Marks of a True Ministry (II)
This is a transcript. It may contain small inaccuracies.
What characterizes a ministry that can be trusted? That's what we're learning together in this second chapter of 1 Thessalonians. Paul began to sow the seeds of what he's explaining in chapter 2 all the way back in chapter 1. But now in chapter 2, he's getting into the details, and he's sort of working out the details of what he began to talk about in the first chapter.
We noted already that wherever you have faithful ministry, you are going to encounter opposition—at times, fierce opposition. Sooner or later, it's going to happen. You're going to face it. And understand that standing behind the fierce human opposition is the enemy of our souls—the devil himself. Which explains the fierceness, the viciousness of what we meet with at the hands of people. Because standing behind their viciousness is the devil's viciousness. He hates God. He hates the people of God. He hates the church of God. And so we can be sure that we're going to face opposition.
This is also an opportunity, however, for what God does—when He does what He does—to be proven. To be validated. Every bit of opposition that we face is sovereignly watched over. Never forget that. It's sovereignly regulated. And it all serves as an opportunity for proven character. An opportunity for proven obedience. No matter what.
And so it was that Paul often faced the need to set the record straight when it came to the slander, the accusations, the innuendo that he had to deal with in the course of ministry. He faced much opposition. Much slander. Ascribing to him ill motives. Slandering his name. His reputation. And as we've noted, you remember he had to leave—he and the missionary team had to leave Thessaloniki on short notice. And the result is that you have these spiritual sharks, these spiritual wolves, taking advantage of that. They began to question his motives to the minds and the hearts of the Thessalonians themselves.
And so of course he cannot let this stand—this infant church—for the sake of the church, for the sake of his role with the churches as an apostle of Jesus Christ. And he needed to protect the sheep, he needed to protect the flock. For the sake of their souls, for the sake of the truth, he had to answer the opposition. And he does that here in chapter 2.
But as he does that, we can be so grateful because what we have then is a divinely inspired, divinely authored demonstration of what it means to have a trustworthy ministry in general. I mean, what characterized Paul's ministry should characterize all ministry—all ministry, formal or informal. And so as he sets forth and what made his ministry trustworthy, we can examine ourselves, we ought to examine ourselves and ask, are we characterized by the same? Are these characteristics to be found in our ministry? Each and every one of us. And you can examine any ministry you want to examine and ask this question: is it characterized by the same? That's how you evaluate, you learn how to evaluate ministries around you.
So we noted that in verse 1 through verse 12 we have the true marks, the true characteristics of a true trustworthy ministry—true trustworthy servants of Christ. And this is referring not only to the one who stands in the pulpit or goes out as a missionary or as in the case here as an apostle like Paul, but whether that ministry is found in the home as a parent, a neighbor to your neighbors, one in a place of employment to your work associates, or even a student to your fellow students, regardless. Wherever the Christian is, that's your sphere of influence. He's not only there as a Christian but also as a servant of Christ—in fact, as an ambassador of Christ. We are salt and light. Therefore, what was true of Paul as a servant, as a minister, should be true of us. And what was true of his ministry by the grace of God ought to be true of us and ours, our ministry.
Now, last week in studying verse 2, we discovered that the first two marks of a true minister, true ministry, true servanthood, true service of Christ—number one is opposition. Opposition, and bound up in this, really, suffering and boldness. That's unfettered freedom leading to a full disclosure of the truth of God.
So we're told, "but after we had already suffered and been mistreated in Philippi, as you know, we had the boldness in our God to speak to you the gospel of God amid much struggle." So opposition is one of the marks that really characterize true ministry, true servants. But in the midst of that, you have boldness. You have full disclosing of the mind of God.
And we saw together that this is not a boldness that is rooted in personality or in experience, but in our relationship to God. Notice what he says, "we had the boldness in our God." This is not boldness in my abilities, boldness in my experience, boldness in my cleverness. No, no, this is boldness in our God to speak to you the gospel. That's the mark of a true servant, the mark of a true ministry.
Well, tonight, beginning with verse 3, the apostle lays out some more of these marks of true ministry in a series of negatives and positives—negatives and positives. So he'll say our message and ministry was not this, but it is this. It was not that, but it was this. Well, this evening, as time permits, we shall study verses 3 and 4 as the first series of negatives and a positive.
