08a) Cultivating Love for Men

The Man of God in Relationship to His People: Cultivating Unfeigned Love

0:02 Well, we continue this morning, brethren, to consider together the life of the man of God in the pastoral ministry. Having sought to establish what constitutes a valid call to that ministry, nothing is of more critical importance than the life of the man of God himself. And thus far, we've addressed this issue with respect to the man of God in his life before God in three major areas, spiritually, intellectually, physically, and emotionally. Today, our focus shifts from the man of God in the presence of his God and in his walk before God to the man of God, Roman numeral 2 in your notes, in relationship to his people. And eventually, we'll cover three broad areas under this heading, the man of God and his life. The man of God and his love for or towards his people. The man of God and his deliverance from fear of his people.

1:11 And the man of God and the earned respect and confidence of his people. Today, we'll have time to address only the first of these three aspects, namely, the relationship of the man of God to his people as he, by the grace of God, increasingly loves them. The structure of our treatment of the subject is clear from your outline, as usual. I will state an axiom or principle and then exegete it.

1:44 And then, having done that, seek to give, secondly, a demonstration of the crucial importance of this principle or axiom in relationship to pastoral ministry. And then, thirdly, to set before you some practical suggestions regarding both the nurture and the manifestation of love to your people or the implementation of this principle. First of all, then, the axiom is that you must experience a growing measure of unfeigned love to your people. Very simply stated, but brethren, it is not simple to experience.

2:30 You must experience a... ...a growing measure of unfeigned love to your people.

Defining Unfeigned Love: A Gracious and Principled Disposition

2:38 Now, having stated the axiom, I want to spend considerable time in exegeting and unpacking it. Central to the axiom and its concerns is obviously the word and the disposition that we describe by the four-letter word, love. Now, while there are few words more familiar to us, few things are more elusive and difficult to define with any degree of precision than is this matter of love. Love can be considered in terms of emotion.

3:17 Love can be considered in terms of a disposition. Love can be contemplated in terms of a principled commitment of the will. But since the issue is so vital, let me attempt to deal...

3:32 ...with a working definition that I trust will carry your conscience is at least in its overarching contours true to the word of God.

3:45 And then, having dealt with this working definition of love, we'll address the quality of that love, the measure of that love, and then the objects of that love. First of all, an attempt at a definition of the kind of love I am talking, when I say in our axiom that you must experience a growing measure of unfeigned love for your people. Love is much better understood in its working and manifestations than in terms of precise definition or critical analysis. 1 Corinthians 13 is the classic example of this fact.

4:30 Love is described... ...primarily in terms of what it does and does not do.

4:38 Not in terms of what it does or does not feel. And taking a clue from 1 Corinthians 13, it is much more biblical to try to define love in terms of what it does and does not do, rather than to abstract it ...or to focus...

5:03 ...on love at the level of emotion.

5:08 The Scriptures, again and again, set this paradigm before us. 1 John 3.16 For God so loved the world that He gave. And 1 John 4.9 and 10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. However, for our purposes, I will attempt a working definition and description of love as you find it in small letter A. Unfeigned love is that gracious and principled disposition of goodwill which desires and practically seeks the good of its object at personal cost. Now, I've defined it...

6:04 I've defined it, first of all, as a gracious disposition. And by using the word gracious, I am trying to capture the thought that the love that a pastor must have to his people is, in its very nature and necessity, a fruit of grace. It is not natural love, but a love that is the product of the direct operation of the Holy Spirit upon the heart of the servant of God. Galatians 5.22 The fruit of the Spirit is love. Now, whatever love men may know in common grace, and there are great measures of it, when someone sees a man willing to sacrifice much of his own convenience, much of his own interest for the sake of an ailing wife, and neither of them are believers, we cannot look at that self-sacrifice for that wife and call it anything other than love. But it's love that God has given in common grace if the man is not a believer. But we are speaking here of that love which is the distinctive response of a heart

7:24 into which the Holy Spirit has come and taken up his dwelling. And of course, 1 Corinthians 13, where we there have...

7:34 the love described, it is the love that is the product of the grace of God. There is something that may move a man even to martyrdom devoid of this gracious principle of love, and therefore the text says, even though I give my body to be burned but have not love, it profits me nothing. So by gracious, I am speaking of a love that has its tap roots in the operations of the grace of God by the power and presence and ministry of the Holy Spirit. Now, in using the word principle, unfeigned love is that gracious and principled disposition. I'm trying to capture the fact that this love operates not by whims and impulses, but by fixed perspectives and fixed commitments. The command and law of God is at its very foundation. Now, we live in a generation to which the very thought of commanding love is either silly, nonsense, or abhorrent.

8:51 But the facts of Scripture don't change. That the first and great commandment is to love God with all of our being and to love our neighbor as ourselves. We live in a day that has been swept into the vortex of an almost totally romantic concept of love. It's something that hits you and zaps you in spite of yourself.

9:18 Whereas the Scripture tells us that the love that we owe to God in our neighbor is a love that is a response to moral obligation and duty. And therefore, we must never think that there is any kind of love of disjuncture or antithesis between love as being gracious, that is, the fruit of the Spirit's operation upon our hearts, and yet a volitional commitment of our wills to love. Because the Scriptures do not present us with such a contradiction. So that's what I've tried to capture by the word principled.

