Take Heed to Thyself, Part 2

Driving home: I stated at the outset of our study yesterday that 1 Timothy 4, verses 12 through 16, is in the realm of practical instruction for the Christian ministry what a text like Rome 8, 29, and 30 is in the realm of a compact s…

The Puritans' practice of writing 'bodies of divinity' illustrates the organic, interrelated nature of God's truth, which Martin seeks to emulate in his sermon series.

they form one organic whole, and since the truth of God has this interrelatedness, I like the mentality that caused our Puritan forefathers to write bodies of divinity. They saw this, that every facet of God's truth. was organically tied to other facets of that truth, and it's only as we see that wholeness of truth which we've heard from Dr. Spikeman, even with relationship to the Christian ministry, that we do begin to truly understand it.

0:45 - 1:17 Read in full sermon

Driving home: I stated at the outset of our study yesterday that 1 Timothy 4, verses 12 through 16, is in the realm of practical instruction for the Christian ministry what a text like Rome 8, 29, and 30 is in the realm of a compact s…

Romans 8:29-30 is used as an analogy for 1 Timothy 4:12-16, comparing its comprehensive statement of soteriology to 1 Timothy's comprehensive statement on Christian ministry.

I stated at the outset of our study yesterday that 1 Timothy 4, verses 12 through 16, is in the realm of practical instruction for the Christian ministry what a text like Rome 8, 29, and 30 is in the realm of a compact statement of Christian theology, particularly soteriology. Where in all of Scripture will you find such a sweeping, comprehensive statement of God's saving purpose in Christ in so short a space as you find in Romans 8, 29, and 30? Well, my contention is, or assertion, that this passage, 1 Timothy 4, verses 12 through 16, is a dictionary.

1:18 - 2:02 Read in full sermon

The point: Take heed to yourselves that you yourselves are in a state of grace.

The process of applying the command 'take heed to yourselves' is described as moving from a broad overview (zoom lens) to detailed examination (microscope).

Our teaching. This we find in Acts 20 and verse 28, where the Apostle charges the Ephesian elders in these words, take heed unto yourselves in applying the first part of the command. You see, we have the broad overfilled in with the zoom lens upon the command, and then we put it under a microscope. So that's how we've approached the text.

3:58 - 4:29 Read in full sermon

The point: We must take heed to ourselves, that we ourselves grow in grace, and we do primarily in ministering the word to others, unless that ministry is the outworking and the overflow of the ministry of the word to our own heart…

Martin recounts his five years in itinerant ministry, asking pastors about their systematic devotional reading of Scripture, and consistently finding that official duties had eclipsed personal sanctification through the Word.

I regard these day sessions as an exclusive congregation. I'm not ignorant of the lay folk who are here, some of you ladies, but you'll forgive me. If I'm constrained to direct my remarks more particularly to the pastors and ministers and students. For five years it was my privilege to be engaged in an itinerant ministry going from church to church in a Bible teaching type ministry and conferences.

14:06 - 14:34 Read in full sermon

The point: Have a plan in which you have set out to expose your mind and life and thoughts, thought and perspective and ambitions and your total concepts of life and of the ministry to the whole breadth of divine revelation in a sy…

Evangelical traditions that gather around a church are compared to barnacles on the hull of an old ship, illustrating how unscriptural practices can accumulate and remain unchallenged when ministers neglect personal exposure to the Word.

It was almost exclusively the instrument of official ministration to others. To understand why those very churches in which these men labored as teaching elders were filled with unscriptural teaching, unscriptural practices, both in church life and in evangelism were tolerated and never even questioned. Evangelical traditions that had gathered around that church like barnacles on the hull of an old ship were there and nothing was active to break them off.

16:47 - 17:21 Read in full sermon

Driving home: But it's the fragrance of Christ that exudes from our ministry. Or is that fragrance to be kept in that secret place? We need to ourselves God's word to keep us fresh in our relationship to Christ.

The story of the Emmaus disciples is used to illustrate how interaction with Christ through the Word brings a 'burning heart' and spiritual freshness, contrasting it with cold, censorious preaching.

that discipline that you lay upon your own people and not as a Christian minister. It is this that will keep us fresh in our relation to Christ himself. Amen. You remember the record in the 24th chapter of the Gospel of Luke.

19:28 - 20:00 Read in full sermon

Driving home: But it's the fragrance of Christ that exudes from our ministry. Or is that fragrance to be kept in that secret place? We need to ourselves God's word to keep us fresh in our relationship to Christ.

The mental imbalance produced by the Fall is used to explain why constant exposure to God's Word is necessary to prevent imbalance in ministry and rightly represent God.

and cause hearts to be ravished as they reflect the glory of Christ. It is this alone in the third place that will keep from imbalance in our ministry. The tragedies of the fall is the mental imbalance it has produced. I've often wondered what would Adam's mind have been like had it come to full development without the curse of sin one great manifestation of which is this matter of mental imbalance.