Notice verse 3 with me: "For our exhortation does not come from error or impurity or by way of deceit." —That's the negative. That's the negative. Now the positive, verse 4:— "But just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God who examines our hearts." So let us now, with the help of the Spirit, seek to understand what the apostle is saying.
Let's begin with the negative. And the negative is found in verse 3, particularly the first series of negatives, begins in verse 3 with these words: "For our exhortation does not come from…” —this, this, or that. Paul summarizes his whole ministry as an apostle under this descriptive word, our exhortation—our exhortation, paraklēsis. This is a very broad word, Greek word. Sometimes this word means instruction. Sometimes it means admonition. Sometimes it means comfort. Sometimes it means entreating. Sometimes it means encouragement. Well, sometimes it takes in all of these things. All of them.
So Paul describes the whole discharge of his ministry, his labor, under the heading paraklēsis. It's a very flexible term. And he uses this all-embracing word. Now he says, our exhortation, that is, the whole substance of our ministry, of our labor in the Lord, he says, does not come from planē, error translated. It's a word which in its root means to wander away from the proper path, planē. It's wandering out of the right way.
In Matthew 18, verses 12 and 13, it is used that the sheep that goes—what?—astray. It wanders from the proper path. It wanders from the right path. And when a sheep goes astray, what does he do? Well, he moves out of the path marked out for him by the shepherd. Now the root word has that concept of leaving the beaten track. Leaving the proper path. And then when it's transferred into the realm that Paul is using it, it's used as the exact opposite of the truth. The truth.
For instance, in 1 John 4, verse 6, John says, "From this we know the spirit of truth,”— and notice the opposite now,— “and the spirit of”—planē,— “error." Error. Same word. So what's the opposite of truth? Error. So it's properly translated here in the LSB.
Now Paul says our exhortation does not come from error. Now why does he bring this at this point? Why does he mention this at this point? Well, for the simple reason that suffering and boldness are not of themselves sufficient marks of a true minister and a true ministry. They're not sufficient by themselves.
For instance, Joseph Smith, the leader of Mormonism, suffered great opposition. In fact, he was killed and certainly was very bold. And he would pass the first two marks of a true servant, with the exception that he cannot say we had boldness in our God. The real God, at least. The God of the Bible. Maybe an heteros God, another of a different kind, his own imagination. While he was bold, he suffered opposition.
Judge Rutherford and Charles Taze Russell, the founders of Jehovah's Witnesses, they certainly were bold. And Jehovah's Witness movement to this day bears the shadow and the imprint of the brazen boldness of its founders. These men were bold. They suffered opposition. So if the only two marks of a true servant, true minister, true ministry are opposition and boldness, then these men would qualify.
But now we move into verse 3 and we immediately confront this third mark of a true ministering, the ministry, the true ministry. Namely, that his ministry is rooted not in error, but in objective truth. So the apostle declares of himself, our exhortation was not rooted in, drawn out from a source that was wrong, that was false. It was not, to use the word under inspiration, it was not a ministry framed by leaving the beaten path of revealed truth. It wasn't a ministry framed by leaving the beaten path of the right way.
But everything we preached, everything we appealed, every appeal we made, everything we delivered was found to be right smack, dead center, in the path of the truth that God revealed in Holy Scriptures, consistent with the mind of the Holy Spirit. That's what he's saying.
So then we're confronted with this third mark of a true ministry, the third mark being this: its content is one characterized by truth. By truth. Now, we live in a day that likes to downplay any concept of objective, revealed, definable truth. We live in a day where the whole thrust is, we've got to love one another, hold hands, sing kumbaya, we've got to be kind, we've got to be concerned about this and that and the other and with the mess of the world that the world is in. We've got to really just kind of love each other, and we've got no time to sit around and debate whether a certain statement is wrong or right, true or false. We've got to put all that behind us, just all syrupy, gushy, sticky love.