Defining Unfeigned Love: Disposition, Action, and Cost

9:58 And then, disposition. What do I mean by disposition? Well, a disposition is the normal or principal, prevailing aspect of one's nature. I hope no one has occasion to say of you, he's got an ugly disposition.

10:14 When someone says that, what they mean is that the prevailing bent of his disposition ain't so sweet. He's got an ugly disposition. When we say of a certain child, that child has a very cheerful disposition. We don't mean that the child is never sad, his favorite toy is broken, he can cry as hard as any child and shed his tears.

10:35 When his favorite toy is broken, but by and large what we mean is the child generally goes around with a smile on his face. One of our brethren here in the academy has a son, and since he's not here, I can speak of it without embarrassing him, that I've said that when we had all those snowfalls last year, I said, Mark, you ought to go down to the local township and tell them that you'll rent out your son for $100 an hour and have just somebody carry him along by all the snow banks and smile at them. I said, that smile is...

11:05 would melt a four-foot-high snow bank. It's just one of those things. I don't care what kind of burdens I'm carrying, when little Tom looks up at me and smiles, it just melts them all away. He has a cheerful disposition.

11:18 So when we speak of the necessity of this growing measure of unfeigned love to our people, we're speaking of love as a gracious, principled disposition. That is, it will be the prevailing state and condition of your heart towards your people. Now, this love may grow into what the old writers called, and I love the terminology because I do not know of any current terminology that is a precise definition for it. It may not grow into a love of complacency.

11:55 Complacent love, the old writers used the term to describe a love that delights in its object for what the object is. It may not grow into a love of complacency. It may. It may not grow into a love of delight.

12:14 There may be tremendous struggles in the exercise of that love towards certain people who, in their personalities, in their reactions to you and to your ministries, or lack of reactions, push all of the negative buttons in your psyche that would leave you not only devoid, of this gracious, principled disposition of love, but would find you with just the opposite, a spirit of antipathy, irritation, and sometimes you may have to be honest and say, Lord, left to myself, I'm going to hate one of those sheep that I am charged to love as you love them, one of those for whom you shed your own precious blood. So I've used the word disposition to try to capture that we are dealing with love, love as it percolates through the soul and becomes, by the grace of God, the prevailing aspect of our nature toward our people. And then, by the words, desires and seeks the good of its objects, I've tried to capture the fact that the love of which we are speaking is not just an internal, passive state of the soul. Being the opposite, opposite of selfishness, it will fit the description of 1 Corinthians 13,

13:40 love seeks not its own. But what it does do, it goes out actively and aggressively seeking the good of its object. And one of the pivotal texts that captures this principle is Romans 13 and verse 10.

14:03 Love works no ill to himself, his neighbor. Love, therefore, is the fulfillment of the law. Love works no ill. What does it do?

14:18 It works and seeks the good of its neighbor. Good as defined by God and not by man. It desires and seeks the good of its object and it does so, the fifth aspect, of this working definition, at personal cost. And we could marshal many texts.

14:44 I've just cited two of the most familiar. Ephesians 5.25 and following. Husbands, love your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it.

15:03 Essence of his love was that he gave, or its expression was that he gave himself up for it. And the passage goes on to indicate there was not only the once for all giving up of himself, but in love. He continues to nourish and cherish his church even as a man does his own body. And may I say it reverently, it cost him to do so.

15:32 In his glorified state at the right hand of the Father, there is perpetual selflessness in the ongoing nurture of Christ with respect to his church. And then, of course, the clearest text and most well-known, John 3.16, God so loved that he, and of course, second rank to that would be Romans 8.32, he that spared not the negative statement, spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all.

16:10 Personal cost lies at the very heart of the love with which God has loved us redemptively in Christ and in the work of the ministry where we are to be constantly reflecting the dynamics of redemption not only in the doctrinal content and the practical application of our preaching, but in the spirit in which we minister to our people, it is vital that we know something of this love, that has personal cost as one of its constant elements. So, basically, brethren, this is what I mean by using the terminology love to your people. You must experience a growing measure of unfeigned love to your people, love being that gracious and principled disposition of goodwill which desires and practically seeks the good of its object at personal cost. Now, small letter B, I have used the word unfeigned to underscore the quality of this love. And by using the word unfeigned, it is your Greek word anupakritos. You have your alpha privative, it is without hypocrisy.

The Quality, Measure, and Objects of Unfeigned Love

17:37 Anupakritos and three texts, 1 Peter 1 and 2, and verse 22, where obviously unfeigned love is the experience of everyone who has known the dynamic and power of God's regenerating grace, seeing you have purified your souls in your obedience to the truth unto unfeigned love of the brethren, love one another from the heart fervently, having been redeemed. Unbegotten again. Here, the people of God are called to a life of unfeigned love of the brethren. 2 Corinthians 6 and verse 6, here the apostle identifies unfeigned love as one of the marks that underscored and validated the genuineness of his ministry. Verse 4 of 2 Corinthians 6, in everything commending ourselves as ministers of God, in much patience, in affliction, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in watchings, in fastings, in pureness, in knowledge, in long-suffering, in kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in love.

