Men of Conviction II
Lord, we pray that You would give Your Spirit to us this afternoon, especially as we have enjoyed a very good and delicious meal, and we can indeed be sleepy at this time of the day. Help us to not be sleepy, but help us to pay attention to Your Word and to learn from your Word, and to go forth from this conference implementing what we have learned from Your Word in all of the sessions. So, we pray and ask for grace, for Your mercy, for Your presence by Your Spirit with the Word of God. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
This is my second message in the conference on the need for men of biblical convictions. We briefly considered what is involved in being a man of biblical convictions, as well as some examples from the Scriptures of men of biblical convictions. I would like to propose, this afternoon, three specific areas where I think we need to be men of biblical conviction. Three specific areas. I’m just going to jump right into those specific areas. The first area where I believe we need to be men of biblical conviction concerns a conviction in the complete authority and sufficiency of the Word of God, the Bible.
1. A conviction concerning the complete authority and sufficiency of the Word of God, the Bible.
We no longer have prophets in the world. I realize there are charismatics who would disagree with that, but I don’t think anyone here would disagree with my statement. I do believe biblically, truthfully, there are no prophets anywhere in the world. There’s no need for prophets. We no longer have the Lord Jesus Christ living here on earth. We no longer have apostles in the world. Again, there are those in Pentecostal circles, Charismatic circles who may say, “I’m an apostle,” but you understand what I mean. We no longer have apostles in the biblical sense in the world, and we don’t need them.
We no longer have, nor will we be given by God, nor do we need a new mouthpiece of special revelation. We do not need continuing special revelation, for we have the completed, inscripturated Word of the Living God.
Indeed, as we’re instructed in 2 Timothy 3:16-17—you don’t need to turn there, you’re familiar with that passage—we read:
“All Scripture is breathed-out by God, and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness; that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.”
So, I’m sure you all probably know that that word there in 2 Timothy 3 that is translated the way I just read it “breathed out by God” is this Greek term that does literally mean that Scripture is the product of the created breath of God. As I’m breathing out words now, this is what God did giving us the Scriptures. It is the Word of the Living God.
This passage in 2 Timothy also teaches us that the Word of God is totally sufficient so that the man of God may be equipped for some good work? No. For every good work. For every good work it is sufficient. The Lord Jesus made this plain when He was here on earth: that the Scriptures were always, for Him, the final court of appeal in every situation in life, in every controversy, in every situation of instruction at all times. That’s why we read again and again and again words such as these. You don’t need to turn there; I will just quote these passages.
Matthew 12:3, “But Jesus said unto them, ‘Have you not read what David did, when he was hungry, and they that were with him’?”
Matthew 12:5, “Or have you not read in the law, that on the sabbath day the priests in the temple profane the sabbath and are guiltless?”
Matthew 19:4, “And He [Jesus] answered and said, ‘Have you not read that He who made them from the beginning made them male and female?’”
Matthew 22:31, Jesus speaking, “But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have you not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying..”
Mark 12:10, “Have you not read even this Scripture, ‘The stone which the builders rejected, the same was made as the head of the corner’?”
Those are just some passages that show us that the Lord Jesus Christ regarded the Word of God as adequate, as sufficient, as authoritative for every controversy, every situation in life.
Many of the Jews of Jesus’ day were condemned by those questions of the Lord Jesus, because they had read the Scriptures and yet they hadn’t understood the Scriptures. Probably many of them could quote from memory Scriptures Jesus cited, but you see they didn’t take what they had read and really read it, that is, really imbibed it, believed it.
Well, what about you? What about me today? Are we like the Jews of Jesus’ day? I hope we’re not like the Jews of Jesus’ day. I hope we’re different. I hope we’re like the Lord Jesus Christ regarding the Scriptures. The Lord Jesus Christ, for Him, the Scriptures infallibly reveal God to us. For the Lord Jesus Christ the Scriptures instruct us how God created the world, how God created man. The Scriptures, according to the Lord, show us everything we need to understand about God’s gracious method of salvation from sin.
