The Character of Christian Ministry

This sermon is from Grace Fellowship Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. If you would like to learn more about us, please visit us at our website at graceedmonton .ca.

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Please enjoy the following sermon. Well, brothers and sisters, having the privilege to preach here again,

I want to speak today on the theme of what I'm calling the character of Christian ministry.

And as we venture into this text, I want to ask you a question, a couple of questions.

How do you tell, whether it's listening to a sermon online, or watching something on YouTube, or sitting here, or visiting a church in another city, how do you tell a good pastor, a good elder,

I'm using those terms synonymously, from a bad one? How do you tell a good one from a bad one?

Or to drill in a bit deeper, how do you discern whether a man is a true and faithful undershepherd who loves the flock and serves it well, as opposed to a self -interested hireling who loves his own ministry to the flock and who seeks to serve himself well?

If we can use our imaginations for a moment, imagine just for a moment that because of providential reasons beyond our control, one day the

Lord took both Sam and I on the same day, and the blink of an eye, this church goes from having a plurality of elders to no elders at all.

Brothers and sisters, if all of you were left in that moment with nothing but the congregation and your

Bibles and a list of possible elder candidates before you, what would be the criteria that you would use to look for new leaders?

And criteria, if I can say, that is qualitatively different, related to, but qualitatively different from that which we find in 1

Timothy 3, looking at the character qualifications that we did a few weeks ago. Or to bring you a little bit closer to reality, when we are evaluating new elders in this church, or existing elders in this church,

Sam and myself, what is the biblical criteria that we should look for?

What is the manner of life and the philosophy of ministry that we must hold the officers of this church to?

Or the way by which we evaluate preachers online. Or the leaders of a church in a different city, if the

Lord should have you to move somewhere else and be part of a new church. Or men,

I know that there are men here in the midst of this church who aspire to some form of pastoral ministry, or even ministry as a deacon.

And I ask you, what is the biblical standard for a faithful gospel ministry?

What is the model or character of a ministry that builds up the church and brings glory to our

God? The fact of the matter is, there are few things that have greater bearing on a church's health or unhealth than the ministerial character of the church's leaders.

Not just their character as in who they are, but the character of their ministry.

Will Helmus Brackle, you haven't heard his name I think many times before, he was a 17th century

Reformed theologian. And he once wrote this, and you can tell me if the stakes could be any higher.

He said, an unqualified minister is the most despicable and harmful preacher to be found in the world.

He is a disgrace to the church, a stumbling block whereby many fall into eternal perdition and the cause of damnation of many souls.

Wow, what words. At the same time,

Jonathan Edwards has written, this is from a sermon that he preached entitled The True Excellence of a

Gospel Minister. He said, if your minister burns and shines with zeal and light, it will be for your light and life.

An excellent minister is the greatest blessing of anything in the world that ever

God bestows upon his people. So to summarize, a bad pastor brings ruin everywhere that he goes.

Meanwhile, a faithful pastor brings some of the highest blessings that God bestows upon his people.

So the stakes could not be, truly could not be any higher. And therefore, brethren, it behooves us to know how to tell the difference between a good minister of the gospel and a bad one.

One brings light and life and the other brings devastation and destruction.

But the question becomes, how are we to know the difference between the good and the faithful and the bad and the destructive?

And I'm glad you've asked. What we see here is that Paul gives us in this passage, 1st

Timothy 4, 11 through 16, a portrait of what a truly faithful Christian ministry looks like.

As Paul writes to Timothy, he shows us, at least as I see it, a fourfold character of Christian ministry.

Four things that we need to see in every minister in every church.

And this ministry, this fourfold ministry is characterized then by an exemplary life, rightly ordered priorities in the church, an unflinching or zealous resolve, and then a diligent self -watchfulness.

Now we're going to go through these together. And as I do, I'm mindful of this, that not everyone in this church aspires to or should aspire to pastoral ministry.

And yet this has, though we're speaking about ministers of the gospel, direct application to every single person in this room.

For one, as it deals with the church, this must be, we need to know this, because this must, must, must be what we expect from the ministers of the gospel in this church.

It must inform the way that we pray for the men who serve as elders and who are training, preparing to serve as elders in this church.

It must be a non -negotiable, so that if Sam and I are driving to a conference one day and in the blink of an eye we are gone, we know for certain this church is in good hands, that you know the standard.

Or should you move to another city, we don't find you in three years or in five years, the disciple of a heritage.

