Take Heed to Thyself, Part 3

The Organic Unity of Taking Heed to Oneself and Doctrine

0:04 I would imagine that there are very few of you who are here for the first time in the brief days of this Institute. I know we've lost some since this morning, and so any kind of an extensive review of what we've thus far covered will not be necessary. But as we did indicate this morning, there is an organic unity in the lines of thought that I have been seeking to trace out for you in the sessions allotted to me. With our attention focused upon Paul's word of command and exhortation to Timothy in 1 Timothy 4.16, we are considering what it means to take heed to ourselves.

0:49 And I had hoped by this third message to get into the secondary of the command, take heed to thy teaching or to the doctrine. There's something my mother used to bark into my ear constantly that has worked its way into the bloodstream. Of my consideration with regard to many things, whether I was scrubbing a floor or washing windows or doing dishes, she would say to me again and again until it came out my ears, Son, a job worth doing is worth doing well. And then she would usually attend it with the second admonition, doing things you don't like to do develops character.

1:30 I've started out on this matter of what it means in a very practical and... ...pastoral sense to take heed to oneself as a Christian minister.

1:43 And at the outset of tracing out some lines of application and amplification, I suggested that we would consider three areas. Take heed to ourselves that we are in a state of grace. Secondly, that we ourselves are growing in grace. And thirdly, that we ourselves are manifesting the reality of grace.

2:03 I hoped to finish that this morning and I didn't. And I think to do the job...

2:09 Well, I ought to complete that, but I'm torn because I want to move into the area of take heed to your doctrine. So in spending my remaining time today on this matter of taking heed to ourselves, there's a sense in which I'm doing something I don't want to do. I hope it develops character and is in some measure a blessing to you in the process. Take heed to yourself.

Manifesting the Reality of Grace: Being an Example

2:36 I hope that you yourself as a minister... ...not only...

2:47 ...and increasingly manifest reality of grace in your conduct.

2:53 Russell sounded this note earlier in this same paragraph when he says to Timothy, Let no man despise thy youth. That is, let no one think less of you and subsequently regard with less submission and respect your ministry. Let no man think lightly of you because of your youth. Let no one...

3:18 ...say of you, Timothy, oh, well, what can you expect?

3:20 He's still wet behind the ears. As though Timothy anticipates, Paul anticipates Timothy's response, but how, Paul? How am I to overcome some of the deficiencies of my youth? And Paul's directive is very clear.

3:39 Be thou an ensample, a typos, a type, a pattern to follow. Be thou an ensample to them that believe in word, in love, in faith, and in purity. What is he saying? He's saying, to action.

4:04 To disregard you because you're young is the only purpose of your youth. Be an example of balanced, practical godliness. Let the truth come through you, though you are a relatively young man compared with others. Let it come through a light so manifesting the power of that truth that your youthfulness will not negate its effect in the minds and hearts.

4:39 Take heed to yourself, Timothy, that you yourself are displaying and manifesting the reality of grace. Don't overcome the disadvantages of your youth by trying to be clever, by trying to be cute, by accommodating yourself to men, but, Timothy, seek to be more godly. Seek to be more consistent in your godliness, in the practical expressions of godliness, and this will pave the way...

5:09 for the authority of the word you speak, as men see the embodiment of that word in your own life. In the light of that, what I want to do this afternoon is to establish, or to underscore, the principle found everywhere in Scripture which lies behind Paul's directive in this area. The principle is that there is generally a direct relationship between the quality of life lived by a minister and the quality of life lived by a minister.

The Direct Relationship Between a Minister's Life and Ministry Effectiveness

5:43 The principle is that there is an effectiveness of the truth coming through that life to make a direct and almost mathematical relationship between the quality of life and the effectiveness of the truth through. Now, granted there are exceptions, but the exceptions only underscore the validity of the rule. Listen to the Apostle Paul as he himself speaks of this principle with reference to his own ministry. In 1 Thessalonians 5, he says, Thessalonians chapter 1.

6:29 God, your election. The gospel came not out of the manner of men we showed ours towards you for your sake.

6:53 It troubled me for years. It seemed like Paul was mixing up things that ought to be separated. Because we're convinced that you are the elect of God. Not because God has allowed us to peek into the role of his elect.