The Lord said the Scripture could not be broken. The Scriptures had to be completely and perfectly fulfilled. The Scriptures explained all spiritual realities which we need to understand. The Scriptures settle all controversies. The Scriptures teach us what we should do in church, and what we should not do in church. The Scriptures teach us how we are to worship God. They teach us what we must preach, what we must teach. The Scriptures, you see, are our final, authoritative, all-sufficient Word from the Living God, and we need to be men, pastors, who really believe that and put that into practice.
Do you wholeheartedly believe and embrace these perspectives and convictions regarding the Scriptures, as did the Lord Jesus Christ and His apostles? Or have you, to some degree—and I’m asking you to be honest with yourself—have you to some degree in your heart or in your church practice begun to relinquish these foundational, biblical convictions regarding the Scriptures?
I personally believe—I could be totally wrong, you could prove me wrong, perhaps—but I personally believe this is the reason why many professing Christians in our day, at least in America, have turned to other means and methods to “draw in visitors” to the church on the Lord’s Day. They either never had a conviction about the authority and finality and sufficiency of Scripture, or if they did they have started to relinquish it. They have lost that conviction that the Scriptures instruct us regarding how we are to think and live in every sphere of life, including church life.
You might sit here and you might indeed say, “I hold to the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith.” Well, if you say that that’s good, but the final authority is not the Confession. It’s the Bible. The Confession is under the Bible, but the Confession is very helpful. That Confession states this: “The Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience.”
Again I ask you: have you, sitting here today in heart and practice, have you begun to decline subtly or not-so-subtly from your confidence in the Bible as the only sufficient rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience? It can be tempting to do that.
Perhaps you, as the pastor, or members in your church, they look around in the church, on the Lord’s Day, and they see empty pews or empty chairs. We have empty pews at Trinity Baptist Church. We pray frequently that God will fill them with sinners and saints, but we’re not going to, by God’s grace, change our convictions, change our message, change our methods in order to “draw in people and fill the pews.” We’re not going to do something that is unbiblical.
So I’m asking you: what are you doing? When you look around and you see empty chairs, empty pews, are you being tempted to relinquish what is biblical in your church life and practice?
Perhaps there are people in the church who have children. The children grow up, they off to university, they’re not converted, and they make it clear they have no interest in coming back to the church. Or they go off to university and they get a taste of other Christianity, and now they don’t want your stiff, formal, Reformed Baptist religion. They like this easy, breezy—that’s what I call it—easy, breezy Christianity. You might be tempted to say, “Well, maybe there’s something wrong with us.”
Or members of the church have invited friends to come to the church, and when they come it’s very clear after the service is over that they have no intention of ever setting foot in your church again.
Well, these are real discouragements. I assure you, I find it very discouraging to see empty pews in our church. I don’t deny that, but it is at such crucial times of discouragement that you, as a pastor, and the members of your church, need to be on your guard, because that’s when you are vulnerable to temptation, to become restive, and to think that something’s wrong with your ministry, something’s wrong with your church.
Now, possibly, something could be wrong, and Pastor Piñero said in the previous message, if I heard him correctly: we need to always be reforming. We need to be willing to step back and analyze our church ministry, our pastoral ministry, our preaching, our lives in the light of the Bible. We need to do that. There could be something wrong. Maybe there is something unbiblical, and we haven’t yet seen it. So, it’s not wrong to reassess your life and ministry, your church life in the light of the Bible. But sometimes people desire and ask for change just because they begin to believe that there’s something faulty in the message that you’re preaching, or they think there’s something faulty with you, the messenger, or they think there’s something faulty with the method of delivering the message.
