Self-conscious Identity; His Manner

Introduction: Paul as a Model Gospel Preacher

0:04 Pastor Martin, Pastor Al Martin of the Trinity Baptist Church in Essex Fells, New Jersey. It's my privilege this last summer when I was doing my chaplaincy training in New York to be able to spend some time with their congregation. And I'm hoping that the part tonight of the evening service that you can bring us greetings from your congregation and let us know something about the work of the Trinity Church for a few moments tonight. Pastor Martin, we welcome you to Yazoo State.

0:30 Let us give careful attention to the reading of the Word of God this morning, that word as given to us in the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 20, Acts chapter 20, and I shall begin the reading with verse 17 and conclude with verse 27, Acts chapter 20, verses 17 through 27. In verse 17, we have the pronoun he, and it refers back, of course, to the Apostle Paul. And so this is a record of something that the Apostle Paul did at a very strategic point in his life and ministry and will form the basis of our meditation in the Scriptures both this morning and then again, God willing, this evening. And from Miletus, he, that is Paul, sent to Ephesus and called to him the elders of the church. And when they were come to him, he said to them, Ye yourselves know from the first of this day that I set foot in Asia, after what manner I was with you all the time, serving the Lord with all lowliness of mind, and with tears, and with trials which befell me by

1:56 the plots of the Jews, how I shrank not from declaring unto you anything that was profitable, and teaching you publicly and from house to house, testifying both to Jews and to Greeks repentance toward God. And now, behold, I go bound in the Spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there, save that the Holy Spirit testifieth unto me in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me. But I hold not my life of any account as dear unto myself, so that I may accomplish my course, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God. And now, behold, I know that ye all, among whom I went about preaching the kingdom, shall see my face no more. Wherefore, I testify unto you this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men, for I shrank not from declaring unto you the whole.

3:13 And I go bound in the streets of Jerusalem, not knowing the things that were profitable, and teaching you publicly and from house to house, testifying both to Jews and to Greeks repentance toward God. And now, behold, I go bound in the streets of Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there, save that the Holy Spirit testifieth unto me in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me. But I hold not my life of any account as dear unto myself, so that I may accomplish my course, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God. And now, behold, I hold not my life of any kind, for I shrank not from declaring unto me any fact that was profitable, and to testify the gospel of God.

3:34 But I hold not my life of any kind, for I shrank not from declaring unto you the whole. Or you shall see for yourself too the Divine body of the city, and however you may defend it, for it is far from perfect. That is what I will show you next, now as I come to the Word. planting.

4:04 of greater worth than even his own life. In the fulfillment of this obsession, he came to the place, according to 2 Timothy 4, verses 6 through 8, where he could face death with great delight and with joyous anticipation. He could say, I have finished my course, I am ready to be offered, the time of my departure is at hand. Now we may well ask the question, what was this obsession in the life of the Apostle Paul that made him, as it were, treat his own life as a thing of little account?

4:44 What was this great and overwhelming passion, the fulfillment of which enabled him to face death with such confidence in the knowledge that he had completed his course? Well, we are told in verse 24 what that passion was, what this great and magnificent, magnificent obsession of the Apostle Paul really was. For we read in verse 24, I hold not my life as of any account as dear to myself, so that I may accomplish my course and the ministry which I receive from the Lord Jesus to testify the gospel of the grace of God. This burning obsession of the Apostle Paul was, was the obsession to testify the gospel of the grace of God, but with specific respect to the preaching of that gospel as entrusted to him in the original commission given to him from the Lord Jesus. You have a record of that commission in Acts 26, verses 16 through 18, in which we read that the Lord Jesus appeared to Paul and said, I have appeared to you, so that you may, they bear witness to me.

