Marching Orders for the Man of God – Part 2

Just fill up this week. If you’ve been with us or perhaps
even better, if you have not been with us, we are essentially
continuing on this consideration of this passage where intentionally
I preached it upside down. I preached verses three and four
in order to give us immediately the scene or the context to which
Paul was writing. We saw there that Timothy was
facing a new day in the church, a new era where people were essentially
considering and starting to Push Timothy in the direction of different
methods. It was a new day in the church.
Doctrines were coming together. Doctrinal controversies were
being weeded out of the church, and Timothy was facing a whole
new situation as a first generation fledgling pastor. We’ll come
back and review those notes. First, I want to take you back
into the passage in its entirety. I want to look at chapter four,
beginning in verse one of Second Timothy, where Paul wrote to
Timothy, I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of
Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead and by
his appearing and his kingdom, preach the word. Be ready in
season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience
and instruction. For the time will come when they
will not endure sound doctrine. But wanting to have their ears
tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance
to their own desires and will turn away their ears from the
truth and will turn aside to myths. Almost a month ago, when
we started this passage, we noticed that there were four marks here,
four elements of this degeneration. We called it the marks of a spiritually
decadent society. We likened it to the vortex at
the end of a tub. Near the drain and that downward
spiral. that the church, unfortunately,
even in our own day and age, seems to be caught in. From the
passage there in verse 3 and 4, we notice that first and foremost,
the church would become intolerant of doctrine. They will not endure
sound doctrine. They don’t like the deep things
of God. They don’t want to be burdened
with learning and studying and discovering those deep truths. Not only that, but they would
become impudent toward teachers. That word impudence rings of
childishness, and that’s exactly what’s in focus here. Like so
many children wanting to have their ears tickled, they will
accumulate for themselves, and I would put it in quote, teachers.
They only want what they want. They’re childish to the core.
If they don’t get it here, they’ll go elsewhere. They are impudent
toward their teachers. And these were the things that
Paul was warning that Timothy was about to face and really
all subsequent future pastors would face as well. Not only
would people be intolerant of doctrine and impudent towards
teachers, thirdly, we found that they would be insolent to the
truth. It isn’t so much the teachers that they dislike. It’s the truth
that is in their mouth. And it says that they will accumulate
for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, which shows
that they don’t desire the truth because the next sentence says
they will turn away their ears from the truth. And they’ve got
to put something there. And so we found out that fourthly,
they are intimate with the fanciful and they turn aside to myths.
They fill their mind with all kinds of speculation and theories
and interesting things. just not the truth. And it’s
with that backdrop, that’s why we focused on that first, because
it’s with that backdrop, that context that Paul gave Timothy
that great exhortation, not only on what we would call 20th century
or 21st century methods for ministry, but they were the first century
methods for ministry and they have been the methods for ministry
in all generations. We looked last week at vital
orders, marching orders, four vital elements of a spiritual
shepherd’s ministry. The very first one, as we noticed,
was that Paul was, Paul exhorted Timothy there to preach the word.
Timothy was going to face a very difficult day. There were going
to be people with a decreasing love for God’s Word, a decreasing
love for the truth of God, a decreasing respect for the shepherds that
were placed over them by God. And as such, as such, Timothy’s
ministry was going to be tremendously affected. In other words, he
had a very narrow window of ministry with which to operate. And if
he was going to if he was going to have any success, he must
get about it quickly. That’s the pressure. That’s the
sense that you get from the passage when he says, Timothy, this is
how important this is. These were Paul’s last words,
not just to Timothy. These were Paul’s last words
on earth. I solemnly charge you. He calls
Timothy into a very meeting with God Himself. I solemnly charge
you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus. And then he
reminds him that he’s going to be judged one day. Who is to
judge the living and the dead? And he reminds him that there
is a kingdom at stake by his appearing and his kingdom. Preach
the word. Paul gave Timothy that reminder
of reminders that the very nature of ministry was not Timothy’s
creative powers. It wasn’t Timothy’s inventiveness. It was Timothy’s faithfulness
to preach the word. That’s where we spent really
our entire Sunday last week on Paul’s exhortation to Timothy
to preach the word. The content was to be none other
than the word of God, not his opinions, not his speculations. He was to open the Scriptures,
read the Scriptures and proclaim the Scriptures in their fullness. Timothy wasn’t to get caught
up in the pressures, the modern For him, the modern pressures
of ministry of perhaps switching programs and doing things a different
way. The word of God was living and
active and sharper than any two edged sword, there could be no
better material. For a minister of God in any
century to use than God’s word. Now, throughout this study, we’ve
likened and it’s impossible not to do this. We’ve likened Timothy’s
situation to the situation we face in our own day and age.
