Minister's Heartaches and Triumphs

Introduction: The Paradox of Ministerial Heartache and Triumph

0:02 Now, I confess, brethren, that if I could have my way, I would not stand here to preach this morning, but rather sit with you as together we sought to pray in and pray back to God the word that he has spoken so powerfully to our hearts in the previous hour.

0:25 Sometimes one of the best preparations for preaching is preaching. Sometimes it's one of the worst, because if God has enabled you to hold up your heart to the impress of his word, and that word has come and seized your mind and your affections, it's so difficult to shake loose that seizure and to try to move mind and heart and affections in the direction of the subject assigned. And I feel torn on the one hand between the material that I've sought, prayerfully, to prepare for this hour and the pressure of that word which has come to us in the power and grace of the Spirit through God's servant in the previous hour. Yet our hope is that God is bigger and greater than even the structure and chemistry of our minds and hearts, and he delights to help the needy. And so let us just for a moment ask God, by his grace, without in any way having an erosion of the impress of the previous hour, that we may, as it were, for the minutes assigned to us this morning, suspend that impress to feel fresh impressions of the word, and that God will then bring them together in our hearts,

1:51 that we may find much profit in the days to come through both of the ministries that the Lord has brought to us. Let us pray. Our Father, we do feel. We feel so keenly that we have the treasure in earthen vessels, and we acknowledge that our finite minds and our finite spirits are so limited in their capacity, and we unashamedly acknowledge that your word has come to us, not in word only, but in power and in the Holy Ghost, and we desire to give to you all of the responses, of the Holy Spirit, of confession, of penitence, of earnest entreaty, holy longing and aspirations, which that word has provoked in our hearts, and yet we've come to this hour, when we must now once more seek to give ourselves to you, as you speak to us in the scriptures. Help me, help your servants, that we together, O Lord, may receive the full impress, of your word to us in this hour, not at the expense of relinquishing the impress of the previous hour. Help us, O Lord, in our weakness we cry,

3:20 in our helplessness we plead. Come to us, for the sake of your dear Son we plead. Amen. Now the assigned subject for this hour, in this closing session of the conference, is a minister, whose heart aches and triumphs.

3:46 Obviously, the subject is general and broad enough to warrant a rather lengthy series of sermons, a series in which we could profitably look at the manifold heartaches and triumphs of the servants of God as recorded in Holy Scripture, tracing them through the life history of such men as Moses, Various of the Prophets, and on into the New Testament, the Apostles, and supremely our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. And even when we had done all of that, I am sure we would not touch upon all the heartaches of the servants of God, for the scripture reminds us in Proverbs 14 and verse 10, that the heart knows its own bitterness and that there are, ministerially, heartaches that are known only to the individual servant of Christ and to his Lord. Now, if there is any single text in the Word of God which shows this paradoxical conjunction of ministerial heartache and triumph as the constant experience of a true minister, it's

5:10 that fascinating statement out of the beginning of 2 Corinthians 6 and verse 10, 2 Corinthians 6, 10a, where the Apostle, in speaking of the various characteristics of himself and his colleagues, by which they commended themselves as true ministers of God, verse 4, in everything, commending ourselves as ministers of God. And then he gives this tremendous list, and in the midst of that list he writes, verse 10, as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. Here the Apostle indicates the reality and the constancy of heartache and triumph as the mark of a true minister. As sorrowful, that is, a contentment. Continuous state of being sorrowful, and yet, with that, ever rejoicing, so that as we address the subject of the heartaches and the triumphs of the ministry, or a minister's heartaches and triumphs, we must not view them as states that are separate from one

6:36 another, but rather, in the light of this text, as the context. This is the current experience of every true minister of God. Viewed from one dimension of the inner actings of his mind and spirit, he is a man who is continually sorrowful, and yet, viewed from another dimension, he is a man who is ever rejoicing and exalting in his God. And what I propose to do in our time together.

Defining True Ministerial Heartaches

7:12 this morning, is to attempt to set before you, first of all, some major causes of ministerial heartache in a true servant of Christ, and then we'll look at the major antidotes to that heartache, or the major causes of triumph and exaltation in a true minister of Christ. And I emphasize true. true minister of Christ, for there are many ministerial heartaches which are indicative of a man being something less than a true minister of Christ. There's the heartache of a bent and wounded, unmortified ego, which many a preacher carries with him all his days. If only the church would recognize his greatness, he could then be happy. Or there is the illegitimate grief and pain of feeling that one is simply not received what he deserves at the hands of others, when the whole concept of desert must never enter the mind of a servant of Christ.