19:08 Now, there were not the temptation to have feigned love. Why would he give us this qualifying word? My love was not only something you perceived, it was something that was. I was not trafficking in mere perceptions, but in spiritual realities.

19:31 And then, the third text, Romans 12 and verse 9, Romans 12 and verse 9, let love be, again, anupakritas, let love be without hypocrisy. Let love be unfeigned. Let it be real. Let it be genuine.

19:56 Let it be that love which has been wrought in your heart by the ministry of the Spirit of God. In other words, we are not merely to put on the show of this principled disposition, learn the language of this principled disposition, learn, as it were, the skills by which it will normally manifest itself, we are to experience it in our hearts and in our lives. And then, as it is expressed, it will be love unfeigned. And then the measure of this love, I've sought to capture by the word growing, that you must experience a growing measure. Of unfeigned love to your people. And three pivotal texts of scripture that underscore this duty. Two of them are generic.

20:56 I should say just one of them is generic and the other two are specific to the servants of God who are called to minister His word. The generic is the well-known First Thessalonians passage that I quoted to our own people here on Wednesday night. First Thessalonians chapter 4 verses 9, and 10. But concerning love of the brethren, you have no need that one write to you, for you yourselves are taught of God to love one another.

21:26 For indeed, you are doing it to all the brethren that are in all Macedonia. But, we exhort you brethren that you abound more and more. They were not to be content that they had a good good present measure of unfeigned love to the brethren. A love that was manifesting itself in such a way that at a distance Paul is able to validate that they are manifesting it to all the brethren in Macedonia.

22:00 However, he doesn't want them to coast and to think that having attained this level this was sufficient. He exhorts them to abound more and more. And then in the two other passages in the book of Acts, that I've mentioned Philippians chapter 1. Again, it is a generic passage, Paul's prayer for the Philippians.

22:23 Verses 9 through 11, generic, in that it applies to all of God's people. In this I pray that your love may abound yet more and more in all knowledge and discernment so that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and void of offense unto the day of Christ, being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are through Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God. This church that as you know had a peculiar place in Paul's affections and no little part of that was their tremendous consistent commitment to him as a servant of God and to his gospel endeavors so that when he went into a new dimension of gospel enterprise he said, you only had fellowship with me in the gospel and it was that among other things that made this congregation very precious to him but he is not content nor does he want them to be content with the present measure of their love for which he commends them in various places throughout the epistle but he says, my prayer is that your love may abound more and more. Never be static. Never feel that you've reached a level that is sufficient but that it be a growing love. And then in a passage that is one of the most

23:52 moving to my judgment in all of the Pauline corpus 2 Corinthians chapter 12 2 Corinthians chapter 12 and the imagery here is of parenting and children and Paul is moving back and forward with the human relationship to the spiritual relationship verse 14 Behold, this is the third time I'm ready to come to you and I'll not be a burden to you for I do not seek yours but you. And he said, the reason I do this is that an active not an indigent old decrepit parent who is dependent upon the children no an active parent who is able to fulfill his role of parenting the children ought not to be laying up for the parents but the parents for the children. That's why when I come to you I don't expect anything from you I am an active healthy spiritual father and I'm committed to the burden of my spiritual parenting which is to provide for you my children. Therefore, I'm not seeking anything from you I'm coming to give something to you for the children ought not to lay up for the parents but the parents for the children. Now to make that a generic rule of parent-child relationships applied across the board is to twist the scriptures.

25:20 It has a particular setting and limitation and it's that which I've tried to outline briefly. Now, in the light of that in that commitment of spiritual parenting in which it is the parents that lay up for the children and not the children for the parents he said I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls. I will gladly spend and then you have an intensified use of that word you have a preposition added to it and the marginal reading of the 1901 reflects it the same root Greek word but I will most gladly spend when I'm dispensing the coinage of my own energy and prayers and gospel endeavors and be spent out for your souls. And what is spent that gives this disposition? If I love you more abundantly am I loved the less? You see, he acknowledges it was the abundant measure of selfless love that God continued to pour into his heart toward a people that had done something far less than elevate him to sainthood.

26:43 This is the crowd to whom he is writing in a letter where he has to say several times I speak as a fool I'm reluctant to say what I'm about to say but you have forced me to it. These super apostles who've come along and they have fleeced your pockets they have slapped you in the face they have laid upon you burdens which God doesn't lay upon you and they've persuaded you that I'm no true apostle I've got to revalidate in your judgment my apostleship so that I can be so that I can reestablish my spiritual influence over you if ever there was a crowd that we might excuse Paul from loving it'd be this crowd but his strongest expression of increasing and growing love that I know of in all of the Pauline corpus is found toward this if that's so brethren you never in a situation where you are justified to have a heart full of resentment and bitterness toward a people because they've done you in and because they've not given you your due of respect and honor the apostle is saying in essence my commitment as an apostle under the lordship of Christ and discharging the stewardship of my office as unto my master is such that I have no alternative but to continue to love you

