The Under Shepherd Sent by Christ

To do that, I want to go ahead
and invite you to take your Bibles and turn to 1 Timothy. We’re
going to be looking at a passage in 1 Timothy. The feelings are
mutual in terms of friendship. There’s nothing like like-mindedness
and ministry and friendship. I’m sure that you can all testify
to that. And when you have friends like
that, those are the kinds of friends that tend to stick over
time. that you cherish over the course of your lives and that’s
certainly true for me and Mandy relative to Ron and Barbara and
it’s our joy really to be here with you celebrating the 25 year
anniversary and what a joy of that and Ron’s 25 years of ministry
in particular so we just thank the Lord for his sustaining grace
in in God helping us endure as a church right at PBC and in
Ron and his calling. And so let me just ask the Lord’s
help as we look at this passage today for some source of encouragement
and refreshment from from the Lord. Let’s pray Lord. Thank
you Lord Jesus that into the day you use people and there
is no other secondary means or approach that you have. But the
reality is is that you are the one who is the great shepherd
of the flock, who sustains the work that you began in us and
have promised to complete it. And so we’re thankful, Lord,
that we just exist in a long history of the world that…
really displays you the grandiose nature of your redemptive plan
and our small part in it, but nonetheless a significant part,
a part that you have seen fit to bless. And we just pray now
that you’ll use our time in your word today to stir our hearts
afresh, to help us to do both a look back and thankfulness
of your faithfulness, but a clarification again on what we continue to
need to do in light of your directions to us as your people. And so
bless our time now, help me to speak clearly and accurately
We pray, Holy Spirit, that you would grant to us, open our eyes,
that we might see wonderful things from your word. In Christ’s name
we pray, amen. So there’s a difference, you
know, Ron and I, our relationship was forged in the early 90s as
we were at masters together. And I can remember in those days,
you know, very idealistic and that’s good, you know, it’s appropriate.
But over the course of time, what one learns not too far into
actual ministry is that there’s a great difference between knowing
what ministry is in the classroom and then actually doing it in
the field. in terms of in the work and what
you find very quickly, certainly in our experience has been is
that there is no shortage of an endless number of demands
that you just can’t fulfill all of them. I mean, it’s no different
for you in your life. You can’t please all the people
all the time. You just can’t do everything.
And for even some of the many things, you have great desires
that are God-given desires, and yet those desires exceed your
abilities and your time and your availability. And so that’s certainly
true. God, though, sustains the work
that he began. It’s an amazing thing when God
keeps our hearts tender amidst so much difficulty, so much battle
with our own sins, so much worldliness, so many competing demands that
have to be sorted out. And so the key there is unless
we’re just crystal clear on the ministry that Christ has given
to us, we are going to be very prone to disillusionment, to
discouragement, to even despair and hopelessness. Or, if you’re
not, if those things don’t hit, you’re going to also be tempted
to be the proverbial water puddle that is a mile wide and an inch
deep, and you will not accomplish the main things that the Lord
has endured or has prescribed for us. And so we each have to
continue to be crystal clear on what our purposes, what our
priorities are. We don’t want to have clouded
judgment. We don’t want the tyranny of
the urgent to keep us from that which Christ has said is most
important. And that can happen in church
life and in ministry. And so what’s important is not
always urgent. And so what we’re gonna do is
we’re gonna look at a text in 1 Timothy today that I hope will
serve a couple of purposes, two purposes. Number one, I hope
that it will serve as a testimony to God’s grace in Ron and Barbara’s
life and in the life of Providence Bible Church. So there’s that.
purpose, and so there is a model there that is not perfect, but
it’s valid, and it’s legitimate. The second purpose, I think,
would be to recall to us, as it were, to reset and safeguard
what are our own most basic priorities and purposes in life as Christians,
as followers of Christ. Timothy and the church at Ephesus
that he’s pastoring, as Paul writes to him, they needed the
same thing after years of labor together in that city of Ephesus
because they were laboring for the glory of Christ. And so Paul
seeks to help Timothy, the Ephesian church, and I would say by extension
us too, today to maintain a very clear vision for our lives. And so our goal today is simply
to restate what that focus should be so that we can maximize our
lives for the Lord Jesus Christ. And that’s why you’re here. If
you’re a Christian, you have no other purpose in life other
than to maximize your life for the glory of the Lord Jesus.
He’s the one has laid hold of you. He loved you. He has saved
you. He’s delivered you from your
sins. You’re not your own. He bought you with a price. So
from this point forward, if you’re His, then it’s all about Him.