8:31 But I'm concerned to address those heartaches which are part and parcel of the experience of a true minister of Christ. One who insists. In spite of all of his remaining sin, and in the full face of the reality that no grace has come to its fullest expression and to its most mature blossoming in the heart of any servant of Christ yet, they are the heartaches that are his heartaches because he is a true man of God. One of the old writers has said that a true Christian is known as much by his sorrow, as he is by his joys.

Heartache 1: Personal Sin and Bodily Decay

9:16 And I'd like to alter the statement and say that a true minister is known as much by that which causes him heartache as by that which elicits joy in his heart. And as I attempt to set forth some of these major causes of ministerial heartache, I have prayerfully sought to avoid merely projecting my particular causes. of heartache, and I've even done a little survey amongst my brethren in past days, and to my delight, without telling them what my four major causes of ministerial heartache were, or the ones I was proposing to deal with, in my survey, they've all come up with the same four major causes. So I hope we're scratching this morning where most of you itch. First of all, the heartaches of a true minister are, number one, the heartache of his own heart and his present bodily state. The heartache of a true minister is the heartache of his own heart and his present bodily state. Now, I include those two things for the simple

10:38 reason that in his divination. In divine wisdom, God is ordained to apply his redemption in a way that involves, with reference to the inner man, the destruction of the dominion of sin on the threshold of applied grace, but to carry on that work by a slow and painful process in the mortification of remaining sin. And in fulfillment of his purpose to conform us to the image of Christ. So in that sense, a minister stands on exactly the same plane as all believers. Sin's dominion is broken on the threshold of imparted grace, but remaining sin is dealt with by a slow and painful process. And likewise, with the heartache of a true minister, God is ordained to apply his redemption with respect to the body, with but few exceptions when God may intervene in an act of divine healing, and does intervene at times in preaching by an act of divine animation on the very

11:56 physical frame of an otherwise weak preacher. God's ordinary method is to allow the same process of degeneration and weakness to occur in the body. And in that sense, God is ordained to operate in a minister as operates in the most godless, lecherous, foul-mouthed reprobate in the world. This is why the scripture tells us that we have the treasure in earthen vessels, the outward man is decaying. And perhaps the greatest heartache of a true minister is the heartache that arises from that reality of sin. God is ordained to operate in a minister as operates in the most godless the scripture says we are saved in hope. What we now have is but the earnest, both with reference to the inner man and with reference to the body. And it is this reality that causes the servant of Christ, his greatest heartache. Here he is living of the gospel, laboring for the glory of the

13:11 in the word and in doctrine, living in constant contact with the most concentrated means of grace for his own and his people's advancement in grace. And yet he finds with the passing of the years that he is having to confess again and again and again the sins of his youth. He had hoped in his early days of Christian experience and ministerial career that surely certain patterns that grieved his own heart, areas in which he was so unlike his Savior, with the passing of the years would somehow see him making at least discernible strides in the mortification of certain passions. And in various dimensions of conformity to the image of Christ. And yet if he is honest, he finds himself in the secret place again and again crying out to God in the language of Romans 7, the good that I would, I do not, and the evil that I would not, that I do. I find that when

14:33 I would do good, evil is present with me. Oh, wretched man that I am. And I cannot imagine the apostle, if he were speaking those words in the presence of God, saying them merely as a matter of theological statement, oh wretched man that I am, sin yet remains. If we could have pressed our ear to his place of prayer and heard him when he cried, oh wretched man that I am. Oh, wretched man that I am. Oh, wretched man that I am. Oh, wretched man that I am. Oh, wretched man that I am. Oh, wretched man that I am. Oh, wretched man that I am. Oh, wretched man that I am.

15:09 Who shall deliver me from the body of this death. There is no heartache to a true minister like the heartache of his own heart. He can find in the midst of his most holiest exercises of prayer and of preaching and of one-to-one ministry some of the most foul and ungodly thoughts entering into his own mind. rising up from his own corruptions.

15:44 If you're a true minister of Christ, there are many occasions when, if you could, you would, have run from your pulpit to hide and be alone with God to confess some of the very sins that have been suggested to your mind in the very act of preaching to others.

16:06 And if you're a true minister of Christ, my brother, surely then, when I say that the greatest heartache of a true minister is his own heart, there is within your deep inner recesses an echo of an amen. But it's not only the heartache of our own heart, but joined to it, our present bodily state. The Apostle indicates this in 2 Corinthians 5, verses 1 to 4, when he speaks of the certainty of the divine power of God. The dismantling of this present dwelling place and the certainty of being clothed upon with that eternal habitation, speaking of the glorified body. Notice the language that he uses. He says, we that are in this present tabernacle, and twice he uses the word, we groan being burdened. We groan being burdened.

