Marks of a God-Glorifying Ministry (1 Cor. 2:1-5)

The point: Communicate what God is doing in your midst so that others can pray for you.

Martin compares himself to a 'cow that's been milked dry' after intense ministry and interaction, illustrating the profound spiritual and emotional expenditure involved in deep pastoral engagement and the tapping of 'underground reservoirs of experience and understanding.'

I can't remember a time in recent history when I feel like a cow that's been milked dry. Now, if you ask me how I know what a cow that's been milked dry feels like, I can only imagine there must be something like I feel after these days, particularly the precious hours of concentrated interaction with some of you, the Lord's servants over the table and around the table. And as I mentioned to someone, the years of seeking to be obeyed, obedient to Christ and to be true to the calling of Christ, there are growing pockets of underground reservoirs of experience and understanding mingled with it, ...

0:25 - 1:43 Read in full sermon

The point: Communicate what God is doing in your midst so that others can pray for you.

He uses the metaphor of subterranean pressure building in the soul until a young pastor 'drives a stake into that spot' where an artesian well of experience and understanding spills out, conveying the depth of hidden wisdom and emotion that can be drawn out in ministry.

I can't remember a time in recent history when I feel like a cow that's been milked dry. Now, if you ask me how I know what a cow that's been milked dry feels like, I can only imagine there must be something like I feel after these days, particularly the precious hours of concentrated interaction with some of you, the Lord's servants over the table and around the table. And as I mentioned to someone, the years of seeking to be obeyed, obedient to Christ and to be true to the calling of Christ, there are growing pockets of underground reservoirs of experience and understanding mingled with it, ...

0:25 - 1:43 Read in full sermon

The point: Communicate what God is doing in your midst so that others can pray for you.

Martin recalls his father's saying, 'son, work hard. It keeps you out of trouble,' to introduce his theology of retirement and underscore the value of continued labor, even for older men.

As my father used to say, son, work hard. It keeps you out of trouble. Well, that's true for 67-year-old men as well who begin to fancy that the golden years ought to be spent in idleness and chasing a little white ball around a golf course and yanking fish, fish out of a pond or some other banal activity as one's occupation. I'm not talking about those activities as an avocation for you fishermen.

2:12 - 2:39 Read in full sermon

The point: Communicate what God is doing in your midst so that others can pray for you.

Martin uses the analogy of a Chinese laundryman's 'no ticky, no shirty' to emphasize the need for communication from those in ministry to their supporting churches, stating 'no righty, no pray' to encourage written updates for prayer.

Now, Pastor Gantz, I'm saying in the presence, of all these witnesses, no righty, no pray. All right? If the great apostle Paul did not trust that his spiritual children would pray for him without writing to them, who are we to think others will pray for us if we don't communicate? And I assure you that any communication that comes expressing what God is doing here in the theological hall and in the church and in the churches of you men that I've gotten to know more, more personally, those things will be brought to our midweek prayer service and will be prayed over by the whole congregation an...

3:25 - 4:40 Read in full sermon

The point: If you are not a Christian, this passage speaks to you because it describes the exclusive means God uses to make non-Christians into Christians.

Martin recounts his experience in England, understanding why Spurgeon lampooned some Englishmen who spoke through their noses, illustrating the artificiality and man-made canons of 'excellency of speech' that Paul rejected.

not with excellency of speech, excellency of word. There at Corinth, as in other centers of the Greco-Roman world, there were schools of, oratory, who had their canons of what was acceptable speech for anyone who claimed to be partially well-educated. And you would be judged with respect to whether you were credible or not in terms of their own man-made canons of what was acceptable or excellency of speech. When I first started going over to England, I understood why Spurgeon Lampoon, some of his fellow Englishmen, who thought that the nose was given by God as an instrument through which to sp...

20:27 - 21:30 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Paul's identity is defined negatively and positively. He did not come as an orator, seeking to please or manipulate with 'excellency of speech,' nor as a philosopher, spinning…

He describes a philosopher 'churning the wheels of his own brain and cogitating till he has a headache' to illustrate the human-centered, self-derived nature of worldly wisdom that Paul eschewed.

The philosopher is the one who appoints himself, the all-wise one. He has sat on his rock with his hand in his chin, and he's observed the world, seeking to penetrate the mystery of the one great universal. What ties all reality together? And by churning the wheels of his own brain and cogitating till he has a headache, voila, he has an insight. And then the philosopher goes to the place where philosophers talk and chew the rag, and he strokes his beard. And with mock humility said, I believe I have found an insight. And then the philosopher, out of the stuff of his own brains, tells you what ...

24:10 - 25:15 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Paul's settled resolve was 'to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.' This comprehensive theme focuses on the unique person of Jesus, the embodiment of God's…

Martin challenges the philosopher's wisdom by posing a five-year-old's fundamental questions ('Where did I come from? Why am I here? What happens when I die?'), demonstrating that only Jesus Christ provides true, profound answers.

