
have died with Christ. All true Christians in union
with Christ have been raised with Christ. Now he says that
has tremendous practical implications. Since then you were raised together
with Christ and then he follows with two imperatives. Seek the
things that are above where Christ is seated on the right hand of
God. The second imperative, verse
2, set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things
that are upon the earth. And then the reason with which
he buttresses that imperative, for you died and your life is
hid with Christ in God. So Paul, on the basis of what
every true believer has experienced, is bold to say, in the light
of the fact that you have, in union with Christ, died to sin,
in union with Christ you have been raised to newness of life,
now seek the things that are above, which probably refers
more to action But then he goes behind the action, and the second
imperative is, set your mind on the things that are above. And he uses a verb in the present
imperative form, it is a duty, a duty to be perpetually and
continually engaged in to think, to form or to hold an opinion. Set your mind, take your mental
faculties, consciously, deliberately, continually fix them on the things
that are above. Now, what's the principle that
I want to extract from that second imperative? It is simply this. As the people of God united to
Christ, we have both the ability and the responsibility deliberately
to focus our mental faculties upon specific spiritual realities. If the believers at Colossae
had neither the duty nor the ability to do something with
regard to their mental fixation, this imperative is illicit. He should never have given it.
But on the basis of who and what they are in Christ, Paul has
no scruples whatsoever commanding them in the authority of Christ
to consciously, continuously, deliberately to set their mind
upon certain specific spiritual realities. And that's basically
what I'm going to do in these crucial counsels for the New
Year. These words of counsel, all of
them begin with the words, at the beginning and throughout
the new year, seek to fix your mind upon. And then there will
be three things. We take up just the first this
morning. At the beginning of this new
year and throughout this year, I am counseling you, my brothers
and sisters in Christ, to seek to fix your mind directly upon
your Savior. Well, you say, well, what a truism. What a banal, vapid, cliche,
fix your mind upon the Savior. Of course, everyone knows that's
what we're to do, yes. But I am counseling you. I'm
exhorting you and urging you. I hope with a new dimension of
understanding as to what that means, to fix your mind directly
upon your Savior. And that in three specific areas. Area number one, fix your mind
upon the Lord Jesus in living the Christian life. Fix your
mind upon the Lord Jesus in living the Christian life, and then
we'll consider, secondly, fix your mind upon the Lord Jesus
with respect to the major change in the leadership of this assembly
in the new year. And thirdly, fix your mind upon
the Lord Jesus with respect to world events as they unfold in
the coming year. First of all then, fix your mind
upon the Lord Jesus in living the Christian life. We're going
to look at several texts which make this privilege and duty
abundantly clear. The first is Hebrews chapter
12. Turn with me please to that passage. I trust many of you will remember
As we went through our public reading of the book of Hebrews,
the great burden of the writer to the Hebrews was to encourage
these oppressed and persecuted Jewish Christians not to go back,
but to press on in persevering faith in their clinging to Christ
and in their anticipation of the heavenly inheritance. And so at the end of chapter
10, He kind of summarizes the burden of the entire book. Verse
39, We are not of them that shrink back unto perdition, but of them
that have faith unto the saving of the soul. It's either shrink
back or cling. to the saving of the soul and
then to encourage them in chapter 11 he gives them all of these
examples of men and women who throughout biblical history and
even post Old Testament history were examples of those who cling,
who continually clung to God's promises and they entered in
to the promised inheritance. Now then, chapter 12 verse 1, Let us also, seeing we are compassed
about with so great a cloud of witnesses, all of these described
in Hebrews 11 are witnesses, not primarily in the sense that
they're watching us, but they bear their testimony to the blessedness
of not turning back. but of clinging to the living
God and to His Son in persevering faith, since we have such a cloud