28:11 and I will most gladly not simply out of principled commitment to please my master but to please my master but most gladly spend and be spent out for your souls and that which enabled him to say that was this measure of selfless principled unfeigned love that God had nurtured in his heart if I love you more abundantly am I loved the less so the measure of this love must be growing and then , finally, the objects of this love in our axiom I've stated you must experience a growing measure of unfeigned love to your people and I wrestled in earlier times in the lecture I put to the flock of God committed to your charge and I said no, that's too truncated and I've used other terminology and then I've come back and said no I think this is most general and then I can define what I mean when I say to your people to whom am I referring? well, I'm referring to a servant of God laboring in an ordinary pastoral context and I'm referring to his people that is the flock of God committed to his charge and the unsaved that come within the orbit of his influence

29:39 now, primarily I'm speaking of those who are the official members of the church and therefore those for whom you are you have the most clearly defined explicitly exegetically grounded responsibility no inferential responsibility here Acts 20 and verse 28 when the apostle speaks to the elders of the church at Ephesus and he says to them take heed unto yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit is present has made you overseers to shepherd the church of the Lord which he purchased with his own blood who constituted that flock well, Ephesians chapter 1 clearly answers the question Ephesians chapter 1 when Paul thought of the flock purchased with the blood of Christ in Ephesus how does he conceive of that particular designation in its concrete expression Paul an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God to the saints that are at Ephesus and the faithful in Christ Jesus grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ

31:08 and then when he breaks out into that amazing one sentence eulogy verses 3 to 14 in which we have the rich Trinitarian theology of salvation with its tap roots in God's eternal electing love manifested in the vicarious death of the Lord Jesus bringing the blessings of forgiveness of sins adoption inheritance the gift of the Holy Spirit he envisions the flock of God as a people comprised of those who have those blessings in present possession that's why he can say blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us and so when the apostle says to the Ephesian elders take heed to all of the flock which he purchased with his own blood he is referring most explicitly and definitively to those who were the known members of that assembly and whose membership had no gross abnormality that would bring into question that they were indeed the present possessors of an accomplished and applied and active internalized measure of redemptive grace and it is for such

32:37 that we have the most clear and most unequivocal responsibility Hebrews 13 17 obey them that have the rule over you for they watch for your souls it is those who have formally submitted themselves to the rule of the overseers whether it's a written membership or unwritten is a moot question but there is a people whom these overseers know and can identify as the ones who have committed themselves to their rule and it is to them that they have a peculiar accountability they give account for your souls and he says submit to them that they may do so with joy and not with grief for that were unprofitable for you however rarely do we have a situation where we will not continually have within the orbit of our regular influence of public and private ministry those who are unconverted we will have the children of the members of the assembly parents who have a biblical concept that as long as the children are under their roof whether they are two or twenty one of the conditions of being under the roof is as for me and my house we will serve the Lord come the Lord's day

34:06 you will be there you will open your mouth you will sing the praises of God you will bow your head when we pray you will sit at family worship and if you're too big to do that there's the front door I hope under God you train parents who have that posture that Joshua expressed that anyone who is within your gates and under your roof and the fruit of your union with your wife they are welcome under that roof so long as they are prepared to follow your directives that the worship of God privately and publicly is part of your family experience now I know that sounds radical in certain circles today but I believe it can be clearly established from the word of God so you're going to have those people who are there because parents are committed not to follow the whims of their kids but the word of God and you have them continually under your influence you will have in some cases the spouses of those who are converted and are members of the assembly and their spouses are willing to sit under the word of God you will have what we would call in the Old Testament language the strangers within your gates those whom God will sovereignly bring amongst you those who are there as the fruit of the ongoing witness of your people who are seeking to bring the gospel to their unconverted

35:35 work associates and schoolmates and neighbors and in conjunction with that not a substitute for it but in conjunction with it believing there is a unique place assigned to the preaching of the word by an appointed servant of Christ they are supplementing their individual witness with tracts and word of mouth and bible studies and tapes and whatever else they are using by constantly trying to get them out under the preaching of the word so that they are in the context of the special presence of God in the midst of his gathered people and the special presence of God that attends the preaching of the word that they might see the new humanity and its interaction to see a group of people behold how they love one another and by this shall all men know that you are my disciples if you have loved one to another well you see that broad spectrum of people are going to come continually within the orbit of your influence both publicly and privately and the objects then of this growing measure of unfeigned love when I say to your people I am referring primarily to those who are your people in that unique clearly explicitly identifiable way as part of the flock of God in the which the Holy Spirit has made you an overseer but also

37:02 in those larger circles of influence that you will have with those who are not the people of God and I've quoted the Romans 9 text and the 2nd Timothy 2 10 text as examples of how this love ought to be operative in our hearts and I cannot expound those opening verses of Romans 9 but surely I can read them 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 for I could wish that I myself were anathema from Christ and for my brethren's sake my kinsmen according to the flesh and then he identifies them in terms of their great privileges as God's ancient covenant people there was that natural relationship to his fellow Jews and in the light of all of their great privileges he had as an expression of unfeigned love to these people this yearning that became a continual sorrow and pang within his breast that they might come to the saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ

38:31 and remember from whom did Paul receive his most bitter opposition his most frequent persecutions it was these very people and yet God sustained in his heart an unfeigned and growing measure of love for them but not just for his fellow countrymen but according to 2nd Timothy 2.10 and in the light of his understanding and explicit statements that his primary ministry was that to the uncircumcision though in any situation he would seek to bring the gospel to the Jew first Paul knew from the very inception of his conversion and commission that his primary ministry was to carry the name of Christ to the Gentile world so when we read in 2nd Timothy 2.10 therefore I endure all things for the elect's sake that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory here we see that his heart's yearning and affection was not just to his countrymen but for God's elect wherever they might be found throughout the Greco-Roman world and in this text in particular among the Gentiles and he says I endure all things does the language bring up overtones of 1st Corinthians 13

