A Good Servant of Christ Jesus (Part 2 of 4)

How does a pastor of a local church determine whether or not he's successful? Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg is teaching from 1 Timothy 4. In this passage, the apostle Paul instructs his pastoral protégé on what it means to be a good servant of Christ Jesus.

Here's what he says. First of all, a good minister or servant of Christ Jesus is actually putting these things before the brethren. He is setting, if you like, the table for them in relationship to these truths which Paul is outlining. Secondly, the good minister is the one, Paul says, who is being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that he's been following.

The word here is a word that simply means nourished by. So the servant of God is being nourished by the truth of God. And his ability to convey these truths is on account of the fact that he's being trained by the same truths that he conveys.

You see, it's the personal nourishment that sustains the public ministry. The training to which he's referring is quite obviously not the training of the classroom. That is not to say we do not benefit from that.

Of course we do. But it is, I think, the training of the closet. The good servant of Christ Jesus is being trained in the words of the faith, the truths of the gospel, the things that they have been communicated to us, and the doctrine of creation and the doctrine of God and the nature of humanity and what it means that God has provided in Christ the only Savior. And it's a training and a nourishing that never ends. I mean, you have your breakfast in the morning, but you're not regarding that as your breakfast for the rest of your life.

You shouldn't, I hope—not unless you're planning on dying just before lunchtime. No, the nourishment goes on. And hopefully, that which we are enjoying is increasingly precious to us. Now, the NIV translates this, and I think I quite like it, brought up in the truths of the faith, being brought up in the truths of the faith. It's the authorized version that actually gives us nourished up—nourished up in the truths of the faith. Timothy, I want you to be a good servant of Jesus Christ.

Make sure that you're being nourished up. Of course, Timothy had the wonderful benefit of his grandmother and of his mother—that before ever he understood the nature of what it meant to be in Christ, he had enjoyed those benefits, and some of us have too. But with all of that by way of benefit, Timothy is to see to it that he is being spiritually nourished by being a lifelong student of the things of the faith. A lifelong student. Some of us had teachers who had apparently finished studying a long time ago and had finished their first set of notes a long time ago.

And the people who had been prior students in the class were able to tell us, Oh, oh, Joe, you know, he hasn't changed those notes in fifteen years. They're all falling apart. And we're falling apart listening to the poor soul. I hope none of you are planning to move on, because you have a cluster of five years of sermons which you're now going to foist on some unsuspecting congregation somewhere else. They weren't that good the first time. Why would they be any better when you repeated them?

Let's allow Spurgeon to speak. Keep your old sermons to weep over them. Even when we go back to them and dismantle them, and with God's help reconstruct them, it is that we might be nourished by them. Nourished by them. And he says, And while you're eating this, make sure you're not eating that, verse 7.

Don't get caught up with the junk food. Nothing to do with irreverent silly myths. I've already… He says, I told you about that as I began the letter, and I'm speaking very personally to you. This stuff, he says, which the ESV translates irreverent—I think the King James has—is profane. Profane.

Both profane and pathetic. And when one is tempted to go chasing after that, then we'll find that filling up on junk food diminishes your appetite for that which is good food. Perhaps we just pause and say it says something to us about the time that is available to us in reading and the books that we read, and tempted as we may be to delve into the latest fascinating feature which is coming through, many times we will be better served just to read the book review and leave it alone and make sure that we're not caught up with the junk food. Now, the people then ask older pastors like me—young guys do—well, how do you do this nourishing? How do you do the nourishing? You're supposed to be nourished up.

How do you get nourished up? It's usually quite an invasive question. It makes you feel uncomfortable, as if somehow or another they were in your bedroom to see if you were actually reading your Bible or not—sort of an invasion of your space. But that's okay.

We've become used to it. But usually, somebody says, you know, tell me about your devotional life. I don't want to hear about your preparatory work. I don't want to hear about your preparing for your studies. Okay.

I can do that. But what I think underlies that is not so much a mistaken notion as an idea that I think we need to push back on just a little. Because I'm the quiet time boy. You know, I was brought up in the quiet time. Michael Bond, the bishop, wrote the little hymn, little thing, Before you start the day, take time alone to pray and rest upon God's Word to show the way.

So start the day with him and walk away with him. That's my life. That's my background. That's my pattern.

Right? So this morning I read Isaiah 6, and I read Hebrews 13. So, you want to know how nourished I was by that? I don't really know. Because I was so focused on studying verses 11 to 16 for Wednesday that I couldn't hardly get it finished fast enough to get to here. All right? No point in pretending to the Lord—or to you, for that matter, right?