Your life is not about you. It is about Jesus. It’s about
living for Him. And so hopefully today we’ll
be encouraged along those lines and eliminate distractions that
might have subtly crept in unnoticed. And so let me give you just two
preliminary remarks. Okay, number one, I have just
two before we dig into the text. Number one is this. I want to
make and just state a fundamental assumption that that I’m making
that I assume is true in your mindset today. And that is this. that your model for living as
a Christian is the same model that we have as a church, that
we have in pastoral ministry, and it is simply this, that it’s
the Lord Jesus Christ who is the chief shepherd. That’s my
assumption. My assumption is that there is
nobody else that is more adorable. He is the one who leads you,
The Lord is my shepherd and I shall not want, right? I don’t lack
anything. So there’s that personal component of making an assumption
here that Jesus is the one that you look to for everything. including
how Providence Bible Church is to be run and led, and what its
mission is, and what it’s to do, and what it’s done for the
last 25 years, and what an elder is to be, what a deacon is to
be, going on and on and on. Any other question, we’re making
an assumption here that we look to Christ. In other words, I
could say it this way. If the church belongs to Jesus
Christ, you and I are not free to come up with our own methods.
or our own approaches, or to think cleverly or creatively
beyond what he has prescribed. We’re not free in that sense.
We are following him and he is the way. And so sometimes in
ministry, and we’ve seen this over the years, maybe men end
up falling or men just continue on and on. They forget that they
are nothing more and nothing less than an under-shepherd of
Christ. They’re not the shepherd. Jesus
is the shepherd, and that office isn’t vacant. So sometimes in
ministry, guys, forget that. It’s not my flock. It’s Jesus’
flock. And so it’s not my life. He in
that sense too is a believer. It’s Jesus. I’m living for him. And so that fundamental assumption
is that we look to the Lord. And God is kind because what
does God do? He doesn’t just leave us alone.
He uses means. He uses people. He gives under
shepherds. He gives us one another. And
the ministry of that. So that is a kindness from the
Lord. And we’re celebrating that today,
aren’t we? That God has been kind to give us fellowship, to
give us like-minded believers. I read some of your testimonies
that we were looking for a Bible-teaching church. And in the providence
of God, God led us here. And we’re thankful for that and
what it’s meant. to our lives and our growth as Christians.
And so we make that assumption. And of course, there’s many texts
in scripture, not to mention maybe foremost, Psalm 23 and
John 10, where Jesus is the good shepherd that clearly articulate
this assumption that we’re making that is true, that needs to be
stated. And that is that we agree that
we are sheep of the flock, nothing more, nothing less, that a pastor
is just fulfilling his calling as an under shepherding of Christ. for the ultimate good of Jesus’s
work in our soul. So to that sense, we are living
a Christ-centered life. Our ministry is a Christ-centered
ministry in all of its shapes and forms, and it’s about exalting
Him. Okay, so that’s assumption, my preliminary remark, number
one, a fundamental assumption. The second preliminary remark
is this, is this, and I would just call this a sober reality
if you’re taking any notes. And what do I mean by that? What
I’m trying to get out here is that we have to recognize that
besides knowing and feeding and providing an overall loving the
flock, a crucial aspect of shepherding is protection. Do you recognize
today that you need protection as a believer? I hope you do. And do you receive the protection
that God has provided through under shepherds that he gives
for that purpose? We’re vulnerable as sheep. We’re
vulnerable to lots of different predators. And my sobering reality
here is this, this. You and I are not on a cruise
ship. We’re on a battleship. And we
are in a spiritual war of eternal proportions. And there’s no child’s
play. So, you know, I’m not trying
to, you know, scare us or drive us into some sort of a, you know,
freaking out kind of thing, nervousness or anxiety, but it is to underscore
this simple thing is very sobering when you consider the fact that
when God sustains a church for 25 years, it’s an attack to penetrate
into and steal out of Satan’s kingdom people for whom God has
decided to redeem. So you are in a battle. And there’s
a specific process that you need to be careful of in that battle. And thus our need to look at
what we’re looking at today, the under shepherds sent by Christ
is what I’ve titled the text today, because God gives us those
kinds of men in our lives to protect us and keep us in the
midst of this spiritual warfare. Because when danger comes, what
does the hireling do? he flees. He doesn’t last 25
years, I can tell you that. That gets revealed really quickly. And or they go a different direction. So the sober reality is that
we have an eternal battle going on. And that is motivation for
us as a church and for leadership in this church to continue to
fight the good fight that God has ordained for us to do. So there’s no shortage of distraction.