And for those who are in ministry or who aspire to ministry, this is the character of ministry that we must pursue with all of our vehemence, with all of our money, that here

Paul gives us truly a wonderful benchmark by which we must, we must measure our ministry to keep ourselves above this limit, if we are to serve

Christ and to serve his church well. So we have then just six verses in front of us.

We're going to divide it four ways. And the first facet of faithful Christian ministry that we find, we can see in verses 11 and 12.

And this is, we'll call it the example of Christian ministry, or the exemplary nature of Christian ministry.

In verse 11, this is what we read. Paul writes, inspired by the spirit of our

God, command and teach these things. Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.

As Paul is writing to Timothy, he brings up this, the contents of his instruction, the contents of his letters again.

You'll remember that Timothy was in the church at Ephesus dealing with all of the problems that were happening.

And verse 11, now Paul comes to him and says, command and teach these things. And what are these things?

Do you know that expression, these things, actually appears in the two letters to Timothy, eight different times.

It speaks to all of the contents that Paul is writing to Timothy, that this is to go not only to Timothy, but beyond Timothy, through Timothy, into the church.

So what we're learning here is that the instructions that are found in this book are not just for one man in particular, but for the church as a whole.

And we in fact do see an escalation of Paul speaking about these things.

In 1 Timothy chapter 3 and verse 14, we're told that Paul wrote these things that one may know how to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living

God. In chapter 4 and verse 6, we see that Paul writes that Timothy is to put these things before the church.

So he's written it, you're to put it before, and now even further, to command and teach these things in verse 11.

And some may ask that perhaps on what basis can we apply

Paul's instructions to Timothy, to the whole church? And it is based on this, this escalation, this repetition of bringing these things before the church.

And as Paul writes here in verse 12, he tells Timothy, let no one despise you for your youth.

It's really interesting when you look at all the scholarship that has been done on this passage, so much time and energy has been put into this question.

How old was Timothy? It just seems to be a point of curiosity that every scholar wants to dig into.

Some have looked at the use of this word youth in its original form to ascertain how old he was.

Most will say that this term for youth speaks to someone who is under the age of 40.

Others have sought to reverse engineer the biblical chronology, so to work their way back from the letter and go on.

I'm not going to take you through all of the tomes of work that has been done on this, but except to summarize it to say that it's widely believed that Timothy accompanied

Paul, if we do reverse engineer it a bit, in Acts chapter 16, sometime

Timothy would have been maybe in his late teens or early 20s. We know that Timothy was circumcised by the

Apostle Paul, they carried on in that second missionary journey. And because about 10 years has elapsed between that missionary journey and now

Paul's first letter to Timothy, it's very likely that Timothy was either in his late 20s or in his early 30s.

And even in that time period, this was considered to be relatively youthful. It was unrelated, but a few months ago

I was reading something from one of the apostolic fathers, Irenaeus, and I made a little note in the margin of my

Bible so that I remembered to say this as we were going through, but Irenaeus is quoted as saying that 30 is the first stage of a young man's age and extends to 40, he says, as we all admit.

So according to Irenaeus, if you're 39 years or younger, you're still a young man.

And if you're like me and you're 40 years or older, I'll let you draw the conclusions. So we can ascertain that Timothy was at his oldest, still in his 30s.

And while we don't know his exact age, what's very likely is that he was probably younger than some of the elders in the church in Ephesus and younger than some of the false teachers that were there as well.

And not unlike our culture today, the Greco -Roman world placed a great deal of emphasis on age and life experience.

This seems in fact to be almost a universal principle. We can look back into the Old Testament in 1

Samuel 17 and verse 42. Do you remember what Goliath said about David when he came before him with his stone and his sling?

He said, you're going to send this young man, this ruddy youth to do your fighting for you so as to minimize him based solely on his age.

There seems to be something baked into the mindsets of humanity, of our culture in general, that age for some reason is of great importance.

That's why when I trust when you were a child, just as when I was a child, when I went to the playground and I met someone new,

I was concerned about two things. Who are you and how old are you? And if you're older than me, you come with some measure of prestige that I do not have.

And that's why young children count not just in years, but in halves and in quarters. I'm seven and three quarters year old.

Oh, you're seven and a half. I'm older. So you must submit. And here we have this principle played out.

And yet it's interesting. Paul says to Timothy, you might be more youthful.

That matters not. Set an example for the believers in your conduct.