of those who bear witness that this is not a fool's errand. It is worthwhile to suffer privation. It's worthwhile to even suffer
martyrdom, for this can only chase us up to heaven. Therefore,
let us also, since we are compassed about with so great a cloud of
witnesses, lay aside every weight and the sin which does so easily
beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set
before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and perfecter of our
faith." Here the writer likens the Christian life to the running
of a race. A race has a beginning, it has
its continuum, and it has its end point. And he says to these
Hebrew Christians, you've entered the race. You are now in mid-course. It's not a dash. It's not a sprint. It's a marathon. And the great
central thrust of this exhortation is run with patience, run with
endurance the race set before us. Wherever you are in your
Christian experience, you're in the race. God, by His grace,
has brought you to the starting line. You are carrying on that
race, looking toward the end, the consummation, which will
be either your death or the return of Christ, and then the eternal
inheritance. And He says, we must, since we
have so many who have run before us, and they've broken the tape,
and they've finished the course, and they now enjoy the reward,
since we have so many bearing testimony to the blessedness,
not of entering, continuing for a while, and falling by the wayside,
and apostatizing, but we have witnesses to the blessedness
of running with endurance, When your spiritual lungs are burning,
and your spiritual legs feel like lead, and everything in
you says, quit! No! I shall press on in spiritual
endurance to win the prize. He said, let us run with patience
the race set before us. But if we're to do that, he says
there is a precondition to running. and there is to be a mental fixation
as we run. Look at the precondition. Verse
1, lay aside every weight, every encumbrance, and the sin which
so easily beset us, let us run. You can't run well in that race
if you've got on your winter parka, your snow
boots, and a backpack. What in the world would you think
of anyone in the upcoming Olympics if you saw on worldwide television
somebody lining up at the start of a race, encumbered with all
kinds of bulky clothing? You'd say, what in the world
is wrong with that person? He says, let's get rid of the
weights, as well as sin that so easily besets us. And the
commentators go all over the place. What is the sin that so
easily besets us? Is it what people call a besetting
sin, a peculiarly aggravated sin with which I struggle? Is
it unbelief? Frankly, I don't know. But one
thing is clear. To know in your conscience that
this or that or the other is sin and not to deal with it radically
is to fool yourself that you're serious about completing the
race. Let us lay aside. That's something you must do.
You say, I thought, no, with the Lord's help, yes, crying
to Him for grace. But you are to lay aside every
encumbrance and the sin that so easily besets and be determined
that you're going to run with patience the race that is set
before us. But now notice what the fixation
of the mind is to be. Looking unto Jesus. And that verb for looking is
not the simple ordinary word for looking found in the New
Testament. It's a word that means you look
deliberately away from something in order to have a fixed and
uninterrupted gaze upon something else. And so the writer to Hebrews
says, having stripped away by ongoing, honest, thorough repentance,
dealing honestly with sin, he that covers his sins shall not
prosper, but whoso confesses and forsakes them shall obtain
mercy. having laid aside sin, setting
our face to the end of the race, determined by God's strength
to run with patience, we are to have a fixation of the eyes
of the mind upon Jesus. Looking away from anything else
that would distract us and deter us and turn us aside, we are
to have our minds fixed upon the Lord Jesus Christ Himself."
And notice here, he says, looking unto Jesus. He doesn't say, the
Lord Jesus Christ, use his formal full title, but unto Jesus. the one who ran in our condition,
Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus, the one conceived in Mary's womb,
when the second person of the Godhead took to Himself a true
and full humanity. And notice how he describes Jesus,
looking away from all else and looking off unto Jesus, author
and perfecter of faith. I believe what he's saying is
this. You know why you're in the race? Because Jesus put you
there. And if He put you there, you
know what? You're going to finish the race. He is author and He
is perfecter of faith. Your efforts are not to come
to absolute frustration. You're not on a fool's errand.
