Take Heed to Thyself, Part 3

In this part of the sermon: Martin reviews the series' focus on 1 Timothy 4:16, acknowledging the organic unity between taking heed to oneself and to doctrine, and expresses his intention to complete the…

Martin recounts his mother's constant admonition, 'Son, a job worth doing is worth doing well,' and 'doing things you don't like to do develops character,' applying it to his current task of completing the 'take heed to thyself' section.

And I had hoped by this third message to get into the secondary of the command, take heed to thy teaching or to the doctrine. There's something my mother used to bark into my ear constantly that has worked its way into the bloodstream. Of my consideration with regard to many things, whether I was scrubbing a floor or washing windows or doing dishes, she would say to me again and again until it came out my ears, Son, a job worth doing is worth doing well. And then she would usually attend it with the second admonition, doing things you don't like to do develops character.

0:49 - 1:30 Read in full sermon

The point: Don't overcome the disadvantages of your youth by trying to be clever, by trying to be cute, by accommodating yourself to men, but, Timothy, seek to be more godly. Seek to be more consistent in your godliness, in the pra…

The common idiom 'still wet behind the ears' is used to describe the perception of Timothy's youth and how Paul's instruction to be an 'ensample' counters this.

He's still wet behind the ears. As though Timothy anticipates, Paul anticipates Timothy's response, but how, Paul? How am I to overcome some of the deficiencies of my youth? And Paul's directive is very clear.

3:20 - 3:36 Read in full sermon

Driving home: And when he rises on Sunday in the pulpit, it is not the man visible there at the moment that they listen to, but this image, this image which stands behind him and determines the precise weight and effect of every sente…

Martin quotes Stalker's perceptive observation that regular hearers form an 'image' of their minister, and it is this image, not just the visible man, that determines the weight and effect of every sentence preached, underscoring the principle of a minister's life impacting their message.

Stalker, in his excellent book, The Preacher and His Models, one of the reprints that Baker is doing on the Yale Lectures on Preaching, states this principle in a very succinct manner and so perceptively. I want to read just a paragraph to you. We are so constituted that what we hear depends very much for its effect, on how we are disposed toward him who speaks. The regular hearers of a minister, then in a pastoral context, not the fly-by-night speaker, not the conference speaker who comes and dumps his load and goes his way, the man who is living amongst his people, the regular hearers of a m...

12:00 - 12:43 Read in full sermon

The point: I would entreat you to spare no pain with your wife that in some measure reflects the relationship of Christ to his church. And that doesn't come in most cases easily. It's the fruit of spiritual labor. Of prayer. Prayer…

He compares the need for physical exercise to avoid being 'flabby and fat' with the necessity of 'exercising thyself unto godliness' to grow in practical godliness, emphasizing that it doesn't happen passively.

That's a biblical concept. Paul says to Timothy, exercise thyself unto godliness. If you don't exercise this physical body, it's flabby and fat and there is the process of actifying and you know what it's like and I know what it's like if we don't. You just don't sit around and get in shape physically.

24:14 - 24:34 Read in full sermon

The point: If God has given you children, labor to establish that proper relationship of open communication so that in the administration of your discipline and in their receiving of it there's the consciousness that you're acting …

Martin laments the common 'snickering and laughter and jokes about preachers' kids' as a tragic commentary on the state of the church, highlighting the failure to meet the biblical standard for ruling one's household.

And your discipline and your training and the general movements of your life in that home are such that everyone looking upon it says well in the midst of a society disintegrating in the domestic sphere Christ is done and is doing something real in that place. I think one of the saddest commentaries on the state of the church is all the snickering and laughter and jokes about preachers' kids. I think it's a tragedy that ought to make us weep. It ought to make us weep.

27:08 - 27:40 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Who are we to say the failure to meet that requirement demands such radicalism? Such radical action? But that we can do exactly the same thing with the requirement in verse 5.

He presents a hypothetical scenario of a minister who preaches well but has a paramour, asking if the church would tolerate his continued ministry, to expose the inconsistency of overlooking other character failures.

Especially in the light of the Apostle's words. Having children not accused of riot or unruly. Ruling rallies in households. What would you think of the man who because he really preached well and because he was prior to theologian in his own right still continued in the ministry though he did not meet the requirement one wife's husband.

27:40 - 28:04 Read in full sermon

The point: I plead with you give the time and the energy necessary to develop a wholesome domestic life so that then the condition and the fusion of that community where you minister there will be at least one home that is a little…

Martin shares personal anecdotes about playing with his children and his son's affection, and the importance of confessing sin to children (e.g., angry words with his wife) to cultivate a relationship of intimacy, openness, and authority based on reality, not perfection.

oh you say brother Martin you're hard on us as preachers and I know a little something again the pressures that are there but I trust by God's grace I know what it is not to say well I'm the exception and to know what it is to say look Buster two days have gone by and you haven't been on the floor rolling around playing with your kids or you haven't been out with your boys you get out of that crazy study of yours and get down there with your kids all those years of building a relationship of intimacy and openness so my boy just had his eleventh birthday yesterday he's embarrassed to do it if h...

33:31 - 34:15 Read in full sermon

The point: You get yourself a job in conjunction with the pastor and elders of that assembly you get to the responsibility of teaching the adult class or some other situation in which you must produce week after week over a long pe…

He references the original charter of Princeton Seminary, where students were dismissed for not spending the Sabbath in prayer and fasting, even if academically proficient, to illustrate a historical emphasis on personal piety in ministerial training.

and in a real sense that's not the function of the seminary faculty if you read the original charter and then the original disciplines of Princeton Seminary it's most interesting I have some copies of them in which the faculty were to try to do this with the students a young man who was even doing well in his classes but was not spending the Sabbath in fasting in prayer and in if not fasting I think it says prayer and even mentions fasting and in the personal disciplines of piety though there was nothing else wrong with his life upon due admonition of the faculty if he didn't repent and begin ...

37:14 - 37:58 Read in full sermon

Driving home: It is not great talents God blesses so much as likeness to Jesus a holy minister is an awful weapon in the hands who necessarily make an effort to make an able minister he must have gifts will an able

Martin closes with Robert Murray McCheyne's well-known quote to a ministerial friend, emphasizing that God blesses likeness to Jesus and the purity of the 'inner man' more than great talents, likening a minister to a cavalry officer keeping his saber clean and sharp.

this was to have been just the third point on this afternoon or this morning's message but I felt constrained and I trust ourselves that we ourselves display and manifest grace without which to some degree the saving purpose of God will not be realized in us and through us as we minister to others I close with that well known quote of McShane's and it's well known because it's worth quoting and re-quoting otherwise it never would have been well known McShane had a ministerial friend who was going

43:06 - 43:48 Read in full sermon