17:12 And the same, and the same language is used in Romans chapter 8, when he speaks of the yet awaited manifestation of the sons of God in terms of the glorification of the body. He says, not only does the creation groan in travail, but even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption to wit, the redemption of the body. You see, one of the mysteries of growing older is this, that as God increases your capacity to yearn, and hopefully if you're growing in grace, increases your capacity to understand and to feel, there is in this redeemed humanity with that greater capacity to feel and to yearn, and with it a greater appreciation of the glory of Christ in His person and work, and therefore a greater longing to serve Him, there is less apparatus with which to serve Him in terms of this physical body. The outward man is decaying. The outward man is decaying. And while there is generated more spiritual current, the wires over which they run get thinned with the passing of the years.

18:39 It's one of God's wonderful ways to prepare us for heaven. While the inner man is being renewed, day by day, and with it there is this commensurate decay of the outer man, we know something of the groaning that arises not only from our remaining sin, but from the present state of a not yet glorified body. We go to our closets determined that we're going to wrestle with God on an issue that can't be settled in a little five minute exercise of prayer, and we go with every intention to wrestle through if necessary for hours. Though at times we're very conscious that our great enemy is the indisposition of remaining sin in the fiery darts of the devil, there are other times when we're very conscious. It's this vessel of clay that impedes us and stands in our way and how we long for the day when we can serve him in his temple day and night and never grow weary.

19:52 And you cry out, Lord, you've given me a heart that wants to serve you with unflagging zeal day and night. But, oh God, that heart dwells in a body that is decayed.

20:07 It's a great heartache to a true servant of Christ to have to serve God in that temple of clay. Now, God has good and wise reasons for this. Some of them are revealed in Scripture. We don't have time to go into them.

20:22 Suffice it to say that one of his major concerns is he wants everyone to know if anything good ever comes out of the likes of that thing, it must be of God. We have the treasure in earth in vessels. Why? That the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us.

20:42 Let me ask you, my brother, is your greatest heartache your own heart and your not yet glorified body? Or is it? When people don't recognize you. And people don't give you the praise you think is due to you.

21:00 And people don't say thank you. Is that your greatest heartache?

21:06 If it is, you have work to do with God.

Heartache 2: The Spiritual State of the Flock

21:09 The greatest heartache of every true minister is his own heart. It was true of the Apostle Paul. When you read the biographies of men, the fragrance of whose lives remains with us to this day, Raynard, McShane, and a host of others, when we are taken into the inner sanctuary of the things that really caused them heartache, you find this common denominator, their greatest heartache was their own heart. But then in the second place, one of the major heartaches of a true minister is this, the heartache of the spiritual state of many in the flock of God. The heartache of the spiritual state of, of many in the flock of God. As we seek to give ourselves in self-giving Christ wrought love to our people, our great concern in the language of the Apostle Paul is to see Christ himself formed in them. And our spiritual travail has as its ultimate end not primarily the swelling of our wrath, not primarily the swelling of our wrath,

22:30 but that we may see Christ himself formed in our people. And that's not done without something akin to birth pangs. And so Paul writes in Galatians 4.19, my little children of whom I travail again in birth till Christ be formed in you.

22:51 It's nothing short of a kind of spiritual wrestling unto agony. And so in the latter part of Colossians 1, Paul speaks, of striving that is agonizing according to his working which worked in him mightily. And what was the great end in view in that ministerial agony? It was this, whom we preach, warning every man, teaching every man, that we may present every man perfect in Christ.

23:20 Our great concern for our people in the language of Philippians is that they would in the midst of an onlooking world be blameless and harmless, sons of God without rebuke, shining as lights in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation.

23:38 Now that's the longing we have for our people. We're not content that they're simply there at the stated times doing what good, proper, reformed Christians are supposed to do. We want to see Christ formed in them. We long to see the fragrance of Christ like an aura, as it were, about their very being when we go into their homes, and as we have occasion to rub shoulders with those with whom they are intimate in the world by virtue of work associations and neighborhood relationships, we long to get the feedback that they are shining as lights, blameless and harmless, in a real sense, the living validation of our ministry.

24:24 At last, what do we have in many? In the language of Scripture, arrested growth. Some who have heard, so much for so long that in the language of Hebrews they ought to be teaching others, and we have to go back and teach them again the first principles of God. We see moral lapses, as Paul saw with the Corinthians, doctrinal aberrations, as we see in the Galatian church, and then we see dullness and inconsistency and spiritual lethargy and perhaps even the lack of faith.

25:05 Perhaps one of the greatest occasions of heartache, and Paul knew it well, disaffection to the very one who was the instrument of imparting life in the purpose of God. Paul could say to the Corinthians, I have begotten you through the gospel, and yet he has to go back and even prove that he's an apostle. He says, I have to talk like a fool to even give my credentials, even though you are the living witness of my apostleship. I have to talk like a fool.

