Matthew 9:36
The Disposition of Biblical Oversight, Part 2
In "The Disposition of Biblical Oversight, Part 2," Pastor Albert N. Martin continues his exposition on the essential dispositions for effective pastoral ministry, focusing on tender compassion, self-giving love, principled zeal for God's glory, and diligent determination. Drawing heavily from the life and ministry of Jesus Christ and the Apostle Paul, Martin illustrates these qualities through passages like Matthew 9:36, Mark 1:41, Luke 7:13, John 10:11-12, John 2:13-17, John 12:27-28, and Romans 12:8. He argues that these dispositions, though costly and often counter-intuitive to natural human inclinations, are indispensable for true shepherding, enabling pastors to overcome personal aversions and minister effectively for the glory of God and the salvation and sanctification of His people.
Primary Texts
Topics
Outline 10 sections · 81 min
- The Disposition of Tender Compassion 0:03
- Paul's Compassionate Ministry and the Cost of True Compassion 7:53
- The Disposition of Self-Giving Love: Christ's Pattern and Paul's Example 16:09
- The Power and Practice of Self-Giving Love in Pastoral Ministry 22:45
- Introducing Zeal for God's Glory and Determined Diligence 27:15
- Principled Zeal for God's Honor: Christ's Example in the Temple 32:07
- Principled Zeal for God's Honor: Christ's Example at Golgotha and in His Exaltation 40:34
- Principled Zeal for God's Honor: Paul's Example in Counsel and Prayer 51:02
- Disposition of Diligence and Dogged Determination: Christ's Example 62:13
- Application: Conquering the Sin of Being Slaves to Feelings 72:43
Key Quotes
“Because true compassion is indeed a kind of pain inflicted upon the soul. And we know if we let it take hold of us, it's going to make demands upon us that will cost us something.”
“But it is devoid of genuine, tender compassion and felt pastoral concern as a computer. And they wonder why it is not effective.”
“He says, in essence, to be less than tender and compassionate is to defrock yourself and to mark yourself as a false shepherd.”
“Willing to impart not mere counsel only, but your very soul, because that sheep is dear unto you.”
“When the people see that you unfeignedly love them they will hear anything and bear anything from you.”
“our Lord resolves the issue saying in essence that the experience of my comfort may your name be glorified at the price of my agony father glorify your name”
“you weren't brought up learning to kick your feelings in the butt and do what was your duty no matter what you felt like walk over the belly of your disinformation spit on it and tromp on it and do your duty without one twinge of felt delight in the course of it”
Applications
All listeners
- Recognize that true compassion is a costly response of the whole inner being, involving pain and remorse.
- Resist the reflexive desire to draw back from the pain of true compassion, understanding its cost is necessary to be like Christ.
- Avoid being like a computer in ministry, delivering accurate analysis without genuine, tender compassion and felt pastoral concern.
- Be aware of the temptation to become calloused in self-defense over the long haul of ministry, and resist building callouses on the soul.
- Constantly test yourself: 'Could it be said in any sense that I wrung out my soul over those to whom I prayed?' If not, then you've not prayed.
- In counseling, be willing to impart not just counsel but your very soul, with concentrated inner energy, because the sheep is dear to you.
- Be willing to wear people down by love, even when experiencing unrequited love in ministerial duty, trusting in the power of incessant, principled pastoral love.
- Cry to God for self-giving love, living much in 1 Corinthians 13 and praying for that kind of love to be inwrought by the Holy Spirit.
- Let people see your tender love in your speeches and conduct, demonstrating that you spend and are spent for their sake, not for private ends.
- Find delight in mingling with your sheep, being among your people, and being one of the last to leave on the Lord's Day, touching every person out of sheer delight.
- Validate your public ministry with genuine interest, concern, desire, and involvement in your ordinary conduct.
- In the study, when dealing with individuals struggling with besetting sins, sit and look interested and concerned, driven by self-giving love even when covering the same ground repeatedly.
- Ensure that principled zeal for the honor and glory of God dominates not only preaching but also the manifold tasks of pastoral government, rule, and other labors of oversight.
- Cultivate the gift of public prayer with God's glory as the motive, laboring to pray more edifying, structured, and holy eloquent prayers.
- Let God's glory be the driving force in leading church discipline, tracking down wayward sheep, and every facet of oversight.
- Mark your work of oversight and shepherding with the same spirit of diligence and dogged determination as preaching, in season and out of season, regardless of feelings.
- Avoid being a slave to your feelings, which can lead to hot and cold ministry and aversion to unpleasant duties.
- Conquer the sin of being ruled by feelings; otherwise, do not allow yourself to be installed as an elder, as it will lead to a neglected flock.
- Do not be at the mercy of your feelings in analyzing worship, tracking down delinquents, or addressing difficult questions; constantly come to these tasks with an open Bible and heart.
- Behold your Lord in the Gospels, gazing upon his meekness, servanthood, humility, and assertive servanthood, praying that the Spirit of God will work these graces in your own heart.
- Pray for a heart increasingly indifferent to what men say, as your meekness, servanthood, zeal, determination, love, and compassion may lead to being called names like 'pushover,' 'madman,' 'legalist,' 'prodigal,' or 'soft,' recognizing this as bearing the reproach of Christ.
- Overcome the hang-up of worrying about what visitors or others might think of your actions in ministry; let them think what they will, and do not let the tyranny of others' opinions dictate your ministry.
A full transcript is available on the tab. 147 paragraphs, roughly 81 minutes.
The Disposition of Tender Compassion
All right, brethren, let's try to pick up the thread of our consideration of this matter of the disposition that must manifest itself in the life of the servant of Christ as he does the work of oversight. We focused upon the first two and spent a disproportionate amount of time on them because I believe they are so fundamental, namely asserted servanthood and then the disposition of meekness with its attendance of lowliness and gentleness. Now we come in the third place to consider what I am calling the disposition of tender compassion.