Where the church growth mentality says set aside the preaching
of the word, set aside even the word itself and use other methods,
use whatever methods work to promote ministry, to promote
the church, to make it to grow. Those who are intolerant of the
word and wayward in many cases. Church growth experts, so-called,
say that we are supposed to be concerned with numbers. Paul
says, be concerned with faithfulness, preach the word. The modern view of God says that
God is fun, he’s lighthearted and we should be likewise. Paul
says that God is righteous and holy and that we are to be faithful
to preach the word. Modernists would say that we
are to make our messages appealing and relevant. Paul said, you
know what? To some, it’s ever going to be
offensive. To some, it will never appeal.
Preach the word. Church growth says that the customer
is sovereign. God’s Word says that God alone
is sovereign, that we are to preach the Word. Some would say,
do whatever works. Paul said, preach the Word. Some
would say, communicate by any means but preaching. Paul said,
preach the Word. Some would say, communicate anything
but God’s Word in all its fullness. Paul said, preach the Word. In
fact, one Puritan said it this way, so worthy a part, so worthy
a part of divine service that we should greatly wrong if we
did not esteem preaching as the blessed ordinance of God. Sermons
as keys to the kingdom of heaven, as wings to the soul, as spurs
to the good affections of man, to the sound as healthy as food
and medicine to diseased minds. That’s what our spiritual forefathers
thought of preaching. They couldn’t conceive of a Christian
body doing without it. It was food for the healthy and
it was medicine to the sick. But you know what? Preaching
is just really a part. It’s a small part of ministry.
It’s one of the crucial elements of ministry. And we dare not
go without it, but there are at least three other elements
in this passage that we want to focus on. Paul said, first
and foremost, that the man of God, if he’s going to be faithful
and ministering to his flock, must preach the Word in these
difficult times. But there are other elements
as well. And that’s what we want to press on to this morning.
Three more elements of a shepherd’s ministry. Secondly, not only
is the shepherd to proclaim the truth, he is to correct the errant. To correct the errant, depending
on what translation you have, you might even have the old word
reprove. We don’t use that word much anymore,
but in its original, it meant to treat with contempt, to convict,
to show a person his fault, to reprove. to reprove errors. In other words,
it’s to make use of a convincing argument taken from the Scriptures
and to go to them and to sit down with them if need be and
to show them the error of their ways. Those kinds of things are the
word which Paul has already told us is profitable for this very
thing. It’s profitable for correction.
It’s profitable for reproof. There are times where that kind
of correction needs to be done with a sharpness, with a seriousness. Whatever the case requires, that
the purpose is the same, that they may be sound in the faith,
that they may be right with God, honoring to Him. And people,
this exhortation is given throughout Scripture. And it isn’t given
just to shepherds. Do you know that you are to watch
over one another? Do you know that if you’re a
member of this church, you’ve already agreed to watch over
one another and not allow sin to build its branch structure
into a person’s life? You’re to watch them. And if
you see people falling into error, you’re to go to them and you’re
to correct them. It’s a loving thing, as we’ll
see in a moment. Matthew 18 uses the same word. Remember, the apostles there
wanted to know, so, you know, how many times should I forgive
my brother? Jesus says that counting, that’s not even the issue. If
your brother sins, Matthew 18, 15, if your brother sins, go
show him his fault in private, go reprove him, go correct him.
If he listens to you, you’ve won your brother. Ephesians 5 verse 11 says essentially
the same thing. Don’t participate in the unfruitful
deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them, reprove them,
correct them. And you think of this day and
age in which we live where the moral degeneration seems to advance
by the day. To not stand in the gap and to
not correct that is to participate in so many cases. You think of
the situations you’ve been in where somebody comes and they
tell an off-color joke or an improper, you know, double entendre. And we just kind of wink at that.