Okay? It was nourishing. I reminded myself of the wonder of Isaiah 6. I pondered what it meant for a prophet of God to describe himself as a man of unclean lips, and then I said, Well, I think I understand that. I reminded myself of the importance of sexual purity at the beginning of chapter 13, and living with my wife and expressing gratitude to God for his gift to me of her over forty-two years. I did all of that. But I must tell you, I was still trying to get to 11 to 16. And actually, I think I got more out of my study in 11 to 16 than I got out of my devotional bit in the early part of the day.

I say all that to say this. Actually, I think it's a false dichotomy, that the idea that there's nothing devotional about our study of the Word. Actually, what I think Paul is saying to Timothy here is, if you're gonna teach this Bible, you better get nourished up by it. So therefore, the way you come to it is on your knees.

The way you come to it is with an expectation that you're not simply going to be discovering things that you can just pass from your head to other people's heads, but rather that your heart, your life, your soul, your entire being is being enriched by this experience, so that whether it is in the devotional dimension or in the preparation for the instructional dimension, there we have it. And then I had this thought. Is it fair to say—I'm not asking, is it politically correct to say? I don't think it is—but is it fair to say that a number of chefs give the appearance of having eaten a fair amount of what they have prepared for others?

Fair? They just seem to have been dipping in on the way. Well, you see them. They're always wiping their hands.

Why is that? Because they've had their fingers in their mouths. They've been eating the stuff. I like to know they're eating it. Don't eat it all. I need some of it. But eat it as you go.

It's a very biblical picture. Isaiah 55, hearken diligently unto me, and this King James, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. A fat soul. Trouble with many of us is we've got a fat head and a wee soul. We need to reverse that.

We need help, don't we? The good minister said in it before the people. Good minister being nourished by himself. Thirdly, train yourself. Train yourself. Take time and trouble to keep yourself spiritually fit.

Train yourself in godliness. Godliness. Calvin referred to godliness as the beginning and the middle and the end of the Christian life. McShane said that his people's greatest need was his own personal holiness.

We fall foul of the notion that the great concern is for giftedness rather than for godliness. And throughout the Pastors, Paul mentions this again and again. He is not simply providing imperatives to Timothy or to Titus, but he's grounding them in the wonder of the grace of God. And classically, Titus 2.11, for the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people.

There's that little thing again. Training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for the blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the Lord Jesus. But it is the grace of God which saves us, and it is the grace of God which trains us. Some years ago now, those of you who were present may recall that John Shearer, another worthy Scot, gave a wonderful talk from 1 Timothy 6 and particular verse 11, but as for you, O man of God, flee these things, pursue righteousness, and so on, and fight the good fight of faith.

And I think, if I remember correctly, his three points were flee and follow and fight. In other words, he issued what Paul is issuing here to Timothy, and that is, if you like, a call to spiritual athleticism. To spiritual athleticism. Train yourself. You have a responsibility in this, he says, for godliness. And always be looking here, there, and everywhere. Take yourself in hand. There's nothing passive about this, incidentally, is there?

No. In fact, it's all very active, all the way through to the end. Paul is happy to make frequent reference to athleticism, whether wrestling or running or whatever it might be. When I was a teenager, I learned these verses—verses 7 and 8—in J. B. Phillips' paraphrase.

You say, Well, if you learned them, you should know them off by heart. Well, I can try. Take time and trouble to keep yourself spiritually fit. For bodily exercise is useful or has a certain value, but spiritual fitness is essential both for this life and for the life to come. Bodily exercise has a certain value.

We recognize that. There's a piece in the Times today in Great Britain about inexpensive gymnasiums that are popping up all over the place, and the numbers have increased exponentially. It's a somewhat cynical piece, because the man says that we are now the fourth-fattest group in the entire European continent, and if things keep going the way they are, we will be nudging into pole position very shortly. And he says, you know, there are seven times more gyms, and everybody is seven times fatter. He says, Well, how do you make sense of this? Well, it's because you have a card that says, I'm a member of a gym.

You know, that doesn't do anything for you at all. I remember when I was twelve, I got my first tracksuit. It was royal blue. It was an Adidas tracksuit.

I thought it was fantastic. I put it on, and I immediately expected that I could run like the wind. I suddenly realized the tracksuit does nothing for you at all.

It might make you look good for a wee while. No, here he's giving us a very clear word of instruction. Now, is this the faithful saying? Is this the faithful saying to which he goes on to refer, the saying is trustworthy and deserves full acceptance? Is that the bodily training, godliness, the promise for the future, and so on? I don't know. Donald Guthrie, who taught me a New Testament, says it's verse 10.