He said this was my theme and I determined when I came to you that my proclamation of the testimony or the mystery of God would focus upon this unique person because it is in that person that God's wisdom is fully displayed. He says Christ is the wisdom of God. And in the display of God's wisdom in Jesus, Messiah is the exposure of the futility of human wisdom. Sit your philosopher down and say now, when you're done expatiating and blethering about all of your insights, I want to ask you a few simple questions that my five year old asked me the other day. And he finally accommodates you with a...

33:37 - 34:35 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Christ could have been incarnate if possible a million times, and we'd be lost and on our way to hell if the incarnate deity did not die. Without the shedding of blood is no remission.

He uses the metaphor of the cross as a 'pool halfway down the mountain' into which all Old Testament streams of type and shadow flow, and from which all conduits of doctrine and duty flow out, emphasizing its centrality in redemptive history.

That he might impose his rule and his will. He comes particularly, Paul says, with the spotlight, to shed upon him as having been crucified. Not only did this comprehensive theme focus upon a unique person, but it uniquely underscored and drew all the lines of its proclamation to this event, the crucifixion, the immolation, the suffering of the God-man Christ Jesus on behalf of his people and his people suffering and dying in him. Now granted, the cross has no biblical meaning. It's center stage front. All the floodlights are there. But it must have the softer lights upon the manger on the one...

38:05 - 39:05 Read in full sermon

The point: Preach and pray so that whatever else is said of your ministry, it may be said that people were drawn to their crucified Savior.

Martin illustrates the power of the cross by describing Paul 'sticking the cross down in the middle of all that muck' of sordid Corinthian problems (like 'my body my own' philosophy), asserting that 'if the cross won't cure it, nothing will, but it will.'

Constantly drawing to himself all the lines of truth that flow out of the old. And if Christ is the pool halfway down the mountainside into which the streams that begin in the upper areas of the mountain flow then out of that pool there are conduits that go down into the city and conduits into the plain and smaller pipes that go out into the fields to irrigate as surely as all of the lines of truth in the old flow into Christ. All of the conduits of doctrine of duty of motivation of expectation of hope they all are conduits that come out of Christ's crucifixion. Paul is dealing with the knotty...

43:55 - 44:51 Read in full sermon

The point: Preach in weakness, fear, and much trembling, knowing that only God can make the message effectual.

Martin shares his personal experience with a medical diagnosis for his burning feet, using the complex medical term 'cryptogenic sensory polyneuropathy' to humorously introduce the concept of a 'dispositional complex' for the inner quality of a minister's perspective.

the internal disposition of a God glorifying minister what's the internal disposition I think they use in other fields the term the dispositional complex psychologists like to use big terms like the medical doctors someone was asking me what the problem was with my feet well if they're laymen I say I have burning feet the doctors call it cryptogenic sensory polyneuropathy I'm not kidding you that's what they call it my neurologist sent me an article from the neurology journal that only the elite are supposed to read and want to know how I was doing with the medication he put me on I said doc t...

48:25 - 49:53 Read in full sermon

The point: Preach in weakness, fear, and much trembling, knowing that only God can make the message effectual.

Martin vividly recalls a snowy night in 1952 when he walked to tell his buddies about Jesus, feeling 'something like a criminal must feel going to his execution,' illustrating the weakness, fear, and trembling that accompanies true Spirit-empowered proclamation.

that you're to live for his glory and under his law he made you he placed you under his law and in Adam you were part of the revolt against that God and you validate it and you assert it every time you choose your way against God's way and that God god holds you accountable and you lay upon the conscience the guilt and the hell deservingness and you proclaim the offensive message that all the wisdom of all the ages on all the ultimate questions is resolved in this person and in his cross you do so in weakness and in fear and much trembling because you know that only god can do what must be don...

58:36 - 59:58 Read in full sermon

The point: Keep a sensitive conscience and do not grieve the Holy Spirit, as His ministry is indispensable, not a luxury.

Describing his first sermon, Martin says, 'It was like God took a steel rod and rammed it down my back. I could have taken on all those guys physically. I felt like a giant,' illustrating the sudden, empowering unction of the Holy Spirit.

Something that encased my heart in joy. It was like God took a steel rod and rammed it down my back. I could have taken on all those guys physically. I felt like a giant.

65:46 - 66:00 Read in full sermon

The point: Keep a sensitive conscience and do not grieve the Holy Spirit, as His ministry is indispensable, not a luxury.

Martin gives the example of grieving the Spirit with angry words to one's wife on Saturday and then expecting power on Sunday, highlighting the importance of a sensitive conscience and integrity for the Spirit's empowerment.

And he's a holy person. And we're told not to grieve the Holy Spirit. What a horrible travesty on integrity. To grieve the Spirit on Saturday.

66:31 - 66:44 Read in full sermon

Driving home: God's five ranked army. Of descending human weakness. With which he will conquer the world.

Martin quotes John Fox, the martyrologist, on 'God's five ranked army of descending human weakness' (foolish, weak, base, despised, nothing) with which God conquers the world, reinforcing the theme of God working through human weakness.

With what John Fox. The martyrologist called. God's five ranked army. Of descending human weakness.

71:54 - 72:01 Read in full sermon