Sometimes we even laugh at that. We certainly don’t. We don’t
correct it. We don’t call them to God’s standard. Paul says not to do that is in
a sense to participate. This word means to convince by
evidence, to take the Scriptures and say, my brother, my friend,
do you know that what you’re talking about is wrong? The duty is to shed the light
on those deeds of darkness and to expose them for what they
are, vile in many cases and destructive. Those are the very sins that
take people to hell. And we have a tendency to forget
that or to look past it. It’s an obligation. It’s a duty
incumbent upon all of us. And so just for shepherds, you
know, to put this on just the shepherds is an improper approach
to God’s kingdom. It’s not just shepherds work.
It’s Christians work. It’s brotherly work. It’s loving
work. One pastor said it this way,
sin must be exposed. One is not being nice to a wicked
man by endeavoring to make him feel what a fine fellow he is.
The cancerous tumor must be removed, not humored. It is not really
an active love to smooth things over as if terrible evil committed
by those still living in the realm of darkness is not so bad
after all. Did you get it? And yet, folks,
isn’t it true that’s the way we live? Most times we say, well,
He’s an unbeliever. Well, do we want him to remain
an unbeliever? Or he’s a relative, you know,
that’s, you know, family’s hard, family’s hard to deal with. Yes,
they are. But do we want him to remain in that condition?
Do we not want to approach them and share the nature of what
they’re engaged in? In fact, Richard Baxter, you
hear me quote this all the time. Richard Baxter said it much more
simply. He said, pretend not to love
them. And that’s a pretty grasping
image, isn’t it? Pretend not to love them. Can you imagine
pretending to love people? He says, pretend not to love
them if you hate not their sin and seek not their salvation.
So, in other words, what Richard Baxter says is call it whatever
you want. This friendship of yours, this
family relationship, this relationship you have with your coworker,
call it whatever you want. Just don’t call it love. If you’re
not willing to address. The nature of their behavior
and to call it a sin. Pretend not to love them if you
hate not their sin and seek not their salvation. People reproof
reproof isn’t just the pastor’s job, it’s our job, it’s a Christian’s
job. And it’s a loving thing. And
it ought to be done in a loving manner. To go to a friend and
to take the Word and to share, open the Bible and to share with
them the nature of what they’re engaged in. What God thinks of
what they’re engaged in. We’re not to look the other way. We’re not to be silent about
them. We’re to stand in the gap and to speak against them. To
hold them up. to the standard of God with the goal of bringing
them to Christ. Ephesians 5.13 tells us why. All things become visible when
they are exposed by the light, for everything that becomes visible
is light. We are to hold up the light of
God’s Word and to expose them to God’s standard and let God,
if He will, by His Spirit, produce conviction. of elders this word is used. 1 Timothy 5.20 says of elders
that those who continue in sin are to be rebuked in the presence
of all so that the rest will also be fearful of sinning. Elders
are to be corrected. They are to be shown their wrongdoing. If they fall into error, they
are to be corrected even publicly. No doubt that this implies a
persistent sinning. This wasn’t an isolated event,
rather, that Paul was addressing here. But he says, if you have
a man that has gone off course and is staying off course, he
is to be corrected if need be, even in a public setting. Rebellious, defiant men. And
Paul knew plenty of those kinds of men. That’s why Paul didn’t
shirk from giving Timothy this exhortation. Reprove even an
elder if need be. Paul did it with Alexander the
coppersmith. Paul did it with John Mark and
Paul did it even to the Apostle Peter. He corrected him. And
we have it recorded for all of history there in the book of
Galatians. If need be, even elders need
to be corrected. Titus 1.9 has the same word.
Here, it’s of the elders responsibility specifically that we are to be
those who hold fast the faithful word. Why? So that we will be
able to both exhort in sound teaching and to refute those
who contradict. There, the word is taken and
used to contradict those errant teachings that so often have
plagued the church. In fact, it’s this characteristic,
the ability to teach and the ability to refute false doctrine
that alone sets apart the elder as being distinct from a deacon.
The character qualities are the same. It’s the ability to accurately
and faithfully handle God’s word that sets them apart. And in
that sense, I’ve said before, there are many deacons that really
should be elders. And there are really many elders
that really should be just deacons. That if you’re not capable with
God’s Word in order to teach and to preach and to refute error,
you should stand aside. You should do something different. Elders must be skilled in teaching.