Paul would say no, no, for the simple reason that what you believe may damn your soul if you believe error. Truth matters. So then the mark of a true minister is that he is committed to that pathway of truth, which is the Holy Scriptures. "... Your word is truth," our Lord said. John 17:17. And by way of extension, the mark of a true parent discharging His ministry as a parent is that He discharges it within the framework of the truth of God. The mark of a true witness as he stands in his neighborhood, in his classroom, on college campus or university campus, seeking to be a witness to his neighbors, to his fellow students, is that he does so within the framework of revealed truth, objective truth.
Now if that's to be true of you and me, then a tremendous responsibility lies upon us that we know then what the beaten path is, right? How are you going to tell if somebody is ministering to you outside of the beaten path if you don't know what the beaten path is? Right? How are you going to tell if somebody is doing that? I mean, the only way to preserve the truth of God in the church is by the grace of God to make theologians out of everybody sitting in a chair or the pew. That's what R.C. Sproul said. Now, not theologians in the sense that they understand all of the technical terms and all of the refined aspects of theology, that's not what is meant. But when they hear a statement like justification, they know what it means. They know what it means.
And if someone stands up and says, well, justification has to do with a just life, they'll immediately say, absolutely not. That is false. That's wrong. That's an error. Justification has nothing to do with how you live. Justification has to do with something God declares. God declares to be true of men in the courts of heaven when they put their trust in His Son, when they believe in His Son. And they'll be able to know the difference between justification and sanctification. Yet, knowing the difference, if someone should say, well, it's perfectly possible for a person to be justified and have a right standing in heaven, but not be sanctified and be living like the world, then they'll be able to say, absolutely not. That's out of the beaten path. It's out of the beaten path.
Although justification has to do with the court of heaven, sanctification has to do with the heart of a man, and the two, according to Scripture, are never divorced. They're always joined together. And what God has joined together, let no man separate. This is what I mean by making theologians out of people in the pew or chairs, so that if someone comes and says, well, you know, really, maybe you people have been told that what you need to be faithful is to be faithful to the words of Scripture. We need to be faithful to the very words of Scripture. But certainly you realize it's not the words that are important. It's really, really the thoughts behind the words. You'd be able to see right through that and say, wait a minute. That's impossible, because thoughts are framed by words, and if you change the words, you change the thoughts.
Do you know that whole denominations have gone down the drain of liberalism as a result of putting lies into the hands of people in the name of truth? And people are taking it in, assimilating it into their very bloodstream, and being damned and poisoned with lies. Why? Because people who sat in the pew figured, well, only the preacher needs to know theological distinctions. That's not important to me. Just— I want to love Jesus. Beloved, it is important, for if you're to know the difference between a true ministry and a false ministry, you've got to know what the beaten path is before you can discern when someone's gone out of that path and went off on a tangent.
And so the apostle declares, our ministry, our exhortation does not come from error. But by contrast, it was what? What is he saying? It was one of truth. It was one of truth.
Then he says in the second place, and this is the second negative now we find here, it does not come from impurity. It doesn't come from impurity. Akatharsia. Akatharsia. This word, in almost every instance in the New Testament, it is used in the connotation of sexual impurity. In Romans 1, for example, in that terrible list of perversions, it's mentioned in verse 24. In Ephesians 5:3, it speaks of the impurity, uncleanness, along with the sexually immoral person. In Ephesians 5:5, it is used as an adjective connected with the sexually immoral person where we read, "For this you know with certainty, that no one sexually immoral or”—here's the word, akatharsia,— impure or greedy, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God."
Now here's the question. Why would Paul ever use such a word as this here in our text? Well, I mean, he says, for our exhortation does not come from error or akatharsia, impurity, uncleanness. What meaning would this have to the Thessalonians? Well, beloved, it would have a very real meaning to them. Remember, many of them had been what? Idol worshipers. How you turn from idols to worship, serve the living God, right? Chapter 1, verse 9. This is how Paul spoke concerning them, how they turned from that. They were idol worshipers and one of the marks of many of the heathen idols in the day in which Paul lived in the Roman government under Roman rule.
In these heathen temples, you remember, the deities, the gods who are worshipped were notorious for their sexual escapades. In fact, many of the gods had little gods by illicit relationship with other goddesses. And so it was not uncommon for heathen temples to be filled with prostitutes and to have immoral acts as part of the worship of the heathen deities. It's only logical that if your gods are like that, the ultimate is to be like your God. Therefore, unclean gods produce unclean worshipers. So Paul, by contrast, says, our exhortation does not come from error or impurity. This would have had real meanings to these people.