25:38 So disaffected had they become. And he says of those people, he said, I'm determined to go on telling you the truth and being true to your souls, though the more I love you, the less I be loved. And in that moving passage in 2 Corinthians, he says, our heart is enlarged. It's open to you, but in your hearts, there is a little narrow door, just a little, a turnstile that barely lets my hand in, let alone my whole person.

26:13 Listen to some of the statements of the apostle who felt this pain of the arrested growth, the moral lapses, the doctrinal aberrations, the dullness and inconsistency, the deflections and disaffections of the people of God as he anticipated those realities in the church at Ephesus. You'll remember the language he used with the Ephesian elders in Acts chapter 20, knowing that after his departure some of these very things would occur. Verse 29, I know that after my departing, grievous wolves shall enter in among you. From among your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples. Notice, not after their opinions, but after them. And I say by an aside, Calvin commenting on this passage says the mother of all heresy is unmortified ambition.

27:13 These perverse men concoct their theories because they want a following for themselves. As long as Paul was there, they couldn't have it. He says, I know that after my departure they'll seek to do this. Now anticipating that kind of defection, how did Paul treat it?

27:33 Verse 31, Wherefore, be watchful, remembering that by the space of three years I cease not to admonish everyone night and day with tears. Just the anticipation of defection broke his heart and opened up his tear ducts. Ministerial heartache. Legitimate heartache.

28:00 Philippians 3 and verse 18, with respect to those who were some of the first antinomians in the apostolic church, when Paul writes about these who profess to be the recipients of grace, but who've turned the grace of God into lasciviousness, he says, verse 18, for many walk of whom I told you often and tell you now even weeping. Now either we accuse the apostle of excessive rhetoric and hyperbole, or we have reason to believe that the parchment that went to Philippians, hit by, had tear stains on it. He said, I tell you now adverb of time, even weeping.

28:53 Sobbed as his heart was broken at the thought of the defection from the church members into antinomianism. Listen to him again in 2 Corinthians chapter 12. After all the admonition, after all the encouragement with regard to that matter of the incestuous man and his restoration dealt with in the earlier chapters, Paul after all of that still has great heartache and fears that he may have more. Listen to him at the end of chapter 12 of 2 Corinthians verse 20. I fear lest by any means when I come, I should find you not such as I would and such, and should myself be found of you, such as you would not, lest by any means there should be strife, jealousy, wraths, factions, backbitings, whisperings, swellings, tumults, lest again when I come, my God should humble me before you, and I should mourn for many of them that had sinned heretofore and repented not of the uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness which they committed.

30:18 And then back to chapter 11 in verse 29, a similar emphasis as he speaks of the things that marked his ministry. Who is weak and I am not weak? Who is caused to stumble and I burn not? Philip Hughes in his excellent commentary on 2 Corinthians comments on this text the anxiety which the apostle experiences for the churches is engendered not by lack of faith but by compassion.

30:53 So sensitive is he to the fortunes of those who through his ministry have become his spiritual children, so conscious is he of the responsibility that's been laid upon him for them as Christ apostle that he cannot detach himself from their lot. It's not merely his sense of the essential corporateness of the church of Christ whereby the suffering of one member becomes the suffering of all 1 Corinthians 12 26 it is not this which alone causes Paul to be so full of sympathy and fellow feeling for the Corinthians. It is something if possible even deeper, namely compassion. The apostolic pastoral compassion of identification the compassion of the parent for the children he has begotten of the shepherd for his frail sheep. As Christ apostle and minister he cannot hold himself aloof from his people as though he belonged to a different or higher order with from the ignorant in erring. But like a true priest he could bear gently with the ignorant in erring for that he himself is compassed with infirmity.

32:13 Their weakness is felt as his weakness their frailty so easily suffering offense is his frailty also. The stumbling of one of them causes him to burn with shame as though it were his own stumbling and to burn with indignation against the seducer who has made one of Christ's little ones to stumble. And so should it be with every faithful pastor of Christ's flock he should lovingly identify himself with those who've been committed to his care showing himself deeply anxious for their spiritual well-being compassionate with them in their frailties and temptations and resisting and resenting everyone who seeks to entice them away from the purity of their devotion to Christ. You see to love, truly to love is to be perpetually vulnerable and the heartache of a true minister grows out of the vulnerability of true love. Paul could not take the attitude, well you win some and lose some. And that bunch at Corinth, that bunch at Corinth they're a bunch of losers.

33:30 I'll just take consolation that I've got some winners at Philippi. He said no, even in the midst of all of these things if I hear of one who has stumbled I feel the inner pain and agitation of holy burning.