They have to have the ability to communicate God’s Word and
the integrity to make their teaching believable. Well, as I said, the word is
used in many places in Scripture. Titus 1.13, reprove them severely
so that they may be sound in the faith. That’s the goal. Correct
them. Correct them thoroughly. Don’t
take light people’s sinful thinking, their sinful habits. Go to them
and lovingly confront them and reprove them. Correct them. It’s
interesting, this word is often translated, convict. And don’t
misunderstand it. It’s not we that do the convicting. If you go to a friend, it’s not
you that is going to bring about the conviction. You go to them
in love. You take the Word of God. And
if the Holy Spirit applies it to their heart, the Holy Spirit
is the one that brings them to conviction, not you. Don’t go
farther than you’re able. You can’t do what you can’t do,
but you can do what God has called you to do. And this is never out of a legalistic
mindset. You don’t ever go outside of
the Scriptures. You don’t ever go with your own
opinion. You take them the Word of God lovingly for Christ’s
sake, for their sake, for the church’s sake, and you go to
them and you lovingly lay out what the Scripture says. Not
what you interpret the Scripture to mean. Timothy and all other shepherds
by proxy were needed to convict others of sin. And it doesn’t,
as I said, it doesn’t fall just to the shepherds to do this solemn
duty. But unfortunately, the lion’s
share of it falls to the shepherds. Typically speaking, other people
don’t want to get involved. They’re so busy looking at their
own lives and they see so much sin in their own life that they’re
reticent to go to another friend or a brother or a sister and
confront them in their own. It is hard. And it does fall to the shepherds
most often. One great Puritan said it this
way, John Erskine. He said, in private reproof,
what zeal for God, what tender compassion for perishing souls
is needed in order to overcome that aversion that every good-natured
man must feel. Do you think it’s any easier
for me? Do you think it’s any easier
for shepherds? Do you think that somehow I’ve
conquered all sin and that that’s the only reason that I’m able
to go to a brother and to exhort him? Now, he says it’s the same
for us. And it doesn’t mean that we don’t
deal with our own sin first. We do. That’s exactly what Paul
says in 1 Corinthians 10. Looking to yourself, lest you
too be tempted. The first thing you better do
is get the speck out of your own eye, or the beam rather,
before you go deal with the speck that is in your brothers. If
you notice that passage, if you remember back when we went through
it, Jesus there doesn’t say that we’re not supposed to go deal
with the speck. He just says deal with the beam first. Deal
with the beam in your own eye and then go deal with the speck
in your brother’s. Every good natured man must feel
an aversion to tell another that he has sinned. and which every
wise man must feel to offend or to distress those whose friendship
he values? Do you not think that shepherds
value friends? And to fear to go before them
and to correct them in their sin that they might lose their
friendship? We all fear that. We value our friendships. John
Erskine goes on and says, what skill to temper severity with
mildness and to proportion our censures to the degree of the
fault and the character and the circumstances of the offender.
What prudence to seize the zeal of the moment and choose the
most appropriate manner of administering this bitter medicine. Do you
know nobody likes it? Nobody likes to be called to
a meeting, nobody likes to be called into correction. Nobody
likes to show up and have you open their Bible and say, my
friend, I have something very serious to talk to you about.
Nobody likes that. It is bitter medicine. He goes
on and says, what presence of mind to detect the weakness of
those pretenses which the one reproved would vindicate his
conduct. How more common is that? that
when you go to somebody, the first thing you get is this whole
bag of excuses and alibis and reasonings and defenses. He finishes by saying, though
we should argue weakly from the pulpit, we are in no danger of
immediate and open contradiction. You know what? In a sense, preach
the word is the easy part of ministry. To stand up here and
to preach the word, probably twice in 15 years of ministry,
I’ve had people publicly contend with me. It’s an interesting
service. This is the easy part, because
now I’m speaking in general terms and you can hide where you want
to hide if you want to. But when I come to your door
and I sit down with you with my Bible, Then things get really
uncomfortable, is what John Erskine says. When we correct in private,
pride is immediately at work to spy out any fallacy in our
reasoning and to raise baseless doubts and objections, which
if we cannot resolve, our labor is lost and our rashness is despised. If we can’t give them point on,
moment by moment, account of their life, they won’t take some
general correction. That’s the tendency. That’s human
nature, isn’t it? There’s a third element of ministry
that is absolutely required, not just in the first century
for Timothy, but for any man, even in the 21st century. Not
only are we to proclaim the truth and correct the errant, thirdly,
we are to scold the sinful. There’s another old word, scold.