40:00 love endures all things and it was that yearning for the elect upon whom God had put no mark but whom he knew to be there in the masses of the Goyim in the masses of the Gentiles and he says I am prepared to endure all that I must endure that through my ministry every one of the elect of God who are there scattered amongst the nations whom God is purposed to bring to himself through my labors may indeed be thus brought so in summary this axiom embodies what I am convinced brethren you and I as men of God must experience as we move before and among our people we must experience a growing measure of unfamed love to our people now do we need to take a break now or can we press on a bit and take a break after the second head like we normally do that be alright alright good well let's do that then moving then secondly number two in your outline at the bottom of page 33 having sought to explain and demonstrate from the scriptures the validity of this axiom

The Crucial Importance of Unfeigned Love: 1 Corinthians 13 and Law-Keeping

41:28 or principle now we consider the importance of this principle in the work of the ministry how important is it to put it more crassly how seriously should you take today's lecture with respect to whatever ministry God and his providence may give you in the years to come well I say at the outset brethren the biblical material is so vast it's unwieldy but I say that I want to trace out with you relatively briefly five lines of thought as to the importance of experiencing a growing measure of unfeigned love to your people first of all because of the explicit teaching of 1st Corinthians 13 you remember the context Paul began in chapter 12 now concerning spiritual gifts spiritual gifts spiritual gifts spiritual gifts brethren and by the time he gets to chapter 14 he is focusing almost exclusively upon gifts of utterance gifts exercised in the public assembly gifts that we would say have their present parallel in the ordinary gifts in the steady state condition of the church of Christ as it now finds itself in the work of the ministry so in the

42:58 midst of dealing with spiritual gifts generally and gifts of utterance and ministry in the public assembly more focused and more explicitly in chapter 14 we have chapter 13 and notice where the emphasis falls if I speak with the tongues of men and of angels that have not love I am become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal one of the modern translators has rendered it I am become a noisy gong and a clanging cymbal in other words no sweet melodious attractive desirable music is made somebody takes ear rather than having the man in the back row at a great crescendo in the symphony at the right point kaboom and it just brings you out of your seat that guy just saw there was such an effect he said oh man this really moves people so during the intermission he comes out and sits down next to you and takes his cymbal and just keeps going wang wang wang wang well after about four times of that you're ready to go wang wang wang and say no no thank you no thank you irritating overpowering nothing about it that's attractive Paul says Paul says if I could speak with tongues of men and even of angels

44:26 I think it's a rhetorical device I don't think he's referring to some special angelic language that people claim to speak when they're slain in the spirit and all this other nonsense but what he's saying is if I had the most exalted facilities of utterance but I am not motivated in the exercise of that utterance by love I will become to men as irritating as a noisy gong and a clanging cymbal that will drive people from me right rather than draw me to my person and to my message with all of my orthodoxy my form of sound words my skill in speaking will be but an orchestration in futility without love not only in God's estimation but in the estimation of discerning people they will sense there's something drastically lacking that makes me feel safe in giving my heart to this man and surely as we read through the entire chapter if I have the gift of prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge and have all faith so as to remove mountains but have not love I am nothing if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor and give my body to be burned

45:54 burn the midnight oil consume myself in my sermon preparation and in the round of other pastoralists but have not love it profits me nothing surely brethren the whole context and substance of 1st Corinthians 13 shows how important is this principle in the work of the ministry that we have a growing measure of unfeigned love for our people but then secondly it's important because of the general demand for evangelical law keeping and because of the general demand for evangelical law keeping this brings us over to page 34 in our notes although peculiar duties and responsibilities are laid upon us in our office you are often reminded in this place no specific ministerial duty is ever an excuse for the negation of the generic duties of a Christian man God never called a man to be a minister to make him a rotten husband and a stinking father and thankfully I just read an excellent several books written by a Christian medical doctor and the junk continues to get reprinted and I find these are out of print by Ed Payne Dr. Ed Payne down in the Atlanta, Georgia area and in an appendix to his book on medical ethics

47:22 he has an essay addressed to medical students and to doctors and one of the points he makes is don't give me this baloney that the demands of your role as a physician warrant being a rotten husband and an inept father he goes after doctors who allow their medical practice to undermine their role as husband and father and he says no way Jose God's told you in his word what to be as a father and as a husband and he never called you to practice medicine in a way that justifies the negation of his word well we could pick that all up and apply it to the work of the ministry and , evangelical law keeping is a generic duty laid upon all of us and perhaps the classic text that underscores this and coming where it does how anyone can take the position that the decalogue has no real abiding biting relevance to us under the new covenant is beyond me for after the only full orb systematic exposition of the gospel in all of its glorious richness that which we have in the book of romans it's paul descends to the practical application and implication of that gospel he writes in verse eight of romans thirteen all no man anything have no unjust debt saved to love one another for

