Preaching as a Means of Grace (5)

The point: Do not err because of ignorance of the scriptures or refuse to obey the voice of God speaking in Holy Scripture regarding the job description of elders.

Martin contrasts the biblical practice of appointing elders with man-made offices like archdeacons, diocesan bishops, archbishops, and cardinals, to highlight the simplicity and biblical fidelity of elder leadership.

And the reason why this statement is little disputed among those who accept the authority of the word of God is that such passages as Acts 14.23 and Titus 1.5 scream out this principle. Acts 14.23, we find the apostle Paul and his companions going back to the places where they had evangelized and established congregations, and when they had appointed for them elders in every church and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord on whom they believed. And in the apostolic practice, we find them establishing in the churches elders as the spiritual leaders among the people of God. W...

7:26 - 8:25 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not err because of ignorance of the scriptures or refuse to obey the voice of God speaking in Holy Scripture regarding the job description of elders.

He criticizes televangelist programs with 'semi-seances' and 'words of knowledge' about cracked kneecaps, contrasting them with the apostolic directive to appoint elders for church order.

He did not tell him to appoint the elders in every city. He did not tell him to appoint the elders in every city. And people who would go into semi-seances and have a, quote, word of knowledge about someone who had a cracked kneecap in California and all the other nonsense that you see on your televangelist programs, no, Titus, as an apostle, I direct you to establish the churches in Crete by appointing elders in every city. And so I say there are few who profess and really do acknowledge and manifest belief in biblical authority who would dispute the statement that elders or pastors are the p...

9:27 - 10:15 Read in full sermon

Driving home: We read that Christ gives shepherds and teachers.

Martin lists unbiblical titles like 'facilitators,' 'public relations experts,' 'psychological counselors,' 'administrators,' 'organizers and promoters,' 'fundraisers,' and 'consensus leaders' to show how modern church culture deviates from the biblical designation of 'shepherds and teachers'.

Christ, who in his wisdom and authority, has chosen to give to his church those whom he designates as shepherds and teachers in order to perfect the saints unto their various works of service. Now, while shepherding includes much more than teaching, while being a shepherd involves much more than leading, the sheep into the green pastures of God's nourishing word, the fact that shepherd is joined to the word teacher and placed in an equal position linguistically shows, if nothing else, that a function of shepherding is teaching. And that Christ gives no shepherd who does not teach when he gives...

13:47 - 15:08 Read in full sermon

Driving home: We read that Christ gives shepherds and teachers.

He uses the analogies of calling someone a 'painter by trade' or a 'professional basketball player' to argue that if Christ gives 'shepherds and teachers,' then teaching must be a dominant, not occasional, role for them, otherwise the designation is dishonest.

That is, Christ gives shepherds who are found in one of their primary functions engaged in the work of instructing the people of God. And though it is not their exclusive task, it is so central that it is brought forward in conjunction with the term shepherd to identify that. Now, surely that should be significant. If we call a painter by trade, surely whatever he does to make a living, he spends much of his time with a paintbrush and a paint can in his hand. If he does that, if you call him a painter by trade, because once every two years he slaps a coat of paint on the storage shed in his ba...

15:39 - 17:06 Read in full sermon

Driving home: He said one of the greatest curses upon the church of Christ in our day is that our pulpits are filled with nice guys who can't preach.

Martin describes contemplating bringing a 40-page 'Christian newspaper' filled with unbiblical activities and a multi-page pastoral job description that God himself couldn't fulfill, to illustrate the widespread deviation from biblical requirements for ministry.

Nothing is said here about great administrative gifts, great personal charisma to make visitors and strangers feel at ease and feel at home and feel comfortable and all that are in the job descriptions of pastors that are in the job descriptions that I can come across my, I could bring out the stories at times some of you wonder you know, maybe a few strings have snapped here with some of the concerns I expressed but as I have contemplated even this morning, contemplated bringing a 40 page so-called Christian newspaper reflecting the concerns and activities of churches in the greater New York,...