You're running with endurance this race that will take you
eventually into the presence of the living God in the new
heavens, in the new earth. And as you live out the Christian
life then, you are to have this fixation with the eyes of your
mind upon Jesus, There is no other way for us to run with
endurance if the fixation of the eyes of the mind is anywhere
else. And in what particular aspect
does he set forth, the Lord Jesus, as author and perfecter of faith,
who for the joy that was set before him endured not just some
burning lungs and lead-weight legs, but endured the cross,
despising shame, and hath sat down at the right hand of the
throne of God. For consider Him that endured
such gainsaying of sinners against himself, that you wax not weary,
fainting in your souls." He's saying that when our eyes are
fixed upon Jesus, as He is revealed in the Scriptures, As He is revealed
in terms of His unique work in commitment to save His people,
this Jesus, upon whom you are to fix your gaze in living the
Christian life, is the one who endured the cross, thought little
of the shame, has now gone to the place of the reward of His
obedience as the suffering servant. He's at the right hand of God. Consider Him. Consider what He
bore to procure your salvation? You've not yet resisted unto
blood? striving against sin. It's interesting
that he highlights in this Christian race that one of the great problems
is this matter of dealing with sin. Sins that are so much a
part of us that it seems like, well, we'll die before we can
ever deal with that sin. You see, if you've not yet resisted
unto blood, striving against sin, It's this gazing of the
soul upon Jesus, mental fixation, looking away from one thing unto
another, looking to Jesus particularly as author and perfecter of faith,
as the great example of faith. He was confident that through
the spittle and through the mockery and through the jeering and through
the laceration of His back and the nails in His hands and the
darkened heavens, there was joy before Him. What joy? Of having
all His redeemed gathered around Him. Who, for the joy that was
set before Him, endured, pressed on, completed the race set out. for him. Dear people of God,
that's what we must do. And my urgent exhortation, my
loving pastoral counsel is, as we enter upon and move through
this new year, seek to fix your mind directly upon your Savior. First of all, in living the Christian
life. But then, a second text that
underscores this aspect, 2 Corinthians chapter 3. We're going to look
at three key texts that point in the direction of this first
subdivision, fixing our minds upon the Lord Jesus in living
the Christian life. 2 Corinthians chapter 3 and verse
18. The apostle has been contrasting
the new covenant with the old. Moses has been introduced as
the one who was able to go into the presence of God, but when
he came out, there was a veil upon his face. And now contrasting
old and new covenant, notice what he says in verse 18, But
we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the
Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to
glory, even as from the Lord, the Spirit. The apostle sets
before us this basic reality that when and while we contemplate
Christ in the gospel, we are beholding the glory of God in
the face of Jesus Christ, 2 Corinthians 4, 5. Now he says, as we do contemplate
Christ as revealed in the Gospel, Christ who is the image of God,
Christ who reveals the glory of God, we are beholding the
glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. God is doing something
in us. But we all, with unveiled face,
beholding are transformed. Beholding results in transforming,
and the transforming work is effected by the Holy Spirit in
the heart and mind and soul and character of the true believer
who fixes his mind upon Jesus as revealed in the Gospel, as
revealed in the Scriptures, contemplating Him. reading what the Scriptures
tell us about Him, following the track of His life as set
forth in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, beholding, we are being
transformed into that same image from one stage of glory to another. And the consummation of that
transformation will be when we see Him as He is. John tells
us in 1 John 3, we shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He
is. No longer will it be seeing Him
as in a mirror. It will be seeing Him face to
face and the work of conformity to Him will be radically augmented
and brought to its consummation. so that God's purpose in redemption,
that we should be conformed to the image of His Son, will be
brought to its climactic fruition. But here and now, with all of
our indwelling sin, with a wicked world, with a seducing devil,
and with the powers of darkness unseen but real, as we have this
fixation of mind upon Jesus, The Holy Spirit is more and more
by degrees conforming us into His likeness. But then we must
add to that insight the truth of 1 John 2 and verse 6. He that says he abides in Him
ought himself so to walk, even as he walks. or 1 Peter 2, Christ
suffered for you, leaving an example that you should follow
His steps. Now I want you to see the difference
in the emphasis of 2 Corinthians 3.18 and 1 John 2.6 and 1 Peter
2.22. The emphasis of Paul's statement
in Corinthians is, while we are beholding God, by the Spirit,
is doing the work of transforming. He is operating upon our own
spirits, giving us more and more the fashion of Christ Himself
in our attitude, our lookout, our perspective, etc. But now,
the emphasis of John and of Peter is, we are to be consciously
imitating our Lord. Not only is there an unconscious
but real and powerful effectual work of the Spirit, but there
is to be a deliberate conscious endeavor of the believer. He
that says he abides in Him ought to walk as he walked. When I
see the Lord Jesus patient in the midst of being reviled, I
am to say, in this situation, in that, where I know what it
is to be reviled, where I know what it is to be slashed by someone's
sarcasm and other means of verbal abuse. Lord Jesus, You were as
a lamb led to the slaughter, and You
were dumb before Your enemies. You did not open Your mouth.