Heartache 3: Unfulfilled Desires for Salvation

33:51 The heartache of a true minister is not only the heartache of his own heart and his present bodily state but it is the heartache of the condition of many within the flock of God. But then thirdly the heartache of a true minister is the heartache of unfulfilled desires for the salvation of men. The heartache of unfulfilled desires for the salvation of men.

34:28 Perhaps there is no passage which more powerfully states that heartache as it existed in the great apostle himself in Romans chapter 9.

34:42 The man who said sorrowful yet always rejoicing one of the dimensions of that perpetual sorrow is expanded in this passage Romans 9 1 I say the truth in Christ I do not lie my conscience bearing witness with me in the Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow and unceasing pain in my heart great sorrow unceasing pain for I could wish that I myself were anathema from Christ for my brethren's sake my kinsmen according to the flesh who are the Israelites and it seems that the emphasis that comes through in this passage is that by virtue of the peculiar identification with his fellow countrymen by birth and background and looking back upon his past ignorance and prejudice there was a dimension of the heartache of unfulfilled longing for the salvation of his fellow Jews that was unique I am not saying that it was qualitatively different from what he knew in his ministry to the Gentiles but could it be that it was quantitatively and intensively different

36:10 if so then one of the greatest heartaches of a true minister is the heartache of unfulfilled desire for those with whom God has given us peculiar times I think of the children who were lovely bouncing little toddlers when some of us first came to our present places of ministry and we've seen some of them grow up under the constant instruction of the public means of grace under the constant tutelage of a godly home and yet to this day they remain in their sins and woe be unto us brethren if we ever get accustomed to that reality the apostle could never get accustomed to Jewish impenitence and blindness caused one great tear to exist in his heart and he lived with it labored with it and went to his grave with it the heartache of unfulfilled desires for the salvation of men if Paul is the great example of it in the New Testament then surely Jeremiah is the great example in the Old Testament and time will not permit us to turn to the many passages Jeremiah 8, 9 and following

37:38 Jeremiah 13, 17 and following you'll remember his words oh that my head were waters in mine eyes a fountain of tears that I might weep night and day for the slain of the daughter of my people but of course the supreme example is our Lord himself in Luke 19, 41 we read that when our Lord Jesus making his way to Jerusalem came to the brow where he could look over and see the city it is said that beholding it he wept and as Warfield points out in his masterful essay The Emotional Life of Our Lord this was not the restrained weeping in which our Lord is found engaged at the graveside of Lazarus this is more that profuse unrestrained wail and Warfield translates it that way and he says that when the Lord came to the city when he beheld the city he wailed over it Jerusalem, Jerusalem how oft would I have gathered and you would not and my brethren when you come to a passage like that God have mercy on you if your first desire is to somehow pigeonhole it in some kind of consistent bracket with the five points you've missed the point of the passage you've missed the point of the passage

39:07 the point of the passage is that in his holy sanctified humanity the human soul of our Lord yearned for the salvation of men who spurned the overtures of his grace and he did not see all of that and retreat to the doctrine that he understands far better than we understand of the inscrutable sovereignty of God's purposes of grace in election beholding it beholding those whom he would have gathered in the overtures of mercy but who in their impenitence and refusal would not be gathered he wailed over that city as he thought of its impending judgment and saw with his mind's eyes the dashing of little ones upon the rocks and the bloodshed and the pillage and he had a broken heart in the face of impenitence

Heartache 4: Unfulfilled Longings for Christ's Triumphs

40:11 and one of the heartaches of every true minister though it only faintly reflects that of our Lord it is of the same kind though not degree the heartache of unfulfilled desire for the salvation of men and then the fourth major heartache of a true minister is this the heartache of unfulfilled longings and apparently unanswered prayers and put that word in there the heartache of unfulfilled longings and apparently unanswered prayers for greater and more glorious triumphs of Christ in our generation our Lord takes natively sinful selfish hearts and touches them by grace and implants in those hearts large longings for the manifestation of his power so that when we come upon a passage such as Isaiah 64 we find that by grace we can pray those words at least with some degree of earnestness oh that thou wouldst rend the heavens and come down that the mountains might flow down at thy presence we have longed and yearned

41:40 and prayed to see Christ coming forth riding to conquer and to conquer not in judgment but in mercy and in grace we've been able to turn to Psalm 44 and pray it through as though it were our own psalm oh Lord our fathers have told us our ears have heard what work you did in their days you did this and that and the other but now Lord you don't go forth with our armies everyone who comes by plucks us we're an occasion of mockery and derision and there's no way and there's no way there has been born in our hearts a longing that God would give to his son the glory of great triumphs of his grace in our own generation and there are very few heartaches as deep as the heartache of those desires unfulfilled and those prayers apparently unanswered when we see abounding wickedness we join the ranks of those who are marked out in Ezekiel's day and we see that we are not alone we are not alone we are not alone we are not alone the abominations are described in chapter 8 and then the man with the inkhorn is commissioned to go through the city and put a mark upon those who sigh and who cry for the abominations that are done in the land they couldn't change the abominations