22:47 - 23:15 Read in full sermon

Driving home: But it's the fragrance of Christ that exudes from our ministry. Or is that fragrance to be kept in that secret place? We need to ourselves God's word to keep us fresh in our relationship to Christ.

Martin shares his personal journey of encountering passages in Matthew, John, Acts, Romans, and Ephesians that continually challenged his initial theological views and led him to embrace Calvinism, illustrating how systematic exposure to the Word prevents imbalance.

conviction. So you would say that you stand in the tradition of reformed theology and thinking. Basic answer is looking through the New Testament the virgin mind asking God that I might approach that as a disciple not as a master standing above it but as a subject sitting beneath its authority and its power I'd come and read my reading in Matthew to Matthew 11 and I'd read those words of Jesus I thank thee Father Lord of heaven and earth thou hast hid revealed even

23:52 - 24:35 Read in full sermon

The point: Remembering who you're doing it for, you'll get sour, my friend, and you'll be another one of those joining the ranks of the has-beens. It's there in the secret place.

The psalmist's struggle in Psalm 73 with the prosperity of the wicked versus the affliction of the godly is used to illustrate how secret prayer in God's sanctuary provides true perspective when life seems 'upside down'.

The psalmist is looking out and everything just seems upside down. He says, what's the sense of being a godly man in an ungodly age? Look at that old wicked, crooked man down the street, chomping on his big fat cigars, crooked as can be.

35:24 - 35:40 Read in full sermon

The point: There must be the maintenance of a tender blood-washed conscience at any cost.

Martin recommends Charles Bridges' classic work on the Christian ministry, specifically the section on the minister's secret prayer, as the best statement on this discipline.

walk and not faint. They that go through the forest, so that you can put a loose, that you quote No, no. They engage God in prayer, who find themselves mounting up with wings as eagles, running and not becoming weary, walking and not fainting. For your careful and repeated study, the section in Charles Bridges' classic work on the Christian ministry, on the minister's It's the best statement I know in all of English literature that I've encountered

38:50 - 39:32 Read in full sermon

The point: Oh, my dear brothers in the ministry, be to yourself that you keep a tender, blood-washed conscience. Conscience, boy, of the face to God.

Paul's statement in Acts 24:16 about exercising himself to have a clear conscience is presented as an example of 'ascetic' discipline, a rigorous spiritual practice.

myself to have a conscious void of offense toward God and men. This is the very, which we get our English word, ascetic. It's a transliteration from the Greek word. An ascetic, one who subjects himself to rigorous discipline. I

40:50 - 41:18 Read in full sermon

The point: Oh, my dear brothers in the ministry, be to yourself that you keep a tender, blood-washed conscience. Conscience, boy, of the face to God.

The absence of a time clock for ministers, unlike a factory worker, is used to highlight the unique temptation to rationalize idleness and the need for a tender conscience to maintain accountability.

that you're accountable to God for the dangers of the ministry are great. There's no time clock for you to punch. That person that sits in the pew, who wakes up so morning and says, well, I just don't feel like being with it. He pays for it, my friend.

43:10 - 43:23 Read in full sermon

The point: Oh, my dear brothers in the ministry, be to yourself that you keep a tender, blood-washed conscience. Conscience, boy, of the face to God.

A hypothetical example of a minister rationalizing reading Playboy to 'articulate to the times' or understand 'pop hedonism' is used to expose the dangers of a compromised conscience and prostituting the ministry.

you know, if I'm going to be a minister who has that ring of contemporaneity that the preacher talked about, and if I'm going to articulate to the times, how can I speak to my kids about the pop hedonism unless I pick up Playboy once in a while and read it? Oh, it's virtue when you do it, of course. It's not that there's a lecherous something in you that's being fed. Oh, no. Prostitute the ministry

44:10 - 44:42 Read in full sermon

The point: You'll have to humble yourself with your own children when you discipline them in anger instead of in principle. You've got to get on your knees with your own kids and say to them as I've had to do so many times, will yo…

Martin shares his personal experience of humbling himself to his children after disciplining them in anger, illustrating what it means to maintain a tender, blood-washed conscience in family life.

When you look down at your wife and your kids on Sunday, you can look them straight in the eye and know that if nobody else respects what you say, your wife and your kids are forced to say, that man lives. That means you'll have to humble yourself with your own children when you discipline them in anger instead of in principle. You've got to get on your knees with your own kids and say to them as I've had to do so many times, will you forgive daddy? You deserve to spank him. But daddy's spirit was not

46:13 - 46:48 Read in full sermon