7:06 No, no. Because we see the effect of election in your lives. Namely, your effectual calling. He said, we reason back from your effectual calling to your election.

7:18 Knowing, brethren, beloved of God, your election. Why? Because our gospel came not unto you in word only, but in power and in the Holy Spirit and in much assurance. And then he goes on to say, in some way this was directly related to the kind of lives we lived amongst you while we were the instruments through which that effectual call came.

7:40 We know what manner of men we showed ourselves towards you for your sake. Here we see that principle illustrated. A direct relationship between the quality of life lived by the minister and the effectiveness and power of the truth coming through the minister. Down to chapter 2 in 1 Thessalonians.

8:07 Verse 10. And God also showed you that belief. Is he bragging on himself? Can this be the same man who says, Oh, wretched man that I am?

8:28 When I would do good, evil is present. Is this some kind of sinful boasting? No. It was the witness of his own conscience that in spite of all the actings of his remaining corruption, in spite of his own painful awareness that in his flesh was no good thing, he had that assurance borne to him by his own conscience in the presence of God.

8:58 Faith was in the man. Faith was the instant and powerful embodiment of the power of the gospel that he preached to others. You find many allusions of this nature in the writings of the apostle. I'll only refer to one other.

9:14 In 2 Corinthians chapter 4, in that section dealing with the glory of the Christian ministry, the apostle declares, and I read now 2 Corinthians chapter 4 and verse 1, For seeing we have this ministry, even as we obtained mercy, we faint not. But we have renounced the hidden things of shame. That is, secret things that should be an occasion of shame, either before men or probably, more likely, in the presence of God. We've renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by the manifestation of the truth.

9:58 That is a full and unfettered declaration of the truth. Now get the last phrase. Commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. To your conscience.

10:28 And what does he mean? I think this is what he means.

10:32 He says, having delivered God's name,

10:49 vested in us as apostles,

10:56 of the transforming power of that truth, we commend ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.

11:08 Ourselves. It involves this.

11:16 Let's take heed to ourselves that we ourselves are growing. In grace, and then in turn manifesting the reality of grace in our conduct. Apart from this, the longer we are resident with a congregation, though we may be more and more masterful, in the basic elements of effective communication, as far as sermonic structure, as far as exegesis, application, illustration, and all the rest, the longer we are with our people, unless there is this distinction, this display of the reality of grace in our lives, there will be a negation of the effectiveness of our pulpit ministry.

12:00 Stalker, in his excellent book, The Preacher and His Models, one of the reprints that Baker is doing on the Yale Lectures on Preaching, states this principle in a very succinct manner and so perceptively. I want to read just a paragraph to you. We are so constituted that what we hear depends very much for its effect, on how we are disposed toward him who speaks. The regular hearers of a minister, then in a pastoral context, not the fly-by-night speaker, not the conference speaker who comes and dumps his load and goes his way, the man who is living amongst his people, the regular hearers of a minister,

12:43 gradually form in their minds, almost unawares, an image of what he is, into which they put everything which they themselves remember about him, and everything which they have heard of his record. And when he rises on Sunday in the pulpit, it is not the man visible there at the moment that they listen to, but this image, this image which stands behind him and determines the precise weight and effect of every sentence. That's man's statement.

13:26 The principle that the apostle mentions in 1 Thessalonians 1, 1 Thessalonians 2, 2 Corinthians 4, and in many portions it says, Whether you live amongst your people, then ask to cross that pulpit, either to augment the effectiveness of your preaching, or to negate and to dilute it. And so it is necessary. Take heed. We manifest the reality of grace as we live amongst our people.

Biblical Requirements for Elders: Character Over Abstract Doctrine

14:05 Now, I hope that those words and a brief look at those scriptures has established the principle. I want to move from the principle in the abstract and flesh it out in the concrete. To do this, then to consider the perspectives of the apostle found in 1 Timothy 3 and in Titus 1 with reference to the biblical requirements for the office of an elder. Be he a teaching elder, laboring in the word and in doctrine, and in that sense having what we call the office of the ministry, or whether he be a ruling elder,

14:46 stable by some other means of employment, but sharing in the administration and oversight of the family of God. 1 Timothy chapter 3 and Titus chapter 1 requisites for the ministry.