6:07 And Paul could say, as he does in that passage, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision. Acts 26, 19, but declared both to them of Damascus first, Jerusalem, throughout all the country of Judea, and also to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God and do works meet for repentance. Now it should be obvious that if this man came to God, if this man came under the power of this tremendous obsession, this obsession to preach the gospel of the grace of God, to preach it as an act of obedience to Jesus Christ who had laid hold of him in grace, it's natural that he would become to us, in a very real sense, a model of a true gospel preacher. And for our meditation, both this morning and this evening, I want you to consider with me, from this passage in Acts chapter 20, the Apostle Paul, a model of a gospel preacher. And I'm doing this for a number of reasons, not the least of which is, on the one hand, to encourage you in your efforts to proclaim the gospel during this week. Furthermore, to instruct you and to underscore in your own minds what constitutes true gospel preaching.

7:33 Furthermore, I hope it will stir you up in terms of your prayers with respect to the great need of our own day. When you pray, Lord, raise up true preachers. What are you praying for? What are you asking God to do?

7:47 Well, I say the Apostle Paul becomes a great model and pattern of that for which we ought to be praying. And then another one of the major reasons for choosing this passage is that in the midst of beholding Paul as a model of a gospel preacher, we have, one of the most wonderful statements of the gospel itself. And that will occupy the primary focal point of our study this evening. Well, first of all, then, with this passage in Acts 20 before us, considering Paul a model of a gospel preacher, will you notice with me in the first place the position from which he self-consciously preached the gospel.

The Position of a Gospel Preacher: A Bond-Slave of Christ

8:29 The position from which he self-consciously consciously preached the gospel. Listen to his language, verse 18. And when they, that is, the Ephesian elders were come to him, he said unto them, You yourselves know that from the first day that I set foot in Asia, after what manner I was with you all the time, serving the Lord. And the word he uses for serving in the verb form is that word which occurs in the word of the Lord.

9:04 He uses it again and again in the New Testament in the noun form to describe a slave, a bond slave. And it was one of the titles which the Apostle Paul loved to use in conjunction with his own self-conscious identity as a preacher. For instance, notice in Romans chapter 1 and verse 1, when he writes his letter to the church at Rome, he begins with these words, Paul, a doulos, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called an apostle. Now notice which came first.

9:44 He functioned as an apostle in the self-conscious identity of a bond slave. And similar language is set before us in Philippians chapter 1 and verse 1. Paul and Timothy, bond slaves of Christ Jesus to all the saints that are in the church. They are in Christ Jesus at Philippi.

10:08 In other words, Paul is saying to these Ephesian elders that from the first day he set foot in Asia and for the subsequent days and months and years and by bringing together the biblical materials, particularly from Acts 18 and 19, we understand that he served there approximately three years. He could say from the first day I set foot in Asia, I am a man. I am a man. I am a man.

10:33 I am a man. I am a man. I am a man. I am a man.

10:33 I am a man. I am a man. I am a man. I am a man.

10:34 I am a man. I am a man. I am a man. I am a man.

10:34 I am a man. I knew my identity as a gospel preacher and that identity was essentially to be understood in terms of a bond slave of Jesus Christ. In other words, he did not come to Asia because the denominational mission board thought it would be a good idea and he therefore would come as the lackey of his missionary society nor did he come because there was some general consensus there at Ephesus that it would be nice for him to come and this would be a good ego trip. No, no.

11:09 He says, from the first day that I set foot in Asia, I was with you all the time serving the Lord. Behind every sermon preached, behind every exhortation given, behind every public and private enterprise for the gospel, there was this constant self-concealment, conscious identity. I, Saul of Tarsus, stand here in Ephesus as a bond slave of Jesus Christ. In other words, the apostle Paul was bound to Jesus Christ in bonds of the deepest kind of intimate love and loving obligation. This is the man who could say in 2 Corinthians 5.14, the love of Christ, Christ constrains me. That is, the love of Christ holds me in a vice-like grip.

