02a) Pastor's Spiritual Development, Part 1

The point: Call upon God to help address crucial issues of the man of God and his life, asking for these things to be written upon fleshy tables of human hearts.

Satan's influence is likened to birds of the air following the sower, seeking to snatch away the seed of the Word before it can take root, emphasizing the need for spiritual vigilance.

May your spirit inscribe upon our hearts these crucial issues that we may never forget them, that they may be normative to us all the days of our lives. Bless us and meet with us, and as we were reminded in the previous hour, keep at bay the influence of that enemy of our souls. May he not, like birds of the air, follow the sower and seek to snatch away seed before it can be enforced. May he not, like birds of the air, follow the sower and seek to snatch away seed before it can be enforced.

2:09 - 2:41 Read in full sermon

The point: Strive to maintain a real, expanding, varied, and original acquaintance with God and his ways.

A quote from James Stalker's 'Yale Lectures on the Preacher and His Models' on the causes of ministerial failure, particularly the lack of a deep, original spiritual experience, is used to introduce the axiom of maintaining a real and original acquaintance with God.

colon, so we don't complicate the outline too much, and have stated an axiom, you must strive to maintain a real and original acquaintance with God self-originated. A couple of words, but I first came across it a number of years ago when reading the reprint of stock Yale lectures on the preacher and his mother. I was in the newsroom of the New York Times when on page 54,

17:40 - 18:24 Read in full sermon

The point: If you expect spiritual growth and maintenance of acquaintance with God to come any other way than concentrated striving, you are either guilty of willful self-deception or a frightening position.

The effort required to maintain a spiritual standard is compared to an athlete running a race and bruising his body to win the prize (1 Corinthians 9:24-27), illustrating that spiritual growth demands concentrated striving and agony.

I am indicating that we are considering a standard, an ideal, a goal. Strive to maintain something. There is a goal, the standard to which we are pressing. The attainment and the maintenance of that standard does not come automatically, automatically, automatically, easily it does not come automatically or easily rather there is an element of the kind of imagery found in first corinthians 9 24 to 27 which i trust is familiar to all of you who've been under

21:45 - 22:28 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not have a heart as cold as stone to Christ, even if you can memorize and quote passages of experimental divinity with great passion.

The danger of 'experimental divinity' without actual experience is likened to learning a language (like Rutherford's passages) without any real-world interaction, highlighting the difference between intellectual knowledge and genuine spiritual acquaintance.

experience. Praise God. Praise God. experimental divinity that can be learned just as efficiently as any other language without any experience. You could memorize passages of Rutherford and quote them with great passion

34:12 - 34:29 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not have a heart as cold as stone to Christ, even if you can memorize and quote passages of experimental divinity with great passion.

The prophet Elijah's sudden appearance and declaration 'As the Lord God of Israel lives, before whom I stand' (1 Kings 17:1) is used as a vivid example of a man with a 'real, intimate, present acquaintance' with God, demonstrating sound theology lived out experientially.

and have a heart as cold as stone to Christ. So when I say real, brethren, I didn't know what other word to use. And then since one picture is worth 50 or 100 more of the words that I'm using trying to explain it, the passage that came to my mind was that great man of God with all of his humanity laid bare for us, the prophet Elijah. In 17 in verse 1, I listed it as the text, and this

34:29 - 35:03 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin argues for an 'expanding acquaintance,' meaning continuous growth in knowledge and conformity to Christ, citing 2 Corinthians 3:18, 2 Peter 3:18, and Paul's ongoing passion…

The initial saving acquaintance with God is compared to the rising of the sun at dawn, which can be either dramatic or imperceptible, emphasizing that regardless of its beginning, it must expand.

our original saving acquaintance with God and his ways may have been. Notice I'm saying both are perfectly legitimate. Some of you have had a glorious and memorable, dramatic introduction in savings to God and to his ways. Some of us, rather undramatic, almost imperceptible.

38:34 - 38:59 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin argues for an 'expanding acquaintance,' meaning continuous growth in knowledge and conformity to Christ, citing 2 Corinthians 3:18, 2 Peter 3:18, and Paul's ongoing passion…

An 'expanding acquaintance' is described as not just filling a receptacle more richly, but the receptacle itself expanding to take in more of God, illustrating continuous growth in knowledge and experience.