The opposite, of course, of impurity is what? Purity. Holiness. And by the way, the two things are used as opposite. In chapter 4, where Paul says in verse 7, "For God did not call us to,”— and here's our word,— “impurity,”—akatharsia— “but”— look at that,— “in sanctification." Our message, rooted in truth, and our motive under God to see purity and holiness produced in the hearts and the lives of people.
The apostle recognized, as we must recognize, the fourth mark with a true ministry is this. It will not only be a proclamation of truth, but a proclamation of the truth that leads to purity and godliness of life. Titus 1:1, he uses a term, the truth, which is according to what? Godliness, godliness. Truth and holiness are always joined together, and conversely, error and impurity are generally joined together.
Listen as I read several passages that show the relationship between error and impurity, and this is fascinating, fascinating. Revelation 2, verse 20, the Lord Jesus says to the church of Thyatira, you remember, "But I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess"—you see, she's claimed to speak truth, right? That's what she claimed, to be speaking truth in the name of God. She claimed to be speaking inspired truth, and you know, a prophet was one who spoke as the mouthpiece of God, right? And Christ says to this church, you've allowed that woman who calls herself a prophetess to deliver so-called truth in the name of God, but what was the result? What was the result of that? What was the practical outworking of that? Here it is. He goes on to say,— “who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and deceives My slaves so that they commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols." You see? You see, the error proclaimed was inseparably joined to impurity of life, which followed an embrace of the error, always.
In the book of Jude, you have the same thought. The theme of this chapter, of course, dealing with false teachers and their influence upon the people of God. Notice what he says about them in verses 10 through 13. Jude, verse 10, "But these men blaspheme the things which they do not understand, and the things which they know by instinct, like unreasoning animals, by these things they are destroyed. Woe to them! For they have gone the way of Cain, and for pay they have poured themselves into the error of Balaam, and perished in the rebellion of Korah. These are the men who are hidden, who are hidden reefs in your love feasts"—see, they attend the church, they're part of the church—"when they feast with you without fear, caring for themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted; wild waves of the sea, casting up their own shame like foam; wandering stars, from whom the black darkness has been reserved forever."
Drop down to verse 16. "These are grumblers, finding fault, following their own lusts." And in verse 19, he describes them as what? “...worldly-minded, not having the Spirit.” They have their own lusts, and they're worldly-minded. So you see that there's connected with false teaching, false uncleanness, and immoral living.
So the Apostle Paul vindicates his ministry by saying that his message was not only rooted in truth, but the whole motivation, the proclamation of that message, was that it might produce purity, holiness of heart, and holiness of life.
Now, notice how history bears out this principle. Joseph Smith claimed to be a prophet, didn't he? Right? And he claimed to have special gifts to interpret and to read these golden plates that were buried near Palmyra. But wonder of wonders, when he reads the plates, he finds that it's all right for a man to have a bunch of wives. Of course, you've gotta do this in the name of God. But what was he doing? Finding justification for giving himself over to the flesh. That's it. The uncleanness of the flesh was inseparably joined to the error that he proclaimed.
And so the Apostle Paul, in vindicating his own ministry and in giving the marks to the true minister, he says that our exhortation was not in its content of error or in its motive of impurity or uncleanness. Nor, in the third place, he says, was it in deceit. That's the next negative. In deceit. And the word deceit is the Greek word dolos. It means guile, crafty, deceitful, deceitful talk, cunning conduct.
Maybe I can best illustrate it with a little humor story. Perhaps I may be silly, but I hope it makes the point clear. Think of a little fox. And foxes are known for their wily, guile ways. So this fox sneaked into farmer Brown's chicken coop. Creative, farmer Brown, right? So one night he sneaks into farmer Brown's chicken coop by a little hole that he just about barely could squeeze himself through, the corner of the chicken coop. And so he's got in and just had the best feast on chicken that night. And when he was all done, he was so stuffed up that his side was so swollen, he couldn't get out. The hole now is so tiny for him.