12:12 He had come to such a discovery of God's love to him in Christ that the reflexive response of that love was to be found in the language uttered at his conversion, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And in response to that question, the commission recorded in greater detail in Acts, Acts 26, 16, and 18 was given by the great Lord who said, this is what I want you to do. And under the constraint of the love of Christ and under the constraint of obedience to Jesus Christ, he delighted to take that position self-consciously of a bond slave of Christ. Now, what practical implications did that have in his life? Well, he tells us. There are many practical implications, not the least of which is set forth in Galatians chapter 1 in verse 10, where he says, for am I now seeking the favor of men or of God? Or am I striving to please men?

13:22 If I were still pleasing men, I should not be a bond slave of Christ. You see the practical implications it had? When he came to Ephesus, he said, conscious that he came there, not primarily on an ego trip or under the pressure of his church or missionary society, but in loving bonds to Jesus Christ, he says this had tremendous practical effects upon him. When he came to Ephesus, he did not, as it were, wet his finger and hold it up and see which way the current theological winds were blowing so that he might adjust the sails of his message accordingly.

14:02 He didn't go around and take, as it were, a man on the street pole and say, now, I'd like to find out what truths you'd like to hear and what truths are rather offensive to you people and what you... No, no, no, no.

14:13 He came conscious that he was a slave, a bondservant of the Lord who had loved him and died for him and in grace had saved him. And he says, as long as he was self-consciously the bondservant of men, he could never make seeking the favor of men or pleasing men the goal of his ministry. And he said, the moment I begin to be activated, motivated, adjusted in my thinking, my methods and message by pleasing men or by seeking the favor of men, I cease to be a bond-slave of Jesus Christ. And so, as we look at Paul, the model of a gospel preacher, we understand that the position from which he preached was that self-consciousness, conscious identity as a bondservant of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so he was not overly concerned about preaching matters which might offend the current religious climate in Ephesus. And his preaching did offend. It led ultimately to a riot because he preached there was but one true and living God and the Holy Spirit blessed that message.

15:30 And these people who are bound up in sorcery and idol worship ended up having a big bonfire until the whole city was in an uproar and a big crowd came out and for hours stood chanting, Great is Diana, God of the Ephesians, until they had a ruckus in that town. It didn't bother the Apostle Paul. Why? Because he said, from the first day I set foot amongst you, I was there serving the Lord.

15:54 That is, discharging my task as a bond-slave of Jesus Christ. And oh, my dear friends, as you pray that God will raise up gospel preachers in our day, this is what you need to pray for. That God will give men such a sight of the majesty and the glory of a crucified and an exalted Savior. And so hold those men in the vice-like grip of the love of Christ that they will be indifferent both to the frowns and the smiles of men.

16:30 There is nothing more sickening upon the face of the earth than a reverent, who is the slave of the frowns of his people. Or a slave of the smiles of his people. Or a slave of the wallets and the purses of his people. Who is not Christ's slave and therefore Christ's free man.

16:50 To preach whatever Christ has given him to preach. And as you pray for your pastor, what should you pray for him? Well, among the many things you pray, pray this prayer. Lord, keep him consciously and constantly and constantly self-consciously in that position that he is the bond-slave of Jesus Christ.

17:12 When he comes before us week after week, whatever else he has upon his mind and his heart, Lord, write upon his spirit. Etch into the deepest recesses of his heart that he is your bond-slave. So that whatever you, his master, would say to us, your servants, that we may hear and receive that message that he is your bond-slave. As from the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Manner of a Gospel Preacher: Humility

17:39 But now we must hurry on to the second area of consideration or we'll never get through the passage this morning and this evening together.

17:48 Having noted the position from which Paul preached the gospel, the position from which he self-consciously preached the gospel, notice in the second place the manner in which he proclaimed the gospel. Someone say, well, wait a minute, Pastor Martin. If we pray that God will raise up preachers whose only primary concern is pleasing the Lord, won't that produce men that are hard and callous and insensitive and domineering and overpowering? Well, look at the passage.