But Paul's encouragement is this, because you're young, Timothy, you need to wait just a few years, wait until you're 40, you're beyond Irenaeus' standard for a young man, and then begin your ministry.

But instead, silence your critics by your godly example. And this seems to be something that is universally accepted, at least, just as we appreciate age to the degree that we do.

I think that we've all met someone who is much younger than us. And we think this is surely sobering, that they are probably where I should be.

And maybe I feel like they should be where I am right now. The Greek philosopher Plato, I don't quote him too liberally, but he did say this, one time he was accused of living immorally.

And having at least determined or demonstrated his innocence, he began teaching to people after and he said, we must live in such a way that all men will see that the charge is false.

And there is certainly truth in that. That our age matters to some degree, but we must live in such a way that when accusations are brought against us, it is seen to be untrue.

And what Paul is doing here is he's telling Timothy not only to live in such a way that your youthfulness will not be looked down upon, but this is simply the nature of Christian ministry.

When we see this in Paul's letters in 1 Corinthians 11 and verse 1, he says, be imitators of me as I am of Christ.

In Philippians chapter 3 and verse 17, he says, brothers, join in imitating me and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example that you have in us.

When Peter was speaking to the elders of the dispersed church in 1 Peter 5 and verse 2, he tells them, shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly as God would have you, not for shameful gain, but eagerly, not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock.

I was thinking about our church just this week and I didn't do the math. I didn't think of every person in this room, put your age into a calculator to determine a median age, but I would guess that probably the median age of this church is somewhere between 30 and 40.

Still in the young man, young woman stage. Some of you are younger, some of you are older, like me. And what this passage

I think shows us is that brothers and sisters, even if you are not called to gospel ministry, even if you are not an elder, even if you are not a deacon, silence your critics by your godly life.

When did the Lord would allow us so that men and women who are 20 and 30 and 40 and 50 years older than us come and they see a bunch of young people and they go, well, this is true, this church must not be very mature.

And then they get to know us and they say, alas, I am challenged by the way that even these young people live.

Now, here is Paul writes to Timothy, he gives him some different categories to be examples in.

He says to be an example in speech. So often, scripture addresses the speech of the people of God.

In Ephesians chapter four, verse 29, we read, let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only as is good for building up as fits the occasion that may give grace to those who hear.

In Colossians 4, let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

Brothers and sisters, I'm going to ask you, are you cultivating godly speech?

And this is something I want to assure you that is far more than merely developing a verbal filter.

We know what this is like, right? That we have a filter in some places and then we walk through the threshold of our door and the filter is gone and we are seen to be who we truly are.

This is more than developing a filter. But what did the Lord Jesus teach us about our speech?

That out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

Brethren, if we are to have sanctified speech, we must first have sanctified hearts.

We must feel our hearts for the truth of God's word. We must seek to condition our hearts so that whether at church or at work or at home, we are consistent in our godly speech.

Paul tells Timothy that he is to be an example in his conduct or in his life, it is sometimes translated, so that speech in and of itself is simply not enough.

The Lord said to some of his followers in Luke 6 46, why do you call me

Lord, Lord and do not do what I tell you? And then what did he do?

He taught them how they were to build their lives upon the rock solid foundation of his word.

And so being wise, not building their houses upon the sand, but upon that which God has spoken and commanded.

And this means then that the gospel ministers and God's people in general must not only be mouthpieces of God, but men of God and women of God.

That this translates into a godly life. We're told that ministers,

Christian ministers, Timothy is to be an example in love. The minister of the gospel must model what has been called, quote another brother, an unconquerable benevolence, the kind of love that takes up a whole man's personality.

I say this with great concern for each of you, that you should move from this church at some point and find yourself looking for a church.

Do not evaluate a potential pastor. Do not evaluate us as pastors in this church based solely on oratory gifts or on magnetic personalities, but ask yourself wherever you go, even in the podcast you listen to, is it evident to me that this man truly loves the flock of God that has been entrusted to him?

That he loves them truly? Or does he merely, as I said already, love his ministry and the flock itself becomes a meal ticket to a bigger brand and a bigger budget and a bigger building?

Paul says that the minister of God must be an example in faith.

We should never join ourselves with a church where the man or the men who preach the gospel do not believe that same gospel with all of their hearts.

Find a church, find pastors, find elders who have staked their all on Christ, and if they have not staked their all on Christ, they are not worth following.

Watch their words, watch their lives, watch the emphasis in their preaching, watch the melody line of their lives, that it must be gospel through and through.