If they’re genuine Christians they would never say that they believe there’s something defective with the gospel. A genuine Christian won’t say that! Yet, there is this subtle unbelief in the sufficiency of the gospel and the sufficiency of the Word of God, the Scriptures. So, such people may pressure you. “Well, we need to introduce something new. We need some new ways to make the church more appealing, more inviting.” We shouldn’t be trying to be uninviting by our faces, our demeanor, our behaviour, our words. We should, as pastors and as a people, we should seek to be inviting, but we should not compromise the Word of God. We should not introduce methods or things that are not biblically validated. It’s easy by degrees, or radically even, for churches to say, “Well, let’s just add more music.”
Again, I thought it was interesting listening to Pastor Piñero in the previous message, because we didn’t consult with each other. My son who is a Christian, who lives in a different state in America, doesn’t live anywhere near New Jersey, I’ve been to one of his churches that he has attended in the past where he has lived, and I have said to him, “Joshua, the church service is one hour long. There was probably about forty minutes of music! Forty minutes of music, and it wasn’t good music. It wasn’t rock music, but it was one hymn after another and I said, “Josh, they don’t even have theological content. They really don’t have much content at all, biblically.” The music was ok, but really it was more like a concert. My son ended up leaving that church, thankfully. My point it that I’m sure there were true Christians there, but I don’t believe from the Bible that that’s what our country needs. I don’t believe from the Bible that that’s what is really going to win pagans to Christ. It’s what we see in the Bible.
Again, I’m not saying we should be traditionalists. “Well, we did it that way ten years ago. We’re going to still do it that way today, and we’re going to do it that way for the next fifty years.” You have to look at the Bible. What does the Bible say? We don’t need multimedia presentations. We don’t need drama. That’s not substantiated in the Word of God. We don’t need bands with light shows. We don’t need ever increasing specialized interest groups that cater to the felt need of this small group of people and that small group of people and that small group of people. We shouldn’t relinquish biblical terms!
My fellow elders, pastors at Trinity Baptist Church, they like to tease me. They say, “Well, let’s ask Coach Jeff what he thinks about what we should do in church.” They’re teasing, you know, because they’re not even called pastors. They’re called “coaches,” “team leaders.” You don’t worship in a church, you worship in a campus, or you worship in a worship center. Why do they not like these terms? In such instances, again, I strongly suspect that the root problem in this: there is an erosion or a loss of confidence in the authority and the sufficiency of the Scriptures for all life.
More to the point, such people reveal by their thinking, by their actions, that they have actually lost, to some degree, confidence in the gospel itself as the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes, whether Jew or Greek. Again, I am not saying we should stick to our traditions just because they are traditions. We should reevaluate what we do in the light of the Word of God. We should ask questions like this when we are looking at our lives, when we are looking at our churches, “What do the Scriptures teach about that subject or that activity?” What is biblical in this perspective or in that teaching or that practice? Let’s not lose confidence in the proclamation of a crucified Saviour! Let’s not fear men! Let’s not fear teenagers! Let’s not fear young adults! Let’s not be obnoxious, but let’s not change just to change. We shouldn’t be changing things because we just want to be novel, we want to be fresh, we want to be relevant.
Again, I’m not saying we shouldn’t evaluate these things in the light of the Bible, but we don’t need a new gospel. We have the gospel of the Word of God. That’s what we need to proclaim. The people of our countries and cultures need to hear not the latest evangelical fad, not the latest pronouncement by an evangelical expert, not what the evangelical celebrities are saying. Again, I didn’t consult with Pastor Piñero.
You read the Corinthian letters—I just find it amazing how Americans are so caught up with wanting celebrities. It shouldn’t surprise me. We have sports celebrities, whether it’s baseball, basketball, or football. We’ve got music celebrities in the world; we’ve got movie celebrities. So, Americans just want celebrities, celebrities, but that’s not what you see when you read 1 and 2 Corinthians.
The people of our churches and our countries need the inexhaustible treasures of our all-sufficient Bible. Proclaimed by preachers called by Christ in the churches. Applied to every aspect of their lives.