Why would I ever disagree with him? I like the idea of it being verses 7 and 8. And actually, the way Phillips paraphrases 9, then, ties it in that way. Because what he does is he says, you know, it has a promise both for this life and for the life to come, and then he says, there is no doubt about it, and Christians should remember it.

In other words, running 9 right on the heels of 7 and 8. It doesn't really matter, does it? It's all faithful. And finally, number four, the good minister works hard with his focus on salvation. Actually, this passage is an LDS passage. Life, doctrine, and salvation. Life—watch your life, watch your doctrine, and let's think about salvation. And that's exactly where he goes here in verse 10. Now, we've alluded to it, we just come back to it. Incidentally, if you manage to do something that, when you're preaching, you take the pressure off yourself at the end, you can just say, Well, I mentioned this at the beginning.

Most of the people will have forgotten that what you said at the beginning wasn't really that helpful, but that's okay. To this end we toil and strive. Do we?

Do we? Does your wife think you've been toiling and striving? Your congregation aware that you toil and strive? Given that much of this takes place in secret, the way they'll be able to tell is when you get up on your feet. They'll be able to tell—our congregations can tell—whether we ourselves are being nourished by that which we offer to them as food to eat. They can't see in my bedroom. But it's very vulnerable standing up here, isn't it?

There's no place to hide. Now, the good servant of the Lord Jesus is toiling and striving—striving and toiling with the enabling grace of God. We understand that, but nevertheless, that is something that we're to do. In the Second World War, there were all kinds of songs that were sung in Great Britain—I know, because they were still singing them by the time I was born—people like Vera Lynn and funny little Scottish guys.

And they would be singing songs like, Keep right on to the end of the road, keep right on to the end, you know. It's an important word, isn't it? I find it very, very hard to study these verses without having a particular face in view throughout the last week or ten days.

Just another sorry picture of someone whom I admired greatly, who somehow or another has not managed to keep right on to the end. The warnings of Hebrews are vital warnings. See to it that you do not have a sinful and an unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.

Make sure that we are not those who shrink back and are destroyed but those who continue and are saved. And what I took from this was simply that the good servant of the Lord Jesus works hardest at the ministry he's been given. And he does so because he set his hope on the living God—the God who desires all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. He's the Savior of all who believe. Actually, I wonder whether Paul expresses it in this way particularly with these false teachers in mind.

The false teachers always have a way of saying, you know, we are the only ones, and this is the only correct way to understand this. And this is it. And Paul is expressing, if you like, the universal appeal of the gospel.

Well, let me finish in this way. Samuel Rutherford is a favorite for many of us. He served in the Scottish church for a while. He served on the Solway Firth in a little place called Anwith.

A friend of his was another Church of Scotland minister called Cousins. He had a wife called Margaret. Margaret took Rutherford's diaries and writings and wrote a really, really long hymn that I don't think ever has been sung in its entirety. It was really a very long poem. But it is a hymn that found its way into the book with the beginning line, The sands of time are sinking, The dawn of heaven breaks, and so on.

It's quite a sentimental song. And she picks up on this in terms of Rutherford's own ministry. And I end in this way with just the thought in mind of all of this pointing us in the direction of seeing men and women coming to understand the gospel and believe the gospel and be saved by the gospel. And this is the line that she wrote.

She wrote, O Anwith, which is the town, on the Solway, which is the river, to me thou still art dear. In from the edge of heaven I shed for thee a tear. And if one soul from Anwith meets me at God's right hand, then my heaven will be two heavens in Immanuel's land. The good minister is to be hard at work that he might pass all the way through to the finish line, and that others by grace might join him there. If you put these things before the brethren, then you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus. You're listening to a message from Alistair Begg that was originally delivered to several hundred pastors who had gathered at Parkside Church for a time of encouragement and instruction. Alistair titled his message, A Good Servant of Christ Jesus. One of the desired outcomes of our mission at Truth for Life is to help local churches be strengthened. Today's message not only helps pastors and church leaders, it also provides solid instruction for church members as well. Now the reason I wanted to draw this to your attention is because October is Pastor Appreciation Month, and along those lines we're highlighting a book that Alistair co-wrote with his mentor in ministry, the late pastor and author Derek Prime. The book is called On Being a Pastor, and it covers a wide range of topics from preaching to counseling to conducting a worship service. It also makes a great gift for a pastor or a youth group leader. You can purchase the book On Being a Pastor at truthforlife.org slash store.

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This offer ends on Thursday so don't wait. Well measuring success in ministry may feel like an abstract idea until you start to study the clear instruction that the Apostle Paul gave his protege Timothy. I'm Bob Lapine hoping you'll join us tomorrow as Alistair Begg continues to describe how Paul defined being a good servant of Christ Jesus. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life where the Learning is for Living.