18:22 Look at the passage. Nothing could be further from the truth. Serving the Lord with, now notice the qualities, all lowliness of mind and with tears and with trials which befell me by the plots of the Jews, how I shrank not from declaring unto you anything that was profitable, teaching you publicly and from house to house. There are five basic characteristics of Paul as the model of a gospel preacher.

18:59 Time will not permit to unpack them in detail. Let's just look at them briefly and then I trust in your own meditation you will see them enlarged and amplified in other portions of the word of God. The first thing that he tells us about the manner in which he proclaimed the gospel is this. He proclaimed it in a spirit of humility.

19:23 You people know, he says, from the first day I set foot in Asia, self-conscious of my identity as a bond slave of Christ, I preached with lowliness of mind. In other words, the exact opposite of arrogance and haughtiness and an overbearing, domineering spirit that is so unlike him who said, I am meek and lowly of heart. For you see, the man who knows that he's the bond slave of Christ is the man who knows he is what he is by the grace of God. And no man who understands grace can be a proud man.

20:12 No one who understands grace can be marked by strut and swagger and that kind of carnal projection of the super personality, the cursed image of the modern evangelist. I remember when I was in school, I had speakers come and actually talk to potential preachers and say, now, if you're sort of just an ordinary personality and you don't have a lot of zing, and zip, and charisma, you can be a pastor. But if you're going to be an evangelist, you've got to have something unique, something scintillating, something dazzling, something very attractive about your personality, that sheer rubbish.

20:53 The apostle Paul, the greatest evangelist next to the Lord Jesus, said, in a city where his evangelistic endeavors were so blessed of God that we read in the earlier chapters that after two years, all of Asia heard the word of God and the word of God grew, grew and mightily prevailed. He said, I was with you with lowliness of mind. You see, that has nothing to do with how loud or how soft a man preaches. It has nothing to do with whether or not he's very reserved as he preaches or very animated, talks with his hands and his feet and his eyes and his ears, or whether he talks just with his mouth.

21:30 It has to do with the disposition of heart, lowliness of mind that means, first of all, he receives everything that God says, as truth, so that he may be a conveyor of truth. You see, the greatest act of pride is for a man who says he is a preacher of the gospel to say there's either certain things in the Bible that aren't true or that aren't worthwhile preaching. What an act of pride when God has given the whole word for our good for some puny little creature to say, well, this doesn't belong in there and this should never be in there and that's an error and this is a mistake and that's not necessary and a man may say, very piously and very softly and with a lovely ministerial tone and have all the semblance of humility. He's as proud as the devil, little creature of the dust telling God what he should put in his word, little worm of the dust telling God what should be preached to men. Paul said, lowliness of mind and that lowliness of mind had a two-fold reference. It had to do with God in that as the body of one slave of the Lord Jesus, he received all the message that Jesus gave him.

22:49 As he intimates later on, I kept back nothing that was profitable. All that was given to me, I passed on. And then it has a manward reference. Lowliness of mind meant, as we've already suggested, no self-assertedness in the carnal kind of super personality attitude.

23:11 And this comes through, you remember, when he says, in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. What's the matter, Paul? Is this your first sermon you're preaching?

23:34 You're a little bit nervous? You've got knots in your stomach? No, he had preached hundreds and thousands of sermons. But he said, I was with you in weakness and fear and much trembling.

23:44 Why? Because he understood what he was, not only in the presence of God, but when he stood in the presence of his fellow men. What could he do to open up the blindness, the spiritual blindness of the sinner? If you take seriously what the Bible says, that all men by nature are spiritually blind and spiritually deaf and spiritually dead, you don't think there's any amount of clever manipulation with words that you can bring together that's going to open blind eyes, unstop deaf ears, and quicken the dead to life?

The Manner of a Gospel Preacher: Compassion and Pathos

24:16 And so there is that attitude of utter dependence upon God, which is, if not the very spirit of humility, is its inseparable attendant. He was with them with humility. Second, he says he was with them with compassion and with pathos. And I don't know another word to use that describes it more accurately.