It must be examples of purity. This word means a moral purity. It means sometimes it could be translated as a pure heart, to have rightly ordered desires, that we should expect elders of our church to act with the utmost propriety.

I will say it is our policy, and you can keep us to this policy, that the elders of this church, we sisters, we will not meet you at a coffee shop in private.

We are not going to, we will, we did it to our sister Karis a few weeks ago.

We sent her home in an Uber. We're just not going to drive you. Why is that? It's not because we don't love you, it's because we want to treat you honorably.

We want to act with purity in our motives, in every aspect of our conduct.

And so brothers and sisters, what do we do with this first example then, the example of Christian ministry?

We must expect this level of godliness from our leaders. We must create a non -negotiable standard, where we don't simply look for oratory gifts, but we look for an example of a godly life.

And for men who aspire here to pastoral ministry, it is interesting.

I think that many people today believe that Christian ministry, that your public ministry begins the moment you step behind the pulpit, and you have an audience of God's people.

And that simply is not true. But the beginning of a man who aspires to eldership, aspires to Christian ministry, the beginning of his

Christian ministry, the beginning of his public ministry, begins when people begin to look at you and say,

Lord, make me like that man. He is the kind of man that I want to be.

This is something that Sam and I have resolved. And last year, we took some time, and we walked just along a trail in my neighborhood, and we thought about this very carefully.

And we said, from now on, if there are men who want to stand behind the pulpit of this church on the

Lord's Day, we're not merely going to look for giftedness in preaching. We're not even going to look simply for Bible quiz knowledge.

They can tell you exactly what chapter and verse this particular thing happened. We're going to look for men who are examples in every respect.

Men who we see, there is a very good reason why you're not here on Sunday.

There's a very good reason why you're not here on Thursdays. We're looking for men who are servant -hearted, who are just as eager to push a dolly with a stack of chairs on it as they are to get behind the pulpit and speak to God's people, because you love

God's people, whether they are looking or not. The minister of the gospel is not a talking head, but he must be the whole package.

I think something that E .M. Bowne said, and boy, I texted Sam this morning, I said, brother, this has been working on me.

It's probably going to work on you. E .M. Bowne said, preaching is not the performance of an hour.

It is the outflow of a life. It takes 20 years,

I would say more, to make a sermon, because it takes 20 years to make the man.

The true sermon is the thing of life. The sermon grows because the man grows.

We see another facet of Christian ministry in verse 13, and we might call this the priorities of Christian ministry.

In verse 13 we read, until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of scripture, to exhortation, to teaching.

There are other traditions that call themselves Christian that claim, some of you know what

I'm talking about, they have the most historic liturgy. They claim that because they have this unbroken liturgy that has lasted over a thousand years, they are the closest representation of the ancient faith.

This is not true. I agree with one brother's observation, who speaks about Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism, and he said that their smells and their bells and their icons are simply seeker -sensitive churches that were designed to appeal to the medieval mindset.

So when we look at that, we say, look at it, they've got the bells, they've got the censors, they've got all of this stuff, surely this is old, it must be true.

It's just a 500 -year -old seeker -sensitive version of Christianity, and a poor version at that.

But in the Reformation, the church rediscovered the ancient faith with its biblically ordered priorities, and verse 13,

I think, spells out very clearly what those biblically ordered priorities are.

What does Paul say? Devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, and to teaching.

Some of you, I'm sure some people who have come through our doors only once, maybe once again and once out and never come back, they might have said, that service is just too long for me.

How many chapters of the Bible did they read in that service? Sam and I have talked about this before.

When we get a 72 -verse chapter in Acts, do we cut it in half or do we say, reading

Scripture is important, we're going to read the whole chapter? What we see in Scripture again and again and again is that when the church comes together, when

Sam and I, children and grandchildren, when Sam and I go to be with the

Lord, or the Lord providentially takes us elsewhere, and you're looking for new elders, look for elders in this church who say, we are going to read

God's Word, because that is what is important. In Luke 4 and verse 16, we see an example of this.

And he came, this is Jesus, to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the

Sabbath day, and he stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him.

He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it is written, here reading from Isaiah 61 and verse 1, the

Spirit of the Lord is upon you, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.

He sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed.

What does the Lord do when the people come together to worship? This is God in human flesh.

What does he concern himself with? But with the reading of Scripture, as was the custom in the synagogue amongst the people of God.