Pilate marveled. Lord Jesus, help me. I am committed
imitate you when you see the Lord Jesus thoughtful, hanging
on a cross, bearing the sins of all of his people. If ever
self-preoccupation would be legitimate, it's there. But he sees his mother
and he says to John, behold your mother. Woman, behold your mother. And you say, oh Lord Jesus, I
am so self-preoccupied, so quickly, so easily. Give me grace to imitate
you in your other orientation, your selfless perspective. Lord Jesus, help me. And as you track the life of
the Lord Jesus and see the virtues of His perfect love to His Father
and His perfect love to fellow man, you say, Lord Jesus, I need
to make corrections there. I need to make corrections here.
I am seeking to walk as You walked. So, with these three simple texts,
Hebrews 12, 2 Corinthians 3, 18, 1 John 2, 6, I say to you,
my brothers and sisters, fix your mind upon the Lord Himself
in living the Christian life. Now, I've gone from exposition,
and now I'm going to go to application under this first sub-point. If
we're to fix our minds directly upon the Savior in living the
Christian life, then you and I must, must, must make time
to read and to meditate deeply upon the Word of God. You say, Pastor, I thought you
were going to give us something new. No, nothing new. Because
until the Holy Spirit comes back and rewrites Psalm 1, there will
never be anything new that works. Blessed is the man that walks
not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law
of the Lord, and on his law doth he meditate day and night. He
shall be like a tree planted. shall bring forth fruit in his
season. And, dear people, until you come
to the place where all of the excuse-making, all of the rationalizing,
and all of the rest is swept aside, and you say, Lord Jesus,
I cannot have fixation of the eyes of my mind upon you without
spending time in your Word, not just reading a passage to sadden
my conscience, but time to assimilate the Scriptures. I must make time
to read and to meditate deeply upon the Word. I must make time
to engage my Lord in real earnest heart prayer, communing with
Him in that peculiar dimension of communion that God has given
us when we pray. And if we're going to do that,
if we're going to do that, it's my growing conviction as an older
man that you and I must repudiate the tyranny of communicating
technology. You will never, never, And I
can say it even louder if I didn't think I'd bust this PA system. You will never know what it is
to have any pattern of fixing your mind upon Jesus unless you
repudiate. And by repudiate, I mean you're
dead set against the tyranny of communication technology.
