The Pastor as An Ambassador of Christ

Topic The pastor as an Ambassador of Christ Time October 2016 Place APC, South Africa

Our final session is on the pastor as Ambassador of Christ. That word ambassador has clearly been taken from 2 Corinthians 5:20 where Paul says We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God.
There is a more general sense in which a pastor is an ambassador for Christ. Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones has written of preaching in general (Preaching and preachers) in these terms

Any true definition of preaching must say that a man is there to deliver the message of God, a message from God to those people. If you prefer the language of Paul, he is 'an ambassador for Christ'. That is what he is. He has been sent, he is a commissioned person, and he is standing there as the mouthpiece of God and of Christ to address these people.

This is also the way some books on being a pastor can get into all sorts of unexpected areas. In Jay Adams Shepherding God's Flock he talks about the importance of good table manners. It seems an abstruse point, perhaps, but it doesn't help the gospel if the pastor is an embarrassment at the table. We could spend a lot of time on matters like that but it is clear from the context of the Scripture quoted that Paul has in mind evangelism and evangelistic preaching in particular. It immediately brings to mind that verse where Paul tells Timothy he is to do the work of an evangelist (2 Timothy 4:5). It is not entirely clear what that verse may mean but clearly Timothy is not to content himself with feeding the sheep. He needs to be out there winning the lost to the Saviour. That is part of the call for every pastor. \\It is no surprise then that in our home chapter of Acts 20 we read in verses 17ff Paul saying
You know how I lived the whole time I was with you, from the first day I came into the province of Asia. I served the Lord with great humility and with tears and in the midst of severe testing by the plots of my Jewish opponents. You know that I have not hesitated to preach anything that would be helpful to you but have taught you publicly and from house to house. I have declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus ....
That was always Paul's approach, declaring to all the need to turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus .... It should be ours too.
Now different preachers will take different views of how they are going to preach evangelistically. Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones, like many others, deliberately preached in an evangelistic way every Sunday evening when he was pastor of Westminster Chapel. Of course, one of the snags with that approach is that unbelievers may come at any time, not necessarily Sunday evening. That is why Spurgeon's approach, including something evangelistic in all his sermons, is to preferred. However, it is very easy in that method to start saying very little of the basic gospel message. Whatever method we adopt this is a subject we need to keep coming back to and reappraising. Am I really giving the attention to evangelistic preaching that I ought to?
Roger Carswell
In a recent book called Evangelistic preaching the evangelist Roger Carswell has set out five elements that he believes should characterise all evangelistic preaching.
1. These are, firstly, focusing on Christ and him crucified. Every passage in the Bible leads in one way or another back to Christ and so there ought not only to be expository preaching but evangelistic preaching too, preaching that focuses on Christ and what he has done for sinners. Carswell suggests there are vital ingredients in any evangelistic address and he seeks to make sure he always includes them.
These are

• God's character including the fact he is a Trinitarian God
• Sin and judgement and the fact we deserve punishment
• Jesus and especially his death and resurrection
• An emphasis on the need to repent and believe
• He always mentions heaven and hell 

It is important that we always mention certain things if we are going to really preach the gospel. Another way to go about it is to summarise the gospel. Here is such a summary based on Jeremiah Burroughs
It concerns the Lord Jesus Christ. By nature we are all of us lost because of Adam's sin and we are subject to God's wrath. A sentence of death hangs over us all. Although God has done nothing for fallen angels, he is concerned about us human beings and has provided a way to be at one with him again, to be reconciled to him again.
Jesus Christ, the second Person of the Trinity, has taken to himself a human nature and has become the Head of another covenant in place of Adam. In this covenant he stands charged with sin. He has answered for it by suffering what the law and divine justice require and by making satisfaction for keeping the law perfectly. This satisfaction and righteousness he tenders up to the Father as a sweet savour of rest for the souls that are given to him by the Father. This mediation of Christ is, by the appointment of the Father, proclaimed to people of every nation or rank, freely offering to all this atonement for sinners. It requires them to believe in Christ. On believing, they are promised not only a discharge from all their former sins so that they will not enter into condemnation but none of their sins or unworthy traits will ever hinder God's peace in them and through him they will be accepted into the number of those who have the image of God renewed again in them and be kept by God's power to eternal salvation.
Further, such souls, with their bodies, will be raised to as high a glory as such creatures are capable of. They will live forever enjoying the presence of God and his Christ, in the fullness of all good.

Would that be too much to include every time? Probably.

2. Carswell's second point is that evangelistic preaching should manifest love. We are speaking to sinners but they are in ignorance and like our Saviour we ought to be moved with compassion for the crowds. Love should constrain us. He quotes John Stott

I constantly find myself wishing that we twentieth century preachers could learn to weep again. But either our tear-springs have dried up, or our tear-ducts have become blocked. Everything seems to conspire together to make it impossible for us to cry over lost sinners who throng the broad road which leads to destruction. Some preachers are so preoccupied with the joyful celebration of salvation that they never think to weep over those who are rejecting it. Others are being deceived by the devil's lie of universalism. Everybody will be saved in the end, they say, and nobody will be lost. Their eyes are dry because they have closed them to the reality of eternal death and outer darkness of which both Jesus and His Apostles spoke. Yet others are faithful in warning sinners of hell, but do so with a glib and even a sick pleasure, which are almost more terrible than the blindness of those who ignore or deny its reality

3. Carswell's third point is that evangelistic preaching demonstrates creativity. This time he quotes Warren Wiersbe saying “People's minds are not debating chambers but picture galleries; therefore speak so that you turn people's ears into eyes and they see the truth.” This is not a modern thing about communication but a realisation that to capture hearts and minds takes great skill. In Preachers and preaching (215, 216) Lloyd-Jones wrote interestingly

If I am asked which sermons I wrote, I have already said that I used to divide my ministry, as I still do, into edification of the saints in the morning and a more evangelistic sermon in the evening. Well, my practice was to write my evangelistic sermon. I did so because I felt that in speaking to the saints, to the believers, one could feel more relaxed. There, one was speaking in the realm of the family. In other words, I believe that one should be unusually careful in evangelistic sermons. That is why the idea that a fellow who is merely gifted with a certain amount of glibness of speech and self-confidence, not to say cheek, can make an evangelist is all wrong. The greatest men should always be the evangelists, and generally have been; and the idea that Tom, Dick and Harry can be put up to speak on a street corner, but you must have a great preacher in a pulpit in a church is, to me, the reversing of the right order. It is when addressing the unbelieving world that we need to be most careful; and therefore I used to write my evangelistic sermon and not the other.

4. Next Carswell says evangelistic preaching connect with the non-Christian. This is really a plea to take every opportunity and to make sure that the message is appropriate for the unbeliever it is aimed at.