Or in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 and verse 27, some might ask, or they might say,

I've heard many Christians in fact say that I am concerned with the words in red.

These are the words of Jesus, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. I'll concern myself with that.

Everything else, that's Paul, that's Peter, that's John, that's Luke, that's not important to me.

I want the words in red only. But what does Paul say in 1 Thessalonians 5 .27?

I put you under oath before the Lord, speaking of the letter that he has written to them, to have this letter read to all the brothers.

So that it was expected that when the church came together, they came and they read the scriptures together.

In the book of Ephesians, some might ask, why do we have the children in our services? Because in the book of Ephesians, as the reader would have been reading that letter, they would have gone through all of these instructions on various things.

And then what does it say in Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 1? It addresses the children.

Honor your parents in the Lord, for this is right. When the

Bible, in the Bible, when the church came together, they made it a priority to read

God's word. We don't find rock concerts.

We don't find the veneration of icons. We find God's word. In his first apology, this is

Justin Martyr's first apology. It was written about 150 AD. The early church father,

Justin Martyr, he recorded the description of a typical worship service on the Lord's day.

And I want you to hear this with me. And two, I will point this out. This is within about 50 years of the passing of John the

Apostle, the last gospel writer. The church did not meet on Saturdays until the

Roman Catholic Church enacted things in the 5th century or the 6th century, but in 150

AD. And on the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together in one place.

And the memoirs of the apostles, that's the New Testament, or the writings of the prophets are read as long as time permits, as long as time permits.

Then when the reader has ceased, the president or the one presiding over the service verbally instructs and exhorts to the imitation of these good things.

Then we all rise together and pray as we before said, when our prayer is ended, bread and wine are brought.

And the president in like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings according to his ability. And the people ascend saying,

Amen. I want you to hear something. Is that not what we do every single

Sunday? That is more ancient than the smells and the bells and the icons and the swirling chandeliers and the long adorned robes.

It is to come together and it is to hear God from his word. That is why we read

God's word. Now, the Lord has given us Bibles that we can go home and read for ourselves. And so maybe we don't read a full epistle or a full gospel in one sitting, but by the

Lord's grace, we will read the word. But it's not limited only to reading the word.

What do we see here? Devote yourself to public reading, to exhortation and to teaching.

This word exhortation is like a Swiss army knife kind of word. It can be translated in so many different ways.

It can mean to exhort, to encourage, to comfort, to console, to appeal, to summon.

It includes the whole broad range of Christian preaching. And brothers and sisters, when the church comes together, it's not like the home church idea.

We're going to read the passage. The guy will sit at the front and he'll say, what does this mean to you? And the man and the woman and everyone else, they say what it means to them.

And we all go, ah, it warms my heart. It means that to you. It means this to me.

We're good. Let's live it the way we would like. But what is it? It is coming before God's people.

It is reading the word and is exhorting from the word. It's preaching.

It's the preaching of the word. It's exactly what Paul tells Timothy to do in second

Timothy chapter four and verse two, while other people are scratching itching ears and tickling this interest and that interest as for you in the sight of God, who is to judge the living and the dead and by his appearing, preach the word with authority.

It's not a suggestion. It is the word of God. So that Spurgeon says, some will say, stop preaching, stop preaching.

But he adds, we must preach. Let the sun stop shining and we will preach in darkness.

Let the waves stop their ebb and flow and still our voice shall preach the gospel.

Let the world stop its revolutions. Let the planet stay their motion.

We will still preach the gospel. Let us never appoint people in this church who have no interest in preaching the gospel.

You might find a guy online and he has every political view. You just think

I'm so aligned with this guy and go and listen to one of the sermons at his church.

If he does not preach the gospel, block that channel on your podcast player.

Amen. Blow up your podcast player. Do not listen to him or to read or to exhort, but also to teach.

Not TED Talks, not emotional preaching that finds no basis in truth.

But this is the marriage between heat and light. And it must be both.

And if it is not, it is not true preaching. Brothers and sisters, this means that for us to be a biblically ordered church and for the church to have

Christian ministers fulfilling their responsibilities, it means that to be a member of such a church is undoubtedly, invariably demanding.

It means that I have to take my TikTok swiping finger that is used to fast flashes of light that stimulates my mind and my emotions and gives me boosts of whatever neurotransmitter.