A disposition of tender compassion. Some might say, well, isn't all compassion tender? Well, it may be, so it just may be redundant, but hopefully it will...
color our whole concept of what I'm trying to express when we turn to such passages as Matthew 9, 37, Mark 1, 41, and Luke 7, 13. Looking to our Lord Jesus as the great pattern and example of what it is to be a true shepherd, we read in this well-known passage, Matthew 9, and verse...
I'm sorry, verse... 36.
But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion for them. And notice the imagery, because, as we saw Sunday night, this was their true condition. They were distressed and scattered. They were in a tumult, confusion, the word used of the distress of nations in conjunction with the destruction of Jerusalem.
They were distressed and scattered. Scattered as sheep, not having a shepherd. So apparently, in our Lord's compassion, it was something of that tender yearning that a shepherd would feel if he saw a flock of sheep, shepherdless, exposed to wolves, confused, disorganized. And in that spirit, our Lord then gives the mandate to pray the Lord of the harvest.
In Mark, chapter 1, and verse 41, we have another account of our Lord's compassion in the face of need. And there comes to him a leper, verse 40, beseeching him and kneeling down to him and saying unto him, If you will, you can make me clean.
And prior to any action or word of our Lord intimating what he would do, Mark tells us, And being... Moved with compassion.
And you know, if you've done any study of that Greek word, that it points to the whole matter of the bowels, the viscera, the inners, being moved and stirred in the face of human need. So our Lord did not heal this man, reasoning within himself, I am Messiah, I must produce my credentials, I have been anointed with the Spirit, here is one who will be a marvelous testimony and attestation of my power, moved with a desire to vindicate his identity. No, moved with compassion.
The need that he saw caused a corresponding response of compassion in his breast. And then in Luke 7, in verse 13, another statement of this disposition, The disposition of our Lord came to pass when he went to a city called Nain, and his disciples went with him in a great multitude. Now when he drew near to the gate of the city, behold, there was carried out one that was dead, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and much people of the city was with her. And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her,
that is, the widow, and said unto her, Weep not. Now here again, marvelous opportunity to vindicate his messianic claims in the raising of the dead. But may I say it reverently, the thing that filled our Lord's mind at this time was not adding another star in the crown of his messianic identity. The level of his consciousness as the point of the miracle was his star.
His compassion upon a grieving widow who had one son, and he was now dead. Now this disposition of compassion, brethren, I don't know how to do anything other than try to talk around it. It is a response of the whole inner being that can never be experienced without a sense of pain and without a sense of remorse. It will be costly.
Remember, in another instant, Jesus felt that virtue had gone out from him, and the woman touched the hem of his garment. And with our sense, the legitimate sense of self-preservation that keeps us from getting out, that tries to take us out here in the metropolitan area, that makes us instinctively and reflexively jump back from the oncoming car to pull our hand away from the stove we inadvertently touched and had forgotten. So when we begin to look at people and situations that start the first motions of this stirring of the bowels,
there is a reflexive desire to draw back from the pain of true compassion.
Because true compassion is indeed a kind of pain inflicted upon the soul. And we know if we let it take hold of us, it's going to make demands upon us that will cost us something. And yet without it, how can we be like our Lord? And that's why I emphasized in these passages that his action was precipitated not so much from a desire to buttress his identity, but to give vent to the compassion that he felt as he looked upon the need.
Now the two are not mutually exclusive, but certainly these texts point to the predominance of an activity that was the response of compassion rather than a desire for vindication. And this is why our Lord was so at home with children, he was at home with the outcasts, he was at home with the rip-wrath, because they sensed this compassion. It's amazing what barriers felt compassion can overcome. Amazing.
Paul's Compassionate Ministry and the Cost of True Compassion
And the Apostle Paul again, greatly reflected our Lord. This is why he could say in Acts 20 and verse 31 that in his ministry, three years I cease not to admonish. There's assertiveness. Admonition is authoritative correction and warning.
This is not a saccharine, soft-handed, wishy-washy preacher. He was a preacher who admonished, and he was courageous. Every one, not just generic shooting with his eyes blind, he got along with people in the room and got them in the crosshairs with one bullet in the shell aimed at their temple. He was courageous.
Every one, but how did he do it? Day and night, he says, with tears, with tears. When I saw need that warranted perhaps even stern admonition, it was compassion for those that I admonished. Not merely a sense, this is my duty, this is my office, this is my apostolic function.
The heart was moved with compassion. And one of the most tender and moving expressions of it, if ever a man wore his heart on his sleeve, it's there in 2 Corinthians chapter 6. Here these people have shut their hearts to Paul because they've listened to these false apostles, who've denigrated and undermined his apostolic identity and function, and yet he, in the midst of polemicizing, as it were, cries out to his pen. And it's as though pen can't hold these kind of words.
Verse 11 of 2 Corinthians 6, O Corinthians, he says, our mouth is opened unto you, O Corinthians, our heart is enlarged. You are not straitened or compressed in us, but you are straitened or compressed or narrowed in your own affections. Now for a recompense in like kind I speak as unto my children, be ye also enlarged. Look at the compassion.
Look at the tenderness. His whole heart, when he said our mouth is opened, our heart is enlarged. We've become pressed out of your hearts, but no matter what you do to us, you're not pressed out of our hearts.
That's costly. We experience unrequited love in ministerial duty and responsibility. But he said further to these people, though the more I love you, the less I be loved, I'm going to go right on left. That's costly.
That's costly. And yet that's what we're called to. Look at 2 Corinthians 2 and 3. Open your hearts to us.
We wronged no man. We corrupted no man. We took advantage of no man. I say it not to condemn you, for I said before, look at the language, you are in our hearts to die together and live together.