We have our own battles with remaining sin. We have attacks
from without and within. But the sober reality is that
unless we fight the battle the way that Jesus, our shepherd,
has prescribed for us to fight it, which he’s going to outline
in this text, we’re going to be a casualty. Okay? So that’s kind of the point here. So our text really outlines for
us the battle plan. It’s not just that we’re making
this assumption that Jesus is the one we’re looking to, we’re
also recognizing that he is the one that outlines the path to
victory. for another 25 years. Because 25 years from now, Lord
willing, there’s going to be another group of people gathered
in this same place and a number of us here have gone long past
from the scene and we’re six feet under. But hopefully the
same message is still being preached. And the same ministry is still
carried out, because Jesus doesn’t change, and his ministry for
the church doesn’t change. So having said that, there is
a premium, of course, on those things. So in 1 Timothy 4, verse
16, go ahead and look at the passage. We’re going to read
it in just a second. What we’re given here is three summary statements
that define effective, ministry, specifically pastoral ministry,
but pastoral ministry is just a model for all ministry. So
you have three summary directives here for the glory of the Lord,
for the glory of Christ. And Paul gives Timothy, who’s
pastoring the church at Ephesus, right now at this point when
he receives this letter, and keep in mind, this is not just
a personal letter for him that he reads in his closet, this
gets publicly read to the whole church, so everybody in the church
is to know this, thus our need to look at this. Ron preached
on First Timothy. I noticed that in your documents
too. I don’t know when it was, but
maybe it’s been a while. So we’re going to look at this,
these directives that capture the entire vision and calling
of Christ-ordered ministry, of Christ-ordered pastoral ministry.
So we would be living according to that assumption, and then
we would be fighting accordingly. And this should mark our ministry
and I know it’s marked Ron’s heart in his ministry and it
should mark ours as well. These directives become the statements
that really keep us focused as a follower of Christ. So you’re
going through and you’re following Christ in this world. These directives
set the path for you. And you come back to these over
and over. You keep them before yourself. These directives outline
your life, really, as a Christian. And so I would encourage you,
if you don’t have these, adopt these today as your crystal clear
vision for Christ’s direction for your life. Okay? They summarize
his calling to these men who shepherd the flock that God had
entrusted to them, and in giving them, Jesus really tells us also
how to evaluate those men who are really sent from the Lord,
who Christ has really sent, and what they should be doing, and
thus our title, The Undershepherds Sent by Christ, from this passage. Stated differently, these directions,
these directives, if you will, they are what we cling to, and
they’re what any good shepherd is going to call you to consistently
cling to. This should be like the repeated
drum that you hear throughout any ministry. Where these directives
are pursued, then you can be sure that you’ve got a man sent
by Christ. And I just rejoice in being able
to affirm these realities in the life of our brother Ron.
So let me look at this text here. We’re going to pull this text
out. 1 Timothy 4, 16 is a summary statement. It says this, pay
close attention to yourself and to your teaching. Persevere in
these things. For as you do this, you will
ensure salvation both for yourself and for those who hear you. So the under-shepherd that sat
by Christ Outlining the ministry that all of us should be about
then, modeling for us what we should do. First of all is this,
his priorities reflect Christ’s calling. Okay, so for your note-taking,
his priorities reflect Christ’s calling. You could call this
maintaining right priorities. And notice the first part of
the text says this, his priorities that reflect Christ’s calling.
He has two things to do, to pay close attention to yourself and
to your teaching. And the first thing I want you
to observe about these priorities is just the simple conjunction,
the word and. Pay close attention to yourself
and to your teaching. It’s to say this, you’ve got
two priorities of equal importance, don’t neglect either. Don’t diminish
either. Or don’t emphasize one to the
point that the other is diminished by your errant emphasis. Okay, so there is an equal priority
to both of these things. We cannot let our own experience
drive us to an imbalanced emphasis of one priority over the other. Okay, so I could say it this
way, we maintain these two priorities impartially. We do them in a
way that regardless of our own personality, which might lure
us to unwittingly favor one over the other, God calls us to, Jesus
calls us to a balanced approach. Christ has given both of these
things, both priorities. So each priority is equally important. And they can’t be neglected without
suffering spiritual harm to yourself or to the others that you’re
trying to influence. A spouse, children, even from
a witnessing standpoint to neighbors. Both of these things are important.
