All right, brethren, because
we've just had this brief break and we're the same group of men,
I won't have to spend any time reviewing, just try to remind
you where we are in the outline. We're considering the major third
question, what are the tasks of the Christian minister or
ministry? And we've said that Acts 20,
28 is perhaps the most clear text in all of scripture To give
us the bare bones of what those tasks are, we are to pay close
attention, we're to give attention to ourselves and to all of the
flock. And we're looking today at just
large letter A. What does it mean for a minister
to take care and to nurture himself? And in the last hour, we looked
at the first major subheading We are to take care of our own
spiritual life and communion with God. Now we're going to
take the second and third subheading, namely, we're to take care of
our own mental and intellectual life in relationship to God's
truth, and then we are to take care of our own physical and
emotional life in the light of the demands of the ministry.
And that will complete, large letter A, constant care and watchfulness
over ourselves. Now, there are some men that
are quite faithful in nurturing their inner spiritual life and
communion with God, and yet their ministries do not bear much fruit
among God's people for the simple reason that they are being negligent
in their mental and intellectual development in relationship to
God's truth. And let me set several texts
of Scripture before you that make it very clear that we must
not only be concerned about keeping our inner life fresh and vibrant
and in communion with Christ, but that we must be concerned
with our mental and intellectual development as the servants of
God. When Jesus was asked, what is
the first and great commandment, you remember how he answered.
He said the first and great commandment, Matthew 22, 37, is this, you
shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with
all your soul, and with all your mind. God is to be loved not
only with the heart, the seat of our affections, the soul,
the whole of the inner life, but also with our minds, our
mental faculties, are to be wholly given in love to God and to His
truth. And then we're all familiar with
2 Peter 3, 18. But grow in grace and in the
knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And when God promises
that He will give true pastors under the new covenant, This
is what he says in Jeremiah 3 and verse 15, And I will give you
shepherds according to My heart, who shall feed you with knowledge
and with understanding. Well, how can I feed others with
knowledge and understanding if I am not growing in knowledge
and in understanding? You see, I may come to the pulpit
with a heart that is white-hot in its devotion to Christ, a
heart that is pure from any present controversy with God. I may come
into the pulpit with a heart that feels the weight of the
awful reality of hell and is throbbing and pulsing with the
glory of the wonderful reality of heaven. But unless I am able
to impart the knowledge of those things in such a way that my
hearers will also be able to feel the weight of those things,
my ministry cannot be edifying. I can't take my heart out with
all of its warmth and heat and light and press it to the hearts
of my people and hope that somehow it will leak out of my heart
into theirs. What's in my heart of God's truth
and communion with Christ and fellowship with God has got to
be expressed in biblical concepts and in such a way that it comes
first of all to the minds of my hearers with clarity and then
it will filter down into their hearts under the blessing of
the Holy Ghost. In other words, we edify our
people not by a direct infusion of spiritual life into their
hearts. We must feed their minds with
knowledge and with understanding. Then and only then will their
hearts grow in personal, vital communion with Jesus Christ. This is why Paul said to Timothy,
2 Timothy 2 and verse 15, translated in the old authorized version,
study, but it really doesn't mean study. That word spudazzo
means do your utmost. Give yourself with tremendous
energy to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needs
not to be ashamed, handling aright the word of truth. If we're to
handle the Word of God aright, to cut a straight course in the
Word of Truth, we must do our utmost in vigorous mental and
intellectual pursuits in conjunction with the Word of God. I love
2 Timothy 2.7 along this line as well. I was reading, my wife
and I, in our own devotions, the night before I left. We were
going through 2 Timothy, and I was struck with this again,
verse 7. Paul has written certain things
to Timothy, and now he says in verse 7, Consider what I say. And that verb, consider, means,
Timothy, use your noggin. Take your brain and think on
what I'm saying. Then he says, For the Lord shall
give you understanding in all things. Well, if the Lord gives
understanding, why do I need to think? And if by my thinking
I get understanding, where does the Lord fit in? Well, the answer
is this. God never gave the Holy Spirit
to put a premium on mental laziness. But He gave the Holy Spirit that
as I love God with all my mind, my love will be fruitful in coming
to an increasing knowledge of God. So the Holy Spirit does
not work apart from my mind any more than my mind can discover
God's truth apart from the Holy Spirit. But it's when we consider
and think upon what God has written, in dependence upon God, the Holy
Spirit gives us understanding. So brethren, if we're to be shepherds
who feed our people, not with the froth of our own ideas, not
with the chaff of our own opinions, not with the popcorn of stories
and anecdotes and mere illustrations, but if we are to serve them up
the meat and milk of the pure Word of God, we must take heed
to ourselves, not only to nurture our inner spiritual life, but
to nurture our own mental and intellectual life in relationship
to the truth of God. And what will that mean practically? It will mean at least four things.