43:08 but they didn't get calloused and though the cause of Jehovah seemed to be in a shambles they didn't sit back upon a false pillow made of wood made of a misuse of the doctrine of divine sovereignty and say God wills it so be it let the whole bunch come under the judgment of God they sighed and they cried that was the problem of dear old Elijah in 1st Kings 19.4 there's a phrase that to my understanding is the key to his dejection taking into account the very real factor of the emotional and mental and psychological drain of the grace and the great encounter upon Mount Carmel but these words are significant 19.4 of 1st Kings but when but he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness came and sat under a juniper tree and he requested for himself that he might die and said it is enough now oh Lord take away my life why I am not better than my fathers oh God I who have been jealous for your name and for your glory at the end of all of my labors and all of my efforts the end of the day it appears that I'm no better

Triumph 1: Ultimate Conformity to Christ

44:38 than my fathers things are no different I've spent my life for naught do you have that heartache this morning my dear fellow minister the heartache of unfulfilled longs and apparently unanswered prayers I'm not better than my fathers I'm not better than my fathers for the advancement of Christ's glory in our generation well as I've consulted with my brethren in the ministry not a few of them they have all said these are at least four of the major heartaches and I'm sure you could write a list that would go on till the next conference there are many others what then very quickly now what are the triumphs in the midst of that heartache what is it that caused the apostle to write sorrowful yet always rejoicing let me go back now and seek to demonstrate the divine antidote which will bring us into that posture not to cancel our sorrow but in the midst of it to give us joy in our God number one while suffering heartache over our remaining sin and our not yet glorified bodies we triumph in the joyful confidence of our ultimate total conformity to Jesus Christ we triumph

46:06 in the certainty of our ultimate and total conformity to the image of Christ for hard on the heels of Paul's agonizing cry who shall deliver me from the body of this death I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord and there is now a new life in the midst of the reality of remaining sin the consolation of knowing that in Christ my justified state is utterly untouched by my remaining corruption it is objective and external to me in the sense that it is holy in Christ and I am wrapped up in Him there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus but I must go beyond that and remind myself that a time is coming when I shall no longer need to pray oh wretched man that I am the scripture speaks of the spirits of just men made perfect and I've often meditated upon what it is that God by the spirit does upon a human spirit of one of his own the moment that soul leaves the body and comes to the consciousness of looking

47:34 upon the face of Jesus God purges from that disembodied spirit every last remaining trace of sin that spirit makes its way into the immediate presence of Christ which is far better and we as the servants of God in the midst of our groans need to remember as a dear friend of mine has a plaque in his study be patient God isn't finished with me yet we ought to have another one be comforted God isn't finished with me yet one plaque speaks to others to exercise grace toward us the other affirms the confidence that God is yet to work more in us God isn't finished with me yet when he's done with me I will be and if scripture didn't say it it would almost sound cheeky I will be so like Christ that he will be the elder brother and all his brethren around him and the whole moral universe will see the family likeness he'll be the firstborn among many brethren oh my dear fellow minister when the hellish and horrible ghosts and demons of your own remaining sin all seem to vie to capture all of your soul

49:02 take comfort it is not going to be forever we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is and when you feel and the passing years will make you feel it if you can somehow ignore it at this stage of your life that the outward man is decayed remember this as we have borne the image of the earth and oh how well we know it every time the dentist sticks his drill in the mouth and the doctor sticks his thermometer in the mouth we know we've borne the image of the earth we shall bear the image of the heavenly first Corinthians fifteen that wonderful text in Philippians three he shall fashion the body of our humiliation like unto his own glorious body we that are in this tabernacle do groan yes but he who for loved us has predestined to bring us to the image of his son and that involves what we are as a psychosomatic entity and we shall bear the image of the glorified Christ body and spirit so while you suffer the heartache over your remaining sin

Triumph 2: The Ultimate Perfection of the Church

50:31 and your yet unglorified body my dear fellow minister come back again and again to this fundamental truth I'm not teaching you anything new I'm simply taking the role of an exhorter encouraging you to bring into the midst of your most doleful groan the wonderful triumph of the certainty that the groaning will cease and then with reference to that second great occasion of heartache while suffering heartache over the spiritual state of many in the flock of God what should cause us to triumph well we triumph in the joyful confidence of the ultimate perfection of the church we triumph in the joyful confidence of the ultimate perfection of the church we turn to Ephesians five and we meditate upon it husbands love your wives as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it why what was the great intention of his heart as he traveled in the agony of Gethsemane and the deeper and more intense agony of Golgotha what was the joy set before him here it is he loved the church gave himself for the church