Now let me say in the plainest terms possible I understand my
Bible, that all of God's gifts are good in themselves, and I'm
thankful that when I want to communicate with my mother, I
don't need to walk or ride a horse to Lancaster, Pennsylvania. I
can pick up the phone. I'm thankful that when we want
to communicate to extended family in Michigan, Dorothy can sit
at the computer, send an email, and within five minutes we get
a response. I'm thankful when Pastor Jeff
and Shehzad were in Pakistan in those critical days after
Arif and Kathy's homegoing. We could keep in daily communication,
and I have thanked God for many of these modern communication
technologies and the benefits they have brought to me. the
benefits they've brought to untold multitudes. A surgeon is in the
midst of a delicate operation. He sees something he's never
seen before. He can have an assistant immediately contact another expert
physician and surgeon in that area and get... Dear people,
I am not saying let's all become Amish. All right? I don't know
how to make it any plainer. I'm thankful that many of these
communication technologies are being harnessed for the furtherance
of the gospel. But, but, there's a devil who
knows what he can do not only to damn people with that technology,
and he's damning them by the millions, but what he can do to cripple
Christians from running with vigorous endurance the race set
before us, because the fixation of their mind is not upon Jesus,
it is being constantly taken up with the tyranny of communicating
technology, cell-phoned obsession, text messaging, YouTube, MySpace,
blogging, hours spent wanting to know what nonsense this person
or that person is spewing out with half a thought at the end
of a keyboard. Earbuds glued in the ears, MP3
players, iPods, iPhones, TV obsession, video, DVDs, CDs, all of this
stuff doing what? Bombarding the mind! Not just with wretched, wicked
stuff, but with banal, useless stuff. that keeps the mind from
being fixed upon Jesus. And if you're on this, you'll
say, hey, the old man ain't overstating the case. I have to fight not to go to
the sports section in the Star Ledger in the morning. Today's the Lord's Day. But I
know the Giants are playing in the first round of the playoffs,
and I will have to fight not to want to turn on the radio
to find out who won. So am I calling you a bunch of
rotten sinners? No, I know where I would be if
I did not stand up and say, no way will I be tyrannized By all
that's out there, even good stuff on the internet. You know my
interest in things medical. I've resisted with iron will
the temptation to say, Dorothy, Google me of prostate surgery. And to know that I could see
what they did to me, step by step, and cut by cut, and stitch
by stitch. But I say no. No! I don't have time for that. If
I'm going to know my Savior better, if I'm going to bask in His presence,
if His Word's going to be precious to me. You hearing me? Some of you, you're not hearing
me. You're inwardly saying, ah, there he goes, he's on his hobby
horse. What do I have to gain by pleading to break the tyranny
of communication technology. I'm only wanting you to get to
heaven and to run well on the way. That's my motive. Nothing more, nothing less. We've got to become readers of
our Bibles. We've got to start saturating
our minds with all the good books that are available to us that
will help us to know our Savior better, to understand His ways
more accurately. Dear people, you're not going
to make it in this increasingly degenerate, God-abandoned society
by just little dribs and drabs of your Bible. You're going to
be wreckage along the way, sooner or later. Can't do it. I feel pressures
upon my soul in this area I never felt as a young Christian. Nine-tenths
of the stuff wasn't there to pull at my soul. Wasn't there. You had access
to a four-party telephone line. That was it. until my father
negotiated with the phone company when they wanted to put up a
new pole on our corner. He said, on one condition, give us a single
line phone. No portable radios, no iPods,
no CDs, no television. All of that stuff, clamoring,
and I haven't talked about the sordid, wicked, pure, grossly,
coarse, banal stuff. Once in a while, I will sit down
for half an hour and take in three or four minutes of prime
time sitcom television, and I am absolutely appalled that any
believer would watch that under any circumstances. I'm asking you, My fellow believer,
are you ready this morning to say, in the name of God and in
the strength of Christ, I am prepared to say, I repudiate
this tyranny. And if it means you've got to
throw some stuff away, make yourself accountable to someone or someones,
because you won't realize how addicted you are until you try
to withdraw and you're going to find out you're an addict.
