Banner Of Truth Ministers Conference, Leicester 2006 Day Four

Keep a Close Watch on Yourself and on the Teaching (3)
– Al Martin

I Timothy 4:16 “Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.” Take heed to yourself that you are growing in grace and maintaining a vital walk with God, by the discipline of structured prayer and self-reflective engagement in prayer.

Let us look at I Timothy 1 and verse 3 and its reference to charging certain men to this end that they love out of a pure heart and a good conscience and that unfeigned faith may be seen by all. The issue is the vitality of Christian life and experience. Then in verse 18 he urges Timothy to war a good warfare and hold faith and a good conscience. Why is this so critical? Because some have thrust their consciences from them and have made a shipwreck of their faith. The deflection did not begin at an ethical level but at the level of their conscience. They pushed it away and the result was Hymenaeus and Philetus’ fall into apostasy.

Then Acts 24 and verse 14 when Paul is standing before a pagan ruler. He tells him that at all times he keeps a conscience void of offense before God and man. We long to look up into God’s face and know no legitimate reason for alienation. Neither does his conscience smite him for anything he has done against a man. If we are to be engaged in the disciplines of the Christian life it will be not neglecting prayer, Bible reading and a blood-washed non-accusing conscience.

THE MODIFIERS

There must be a healthy conscience, that is one that is not burdened with an over scrupulosity. When the conscience has a false voice it can be a weak conscience, for example, keeping a Jewish feast day. You must keep your conscience, but you also need to constantly educate it. You must have a passion to bring your conscience before God and urge it to listen to God. You must not have a defiled conscience by riding over its own cautions. You can have a seared conscience when it loses its sensitivities to sin. One can indulge in things with complacency what a year or two ago would have caused a spiritual shock. So we seek a sensitive blood-washed conscience as the letter to the Hebrews tells us – “how much more does the blood of Christ . . . cleanse your conscience from dead works to render service to the living God.” Now we have the marvelous privilege of laying hold of God with delight and serve him with eagerness in restored moral innocence.

Paul in Romans 7 uses the present tense throughout that section, when he would do good evil is present within him. Paul knew the indwellings of sin and its strivings against godliness. Remaining sin battles against us the moment we sit down and read the Bible. When we sit down and read the paper there is no battle. In all that transpires in our lives, inwardly and outwardly, Paul holds nothing against himself.

APPLICATION

Sitting here this morning can you say that you hold nothing against yourself? Your conscience is healthy and constantly blood-washed. Is this so? Bless God if you are now free from an accusing conscience. When you read the newspaper are there lingering glances at semi-pornography, not allowing your eyes to be the inlet of the unclean. What of your access to the Internet? There are addictions to Internet pornography considering its availability, access and anonymity. You can buy the devil’s lie and you visit, first out of curiosity and then by slow steady addiction. Lust brings forth sin, and sin when it is full grown brings forth death. Your Internet access is to be holy unto the Lord. What a waste of time there can be on the Internet! Squandering hours over things that are not central to our life. Al himself has no Internet access; he fears for his own soul. Secrecy has been the downfall of many preachers. Let us be ruthless in the maintenance of a healthy non-accusing conscience before God and men.

It is crucial that we keep a good conscience before men. So occasionally we must say to our wives that we have sinned against them. “Dear, I sinned, will you forgive me?” No matter what she did to provoke it you are the one who sinned and you must say that it was wrong and ask for pardon. I asked my children if there was anything in my life that caused the unbelief of some of them and they said No. I have at times asked the congregation to forgive me for what I’ve said or done.

Another discipline is of constant believing appropriation of the reality and implications of your union with Christ – being in Christ. “Mind your Gospel Grammar” was the title of the last address to the young people, working on the indicative – where we are and stand – and the imperative – what we must do in the light of our status. No condemnation leads to presenting my body as a living sacrifice to God. Dead to sin’s dominion is our status – and that was what I used last year to fight against a bout of temptation.

There is the discipline of maintaining a determination to maintain the simplicity and the passion of our first love for Christ, the single-mindedness of it. We are not to accept it – like our wrinkles. Leaving your first love is sin.

Conference Sermon
-Mark Johnston

Ephesians 4:1-13.

The two most difficult sessions are the first and last someone said to me. So I am to draw this conference to a conclusion. What are the main truths of this passage that has been read to you? Someone said to me he thought he was losing the plot. We could all say that at moments when things are going wrong or in the routine and pressures of the ministry and its successes and blessings. We can lose sight of the glory and privilege of this extraordinary calling given to us. There are things that no one else knows about except a preacher. So I thought it would be useful to remind ourselves of the glory of the Christian ministry. There are difficulties and pain and anguish but the gospel ministry is still the greatest privilege conferred on a human being, and this is the best passage describing the gospel, and it is a beautiful picture of the church in all Scripture, what she is and what she will be when God has finished his dealings when he has brought the church home to glory.

In my first congregation there was a honeymoon of Christian work and I saw the Lord build up a church. In Ulster we built with our own hands the building of a new church. One February we were laying the foundations working for many Saturdays in a hole in the ground, cold and weary, looking at the work done and thinking how little had been achieved. Then we went to the architect’s plans and saw what we were going to achieve and this was cheering. So it is with us as we work and get discouraged, we look for the new humanity that God is rebuilding of his fallen race – a people for God’s glory.

Often the church looks more fallen than the world out of which it is saved and yet we hold up these eternal goals and God will not rest until he has accomplished them.