48:51 he that loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law for this you shall not commit adultery you shall not kill you shall not steal you shall not covet if there be any other commandment it is summed up not negated cancelled summed up in this word namely you shall love your neighbor as yourself love works no ill to his neighbor love therefore is the fulfillment of the law love does not cancel the law but love fills up the law to the brim and upon all of us is this obligation for evangelical law keeping seeking to obey the law of God in its detailed injunctions not to earn brownie points with God but to express our gratitude to God in the way that God has told us that gratitude ought to be expressed so whenever I'm in the presence of my neighbor this is my duty and how much more when in the context of being able to do my neighbor his highest good conveying to him the message of life and salvation as a servant of God set apart to the work of the ministry but then there is a third line of argument that I would

The Crucial Importance of Unfeigned Love: Reflecting the Chief Shepherd

50:19 set before you underscoring the importance of this cultivation of unfeigned and growing love to our people and I've described it because of the specific nature of our office and what is the nature of that office well according to 1st Peter 5 1-4 we are the under shepherds of the one who is described as the archipoimen the chief shepherd and we are to shepherd the flock of God as under shepherds accountable to the chief shepherd we shepherd only by the word of Christ and with the recognition that he is the chief shepherd in terms of authority a scepter of authority or a crook of authority to keep the shepherd imagery that he exercises through his word however we are called upon not only to serve by the word of Christ but in the spirit of Christ and in the disposition that is like Christ 1 John 2 6 he that saith he abideth in him ought himself so to walk even as he walked in Matthew 10 25 it is enough that the disciple

51:47 be as his teacher and the servant as his lord or master it is enough that the disciple be be not simply say what his teacher teaches him to say but be what his teacher is so that he embodies his teacher's message in his person as well as conveys his teacher's message in his word now what is the dominant characteristic of the chief shepherd or the one called the mega poymane the great shepherd in all of his dealings with his sheep well you'll notice the text that I've listed John 10 11 and 15 13 John 10 and verse 11 I am the good shepherd the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep he that is a hireling and not a shepherd whose own the sheep are not beholds the wolf coming leaves the sheep flees the wolf snatches them and scatters them he flees because he's a hireling and cares not for the sheep he cares not he's competent to do the task of a shepherd or he never would have been hired

53:17 you don't know hire a shepherd doesn't know the difference between a sheep and a goat and a fox and a coyote you don't hire a man to be a shepherd who has only got one leg the hireling could do the job that's why he was hired unless you're a fool you don't hire a man to shepherd your sheep that's not competent to do the job what's the difference then between a shepherd and a mere hireling cares not there's no bond of love he's got a job he's earning a paycheck so when danger comes all I stand to lose if I split is my paycheck whereas the sheep says what do I stand to lose if I split I lose the objects of my life the sheep so the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep why it's obvious he's bonded to them in love love that is willing to give itself love that is willing to pay the ultimate price and I've quoted John 15 in verse 13 greater love has no man than this so when I say that the laying down of the life is the fruit of love that's not just an assumption greater love has no man than this than a man laid down his life

54:46 for his friends and so our Lord Jesus is bound to his sheep in love a love that as the shepherd is willing to lay down his life and for him he literally did lay down his life in the cruel accursed death of the cross and then in that resurrected life this is why I've quoted revelation 319 he is pictured in the midst of the seven golden lampstands in vision we are being told that Christ is concerned in his state of exaltation for his churches with eyes as a flame of fire dressed in priestly robes and yet royal accoutrements our exalted prophet priest and king I know your works and then he points out sin but what is his motive in revelation 319 he says as many as I love I rebuke and I chasten now it's interesting that it's in his most scathing denunciation to the church at Laodicea where he says because thou art lukewarm I'm about would be a more accurate rendering to capture the tense of the Greek word I am about to vomit you I'm about to puke you you know that sickening feeling you get when you're just about to barf it's a horrible thing you say man I either want to die or barf or go back to the Lord what an imagery I'm about to

56:16 barf the Lord said I've taken it to the point where I'm nauseous and yet he says as many as I love I rebuke and I chasten so brethren there are times when we may see things amongst our people that will sicken us and we may have to speak very strong strident words but if we reflect the chief shepherd we should be able to say God bearing us witness our spirit is that of love and we know before God though our love is not perfect though our love is always tainted with some dimension of our remaining sin we can say that we know that we speak to them even when we must speak words that are scathing denunciatory words that we do so out of love otherwise we greatly misrepresent our chief shepherd the Lord Jesus Christ and the same is true with respect to our dealings with the unsaved and that's why I've listed Matthew 9 37 when he came forth and saw the multitudes how did he see them not as they saw themselves and not as others saw them but he saw them for what they truly were as sheep that were scattered having no shepherd he saw them in all their vulnerability to predators

57:45 then the Luke 1941 passage the very city and nation that our Lord has consigned to God's judgment for her final act of impenitence in rejecting him yet when he beholds the city comes to the brow of it he does not merely weep but his war field is so powerfully expounded the significance of that text in his essay on the emotional life of our Lord he wails over the city he sobs and he wails oh Jerusalem Jerusalem how oft would I have gathered you and you would not so brethren the nature of our very office as under shepherds in which it is incumbent upon us to seek more and more to reflect accurately not only the word of the chief shepherd but the disposition of the chief shepherd demands a growing measure of unfamed love to our people but then in the fourth place this principle of growing love is important because of the constituted relationship between assured love and an open ear now I doubt you've ever heard that terminology and it sounds a bit strange when you first hear it but I trust I'll carry your conscience that I'm not talking nonsense because