Notice what I said. We need the inexhaustible treasures of our all-sufficient Bible proclaimed. You will never, I will never, exhaust the treasures of your Bible! I’m not saying you shouldn’t read good theology books, but you need to proclaim the gospel. You need to proclaim the whole counsel of God, the Bible, and you’ll never do that in your entire lifetime! So, you don’t need to go to some novelty. You don’t need something new. You need the Bible; you need the gospel; you need confidence in the sufficiency of the Word of God.
2. We must be men of biblical conviction regarding the primacy of preaching the Word of God.
Secondly, another conviction which I believe we must recover, we must have, is this: we must be men of biblical conviction regarding the primacy of preaching the Word of God in the churches, on the Lord’s Day.
Turn in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 1, and I would like you to follow along as I read verses 17 through 24. 1 Corinthians 1:17-24. The Apostle Paul, of course, is writing these words:
“For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel; not in wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made void. For the word of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us who are saved it is the power of God. For it is written, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will bring to nothing.’ Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For seeing that in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know God, it was God’s good pleasure through the foolishness of the preaching to save them that believe. Seeing that Jews asked for signs, and Greeks seek after wisdom: But we preach Christ crucified, unto Jews a stumbling block, and unto Gentiles foolishness; But unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.”
There we end our reading.
Notice in verse 17 Paul tells us what his commission was from Jesus Christ. The risen Lord Jesus Christ commissioned Paul to preach the gospel, to evangelize, to announce good news from the Living God. Paul was not, he says, sent to baptize people. Paul was not opposed to baptizing people. He states in this very letter that he actually did baptize some individuals, but he’s saying his commission, his primary task was not to baptize, but it was rather to proclaim the gospel, to preach the gospel. Indeed, there are many other things that we could add to that list, not sent to baptize, things that were not to be Paul’s primary work as an apostle. Paul was not sent by Christ to establish schools; he was not sent by Christ to establish hospitals or orphanages. Even though those works may be very noble in themselves as organizations for Christians to undertake.
Paul was sent by Christ to proclaim the good news: that God sent His Son to live a perfect life for sinners, to die on the cross under God’s wrath as a sacrifice for sin, to be raised from the dead, and to bring a multitude which no man can number to glory at last. Paul was sent to proclaim that message of salvation to men to make disciples, to gather them together into churches. That was his primary task and focus, and that is to be your primary task and focus as pastors of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Notice also Paul’s message. I’ve already alluded to it. He states repeatedly things like this: he says he preached the cross of Christ, the word of the cross, Christ crucified. Of course, that doesn’t mean that Paul went around and just said, “Hear about the cross of Christ; hear about the cross of Christ.” No. Of course, he explained in detail the realities of God the Creator, Christ the Saviour, man the sinner and the creature, man accountable to God. He explained those realities in his message. He did not neglect the details of the Word of God, but you see, the Corinthians were beginning to question the message, they were beginning to question the messenger, and they were beginning to question the method, as well. Again, it’s not that they would come right out and say, “Well we don’t believe the gospel really is the power of God,” but you see, they did what many of our people do. They looked around and said:
“We’re not a very impressive bunch of people here in Corinth. I mean, I like to think that I’m kind of impressive here in the church in Corinth. I’ve got a little bit of eloquence, but I look around and we’ve got former prostitutes, former homosexuals, former fornicators, former idolaters, former covetous people. The riff-raff of society make up our church. So, maybe something’s wrong with our message. Don’t we need the movers and the shakers of the Corinthian society in our congregation? How can we get them into our congregation? Well, maybe Paul’s message wasn’t really the right message, and he wasn’t very impressive himself anyways physically. The way he went about it—and really sometimes Paul, when he was here, he preached about judgement. People aren’t going to want to hear that! He preached about wrath. He preached about matters of sexual immorality. That was too much, too blunt. You know, the people don’t want to hear about repentance and faith. The method he used—wouldn’t it have been better if instead of preaching he was just more laid back, sat in a chair and just casually talked and shared with everybody? I mean, he was kind of confrontational at times, and really, this preaching was just a monologue. People don’t like that. They don’t like to be preached at, and young people in Corinth, they’re not interested in that!”