You are in our hearts and nothing will extricate you from that place in the center. The multitudes of our affection and brethren as we're called upon to deal with battered, bruised men and women, twisted, warped, stunted emotionally, psychologically, spiritually. There is no place for an unfeeling, clinical, cold, stele-like objectivity. Where we simply, as it were, push the computer buttons of the mind
and true biblical data. You see, the computer that may give the most accurate answer to your question feels nothing. You can punch into it all of the information to extract from it a diagnosis and it can give the diagnosis you're dying of terminal cancer and the computer feels nothing. I'm fearful that too many ministers are like that.
They have programmed into the computer of the mind and the soul all of the data to analyze spiritual need and problem. And when the person sits across the desk or when they're in the home, they push the right buttons and out comes the right analysis. But it is devoid of genuine, tender compassion and felt pastoral concern as a computer. And they wonder why it is not effective.
And you will be tempted over the long haul, brethren. And remember, I don't speak as a novice,
but as one who saw to live and labor in one place for 26 years. You will be tempted with the passing of the years to become calloused in self-defense. A callous is the self-defense mechanism of your skin. You keep rubbing on the area and it has a self-defense mechanism.
It builds up a callous so you won't have blisters there all the time. And you will be tempted to build up callouses on the soul because blisters on the soul hurt. And when the skin of the blisters is ripped off, you will be tempted to build up callouses on the soul. And when the skin of the blisters is ripped off, it's painful.
It's the price of being a true servant of Christ.
Listen to Owen, Volume 16, page 87.
One of the requirements, he says, the special duties of the pastors of the churches, and here's one of them, of compassionate suffering that all the members of the church in all their trials and troubles, whether internal or external, belongs unto them in the discharge of their office. Nor is there anything that is not of the church that renders them more like unto Jesus Christ whom they represent unto the church is their principal duty. The view and consideration by faith of the glory of Christ in His compassion with His suffering members is the principal spring of consolation
unto the church in all its distresses. And the same spirit, the same mind herein ought, according to them, to be the same spirit according to them, according to them, to be in all that have the pastoral office committed unto them. So the apostle expresses it in himself, who is weak, and I am not weak, who is offended, and I burn not, 2 Corinthians 11, 29. And unless this compassion and goodness runs through the discharge of the whole office preaching the pastoral interaction, man cannot be said to be evil.
Nor the evangelical shepherds, nor the sheep said in any sense to be their own. For those who pretend unto the pastoral office to live, it may be, in wealth and pleasure, regardless of the sufferings and temptations of their flock, or of the poor of it, or related unto such churches as wherein it is impossible that they should so much as be acquainted with the state of the greatest power of the world. And the heart of them is not answerable to the institution of their office, nor to the design of Christ therein. End quote.
The Disposition of Self-Giving Love: Christ's Pattern and Paul's Example
Owen understood this principle. He says, in essence, to be less than tender and compassionate is to defrock yourself and to mark yourself as a false shepherd. Then, fourthly, and flowing out of it, and I wrestled with whether it should be amalgamated with it, and I said, no, I believe it is a distinct quality. It's what I'm calling a disposition of self-giving love.
A disposition of self-giving love. And in the interest of time, I cannot turn and expound all of the passages, but here again our Lord is the great pattern. John 10, verses 11 and 12, the good shepherd loves his sheep, and in loving them he's prepared to give. He's prepared to give his life for his own.
In contrast with the hireling, he's willing to carry a crook and have all the marks of a shepherd till there's a wolf that might turn on him. And he's gone. He splits. The hireling whose own the sheep are not, he flees.
But the good shepherd says, if you wolf are going to touch these sheep,
there's going to either be a dead shepherd or a dead wolf. One or the other. There's going to be a dead shepherd, there's going to be a dead wolf.
But there's not going to be just foot tracks and dust while I run and you pounce. The good shepherd lays down his life. And then the beautiful figure, of course, of Christ, the heavenly bridegroom in Ephesians 5.25.
And so Paul uses such language as 1 Thessalonians 2.8. We were well pleased to impart unto you, not the gospel of God only, but our very souls, because you were become very dear to us. Some would call that the feminine, soft language.
So be it.
You were become very dear to us. We were willing. We were pleased. It was our desire and delight to impart, not just dump gospel truth upon you, carloads of orthodox, reformed gospel teaching.
And in part, our very souls.
One of the tests, brethren, that I find I constantly make upon myself when I come home at the end of the Lord's day, I ask myself, when I come back from preaching as I did last night, could it be said in any sense that I wrung out my soul over those to whom I prayed?
If not, then I've not prayed.
And in the counseling room, when the person leaves, can I say, I've sat there in the pot, in a posture willing not simply to give those aspects of gospel truth suited to their particular problem of a besetting sin or a need of guidance. Though the circumstantials will be entirely different in terms of the physical energy and the decibels of your speaking, are you there with all the concentrated energy of your own inner man and ringing out your soul over that needy sheep? Willing to impart not mere counsel only, but your very soul,
because that sheep is dear unto you.
That's the apostolic standard. That's where Paul reflects the heart of his own Lord. That's why he can say in 2 Corinthians 12, verses 14 and 15, this is the third time I'm ready to come to you. I will not be a burden to you, for I seek not, yours but you.
For the children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children. And I will most gladly spend and be spent or utterly spent out for your souls. If I love you more abundantly, am I loved the less? Be it so, I did not myself burden you.
Brethren, no wonder the church is in the message,
because there is so little self, giving love, where men are willing and prepared to live the life of the ringing out of their souls over their people. Not to have their own affections altered by the response of their people, but to wear them down by love. That to me is one of the great challenges of a lengthy pastor. You take the posture Marxists do.
They believe time is on their side and they'll wear you down till they conquer. It's a wonderful, wonderful challenge to see people come in closed, get the sense that no one's ever invaded their inner life and they're determined no one ever will. And you just love them down. Just keep on loving them.
Just keep on loving them. And just like the water that washes over the rock can take the sharpest edge and make it smooth, it's wonderful to see love eroding those barriers and eroding the barriers until in some cases I think of one woman it took me ten years to win her before I'd ever sense that she responded with her heart. Oh, she was never impolite to me. She was never disrespectful.