24:37 Look at the language. Serving the Lord with all lowliness of mind and with with tears. With tears.

24:49 Now, tears, you see, are funny things. Tears can be expressions of frustration and anger.

24:58 If your brother, if you have a brother, takes something he shouldn't, he won't give it back to you. Can you get so mad? You can end up crying, can't you? But they can be tears of just frustration or of anger.

25:09 Or tears can be an expression of self-pity. We have a little saying around our house. Let's have a pity party. Poor me.

25:17 Nobody loves me. Everybody hates me. I'm going out and eat worms. You know that kind of an attitude.

25:22 That's what tears can be, can't they? Just an expression of self-pity. Ah, but tears can be an expression of the deepest yearnings of outgoing, selfless love. And when Paul says, I serve the Lord with all humility of mind, lowliness of mind, and with tears, he is speaking of those tears of a broken heart.

25:45 You remember he refers to them in Romans, where he was preaching not only to Greeks, but to Jews. He says, I have continual heaviness and great sorrow of heart for my kinsmen, my brethren, according to the flesh. And when he was in the presence of those who taught error, it broke his heart. He could say in Philippians, I tell you now, as I've often told you, even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ.

26:11 You see, generally speaking, apart from these other expressions of tears, tears are usually a reflection of the heart being bound up with something. Here's a fellow, just turned 17, gets his first car and the first day he has it, someone smashes it up and he stands there and cries like a baby. Why? His heart was bound up in that bucket of wheels and bolts and the rest.

26:35 Because his heart was bound up in it. When anything touched the object of his heart, it opened up his tear ducts. Well, you see, the Apostle Paul as a true gospel preacher had his heart in this. He wasn't just performing a professional service.

26:49 When he preached to men concerning their sin, when he preached to men concerning Christ and His glory, Christ and His salvation, when he pleaded with men to repent and to believe, he wasn't play-acting. He was not just pushing a button in terms of something that got programmed into him in seminary and now he's doing his thing. His heart was in it. And because his heart was in it, it was often bathed with his tears.

27:19 And in so doing, he was just a picture, a little picture of his own master, who when he beheld the city of Jerusalem according to Luke's gospel, that city which was under now the judgment of Almighty God, it is said when he beheld the city and it's vivid in the original, it does not say he merely wept over it with the same word used for weeping in John's gospel when he came to the grave of Lazarus. Jesus wept. But the word there, there is literally he wailed over that city. The very word used for the professional mourners who wept and who wailed, it was uncontrollable weeping.

27:59 Why? Because our Lord Jesus' heart was broken. And that's the mark of a true gospel preacher. That's the mark of true gospel ministry.

The Manner of a Gospel Preacher: Faithfulness in Opposition

28:10 Not only humility, lowliness of mind, but compassion and pathos. But then there is a third mark. Which characterized the manner in which he proclaimed the gospel and it's this. Faithfulness in the face of opposition.

28:26 Look at the language. He preached, he says, not only with lowliness of mind and with tears, but and with trials which befell me by the plots of the Jews.

28:41 And as you read through the book of Acts, you see the many times these unbelieving Jews followed Paul wherever he went and were constantly plotting to take his life or to have him imprisoned. But he said, from the first day I set foot in Asia, my ministry, characterized by humility, by compassion, was characterized by faithfulness in the face of opposition. Had he been a man pleaser, he would have run. He would have drawn back and said, it's not worth it.

29:11 Every time I open my mouth, I get in trouble. Remember Jeremiah? This is what happened to poor Jeremiah. He said, every time I open my mouth, I get in trouble.

29:18 So I said to myself, why bother? So he said, I'll shut up. But then he said, I had a worse problem. He said, thy word was in my heart as a fire shut up within my bones until the problem within was greater than the problem without.