52:01 in order that he might sanctify having cleansed it with the washing of water with the word in order that he might present the church to himself a glorious church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing but that it should be holy and without blemish it is certain that one day the Lord Jesus will present his church perfect as surely as he died outside the city walls of Jerusalem he died to present his church perfect and he shall see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied not only in bringing all of his elect into the beginning stages of grace and redemption applied but to the consummate glory of redemption applied and it is nothing less than the presentation to himself of a perfected church we need dear brethren in the midst of the defections in the midst of the lapses not retreat from all of the trench warfare of admonition and discipline for that's

Triumph 3: God's Pleasure in Gospel Proclamation

53:31 what it is at the pastoral level discipline and admonition and warning it's the trench warfare from which many ministers run in spiritual cowardice no we must be prepared to engage in it with the rule of scripture but when our hearts would be overwhelmed to the point of breaking we need to remind ourselves it's not always going to be this way take encouragement from the great doctrine of the ultimate perfection of the church as you behold the arrested growth and the other deflections amongst your people then thirdly while suffering heartache while suffering heartache over the unsafe who remain unsaved in the midst of intimate associations triumph triumph in the joyful confidence that God is pleased with your proclamation of the gospel of his son even when it doesn't prove effectual to men's salvation there's a wonderful passage that addresses this very issue in second Corinthians chapter two and it ties in so beautifully with what we heard in the previous hour is our preaching is pervasively Christ

54:59 centered and breathes of the fragrance of Christ and crucified this is what that preaching is to God regardless of its effect in men verse 14 of second Corinthians two but thanks be unto God who always leads us in triumph in Christ and makes manifest through us the savor of his knowledge in every place for we are a sweet savor of Christ unto God in them that are saved and in them that are perishing to the one a saver from death unto death to the other a saver from life unto life and I know that many believe that they see in this passage at least the backdrop of the imagery of a triumphal entry of a Roman army and I'm not going to go into that for I'm not really certain that that's what we have here but certainly this much is clear from the text Paul says we are always triumphant and he says it in the full knowledge that he's not always successful as we count success when we preach the gospel and we entreat men what are we doing we're not playing games we do long that they shall be reconciled to Christ when we plead and command and exhort and entreat that they

56:29 should stack arms and abandon their refuge of lies and cast off their self-righteousness and throw themselves upon the mercy of God in Christ we're dead in earnest and if everyone did it we would not say oh wait a minute that isn't what I was hoping for no that's what we yearn for but in the full realization that God's purpose is to call to himself a people Paul says we are always triumphant always triumphant and the great concern of the apostle was that God as it were as he sniffed the preaching of Paul would smell the fragrance of Jesus and smile my son has done all that I commissioned him to do my servant is telling the world about my son and when I smell the fragrance of the proclamation of my son it's sweet to my nostrils we are a sweet savor of Christ unto God now as far as men are concerned that savor of the proclamation of Christ for some is unto life others unto death but here's our comfort we are ultimately answerable to God if we come before him and he says well done good and faithful servant

57:57 you gave me the joy of smelling the sweetness of the savor of my son as you preached then to hear his well done will be all that we could live for you see that balance in our Lord his weeping over Jerusalem was real his yearning was real and yet in John 17 there is a wonderful calmness as he says I've accomplished the work you gave me to do I've given eternal life to as many as you have given me you see that beautiful tension in Matthew's gospel the 11th chapter the woes upon the impenitent sinners of Chorazin and Bethsaida and Capernaum woe woe woe woe and yet the text says at that season he rejoiced in spirit sorrowful woe to Capernaum woe to Bethsaida woe to Chorazin and the woe those were real and they were suffused with pathos and brokenness and yet it says at that season at that season he exalted in spirit and said I thank thee father lord of heaven and earth sorrowful yet always rejoicing my brethren in the midst of the legitimate heartache of having to minister

Triumph 4: The Fulfillment of God's Purposes

59:27 to unsaved people who remain in their sins in spite of all your prayers and your pleading rejoice in the confidence that God is pleased when you go right on preaching his son and remember since one sows and another waters and only God gives the increase the last chapter may not have been written for many of them we must sow in hope though others may reap we are content to fill our place in the purpose of God and then finally while grieving that we've not seen all that we had hoped to see and all that we have prayed that we would see of the triumphs of Christ what is our consolation we're to exalt and to triumph in these two great truths number one God's purpose in the world is being fulfilled in spite of what we see and God's purpose for the universe will yet be fulfilled as he has promised in his word God's purpose in our own generation is being fulfilled and we dare not presume to be