That’s the Corinthians mindset. That is a very common mindset, at least in America today.
By the way, preaching is not a monologue. I’m the only one speaking right now, but preaching is not a monologue. God the Holy Spirit is involved with preaching. A preacher’s involved with preaching, and you not only are listening to preaching, but you are supposed to be engaged in your hearts and minds. Though you’re not verbalizing anything, you’re communicating back to God, you should be. You should be saying, “Lord, I have slipped in this area. I see my sin. Forgive me.” That’s what you should be doing, even as you sit there. You should not be sitting just passively doing nothing. True preaching is not really a monologue in that sense, but a lot of people think that. They think, “Well, modern Americans, they don’t want that.”
I bless God that when I come to Trinity Baptist Church we are a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic congregation. We’ve got converted Jews in our congregation. We’ve got a lot of converted pagans. We’ve got a lot of converted Roman Catholics. We’ve got people who’ve come from—as they say in black America “the hood,” they came from “the slums” of center city Philadelphia. Black men, African Americans who don’t even know who their father is. We’ve got Chinese people in our congregation. We’ve got Korean people in our congregation. We’ve got people who grew up in Christian homes; people who never grew up in Christian homes. We’ve got that diversity. Why? It is because of the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ in all of its simplicity and profundity from the Bible. It is because God the Spirit has blessed that preaching, and that is what your culture, your country needs. We do not impact the people of our cultures by mimicking our cultures. We do not impact our world by being like the world. We do not impact our country and our people and our countries by caving in to their carnal, worldly, unbiblical pressures, ways, views, thoughts.
We need to be men of biblical conviction regarding the primacy of preaching. As Pastor Piñero said in the previous message—there is something wrong if you go into a church, like I have mentioned earlier, a one-hour service and over 40 minutes is nothing but one little ditty song after another—and I’m not exaggerating, it was grievous! The message was maybe 12, 13 minutes, and it wasn’t much of a gospel message. We need a recovery of the preaching of the gospel, like Paul did in Corinth. America is a modern Corinth. We need to be men of conviction who preach the gospel, like Paul did in Corinth.
Again, as Pastor Piñero said, we leave the consequences to God. Do we want to see multitudes saved? We should! We should pray to that end, preach to that end. We’re not interested in just having empty pews and a few people. We shouldn’t be, but we don’t compromise God’s Word and God’s gospel. That’s the point, and that’s not popular in America.
Thirdly, the last conviction, again, there are other convictions we should have, but I’m just highlighting three. I firmly believe we have to be men of biblical conviction regarding the exercise of Christian love in our churches and in the world. So, I firmly believe we need to be men of biblical conviction concerning the authority and sufficiency of Holy Scripture. I thoroughly believe we should be men of biblical conviction regarding the recovery of the primacy of preaching the Word of God in our churches in the world. Thirdly, we must be men of biblical conviction regarding the exercise of Christian love in this world.
3. We must be men of biblical conviction regarding the exercise of Christian love in this world.
John Calvin said this: “Whatever is devoid of love is of no account in the sight of God.” Think about that. “Whatever is devoid of love is of no account in the sight of God.
Listen to Charles Spurgeon: “Fidelity [or faithfulness] to God does not require any to act uncharitably to God’s servants. We need to treat God’s servants, God’s people, with love. Love, of course, will mean at times being faithful and wounding people, in love, with the Word of God. Sometimes Christians need correction and rebuke and reproof in love, but Spurgeon’s saying we shouldn’t have bitterness, hatred, ill-will, harshness in our hearts towards God’s servants or towards God’s people.