29:30 So he went back to preaching. Even though it meant he ended up in a dungeon, even though it meant he ended up being accused of treason, the same spirit. Jesus said that the spirit of decadent religion is the spirit that always persecutes God's prophets. He charged upon his own day the blood of all the prophets from Abel to Zacharias.

29:52 And in the same way, Paul knew this and every true gospel preacher will know it. And in a sense, we ought to have been encouraged by some of the opposition we had last night. I didn't know whether it was someone sitting outside tooting the horn who was hearing us on the radio and knew we were in there and was determined. I didn't know it was a train and other kinds of opposition.

30:14 Well, we ought to glory in it. If there is opposition to the endeavors of these days, why? Because that's one of the marks of every true gospel enterprise. It will be carried on with faithfulness in the face of opposition.

The Manner of a Gospel Preacher: Thoroughness

30:29 But then the fourth thing that characterized the manner of his preaching is this, thoroughness. Thoroughness. Thoroughness both of content and exposure. Look at it.

30:42 Thoroughness in the content of his preaching. He says, verse 20, I shrank not, I didn't draw back from declaring unto you anything that was profitable. Now notice, he didn't say anything that was palatable. Many things are profitable that are not palatable to the natural man.

31:03 Do you think people like to be told that their hearts are a sink of iniquity? Do you think people sit down and start clapping their hands and then shouting hallelujah when for the first time they discover what they are as sinners? I shall never forget one man of God saying to me, and he was a seasoned man of God, and this was just a couple of years before the Lord took him home, he said, the most sickening sight I've ever seen in all my life is my own heart.

31:38 The most sickening sight I've seen in my whole life is my own heart.

31:46 But Paul says, I kept back nothing that was profitable. I told you the truth about yourselves. I told you the truth about the emptiness and the vanity of your pagan gods and your pagan religion. I kept back nothing that was profitable to you.

32:01 He could say in verse 27, I shrank not the same kind of language. I didn't draw back. You see, when material shrinks, it draws back. I did not shrink from declaring unto you the whole counsel of God.

32:14 And remember, he did that primarily as an evangelist. Now there is in our day the idea, well, you see, the evangelist, he just picks just a few little truths, take out a little bit about God's love, a little bit about faith, a little bit about peace, a little bit about happiness, a little bit about joy, mix it all together, and that's the gospel. Who said so?

32:36 Who said so? This evangelist said, from the first day I came, I preached the whole counsel of God. He told men not only that God is love, but that God is light. He not only told them that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, he told them that God is angry with the wicked every day.

32:55 He not only told men that there is peace and joy, he told them that through much tribulation we must enter the kingdom of God. He not only told them they must trust the Savior, he told them they had to turn from their sins or perish. You see, there was thoroughness in the content of his ministry and also in the exposure. Look at the language.

33:18 Verse 20, I shrank not from declaring anything that was profitable, teaching you publicly and from house to house. In other words, he said, he seized the opportunities in the marketplace. We read in the earlier chapters in this rented school, the school of Tyrannus, he seized that opportunity to preach the gospel. But then he seized the opportunity to go from house to house aggressively proclaiming this message.

The Manner of a Gospel Preacher: Intelligent Solemnity

33:46 That's the mark of a bondservant of Christ, whether it's an individual or a church. And in that sense, Paul becomes the pattern for us. Then the fifth thing that marked his ministry is the fact that he was is what I'm calling intelligent solemnity. Intelligent solemnity.

34:05 You say, where do you get that? Well, look at the text. And it's bound up in these words. I shrank not from declaring unto you anything that was profitable and teaching you publicly and from house to house.

34:21 Now that word declaring literally means to declare solemnly and emphatically even more. So when Paul came from the first day he set foot in Asia, there was a solemnity about his bearing. He didn't stand up with the racy Johnny Carson type mentality of the average evangelist who for the first 15 minutes wants to prove, you know, he's a nice guy and he can make you laugh and he knows how to handle a crowd and he's master of the situation. No, no.

