Cultivating Love for Men

In this part of the sermon: Martin elaborates on the 'unfeigned' quality of love, citing New Testament uses of the term, and stresses the necessity of an 'increasing measure' of love, comparing it to a…

Martin compares the necessity of increasing unfeigned love in pastoral ministry to the glue that keeps a healthy marriage together, especially as spouses become more aware of each other's faults over time.

increasing measure of unfeigned love. As your first weeks accumulate into months and your months into years and hopefully if the Lord spares you and the Lord delays His coming, the years into decades, you will not preach with continued freshness and usefulness to your people unless you preach with freshness. You preach in a context of increasing measures of unfeigned love to them. Now, just like with a healthy marriage, that means that the more you know them and know their faults and their failures and their weaknesses and all their ethical and moral warts and moles

19:05 - 19:49 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: He demonstrates the crucial importance of this love for preaching, first by appealing to the explicit teaching of 1 Corinthians 13, arguing that preaching without love is…

Martin uses the analogy of banging a garbage can lid with a spoon to illustrate how preaching without love is irritating and unedifying, like a 'clanging cymbal' from 1 Corinthians 13.

I make a noise, but there is no sweet music on the ear of the hearer. If I speak with the tongues I had the lid of an old garbage can and stood here with a spoon and banged and banged and banged. I'd only do one thing to you. I'd irritate you.

25:09 - 25:26 Read in full sermon

Driving home: No, the reality is they can't stand a clashing cymbal week after week. The din of it in their ears is too much for them.

He extends the cymbal analogy to a frustrated musician who bangs his cymbals incessantly at a coffee house, demonstrating how a preacher without love becomes a source of irritation rather than edification.

I wouldn't edify. I wouldn't please you. Now, a cymbal at the right point in a beautiful work of musical art can be a thrilling thing. Right at the apex when everybody's out triple forte and the cymbals clash and the rest, that can send a chill up and down your spine.

25:27 - 25:47 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Owe no man anything. save here's the exception to love one another. Regard yourself in constant debt with respect to what you owe your brethren in the area of love.

He uses the metaphor of a 'block' representing general Christian duties, explaining that specific duties of elders never negate these, but rather assume advancement in them.

If this block represents all of the general duties of all Christians whatever specific and particular duties are laid upon office bearers in the church they are never laid upon us in such a way as to negate or cancel these. In fact they assume no little measure of advancement in the performance of these. If a man ruled not well his own household it doesn't say how shall he remain a church member but it does say how shall he take care of the church of God. How shall he be an elder?

30:16 - 30:50 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Most men judge of the council as they judge of the affection of him that gives so far as to give it a fair hearing.

Martin quotes Richard Baxter's 'The Reformed Pastor' at length, emphasizing that a pastor's entire ministry must be carried out in tender love, like a father or mother, so that people will hear and bear anything from him.

now listen to Baxter who certainly was no stroker in modern terminology who believed that the only way to motivate people was to stroke them make them feel good and never say any negative things to them but Baxter on page 117 and spilling over onto 118 in his classic work The Reformations from Pastor this is the Banner of Truth paperback edition hits the nail right on the head when he writes the whole of our ministry must be carried on in tender love to our people we must let them see that nothing pleases us but what profits them and that what does them good does us good

42:29 - 43:12 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Most men judge of the council as they judge of the affection of him that gives so far as to give it a fair hearing.

He quotes John Angell James, who argues that while a minister must not refrain from wounding when necessary, rational creatures are driven by love, and none will open their hearts to a minister unless convinced of his sincere love.

in your speeches and see it see there is a constituted relationship between the open ear and the assurance of the love of the one who seeks to speak the section on preaching the gospel in his christian ministry where he speaks of preaching the gospel in the spirit of love on three thirty six we're not arguing for that sensitive delicacy which refrains to wound when the patient draws energetic tone of faithfulness

45:19 - 46:03 Read in full sermon

The point: Labor in the whole area of how to make your preaching applicatory, whether for comfort, conviction, or motivation to holiness, because you are convinced the word will not profit until it fastens itself upon the conscienc…

Martin uses Baxter's imagery of 'screwing the word into their consciences' and the analogy of screwing wood into hard oak without a pilot hole to illustrate the hard work of making preaching applicatory.

Well, it's love to your people that will make you labor to seek to do what Baxter said, to screw the word into their consciences. Remember the imagery of your academy night? And view the human mind like hard oak and many times screwing wood into hard oak without any pilot hose is hard work. But you see, if you're convinced that the word will not profit them until it fastens itself upon the conscience, then it's love for your people that will drive you to labor in the whole area of how to make your preaching applicatory.

54:17 - 54:54 Read in full sermon

The point: Pour out your heart in earnestness and pathos in sermon delivery, again and again, until you feel there's nothing more to pour out.

He quotes 1 Thessalonians 2:7-8, where Paul expresses his willingness to impart not just the gospel but his own soul, explaining that this self-giving was impelled by love for the Thessalonians.

We were gentle in the midst of you as a nurse cherishing her own children, being affectionately desirous of you. We were pleased to impart not the gospel of God only, but our own souls, our own principle of inner life, because you were become very dear to us. What was it that caused him to say, I'm willing to impart not just a block of propositional truth, but also the gospel but mingle my very life's blood with it, my very soul. Why?