So he said to himself, oh my, oh my, I'm in a bind. I'm in a tight spot here, I'm in a fix. When farmer Brown comes out to the coop in the morning to check for eggs and he finds me in here, I mean, I'm done. So this has really been my last meal. That's it for me. So the fox figured, well, what shall I do? Well, he came up with a plan. So that morning while he was looking out the chicken coop, he could see through the little hole. Though he couldn't squeeze out, he saw farmer Brown coming. In the midst of all the feathers that have been flying around and the chickens there now inside his tummy and the other chicken, the rest huddled over in the corner, scared.
As he drew near the chicken coop, farmer Brown, the fox lay down right in the middle, played dead. And so farmer Brown came in, saw that fox lying there, looking dead, saw the evidence of what had happened, what had been done, and in his anger, he picked it up by the tail, threw it, what he thought was dead carcass, out the front of the chicken coop front door. And no sooner than he'd done that, that that little wily fox ran away with his tummy full. You see, the fox caught farmer Brown with guile. He deceived him. He was sly, we say, as the fox. He was being true to his fox nature.
Well, that's the thought behind the word dolos. That which is deliberate, planned, deceit, cunning, guile, craftiness, and now the Apostle Paul says, my ministry, my preaching was not in its content of error. My message was truth, nor was my motive to produce impurity, but conversely holiness, and now he seems to be touching not so much on the message, not so much on the motive, but now on his methods, he says it was not by way of deceit. He uses a different preposition here. First, he uses ‘ek’, now he uses ‘en’. He said, for example, it was not ‘ek’, literally out of a source of error, or out of a motive of impurity, but ‘en’, in the context of honesty and openness.
Here, there was no deceit, no guile, there was no craftiness in my ministry. And as I mentioned, it seems that Paul here is referring to his method. Now, notice the relationship. When he came with a message that was rooted in objective truth, revealed truth, with a motive that God would so work as to produce holiness, he didn't have to use any tricks. He didn't have to be underhanded. He didn't have to be sneaky. He could come right into the synagogue, open up the scriptures, and proclaim that Jesus was the Messiah.
And if people say, well, what are you doing here? Well, what do you want, Paul? And you could say, as we'll study later on, I really don't want anything from you, absolutely nothing from you. I've come to do nothing but to give the message of life to you, that's all. No tricks, no gimmicks, none of the arts and crafts of the false teachers, that's it.
When you read 2 Corinthians 11 about false teachers, this very word is used about the false teachers, that they're marked by their cunning craftiness, by their guile, by their deceit. We read in 2 Corinthians 11, verse 13, “For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ." And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.
This is true of the so-called religious teachers who stand in the name of Christ and truth, and will give things that are not in the beaten path of the revealed will of God. And frankly, beloved, it's a deep concern. With so much of the popular methods that we hear concerning evangelism today, they're marked by the craftiness, the wildness of the false teacher. The modern gospel invitation—much of it is psychological manipulation, craftiness.
You see this whole idea of using psychological pressure and gimmicks and tricks, the tricks of the sales world to somehow get a response out of people—beloved, this is entirely foreign to the ministry of Paul. He said that my ministry, my exhortation, was not by way of deceit. I stood among you in my motives and my message and my method; we're all above board, and we're disciplined by the word of God, regulated by the word of God, rooted in the word of God.
May God grant that you and I can say that as parents, that you and I can say that as witnesses, salt and light to our neighbors, to our friends, to our fellow workers. What a tremendous thing, by the grace of God, at the end of one's life, to be able to say, in spite of all of my failures, in spite of all of my shortcomings, by the grace of God, what I sought to tell my neighbors, to tell my children, to tell my friends, to tell my work associates, to tell the people to whom I ministered, was rooted in the truth of scripture, had as its motive the producing of purity, and was carried out in the realm of absolute honesty and openness. There was no deceit, no guile, no craftiness.
That's the negative. Well, we get to the positive. He doesn't leave us with a negative. Verse four—he turns in verse four to the positive, and the reason why verse three is true is because of verse four, because of verse four. What keeps a man sticking to the beaten path of the Word of God? What keeps a woman sticking to the beaten path of the Word of God? What keeps a person, a child in his motive, pure, longing to see the truth produce purity? What keeps a man from tricks and gimmicks and guile in his witness, in his ministry, in his service? Verse four is the answer.