15:18 1 Timothy 3, concerning the requirements for the office of the bishop. That little phrase at the end of verse 2 of course means an apt and able teacher. No man is to be set apart for this office who has not demonstrated some God-given and personal and professionally cultivated ability to communicate the truth of God. But if you extract that one phrase

16:01 from the list of requirements here in 1 Timothy 3, there is not another which touches doctrine in the abstract. In the office of the bishop he desireth a good work. The bishop therefore must be a five-point Calvinist with an ability to articulate a thoroughly

16:26 and reformed world and life, bringing his life into the area of the church. He must be a man of integrity, ethical, his practical life must be without reproach, no just cause of censure. And then he tells us what it means to be without reproach. It is interesting that he moves immediately into the domestic sphere.

17:11 A husband of one wife, as it means with food, to preach and call believers to a life of discipline, is a travesty. In some areas it does about drunkenness. The man whose appetites are brought under the discipline of the Holy Spirit. That is pretty practical.

17:49 He must be sober-minded, a great theoretical mind, sober-minded. And the best I have been able to do with this word in trying to trace out its precise meaning, it has the idea of a man who has all his wits about him, so when he sees a situation he is not shooting before he aims. He is not pushing panic buttons. But he has that kind of practical wisdom and discretion spoken of so often in the book of Proverbs.

18:32 Again, this is not the discharge of the mentality. What does that mean? History does not exist, but the Church does not exist for you. Many young men have the idea, you see, the Church, that structure out there exists as a place within which I can exercise my gifts.

19:07 No, no, the Church doesn't exist for you. The great head of the Church has seen to it that there should be pastors and teachers who exist for the sake of the Church. And so he says, if a man is to be a bishop, he must have already demonstrated that he is a lover of people, and the proof of it is the open door given to hospitality. Let's omit the act to teach.

19:31 We mentioned it earlier. No brawler. That's the evidence that he's not a scrapper. He doesn't like to mix it up.

19:38 Though he may be embroiled in controversy, it's always with pain. He's no brawler, no striker, but gentle, not contentious, no lover of money. Then he comes back to the domestic, one that ruleth well his own house. He's able to assert headship with love.

19:57 He's able to demonstrate that he does not abuse, that he has authority, nor is he to feel that love and law are never to be reconciled. He's learned to rule, and to rule well, which demands the proper sense of authority mingled and mixed and discharged and permeated with love. Having his children in subjection with all gravity, and then parenthesis, that if a man know not how to rule his own house, if he doesn't have that capacity to fuse love and authority in the smallest sphere of the home,

20:41 how shall he take care of the church of God? And if he seems to demonstrate all these characteristics, let a little water go over the dam. Yet a major breakdown. Not a recent convert, lest being puffed up, he fall into the condemnation of the devil.

20:59 Moreover, he must have a good testimony from them that are without. He pays his bills. He keeps up his payments on his car, the local grocery store, a good report of those that are without, lest he fall into reproach and snare of the devil. What have we done?

21:19 Just gone over very briefly the requirements for the office of the ministry. And there was one phrase which dealt with a man's gifts. Had to do with a consistent life of practical godliness. This thing's gotten all out of whack in our ministerial examination committees.

21:45 Spent eight hours grilling a man in his theology, his apologetics, seeing if he can uncover and trace to its untimely death some little that crawled out of somewhere in the dim past. Learned to put the emphasis where the Holy Ghost is placed. And he's left Timothy there to help the churches in the selection of their elders. He's not negating the importance of truth.

22:24 Everything he says is couched in the context of the full-blown proof of God. Granted, I'm not demeaning the place of truth. All I'm trying to do is to put this passage in its proper setting and let you feel the weight of that passage. And when you turn to Titus, you have a similar thing.

22:46 The only basic difference being you have the phrase, he must be able to convict and to convince the gainsayers. And there you have his ability to speak with authority and with power. And then the little phrase, holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught. Now what does this tell us?