She was never a troublemaker. She just was opaque and distant. And she wouldn't be loved. Wouldn't receive it.
Wouldn't reciprocate. I just kept letting it wash over and wash over and wash over and wash over and wash over and then the edges began to erode. Power. Power.
Power. The incessant principled pastoral love. But it's self-giving love. It costs.
The Power and Practice of Self-Giving Love in Pastoral Ministry
And where do we get it? Well, just like the meekness and gentleness the fruit of the Spirit is love. Cry to God for that love. Live much in 1 Corinthians 13 praying that that kind of love manifested in those ways will be inwrought upon your very spirit by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Listen to Baxter. We'll come to this later on in your reading. This is what he says in the Reformed Pastor on page 117. The whole of our ministry must be carried on in tender love to our people.
We must let them see see the emphasis. We must not only know that it's so we must let them see that nothing pleases us but what profits them and that what does then good 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 travel 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 but could even be content with Moses' to have our names blotted out of the book of life 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 count our lives dear unto us that we may finish our course with joy in the ministry we've received of the Lord Jesus.
When the people see that you unfeignedly love them they will hear anything and bear anything from you. Most men judge of the counsel as they judge of the affection of him that gives it at least so far as to give it a fair hearing. Oh, therefore see 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 sake and all you do is for them and not for any private ends of your life.
Frankly brethren this is why I don't understand how any man who has a shepherd's heart doesn't find it his delight to mingle with his sheep. Not to dump his wad of exposition on them and run off and hide.
But to be found among his people to be one of the last ones to leave on the Lord's day. Regretting that the sheep are scattering and going to their various homes. Touching every person he can out of sheer delight in them because he loves them. It's awfully hard to be as distant and cold as a visiting lecturer on astrophysics and then stand up and preach with passion and think they're going to believe you.
Preach with passion and then come out of the pulpit and interact with genuine interest and concern and desire and involvement.
Validate in your ordinary conduct what you desire to reflect and I hope are actually reflecting in your public ministry and in the work of oversight.
Perhaps as in no other area in the general administration of the life of the church and the caring for the individual sheep there must be a disposition of self-giving love to sit in the study and that person struggling with the besetting to hear them time after time going over the same ground. You could almost know where the record is and where it's going and you've got to sit there and look interested and concerned and nothing going to make you do it but self-giving love. Self-giving love.
Introducing Zeal for God's Glory and Determined Diligence
Self-giving love. Well, our time is gone and this didn't happen last time I went through the lecture so I get for rewriting the first two pages I guess and I've got to stop. And so we're just going to have to have to tack on the last two. Let me tell you what they are.
A disposition of zeal for the honor and glory of God. That will be number five and number six a disposition of determined and principled diligence.
A disposition of determined and principled diligence.
And so what we will do before we start unit two the biblical categories of the church. The task will begin with those two qualities showed how they are illustrated in the life of our Lord and of the Apostle because again brethren we're talking about matters now that are central to the whole work of doing the task that God has laid upon us.
Now in our consideration of the varied aspects of pastoral duty and privilege we have begun this semester to examine the subject of the essential elements of effective pastoral oversight. And as you can see from your abstract we are at the beginning of part two about halfway down the page and right to the left of it you see PT5 which means Pastoral Theology Unit Number 5 which is this semester and we are presently concerned with Unit 1 under Part 2 the biblical description of the task both in its essence Roman numeral 1
and Roman numeral 2 in its disposition. Now last week as we began to take up the subject of its disposition I laid before you three introductory concerns a concern of definition in which I define the word disposition as the word which describes the normal or the prevailing aspect of a man's nature. Therefore we are focusing on the graces and attitudes which must prevail in the heart of the servant of Christ as he performs the task of oversight. And then in the introduction I gave an explanation
concerning my selective principle and it was that Christ as the chief and great shepherd is our perfect model of a bishop and an overseer and father Paul and others who follow Christ are also to be our models. And that principle I stated was wonderfully articulated by Owen in volume 16 page 49 if we would know what these ministerial qualifications and endowments are for the substance of them we may learn them in their great example and pattern our Lord Jesus Christ himself. Our Lord
being the good shepherd whose the sheep are the shepherd and bishop of our souls the chief shepherd did design in the undertaking and exercise of his pastoral office to give a type and example unto all those that are called unto the same office under him. And then Owen goes on to make that bold statement and if there be not a conformity unto him herein no man can assure his own conscience or the church of God that he is or can be lawfully called unto this office. And then in the introduction I made a confession
a confession of frustration fearing that I would be arbitrary in the selection of the material fearing imbalance and therefore appealing for your help and input as we work through these matters. Well then we began to address the specific elements of the disposition which must increasingly mark our labors in the pastoral oversight of the flock and we had time to cover but four of them. A disposition of asserted servanthood a disposition of meekness with its attendant graces of loneliness and gentleness a disposition of tender compassion and a disposition of self-giving love.
Principled Zeal for God's Honor: Christ's Example in the Temple
Now this morning in the remainder of this first hour I wish to complete our treatment of this matter of the disposition of the task of oversight and in the second hour to give the introduction to unit two if you look at your abstract the biblical categories of the task. So then as we seek to complete our examination of the disposition essential to the task of oversight we add to the previous four a fifth and a sixth. Number five a disposition of principled zeal for the honor
and glory of God in seeking to have a biblical description of the task of pastoral oversight with respect to its disposition taking Christ as our model surely we must include this element of disposition of principled zeal for the honor and glory of God. In our Lord Jesus Christ this was a dominant aspect of his soul and a powerful impetus of his ministerial labors. As a classic example consider the first cleansing of the temple
as recorded in the second chapter of John's Gospel. John chapter 2 and I shall read verses 13 through 17. And the Passover of the Jews was at hand and Jesus went up to Jerusalem and he found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves and the changers of money sitting and he made a scourge of cords and cast all out of the temple both out of the temple of the sheep and the oxen and he poured out the changers money and overthrew their tables
and to them that sold the doves he said take these things hence make not my father's house a house of merchandise his disciples remembered that it was written zeal for your house shall eat me. Now in his commentary on the Gospel of John Hendrickson gives a very graphic picture of what our Lord found when he came to his father's house on the occasion of that first cleansing of the temple. On page 122 of his commentary on John
he writes as follows Now on this occasion Jesus entering Jerusalem's temple notices that the court of the Gentiles had been changed into what must have resembled a stockyard. There was the stench and the filth the bleating and the lowing of animals destined for sacrifice. It is true in the abstract that each worshipper was allowed to bring to the temple an animal of his own selection but let him try it. In all likelihood it would not be approved by the judges the privileged vendors who filled the money chest of Annas.