"But just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God who examines our hearts." And here's the first positive statement. Paul says, I speak as a man who has been approved by God, appointed of God. Why don't I swerve from the truth? Why don't I swerve from the beaten path of revealed truth? Why, I dare not? Well, because the God of truth has appointed me to proclaim His truth. He's approved me. He's appointed me.
Why will I not swerve in my discharge of my duty, my responsibility in the ministry, as a witness, as a parent, as a friend, as a brother, as a sister? Why? Because I have been appointed and approved of God. Notice a larger statement of this in 1 Timothy chapter 1, allowing the scripture to interpret scripture. 1 Timothy 1:11 through 14. I want you to see that with me.
1 Timothy chapter 1, verse 11. Paul says, "According to the gospel of the glory of the blessed God, with which I have been"—same word—"entrusted." —And we'll take up that thought in a moment, this whole idea of a trust.— "I am grateful to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because He regarded me faithful, putting me into service, even though I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor. Yet I was shown mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord was more than abundant, with the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus."
He's saying God has counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry. And the question that arises: is Paul saying that God looked down, as it were, watched his conduct for a period of time, and said, well, you know, by the way you're living and acting, Paul, you qualify, therefore, I'm going to put you in the ministry? No, that's not what happened. That appointment came by an act of divine sovereignty in the context of what? Mercy and grace. Mercy and grace.
Notice this so clearly stated in Acts 9, verse 15: "But the Lord said to him, 'Go, for he is a chosen instrument of Mine, to bear My name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel.'" A literal translation would be, he's a vessel of election unto Me. He's a vessel of election unto Me. He's a chosen instrument of Mine. I have chosen to lay hold of him and to make him a minister to the Gentiles. And it's all by the grace of God, sovereign grace.
Paul understood this, for he says in 1 Corinthians 7:25 that he gives a judgment as one who—by what? The mercy of the Lord—is trustworthy. By what? By his own cleverness, by his own holiness, by his own trustworthiness? No, by the mercy of the Lord is trustworthy. The Lord's mercy is what makes me faithful.
And then 2 Corinthians 3:5: "Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of a new covenant." So Paul then recognizes, I have been approved by God. God has laid hold of me. He has appointed me to this task with responsibility as a minister, as a servant.
Therefore, I dare not do anything other than speak the right message from the right motive and use the right method. That's what he's saying.
God has laid hold of me. God has appointed me. God has approved me. And secondly, He says, I have been entrusted. I have been given a trust. He says, we have been approved by God to be what? Entrusted with the gospel.
Now, when you are made a trustee of something, what do you have? What kind of responsibilities do you have? You have two basic responsibilities when you've been made a trustee of something. First of all, you are to preserve that which is put into your trust. And secondly, you are to rightly administer that trust.
Now, Paul had a tremendous sense of this concept. I have been entrusted by God with the gospel. We read about it in 1 Timothy 1. I have been allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel. Something has been committed to me that I might first, first of all, preserve it and preserve it as is, preserve it in its entirety, and that I may also administer it God's way, the way God wants it to be administered, not my way.
Oh, beloved, if God would burn this into our hearts, then a sense of responsibility comes upon us just to stick by the direction of the Word of God, that it would grip our hearts in every area of our ministry. As you're a parent and you think of your responsibility, how are you going to discharge it? If you are worthy of the name parent, you're going to discharge your parental responsibility, conscious of these two things. I've been appointed of God. He has given me this privilege of parenthood. He has put in my trust this responsibility.
I am not to determine how I should administer it, how it should be administered. I am not to determine how I should discharge the trust. I am to come to this beaten path. I am to come to the Scriptures. I am to glean from the Word of God all the principles involved in the administration of the trust, and then I am to preserve it, and I am to discharge it in its entirety without any reference to the smiles or the frowns of my children or society or the world about me.
I am put in this neighborhood there as a witness, there by the appointment of God as His child, as His witness, as His ambassador. How am I to discharge my trust? I'm to discover from the Scripture what that trust is, how to discharge it, and then discharge it without any reference to the smiles or the frowns of those about me, and so forth and so forth. You can see the wide-reaching impact of the application.