The Crucial Importance of Unfeigned Love: Assured Love and an Open Ear

59:13 of the constituted relationship between assured love and an open ear if you and I would do good to our people we must have their ears and if we would have their ears they must have the confidence that we love them if they know that we love them they'll give us their ears if they have reason to suspect we do not love them founded or unfounded they won't give us their ears they will not give us their ears that's why you find again and again when the Lord was commissioning the twelve and the seventy he never said whosoever receives your message but he said he that receives you receives me receives you receives me and he that receives me receives him that sent me people receive the messenger or reject the messenger and his message and so it's vital that we recognize this principle between assured love and an open ear Baxter has stated it so accurately in the reform pastor on page 117 it's paragraph numbered nine on page 117 and then it goes over to page 118 he says the whole of our ministry must be carried on in tender love to our people we must let them see that nothing

60:42 pleases us but what profits them and that what does them good does them good and that what does us good and nothing troubles us more than their hurt we must feel toward our people as a father toward his children yea the tenderest love of a mother must not surpass ours we must even travail in birth till Christ be formed in them they should see that we care for no outward thing neither wealth nor liberty nor honor nor life in comparison of their salvation we must feel that we are in the right place to live in the right place to live in the right place to live in the right place to live in the right place to live in the right place to live in the right place that is to be removed from the number of the living rather than they should not be found in the Lamb's Book of Life thus should we as John said be ready to lay down our lives for the brethren and with Paul not to count our lives dear to us so that we may finish our course with joy and the ministry we received of the Lord Jesus when the people see that you unfeignedly love them they will hear anything and bear anything from you and brethren over 33 years with one congregation I've proven that to be true more than once when I've had to say very difficult things I've gone home

62:11 and said to my wife honey I wouldn't be surprised if half the people don't show up next week and yet they've been there and when I've had occasion to ask them why do you come back to take that kind of brutal dealings with your sin the answer's been pastor because we know you love us we know you love us we know you're desperately committed to seeking to get us to heaven and as long as we know that we'll take it from you listen to what Baxter says we'll put up with a blow that is given us in love sooner than with a foul word spoken to us in malice or in anger saying if I know someone loves me I'll let him pop me in the face but let a man who doesn't love me just say a foul word and I'm I'm ready to go after him most men judge of the council as they judge of the affection of him that gives it at least so far as to give it a fair hearing oh see that you feel a tender love to your people in your breasts and let them perceive it in your speeches and see it in your conduct let them see that you spend and are spent for their sakes and that all you do is for them and not for any private ends of your own and bridges in the Christian ministry on page 336 at the bottom

63:39 speaks of the same principle we're not arguing however for that sensitive delicacy which refrains to wound when the patient shrinks but we know not why the most sensitive energetic tone of faithfulness should not be blended with that considerate treatment which unquestionably is best adapted to the exigency of the case the brute creation may be driven but rational creatures require to be drawn the compulsion of love is the mighty lever of operation our English friends would say lever and then he quotes from one of the here are the heathen philosophers who understood this and then says this love is the life power soul and spirit of effective pulpit preaching entreating rather than denouncing is the fundamental character of our office bridges and then Calvin's choice quote on Paul's comment in Philippians 1 and verse 8 Philippians 1-8 from Calvin's commentary page 231 where Paul says God is my witness how I long after you in the bowels of Jesus Christ how he declares more explicitly his love for them and to prove it he uses an oath

65:07 for God is my witness and that on good grounds because we know how dear in the sight of God is the edification of his church it was too of the first importance that Paul's love should be thoroughly made known to the Philippians for and here he captures the principle it will in no small degree win credit for the teaching when the people are persuaded that they are loved by the teacher the persuasion of the teacher's love as it were is the bulldozer that clears a path into the hearts of the people to receive the teaching we would give them and then and then fifth and finally this principle is vital in the work of the ministry because of the specific ways in which love will influence your preaching both in the preparation and the delivery of your sermons how will love operate well I've listed four ways it will operate in your actual sermon preparation and delivery it will operate in making you be true to the text of scripture when you're convinced that only wholesome words are to be owned of God and are to the benefit of your people what will help you when sitting at your desk you've come at one of those naughty exegetical

The Crucial Importance of Unfeigned Love: Influencing Preaching

66:37 questions or your initial reading of the passage you say Lord there's no way I can thread my way through this here Peter or Paul or John is piling thoughts together in ways that I can't unscramble what is it? that will push you on through that wall of exegetical paralysis but love to your people the truth is what will feed them and I must labor to give them the truth and so it is love that will cause you to maintain fidelity to the text of scripture not only love to God and to his truth but love to your people knowing that it is the truth that alone is healing and nourishing to their souls in the area of illogical order and transparency of structure there are times when you feel God's helped you to get into the text and get the mind of the text but then you say how in the world can I lay this out in a way that is clear and is logical without disrupting the balance of thought in the text that was the great labor of last Sunday morning after I felt I'd begun to understand that last part of 1 Corinthians 10 I said Lord how in the world can I lay this out without being simplistic and yet be clear and was tempted to despair and it's at that point you say no I love my people well enough