Hence to save trouble and disappointment animals for sacrifice were bought right here in the outer court which was called the court of the Gentiles because they were permitted to enter it. Of course the dealers in cattle and sheep would be tempted to charge exorbitant prices for such animals. They would exploit the worshippers and those who sold pigeons would do likewise charging perhaps four dollars for a buck. A pair of doves worth a nickel.
And there he footnotes Alfred Eddersheim's The Light and Times of Jesus the Messiah page 370. And then there were the money changers sitting cross-legged behind their little coin-covered tables. They gave the worshipper lawful Jewish coin in exchange for foreign currency. It must be borne in mind that only Jewish coins were allowed to be offered in the temple and every worshipper women, slaves and minors accepted had to pay the annual temple tribute of half a shekel.
Consult Exodus 30.16. The money changers would charge a certain fee for every exchange transaction. Here too there were abundant opportunities for deception and abuse.
And in view of these conditions the holy temple intended as a house of prayer for all people. The temple had become a veritable den of robbers. Now into that situation our Lord comes. And if you want an interesting study just circle in your English Bibles better yet in pencil in your Greek text the vigorous verbs that are used to describe the activity of our Lord on this occasion.
Once discovering all of these evil commodities present we read in verse 15 he made a scourge of cords and cast out of the temple poured out the changers over through their tables and then that peremptory command take these things hence tremendous vigor in those verbs and in the subsequent or what is called second cleansing of the temple which occurred during the beginning of the passion week as recorded in Matthew 21 and in the parallel places in the synoptics
we find that it's clear that he not only drove out the animals and overturned the money changers tables but actually drove out the people involved in this sordid business. And when the disciples saw the Lord with the scourge in his hand turning over the money changers tables and driving out the beasts there was a text out of Psalm 69 that came to their minds and it is the text in which it is recorded zeal for your house shall or has eaten me up zeal for your house
has consumed me and I would urge you to read the psalm in its context because it is a text that is because it is in that very context that enmity to Messiah is deeply provoked because of the zeal that he has for the purity of the house of God. Now it's interesting that among all of the characteristics that the disciples saw highlighted when our Lord engaged in this act of cleansing the temple it was this characteristic of principled zeal for the honor and glory of God in the place
of his special presence.
And it was that zeal that was principled. Our Lord was not a frenzied madman though he may have had to a careless onlooker all the marks of such a madman. But he perceptively reacted to what he accurately saw in the temple. What he saw provoked this zeal for God's honor which led to the braving of that scourge and to the following vigorous activities and zeal for God's honor is what drove him to this task.
Principled Zeal for God's Honor: Christ's Example at Golgotha and in His Exaltation
Now a second principle passage which demonstrates this grace of principled zeal for the glory of God in the life of our Lord is John chapter 12.
In the John chapter 12 John 2 passage the zeal focuses upon his concern for the purity of the activities in the place of God's special presence. That's the pointed significance of that passage for this division of our subject. Now in John chapter 12 you remember the setting. People have come the Greeks seeking to see Jesus and our Lord uses this occasion to articulate the truth that the Jesus whom they have come to see is like the grain of wheat the one who must die if he would bear fruit and then our Lord goes on
to say in verse 27 in anticipation of his own voluntary death now is my soul troubled and what shall I say? Father save me from this hour now is my soul troubled but for this hour but for this cause came I unto this hour Father glorify your name. There came therefore a voice out of heaven saying I have both glorified it and will glorify it again.