You can't go through a day without blogging this or blogging that
or checking out on MySpace and YouTube and someone else's blog,
this blog, that blog, everybody's blog. Anybody under any circumstances
with anything to say can throw it out into cyberspace and get
a hearing around the world. Don't you see, believer, your
Savior is there in the pages of His Word saying, Come and
meet with Me. Come, let Me show you My beauty. Come, let Me show you My grace. Come, let Me show you My heart. stupid, ignorant, half-converted
person sending out his blog. What has he or she got to offer
when Christ Himself is here in His book waiting to show His
face to you? Am I making any sense? I hope
I am, folks. I am very conscious. I don't
have a lot more time. And if this thing is not reckoned
with at the deepest level in the rank and file of Trinity
Church, it's the beginning of the end. I don't care what kind
of preaching you hear. You go from the best preaching
in the world anywhere, plunk yourself down in front of your
computer screen and spend two and three hours after this, that
and the other, it will bleed away any benefit from the best
of preaching. You've got to determine that
you're going to repudiate the tyranny of communication technology. Well then, I want to touch much more briefly
on the secondary of this first council of fixing your mind on
the Lord Jesus. Fix your mind upon the Lord Jesus
directly as your Savior in living the Christian life. Secondly,
fix your mind upon the Lord Jesus with respect to the major change
in the leadership of this assembly in the New Year. Now most of
you here understand what I mean when I talk about the change
in the leadership. Two years ago, this month, I
announced to you as a congregation my intention to wind down my
46 years of labor that come this July among you and to relocate
to Michigan not to retire, but to give myself to other forms
of ministry in God's will, hopefully, writing, conference ministry,
a ministry of encouragement to younger pastors that God has
given me as my spiritual sons and Timothys in a number of places. And as you, the people of God,
prayed and we prayed, God in his wonderful providence has
worked so that in July, of this past year, you extended an almost
unanimous call to Pastor Dave Chansky to come and labor with
the other two elders in the oversight of this assembly. And then on
August the 2nd, he wrote to the church saying, I accept your
call to me to become one of the pastors at Trinity as it was
expressed in your congregational vote of July 1 and your letter
of July 12. I'm humbled and sobered to anticipate
this move to a very different sphere from the one in which
I presently labor. I feel something of what the
Apostle Paul expressed when he wrote, quote, in weakness, in
fear, and much trembling, end quote. At the same time, I look
forward with faith in anticipation of the privilege of laboring
in the church there and alongside your present elders. Then he
went on to say how thankful he was for the manner in which we
went about this and how God has worked not only here but there
in Minneapolis to see the hand of God in the matter and then
his purpose and reasons for aiming at relocating after his son finishes
his last year of high school there in Minneapolis. Now, this is a major change for
you And obviously for me, 45, 46 years, I've been here in North
Jersey, laboring in the midst of what is now known as Trinity
Baptist Church. And what I'm saying to you this
morning is this, that if ever, if ever you as a people, if ever
I as an individual were determined to fix our minds upon the Lord
Jesus and the sufficiency of His grace, it is in a time of
major transition such as the one that we face. We've got to
remember that Christ's gifts to His Church are not Christ
to His Church. Christ alone is Christ to His
Church. He is the Lord, the life, the
focus of the love and the faith of His people. And as I urge
you to fix your mind upon the Lord Jesus in everything connected
with this major change in leadership, I'm thinking of Christ particularly
as He is described in Ephesians chapter 5. There when the Apostle
is giving directions to husbands as to how they are to love their
wives, He says they are to love their wives as Christ loved the
church, and then he focuses in a more dominant way upon the
expression of Christ's love in giving himself up for the church,
but then he alludes to another dimension of Christ's love for
his church later on in the passage. And he says in verse 29, no man
ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, even
as Christ also the church, because we are members of his body. And
here he says Christ's love is shown not only in the once for
all giving up of himself to the death of the cross to save his
church, but in his continuous, relentless, loving, sensitive
love by which he nourishes and cherishes his church. He not only rescues it from hell
and will perfect it in his moral lightness, but he tenderly, lovingly
nourishes and cherishes his church. And we believe that that's the
Christ who has nourished and cherished his church here over