Because some of you, I know, and it’s true in my own life,
you’ve been influenced by some person. who took a personal interest
in you, poured their life into you, you observe their life and
their godliness, and the power of that example causes you to
look at this text and you say, pay close attention to yourself
and to your teaching. Your focus is, oh, that’s the
secret. You’ve got to pay close attention
to yourself. You’ve got to live a godly life. That’s the secret
to all ministry. And for you, because of that
example or that influence in your own life, you’re tempted
to look at this text and place an overemphasis on the importance
of personal godliness to the exclusion, maybe, or the downplaying
of precision in your teaching and your thinking and your convictions. You see that, how that might
be a temptation? If you’ve had that kind of influence, or maybe
you’ve read some great biography of some great saint in the past,
and you say, well, there was the secret to his ministry. It
was his godliness, his character. And so then you would have a
tendency to upplay the importance of, I’ve got to really pay close
attention to myself. And you might then downplay the
second priority. Now, likewise, the other one
is perhaps maybe you have been greatly influenced by some powerful
preaching or some books that you’ve read from days gone past.
And so you look at a text like this and you say, pay close attention
to yourself and to your teaching. That’s the secret. It’s good,
solid, in-depth, expository Bible preaching. That’s the absolute
key to successful ministry that is following after Christ that
will protect the flock and so on. And so you would have a tendency
to look at this same text and overemphasize the importance
of solid preaching and teaching to the downplaying of character
and personal godliness. And so either one of those They
would come across as godly and mature and even a right approach. But according to this text, we’ve
got a duty, as the Lord has assigned to Timothy, to this church at
Ephesus, and to us, to maintain both priorities equally, prominently,
without letting even our own personal experience or our own
opinion sway us to an imbalanced approach. You see that? That’s
just right from the text. So just note their inseparable
union of these two priorities. That verb where it says pay close
attention, it’s used five times in the New Testament. Here, the
action is to be equally applied to both priorities. You’re supposed
to pay close attention to two things, two priorities, yourself,
your life, and your teaching, what you believe, your convictions.
The word means to observe or to hold on to, to fix your attention
on something and to give it careful heed. Kind of like if you were
weighing out something on a scale to make sure you hit exactly
that right measurement, otherwise the recipe is going to go wrong.
shows my ignorance of cooking, but you get the point. In Luke
chapter 14, verse 7, we see it modeled in our Lord Jesus, who
noticed, and that’s the word translated, is translated notice
there. He noticed people grabbing positions of honor, and he had
an observant, watchful eye that noticed people grabbing seats
of honor, which then became an illustration for his teaching. Things, in other words, didn’t
escape his watchful eye. So that’s the picture here of
paying close attention to yourself. He wasn’t neglectful in paying
attention to what was happening. He was actively engaged. He wasn’t
passive or occasional or up and down, if you will, in that sense. In Acts 3, verse 5, the same
word is used with a sense of intensity derived from great
need. Okay, intensity. What’s the picture?
The picture there is a picture of a lame beggar outside of the
temple and it says he gave his attention. That’s how it’s translated,
the same Greek word. He gave his attention to Peter
and John expecting to receive something from them. The point
is that this is not just a casual, occasional glance. or even just
a Sunday thing. A daily life thing for a believer,
for ministry, for a pastor, for you Ephesian Christians is to
pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching. It’s not
an occasional glance. It’s not an urgent reaction because
you’re caught off guard by a crisis. It’s a Christ-motivated, sustained,
focused concentration on two fundamental priorities that you
can never go wrong equally emphasizing, both paying a close attention
to yourself and to your teacher. If you wanted to illustrate it,
I was trying to think about it this way. If you’ve ever pulled a muscle,
you know that when you pull a muscle, it hurts, right? And then it’s
got your attention. You’re not going anywhere or
doing anything because you’ve pulled that thing and it’s painful. And then as it heals and you
ice it, you heat it, you follow the prescriptions or whatever
it is, still over time, there’s still a lingering tinge that
kind of just hangs on until, oh, you know, takes whatever,
weeks or as we get older, months, you know, before this thing totally
heals. And so it’s just this constant
awareness that is there. And so we too are to have a healthy,
continuous, watchful concern over the state of our own souls
and over our doctrine. All right? Um, so with that,
those two priorities, let’s try to explore these priorities a
little bit. Um, and I’m, I’m not going to have time for today’s
sake to go in depth into them. I think they’re somewhat self-evident. I know the preaching and teaching
ministry here and the discipleship that occurs, but it’s to say