Listen to B.B. Warfield: “He who is not filled with love is necessarily small, withered, shriveled in his outlook on life and things.” Small, withered, shriveled if you don’t have love, Warfield said.
Matthew Henry said: “Love is the very essence and life of the Christian religion.”
Augustine said: “One loving heart sets another heart on fire.”
“A man may be a good doctor without loving his patients; a good lawyer without loving his clients; a good geologist without loving science; but he cannot be a good Christian without love.”
Turn in your Bibles to John 13, please. I’ll begin reading at verse 34.
John 13:34, “A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another.”
Well, let us ask some questions, briefly, of this passage, these two verses.
Why does Jesus call this a new commandment? The Old Testament required us to love our neighbors as ourselves, but you see, notice what Jesus says here. He is now commanding His disciples that they are to love their brothers and sisters even as He has loved them. That’s the high standard now. We are to love the brethren in our church even as Christ has loved us.
To whom was Jesus speaking? He was speaking to His disciples, genuine believers born again by the Spirit of God. Judas had already departed.
What was the essence of the new commandment here? Well, we’re commanded to love, as I said, even as Christ has loved us, and this love for your Christian brothers and sisters in the local church is to be what others see when they come into your church.
How does Jesus Christ love you? He loves you faithfully; He loves you sacrificially; He loves you selflessly. He loves you not seeking His own, and that is how we, as pastors, are to love the people of God in our churches.
You know, it’s easy for me when I come here to North Bergen, and I’ve had the privilege of doing this a lot over the past, I don’t know, six months, eight months. I have thoroughly enjoyed every time I come here. Trinity’s about 25 miles away West, I think, Trinity Baptist Church; but Pastor Piñero, Pastor Martinez, they have me come down here. So, I’ve gotten to know people in the church here, and by the grace of God, they are wonderful people. I’m not flattering. They’re just wonderful brothers and sisters. I love coming here. But you know what? I am commanded by Christ to love the people of Trinity Baptist Church where I am a pastor, and I think if I really knew all of the sheep here in this church the way Pastor Piñero and Pastor Martinez do I would find out there are some that are difficult, some difficult sheep who are not as lovable as I first thought. Now, am I right, Pastor Piñero? *laughs* I think if Pastor Piñero or Pastor Martinez came to Trinity—they do—and they interacted with our people, they don’t know their problems, they don’t know their struggles, that don’t know their sins, by God’s grace I think they’d find them very lovable also, but if they lived with them they’d find out what I know: some of them are very difficult.
You are commanded by Christ to love the sheep under your care given to you by Jesus Christ. It’s not easy, but when you think about how Christ loves you—. I say to my wife—she says I say this too frequently—it’s probably once a month that I say to her, “Julie, I don’t know why you married me. I think sometimes I am such a difficult man. Why did you marry me?” And she smiles and says, “I married you because I loved you, and I still love you. I adore you,” she says. Now, she adores God first, but I mean she says, “I adore you.” I say, “But I’m a very difficult man!” She then says, “Well, yes, you are difficult at times. You’re high maintenance.”
Well, when I remember how Jesus Christ loves me and I think of how much Jesus Christ—far more than my wife, my wife puts up with a lot, but then I think of what Jesus Christ puts up with me. Then it’s not so hard to love that difficult sheep. When I think about what Christ has done for me, what Christ is doing for me, how much Christ has to put up with me, His patience with me. How many times have I gone back to Jesus Christ and confessed the same sin again and again and again? Can I not be forbearing and longsuffering and patient with sheep that sin again and again and again in the same way? You see, that’s the essence. You are to love the sheep as Christ loves you.