There is a sense in which this is a preview of Gethsemane. You'll remember that with respect to Gethsemane it says that his soul was exceedingly troubled and in referring to that in the book of Hebrews it refers to it as a troubling even unto death and here our Lord focuses upon that coming baptism of Golgotha and he finds within his holy soul a holy aversion to the realities that are now to come upon him in conjunction with Golgotha
and the death of the cross and I use my words carefully he finds a holy aversion in his holy soul to those events now is my soul troubled and what shall I say and here's the aversion Father save me from this hour there is a part of my holy soul which has a holy wish that I should not be inundated by my father's wrath and that was not a cowardly nor a sinful aversion it was a holy aversion I believe it's Professor Murray
who underscores the fact that for our Lord to march as it were without aversion into the teeth of divine wrath would have been a horrible reflection of the fact that our Lord would have been a horrible reflection of an irreligious spirit even the Holy Son of God cannot contemplate the fierceness of divine wrath without holy aversion who knoweth the power of thy wrath and the fear that is due unto thee and yet he says rather than pray Father save me from this hour there is that fresh and immediate self-possession that says no but for this cause came I unto this hour how can I pray
to bypass the very thing that is the epitome or the apex of the purpose for which I have been brought to this hour and therefore he makes his plea Father glorify thy name now do you see the conjunction it was this passion for the vindication of God's glory in a salvation that would meet all the righteousness demands of God's law while making the fullest display of his love and mercy that enables our Lord to overcome that holy aversion in his holy soul
to the horrors of the cross it is this principle zeal for the honor and the glory of God that sinners would be saved in a way in which the glory of God will be vindicated and manifested that brings our Lord through that trauma of indecision and aversion and brings him to this fresh settled commitment of heart and will to the path that will lead to Golgotha it is the will of my Father and it is the only way to see my Father glorified and zeal
for the glory of God presses him through that which was an aversion in the accomplishment of the salvation of his people now do you see the relevance of this for our subject you see in the work of oversight there must not only be zeal focused upon the glory of God in the place of his special dwelling his church but in the ongoing pursuit of the salvation of God's people their initial incorporation into the church through the proclamation of the gospel and then their maturation into the fullness of the stature of Christ their ongoing sanctification
there will be many times when you and I will confront situations to which we have not a carnal aversion but a holy aversion there will be carnal aversions enough but there will be times when there are even holy aversions any man who can walk headlong into the teeth of that which will mean disruption and ill will and evil speaking and perhaps rejection and walk into it with no aversion something is sick in the man both psychologically as well as spiritually and what is it brethren
that will cause us to press through the temporary halting of those experiences of holy aversion the conviction that the path we must walk is the will of our father and that it is the only way to see our father glorified that God's glory is worth it enough that our own reputation and feelings are expendable but not his glory our Lord resolves the issue saying in essence that the experience of my comfort may your name be glorified at the price of my agony
father glorify your name Satan must be judged my people must be delivered if you father are to be glorified thus zeal for the house of God consumed him and drove him onward to the cross and then a third passage that is vital in seeing this quality in the shepherding heart of our Lord Jesus is Revelation chapters 2 and 3 and we'll not take the time to turn to those chapters we just don't have time but I suggest that you do so in your own meditation
I think we have all together too frequently overlooked the profound significance of those chapters in terms of the Lord Jesus as the great shepherd of his people as the exalted pastor of his flock for there John saw the exalted Lord in the midst of the seven lampstands the seven churches and here we see the Lord as the shepherd of his people examining scrutinizing commending rebuking the various flocks of his sheep scattered throughout Asia Minor and when we read of the comforts and when we read of the rebukes and the threats
what do we see in our exalted Lord in that marvelous vision John had of the Lord Jesus walking in the midst of the lampstands we see him in his present state still consumed with zeal for his father's glory in his house and when he sees the sheep in the oxen of spiritual coldness he rebukes it and when he sees the money changers of falsehoods teachers he rebukes and he calls to repentance and Revelation chapters 2 and 3 and the seven letters to the seven churches are in many ways a marvelous paradigm of pastoral concern
for the churches here our Lord does not take the position well the church will never be perfect this side of the consummation therefore why strive to make it pure and perfect he calls every church to purity and to perfection and where there is purity and relative perfection he commands and he does not rebuke where there is a waning of ardor in love to him and zeal for the purity of truth there he rebukes he warns and he threatens zeal for his father's house may I say it reverently consumes him still in his present state
Principled Zeal for God's Honor: Paul's Example in Counsel and Prayer
of glorification as he walks amidst the land stands and if we are conformed to our Lord Jesus Christ we shall share something of that principled zeal for the honor and glory of God in the midst of his church then when we turn to the Apostle Paul we find the same principled zeal for the glory of God in the life and ministry of the church and the glory of God in the life and ministry of the church as a pastor to all of the churches as you have learned and will learn in your ecclesiology course the apostles were universal
pastors that is pastors to all of the churches in virtue of their own unique office and position well when the apostle is giving pastoral counsel what is it that so often breaks out in that council well it is this principled zeal for the honor and glory of God he is dealing with a host of practical problems in the letter to the Corinthians and when he touches on the whole matter of the adiaphora things indifferent what does he make the apex of his exhortation in chapter 10 verse 31 whether therefore you eat or drink or whatsoever you do do all to the glory
of God here is the sum and substance of all of my directives all of the principles I have laid before you with regard to the matter of whether or not you ought to fully exercise your rights in things indifferent and in things legitimate and lawful here is the ultimate passion that ought to grip you whether you eat or drink or whatever you do in these matters let the glory of God be the regulative and constantly impressive principle upon your spirits and then in the practical matter of taking up the collection for the poor saints that you did it's interesting that twice in 2nd Corinthians 8, 19 and 9, 13
the glory of God in the churches is his great passion even when it comes to the mundane matter of money what is called in our old English version even the matter of filthy lucre 2nd Corinthians 8 in verse 19 he says not only so but this one was appointed by the churches to travel with us in the matter of this grace which is ministered by us to the glory of our Lord in this most practical pastoral concern of setting up a good administrative framework that is
without any shadow of doubt as to motive and efficiency he says the glory of God is the passion that drives me and then in chapter 9 in verse 13 he said what will be the ultimate result of this seeing that through the proving of you by this ministration they glorify God Paul's great concern is that when the collection is taken efficiently and without any ethical shadows thrown over the manner of it and is actually delivered what will be the end result not just bellies filled and backs clothed but people that will be glorifying God for what he has
done in the churches to give a spirit of benevolence and catholicity among his people look at the same passion in his pastoral counsel in Romans 15 Romans chapter 15 verses 6 and 7 again the conclusion of dealing with the matters of the world is that we are indifferent in chapter 14 and the great truth in the beginning of chapter 15 that Christ is our pattern of selfless acceding to others he says in verses 5 and 6 now the God of patience and comfort grant you to be