these many years, and in the prospect of his will removing
me out of direct interaction in the life and ministry of this
church, Christ has not ceased to be committed to nourish and
to cherish this church And that ought to be the perspective of
our hearts. Lord Jesus, nothing of your loving,
nourishing, cherishing commitment is in any way altered when the
old man goes to Michigan. Not one bit. In fact, it will
continue to be evidenced and manifested in new dimensions
under the new leadership. And then a second passage. that
though it does not directly refer to Christ, it contains a principle
that illustrates the way Christ deals with His Church, and it's
found in the book of Joshua. Joshua chapter 1, Now it came
to pass, after the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, that
the Lord spoke unto Joshua the son of Nun, Moses minister saying,
Moses, my servant, is dead. Now, therefore, arise and go
over this Jordan, you and all this people, unto the land which
I give them, even to the children of Israel." Dr. A. W. Tozer, a man of beloved
memory with great spiritual insight, I read a sermon of his as a very
young Christian. on this text, and he said these
words, and they've lived with me for decades. Here were his
words. When God says, Moses my servant
is dead, therefore go and occupy the land of Canaan, his point
was this, nothing of a man of God, nothing of God dies when
a man of God dies. Nothing of God dies when a man
of God dies. Moses, my servant, is dead, but
I was Moses' God and I am your God, Joshua. Now, therefore,
prove my power and move forward and lead the people into the
land of promise." Well, I want to take Tozer's words and change
them a bit Nothing of God dies when a man of God dies. I say
nothing of Christ leaves when a servant of God leaves. Christ's promised presence to
me and to my wife will be our portion when we relocate to Michigan. With all the unknowns before
me, Thankfully, at least I know where I'm going to hang my hat
and sleep at night. In fact, God wonderfully answered
your prayers and ours and helped us to get everything that needed
to be done out in the condominium so the carpenters come in and
do what needs to be done that I have a nice study in the lower
level of the condominium. But nothing, nothing of Christ's
promised presence to Trinity Church goes with Albert N. Martin. Nothing. You have him. and all of the promises of God
that are yes and amen in him. And for the way, the way for
you to validate anything that's been biblical in my ministry
in this coming transition is to demonstrate you had no idolatrous
attachment to or evaluation of Albert M. Martin's place in the
life of Trinity Church. I hope there will be some appreciation
of whatever my contribution has been. And I hope the Word of
God will live on in many of your lives. But it would be no honor
to me for you to think for a moment that anything of Christ goes
with me. Nothing of Christ leaves His
church when the servant of God leaves that church. And my exhortation
and counsel to you as the people of God is fix your mind upon
the Lord Jesus with respect to the major changes in the leadership
of this assembly in the coming year. Pray with faith and expectation
that God yet has many new and wonderful things to do in you,
among you, and through you to the progress of the gospel. Well, I hope to get to the third,
fixing your mind on the Lord Jesus with respect to world events
as they unfold, but I think I've said enough. Time is gone. Let's
pray. Father, we thank you for your
words. We thank you for the loving exhortations
to have this fixation of mind upon our Savior. And Lord, I
do pray for your precious people in this place, that for those
who have allowed themselves to become tyrannized by modern technology,
whose progress in grace is minimal if progress at all, because they've
allowed themselves to be ensnared O God, come today and set them
free, for you have said, Whom the Son sets free is free indeed. We pray that you would write
upon our hearts our great privilege of constantly looking off and
looking away unto Jesus, author and perfecter of faith, that
we may find in gazing upon Him that work of the Spirit making
us more and more into His likeness, and that we may have renewed
determination by His power to imitate Him. And then, Lord,
we ask that You would wonderfully go before us as a people in these
coming months in the things that pertain to the transition in
leadership. We pray that you would work out
all the details For Pastor Chansky and his family, as they put their
house on the market, as they plan their move, guide them in
the purchase of a home here. Go before Dorothy and me and
all of the things related to the sale of our home and the
relocation and the unfolding of Your purposes, our Father,
how we thank You. We thank You for every circumstance
that presses us more closely to Your breast and makes us feel
how much we need You. Grant that that may be our experience
in the days to come. Seal then Your Word to our hearts
and be with us through the remainder of this day. We ask in Jesus'
name, Hey.