A Christ-Shaped Ministry (Part 2 of 2)

It can be challenging to serve as a pastor in a local church. Part of your responsibility is to follow the example of Jesus, to reflect his character.

And today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg describes the qualities that should be evident as part of a Christ-shaped ministry, or in Matthew chapter 12. Thirdly, and this is really where we're trying to get to, the servant acts not only in dependence upon God and in accordance with his mission, but in keeping with his character. You notice that we're told what he doesn't do. Behold my servant who doesn't. He will not.

He will not. And what is this servant, the great servant of the Lord? What will we notice about him?

Remember Isaiah, we've got all of these proud characters, Cyrus and the rest, with big trumpets, as it were, and big egos. In contrast to that, this servant of the Lord will not cry aloud. He doesn't draw attention to himself. I think probably the point there is that he will not dominate the conversation by trying to talk over everybody the way that some of us are tempted to do.

He will not make his voice heard in the street. It's quite staggering, isn't it, to imagine what it was like to be there when Christ was moving in amongst the crowd. The people would have said, which one is he?

No special robe, no large chair, going about his business. Who touched me? Jesus, who touched you?

Have you seen the crowd? But he knew that power had gone out from him. He was the servant of the Lord.

He didn't make his voice heard in the streets. He'd already, in the sermon we got in the Sermon on the Mount, remember, he has warned the people who are listening to him in that mountain discourse. He says, you know, you don't want to be like these Pharisees who love to stand and pray at the street corners, quotes, that they may be seen by others. The ministry of the Lord Jesus, and thereby a Christ-shaped ministry, is not about putting ourselves forward, shouting, talking people down—not if it's going to be Christ-shaped. It's very hard for me to imagine Jesus tweeting. I'm sorry, I know you're a lot of twits here tweeting, I know you do.

It's partly because I'm old and cold and settled in my ways. I mean nothing bad by it, but I can't imagine Jesus coming to the end of a day and saying to Peter and the rest, you know, I think we should put some of this up on Facebook, don't you? I think the people would love to see this. I mean, they'd be very impressed with it. It's hard to imagine.

It never happened. The beginning of the Gospel of Mark, the encounter with the demons, the transformation of people's lives, the crowd gathering in the evening gloom. He is absent in the morning. They come to look for him, essentially to say, Last night was fantastic. We should just really keep this going.

We're off to a flying start. And Jesus says, No, we're going to go to some of the other villages. That I may preach there also, for that is why I came out. Independence upon God, in fulfillment of his mission, and in keeping with his character. The ministry of Jesus was devoid of quarreling. Even when these Pharisees are giving him the business, he withdraws. Some of us are rather pugilistic by nature.

We should beware of that. His ministry was quiet, it was unthreatening, it was unassuming, and it wasn't at all like Cyrus or Nebuchadnezzar or Herod. All of those were insecure tyrants who insisted on their own way and who set about to intimidate those who were around them. Now, in contrast, the servant deals gently with the weak and with the helpless. Gently. In Jesus' reaction, Matthew has already recorded back in chapter 9, his reaction to the crowd.

When he saw the crowd, he was moved with compassion, because they were harassed and they were helpless, and they were so clearly like sheep without a shepherd. Much against the run of play, my wife came home from the pound with a cat. That cat has now produced four more.

My life is spinning out of control. But as I was shutting things down last night before I went to bed, I noticed that this little cat had the four little kittens all completely nestled into her chest as she laid out on the back porch. Wonderful picture. Very kind of feminine picture. Very kind of 1 Thessalonians picture. We were gentle among you, as a mother with her children, as a hen with her chicks, as Christ with the harassed and the helpless. And then—and I'm so glad I have a couple of illustrations in here after that previous talk—but they're in the text, you see. You don't have to reach for these. We've got a bruised reed, and we've got a smoking wick.

It's wonderful. These reeds were plentiful. They grew, they were inexpensive. It was natural for them, if they were at all tarnished, just to be discarded. After all, they were so easy to replace. The picture is, if you like, a type, a kind of commonplace of insignificance, the kind of thing that is disposable, like a polystyrene cup from a coffee shop. Bruised reeds. What do you mean, like the church in Corinth?

Yeah, a little bit like that. Consider your calling, brethren. Not many of you were mighty. Not many of you were noble. Not many of you were from the top echelon. Most of you were like a bunch of bruised reeds, as far as I could see. And while I'm mentioning that, says Paul, I'm the biggest bruised reed of all. Because you'll remember when I came in here, I didn't come in here blowing a trumpet. No, I came in here in weakness and in fear and in much trembling.

What a strange thing. Well, it's obvious, isn't it? Jesus does not discard the bruised and the broken. In the economy of God, in the mission of Jesus, there are, if you like, no hopeless cases.