60:56 wiser than God in that excellent collection of sermons by B.B. Warfield and if you're not familiar with this may I urge you to obtain it it has some of the most helpful materials for the man of God struggling on in the work of God the opening sermon is entitled the cause of God and it's on God's dealings with the prophet Elijah in his dejection and Warfield closes the sermon with this exhortation we close then with a word of warning and one of encouragement the word of warning we must not identify our cause with God's cause our methods with God's methods and our hopes with God's purposes that he said was Elijah's problem he identified his cause with God's cause his method the method of fire and judgment with God's method our hopes with God's purposes the word of encouragement God's cause is never in danger what he has begun in the soul or in the world he will complete unto the end I believe there is an element may I call it a spiritual yet carnal petulance in some of God's servants it's spiritual in that it does indeed grow from a

62:26 longing to see Christ's name praised we do sigh and cry when we see abominations on every hand we long to see something of Christ's scepter touching the general fabric of morals and ethics and labor perspectives and political perspectives and in international politics we long to see biblical principles at least respected and honored and that's a spiritual desire but when God is not pleased to grant us that desire there's a carnal petulance that almost says God you've cheated us you created the desire and yet you haven't done what might I prayers have demanded that you do and that was the problem Warfield says with Elijah sure he was jealous for the Lord of hosts and rightly so but when that jealousy frames a perspective that says God's cause can only advance in the way that I think it ought to advance we have fallen into a carnal petulance and I plead with you my brethren don't increase your legitimate heartaches by the added heartache of pouting because God doesn't do his work his way before your eyes and so in the midst of that legitimate grief that we long that Christ shall have a greater

63:55 manifestation of his glory remember God's purpose in our generation is being fulfilled and remember that ultimately even if God should pour out of his spirit and do ten thousand fold more than we've ever seen I see nothing in my Bible that says things will ever be such that our great longing will be anything other than for the new heavens and the new earth Peter says we looking for a new heavens and a new earth wherein dwells righteous and whatever our eschatological views may be may they never delude us into thinking that there's going to be a time when we're in the majority and are anything other than pilgrims it is at the return of our Lord that his enemies will be crushed when he comes in flaming fire to take vengeance on his enemies and to purify the earth and there we shall know what we long to see and know now and I have found it very salutary at times when I found a juniper tree beginning to grow up on my back because it seems that the longings and the yearnings are so unfulfilled I find it salutary to look down at the ground and every step I take to say every square inch on which I now

65:24 walk is going to experience the purging fires of our returning Lord and on every square inch there will dwell nothing but righteousness everyone who walks on every square inch will be confirmed in righteousness forever every interaction will be nothing but righteousness everything thought every motive every word and I tell you my brethren if that doesn't put some fresh nerve into your step nothing will we're not on a fool's errand we're committed to the purposes of a God who has determined that the new heavens and the new earth shall indeed be ushered in at the return of the Lord Jesus we're an odd bunch we preachers aren't we in many ways some of us a little more odd than others but we simply find ourselves in the company of the great apostle sorrowful yet always rejoicing you see a true minister can never be dominated by levity he never can be dominated by levity he should be a cheerful man a happy man in Christ but it's a very very very sad thing when gatherings of ministers are predominated or are , dominated by levity

66:53 jocularity in their casual interaction and it's worse yet when that's imported into the pulpit when men become stand-up comics and they say something funny and get a good response they ride the crest of it say something a little more funny until they and the men are utterly carried away and I've been at preachers conferences where I had all I could do to keep in my seat

67:22 with being a true minister in our holiest moments there is never joy unmixed without some tinge of sorrow sorrowful yet always rejoicing the heartaches and the triumphs of a true minister may they be ours as we seek to use whatever remaining time is given to us to serve him who loved us and gave himself for us let us pray our father how we thank you for the pattern of our lord jesus man of sorrows acquainted with grief and yet praying that his joy might be in us and that our joy might be full we thank you for the example of the great apostle sorrowful yet always rejoicing oh make us like our savior enlarge our narrow and shriveled hearts oh god that we may not only be men whose heads are clear and who perceive with accuracy your truth but whose hearts are large who are willing to live that life of constant vulnerability because we live the

68:52 life of love in the power of the spirit oh god bring us back again and again to those truths which you have deposited in your world to keep us from being swallowed up with grief that would paralyze us with discouragement that would neutralize all meaningful service oh may we be strengthened in the knowledge of these truths that we've meditated upon this morning hear our cry and minister grace we pray especially to any of your servants who has come to this conference on the verge of feeling there's no use to go on Lord Jesus take we pray the bruised reed and the smoking flax and gently deal with such and bring restorative grace amen