5. His final point is that evangelistic preaching expects results. That is the only way to preach the gospel.

David Murray
The seminary professor David Murray has also tackled this matter of evangelistic preaching in a blog. He uses eight words. Evangelistic preaching must be

• Present, that is majoring in the present tense. These are not sermons that are taken up with large amounts of history, geography and chronology. They may begin there, but move swiftly to the here and the now. He is talking about what Lloyd-Jones called the “urgent tense”.
• Personal. When we are going after lost souls, we have to move swiftly, we have to engage more rapidly, we have to show relevance much earlier on. Let it be eyeball to eyeball, too. Try and get into their minds.
• Persuasive. In evangelistic preaching the great aim is persuasion. We are here to persuade. People must see our anxiety that they respond to the gospel in faith and repentance. 
• Passionate. To be really persuasive, we must also be passionate. Let people see that we feel this deeply, that we fear for their eternal state, that we are anxious over them, and that we love them deeply. Let that be communicated in our words, but also in our facial expressions, our body language, and our tone.
• Plain. If we love sinners and we are anxious for them to be saved, we will be clear and plain in our structure, content, and choice of words.
• Powerful. When we go into the pulpit with an evangelistic sermon, let’s not go in defensively, and apologetically.
• Persevering. We preach. No one’s converted. We do it again. We preach. No one’s converted. We do it again, and again, and again.
• Prayerful. Above all, of course, evangelistic preaching is to be prayerful – before, during, and after.

An example
I thought I might finally give you an example of how I myself have tried to preach evangelistically. I preached on John 3:1-18 both in church and later in Trafalgar Square. I entitled the sermon

BE BORN AGAIN AND TRUST IN CHRIST WHO DIED

I began by saying
The story of Nicodemus's visit to Jesus recorded in John Chapter 3 is one of the most famous incidents in the New Testament and one we should know well. John 3, of course, includes the most famous verse in the Bible, verse 16, For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. I'd like us to look at the incident again this morning and remind ourselves of its teaching, the most obvious thing being that You must be born again. Let's look at the first 18 verses then.
I went on to say three things
1. Understand your state by nature – benighted and dead
We are told at the beginning of the chapter Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. We hear about this Nicodemus later in John's Gospel and we know that he became a disciple of Jesus – secretly at first but then at the death of Jesus he helped Joseph of Arimathea in the burial. At this time, however, he was a Pharisee and, like Joseph, a member of the Jewish ruling council, and entirely ignorant of the truth.
John emphasises this in a rather subtle way by saying (2) that He came to Jesus at night. Why did he come at night? His decision could have been prompted by many factors. He could have been trying to keep his visit secret or it may simply have not been possible to visit Jesus in the day time so busy was he. I think it is most likely that as a Pharisee it was Nicodemus's custom to use the daylight hours for study and that sort of thing and then in the evenings, when night fell, he would give himself to conversation. That seems to be what is going on here. The important thing to notice, however, is that John has mentioned this because he wants us to see that Nicodemus was spiritually in the dark.
It is a theme you can pursue all the way through the book. In verses 20 and 21 of this same chapter we read This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. This was Nicodemus's state regardless of all his religion and the state we are all in by nature. We love darkness instead of light because our deeds are evil. We hate(s) the light, and will not come into the light for fear that our deeds will be exposed.
So when Nicodemus says Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him whatever question he was leading up to, the fact is that he was not truly seeking the truth. Yes, he thought he was, but in fact he was in darkness and like a mole in the ground always turning from the light he, like us all, loved darkness instead of light because his deeds were evil. He hate(d) the light, and would not come into the light for fear that his deeds would be exposed.
That is why Jesus cuts in so abruptly in verse 3 with Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again. It is not possible to know the truth, to come to God, to be out of the dark, unless something totally radical happens to you. There has to be a complete renovation, what Jesus here calls being born again or born from above – it all has to start again right from the top!
Nicodemus's response to this again shows how much in the dark he is – how benighted and dead he is. 4 How can someone be born when they are old? Nicodemus asked. Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother's womb to be born! Now we don't know if he said that in an incredulous way or a sarcastic way or perhaps in a regretful way – surely you don't mean a man has to become a baby all over again. Whatever way he said it, he clearly did not understand what Jesus was talking about. And may be you have no idea what I mean when I say you need to be born again. And that shows then how ignorant and how much in the dark you really are. It is how we all are by nature.
My first application was
This is the first thing to grasp then. By nature we are all spiritually dead. We are in the dark – ignorant and lost. Unless something very radical indeed happens to us we will remain in our sins and we will die forever. That is the case for all of us, religious or not. I was giving out tracts one day and a woman said to me “You ought to be giving a tract to him not me” (pointing to a drunk sitting on the bench nearby). She said she was an evangelist and in the en she did agree that we all need forgiveness but she really thought some need it more than others, whereas the truth is that we all need it – desperately.
2. Realise that you need to be born again
So this is our need – to be regenerate, to be born again or from above. In verse 5 Jesus says Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. There has been quite a bit of debate about what exactly Jesus meant by this.
Some people think there is a reference to baptism here somehow but Nicodemus would not have known much about baptism so it is unlikely that Jesus introduces that subject here.
Some think being born of water is a reference to physical birth. You know that there is an amniotic sac that breaks just before the birth of a baby (hence the expression “her waters have broken”). Born … of the Spirit would then be spiritual birth or new birth.
If we bear in mind other Scriptures, however, especially Ezekiel 36:25, 26, a Scripture Nicodemus would have known, and that talks about God sprinkling clean water on his people and giving them a new heart then it is most likely that Jesus is using two expressions to refer to the same spiritual event. It is being born of water as it is a washing (what Paul calls somewhere in Titus (3:5)  the washing of regeneration) and it is being born of the Spirit as it is a spiritual renewal (in the same place Paul talks of renewal by the Holy Spirit).
This is what we all need then – a fundamental washing away of our sins (symbolised in baptism), a radical renewal that transforms us and makes us new people in Christ.
Jesus goes on (6) Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. This is amplifying his point. In the physical realm Flesh gives birth to flesh, a woman of flesh gives birth to a baby of flesh. In the spiritual realm the Spirit and I think it is right to use a capital there as we are talking about the Holy Spirit gives birth to spirit. The Holy Spirit is able to bring about a new birth, a radical spiritual change. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again.' Jesus continues. Jesus says that everyone needs to be born again. It is not a command but a statement of truth – we all need regeneration.
Jesus use another illustration at this point - 8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit. You cannot see the wind but you see the effects of it. You can see the trees move, things blown into the air. So the Spirit works in people's hearts changing them so that they are born again. You cannot see that. It is entirely invisible. What you see is the effects – the way their lives are transformed so that they turn form evil and begin to do good.
My second application was
So you see that the great need of every man and woman and boy and girl is to be transformed by the Holy Spirit. By nature we are benighted and dead. We need the light to be turned on, to be spiritually made alive. The only way this can happen is if the Spirit of God himself does it. He alone can wash us clean. He alone can enlighten us. He alone can renew us. He does his work secretly but effectively in people's hearts. Have you been born of water and the Spirit? Has the fresh breeze of the Spirit blown into your life? Have you been born again? It is the only way into the kingdom of God. It is the only way to be a true Christian
3. Recognise that Christ has come so that you may trust in him and have life
So Jesus sets it out all very clearly but Nicodemus is still a good way off. How can this be? He asks in verse 9. (10-12) You are Israel's teacher, says Jesus, and do you not understand these things? Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? Nicodemus was a Pharisee. This was the strictest sect among the Jews at the time. He was a man people looked up to, a rabbi, and yet he was unfamiliar with the most basic teaching about God's kingdom that there is. At this point Jesus is only speaking of earthly things – being born again here on earth. He has not gone on to the end of time, to the Second Coming and the judgement and heaven and hell and so on. It seems incredible to think that such an apparent man of God was so ignorant and yet there are plenty of examples of such things throughout history and to the present day. There are popes and cardinals and metropolitans and archbishops and bishops and deans and so on who don't know the first thing about being born again.
By this stage of his ministry Jesus had preached to very many but the general response was one of refusal to listen, refusal to accept the need to be born again. It is the same today.
In the early days of Dr Lloyd-Jones ministry, in the 1920s, he was once told “… you talk of God's action and God's sovereignty like a hyper-Calvinist, and of spiritual experience like a Quaker, but the cross and the work of Christ have little place in your preaching.” This chapter is certainly about being born again and it needs to be emphasised. Only God can save you. You also need to trust in Jesus Christ without doubt. But how does that make a difference? It is because of justification by faith. We all need two things. We need new birth, renewal and we need to be justified – to be declared righteous by God. We can be declared righteous because Jesus has died in the place of sinners like us. So if we trust in him we will be justified. Jesus goes on to open up on how people are saved in the verses that follow. It is not entirely clear where his words to Nicodemus end and where John has added other statements. It is all important to know, however. We will go as far as verse 18 today.
Jesus speaks first of his incarnation, then of the cross, then of the two together, emphasising the need for everyone to trust in him to know eternal life.
So first Jesus says (13) No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven - the Son of Man. When he says that No one has ever gone into heaven he means in his own right. In 1:18 John says similarly No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known. Jesus has unique access to God and to heaven. By coming from heaven as the Saviour he has opened up a way into heaven for people like us. Some manuscripts add who is in heaven. The niv does not include it but there is no real difficulty with it because Jesus is man and God and so he was in heaven even at that very moment according to his divine nature.
In verses 14 and 15 Jesus draws on an Old Testament incident to explain how by his death he was going to provide eternal life. When God's people were in the desert they often rebelled, On one occasion God punished them by sending poisonous snakes among them. People got sick, some died. God then directed Moses to fashion a bronze snake, which he was to hold up in front of the people. Everyone who looked at it would be healed that moment. So Jesus says Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that is he must be crucified that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him. Jesus says he is going to die as he did. Once he dies, everyone who trusts in him will be forgiven and they will have the gift of eternal life.
Jesus sums it up in verse 16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Out of his love for this world in all its rottenness and sin God sent his one and only Son into it. He did it so that whoever puts their faith in Jesus, whoever it is at all, might know the blessing of eternal life. Verses 17 and 18 re-inforce the teaching. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. The world was already condemned by the law. We have not lived as we should. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. It is all about faith in the end, believing in the Lord Jesus Christ.
My final brief application was
So Nicodemus learns not only that he needs to be born again but also that Christ by his death provides a way of salvation for all who trust in him. We too need to see that we need to be born again and we need to trust in Christ and be justified. Have you been born again? You will know it if you have. Have you put your faith in Jesus Christ? I urge you to do that today? You must trust in him. Only he can save you.