We're probably tempted to give up on people much sooner than does Jesus. Bruised reeds and then smoldering wicks. A smoldering wick or a smoldering flax. He doesn't break the reed, and he won't quench the wick. Now, I don't know if you have a fireplace or if you try and do these things, I remember, from camp, that, you know, you get them going, and they just have far too much smoke and not enough light. And somebody says, This is a waste of time. Snuff it out and get rid of it, and we'll get another one. Well, when he comes across that, this servant of God, he does not do that. We may be tempted to do that, which is why we're thinking about what it would be like to have a Christ-shaped ministry. Consider the time and the patience and the pain and the love that is involved in making something like this useful. Useful!

It's not that he just doesn't discard it, but he actually does something with it. In the sixties, they used to sing in the student population of the world, they used to sing that song, He gave me beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for a spirit of heaviness. I'm searching for the words now, but it went like this. All I had to offer him was brokenness and strife, and he made something beautiful out of my life. Brethren, unless our congregations are prepared to admit that on our best day we are a congregation of bruised reeds and smoking wicks, we should not anticipate making much of an impact on a world that has concluded that it is broken, doesn't know why, can't fix it, and doesn't know where to turn. But they will not be coming along to listen to our admonition. But they may respond to our mission, if our mission is a Christ-shaped mission. What was routinely discarded, the servant redeems. And Jesus does this. If you think about the disciples, I mean, what a group of bruised reeds and smoking wicks.

Wouldn't they? Jesus is exercising ministry, and there are a couple of them in the front of the line going, Would you please get these children out of here? Jesus is doing evangelism.

We're involved in a major event, and—pardon? Well, Jesus actually would like the children to come up. He said, Suffer the little children to come to him.

That's right. See, I told you not to tell them to get rid of the children. Lord, there was not much response to our mission. Do you think we should call down fire from heaven and torch the place? Jesus said, No, I don't think so.

Not—at least not this afternoon. Philip, masterful at asking dumb questions. Jesus has just said, From now on you know the Father, and you have seen him. To which Philip replies, If you could just show us the Father. I said, Where were you, Philip? Thomas, unless I put my fingers in the nails, aren't you a Galilean as well? Your accent sounds like his.

Oh no, said Peter, I never knew the man. Can you imagine if the Christ then were to discard the dispensable wreaths? And what of us? What of us?

Tempted, tried, often wandering, facing the challenge of ministry, aware of the fact that we're involved, as the Westminster Confession of Faith reminds us, in a continual and irreconcilable war, and sometimes faltering, often fainting? Don't you get up in the morning and say to yourself, Isn't it a miracle that I'm both alive physically and alive spiritually? That the Lord Jesus Christ has not dumped me? He didn't get rid of me for somebody else. I would have.

I would have. I guess that's why that line from the Rutherford hymn, the hymn that was created, the poem that was created by Cousins, the wife of his friend, you know, the sands of time are sinking. And she took from Rutherford's journals and created that stanza, With mercy and with judgment, my web of time he wove. And I, or always, the dews of sorrow, were luster'd by his love, luster'd by his love. In tenderness he sought me, weary and sick with sin, and on his shoulders he brought me back to his home again. O the love that sought me! O the blood that bought me! O the grace that brought me to the fold!

Well, here's the question with which we conclude. Are we then to treat those under our care with less love and attention than the gentle shepherd has shown to us? That again, in Isaiah, that he gathers the lambs in his arms, he carries them in his bosom, close to his heart, he gently leads those who have young. So if our ministry is to be clothed with Christ, then it must have this dimension to it, at least in some measure—gentleness, not quarrelsome, kind to everyone. Kind to everyone? Don't you hate it when you get something like that?

No, you're allowed to say yes. I mean, it's not sacrilegious. You look at it and say, why couldn't it say in 2 Timothy, kind to as many people as you can? Don't quarrel, but just be kind to the people that you like, or in your life group or whatever it is.

No! The Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone. But I don't like everyone, and I'm the pastor! And they clearly don't like me!

So what am I gonna do? Well, we'll just sing Bill Gaither songs and feel happy about it. You know, I'm so glad that you're part of the family of God. You know, you don't even believe that. The way we sing it now at Parkside is, I'm surprised that you're part of the family of God. It's far more honest.

Look in the mirror when you shave and sing it to yourself. I'm surprised that you are part of the family of God. Oh, how the grace of God amazes me. It loosed me from my chains and set me free.

How did this happen? How did God do this? How would he choose such bruised people, such smoldering wicks, to have the awesome responsibility of Sunday by Sunday by Sunday retreating again to the Scriptures and saying, O God, let me, in dependence upon you, fulfill the mission that you have entrusted to me, and may I do it in some kind of Christlike character? Charles Bridges—always recommend a Banner book if you come to the Banner conference—Charles Bridges on the Christian ministry is fantastic.