34:55 When any man comes before you with a heart pregnant with the great issues of heaven and hell, a heart pregnant with the great realities of God and his law, of the sinner's obligation, of the sinner's liability to wrath and judgment, any preacher that comes before you with his heart pregnant with the mysteries of Mary's womb and of Golgotha and of the open tomb, whatever legitimate place for humor may find expression along the way, the dominant characteristic will be the one will be solemnity. You don't tickle people into conviction of sin.

35:38 You don't see people moving into the path of repentance on gales of laughter.

35:48 You don't find people with broken hearts and tickled ears at the same time. Paul said, I was there declaring, but then he says, teaching. See, the other word he uses, teaching you publicly and from house to house. Now, when you teach, what do you do?

36:07 Well, you take certain propositions. You state them. Then you seek to open them up, to explain them, to illustrate them, to enforce them. That's what you do when you teach.

36:15 That's what I'm trying to do today, to teach. I can remember when I was, quote, an evangelist for five years, a traveling preacher. And for lack of a better term, I was called an evangelist. And many times when I would go to a place for the first time, after the first or second meeting, dear people would come to me and they'd say, Mr. Martin, Brother Martin, um, I don't want to be unkind and I'm not quite sure I know what I want to say, but you're not an evangelist. I said, no. No, no, you're a Bible teacher. I said, oh.

36:46 And I played stupid. It's not too hard for me to do. And I played stupid and I said, now, what do you mean? I'm a Bible teacher but not an evangelist.

36:54 Well, um, um, well, you take a passage and you open it up and you explain it and you stick with it and you don't tell too many stories and you don't tell any jokes and, I said, oh, oh, you mean an evangelist then is someone who just sort of uses the Bible casually as a stepping stone to spell stories and tell jokes and, and, well, no, well, I'm not, and then they began to get embarrassed, you see, and I just sort of let them make their own noose and get in it and pull it. But you see, in their minds, you see the problem. They had the notion that the evangelist was the hyped-up personality, you see, who could, as it were, using the Bible as a springboard to project upon people the force of his own personality and drawing from his rich experience, tell stories and all the rest that would hold people at the end of his fingers. But the Bible teacher was the one who was willing to be hidden behind the truth of God and unpack the truth of God and lay the truth upon the conscience of God. Well, needless to say, I would use the occasion then to try lovingly and gently to instruct them and say, look, there was no greater evangelist than the Apostle Paul and yet he describes his evangelism as the evangelist and the evangelist as the evangelist as the evangelist and how? Teaching.

Prayer for Preachers and the Gospel Message

38:08 Teaching. Teaching publicly and from house to house. That was the manner of his ministry. And oh, again, as I pass on very quickly to the third and final consideration this morning, as you pray that God will bless this poor, sin-sick nation of ours with true preachers, what are you praying for?

38:32 Oh, among other things, pray that God will raise up not only men, but men who have a sense of their identity as the bond slaves of Christ and it's the most liberating thing in the world to stand here this morning and know that ultimately I'm answerable to my Lord. I hope you love me. Some of you I know do. And I hope that that love will grow and deepen.

38:55 But in a sense, I don't care if you love me or not. I do, but I don't, you see. It's wonderful to be so free in Christ that people's frowns or smiles their kind words or their nasty words will not budge you one one-thousandth of an inch from the message your Master has deposited in your hands. As you pray that God raise up preachers, that's what you need to pray for.

39:21 But not only so, pray that they may have the manner of Paul's preaching. A manner characterized by lowliness of mind. A manner characterized by compassion and pathos. A genuine yearning over the souls of men.

39:39 A manner characterized as we have seen in the passage that is before us by faithfulness in the face of opposition, thoroughness, content and exposure. And a manner characterized by intelligent solemnity. Men who will give themselves to the labor of really discovering what's there in the text and then not content simply to dish up the raw materials, but to labor until they make it delicious and make it attractive and add the spices and the condiments and the other things necessary so that when the people of God come to the word of God they come eager because they know that there will be true teaching characterized by that intelligent solemnity. And as we pray for the meetings during this week, let's make that our prayer that night after night this will characterize my ministry. That those who come amongst us will sense immediately that there is compassion. There is genuine concern.