The Pastor as Theologian

Topic The pastor as theologian Time October 2016 Place APC, South Africa

The second thing we want to talk about today is the Pastor as theologian. Let me begin by repeating the story of the minister walking through a cemetery with his little girl. The girl stopped at one of the graves and read the inscription. “O look” she said “two men are buried in this one grave.” “Why do you say that, dear?” says her father. The reply? “Because on the tombstone it says, “Here lies a pastor and a theologian.” This little girl didn't realise that one person could be both a pastor and a theologian! Hopefully, her father did and hopefully you do too.
In an interesting article on the subject, Southern Baptist Seminary President Al Mohler, expresses the opinion that “every pastor is called to be a theologian”. As he notes, this assertion may come as a surprise to some pastors. This is because they see theology as an academic discipline studied at a seminary rather than as something that should characterise the life and ministry of every pastor.
Part of the reason for this way of thinking is the transformation of theology that has taken place since the time of the Puritans, whereby it has increasingly become the province of the university rather than of local churches and their pastors. If you go back to someone like the Elizabethan Puritan William Perkins (1558-1602), or the later Dutch theologian, Hermann Witsius (1636-1708), you will get quite a different understanding of theology. In his Golden Chain of 1590 Perkins famously calls it “the science of living blessedly forever.” In an essay on The character of a true theologian, his inaugural lecture at the University of Franeker,
Witsius similarly wrote

By a theologian, I mean one who, imbued with a substantial knowledge of divine things derived from the teaching of God Himself, declares and extols, not in words only, but by the whole course of his life, the wonderful excellencies of God and thus lives entirely for His glory.

When we take that view of things, it is clear that what Al Mohler says is true

the health of the church depends upon its pastors functioning as faithful theologians - teaching, preaching, defending, and applying the great doctrines of the faith.

He is surely correct to say that “the pastoral calling is inherently theological”. The pastor is called to be a teacher and preacher of the Word. “The idea of the pastorate as a non-theological office is inconceivable in light of the New Testament.” This is made explicit in the pastoral letters.
Tom Ascol says that in the 242 verses that make up the three letters, the word, “doctrine” appears at least 16 times. “Theology” he says “was to be at the heart of Timothy’s and Titus’ understanding of what a pastor is to be and do.”
Take these verses from 2 Timothy for example

2 Timothy 1:13, 14 What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you – guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.
2 Timothy 2:2 And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others.
2 Timothy 2:15 Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.
2 Timothy 4:1-4 In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage – with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather round them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.
Also see 1 Timothy 4:13 Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching.
Titus 1:9 which says of the elder He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it.