of the same mind one with another according to Christ Jesus why that with one accord you may with one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ wherefore receive one another as Christ also received you to the glory of God you see this is not just some reformed catch word Paul is in the midst of giving practical pastoral advice he's a pastor to the church at Rome by means of this letter and he said his great passion in giving the this counsel and in yearning that they take it and that
God make it effective is that glory will be brought to God the Father through the Lord Jesus Christ as they heed his pastoral counsel so in the midst of all of our pastoral counsel whether given corporately to the people of God as here or individually in our one-on-one shepherding what is the great passion not just the well-being of the sheep not just the nurturing of a good shepherd flock relationship it is ultimately this principle zeal for the glory of God it throbs through his pastoral prayers for example Philippians chapter one and I'm giving you this scripture because brethren
I want the Bible to hammer out your perspectives of this work of oversight Philippians chapter one as he tells the Philippians the subterranean obstinance and the as it were the skeletal outline of his prayers for them and this I pray verse nine that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and all 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 he is
pleading he says for them that God will enable them to increase more and more in knowledge and discernment or in that love which is characterized by knowledge and discernment that in that increase of those graces they may have ethical and moral sensitivity and make right ethical and moral judgments to the end that they may be filled with the fruits of righteousness but what's the ultimate goal to this to vindicate Paul as an apostle no to vindicate the efficiency of their overseers no to give them a good reputation as a church no it is this principle zeal for the glory of God that God will not be
glorified in that church in any other way but their maturation in discerning love which results in proper ethical choices which causes them in turn to abound in the fruits of righteousness and then you find not only this passion in his pastoral counsel his pastoral prayers but his pastoral doxologies and you're familiar with them at the end of seeking to give instruction to the church about the great sweep of divine sovereignty in the history of redemption on what note does he end in Romans 11 verse 36 for of him and through him and unto him are all things
to whom be the glory forever and forever and he has another doxology at the end of that same epistle and the last words of that epistle are these to the only wise God through Jesus Christ to whom be the glory forever and ever amen and you see brethren we must not regard these things as mere literary and liturgical devices they're a revelation of the heartthrob of this pastor of the churches when in his pastoral counsel his pastoral prayers and his pastoral doxologies there is this principled zeal for the
glory of God now let me say by way of application before we move on more briefly to deal with the sixth element of this disposition no one acquainted with the word would dispute that this principle zeal for the honor and glory of God ought to dominate in the disposition that regulates our preaching I doubt anyone would dispute that that in our preaching the great principled zeal should be not the manifestation of our cleverness our gifts or anything else but that God will be glorified in the unfolding of his mind as
contained in this book of , special revelation but I am pressing for the dominance of this motive in the manifold tasks of pastoral government rule and the other labors connected with overseeing the flock of God this also must be the dominant aspect of our disposition in regulating and ordering the worship of God in cultivating the gift of public prayer we're going to have a lecture on cultivating the gift of public prayer why should I labor at being able to pray more edifying
more structured more holy eloquent prayers in my public praying God's glory in the matter of taking the lead in the discipline of the church God's glory tracking down the wayward sheep God's glory and every facet of the work of oversight as in every facet of preaching principled zeal for the glory of God must be a dominant element of the disposition with which this work is done then number six there must be a disposition of
Disposition of Diligence and Dogged Determination: Christ's Example
diligence and dogged determination a disposition of diligence and dogged determination to do the will of God no matter how I feel a disposition of diligence and dogged determination to do the will of God no matter how I feel now while this previous disposition of zeal for the honor and glory of God has a primary Godward reference this element of the disposition of the work of
oversight has a primary reference at the horizontal level to the duties of oversight to the various relationships that make up the chemistry of oversight and the key text which places this disposition in direct relationship to the work of oversight is Romans 12 and verse 8 and it was several years ago when in my own devotions I was struck with this that this sixth element was added as a major element in the first two or three times through this course I only had five major elements
in the governing disposition but then when I saw how closely these two things are brought together I felt that I had to have an expansion to include this text in Romans chapter 12 and verse 8 the apostle exhorting to sober self assessment about our gifts and then to a proper disposition in the discharging of the gifts or the exercise says in verse 8 or he that exhorts or comforts to his exhortation or to his exhorting he that gives let him do it with liberality he that rules with
diligence and the word rule is in the pro is family that we considered under the essence of the test so here Paul says with reference to the one who takes the lead or who rules it is to be done with this quality called spude now in looking at the noun spude or the verb spudazo spudazo is a you will note the clear emphasis upon diligence and determination if you take your Englishman's Greek concordance you will find under
spude that it's translated in the old authorized version several times haste several times diligence and once or twice by the word forwardness when you take the verb spudazo it is translated forward endeavoring diligence labor and endeavor and all of those various English words capture as it were the thrust of the mind of the spirit in the use of this word if we are to discharge our task of ruling the task
bound up in the biblical concept of pro istami and we've looked at the passages where that defines the essence of our task it must at every level be done with spude with diligence and so I have flushed it out and called it diligence and dogged determination to do the will of God no matter how I feel now surely if any disposition was evident in our blessed Lord it was this it
was my heart is that which is explicit in the text and that is our Lord is so utterly committed even at this point in his life to a diligent dogged determination to do the will of God that he lays the blame for all that anxiety upon his parents he said you should have known by this time in terms of what you've observed that the passion of my life is doing the will of my father and that spirit then which is buried in silence in Joseph's carpenter shop for all of the years from that twelfth year until we find him
coming forward on the occasion of his baptism in the waters of Jordan must surely have marked our Lord and must have been may I say it reverently woven into the texture of his growing manhood , as a man as day after day no matter what he felt like he plied the trade with his father and learned to be the best carpenter in Nazareth in terms of diligence and application to the father's will and then when we find him in his adult ministry this element stands out as it were on page after page of the gospel records and I could
only be selective in highlighting several you'll remember in the incident of the woman at the well in John chapter 4 our Lord is weary if ever there was a time when he could be exempted from paying the price of giving himself to the needs of others it was when he was bone weary at midday and leans upon a well in his weariness but you remember what happens so committed was he even in that task he must needs go through Samaria not because that was the straightest route on his journey but he had a sheep to seek who at this stage was held in the jaws of her own