When was the last time you as an adult had been scolded? But
that’s essentially what the word means. To rebuke. There’s another word we don’t
use anymore. I mean, can you imagine if somebody
called you up? Can I? I’ll be over in about
10 minutes. I’m coming to rebuke you. Oh, sure. Come on over. I’ll leave the door. I’ll set
tea on the table. The word is an interesting one.
It’s a it’s a blend of two Greek words, the second of which means
to fix the value or the price in order to honor. And in many
cases, this is a word of worship. Temao. to honor someone. But this epi, this word that
is affixed to the front of it, means upon, to lay upon them
according to measure. Now you begin to say, yikes,
because it can mean they’re either to honor someone or to rebuke
or admonish them as needed. To give them what is needed.
To rebuke or to chide them for their sin Some people privately,
others more publicly, but according to the nature and circumstances
of the offense. We’re to go to them and we’re
to, this is a much more serious word for a much more serious
situation. And there are times where the
most loving thing that we can do is to go and in our modern
vernacular, get in someone’s grill. Get in their face and
to tell them that what they have done is wrong and sinful and
cannot possibly be pleasing to God. One described it in these terms,
he said, convince wicked people of the evil and danger of their
wicked ways. Endeavor by dealing plainly with
them. And that’s the key, people. dealing
plainly with them to bring them to repentance, rebuke them with
seriousness and authority in Christ’s name, that they may
take your displeasure against them as an indication of God’s
displeasure.” And as I said, so often we betray God’s standards
in the way that we treat, that we respond to other people’s
sin. We wink at it. We laugh at it.
We downplay it. We reason it away when all the
while God in His holiness is grieved at their behavior and
their lifestyle. We can’t live like that. We can’t
honor God that way. In essence, what this calls us
to do is to speak accurately and frankly to people And if
they have sinned, address it as such. Don’t reason it away,
don’t downplay it, don’t brush it under the rug, certainly don’t
ignore it. As you may have already surmised,
this is a sharper and a much more severe word than the preceding
word reproof. That word reproof, it can be
taken to a further extreme, but basically it just means to go
and sit down and correct someone. Take them to the Scriptures.
Have a Bible study with them. Begin to correct them. This is
a much stronger word. Much stronger word. In fact,
in Luke’s Gospel, remember Luke? We studied Luke once. We’ll get
back to it here in the next couple of weeks. In Luke 17, remember?
It says in 17.1, He said to His disciples, it is inevitable that
stumbling blocks should come. But woe to him through whom they
come. It’s not going to be good for
him. It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around
his neck and he were thrown into the sea than he would cause one
of these little ones to stumble. And it’s in that context that
Jesus here said, be on your guard. If your brother sins, rebuke
him. If he repents, forgive him. You
see, our modern understanding of church discipline is so warped. People have this mentality. I
was sharing with one brother the other day in some circles
I’ve traveled in. They’ve got it written into the
Constitution. If you’re not there for six months, we wipe you off
the roll. My thought has always been, Do we know why they weren’t
there? How do we know they are laying
in a hospital bed or suffering at home with some illness or
disease? The goal of church discipline
is never kick him out of the church. That’s what most people
think of church discipline. Boy, if he doesn’t repent here,
we’re going to kick him out of the church. That’s not the goal
of church discipline at all. The goal of church discipline
is restoration. The goal of church discipline
is restoration first and foremost to Christ and then to the church
and then to others. If your brother sins, rebuke
him, not for the pleasure of that, whatever sadistic pleasure
you can gain from it. Rebuke him for his own sake,
rebuke him for the sake of Christ and for the sake of the church
and the church’s testimony. What he is doing is seen by everybody. And it must be corrected. One pastor spoke of, if you will,
the frame of mind in doing this. Rebuke him in order, if possible,
in such a way as to make him come to repentance. You’re going
with the goal of success. You want to go prayerfully. You
want to go lovingly. You want to go patiently. We’ll
see in a moment. This for the purpose of securing
your own peace and the peace of the church. And insofar as
he is concerned to prevent him from falling into a deeper sin.