If we are to teach people, if we are to faithfully defend the truth, if we are to be effective evangelists, then we need to be theologians. Indeed, as Mohler says, again

There is no dimension of the pastor’s calling that is not deeply, inherently, and inescapably theological. There is no problem the pastor will encounter in counselling that is not specifically theological in character. There is no major question in ministry that does not come with deep theological dimensions and the need for careful theological application. The task of leading, feeding, and guiding the congregation is as theological as any other vocation conceivable. People regularly point to various models or styles of pastoral ministry – the manager, the helper, the coach and it may be that such models have something to teach us but the New Testament approach is clearly one in which the pastor is a theologian. The very shape of Paul's letters, where he regularly begins with doctrine and moves on to practice is a powerful witness on its own.
That is why “today’s pastors must recover and reclaim the pastoral calling as inherently and cheerfully theological”. In his Preachers and preaching Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones raises the question of what preaching is. His answer is evocative. “Logic on fire!” he says, “Eloquent reason!” “Are these contradictions?” he asks.

Of course they are not. Reason concerning this Truth ought to be mightily eloquent, as you see in the case of the Apostle Paul and others. It is theology on fire. And a theology which does not take fire, I maintain, is a defective theology. Preaching is theology coming through a man who is on fire. A true understanding and experience of the Truth must lead to this.

He also says

Preaching must always be theological, always based on a theological foundation. … There is no type of preaching that should be non-theological.

He especially advocates systematic theology

To me there is nothing more important in a preacher than that he should have a systematic theology, that he should know it and be well grounded in it. This systematic theology, this body of truth which is derived from the Scripture, should always be present as a background and as a controlling influence in his preaching.

B B Warfield's essay on The indispensability of systematic theology to the preacher begins similarly

Professor Flint, of Edinburgh, in closing his opening lecture to his class a few years ago, took occasion to warn his students of what he spoke of as an imminent danger ... a growing tendency to "deem it of prime importance that they should enter upon their ministry accomplished preachers, and of only secondary importance that they should be scholars, thinkers, theologians." "It is not so," he is reported as saying, "that great or even good preachers are formed. They form themselves before they form their style of preaching. Substance with them precedes appearance, instead of appearance being a substitute for substance. They learn to know truth before they think of presenting it. … They acquire a solid basis for the manifestation of their love of souls through a loving, comprehensive, absorbing study of the truth which saves souls." In these winged words is outlined the case for the indispensableness of Systematic Theology for the preacher. It is summed up in the propositions that it is through the truth that souls are saved, that it is accordingly the prime business of the preacher to present this truth to men, and that it is consequently his fundamental duty to become himself possessed of this truth, that he may present it to men and so save their souls. It would not be easy to overstate, of course, the importance to a preacher of those gifts and graces which qualify him to present this truth to men in a winning way - of all, in a word, that goest to make him an "accomplished preacher." But it is obviously even more important to him that he should have a clear apprehension and firm grasp of that truth which he is to commend to men by means of these gifts and graces. For this clear apprehension and firm grasp of the truth its systematic study would seem certainly to be indispensable. And Systematic Theology is nothing other than the saving truth of God presented in systematic form

Not that either would undervalue biblical theology. However, they would hold that biblical theology should lead to systematic theology so that when we come to a fresh passage of Scripture we have a systematic understanding of Scripture undergirding the way we approach the passage. One useful tip here. If you want to know whether you understand a doctrine properly then try to simply explain it out loud. Try justification or regeneration, for example.

Cautions
There was an article in Christianity Today last year called Why being a pastor-scholar is nearly impossible where Andrew Wilson sounded some warning bells regarding being both a pastor and a scholar. He asks there

But how feasible is it to be both a scholar and a pastor? I suspect many of us know individuals who, by aiming to be both a pastor and a scholar, have ended up being neither. More commonly, some aspire to be both equally, but indicate by their speech and actions - let alone by their weekly timetables - that they major in one and minor in the other.

He points up three obvious areas of tension. First, the generalist-specialist one. Pastors are generalists who have to know a lot about many things, while scholars tend to specialise. Pastors can rarely say “but that I not my field” or “I will do a paper on that and let you have it in six months time”. Second, the practical-theoretical tension. Scholars tend to theorise, while pastors need to be practical. The congregation wants to know what to do next and is seldom interested in the history of theories of how the soul is generated or the ins and outs of early Christian heresies. Thirdly, he consider the university-church tension. If you have studied at university or seminary level you will know how different these spheres can be. Both have advantages and disadvantages.
As he says,

full-time academics have to play by all sorts of scholarly rules, many of which constrain them from speaking with confidence about any number of issues. The academy loves nuance and finesse. But when transplanted into a local church context, such speech can seem evasive, flowery, and obscure. Although sounding quite negative about scholar-pastors he ends more positively by reminding us that tension can be good for us. Of course, what we are arguing for here is not that we become scholars in the sense of entering the academic world, Rather our concern is that pastors think in a theological way. Whether that includes any academic activity is another question entirely.

Practical steps
Given that all pastors should be theologians, what practical steps can we take to ensure that, if we are pastors we are pastor-theologians, a we ought to be. In an essay from the 1980s by James Montgomery Boice on The preacher and scholarship he gives four recommended guidelines.

1. Get all the formal training you can
Our circumstances differ and some will only be able to get a limited amount of formal training or none at all. Whatever opportunities come your way, grab them with both hands. You will not regret it.
2. Never stop learning
It is important that whether or not you are able to get formal training or not that you do not stop there. Your study should be ongoing. Read books, make judicious use of the Internet, attend conferences like this one and take other opportunities to learn. Boice suggest we focus on three areas
1 The Bible. This must always be first and foremost. Above everything else, we must know our Bibles. This is our textbook. Read the Bible daily. As a minister you should be reading the Bible once through at least every year. The M'Cheyne reading calendar which takes you through the Old Testament once and the New Testament and Psalms twice every year is demanding but very profitable. Really get to know your Bible inside out. One of the points that John Piper makes in a paper on Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) and what he teaches us is that pastors ought to “labour earnestly to know the Scriptures”. He recalls Edwards' 28th resolution in the series of such resolutions he made while studying at Yale.

Resolved: To study the Scriptures so steadily, constantly, and frequently, as that I may find, and plainly perceive, myself to grow in the knowledge of the same.

Piper says

Don't get your vision of God secondhand. Don't even let Edwards or Packer be your primary source of divinity. This was the example Edwards himself sets for us. His early biographer Sereno Dwight said that when he came to his pastorate in Northampton, "he had studied theology, not chiefly in systems or commentaries, but in the Bible, and in the character and mutual relations of God and his creatures, from which all its principles are derived" (Works, I, xxxvii).