To set that aside and say, I will hear God's word read and I'm going to pay attention because it's

God's word. And I'm going to hear God's word preached. And I'm going to have at times my sensibilities offended because God's word is going to come into direct collision with my sinful, faulty, unsanctified worldviews, perspectives, attitudes and behaviors.

And I'm going to come and every once in a while the guy behind the pulpit is going to explain something that is hard.

And I am going to have to grab a hold of my mind and say, no, we must hear this.

We must learn this. We must know this. And men, if you aspire to the office of elder, if you aspire to Christian ministry, if you aspire to the office of deacon, you know, you must occupy yourself with knowing

God and knowing his word. If you think that the call to ministry can be divorced from the call to study, you are woefully wrong.

When I went into law enforcement, I remember the people in our training saying, you know, you see all of that stuff on TV about the police chases and the foot chases and the guns and the shooting and all of that.

That is television. That is not real police work. Most of the police work, unfortunately, is spent behind a desk on a computer typing reports.

That is just the nature of police work. But will I tell you, for every hour that a faithful man spends in his pulpit, there are dozens and dozens and dozens of hours spent alone at a desk with God's word open, seeking to know the scriptures that you might not only understand it and apply it to your own life, but clearly teach it.

I explain this to the men that come, the first year students that come into our institute.

I read them a quote, a commentary that is on Ezra chapter 7 in verse 10.

It's from D .A. Carson, where he says that the call to pastoral ministry or the life of pastoral ministry is often a lonely one.

And it's not a woe is me story. I'm telling you this, what I am doing right now is the greatest privilege in the world.

So there's not a word of complaint. But there are days on Saturday evening, I know this when the other brothers are preaching, so I would use that as an example.

And I am at home with my family, eating popcorn and having a movie night, or going to the playground and riding my bicycle.

And I will think about Sam, and I know exactly what Sam is doing at that moment. He's not riding a bicycle in the sun.

He's at a desk, crying out to God saying, Oh, God, help me. I don't know how to explain this.

Or I know what it means, but I can't feel it. Why is there this incongruity between that which your word says and that which my cold, hard, dull heart feels?

Man, you must be willing, and it is the best thing that you can do in the world is to pour your life into knowing

God, knowing his word, and then saying, I'm going to mine the depths of God's word.

I'm going to find every rare jewel. I'm going to bring it to the surface. I'm not going to tell them about it. I'm just going to say, behold, look at these precious jewels.

Behold your God. In Ezra 710, we see an example of this.

For Ezra set his heart to study the law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel.

And the ordering of that might sound odd, but it's exactly right. He set his heart to study and then to do.

And only once he has studied and then done, only then does he teach. Do you see that?

So man, if you are into studying and teaching, but not in doing, you can come speak to us.

We will encourage you. We will counsel you, but you will not be teaching. It is study and then do, and then teach.

John Calvin says on this, he says, how shall pastors teach others if they be not eager to learn?

Woe then to the slothfulness of those who do not peruse the oracles of the

Holy Spirit by day and night in order to learn from them how to discharge their office.

Matthew Henry adds, ministers must mind these things as their principal work and business.

And so it must be. The third facet of Christian ministry that we see in verses 14 and 15 is this, the resolve of Christian ministry.

Paul writes, do not neglect the gift you have, which was given to you by prophesying when the council of elders laid their hands on you.

Practice these things, immerse yourself in them so that all may see your progress.

In verse 14, this gift that you have been given by prophecy and by the laying on of hands.

It's interesting, we can study this all through the Old Testament and the New Testament, the significance of laying on of hands.

In the Old Testament, it included consecration and the impartation of power so that one might carry out their task.

We see it in Deuteronomy 34, where it says, Joshua, the son of Nun was full of the spirit and wisdom for Moses, for Moses had laid his hands on me.

Sometimes this laying on of hands was used to identify something or someone. You think of this example, it's the priest laid his hands upon the scapegoat's head and confessed the sins of the nations over that priest and then drove it out into the wilderness.

It was the identification of the sins of the nation upon that animal. In the

New Testament, the laying on of hands. We see that the Lord Jesus in Mark 10 put his hands on the children and blessed them.

Sometimes it was used to appoint to ministry, sometimes like in Acts chapter 8, to give the

Holy Spirit. We read in 2nd Timothy chapter 1 and verse 6, we go there together for a moment.

2nd Timothy 1 .6, what Paul is talking about here. For this reason,

I remind you to fan in the flames the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of hands.

And so what Paul is telling Timothy is this, the council of elders, they laid their hands on you.