23:07 It tells us that the Apostle Paul recognized this simple principle and as a wise master builder, in the administration of the affairs of the churches, he wanted these fledgling churches to recognize this principle. Don't set over you men who've got the gift of gab and good clear heads. If those two things are not fused to balance practical demonstrated because of that basic principle. Generally strict relationship

23:50 between the quality of the light lived and the power and the effectiveness of the truth coming through that light. And so my exhortation is once more take heed to yourself, ministerial brother. Take heed to yourself, ministerial student. And labor at godliness.

Laboring at Godliness and Domestic Life

24:14 That's a biblical concept. Paul says to Timothy, exercise thyself unto godliness. If you don't exercise this physical body, it's flabby and fat and there is the process of actifying and you know what it's like and I know what it's like if we don't. You just don't sit around and get in shape physically.

24:34 You can dream about it, but that doesn't do it. Just don't grow in practical godliness without exercising yourself unto godliness. And so it demands that we take heed to ourselves if we are to display and to manifest the reality of grace. So that the lengthening shadow of our lives cast over our pulpits will mean that month by month and year by year the longer we minister amongst our people the greater will be the weight and the authority of the word we speak.

25:08 Because by his grace we are the living embodiments of the power of that word. Now I want to recapitulate as Paul did in that list of requirements and focus particularly upon the domestic. Because the great breakdown comes here. At least this has been my experience as I've moved around many churches over the past years.

25:36 And isn't it interesting that that's the one area that the Holy Spirit goes back and amplifies. Husband of one wife, ruling well his own house, having his own children in subjection with all gravity. For if a man rules not, how shall he take care of the church of God? I would speak to you young men who are just beginning to have your families.

25:59 And I would entreat you to spare no pain with your wife that in some measure reflects the relationship of Christ to his church. And that doesn't come in most cases easily. It's the fruit of spiritual labor. Of prayer.

26:25 Prayer together. Prayer for one another. Prayer with one another. Judgment day honesty.

26:32 Being willing to face yourself as the one closest to you is able to see your warts and molds and your imperfections. If God has given you children, labor to establish that proper relationship of open communication so that in the administration of your discipline and in their receiving of it there's the consciousness that you're acting under the authority of God. You're not just swatting the kids because they get in your way. But you're taking time to explain to them that God has placed you over them to administer his rule upon them through you.

27:08 And your discipline and your training and the general movements of your life in that home are such that everyone looking upon it says well in the midst of a society disintegrating in the domestic sphere Christ is done and is doing something real in that place. I think one of the saddest commentaries on the state of the church is all the snickering and laughter and jokes about preachers' kids. I think it's a tragedy that ought to make us weep. It ought to make us weep.

The Inconsistency of Prioritizing Some Qualifications Over Others

27:40 Especially in the light of the Apostle's words. Having children not accused of riot or unruly. Ruling rallies in households. What would you think of the man who because he really preached well and because he was prior to theologian in his own right still continued in the ministry though he did not meet the requirement one wife's husband.

28:04 He was consorting regularly with another woman down the street. What would you think of this man if you came to him and said sir, look what the scripture says. One wife's husband. Husband of one wife.

28:14 You've got a wife plus your paramour. Don't you see what the scripture says? Suppose he were to say well look at the rest of the things. I meet the other requirements.

28:23 Kids are in order. I'm temperate in other areas and I even limit my visits to my friend down the street for once a week. I get to preach and I'm preaching sound doctrine. Can't you allow a little latitude?

28:50 That I'm not measuring up to to that kind of a proposition. Well I think your snickers are witness to what you say. You'd say of course not. To bring such reproach to the cause of Christ and to the office of the ministry we wouldn't tolerate it for a moment.

29:11 With all the problems our church has about discipline and the flabbiness in this area certainly our consistory or our session or our board of deacons and elders would rise up and say this must stop. This man must be relieved of his responsibility. Well my question to you is this. Who are we to say the failure to meet that requirement demands such radicalism?