26:42 - 28:05 Read in full sermon

Driving home: He said one of the greatest curses upon the church of Christ in our day is that our pulpits are filled with nice guys who can't preach.

He quotes a fellow preacher who said, 'one of the greatest curses upon the church of Christ in our day is that our pulpits are filled with nice guys who can't preach,' to underscore the importance of elders being able to exhort in sound doctrine and convict gainsayers.

And he has a God-given ability to exhort in the sound doctrine and to convict the gainsayers. I shall never forget when sharing a preaching conference with a man from another country a number of years ago. He said something that has stuck with all kinds of verbs in my mind and in my spirit. He said one of the greatest curses upon the church of Christ in our day is that our pulpits are filled with nice guys who can't preach.

29:25 - 30:04 Read in full sermon

Driving home: God has wisely chosen to put this treasure of the message as Paul says, in clay pots, that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us.

Martin uses Paul's metaphor of 'this treasure in clay pots' to explain why God uses imperfect men to preach, so that the 'excellency of the power may be of God and not of us'.

What is true with the primacy of preaching as the means of calling God's elect is equally true with respect to the building up of his elect in their most holy faith. And there will never be, no matter how many godly authors God raises up, no matter how many books are cranked off the presses, no matter how many other means are used in modern technology to convey the truth, there will never, never, never be a substitute for the living teacher, the living, whose life manifests the power of that truth and who in conveying it manifests the conviction of its reality, of its life and death importance...

46:04 - 47:29 Read in full sermon

Driving home: God has wisely chosen to put this treasure of the message as Paul says, in clay pots, that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us.

He poses the rhetorical question of why God didn't send sinless angels to preach, noting that their presence always evoked dread, not comfort, to further explain why God chose imperfect human preachers.

where anyone ever danced a jig in the presence of an angel whom he knew or she knew to be an angel. The reaction was always one of dread. Even when the angel came to comfort Joseph, the angel came to visit Mary, the angel came in one situation after another, ordinary angels, or a special angel, or the angel of the Lord, a pre-incarnate manifestation of the Lord Jesus. God could have sent angels, angels whose very presence would strike us with awe.

47:29 - 48:07 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not experiment with any substitute for God's appointed means of grace, especially the preaching and teaching of the word of the living God in corporate life.

Martin quotes a contemporary author describing how a church's loss of first love is fundamentally linked to a loss of love for God's Word proclaimed from the pulpit, leading to restlessness and a desire for substitutes.

And therefore convinced that ignorance is never the mother of true growth and Christian virtue, that entertainment cannot set forth Christ, cannot probe the conscience, cannot speak of the Christian's privileges and his duties, warm feelings produced by mindless ecstasies can bring no true and valid Christian growth. We are committed by the grace of God to this principle. We will accept, we will not experiment with any substitute for God's appointed means of grace. That primary means of grace being in our corporate life the preaching and the teaching of the word of the living God. And as I clo...

49:28 - 50:48 Read in full sermon

The point: Hold fast to the centrality of the preaching and teaching of the word of God.

He shares that visiting preachers consistently commend Trinity Baptist Church for how attentively the congregation listens and draws out the Word, even when the preacher feels he has done poorly, serving as an encouragement.

And it's a great encouragement to me and I want to balance this morning's warning with this encouragement. When other men come and minister in this place almost invariably without any sucking it out of them by me, they say to me, Pastor Martin, what a privilege to preach to the people of God at Trinity. And I play dumb. I say, what do you mean?

53:09 - 53:33 Read in full sermon

The point: Don't be ashamed to walk on if necessary when God has moved you and moved you.

Martin recounts a woman's distressed reaction to his morning sermon, where she feared he was implying Trinity would lose its commitment to sound doctrine, illustrating the impact of his warnings.

Don't be ashamed to walk on if necessary when God has moved you and moved you. I stood at the door this morning and spoke with someone whose face looked like the day of judgment had come. The question was, Pastor Martin, were you saying that the time would come here in Trinity when people would not endure sound doctrine? Surely you were talking about the church in general.

54:07 - 54:34 Read in full sermon