What is the consequence Jesus says? The world. We want to win the world? We don’t win the world by being like the world. We win the world by the people of God in the congregations, under the preaching of the gospel and the Word of God, with confidence in the Word of God, where the disciples are loving one another even as Christ has loved them. The world looking on then does see something very different! That’s the way we evangelize the world! Yeah, we evangelize the world by preaching to them, teaching them, sharing the gospel whenever we can do that, either on the Lord’s Day and some other setting. Yes, we do that. I’m not saying we don’t evangelize in other context, but when people come into the church they still might not like to come back because they’ve heard the Word of God proclaimed faithfully, but God can still use that, because that is seed planted in their hearts, even when they walk out the door. But when they see the reality of real, vital, biblical, Christian love one for another—I mean, I’ve had visitors, I’ve had unconverted people say that, I bless God, about the people of Trinity. They see this six foot five black guy, I mean, I’m not putting down black color, okay? Don’t misunderstand me here. His name is Nate. He’s six foot five. He’s a dark African American. When they see him leaning over and hugging a short, white guy, what do they see? When they look they see these two guys really love each other. Michael Falciola, he’s a short white guy, and Nate and him are very good friends. That’s what you see happening. Well, what do people think when they see that? They don’t see that out in the world. They don’t even see that in their family relationships! They see squabbling and fighting!
What I’m saying is: brethren, we need to teach the people of God. We need to encourage the people of God. We need to show them, by our example, the reality of Christian love. You do that as you contemplate the love of God in Christ for yourself.
As pastors, people need to know that you really do love them. There are differing personalities. One of my fellow elders, he will admit he’s more reserved. He will admit he’d be content to be in his study 24/7. Now, he is a people person, but he will tell you he wasn’t always a people person. He will tell you, “If I could, I’d be happy to be in my study 24/7, not have any phone calls, not have any emails, not have any contact.” He has to work at that. So, you might need to work at it. You should ask Christ to change you and make you like Jesus Christ. The common people heard Him gladly.
When Lazarus was dead in the tomb, Martha came and got Jesus, and Jesus wept. I think He wept for Lazarus first; He wept because of the reality of what sin has brought into the world; He wept because of the way the Jews were speaking; but I think primarily for Lazarus in his death, and His love for Lazarus and for Martha and Mary. What did the Jews say? “Behold how he loved him.” They could see that Jesus, in His weeping, loved Lazarus. It says in the text He loved Martha and Mary, as well.
People respond to sincere, Christian love. When you develop that kind of relationship with the sheep, when the time comes and you have to sit down with a brother or a sister or a couple and correct them on something, they know that you have a heart of goodwill and love for them, and they know that even though they’re hearing something that is tough, because of problems or sin, they usually will not deny that you still love them. That is how you shepherd the people of God.
We need to be men who love Christ; men who love the people of God in our congregations; men who love sinners. Do you love sinners?
Every once in awhile somebody will say something to me like, “Well, you know, but if you just took off that tie—it puts people off.” I say, “That’s absolute nonsense.” What people don’t know is that I was not raised in a Christian home. I was a total pagan, growing up. I was converted two months before I graduated from university. I was brought by a friend into a Reformed Baptist Church. People were wearing ties; I was basically a quasi-sort-of hippy-sort-of-person, and a pagan for sure. I wasn’t turned off by the fact that people were wearing ties! It’s nonsense. What really drew me in at that church service was the fact that I heard the preaching of the Word of God, because God used that preaching to bring me and draw me to Jesus Christ.
We should not lose confidence in the preaching of the Word of God, in the Word of God, or in loving sinners.
Well, let’s close in prayer.
Lord, we do pray that You would make these convictions which are rooted in Scripture to be our convictions individually and corporately. We pray that You would so work in our individual lives that we would, by Your grace and power and the work of Your Spirit, have an influence for good upon our congregations, as well as upon the world about us. We ask that You would do this for the glory of Christ, for the good of the churches, for the good of sinners, needy sinners all about us. Help us, we pray, for we are needy men, we are needy congregations. In Jesus Christ’s worthy name we pray. Amen.
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