Paul could speak as a man conscious that he was chosen by God, given a trust from God, and then notice this third principle that comes into the text. So we speak, not as pleasing men. Not as pleasing men. Paul did not love the glory of men more than the glory of God, right? He didn't. Not as pleasing men. If I was still pleasing men—meaning as I used to be before I came to know the Lord, that's my lifestyle, that's the pattern of my life, right?—I wouldn't be a servant of Christ, he says. I'm no longer that. So we speak, not as pleasing men, but God who examines our hearts.
In other words, I've been appointed by God, I've been given a trust from God, and I am a servant accountable to God. And when you get those three things together in the heart of a man or a woman, then, guess what? He is immovable. She is immovable. You can't budge them. You can't budge them. They become filled with a sanctified stubbornness and immovability.
God has laid His hand upon me. God has given something to me, and I shall stand before that God. Here I stand. I could do no other. Now Paul recognizes, you see, that much of what he has given, much of what he has been given as a trust in the gospel, is not pleasing to men. He knew that. That's why he says we speak not as pleasing men. Of course.
God has charged me to proclaim to men what the Bible says about them, the full counsel that they're dead. They're dead in trespasses and sins, blind, wretched rebels, sinners who deserve the wrath of God, the curse of God. I've been charged to proclaim to them the glorious gospel that says the only hope of sinners is in the cruel, bloody Roman cross upon which the Son of God died and shed His blood. And I'm to declare to men that unless they're walking in holiness, they have no grounds to claim they are Christians, because when God transforms a life, when God saves a life, He transforms a life.
I'm to proclaim all these truths, every one of which is repulsive and distasteful to the natural heart, for the natural man does not accept the depths of the Spirit of God, for they are, what? Foolishness to him. So Paul says, if as I take this trust, the gospel committed to me, and as I begin to administer it, and I check my approval ratings, he said, something's going to happen if I do that. If I'm worried about my approval ratings, something's going to happen. I'm going to find that I'm going to begin to alter the message. I'm going to begin to somehow change not only the message, but ultimately my methods in order to suit the desires of the people.
But he says, I dare not do that. I cannot do that. I dare not do that, because I've been appointed of God, given a trust from God, and I will stand before God one day accountable to Him.
Therefore, therefore, therefore, only His smile, only His frown is what matters in the discharging of my ministry.
I say to anyone contemplating the Christian ministry, there's nothing that will keep you faithful to your trust except these things being burnt into your heart by the power of the Holy Spirit. Now, when you stand before men and women, conscious that you stand here not because your parents had ambitions that you would be a pastor or a preacher, or one day you're sitting around somewhere in your mind, you thought, well, it would be nice to do this. And, you know, I've been told I have the gift of gab, so why don't I preach? No, no.
When you stand conscious I've been appointed by God, you realize that you've been appointed to discharge and preserve a trust. He has committed to you His holy Word, the living Word, the whole counsel of His truth to be proclaimed, the bitter and the sweet, the promises and the threatenings, the commands and the exhortations, the truth of human responsibility, and the truth of divine sovereignty, the truth of men's ruin in the fall, and the redemption by Christ. This is the awesome trust committed, and it must be preserved, and it must be discharged faithfully. And then the recognition that in the discharge of that trust I stand before God who examines my heart.
Then you realize when you stand to teach or preach, the eyes of the people to whom you're speaking don't matter. It's His eye that counts. It's in the present tense, by the way. So we speak not as pleasing men, but God who examines, who proves, who tests, who tries our hearts. His eye is upon me.
And so if there's the look of anger in the eyes of those to whom you serve or minister, that doesn't matter if you know that the look of delight is in the eye of God, your God, right? And if there's look or a smile of delight in the eyes of your hearers, that doesn't satisfy if you're not sure that there's a glint of delight in the eyes of your Heavenly Father. That's the thing that shapes and molds and disciplines the servant of Christ, to be bold in the Spirit.