They identified themselves with you. They set you apart for this purpose. They appointed you for this very task.

Now, immerse yourself, devote yourself to that which you have been set apart to do.

Do not deframe it negatively. Do not neglect this gift, but positively to immerse yourself in it.

Timothy is to practice these things compulsively. It could be translated this, immerse yourself to be about these things.

It is a wholehearted, life -encompassing investment of the gospel minister.

It's what Paul talks about in 2nd Timothy 2 when he says no soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits.

The gospel minister does not dabble in ministry. I'm sorry, it's just if you want to serve as an elder, it's going to affect your whole life.

You do not get to dabble in ministry, but you like Paul pour yourself out like a drink offering in sacrificial service of Christ in his church.

And there's something that I keep in my study to remind me of this every day that I walk through my door.

If any of you have ever been in my study, if you haven't, I would love to have you. For those of you who have been, you know

I could just stand in my study and recommend books all week. I sent Shaley home with a book, 800 pages a few months ago.

I even gave her a reading plan. Okay, come back to me by Christmas, I'll be ready. But there's a black and white portrait next to my door, and it has a black and white picture of Samuel Rutherford, one of the eminent

Puritan pastors of that post -Raphaelite era. And he was a man.

It's interesting. I don't know how some of these men lived. None of them ministered the gospel in the way that they did, but was acquainted with such affliction.

He had seven children. Can we hear the sound of these children here? They're beautiful sounds. He had seven children.

Six of them died in childhood. He was left with one child, and then his wife died.

And then if that weren't enough, he was exiled because of his theology, speaking against Armenian theology and the

Episcopacy. They put him out and they exiled him for 18 months. If you've ever heard of the letters of Samuel Rutherford, you can get a version of it in a

Puritan paperback copy. Many of those letters were written in such a warm pastoral tone to the members of his church as he lived in exile.

Alone. And yet, his biographer writing about him said this, he seemed,

Samuel Rutherford, he seemed to be altogether taken up with everything.

Taken up with everything good and excellent and useful. He seemed to be always praying, always preaching, always visiting the sick, always catechizing, always writing, always studying.

Many times I would have thought, out of the pulpit, that he would have flown out of the pulpit when he came to speak about Jesus Christ.

He was never in his right element, but when he was commending Christ, he would have fallen asleep in bed, speaking about Christ.

This is what it means to be immersed in the work that the Lord calls us to. And therefore, it should be no surprise that his biographer writes about him but for such a piece of clay as Mr.

Rutherford was, I never knew one in Scotland like him. You know what's sad?

This is not a broad, senior condemnation of all churches, but how few men of like substance do we know in the church today that the

Lord would give. Brothers and sisters, this is why we must pray the Lord would give us men who might serve in ministry, who immerse themselves with resolve into the ministry to which they've been called.

Paul writes that we will see the consequence of this, that all may see your progress.

This is a military expression. Think of it this way, you're looking at a military, a battle overhead, and the one force is advancing.

It is making progress. And here, this is what Paul has in mind, that as you immerse yourself in these things, you will see that the force is marching forward, claiming the enemy territory that is ahead.

And what Paul has in mind here is that as Timothy devotes himself to his ministry and cultivates his gifts and immerses himself in the labor, there will be a notable increase in his knowledge of the truth, in his progression of his pastoral abilities, and in a greater conformity to the likeness of Jesus Christ.

We should expect to see this kind of progress in those who minister the word of God among us.

What this means then, church, is that as we see men in our midst who devote themselves to these things,

I remember as a young man, I made this mistake far too often. I would go to a church,

I would say, the church is good, but they don't preach like John MacArthur. The church is good, but they don't have the, they're not

R .C. Sproul, they can't stand in front of a chalkboard for 25 minutes and wax eloquent about the holiness of God, and I'm hanging on every single word.

It's like he has a script, a teleprompter reading through his eyelids. And so I would disparage the men who are ministering, pouring out their lives in service of the church.

I would disparage them, comparing them to these specimens online. Brothers and sisters, it is a good thing.

And in the church, we see a man who, who in his preaching, in his public ministry, it is accompanied by stammering and some stumbling along, and he fumbles with his notes, and he loses his place, and he's not as eloquent as we wish he was.

He's not R .C. Sproul. He doesn't have the intellect of some of these men out there, but by golly, we watch him year after year, and decade after decade, and we say to ourselves, this man is pouring out his life.