Remember the old adage, sin begets sin. And wherever he stands right
now, if you see it as sin as such right now, it can only get
worse. They can only get worse. That’s
the nature of sin, right? What Paul gives to Timothy here,
and not just to Timothy, but to all who would serve Christ,
is to show us the Christian duty of plain, straightforward dealing
with those who are in sin. Whether they’ve injured us, or
they’ve injured the cause of Christ, or they’re injuring,
and this is so often the argument, I’m not hurting anyone. Oh really? Have you looked in the mirror
lately? We’re to love them for their own sake. We’re to go and
rebuke them even if the only person affected, if possible,
is themselves. It’s an extremely difficult And
it’s even a dangerous stage for the shepherd. Charles Bridges,
who I shared with last week, a couple of people came to me
because I said, this is a book that no man should be in the
ministry that he hasn’t thoroughly interacted with. Charles Bridges
book on the Christian ministry. This is what Charles Bridges
said about this stage of correction. When you have to get to the rebuke
stage, you are on very dangerous ground as a shepherd. It doesn’t
mean it’s to be avoided, but he said this in the professing
church. Which is fair warning. In the
professing church, a revulsion against the truth of God as a
whole marks the principle of resistance. In other words, he
says, you’re not going to have people welcoming you into their
home if you tell them, look, I’m coming over to rebuke you.
Indeed, whoever pricks the conscience of his hearers closely without
producing repentance will soon find them either absentees from
his ministry. And I’ll tell you, that’s the
best you have to hope for. They’ll either be absentees from
his ministry or unwilling listeners, if not open opponents. In other
words, you have just created World War Three. Thus, our whole
course is a struggle against the mighty current of sin flowing
out of that restless bias of the natural heart, which upon
highest authority is declared to be at enmity with God. You say, well, surely not me,
surely not the church, surely not Christian people. People,
that’s exactly where it starts. You know what happens. You’ve
faced it before in your own heart. I know I have. And people come
to me and they want to correct me. First, the correction comes
and I don’t respond to the correction and so the rebuke comes. Tell me you’ve never faced this
in your own homes, husbands, that as soon as somebody says
something like that, You know, the fur on the back of our neck
stands up and we go at him. We immediately begin to defend
ourselves and we take umbrage that they would have the audacity
to come and dare question our integrity. Bridget says, you’re on dangerous
territory, Shepherd. And he goes on to describe this
natural enmity that we have against God and against the truth. And
people, did you hear that? It is a natural, innate, inborn
struggle that we have as believers in dealing with the truth. We
don’t want to hear it. We really don’t want to take
it in. We really don’t want to deal with this sin issue. He
said this, the innate opposition existing between the substance
that is the truth and the objects of our ministry, that is our
people, offers a material impediment to our success. In other words,
he says, you got a plan for failure from the word go here. We sometimes
speak to those who attention is already occupied, whose affections
had been long pre engaged and whose hearts are hardened through
the deceitfulness of sin. Aren’t you excited now to go
confront someone? He goes on. He says the truth,
therefore, never comes into contact with a sincere and honest heart.
Did you hear that? You never come to someone with
the truth that is just totally open. I can’t wait to be corrected. I told you in 15 years of ministry,
I think I maybe had a few people. I can certainly count them on
one hand that said came to me and said, brother, what do you
see? What do you see? Enmity is the concentrated essence
of man’s depravity. It is at once the cause and the
effect of that moral or spiritual darkness which shuts out the
entrance of light and offers difficulties to the process of
enlightening the eyes of understanding. And it is unconquerable by any
force short of a heavenly influence. You know the bottom line, people?
I don’t bring anybody to repentance and neither do you. It’s the
Holy Spirit or nothing else. But God doesn’t want us to sit
at home on our hands and to pretend that someone isn’t sinning when
they desperately are. He doesn’t say that we’re to ignore
it. He doesn’t say it’s going to be easy. They might even end
up hating us. And you know what? It was exactly
what Paul said to Timothy earlier in this very epistle. Listen
carefully. 2 Timothy 2.23, Refuse foolish
and ignorant speculations. Why? Knowing that they produce
quarrels. The Lord’s bondservant must not
be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when
wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition,
if perhaps God may grant them repentance. And get the end of
this. God may grant them repentance,
leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their
senses and escape from the snare of the devil. Having been held
captive to do his will, when you are sinning, you are held
captive by the devil himself, and only a mighty work of God
will free you from it. In fact, at breakfast a couple
of days ago, We were talking through some of these hypothetical
questions and someone wisely posed the question. Suppose somebody
comes to you and says they purpose to go sin, they presume upon
God they’re going to go sin and they want to know, will God forgive
me? You know what the answer to that is? That depends, because
I don’t know if God’s going to grant you repentance or not.