29:36 Such radical action? But that we can do exactly the same thing with the requirement in verse 5. The book says A man knoweth day care of the church of God must have his children in subjection with all gravity and if he does not reason this way and say but look he's a godly man and he preaches well and he holds to true doctrine

30:09 every kind of common sense and biblical sensitivity free to make those distinctions and say if they fail at that requirement one wise husband bring down the axe but if they fail in the other we must show latitude. Who are we to treat the word of God that way? Oh but you say Mr. Martin if we started doing that you mean every man who is not basically ruling his house well and rule in the frank evaluation

30:54 of those about him in the place of spiritual authority as elders and the discerning people of the church feel that he is not ruling well his own house if such were to leave the ministry we might empty half our church. Yes we might but you know what else might happen? When the announcement was made by the chairman of the board of elders the next Sunday why the preacher would no longer be standing in the pulpit that he was taking seriously the word of God in 1st Timothy chapter 3 you know what might happen? There might be a lot of people sitting out in the pew and say look if he's taking the word of God seriously maybe it's about time some of us did and we might see a sweeping movement of the spirit of God

31:37 resulting in practical and obedience to the revealed will of God in Holy Scripture. In something as clear as this I ask you how can you do it? How can you do it? How can you do it?

The Pulpit's Role in the Church's Practical Godliness

32:04 Working itself out into the domestic sphere go into the average home of the average church member of the average evangelical and even the average reformed church and if you weren't told that they were going to an evangelical and reformed church you would know it from the basic lifestyle and judgment and discretion exercise

32:48 with regard to the use of the TV the use of leisure time they were attached to an evangelical and even a reformed church as if someone told you or you happen to be with them on Sunday as far as the word being taken seriously at all the levels that it touches there in the home expenditure of our money in the investment of our time and energy and all the rest there is not this serious regard for the word could it not be that in great measure the fault lies with the pulpit because men dare to preach from a context in which their lives are a living indication that they don't take the word seriously

33:31 oh you say brother Martin you're hard on us as preachers and I know a little something again the pressures that are there but I trust by God's grace I know what it is not to say well I'm the exception and to know what it is to say look Buster two days have gone by and you haven't been on the floor rolling around playing with your kids or you haven't been out with your boys you get out of that crazy study of yours and get down there with your kids all those years of building a relationship of intimacy and openness so my boy just had his eleventh birthday yesterday he's embarrassed to do it if his sisters see him

34:15 and when he comes home from school he'll come up in the study and just come over and stand next to me and say what do you want son oh I just want to love a little bit dad and I say son when are you going to get too big to do that with your dad he says you better not I'll box your ears you don't have that kind of relationship because you're a preacher or you're just a reverend or because you're just somebody's father it has to be cultivated worked at the price of it is transparency and openness with your children telling them you've sinned when they've heard you have angry words with your wife in the kitchen you know the kids heard them before you ask the Lord's blessing on the meal that night you say kids you heard mommy and daddy

35:00 talking and daddy should talk talk sharply to mommy that was sin I want you to forgive us and we're going to pray now and ask God to forgive us kids don't expect you to be pregnant they expect you to be real if you want to have authority over them and with them it will only be in the context of reality unless you're going to become a tyrant and then you will lose them this is what I'm talking about and I'm speaking very practically I know but I'm doing this because I particularly am concerned for you young men with your lives before you and your patterns still pliable and I plead with you give the time and the energy necessary

35:44 to develop a wholesome domestic life so that then the condition and the fusion of that community where you minister there will be at least one home that is a little replica of that beautiful relationship that exists between Christ and his church and Christ and the family of God take heed to yourself that you yourself manifest and display grace particularly in the realm of your domestic life and then in all of these other areas that are mentioned here in first chapter three and in Titus

A Modest Proposal for Ministerial Training: The Internship

36:29 chapter one now I want to close by making and I only think of the term that Cal Searvel used out at the Ministers Institute of the Christian Reformed Church a couple of years ago when I was there that caused such a shaking a modest proposal well I should like to make a modest proposal with regard to the application of this principle as it relates to young men preparing for the ministry who is there that is in a position to see if these basic qualities of balanced godliness are evidence to any degree of maturity in the life of a young man while he is at seminary it's well nigh impossible is it not