He is immersing himself in these things, and I am seeing the progress before my very eyes.

That is the normative experience of the church. Not that we have one guy who can do it right every time, but we have a whole group of guys who day by day, year by year, are learning to do it better, to get it right, to exalt

God as the men of God in the church. And they're not merely growing in their gifts, but they're growing in their character.

That as they gaze upon Christ, they are being transformed into his likeness, from one degree of glory to another.

And then the fourth facet of Christian ministry is this, the watchfulness of Christian ministry.

The watchfulness. Verse 16, keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching.

Persist in this, for by so doing, you will save both yourself and your hearing.

If you look at it carefully, verse 16 is actually a summary of verses 11 through 15.

We have the demonstration of the man's life, we have the demonstration of the man's teaching, and here as Paul is speaking now, he is saying, keep a close watch on both, on life and on teaching.

And the reason for this is sobering. It is only by persevering in this, that one's salvation is demonstrated, shown to be genuine.

It is only by continuing to teach the truth as well, that his hearers will be acquainted with the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Here Paul is not suggesting that Timothy has the ability to save himself or the ability to save others from their sins, but he recognizes that God uses faithful ministers of the gospel as instruments to spur his people on to the finish line.

When we talk about coming under faithful, good teachers, don't you see the stakes?

Maybe you thought that my quotations from Wilhelmus Brackle or from Jonathan Edwards, that these were somehow an exaggeration.

How can you say that a false teacher or an unqualified teacher, that he is this much of a devastation of the church?

Because if he does not persist in these things, he will lead the people of God astray, if it'd be possible.

To piggyback on what I said just a few minutes ago, we're often inclined to view local church leaders with some measure of contempt.

They aren't that man. They aren't that man. They aren't that man. But let me tell you, they are the leaders of your church.

And where they go, the church goes. And so if ever there was a reason, church, to pray for your leaders, this is surely it.

John and I have spoken about this before. John, if you're okay with me saying that when you came into the deacon candidate process, you said it was like there were crosshairs on the back of your head.

That there is just something that happens. When you enter into the office, the public ministry of the church, where you realize, if you're sitting here going,

I don't know if Satan is real or not. Go into public ministry and you will find that Satan's very real.

And that he is always coming after you and in every creative way possible.

You feel like you've got your centuries here at this gate. We're looked after and behold, you turn your back and you're being attacked from the rear.

It's like playing whack -a -mole with temptations and weaknesses and attacks and challenges.

Brothers and sisters, would you pray for those who are in public ministry in the church, for the elders and the deacons, for those who are being trained to do just that.

And men, many start the race, but how few finish the race well.

There's a book I have on my shelves. It's written, it's called The Dangerous Calling.

It's a book written about pastoral ministry. Do you want to see something remarkable? You look at that book, it speaks about how dangerous pastoral ministry is.

If you have this copy, you can do this at home. Turn it around and look at the endorsements on the back of the book.

Every man that has endorsed that book has fallen publicly and is no longer a minister. We must keep our eyes off the world and on to our

Lord. Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.

Who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

And brothers and sisters, to the extent that faithful men live and minister to God's people, this is the truth.

We do not do this to point you to ourselves. Even preaching a sermon like this in some ways is very uncomfortable, because I keep talking about myself in the third person.

The faithful minister of God does not point you, the people of God, to themselves.

But it is our job, it is our calling, it is our greatest longing to point you to Christ. I assure you that if you watch me closely enough,

Sister Mayanna lives with our family. She's been close enough. I will disappoint you. Every pastor, every deacon, every internet preacher who is honest will tell you that deep down inside they are weak, infallible, and far too sinful.

But by God's grace we are better today than yesterday, better tomorrow than today. And yet we are not the centerpieces of our ministry.

Christ must be the centerpiece, the blazing center of every man's ministry.

That the blazing center of our ministry is the great high priest, the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself not only to be our example, not only to give us his word, but he gave his very life.

He persevered to the bitter end so that on the cross he might save us to the uttermost.

Even as he offered these words, it is finished. Brothers and sisters, as you're praying that we would be examples, that we would minister the word of God, that we would be resolved and immerse ourselves in our work, that we would to the best of our abilities keep a close watch on ourselves when you pray, and everything, every sermon, every action that Christ would be seen.

He is the faithful minister. He is the faithful high priest. He is the one who will keep us to the end.

He is faithful. He will surely do it. Thank you for listening to another sermon from Grace Fellowship Church.

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