68:06 that I don't want to lay on them a burden God's laid on me and that burden is not only to penetrate the mind of God in scripture but to be an apt teacher to lay it out in a way that is clear that burden is mine not my people to sit there and say yes that's it where's the head from the tail and the nose from the ear that's my task not theirs remember what Spurgeon said about that said if I sit and things not clear he said I don't feel any guilt if I don't understand the preacher because he's laying on me a burden that God laid on him and he hadn't done his job Spurgeon said I feel no guilt whatsoever it's his problem he ought to be the one to feel guilty I'm not going to feel guilty and if you have people who have come ready to think and follow the track of your thought the onus is on us well what will keep you laboring throwing out headings and going through your thesaurus and going through your road hail synonym finder and doing everything legitimate to hammer this into some kind of logical order and transparency of structure it's love for your people and then in searching of and riveting the word to the conscience what is it that will cause you to see what is the bridge from the truth into the lives of our people where does it interface with where they live and laboring for legitimate wholesome helpful application it's again love that will keep you at this task and then

69:35 in the earnestness and pathos of throwing yourself into that ministry letting the truth so possess you that it carries you to your people you're not handling something but it is handling you it is possessing you and I've used the text in 1 Thessalonians 2 7 and 8 where Paul says we were well pleased to impart not the gospel of God only but our very souls because you were become dear to us well can Paul's soul save them? no but he said we were willing to impart not just the gospel but our very souls and the gospel has grip and convincingness when the one who preaches it is evidently imparting his own soul his own life with that which he proclaims and it's love it's love that will by the grace of God enable us to preach in this blood earnestness and genuine pathos may I just give you as we conclude this section a couple of quotes that as I went over them in preparation for today's lecture I said yes they're worthy of being repeated each time we come around to this one from the contemporary and then one from the inimitable Spurgeon in his lectures on preaching and preachers Lloyd Jones on page 92 said this a special word must be given though in a sense we've been covering it to the element of

71:04 pathos listen to the confession of the doctor if I had to plead guilty of one thing more than any other I would have to confess that this perhaps has been what has been most lacking in my own ministry this should arise partly from a love for people Richard Cecil an Anglican preacher in London toward the end of the 18th century in the beginning of the 19th said something that should make us all think quote to love to preach is one thing to love those to whom we preach is quite another to love to preach is one thing to love those to whom we preach quite another end quote the doctor goes on to write the trouble with some of us is we love preaching but we are not always careful to make sure we love the people to whom we are actually preaching if you lack this element of compassion for the people you will lack the patience the pathos which is a very vital element in all true preaching and then on page 93 he cites that incident oft repeated of Whitfield and David Garrick the great actor of the 18th century who once said he wished he could even utter the word Mesopotamia as Whitfield uttered it he said he would gladly give a hundred guineas if he could utter the word oh with the same pathos

72:32 with which Whitfield uttered it modern sophisticated man may laugh at this but it's only when we begin to know something of this melting quality that we shall be real preachers of course the man who tries to produce an effect becomes an actor and is an abominable imposter unfeigned love remember but the fact is that when the love of God is shed abroad in a man's heart as it was in Whitfield pathos is inevitable the pathos will manifest itself according to the distinctives of our own God-given humanity but manifest itself it will and it will be known and felt by our hearers I have sat and wept under men who preached with a whisper but the pathos was so evident in what they were communicating in what they were communicating that his heart sent out its tentacles and enveloped mine that's what pathos does that's what pathos does now listen to Spurgeon page 341 of lectures to my students the class requiring logical argument that is the class of our hearers is small with the number of those who need to be pleaded with by way of

74:01 emotional persuasion now here's a full-blown Calvinist speaking brethren emotional persuasion they require not so much reasoning as heart argument which is logic set on fire you must argue with them as a mother pleads with her boy they will not grieve her or as a fond sister entreats a brother to return to their father's home and seek reconciliation argument must be quickened into persuasion by the living warmth of love cold logic has its force but when made red hot with the affections the power of tender argument is inconceivable when passionate zeal has carried a man carried the man himself away his speech becomes an irresistible torrent sweeping all before it a man known to be godly and devout to be felt to be large hearted and self-sacrificing has a power in his very person and his advice and recommendation carry weight because of his character but when he comes to plead and to persuade even to tears his influence is wonderful and god the holy spirit yokes it into his service and then he was on to speak of how this may manifest itself in pleading and he says to a congregation who love you

75:29 it is quite allowable to mention your grief that many of them are unsaved and your vehement desire and incessant prayer for their conversion it's right to do as i did last sunday when i said one of the few things that makes me even contemplate leaving the ministry is to realize that i've poured out my soul in eighteen sermons in two sunday school classes and some of you sit there some of you were there and heard it and i said there's not one change been wrought in your life and it breaks my heart it's right to do that with a people whom you love and a people who know you love them to entreat them not to disappoint you we have biblical warrant for that in our preaching and brethren this then is a litany of five categories of reasons as to why by the grace of god we must as men grow in unfeigned love to our people now we'll take a break till twenty till and then i'll be able to complete heading number three which is the practical suggestions as to the nurture and manifestation of this love and i appreciate your patience