this, I wish I, maybe I want to say it to you this way. There’s
a couple of extremes to avoid. Paul is not telling Timothy to
get caught up in a morbid over over analytical preoccupation
of a morbid introspection on his life. He’s not calling him
to that. Like he’s living in a morgue
all the time. Okay? So that’s an error. The other
side though is this paying close attention. He’s also not calling
him to some sort of a superficial I can check the box and say that
I did it, but I really didn’t do it in prayer and in depth
asking the Lord to search me if there’s any evil or hurtful
way in me. He’s not calling him to live
in a fairy tale either. where you’re not giving serious
attention to your own heart and to what you believe and what
you think. So those are two extremes here, if I could, to hopefully
paint the picture of what a healthy paying close attention or taking
heed to both priorities would look like. If you wanted to judge
it, just watch yourself, right? Do I have a big head and a shriveled
up heart? Well, Right? Or do I have a puny
mind and a sort of a big charismatic heart? Well, those things in
our culture in different church contexts get thrown up as good
examples and they’re not. We got two priorities here. Two
things to do. We don’t want a prune for a head
and a watermelon for a heart. And we don’t want a watermelon
for a head and a prune for a heart. We want both to be as big and
as great and as growing as God wants them to be. All right. Notice then, not just their union,
but their order. There is an order here. Well,
what comes first? Well, what comes first is your own walk
with Christ, right? You pay close attention to yourself.
Oh, there’s so much involved here, but I can’t, I mean, the
last 25 years of ministry probably is filling this out. And so what’s
involved here, really what’s involved is this. It’s all that
the Bible has to say about watching over your own soul. Can I repeat
that in one sermon? No way, right? Forget it, right? Can’t do it. So that’s 25 years
worth of work. Now, you know that, but it really
comes down to, I mean, later, John, the Apostle John, would
tell this same church, look, you’ve done this, you’ve done
this, you’ve done all these great things, but there’s one thing
that’s a problem. You left your first love. In Revelation chapter
two and three to the church at Ephesus, right? So what we’re
talking about here and paying close attention to yourself is
do you just love Christ? And by that, I don’t mean do
you have warm, sentimental feelings. You said if you love me, you’re
going to obey my commandments. Right. It’s it’s I am in a in
a state of grace. Right. And it’s this. If you’re
here today and you’ve put your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ,
You are going to go to the Lord’s table and you’re going to rejoice
in this one simple reality. God has not treated me as my
sins deserve. Amen. Right. And no matter what
else happens in my life and no matter where else I go and no
matter anything else, there’s one thing that’s true. God’s
forgiven me and I can praise him for that. Right. And if you
get beyond that, watch over your heart, pay close attention to
yourself. You’re forgiven. You’re in a
state of race. You cling to Christ. Apart from
me, Jesus said you can do. Nothing. So this is what we’re
talking about. We’re talking about there’s other
ways of saying, am I living a spirit filled life as Christ? We’re
richly dwelling within me. Do I hunger and thirst for him?
I do. I want to follow him. Do I let
keep my heart fresh in love to him? Do I not stray to counterfeits
that promise fulfillment and happiness, but but leave me empty?
Do I do I continue to take on more and more of his character
and his godliness, putting sin to death? And earlier in verse 12, he’d
actually given, you know, Timothy, let no one look down on your
youthfulness, right? Rather in speech, conduct, love,
faith, and purity, show yourself an example. That’s of those who
believe. So what’s he talking about? Paying
close attention to yourself is just your own personal godliness,
your own life. You’re living for him. So here’s
what I could say to you. If you’re today here and you
are overwhelmed by a lot of other priorities in your life, or a
trial has got you totally discouraged and it’s a lingering trial, not
just something that happened. Wherever you’re at, there’s one
thing that’s always true. You can never err in your life
by placing emphasis on just being a godly man or being a godly
woman. You will never go wrong placing your emphasis there.
on just loving the Lord and living for him, asking him to mold you
and shape you and make you like the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s
what’s involved in paying close attention to yourself, the desire
for personal holiness more than impact. All right. So that’s
pay close attention to yourself. Proverbs says it this way. Watch
over your heart. With all diligence for from it,
what that watching over your heart, flow, and we can add the
word all, all the issues of life. If you could say it this way
in our text here, the reason the order is this, is before
you can impart the truth, it better have impacted you first,
right? Because you can’t impart what
you don’t possess. So pay close attention to yourself
and to your teaching. So, right, if Christ has laid
hold of me, and I’ve embraced the gospel, then now I can also
impart that gospel, right? So there’s our second priority.