He quotes an Edwards sermon called The Importance and Advantage of a thorough Knowledge of Divine Truth.
Edwards says

Be assiduous [!] in reading the Holy Scriptures. This is the fountain whence all knowledge in divinity must be derived. Therefore let not this treasure lie by you neglected (Works, II, 162).

Perhaps you know how one day Edwards took a Bible apart page by page and then sowed it back together interleaved with blank sheets. He then drew a line down the centre of each blank page in order to make two columns for notes. The Bible still exists and is in the Beinecke Library at Yale. Piper says that on page after page in the remotest parts of Scripture there are extensive notes and reflections in his tiny almost illegible handwriting.
He asks

How many of us have a plan for growing in our grasp of the whole terrain of Scripture? Don't most of us use the Bible as a source for getting sermons and devotionals and personal devotional help? But do we labour over the Scripture in such a way that we can plainly see that today we understand something in it that we did not understand yesterday? I fear that many of us work at reading books on theology and church life with a view to growing, but have no plan and no sustained effort to move steadily and constantly forward in our understanding of the Bible. … Study the Bible so steadily and constantly and frequently that you can clearly perceive yourself to grow in them.

Someone (Charles Graham) once wrote

It is said of some of the mines of Cornwall that the deeper they are sunk the richer they prove; and though some lodes have been followed, 1000 and even 1500 feet, they have not come to an end. Such is the Book of God ... a mine of wealth which can never be exhausted. The deeper we sink into it, the richer it becomes.

2 Theology. Keep reading theology. Preaching on 2 Timothy 4:13 where Paul urges that Timothy bring him books, C H Spurgeon (1634-1892) says

He who will not use the thoughts of other men’s brains, proves that he has no brains of his own. Brethren, what is true of ministers is true of all our people. YOU need to read. Renounce as much as you will all light literature, but study as much as possible sound theological works, especially the Puritanic writers, and expositions of the Bible. We are quite persuaded that the best way for you to be spending your leisure, is to be either reading or praying. You may get much instruction from books which afterwards you may use as a true weapon in your Lord and Master’s service.

Tom Ascol says, very practically

The recent reprinting of older works makes the Puritans and their heirs more accessible today than at any time in the previous century. Get on the mailing lists of trusted publishers of such works, like Banner of Truth … Talk to fellow pastors and discover what books they are finding helpful. Read good theological journals and don’t skip the book reviews!

3 Other books. Here he mentions several areas and names specific volumes, As he says,

for the minister reading in almost any area can be useful and so we will vary from person to person. Do take advantage of books on church history, however, including biography. All sorts of things can be learned from Christian books of various sorts and from some of the more widely read secular books too, at times.

3. Set aside specific times for study.
Bopice recommends that we take time in the mornings and/or the evening and during holiday periods to give ourselves to serious study. This is an area where any sabbatical time given would be very usefully spent. To do this we will need to find somewhere where we are not going to be interrupted. He points out that unless we are vigorous about this, it simply will not happen.

4. Tackle some big problems. His final recommendation is that we give some time to tackling areas of thought where we are not so sure of ourselves. However much training you mange to get, you are bound to find that there are gaps in your thinking. May be you are not very clear on covenant theology,what it is and how you understand it. Perhaps it is eschatology or how exactly we are to understand Song of Solomon or Ecclesiastes. Somehow time needs to be found to give yourself to these questions. It is on this basis that I have written the books I have written – on conscience, in the heavenly intercession of Christ, on regeneration, etc. You don't have to write a book on a subject to study it!
Let me close with a paragraph or two from John Piper on The pastor as scholar. This is where he talks about the link between Christ exalting joy and scholarly effort. He says

The question here is how the life of the mind relates to treasuring Christ - how thinking relates to joy in God. I would state it like this: Right thinking about God exists to serve right feelings for God. Logic exists for the sake of love. Reasoning exists for the sake of rejoicing. Doctrine exists for the sake of delight. Reflection about God exists for the sake of affection for God. The head is meant to serve the heart. So knowing truth is the proper means to admiring truth. Both thinking and feeling are indispensable. But they are not both ultimate. Thinking exists to serve admiring. Thinking is meant to serve worship and delight and satisfaction in God. The Devil himself has many right thoughts about God. My guess is that the Devil, on some doctrines, is more orthodox than us - more correct than we are. But none of these doctrines, in the mind of the Devil, gives rise to any love for God, any worship of God, any delight in God. The Devil believes that Jesus died for sinners. The Devil believes that Jesus rose from the dead. The Devil believes that Jesus is coming back. And the Devil hates him! So knowing right things about Jesus doesn’t automatically produce right affections. But knowing those right things about Christ is essential for having right affections for God. What I am getting at is that Christ-exalting joy depends on right thinking about God. If God is going to be glorified in our being satisfied in him, then our satisfaction in him must be based on truth. And truth is what we find by the right use of the mind - by scholarly effort.

The Pastor in his Personal Holiness as a Leader

Topic The pastor in his personal holiness as a leader Time October 2016 Place APC, South Africa

Leadership of God's people involves some obvious things. First of all, we need to know what is expected of us. As pastors we will find that in the Bible. Our people will also have certain expectations of us. Where these mesh with the Bible all well and good but there is clearly potential for a difference of opinion that has to be worked out. If you share the leadership, and we all do to some extent, be clear on how it works. What exactly is the relationship between the pastor and other elders, the pastor and deacons, the pastor and the church meeting.

Leadership
When we spoke of being a pastor or shepherd we spoke of the importance of knowing your people. Don't forget that. You need to know too what needs to be done and when a particular task needs to be done. Derek Prime has written, “It is not enough to know what needs to be done; when it is to be done is just as important.” (A Christian's guide to leadership). We need to wait on God for his timing in all things. The other thing here is knowing how it is to be done. How important that is.

Prime suggests eight things that follow on from these basic assumptions – knowing your own mind, showing how things are to be done, being concerned for reasonable progress, having some 'go' about you, being a confirmed optimist, seeking to be far sighted, practising honesty with integrity, aiming to encourage new leadership. In it all we must always remember Christ's own example.

In the rest of his book he talks about good personal relationships, delegation (which is so important), efficiency and so on. What we want to focus on, however, is personal example and that really takes us back to the whole matter of the importance of holiness in our lives. It is too easy in the midst of our daily tasks as pastors to let personal holiness slip to the bottom of the agenda in our thinking. It must not.