Repentance depends on God as well. And you can’t go in to
a sinful situation, presuming upon God that He’s going to grant
your repentance, much less forgiveness. People, this isn’t someone who
ought to know better. That’s the first. That’s the
one that you go and you reproof. This is someone who does know
better. They know exactly what they’re doing. And just like
that, Nathan rebuked David and Paul rebuked many. The clarion call for this activity
is Proverbs 27.5, better is open rebuke than love that is concealed.
You can’t really love someone if you’re not willing to go to
them and to stand face to face with them, to correct them in
their sin. Finally, there’s a fourth and
final mark for this 21st century in which we live, a mark of ministry
that has proven itself to be true and faithful through every
era of the church. And that is encourage the weak.
Encourage the weak. This word encourage is translated
so many different ways in Scripture, it can be meant to call for,
to appeal, to admonish, to exhort, to cheer, to comfort, encourage.
It is that word, that beautiful blending of words, para, alongside. Kaleo, to call. To call someone
alongside. Like a father would a son. A shepherd is to watch tirelessly
over the flock. To reprove and rebuke where it’s
necessary. And at times, with equal diligence,
to call people alongside for comfort and encouragement and
training. Admonition, another way that
it’s often translated. Alexander McLaren, the great
expositor, said it this way. Rebuke naturally follows conviction. Exhortation or rather consolation
or encouragement just as naturally follows rebuke. After someone
is rebuked, if they show the marks of repentance, they’re
going to need to be encouraged. They’re going to need to be exhorted. Now, pick yourself back up by
God’s grace and get back in the Christian battle. I know of no better illustration
than Paul. Paul here writing to the Thessalonians,
listen to the heart of a shepherd, listen to the heart of an encourager.
Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 2, we proved to be gentle among
you as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children. I
mean, look around at the beautiful illustration that that is. But
Paul’s a man. He says we acted just like a
nursing mother tenderly caring for her own. Having also a fond
affection for you, we were well pleased to impart to you not
only the Gospel of God, but our own lives because you became
very dear to us. For you recall, brethren, our
labor and hardship, how working night and day so as not to be
a burden to any of you, we proclaim the gospel of God. You are our
witnesses, and so is God. How devoutly and uprightly and
blamelessly we behave towards you believers. And just as you
know how we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring each
one of you as a father would his own children. What a beautiful
image. So that you might walk in a manner
worthy of the God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory.
You know what the bottom line is? You’ve got to, as a shepherd,
you’ve got to, as a friend in Christ, deal with different situations
differently. Some people need to be reproved.
Some people need to be rebuked. And others need to be called
alongside with the gentle means of encouragement by the grace
of God. You might say, OK, well, that’s
all fine for the pastor. 2 Timothy 4, a pastor’s verse. 2 Timothy 4, 1-4, yep, that’s
the marks of 21st century ministry. What’s in it for me? What’s in
it for you is the question of where is the Word of God in your
own life? Are you treasuring the Word of God in your heart?
Do you long for, do you relish the correction of God’s Word?
It’s never easy. It’s never easy to have someone
come to you and say, brother, I’ve got something we need to
talk about. We’ve got to have a very serious conversation.
Is it your desire to place yourself at the feet, as it were, of God’s
Word, to have your sin exposed so that you might confess it
and might be restored to a right relationship? Your walk with
Christ might be perfected. Is the Word of God outmoded in
your own life? He’s preaching and correcting
and rebuking and exhorting all those God-given methods. Is that
outmoded in your own life? Or do you long, as Peter said,
for the pure milk of God’s Word to have its way in your own life?
Let’s examine our hearts before a loving God who gave us His
Word. O Lord God, we do humble ourselves
before You And Lord, we know that our hearts say amen to these
exhortations to us. We know that others don’t like
to be corrected. We’ve done it ourselves. Lord,
we know that we don’t like to be corrected. We know that we
bristle often at the suggestion that we might not be perfect. We take offense to those who
suggest that we might have offended others. And yet, Lord, the question really
isn’t whether we’ve offended, but how and how much? Oh, God,
grant us a humility that looks longingly to your word, that
embraces the rebuke of a brother or sister in Christ as the wounds
of a faithful friend. Father God, grant us that kind
of mindset towards your holy word that we might be conformed
to Christ. God, we pray, keep us from this
downward spiral. The only way, Father, we know
is by Your Word and by Your Spirit applying Your Word to our lives.
Be glorified, Lord, to do that, we pray. It’s in Jesus’ name
that we ask. Amen. you.