So there’s an inspired order here, because there is an importance
to pay close attention to yourself, just chronologically, and even,
you know, in our own hearts, but then it should spill over
into ministry, into a concern for others, believing the right
thing. So what’s involved with paying
close attention to your teaching? In the same way that paying close
attention to yourself is all that the Bible has to say about
what it means to be a Christ-like godly man or woman, here it’s
all that the Bible has to say about what your conviction should
be. I mean, that’s like telling me, OK, I got to memorize all
66 books and live it all out. Right. I mean, you know, so it’s
like there’s everything that’s wrapped up in that. Right. You
can see how these are summary priorities. It’s all that the
Bible has to say about what your conviction should be, because
if anything else, we are to be people who know, love and proclaim
the truth. Jesus is the way, the truth and
the life. Right? So here, pay close attention
to yourself is what your convictions are, what you really believe.
And I can tell you this, Jesus is gonna purify this in your
life, and he probably has over 25 years, right? At some point,
you’re gonna reach some issues in your life where you’re gonna
have to face this simple thing. Do you really believe that Jesus
died and rose again? Do you really believe that? Because
if you don’t believe it, you will abandon the faith. You’ll
walk away because there will be something that happens where
you’ll conclude it ain’t worth it. So here again, these are
what you believe. What are your convictions? What
are the things that hold you? Do you know the Christian faith? And that’s significant when I
say that because we’re talking about the Christian faith. We’re
not talking about a reformed Judaism. Okay, what do I mean
by that? Jesus said to the Pharisees,
you think that you have eternal life in the scriptures, but it’s
the scriptures that point to me. So it’s not just enough to
be a careful exegete of Psalm 23 and not apply it to Christ.
If I could put it bluntly. Right? So you’ve got this component
here. He’s assuming here to Timothy,
to this church at Ephesus, and Timothy pastoring that church,
that the focus, of course, is to your teaching. Well, you are
teachers and preachers of a new covenant about the Lord Jesus
Christ. So this is about knowing Him
and having convictions about who He is. Having the wisdom
and counsel that sorts from Him. I can remember different things
in my life, and I’m sure you could point back to things in
our church. What do you, in your church here,
what do you tell a person, as it was a friend of Mandy’s, her
husband, her and her husband, 14-year-old son seemingly following
the Lord, and then he commits suicide for no really explainable
reason? What truth are you going to have
in your arsenal to try to minister to that person? What’s the answer? Do you have the answers? Yes,
Jesus has the answers. The truth of Christ in his word
is the comfort of the soul that can then speak to that situation.
But if you don’t have those convictions and living them out in your own
life and have that truth, then you’re not going to be able to
minister. And as soon as I say that situation, you might think, man, I don’t
know what I would say. But they do need the teaching of Christ,
don’t they? And there is no other teaching to go to. Where else
are you going to go? So this cannot come by time except
for any other way except by studying. You want to ask it this way.
From here, the Ephesian church might say, well, what do I expect
my pastor to know? Man, there’s a lot there, right?
He’s going to pay close attention to himself and to his teaching.
What do I expect him to know? Well, the golden rule says you
treat other people as the way you want to be treated, right?
It could come right back to each one of us. The golden rule fits
here. Do to others as you would have
them do unto you. What do you expect other people to know?
What should they expect you to know? What conviction should
they expect you to have? What thoughts and truths should
you clearly be paying close attention to? So there you’ve got paying
close attention to yourself. So this is just the first thing
of a recognition that under Shepherd sent by Christ is going to have
priorities, have and maintain priorities reflecting Christ’s
calling. Now look at our text again. Pay closer to yourself
and to your teaching. And I love how he says this because
this is so critical. The second mark here is that
There’s a perseverance that demonstrates Christ’s power. What are we to
do? We’re to persevere in these things.
To persevere in these things. We’re to persevere in paying
close attention to ourselves and to our teaching. You don’t
do that and have a church that lasts for 25 years, folks. You
know that, right? Of course you do. You can give
testimony to that. In other words, living for Christ
means we make a maximum effort. Why? Because we love Christ.