Holiness

So let's think about our own holiness. To be a pastor is not simply a matter of preaching - passing on information to others merely. The man himself is fundamentally important. He must be prepared for this work. Elders we are told (Titus 1:8) are to be self-controlled, upright, holy and disciplined. Like Paul we must be holy, righteous and blameless … among those who believed. Many have recognised this. John Owen, in his An Inquiry into the Original Nature, Institution, Power, Order, and Communion of Evangelical Churches in Volume 16 of his Works says pastors must, among other things,

Experience of the power of the truth which they preach in and upon their own souls. Without this, they will themselves be lifeless and heartless in their own work, and their labour for the most part unprofitable towards others. It is to such men, attended unto as a task for their advantage; or as that which carries some satisfaction in it from ostentation, and supposed reputation wherewith it is accompanied. But a man preacheth that sermon only well unto others, which preacheth itself in his own soul. And he that doth not feed on, and thrive in the digestion of the food which he provides for others, will scarce make it savoury unto them. Yea, he knows not but the food he hath provided maybe poison, unless he have really tasted of it himself. If the word doth not dwell with power in us, it will not pass with power from us. And no man lives in a more woeful condition than those who really believe not themselves what they persuade others to believe continually. The want of this experience of the power of gospel truth on their own souls, is that which gives us so many lifeless, sapless orations, quaint in words, and dead as to power, instead of preaching the gospel in the demonstration of the Spirit. ….

In 1849 Robert Murray M'Cheyne wrote to a fellow minister, Daniel Edwards

Get your texts from God - your thoughts, your words, from God. In great measure, according to the purity and perfections of the instrument, will be success. It is not great talents God blesses so much as great likeness to Jesus. A holy minister is an awful weapon in the hand of God. A word spoken by you when your conscience is clear, and your heart full of God’s Spirit, is worth ten thousands words spoken in unbelief and sin.

Before leaving Palestine he wrote to William Burns

Take heed to thyself. Your own soul is your first and greatest care. You know a sound body can work with power; much more a healthy soul. Keep a clear conscience through the blood of the Lamb. Keep up close communion with God. Study likeness to Him in all things. Read the Bible for your own growth first, then for your people. (Memoir and Remains 178)

He also wrote to Burns (241, 248, 254, 273)

I feel there are two things it is impossible to desire with sufficient ardour - personal holiness and the honour of Christ in the salvation of souls. … Oh, cry for personal holiness, constant nearness to God by the blood of the Lamb! … Seek advance of personal holiness. It is for this the grace of God has appeared to you. … Seek much personal holiness and likeness to Christ in all the features of his blessed character. Seek to be lamb-like, without which all your efforts to do good to others will be as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.

And to Edwards (362, 180)

Lead a holy life. - I believe, brother, that you are born from above, and therefore I have confidence in God touching yon, that you will be kept from the evil. But oh! study universal holiness of life. Your whole usefulness depends on this, Your sermon on Sabbath lasts but an hour or two, - your life preaches all the week. Remember, ministers are standard-bearers. Satan aims his fiery darts at them. If he can only make you a covetous minister, or a lover of pleasure, or a lover of praise, or a lover of good eating, then he has ruined your ministry for ever. Ah! let him preach on 50 years, he will never do me any harm. Dear brother, cast yourself at the feet of Christ, implore his Spirit to make you a holy man. Take heed to thyself, and to thy doctrine. …

I know some preachers who perhaps are not the most interesting or the best in some ways but they are godly and because of that they can look you in the eye and tell you the truth. We need more men like that. So what can we say practically about this matter of holiness?

Practically

Perhaps the best thing I can do to help you here is to take you to Colossians 1:9, 10 where Paul prays for the Colossians, to see what we learn about practical holiness there. Paul says

For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God,

We can sum up what Paul wants for them by saying he wants them to grow spiritually. Leaning on Joel Beeke's Developing spiritual growth, we say that this growth must be growth in knowledge, practice and experience. I want us just to look at growth in practice today. I think we can get at this best by asking three questions that arise from the three phrases in the prayer so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work ….

1. Are you growing according to the pattern Christ laid down?

Paul's prayer for knowledge is so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord, etc. So

1. Are you living a life worthy of the Lord? In 1981 American tennis player John McEnroe won Wimbledon for the first time aged 22. Now when you win Wimbledon it is the custom for the All England Lawn Tennis Club to invite you to be a member. McEnroe, however, had quite a bad reputation for noisy outbursts on court and didn't come to the winners dinner so they decided not to invite him. They didn't consider him a good example to young people. He was not worthy of the honour. He lost the final the following year but was well behaved so they welcomed him in.

Here Paul talks of living a Life worthy of the Lord. The idea is not that we can earn a place in God's kingdom. No, that is given to us despite our sins. Rather the idea is that we should live a life appropriate to having Christ as Lord. A person who is growing spiritually will increasingly be living a life worthy of the Lord. The inappropriate will increasingly fall away. As we grow in knowledge we'll not only see the anomalies in our lives but seek to do something about them.

This idea of walking worthy is a common one in Paul. Eph 4:1 As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Phpns 1:27 Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. 1 Thess 2:11, 12 For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God. 2 Thess 1:11 we constantly pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling.

Christ should be a pattern for us in our daily lives. If he is truly our Saviour then he also ought to be our exemplar too. We ought to walk in his footsteps.

2. Are you practising self-denial and humbly serving? Puritan Thomas Watson says “the right manner of growth is to grow less in one's own eyes”. One of the most obvious things about Christ was his self-denying and humble nature. That ought to be our attitude too. Beeke quotes Packer

Pride blows us up like balloons, but grace punctures our conceit and lets the hot, proud air out of our system. The result (a very salutary result) is that we shrink, and end up seeing ourselves as less - less nice, less able, less wise, less good, less strong, less steady, less committed, less of a piece - than ever we thought we were. We stop kidding ourselves that we are persons of great importance to the world and to God. We settle for being insignificant and dispensable. Off-loading our fantasies of omnicompetence, we start trying to be trustful, obedient, dependent, patient and willing in our relationship with God. … We bow to events that rub our noses in the reality of our own weaknesses, and we look to God for strength quietly to cope.

This is part of the work of mortification or putting sin to death. When we see (like John the Baptist) that he must increase and I must decrease then we begin to grow as believers.

I like the story of the boy out with his father, a farmer, looking at a field of corn. The boy remarked on how he liked to see the corn standing tall in the field. His father on the other hand preferred the corn that was bowing down because that was the corn that he knew was full.

Are you practising self-denial and humbly serving? There is no spiritual growth without it.

3. Do you see yourself as a servant and are you submissive? Matthew 20:25-27 You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave - just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

The issue is not authority but about how we use our authority. Paul says (2 Cor 4:5) We do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. A servant spirit, a servant heart is so important.