I want to be practical. Number one, you must take steps
to block out large segments of time for serious study. You must take steps to block
out large segments of time for serious study. Now I want to
state it as bluntly as I know how. If you don't have a heart
for serious study, get out of the ministry. I don't know how
to say it in more simple words than that. If you don't have
a heart for serious study, get out of the ministry. because
you will not be a shepherd after God's heart who will be able
to feed your people with knowledge and understanding week in and
week out. There's no way to do it without
serious study. So you must take whatever steps
you need to to block out large segments of time for serious
study. Secondly, you must have a plan
to grow in your understanding of the whole Word of God. You
must have a plan to grow in your understanding of the whole Word
of God. And what do I mean by that? I
mean you just don't come in your library and say one day, oh well,
I think maybe, oh that's got a nice cover, I think I'll read
me a few pages in there. And so I read, and then the next
day come over, no, no, you've got some plan of study. And you're
willing to receive help in setting up a plan of study that's going
to help you grow in your understanding of the whole Word of God. For
example, there are wonderful things available now that make
the Word of God plain. Good little commentaries like
Jeffrey Wilson's commentaries published by the Banner of Truth
done on the New Testament epistles. Very, very helpful. You have
Bishop Ryle, and I'm not referring to this book now and to this
head, but his expository thoughts on the Gospels. If you want a
simple, helpful commentary on the Gospels, you get Ryle's expository
thoughts on the Gospels and say, alright, I'm going to read me
ten pages a day until I go clean through from Matthew to the Gospel
of John. I want to get a grasp on the
message of the Gospels. There are excellent things available,
but you've got to have a plan to grow in your understanding
of the whole Word of God. Thirdly, you must have a plan
to grow in your understanding of theology. You see, theology is nothing
more or less than taking the teaching of the Word of God on a given subject and bringing
together what a passage in Genesis says about it, a passage in Exodus
says about it, a passage in the book of the Revelation. It's
taking the total witness of the Bible on a given subject and
seeking to understand it. And that's vital so that when
we're dealing with any one of the parts, we never deal with
one of the parts in such a way that we contradict the whole.
For example, if a man doesn't have a good systematic theology
on the person of Christ, and he is preaching through the Gospels
and he comes to this statement, no man knows the hour of the
return of the Son of Man except the Father. He's going to say,
uh-oh, Jesus must not be God then. That's what the Jehovah's
Witnesses do, don't they? They take that verse and they
twist it. But if we have a solid, systematic
theology, that is, the whole witness of the Bible concerning
the person of Christ, and we understand that in the person
of Jesus Christ we have two distinct natures joined in the one person,
And there are times when he speaks according to that which is true
only of his deity, sometimes that which is true only of his
humanity. but they are true of the person
of Christ. Well, you see, it's having a
grasp upon that aspect of systematic theology that will help us to
preach responsibly and feed our people with knowledge and with
understanding. And this is where I would commend
to you the writings of Professor Murray. Dr. J.I. Packer, his book, Knowing God,
is a good little introduction to various aspects of systematic
theology from a very devotional way. This is an excellent little
introduction to the doctrine of the sovereignty of God, who
is in control. It's a summary of A.W. Pink's work on the sovereignty
of God. Very, very helpful. Brethren,
we must continually be studying systematic theology that we may
be more and more accurate in our handling of the Word of God.