Because we love him. We’re here for him. You know,
we read about missionaries or maybe even missionaries that
you have that you support. But we read about missionaries
who’ve labored for years and years with very little visible
fruit. And we hail them as heroes of
the faith. And we admire their endurance,
and then we turn around and say, well, yeah, that’s good for them,
but it ain’t good for me. I want to see more fruit, right? I want
to see more growth. I want to see this or that. No,
no. The Lord calls us to persevering
faithfulness, and our celebration today is a testimony of that
perseverance, and that perseverance will continue to be tested. It
will continue to be required of us as we go on in this world
that’s quickly going downhill. Paul is telling Timothy and the
Ephesians and us also that our perseverance demonstrates Christ’s
power because you can’t persevere in your own strength, right?
You can’t do it. It’s only the Lord that’s going
to help us. So when we’re celebrating 25
years, that’s a recognition that God’s power has been at work,
that Christ’s power has been operative in my life, in our
lives, no matter how long you’ve been here, whether a few years
or a whole bunch of the time. The Lord Jesus, would you agree
with this? The Lord Jesus is persevering with you. You agree
with that? And I’m thankful he’s persevering
with me because I need it. Right? Without that perseverance,
I put more and more stock. The older I go, I put more and
more stock and confidence in the fact that he’s going to perfect
the work that he began and less and less stock in my ability
to persevere. Because his power is the one that is at work in
me to will and work according to his good purpose. But nonetheless,
here he calls me to persevere and he calls us to persevere.
We persevere knowing that Christ is at work in and through our
work. knew Timothy needed to be encouraged
to persevere, and so it is with us. There’s so much more that
we can say about perseverance that time really won’t allow
us to go through that. I thought this was kind of interesting.
I know it’s more probably a Colorado Springs thing than a Fort Collins
thing, but listen to the Air Force ROTC manual, okay? It says
this, quote, professionals make a commitment to serve dutifully
regardless of personal inconvenience. The commitment an officer makes
is based upon his acceptance of a calling to service. This
requires dedication to duty and personal sacrifice. Officers
may be required to serve in some unpleasant locations and perform
duties under less than optimal conditions. They may also face
family separations. Because of the commitment to
serve the nation, the officer accepts responsibility regardless
of the tasks or environment in peacetime or in combat.” I mean,
out of love for Christ, how could we not do all the more, right? In terms of our own perseverance. And perhaps you’ve found yourself
mumbling under your breath things like this after an unsuccessful
witnessing effort to a family member or friend. Is this kid
ever going to get it? Is that person ever going to
open their eyes and see the reality? And so we say things like that.
I’ve said things like that. Because there’s a miracle that
God has got to do, right? And yet we know that he’s going
to do it. We cannot lose heart and give
up and become hopeless. So after 25 years of sustaining,
you give a testimony to that, and may the Lord give you 25
or 50 years more. The reality is, is that Paul
said he labored to the point of exhaustion to present every
man completed in Christ. And what that means is, your
perseverance and my perseverance, there’s gonna be points where
we labor to the point of exhaustion. And if you haven’t experienced
laboring to the point of exhaustion, then may I just gently encourage
you and say that maybe you’re not persevering to the degree
that God calls us to. Because you should experience
exhaustion and tiredness over even work in the ministry. And
I’m not saying it should be to the neglect of all your priorities.
Of course, I understand that. But we will be tired, even exhausted. So the undershepherd sent by
Christ has priorities that reflect Christ’s calling and has a perseverance
that demonstrates Christ’s power. And look at our last thing here.
I would just call it just kind of keeping this that notice that
his production reveals Christ saving and keeping grace. There
is a fruit, right? There’s a fruitfulness to those
two things of right priorities and of continuing to persevere. And it’s this, for as you do
this, the text says, you will ensure salvation both for yourself
and for those who hear you. In other words, the faithful
living out of the priorities that Christ has given and doing
that in a persevering way, Christ by Christ, if you get that, then
he will indeed produce a result that he wants accomplished. Namely,
the salvation of sinners and the assurance of that salvation. What a glorious promise. In other
words, stated differently, your labor in the Lord is not in vain. Right? It’s another way of saying
the same thing. What a blessing and what a testimony
that we can give to that today. Do you see the eternal consequences
that are at stake though? I mean, God saves, right? He’s pastored in Ephesus. Ephesians 2, 8, 9, you can probably
all say it, right? God saves. You don’t save anybody.