immorality and her own spiritual dullness and darkness and our Lord gives himself to dealing with her tactfully and winsomely and then finally he makes a frontal attack upon her conscience and you remember the subsequent history and when the disciples come back they not only marvel that he was talking to a woman they marvel that he seems to be refreshed and when they offer him food he's not even interested and he said my need is to do the will of him that sent that he knew something of this diligent dogged determination to do the will of God that in the
doing of it even overcame natural weariness and hunger and then of course his words in John 9 in verse 4 I must work the works of him that sent me while it is day for the night comes when no man can work and when we read how our Lord accomplished his ministry at times he saw the squinted cold murderous eyes of the Pharisees and the scribes hawking and hounding his every step but it did not in any way deter him from taking that needy person and conferring upon him
the healing needed or the word of pardon that was needed why? because our Lord in the shepherding of his sheep had this disposition of diligence and dogged determination to do the will of God and of course it comes to its fullest expression in Gethsemane when his prayer is not my will but thine be done and allowing all of the mystery bound up in those words that the more we look at it the more it blinds us nonetheless the issue is clear one part of him in his holy sanctified
human will desires another path of the cross but the father's will the will of eternal covenantal engagements the will of his revealed mind in scripture leads clean through the rejection the abandonment the dereliction of the cross and he says not my will but thine be done diligent dogged determination to do the will of God well by way of application brethren let me say as our preaching is to be in season and out of season and all that it means
Application: Conquering the Sin of Being Slaves to Feelings
to preach well to preach prayerfully to preach with preparation in season and out of season when it's a delight when it's sheer drudgery when it's glorious and exhilarating when it is mundane and depressing preach the word and when it's diligent in season out of season so the same spirit must mark us in the work of oversight and of shepherding the flock of God no place for hot and cold no place for aversion to the unpleasant regulating your conduct in the work of oversight any more than there is
any place for it in regulating your work in public preaching and I'm learning slowly but I think I'm learning that one of the peculiar sins to which you men are vulnerable as part of the post-war generation is the wicked horrible wretched foul duty destroying sin of being the slaves of your feelings at the present moment because you weren't brought up learning to kick your feelings in the butt and do what was your duty no matter
what you felt like walk over the belly of your disinformation spit on it and tromp on it and do your duty without one twinge of felt delight in the course of it now I don't mean to be unkind brethren but I do mean to be forceful in saying what I've said if you don't conquer that prevailing sin of this generation in the name of God don't ever let anyone install you as an elder in the name of God in a flock of Christ because that flock will then have all the marks of the field of the sluggard because you see
the sluggard was the guy who only pulled weeds and replaced stones in the wall when he felt like it and that's why the wall was broken down and the weeds filled the field and when men are at the mercy of their feelings in the work of oversight and are only going to analyze is the worship bringing optimum glory to God or is it what elements ought to be introduced to have more God-centered cohesive worship what elements ought to be removed for which there is no biblical warrant constantly coming to that close questions with an open Bible and an open heart it's wearisome year in
and year out and there are many times there's very little delight in the matter seeking to track down those that are delinquent in their attendance and in their at the stated meetings who are lovely people and you've had a good relationship with them and you just don't feel like opening up the question and jeopardizing that nice relationship there's sort of an unwritten contract leave me alone and I'll still smile at you and think you're hail fellow well met well we could go on and on could we not brethren we desperately need this disposition of diligence and dogged determination to do the will of God no matter what we feel like so I leave you with those six
elements that to my present understanding are certainly in the first rank let me say that there may be others that should join them and certainly many others that would be second and third rank but if we are to carry on the work of oversight in a manner that glorifies God there must be assertive servanthood meekness compassion self-giving love principled zeal for the glory of God and diligence and dogged determination spude and spudazzo must mark our labors and you say Pastor Martin where do we get them well we've seen them all
in our Lord Jesus and 2nd Corinthians 3.3.18 is our hope but we all with open face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord are transformed into that same image from one stage of glory to another even by the Lord the Spirit that's why I've urged you to get this book and to read it behold your Lord as Blakey has captured some of these dominant characteristics of his life and ministry particularly of his ministry look upon your saviors you see him in the gospels and when you see at one point his meekness you see him
gaze upon him and pray that the Spirit of God will work that grace more and more in your own heart when you see him girding himself with a towel and doing the functions of a servant pray that God will give you that grace of servanthood and where you see our Lord moving in in humility and meekness and taking charge and giving direction pray for that assertive servanthood our hope each one of us brethren is that God in grace will make the framework of 2 Corinthians 3.18 the very framework within which we are molded as to the disposition with which we do the work
of oversight into the likeness of our Lord Jesus Christ and if so then at any given point in your ministry your meekness and your servanthood will leave you vulnerable to being called a pushover your principled zeal for the glory of God will leave you vulnerable to being called a madman your dogged determination to do the will of God no matter what you feel like will leave you vulnerable to being called a legalist your self-giving love will leave you vulnerable to being called prodigal with your energy and with your time and your money your compassion will leave you vulnerable to being called soft
and you see in so doing and in the extent to the extent at which those accusations come they are simply bearing the reproach of Christ and filling up that which is lacking in the sufferings of Christ for his body's sake which is the church and you've just got to pray that God will give you by his grace a heart that is increasingly indifferent to what men say as these various dimensions of the disposition of true shepherding are manifested in your life we must pray we must pray we've looked at various passages in which these things are highlighted indicating that even in our Lord
they were not all equally manifested at the same time in every instance they were all resident there in his holy being but various dimensions come to expression in ways and in circumstances consistent with the task itself and you've got to get over that hang up of thinking well if a visitor comes to Jesus today when today is scourging time and money changer overthrowing time people will think me a madman well let them think what they will if they don't care enough to come next week when you're girding a towel and washing disciples feet you've got to get over that brethren or your ministry
will have no bite in it if you're under the tyranny of thinking
This transcript was generated by automated speech recognition and may contain errors. It is provided for study and reference only; the audio recording is the authoritative source.
Passages Expounded
This verse introduces Jesus' compassion for the multitudes, setting the stage for the discussion of tender compassion as a pastoral disposition.
The first cleansing of the temple is used as a primary example of Jesus' principled zeal for the honor and glory of God in His house.
This verse, particularly the command for those who rule to do so 'with diligence,' is the foundational text for the disposition of diligence and dogged determination.
Texts Expounded
Also Referenced
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