The Audience and Essence of the Gospel Message

40:46 But the great concern is to be true to the message of the Master himself. Well then, we notice in our text in the third and final place what kinds of people did Paul proclaim his gospel to. We've looked at his self-conscious identity, the position from which he preached a bond slave, the manner in which he proclaimed the gospel. Now what kinds of people did he proclaim his gospel to?

41:14 Well, he proclaimed it to Jews and to Greeks.

41:20 And the time has gotten so much away from us I didn't realize we've gone as far as we have. I wonder if it wouldn't be well for us just to stop here and pick it up at this place tonight because we don't want your kids to get psittitis and not want to come tonight and say that preacher preaches too long and you've been listening. You've been listening pretty good. Once in a while you haven't been but for the most part you've been listening real good and we don't want to discourage the little ones but let me ask you to do this, will you?

41:47 For your own meditation this afternoon look at this passage and just go through and see if you can anticipate the lines of thought that we'll seek to open up as we consider the kinds of people to whom he proclaimed his gospel. He describes them Jews and Greeks and then the essence of his gospel repentance toward God, faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ. I don't know if you'll all be here tonight. I don't know if I'll be here tonight and so I must say in capsule form whoever you are whether you come under that great category of those who have had wonderful privileges in your past you would be the modern day Jew who knows the scriptures who's been subjected to true religion or whether you would be characterized as the Greek the pagan who knows little about the Bible and God and truth and the church. There is one message for both of you Jew and Greek and that's the message of repentance toward God and faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ. It's that God-centered message that says you've got obligations to God that you have not met and that you cannot meet in yourself but which blessed God can be met in the Lord Jesus Christ. And if you go out of here with nothing else ringing in your ears may those words ring in your ears your greatest obligations are obligations to God.

43:14 He made you. You're accountable to Him. You'll stand before Him in the last day and you've not met those obligations. You've sinned and broken His law and provoked His wrath and there's nothing you can do about it.

43:27 But thank God He has done something about it. And He has sent His only begotten Son and in His beloved Son He's done all that is needful to meet all the obligations of His own love. All with respect to you. And oh my friend don't stop short of first-hand dealings with the Lord Jesus.

43:47 The great glory of the gospel is this that in the gospel the sinner in all the nakedness of his need and the Savior in all the glory of His power come into direct contact with no one or with nothing in between. No church no priest no ritual. That's the glory of the gospel. Have you and Jesus Christ come into direct and living contact?

44:14 If not then you know nothing of the power and the glory the privileges of this great gospel preached by this great preacher. But thank God preached by the humblest of preachers ever since and its power does not depend upon the greatness of the one who preaches it. It lies in the message. It is the power of God unto salvation.

44:37 You say oh well Paul came and preached that gospel to me then it might have more influence. No, no my friend. Paul stands in a class all his own but I stand with him in this respect. I bring the same gospel he brought.

44:49 Oh that you may believe that gospel and believe in and know its power in your life. God's sparing us and blessing us and bringing us together again this evening we'll complete the study of this portion of the word of the living God. Let us pray together.

45:12 Our Father we confess from the depths of our hearts that it has been our great joy to sit in your presence to sing your praises to have our hearts run out in the prayers that have been offered on our behalf and now to sit together beneath the feet of our Lord Jesus speaking to us in his own living word. We thank you for this portion that we've been privileged to study together this morning and we pray that the Holy Spirit will write it upon our hearts that he will make it effectual in our hearts and oh God we do earnestly pray that this word may be so sealed to our understanding and to our affections and so regulative in our lives as to be a word by which we are sanctified in answer to the prayer of our Lord Jesus who prayed Father sanctify them in thy truth thy word is truth hear our prayer for the sake of your beloved son Amen.