The Lord has chosen, flawed and fallible and failing human beings to accomplish this task, and do the dirty work of building the kingdom and the family of God. God shows us what his ministry entails. So I have three thoughts:

1. THE NATURE OF MINISTERIAL OFFICE (v.11)

Psalm 68 is quoted. It is about God’s war with the Kingdom of darkness and he will not be defeated. He speaks in the language of warfare and in v.11 “great was the company of those who proclaimed it.” So what does Paul say, “He gave some to be apostles . . . pastors and teachers.” What are they but men who are proclaiming the Word of God once and for all given. Two officers are foundational and temporary – prophets and apostles. Maybe a third is continuous – the evangelist, but there is the pastor and teacher or the pastor-teacher. Two facets of a single office which expresses two dimensions; definitive language is used to describe the Christian ministry. Every pastor who pastors must pastor by instruction, by teaching. Every teacher who teaches does so by pastoral care. The two are interwoven. The art of teaching is not the work of the lecturer. It is rightly said that the definition of the ministry is what goes on in the pew, as the preacher brings the word of God to them. It is not enough to minister to the intellect but to the whole complex of what man is.

We sometimes think God would do better without us, by taking away we middle men. But his way is that he uses the body to minister to the body and thus the body is built up. That is how the passage ends with each part doing its work. Through the ministry of the word, through the agency of men whom he gifts he deals with men. We need mediators at many levels. He uses us to minister to preach to our fellow men. God has inseparably joined together the minister as a pastor-preacher. He combines these dimensions in this office. There are colleges who train men for the ministry but their staff have never been preachers. So we end up with academic theology.

We also have ‘ministry teams’, people deemed to have different gifts, but is that not to carve up what God has inseparably joined? Paul wants us to realise that there is something inherent in this office and it will meet deep human needs. We are fools if we think we can do better than him. The justification of the Banner of Truth is the fact that these two things are joined together. We are no academic Calvinists but experiential Calvinists. We are here transforming our lives and making them like Jesus. That is why when we open the book and see what God has done we should be thrilled in our hearts to know his achievements.

2 THE GOAL OF MINISTERIAL SERVICE (vv.12 & 13)

We were set apart and were given a charge in the presence of God and the angels. It is good to remember the vows we made on our wedding day. Paul is doing that here, reminding them all of the purpose of why God gave this office – in order to prepare God’s people for the works of service and become mature attaining the whole measure of the fulness of Christ.

It is good to set goals before us. Give people goals and here the Lord Jesus through Paul is giving us the goals set before us. How grand they are! What are they? To prepare people for works of service. Why is that important? Where does it ultimately lead? To unity in the faith and attaining the fulness of Christ. The image of God is thus restored. There is a unity in the midst of much diversity. There is a oneness in the Godhead and yet such diversity in the persons – three yet one and one yet three. We have been made in the likeness of this God. What is redemption all about? Restoring that image, so that we globally, eternally and pan-historically become the bride of Christ for eternity with spot and blemish.

The aim of our ministry in the church is to get every member of the body to attain their full potential as they are set in the community of the church. We will aim for growth and stretch the minds and challenge the hearts of our hearers. We can never be satisfied with a simple gospel which is a simplistic gospel. Come and draw water from the wells of salvation.

The present evil world will always be a frustrating place to work, and who was more frustrated than Pastor Jesus and his little flock? But Paul sets before us what the church is going to be in the last day.

A master potter molded the clay and an onlooker went in; the place was empty and it seemed so chaotic with half-baked pots and then he noticed a bit of paper. It read, Be patient; he is not through with me yet. The finished product is upstairs. We can turn on our heels and walk away from the work of God, but the work is not completed yet. Jesus invites us to share with the work.

3. OUR CONFIDENCE IN OUR MINISTERIAL LABOUR

It is to be found in Christ. How easily such words trip off our tongues and yet they are the deepest and most wonderful of words. Notice two things

1] The fact that those who are in the ministry are only there because of the work of Christ giving them to the church. We have not given ourselves to the church. Christ has laid hold of us and thrust us out. There are those who deny the call to the Christian ministry. That is a violation of what God has said in his word. There are many who have no valid call. They are the wrong people in the wrong place, but Paul has chosen and called and commissioned and enabled particular men for a particular work. Even by themselves they saw themselves as inadequate and yet Paul was God’s chosen vessel. To know that the warrant for our being in not found in ourselves but in Christ’s call.

In the trenches in the first world war what bravery was displayed because they were called to serve King and country, and they endured the agonies and the darkness of the battle fields to preserve the liberty of others.

We are here not to serve ourselves but Christ and his powers against darkness, and he will keep us to the very end.

2] Those he calls into the mesentery he also equips for their calling – to each one of us grace has been given as Christ has apportioned it. All have grace from Christ according to our make up and circumstances. Grace according to the measure of Christ’s own grace which enables particular servants to fulfil their particular stance in the purpose of God. He makes each one of us unique. Conferences can be exhilarating but it can be thoroughly depressing too. I heard a sermon preached 25 years ago and felt I had never preached. That is the bench mark I felt, but then everyone is given grace from Christ and everyone has different graces and all are shaped by God. As you and I go home facing our pulpits on the Lord’s day, then let us not be discouraged, for God has put us where we are for God’s purpose. The success of your ministry does not depend on you but on what God does through you. What a relief and comfort that the grace we have has been wisely conferred by the architect of the church Jesus Christ.

There is the little parenthesis in the 9th and 10th verses about Christ descending first before he ascended. He stooped down from the glory of his world to our world to meet the needs of human beings. He is exalted where he belongs, and he has chosen to achieve his great end by using frail and feeble hands of men like this. Do you think you’re losing the plot at times? There is one who will keep going with us until his work is done.