And then, fourthly, you must have a plan to grow in your understanding
of the Christian life. You must have a plan to grow
in your understanding of the Christian life. And here's where
I would recommend highly J.C. Ryle's book called Holiness.
Few books have had such an impact on my life at a crucial time
in my life than this book. If I had to limit myself to one
book beside the Bible that has clear, basic, solid teaching
on the Christian life, it would be this book by Bishop Ryle.
on holiness. Every chapter is a complete essay
in itself and is so helpful in the doctrine of the Christian
life. And then, this is where reading good biographies will
help you, because you see the principles of the Word of God
worked out in the lives of men of God. And this is where you
will find reading church history to be helpful as well, as you
see the struggles of God's people and you see how the Lord was
pleased to uphold and to sustain them. Along that line, a very
helpful work is The Forgotten Spurgeon by Ian Murray. that
is a combination of biography and theology, as it shows the
various issues that Spurgeon had to enter into controversy
over in his ministry. And then, fifthly, you must have,
I said four, I'm going to give you five, you must have a plan
to grow in your understanding of the Christian ministry. You
must have a plan to grow in your understanding of the Christian
ministry. You ought to be working through books like these continually,
maybe only a chapter or two a week. Lectures to My Students by C. H. Spurgeon. Excellent book. These are the lectures he gave
to the students in his pastor's college. They'll make you weep,
they'll make you laugh, they'll drive you to your knees, they'll
carry you up into heaven with a sense of wonder and glory.
And then another great classic, The Christian Ministry, by Charles
Bridges. And then the book by Dr. Lloyd-Jones,
Preaching and Preachers, some very helpful material on the
work of the Christian ministry. And what I'm saying, brethren,
is that we are not going to have that mental and intellectual
freshness necessary to feed our people week after week, month
after month, unless we are loving God with all our minds, blocking
out large segments of time to study, and then having a plan
in our study to grow in our understanding of the Word of God itself, to
grow in our understanding of systematic theology, to grow
in our understanding of the Christian life, and to grow in our understanding
of the Christian ministry. But then we come to our third
subheading. We must take heed to ourselves,
not only to nurture our own inner spiritual life, to nurture our
own mental and intellectual life, but to nurture our own physical
and emotional life. When Paul said in Acts 20, 28,
take heed unto yourselves, who was he talking to? He wasn't
talking to angels, to disembodied spirits. He was talking to men. Men who had to eat, men who had
to sleep, men who had to brush their teeth, men who had all
of the real limitations of real humanity. And I'm thrilled when
I see Paul's writing to Timothy, how he is so earthy in his instructions
about this. Turn to 1 Timothy chapter 4,
and then we'll look at chapter 5. This is one of the most abused
verses in all of the Bible, 1 Timothy 4.8. We'll back up to 4.7. 4.7. 1 Timothy 4.7. Refuse profane and old wives'
fables and exercise yourself unto godliness. That's what we
were talking about under the first subheading. We must exercise
our own inner spiritual life unto godliness, for bodily exercise
is profitable for a little, either for a little time or for a little
in comparison with exercising unto godliness. By comparison,
bodily exercise is little compared to exercise unto godliness. But the statement in itself is
a positive statement. Bodily exercise is profitable. Why? Because we're in the body. And you've got to serve God with
your body. I've got to preach with my body.
I've got to carry my body into the study. And if my body is
sluggish, then my mind is sluggish. If my body is like that of an
old mare ready to go to the glue factory, and I get to preaching
up a storm, instead of people being impressed with the Word
of God, they'll pity me for wheezing like an old horse in the pulpit. And you've heard men like that.