Here's just a little section before I wrap this up. We must be pastors of the whole flock, not of a select few, not indulging ourselves with the most hopeful and interesting, but laboring for those whose urgent need cries loudly for our instruction, like the Good Shepherd bestowing our primary attention upon the lost sheep. In detail, we shall often have much to bear from their ignorance and weakness, sometimes also from their impertinence and unreasonable demands. But the grand object of winning their souls will restrain even the appearance of harshness or petulance which might turn the lame and diseased out of the way, when rather it ought to be healed. The meanest of our people must have his full share of our consideration.

Let him have free access to us at proper or even at inconvenient times. Let us carefully weigh his every scruple and difficulty. What seems trifling to us may be important to him. His doubts and perplexities are sacred to him and require the same tender sensibility of treatment as if they were sacred to us. This exercise of sympathy will not only tell on the success of our ministry but will also form us into a style of experimental preaching which will be far more effective part of our furniture than any classical learning or even than the critical knowledge of Scripture itself.

Because then they'll say, Well, he commended Christ to me. Now, brethren, I wish that I had learned this when I was younger. In early days in ministry, I look back on it, and you can't have these days back. But it took me a long time to realize you do not drive your congregation from behind. You must lead them from the front. And they need to know of the love of the Great Shepherd for them.

Charles Warr was the minister at St. Giles in Edinburgh in the 1930s, and in the course of his ministry, his clerk of session wrote him a note, and he wrote it to his minister, and he said to him, he said, Reverend Warr, I know we are not everything we ought to be, and no doubt we need a lot of scolding, but we'd all be a great deal better than we are. If only you would try sometimes, instead of lecturing us, to show us that you love us. Show us Christ. Show us Christ. As I was driving here today, my thoughts were going to Banner of Truth conferences.

I haven't been at many, but the first one I ever went to was in the borders of Scotland, and it was a day conference. The speakers that day were Eric Alexander and the late Douglas McMillan. Eric gave an address in the first hour in the morning on the nature of an expository ministry, which you may—it may actually be in that book.

It's his material on Nehemiah 8 and the work of Ezra and so on. And it was just—it was classically Eric, and it was masterful. And then next up was Douglas McMillan.

And he paid no attention to all that Eric had said. He just—he was his own man. And he told one story that I found profoundly challenging, and with this I conclude. He was a minister—first, I believe, in Aberdeen, and then from Aberdeen he went to St. Vincent Street Free Church in the center of Glasgow. When he moved into the manse in Glasgow, his study was up at least one flight, if not two flights, of stairs. And he said that on the day that they were moving in, he had the responsibility of lugging his books up from the ground level up to where they were going. One of his sons—or his son, I can't remember, but a son—said to him, Daddy, I want to help you with the books.

And he then, out of kindness to his boy, gave him just a few magazines—probably Banner of Truth magazines—all tied together to carry. And he went about his business. As he was going up and down, he wasn't paying much attention, and he heard his son crying, and he found him on the stairs. And his son had begun to get a little adventuresome, and he had, like, a copy of E. J. Young's Analytical Concordance to the Bible that he thought he could manage up the stairs with. And the burden was too great for him. And it set him down, and it caused him to cry. And Douglas said, So I just reached down, and I picked up my boy, and I picked up his bundle, and I carried them both safely to their destination. Surely that is what Christ does—reaches down, picks us up, picks up our burden, and brings us safely to our destination. A prophecy from Isaiah fulfilled entirely in Christ and by the Holy Spirit to be reproduced in some measure in the ministries that God has called us to at this time. What a challenge.

What a peculiar privilege. Father, thank you for your word. Grant that that which is true, helpful, kind, necessary, may be a source of recollection, anything that is unhelpful or unkind. Banish it from our thinking. For we thank you in Christ's name.

Amen. That is Alistair Begg with a special message for pastors titled A Christ-Shaped Ministry, and this is Truth for Life. If you are a regular listener, you have probably heard us talk about the Basics Conference that is held during the month of May. For the past two decades, Alistair has hosted this conference at Parkside Church as a way to encourage pastors and ministry leaders, which is right in line with Truth for Life's desire to see local churches strengthened.

But like so many large conferences during the pandemic, Basics 2021 has been canceled. So in an effort to fill in the gap and encourage pastors, today's program is one of four this week that focuses on gospel ministry. We've also posted several new blog articles on topics like preaching, theology, dealing with opposition.

You'll find all of these articles and other resources available online at truthforlife.org or in the Recent Posts section of the Truth for Life app. And if you've not yet requested your copy of the book we're recommending, you still have a few more days. The book is called God's Bible Timeline, the big book of biblical history. It's a book filled with photographs and illustrations and dates that trace the entire story of the Bible. We have posted some sample pages from this book on our website so you can take a look inside. And when you make a donation to Truth for Life, we want to invite you to request your own copy of God's Bible Timeline. Visit us at truthforlife.org slash donate or call 888-588-7884.

I'm Bob Lapine. What were Paul's expectations of Timothy in ministry? Listen tomorrow as Alistair explains what it means to be a good servant of Christ Jesus. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life where the Learning is for Living.