When we think of spiritual growth we tend to think of doing great exploits for God perhaps but really the chief thing is learning to submit to God – to his will, his power, his honour and glory. Calvin says somewhere “Let us not cease to do the utmost, that we may incessantly go forward in the way of the Lord; and let us not despair of the smallness of our accomplishment”. That's the attitude, pressing on and not becoming distressed at how little we've done.

The submissive spirit we are talking about is exemplified in the attitude of William Carey when, in 1812, his printing house in India accidentally burned down. Paper, new type, irreplaceable manuscripts - all were lost. His reaction? ‘In one night the labours of years are consumed. How unsearchable are the divine ways! I had lately brought some things to the utmost perfection I could, and contemplated the Mission with, perhaps, too much self-congratulation. The Lord has laid me low that I might look more simply to Him.’ That Sunday he preached from Psalm 46 on God’s right to do his will, and our duty to acquiesce. He wrote to Fuller, ‘The ground must be laboured over again, but we are not discouraged ... God has a sovereign right to dispose of us as He pleases.’

2. Are you growing in pleasing God?
Paul says the goal of his prayer is not only that you may live a life worthy of the Lord but also that you may please him in every way. 1 Thess 4:1 Finally, brothers, we instructed you how to live in order to please God, as in fact you are living. Eph 5:10, interestingly, is Find out what pleases the Lord. Presumably to do what pleases him. More questions

1. Is pleasing God central in your life? It's very easy to slip into a way of thinking where we become more concerned with what others think of us than with what God thinks of us. That must never be the case. 1 Thess 2:4 We are not trying to please men but God, who tests our hearts. 2 Cor 5:8, 9 So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. For we must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad. This determination to please God rather than men comes out elsewhere. It ought to be what drives us too.

Sometimes you might hear someone say “I did it just to please him” referring to their spouse. Doing things to please others is fine, of course, but what should drive us above and beyond everything else is doing what we do to please God.

In the film Chariots of Fire about the 1924 Olympics and Eric Liddell, the Christian who becomes one of the finest runners in the world there is a scene where we know his sister, Jennie, wants him to leave competitive running to join the family on the mission field in China. Jennie feels Eric is putting running ahead of serving God, and she questions his commitment. Eric attempts to help his sister see his point of view. He announces with a smile, "I've decided I'm going back to China. The missionary service has accepted". Jennie interrupts him. "Oh, Eric, I'm so pleased." Eric continues, "But I've got a lot of running to do first. Jennie, you've got to understand. I believe that God made me for a purpose, for China. He also made me fast, and when I run, I feel his pleasure. To give it up would be to hold him in contempt. You were right; it's not just fun. To win is to honour him." Now whether it happened quite like that and whether Liddell read it right if it did that is the attitude we're talking about.

Are we determined to seek always to keep pleasing God not anyone else central?

2. Are you seeking to be sanctified, remembering it is not the same as justification? Perhaps it is worth reminding ourselves of the difference between justification and sanctification. Both are free gifts from God and flow from the work of Christ on the cross. Both are found in all believers and begin at the same time. Both in a sense are necessary to enter heaven. Luther once said "There is no justification without sanctification, no forgiveness without renewal of life, no real faith from which the fruits of new obedience do not grow."

There are differences though. Yes, we are justified by faith in Christ and so legally or forensically we stand perfect before God in Christ. Nevertheless, we are called to be holy and to be increasingly holy in our actual lives, the work of sanctification. Increasingly we should be seeking to please God – not because we will not be acceptable to him otherwise but because we will not be growing spiritually, in sanctification otherwise. The differences are worth knowing and remembering

1. One - something is done for you, one – something is done in you.

2. One enables you to acquire Christ’s righteousness, one enables you to acquire your own righteousness. In sanctification we acquire our own imperfect righteousness through the Spirit.

3. One is not a matter of good deeds at all, one very much is.

4. One is complete and finished from conversion, one is never complete until heaven.

Perhaps we can think of the difference between a house and a home.

5. One does not grow or increase, one grows and increases throughout life. You can’t be more or less justified – you either are or are not. Sanctification, however, has many degrees. Take the army. On one hand you are either in it or out of it but within it there are many ranks.

6. One has to do with your standing before God, one with the state of your soul.

7. One gives authority to enter heaven, one prepares you to enjoy heaven. Take a Buckingham Palace Garden Party. There is the ticket you need to get in and the clothes you wear at the event.

8. One is God’s work outside you, invisible to others, one God’s work within you, obvious to others.

3. Are you serving God not men and seeking his reward not theirs? To be very practical we must examine ourselves and probe to see the extent to which our lives are conforming to what we profess. We ought to remind ourselves constantly of the judgement day when the whole truth will be known. We ought to be living in the light of that day even now. One thing that we should not be afraid of thinking of is the reward for the righteous on that day. There will be a well done good and faithful servant for all on that day. Further, think about verses such as Matthew 10:41, 42 where Jesus says Anyone who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet's reward, and anyone who receives a righteous man because he is a righteous man will receive a righteous man's reward. And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward.

In The Weight of Glory C S Lewis apparently says that believers can underestimate the full riches God has for his children.

… If we consider … the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures … like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

In The Problem of pain he says

We are afraid that Heaven is a bribe, and that if we make it our goal we shall no longer be disinterested. It is not so. Heaven offers nothing that a mercenary soul can desire. It is safe to tell the pure in heart that they shall see God, for only he pure in heart want to.

He also says somewhere

We must not be troubled by unbelievers when they say that this promise of rewards makes the Christian's life a mercenary affair. There are different kinds of reward. There is the reward which has no natural connection with things you do to earn it, and is quite foreign to the desires that ought to accompany those things. Money is not the natural reward of love; that is why we call a man mercenary if he marries a woman for the sake of her money. But marriage is the proper reward for a real lover, and he is not mercenary for desiring it.”

3. Are you growing in spiritual fruitfulness?
The third phrase bearing fruit in every good work again prompts a question, which we can break down into three further questions. The idea of spiritual growth leading to the bearing of fruit is an easy picture to get and a common enough one in Scripture. In John 15 Jesus speaks about his being the vine and his disciples the fruit bearing branches. Philippians 1:11speaks of the Philippians being filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ - to the glory and praise of God. The whole point of growing a vine or apple tree is that there may be fruit. Three further questions then

1. Are you healthily active? Fruit doesn't simply refer to the people we may bring to Christ. Fruit stands for all the things we do in Christ's kingdom. If we are really growing spiritually it will not be just our attitudes that change but our actions too. James is very hot on this. In 1:22ff he says

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it - he will be blessed in what he does. If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

He goes on in Chap 2 to remind us faith without deeds is dead. So, is there fruit? Is your Christian life productive?