55:42 - 56:15 Read in full sermon

Driving home: To love to preach is one thing. To love those to whom we preach is quite another.

Martin quotes Martyn Lloyd-Jones' confession about lacking pathos in his ministry and Richard Cecil's distinction between loving to preach and loving those to whom we preach, highlighting a common pastoral pitfall.

A special word must be given also, though in a sense we've been covering it. It's the element of pathos. If I had to plead guilty to one thing more than any other, I would have to confess that this perhaps has been what was most lacking in my own ministry. This pathos should arise partly from a love for the people Richard Cecil, an Anglican preacher in London toward the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th, said something that should make us all think, quote, to love to preach is one thing.

57:58 - 58:30 Read in full sermon

The point: Leave a disappointed and aggrieved man if the truth you've brought does not have its desired intent in the lives of those to whom you minister.

He quotes Charles Spurgeon on the necessity of emotional persuasion and 'heart argument' in preaching, comparing it to a mother pleading with her child, where cold logic is made 'red hot with affection'.

He speaks of the whole matter of emotional persuasion. People, who need not so much reasoning as heart argument, logic set on fire. You must argue with your people as a mother pleads with her boy that he will not grieve her, or as a fond sister entreats a brother to return to the father's home and seek reconciliation. Argument must be quickened into persuasion by the living warmth of love.

59:18 - 59:43 Read in full sermon

The point: Deliberately and periodically meditate upon truths calculated to produce love, such as the worth of your people in God's sight, the worth of a soul, and the true state of men (both saved and lost).

Martin refers to Baxter's 'Reformed Pastor' and his eloquent meditation on the phrase 'the church which he purchased with his own blood' (Acts 20:28) to emphasize the immense worth of the flock in God's sight.

And here I would urge you to meditate periodically on pages 131 and 32 of Baxter's Reformed Pastor where he takes the phrase as you know the structure of that entire treatise is Acts 20-28 and he takes the phrase the church which he purchased with his own blood. The church purchased the blood of the incarnate God. What worth does God place upon the people to whom you're ministering? And Baxter in the truest sense waxes eloquent on that concept.

65:06 - 65:39 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not use your pulpit as a club to beat people because you are irritated or angry with them; remember their remaining sin and struggles.

He uses the metaphor of a pulpit being turned into a 'pounding club' to describe the horrible abuse of preaching when a pastor is irritated or angry with his people instead of loving them.

Their true state if you're thinking of the people of God think of all the horrible potential of remaining sin in them. Think of what that's done in your own life when you're tempted to be impatient and unloving to use your pulpit as a club by which to beat people because you're irritated and angry and irked at what they've done. And many a pulpit has been turned into a pounding club.

66:56 - 67:27 Read in full sermon

The point: Be sensitive to the peculiar needs of your sheep, taking the initiative for individual pastoral care when hints are given, rather than waiting for desperate situations.

Martin recounts the story of Jesus taking a little child and setting him in the midst, inferring that the child's confidence came from a previously built relationship, illustrating the importance of affectionate relationships with children.

on Jesus' relationship to children because we'll come back to it again in Mark 10 as we were in it last week and if anything is Christ-like being affectionate and intimate with children is children never felt threatened in the presence of our Lord that incident I expounded last week it took grace not to digress but it says he took a little child and set him in the midst I mean that's contrary to a child's nature to be picked up and set down somewhere the threatening presence of these grown men and all of the rest but it was the confidence of that little child in Jesus that made him so pliable ...

75:55 - 76:40 Read in full sermon

The point: Cultivate affectionate relationships with children, making them feel at ease and comfortable with you, even if it feels unnatural at first.

He uses the analogy of learning to drive a car, which initially feels unnatural and stupid, to encourage pastors to overcome awkwardness around children and cultivate natural affection for them.

he who lays his hand upon the head of a child lays his hand upon the heart of his mother and if you feel awkward around children get over your awkwardness you say well I feel stupid getting down and talking I feel stupid until it becomes natural you felt stupid the first time you tried to drive a car some of us from the dark ages we had to do a lot more than you guys did we had to learn how to push and pull and a clutch and a gear shift and all of the rest and it was not a natural thing driving a car is a very unnatural activity especially in a metropolitan area these poor fellas from Californ...

77:24 - 78:06 Read in full sermon

The point: Make occasional phone calls to sheep you haven't spoken with in a while, simply to let them know you are concerned about them.

Martin gives the example of sending sympathy cards after a death in the family, even after a phone call or funeral, as a small but significant deed of love that shows concern when the initial wound begins to close.

when you're praying for the flock and you notice you just haven't had a chance to talk with a given sheep for a month or two and you just call them and say look there's no particular concern just notice looking back as I was praying for you this morning that it's been a couple of months since we even had a conversation about the weather how's everything at home no hit no no no nothing just call it letting you know that I know you exist and I'm concerned about you when there are deaths in the family train your wife to be sure to go out and get appropriate sympathy cards you don't know what a ca...

78:51 - 79:35 Read in full sermon