I don’t save anybody, right? The Lord Jesus alone is the one who
saves. But it’s as if the means that
he’s going to use to accomplish salvation in the life of a sinner,
and the means that he’s going to use to continue to grow people
who are saved, so they have a certain assurance of salvation. The means
that he uses are so wrapped up in the fact that he does it,
that they’re inseparable. You cannot divorce them from
one another. That is the promise for you and
I. Look, your witnessing efforts have the stamp of approval, the
commissioning of Christ, the power of Christ, that as you
persevere, regardless of the response, Jesus is going to be
glorified in it. That’s the good news here. And
so we need to know that for our own souls and for the souls of
other believers, that this is what is at stake. He will complete
the work that he began, but he does it by specific means that
he has determined. If I could say it this way, God,
and this may be the title of your church is Providence Bible
Church, right? Providence of God. God has ordained the end. basically bringing a whole host
of people to heaven, a whole multitude that no man can count
or number, he’s ordained that he’s going to do that, right?
Are you guys alive out there? How about amen, right? He’s going
to do that, right? Okay, he’s going to do that. What’s the means by which he’s
going to do that? The faithful preaching of the
gospel, and by that I don’t just mean pulpit preaching, I mean
out of your mouth, witnessing to neighbors and friends and
family, But also your one another exhortation and admonishing each
other. And in the pulpit preaching and
teaching of the word, the Sunday school, all the different ministry
priorities he’s going to accomplish. And he has no plan B. There is
no other plan. This is his plan. And so the
Lord has ordained that. He’s really, if you were Timothy
and you were getting this, what a source of encouragement. God
has just promised that as he effectively discharges his pastoral
priorities, that will result in an assurance of his own salvation,
because he’s faithful to his own personal calling. I mean,
there’s a whole lot more that could be expanded and explored
there just for him personally. and what’s at stake, but also
for those under his ministry. So what an amazing reality here. I had more things to say to this,
but for those of you who are maybe Greek students, I will
just say to you this. He is not talking about just
preserving people. Okay, he’s not talking about,
some would interpret this to say that salvation here reveres
to quote-unquote preservation, as in preserving them in grace
and preserving them from error. Because that doesn’t fit the
Greek word. The Greek word is sozis, which in every other usage
in the pastoral epistles, it refers to salvation, eternal
salvation. If you want to put it theologically,
it’s a soteriological term and it’s not used in any other way. So you can’t scoot around the
statement here. As you do this, you will ensure
salvation. Their assurance is inseparably
tied and determined by the ministry. That will guide you who you put
yourself under as a believer. You would never want to put yourself
under pastoral ministry that doesn’t lead to this end. What
an absolutely life, faith, shipwrecking decision to make. And that’s
why it’s so critical. Back to our assumptions, right?
Only the ministry that Christ has given. We got a war at stake.
If you’re not under that kind of ministry, you’re going to
have a mess on your hands. And thus, God’s grace for 25
years here is glorious. I like to think of it this way,
in ordaining the end, in other words, possessing eternal salvation
and being assured of it, Christ has simultaneously ordained the
means by which he will get it done, which here in this text
is Christ-like men persevering in the maintenance of Christ-prescribed
priorities. And I’ll just give you a personal,
you know, whatever, you guys don’t have to like me. I’m gonna
catch a plane and you’ll never see me again. So our brother
Ron is that brother. I’m thankful for him. And you
should be too. Sorry. Christ has instituted
communion. as an ordinance to remind us
to keep resting in Him, right? To keep looking to Him, to keep
conducting self-evaluation. Here, similarly, kind of an analogy,
Paul’s focus is encouraging us to keep persevering in our priorities
to pay close attention to ourself and to what we believe, and Christ
will honor that means of grace to the effecting of saving grace. In the passage in Romans 10,
how will they believe except someone is sin? Same type of thought. So the
preciousness of gifted men that God gives you, your personal
assurance of salvation, of having laid hold of Christ, is directly
tied to the faithfulness of the under-shepherd’s ministry that
you sit under. That’s an amazing reality. Even
that man’s own assurance is directly tied to his fulfillment of these
shepherding priorities. Not replacing Christ, he’s the
under-shepherd sent by Christ. These two things are linked in
a way which is why Christlike ministerial priorities are of
such a great determinative mission for all of our lives, right? It’s not just for the pastor.
The pastor is just the model. And when I say that, I’m talking
about all elders. They’re just a model of what
we’re all to do. So may the Lord help us each
to be people who are ones who live according to the priorities
that Christ has given, to persevere with a maximum effort in those
priorities, and then trust that the Lord will produce the fruit
of an assurance of salvation for our own souls and for those
whom we seek to influence. Let’s pray. Lord, thank you for…