Not just... Not just that the receptacle becomes more and more filled with a richer and denser measure of acquaintance with God and his ways, but the receptacle itself expands to take in more of God and of his ways.

39:35 - 39:56 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: He explains 'varied acquaintance' as the deepening of knowledge through diverse experiences in the real world, using Psalm 23 as a specimen example of God's varied dealings and…

Martin shares his personal experience of becoming a grandparent and how seeing his children's children (Psalm 128) exegeted the passage's blessedness for him in a way intellectual study alone could not, illustrating how experience deepens understanding of Scripture.

but what they meant was that there are certain passages that having used all of your tools and all of the helps available to open up that passage, you may indeed give what technically is an accurate exposition of the passage, but only when in the crucible of experience God has brought your heart to vibrate with the psalmist will you really know that passage. As I like to tell people, and make them anxious for the time when they become grandparents, when I read in Psalm 128, the blessings on the righteous, they shall see their children's children. I used to say, big deal, see them? It said they...

48:52 - 49:36 Read in full sermon

The point: Maintain the discipline of reading through the Psalms in your devotional life consecutively, noting how dimensions of acquaintance with God become real in specific circumstances.

Martin describes his practice of writing dates and circumstances in the margin of his devotional Bible when a Psalm becomes 'made real' to him, serving as an Ebenezer to track his 'varied' and 'expanding' acquaintance with God over decades.

You see. The varied with God and His way. And that to me has been one of the great blessings of the discipline of having it as a pattern of life for decades now. To be reading through the Psalms in my own devotional life four or five mornings a week consecutively.

51:32 - 51:56 Read in full sermon

The point: Maintain the discipline of reading through the Psalms in your devotional life consecutively, noting how dimensions of acquaintance with God become real in specific circumstances.

A quote from Stalker's 'The Preacher and His Models' emphasizes that a ministry of growing power must be one of growing experience, where truth becomes a personal conviction and the minister speaks from inner impulse, not mere literary exercise.

Very perceptive. These comments. Page 53 of the preacher and his models. A ministry of growing power must be one of growing experience.

52:46 - 52:59 Read in full sermon

The point: Let your original walk with God keep you from the temptation of seeking to parrot what others have said and keep you open to God's unique dealings with you as an individual.

An 'original acquaintance' with God is compared to an original painting versus a copy, highlighting that each individual's walk with God is unique in its nuances and details, reflecting God's specific dealings with them.

No one else has ever known or experienced, but rather I'm using the word to express the fact that as surely as there's only one you with one blueprint that God has made for you and one me, then our dealings with God and His with us will not be a reproduction or a copy of someone else's experience in all of its nuances and details. The difference between an original painting and a copy. And in that sense my walk with God is in the paint never been found on the face of the earth before. Commonality.

59:39 - 60:23 Read in full sermon

The point: Let your original walk with God keep you from the temptation of seeking to parrot what others have said and keep you open to God's unique dealings with you as an individual.

A quote from Stalker reinforces that God's messenger must draw near to God, and truth must become a living element of experience and personal conviction, burning in the heart, to be a true message.

not to exotic experiences that will prove we're some kind of special invaded by pride and carnal ambition which God has made us and deals with us that is as unique individuals. It addresses this matter on page 109. The preacher and his models the man who is to be God's messenger must himself draw near to God and abide in His secret as they did. The word must detach itself from the book and become the living element

61:05 - 61:50 Read in full sermon

The point: Young ministers must settle in their own hearts a commitment to vital piety and strive more earnestly to be filled with the Spirit in view of their holy office.

An extensive quote from Thomas Murphy's 'Pastoral Theology' is used to powerfully confirm that eminent piety and elevated spirituality are the most crucial preparation for ministry, foundational to all other aspects of the sacred office.

but if I were making the time schedule I would have brought it sooner. A man by the name of Murphy a book called Pastoral Theology Thomas Murphy and some I'm sure will think that I had Murphy as my mentor in structuring many parts of my Pastoral Theology course but I had already been through it three or four times before I ever became aware of Murphy and it was a wonderful confirmation that in dealing with Pastoral Theology much of the structure was already laid out by this man of God from another generation. This is what he says on page 38 He is to be a leader in the spiritual host of God. Mu...

63:19 - 64:03 Read in full sermon