They begin to get anything approaching a real preaching fit. And they
get out of wind and instead of standing there amazed and thrilled
with the Word of God, you sit there pitying the poor out of
shape guy and you want to tell him, remember bodily exercise
is profitable for a little. And Timothy apparently forgot
that. Paul reminded him. Notice what he said in chapter
5. And I like the context of it. Verse 22, don't lay hands
hastily on any man. That is, don't be quick to be
encouraging people to go into the ministry. Lay hands hastily
on no man. Neither be a partaker of other
men's sins. Keep yourself pure. Be no longer
a drinker of water, but use a little wine for your stomach's sake
in your oft infirmities. Some men's sins are evident going
before unto judgment, and some follow after in the midst of
these great concerns that Timothy would not push men quickly into
the ministry, that Timothy would not be infected with the sins
of others, And in the midst of talking about the sober fact
that all sins of all men will eventually be made known by the
God who is the judge of the universe, he says, by the way, Timothy,
you're serving God in a weak body. And where you are in that
situation, for some reason you have sworn yourself to be a teetotaler. But Timothy, I want to give you
a little home remedy." And at the time for Paul, the best remedy,
he said, was take a little wine for your stomach's sake. Now,
he didn't say get addicted to the bottle. He said, take a little
wine for your stomach's sake and you're off to infirmities.
What's the principle? The principle is he's saying,
Timothy, do whatever you can do to bring your physical condition
up to its highest possible health and vigor. That's what he's saying. And brethren, you and I need
to do the same. Many a man is not as useful in
the ministry as he could be because he has never even considered
what he puts in his mouth. When the scripture says in 1
Corinthians 10.31, whether you eat or drink or whatever you
do, do all to the glory of God, how can I know I'm eating to
the glory of God if I don't have a basic idea of what's involved
in a balanced, nutritious diet? God has given certain foods to
provide certain nutrients for the body. He made the body. He
made the foods. And I'm responsible if I'm going
to eat to God's glory. not to simply eat anything I
like or anything that I was brought up eating, never investigating
as to whether it's nutritious or good for me, is going to make
my cholesterol high and make me a high risk of heart attack,
etc. How can you say you glorify God
when you stuff into your mouth that which eventually is going
to take you to an early grave? And brethren, And I don't say
this unkindly, that's why every preacher's got to make conscience
about keeping his weight stable. The evidence is very clear that
in most cases, excess weight puts a drain upon the heart and
the whole constitution that can cause us to go to an early grave
or end up having to have our chest split open and have bypass
operations and all the rest. So be careful about this matter. There are excellent books available
on the matter of a healthy diet. There are ways to lose weight
and keep it off. You must have physical exercise. If you are blocking out long
times for study, that is a draining thing. Solomon said it, much
study is weariness to the flesh. And sometimes the best thing
for your study is to get out and take a brisk half hour walk.
Some of us find that jogging is best for us. Others find that
swimming, whatever, is helpful. Bodily exercise is profitable. And you've got to serve God in
this body. Therefore, take heed to yourself,
and your body is a part of yourself. And it's the purchased property
of Jesus Christ, isn't it? 1 Corinthians 6.20, what, know
you not? that you have been purchased
with a price and you are not your own. Glorify God in your
body. Now, is God glorified in a body
that staggers up into the pulpit? A big old paunch, bleary eyes,
and then talks about, it's sure wonderful to serve the Lord.
Hmm? You remember what happened with
Daniel and his companions? When they ate that food, not
the king's dainties, which would have been compromised for them,
Everyone could see their flesh was fairer than the others at
the end of that time period. It was a testimony of the goodness
of God. Now it's different, brethren.
If God brings upon us a crippling disease, if God brings upon us
something that we have not, as it were, attempted to bring upon
us, that's entirely different. There are times when some of
God's most powerful work has been done through the weakest
vessels. But you and I are responsible for the stewardship of this body
that was purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ. And we need
to take heed unto ourselves, our physical lives, but also,
brethren, our emotional lives. You see, there are tremendous
pressures upon us emotionally in the ministry. And if we do
not take time to nurture our emotional lives, you know what's
going to happen to us? You remember Elijah? That mighty
man of God was not afraid to stand up to 450 false prophets
and another 400, over 800 of them on Mount Carmel. He stood
all alone. He stood against them. And a
few hours later, some old painted Jezebel said, I'm going to get
you, and he goes running. One woman sent him running when
800 false prophets couldn't do it. And what was the problem?