37:14 and in a real sense that's not the function of the seminary faculty if you read the original charter and then the original disciplines of Princeton Seminary it's most interesting I have some copies of them in which the faculty were to try to do this with the students a young man who was even doing well in his classes but was not spending the Sabbath in fasting in prayer and in if not fasting I think it says prayer and even mentions fasting and in the personal disciplines of piety though there was nothing else wrong with his life upon due admonition of the faculty if he didn't repent and begin to use his Sabbaths to spiritual profit he was to be dismissed from the seminary if his life

37:58 did not evidence growing godliness but it's almost impossible to do it so where is it going when you come fresh out of seminary and you go out to that little church and they take the recommendation of the seminary someone else's recommendation and all of a sudden they're supposed to receive you as the leading teaching ruling elder I say it's a form of emotional and mental and psychological rape to commit upon people to say that some fellow is still wet behind the ears still very much a novice suddenly because he's got the red in front of his name he's to be considered an induct would it not be much more realistic to think in terms of going back either to your home church or into a church where you could

38:43 labor with good conscience and with respect of the overseers of that assembly and get yourself a job where you're putting your forty hours like everybody else does many of you don't know what that is except for a few months in the summer you've come fresh out of high school into college week in week out month in month out you get yourself a job in conjunction with the pastor and elders of that assembly you get to the responsibility of teaching the adult class or some other situation in which you must produce week after week over a long period of time if you can't invest your spare time

39:27 to produce something that is reasonably acceptable once a week what makes you think you'll make it then you live amongst those people and let the people see if your life commends your gospel you get into the life and all of the involvements of the interaction of the people of God in the given assembly and let it begin to be manifest if you are contentious if you're a broiler if you're one of these pompous opinionated young men who thinks that the sun of truth has been setting in the west until it rose upon your fair pate

40:11 whose one sermon will live with him for three days opinionated spirit that it's the people of God who are best suited to defer in their presence or absence and how are they going to do it unless you settle in amongst them and so my modest proposal is that the norm ought to be that a young man looks upon his seminary training not his terminal there is another part in the accumulation

40:56 of the necessary disciplines to be an accurate expositor of the word and an able servant of Christ and then go out and serve his internship in a real live situation with real live people with the great spectrum of their problems and the needs that emerge in the midst of the life of any congregation and then at the end of that time if the church feels with good conscience it can make a recommendation to presbytery if it's in a Baptist situation if they feel they can make a recommendation to a given church where the man is going to be called let them use as their guideline 1st Timothy chapter 3

41:38 and Titus chapter 1 and have the elders from that church in which he's labored be the ones who sit and when you start in 1st Timothy 3 has this young man demonstrated a life of blameless hasn't been evident as he's moved among the church that there's only one woman in his heart and life and eye as well as in his home has he been above board in his dealings with women in the church is he ruling well his own house is he temperate is he sober minded then you come has he demonstrated his gifts you come to the requirement Titus holding fast

42:22 the faithful word and then there can be the doctrinal examination the theological inquisition can go on and it ought to so I think it's a tragedy that we have isolated the academic element from the context in which we find the fact that the church is not a church is not a church but a church and we have to find the requirements given here in holy scripture well this has been sort of a potpourri of exhortations relative to this matter of taking heed to one's self I didn't want to do this

The Purity of the Instrument

43:06 this was to have been just the third point on this afternoon or this morning's message but I felt constrained and I trust ourselves that we ourselves display and manifest grace without which to some degree the saving purpose of God will not be realized in us and through us as we minister to others I close with that well known quote of McShane's and it's well known because it's worth quoting and re-quoting otherwise it never would have been well known McShane had a ministerial friend who was going

43:48 to Germany to inspect his grasp upon the German language he wanted to be a better theologian he wanted to read the German theologians in those days they were worth reading and this is what McShane said I know you'll apply hard to German but do not forget the culture of your inner man I mean of the heart how diligently the cavalry officer keeps his saber clean and sharp every stain he rubs off with the greatest of care remember you are God's his instrument I trust a chosen vessel

44:32 unto him to bear his name in great measure according to the purity and perfection of the instrument will be the success it is not great talents God blesses so much as likeness to Jesus a holy minister is an awful weapon in the hands who necessarily make an effort to make an able minister he must have gifts will an able

45:16 preacher be an effective minister unless take heed