2. Are you remaining in Christ? In John 15 where Jesus has a lot to say about Christians bearing fruit he says strikingly (15:4) Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. Although there needs to be activity in our lives it needs to be a healthy activity. Such activity will be healthy only if we are remaining in the Lord Jesus Christ at all times. He says I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

A branch will not produce fruit if it doesn't remain in the vine. The warning is that If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. Another illustration might be the way a dirty dish may be very hard to clean if left out overnight but soaked in water in the sink that will make a big difference.

Jesus goes on to say If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This leads us onto the third and final point I want to make.

3. Are you making good use of the spiritual disciplines? In 1 Tim 4:7 Paul says Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives' tales; rather, train yourself to be godly. The word translated train is an interesting word. It's where we get our word gymnasium from. A lot of people today are convinced abut the importance of going to the gym regularly. They are convinced that Paul is right when he says that physical exercise is of some value. What most people have failed to get is that godliness has value for all things. This brings us to the importance then of spiritual disciplines.

By spiritual disciplines, sometimes called spiritual exercises or practices, we mean actions and activities that we undertake for the purpose of cultivating spiritual growth. Given that we need to grow spiritually the question comes as to how we are to grow. If we are to be fruitful, how are we going to be fruitful. The chief answer is through spiritual disciplines. Beeke mentions 16 altogether. That may sound a lot. I found a list of 27 elsewhere. As Beeke freely admits in the end it all boils down to prayer and reading the Word. I think it's always good to look at this subject.

Beeke lists four personal disciplines. We could add more but let's stick with these. He quotes Austin Phelps in The Still Hour saying

It has been said that no great work in literature or in science was ever wrought by a man who did not love solitude. We may lay it down as an elemental principle of religion, that no large growth in holiness was ever gained by one who did not take time to be often long alone with God.

We need to find time, as difficult as that may be sometimes, to be alone with God.

1 Read the Bible regularly for yourself. This is the first, the most obvious thing. If we don't get to know the content of the Bible and continually remind ourselves of it then how are we going to grow spiritually? How are we going to bear fruit? In John 17:17 Jesus prays Sanctify them by the truth. He adds your word is truth. Ps 119:11 I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. Beeke also recommends singing Scripture and some of you will find that useful. Learning Scripture is also a great thing and there are lots of helps. The main thing is first to read it. There are various schemes that will take you through the Bible in one year, two, three, whatever. I think there are schemes that distinguish weekends from weekdays too and even more flexible schemes. There are also buy one year Bibles set out with daily readings all in one place for the day. This is something we must be committed to. When we fail to read on a certain day we shouldn't be too discouraged but start again as soon as can. It's a bit like falling off a bicycle. Get on again.

2 Meditate on the Bible regularly. Someone has said that reading the Bible without meditating on it is like trying to eat without swallowing. The godly Bishop Joseph Hall once wrote

Remember, it is not hasty reading, but seriously meditating upon holy and heavenly truths, that makes them prove sweet and profitable to the soul. It is not the bee's touching of the flowers that gathers honey, but her abiding for a time upon them, and drawing out the sweet. It is not he that reads most, but he that meditates most, that will prove the choicest, sweetest, wisest, and strongest Christian.

Spurgeon once remarked that

Some people like to read so many chapters every day. I would not dissuade them from the practice, but I would rather let my soul soak in half a dozen verses all day than rinse my hand in several chapters. Oh, to be bathed in a text of Scripture, and to let it be sucked up in your very soul, till it saturates your heart!

Col 3:1, 2 Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. There is no better way to do that than by meditating on Scripture. In Psalm 1 we learn that the godly man delights in God's law and meditates on it night and day.

The circumstances are different for all of us but we ought to be finding time – if not every day at least more than once a week to meditate on the Word of God. Beeke suggests a Puritan method.

1 Pray in order to focus the mind on the Scripture
2 Read the verse or two you want to meditate on
3 Repeat it over and over, learning it as you go
4 Think carefully about the verse or verses – what it means, its context, its applications
5 Stir your heart to appropriate affections of love, joy, grief, hope, etc.
6 Arouse your soul to make specific resolutions coming out of the verse
7 Conclude with prayer, thanking God and praying for his help to act in light of the verse

3. Pray. We should pray before and after we meditate. We should also pray giving thanks to God and praising his name and confessing our sins. Then there is the whole matter of intercession.

We will surely want to pray for our families. In some cases that will mean that we pray longer and longer. I remember hearing Joel Beeke give an anecdote about his mother some years ago. It involved them waiting for her to come for some reason and her taking a long time because she was praying. More recently he was saying that his mother was the mother of a large family and had a vast number of grandchildren and great grand children. No wonder, she needed to pray so long!
We ought to be praying for a our flock too. Start with the elders, perhaps, then the deacons, then as many members as you can plus members of the congregation. We ought to pray too for others – ministers, missionaries, neighbours, different agencies that seek to reach out.

The truth is that if we are going to do this properly then we need to find time each day to do it. Ora et labora is an old Latin phrase often used. Prayer and work. Beeke draws attention to Nehemiah 4:9 where Nehemiah says that when under threat we prayed to our God and posted a guard day and night to meet this threat. It reminds us of how Oliver Cromwell is reputed to have said “Trust in God and keep your powder dry”. Beeke uses the picture of using two oars to row a boat. Or to use a football illustration – the best players learn to kick with both feet.

I think this is a useful way to think about things. If we think only about our daily tasks we'll remain prayerless. If we just think of prayer we may prove useless but if we think of the two together that will be best. In the morning you are bound to be thinking of the tasks ahead that day. Pray about them then. As you begin tasks pray and as you go about them too. They say that when Luther was once asked what his plans for the following day were, he answered: “Work, work, from early until late. In fact, I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer.”

If we are going to grow in grace then undoubtedly we need to pray more in private. Beeke quotes Archibald Alexander helpfully too saying “Pray constantly and fervently for the influences of the Holy Spirit. No blessing is so particularly and emphatically promised in answer to prayer as this”. So private prayer then. This is important. We may fail many times but must keep returning to it.

4. Try keeping a journal. Beeke suggests this. Personally, I vary on this but there is some merit in simply writing down how you have spent the day in order to encourage wise use of time and so that we do not completely fritter it away. It also helps with self-examination. Sometimes we can see good or bad patterns developing in our lives by this means. Beyond keeping a diary we can write down our personal thoughts and how we are communing with God. It is from this sort of journaling that diary keeping has sprung. If you do it you can read over it in years to come and learn from it.

Not all of us will want to to do this but some may find it helpful. It is ideally a daily thing but a weekly journal can be useful too. A lot more could be said but we will leave it there for now.