He was drained emotionally. And when God came to his servant
and he found him out in the cave, what did he do? First thing he
did was feed him and put him back to sleep. And then only
when he was emotionally strengthened did he start going after his
conscience and said to him, what are you doing here, Elijah? Oh,
what a loving father our God is. You see, God didn't whoop,
wop on him and say, hey, now what you doing here? No, he said,
my servant is drained. in his rest. He fed him and put
him back to sleep. Brethren, we have emotional needs. I love this verse in 2 Corinthians. We'll just look at it quickly.
It's a beautiful picture. You think of Paul, that mighty
apostle, bearing the burden of all the churches and yet how
human he was. And he was unashamed to show
his humanity. Look at 2 Corinthians 7.5, for
even when we were coming to Macedonia, our flesh had no relief. We were afflicted on every side.
Now listen, without were fighting, within were fears. Paul, full
of fears? He said yes. We think of Paul,
you see, this mighty man. He said, I was trembling like
a leaf on the inside. But now look at verse 6. Nevertheless,
he that comforts the lowly, even God, comforted us how? By the coming of Titus. One day
when he was down emotionally, he heard a knock on the door.
He said, come in. and he saw the face of his brother Titus,
and his spirit was lifted, and he embraced him, and there was
emotional healing. Brethren, we need to take heed
to ourselves, not only the nurture of our physical life, but our
emotional life. We need to cultivate friendships
like Paul had with Titus. Those special friendships with
fellow ministers where we can spill our guts and know that
our guts won't be thrown back in our face. We need to have
those relations. Jesus Christ, in the hour of
his grief, wanted to lean on three of his disciples. He said,
Peter, James, and John, come with me into the garden and watch
with me one hour. Think of it. The Son of God in
His holy humanity didn't veil His emotional need for support
in the hour of trial. It's not a sign of weakness to
say that we need emotional support. That's why Romans 12, 15 says,
Weep with those who weep. Rejoice with those who rejoice. And he turned all of his emotional
strain inward until there was too much, and then something
snapped. I pray that God give you the
kind of companions with whom you can be absolutely honest
and transparent. Your wife should be that to you.
And I thank God for a wife who's been that to me for 31 years. But there are some aspects that
only a fellow minister can really identify with. And she's not
jealous. that there are certain things
I only feel at liberty to share with someone who's in the trenches
with me, any more than I'm jealous when there are certain burdens
of being a mother and now a grandmother that she shares with others who
are in the same set of circumstances. If we're to bear one another's
burdens, it means we've got to be close enough to get the thing
off our shoulder and on to the other guys. And I would urge
you, brethren, If you would be healthy ministers to take heed
unto yourself, how can you come to the pulpit and bring a word
of comfort, a word of consolation? How can you be a minister to
lift the spirits of God's oppressed and weary people if you yourself
come like Elijah with a juniper tree tied on your back and the
whole world crushing you? So that's what I want to say
to you this morning, brethren. Undertake heed unto yourself.
What are the responsibilities of the Christian ministry? First
of all is constant care and watchfulness over ourselves. And if God helps
us to do that, then we will be prepared to take up what we will
take up tomorrow morning, constant care over the flock. And that
will be our subject. I've gone beyond our time. Don,
if you want to tell the ladies, and then we can have time for
questions, and then they want to address to me. And I was told
to keep this clipped on, so I'll do what I was told. All right, brethren, questions
or comments on the material we've covered this morning? If not, then we're free to take
a break then. We've got no questions, no sense
sitting here when we can get up and walk around while the
food's getting prepared. All right?