That will make you a true Sunday school teacher, a true nursery teacher. Beloved, that will make you a true parent in the discharge of your responsibility to your neighbors, to your friends, as a witness, as a testimony. Oh, this sense that being accountable to God is what will keep you from ever tampering with His truth. Your message will be pure from the right motive, and it will be a motive of holiness, and it will keep you from moving aside from a right method. It will not be by way of deceit, but in honesty and in openness with unfettered freedom.
And so, beloved, we have in these verses some of the marks of a true servant and true ministry. We found together in verse 2 that that one will be marked by opposition, marked by boldness, unfettered freedom. In verse 3, the negative, his message will not be of error, but of the truth, not of impurity, but of purity, not in deceit, but in honesty and openness. In verse 4, you have the positive. He will discharge that ministry conscious that he has been appointed by God, chosen by God, given a trust from God, and stands accountable to God.
In closing tonight, may I ask you a couple of very personal questions, I hope searching questions. The ministry that God has given to you, and He's given a ministry to every one of us who are His children, no question, He has. Of that ministry, can you say before God, my exhortation was not from error or out of error? Do you know that what you're saying to your neighbors is truth because you've searched it out? Do you know that what you're saying to that Sunday school class is truth because you've searched it out? Do you know that what you're doing as a parent in the context of truth is in the context of truth because you've searched it out?
Is it of impurity or purity? Does it have as its motives that it should produce holiness of life, or is it being done in deceit, or is it in honesty? Do you have a consciousness in the discharge of your ministry this evening? Do you stand ministering as one chosen by God, given a trust from God, and that you are discharging your ministry under the eye of God? Oh, for such a God-consciousness to grip our hearts, beloved, and then we shall be true servants of Christ to the praise of His glory.
Let us unite in prayer.
We noted already that wherever you have faithful ministry, you are going to encounter opposition—at times, fierce opposition. Sooner or later, it's going to happen. You're going to face it. And understand that standing behind the fierce human opposition is the enemy of our souls—the devil himself. Which explains the fierceness, the viciousness of what we meet with at the hands of people. Because standing behind their viciousness is the devil's viciousness. He hates God. He hates the people of God. He hates the church of God. And so we can be sure that we're going to face opposition.
This is also an opportunity, however, for what God does—when He does what He does—to be proven. To be validated. Every bit of opposition that we face is sovereignly watched over. Never forget that. It's sovereignly regulated. And it all serves as an opportunity for proven character. An opportunity for proven obedience. No matter what.
And so it was that Paul often faced the need to set the record straight when it came to the slander, the accusations, the innuendo that he had to deal with in the course of ministry. He faced much opposition. Much slander. Ascribing to him ill motives. Slandering his name. His reputation. And as we've noted, you remember he had to leave—he and the missionary team had to leave Thessaloniki on short notice. And the result is that you have these spiritual sharks, these spiritual wolves, taking advantage of that. They began to question his motives to the minds and the hearts of the Thessalonians themselves.
And so of course he cannot let this stand—this infant church—for the sake of the church, for the sake of his role with the churches as an apostle of Jesus Christ. And he needed to protect the sheep, he needed to protect the flock. For the sake of their souls, for the sake of the truth, he had to answer the opposition. And he does that here in chapter 2.
But as he does that, we can be so grateful because what we have then is a divinely inspired, divinely authored demonstration of what it means to have a trustworthy ministry in general. I mean, what characterized Paul's ministry should characterize all ministry—all ministry, formal or informal. And so as he sets forth and what made his ministry trustworthy, we can examine ourselves, we ought to examine ourselves and ask, are we characterized by the same? Are these characteristics to be found in our ministry? Each and every one of us. And you can examine any ministry you want to examine and ask this question: is it characterized by the same? That's how you evaluate, you learn how to evaluate ministries around you.
So we noted that in verse 1 through verse 12 we have the true marks, the true characteristics of a true trustworthy ministry—true trustworthy servants of Christ. And this is referring not only to the one who stands in the pulpit or goes out as a missionary or as in the case here as an apostle like Paul, but whether that ministry is found in the home as a parent, a neighbor to your neighbors, one in a place of employment to your work associates, or even a student to your fellow students, regardless. Wherever the Christian is, that's your sphere of influence. He's not only there as a Christian but also as a servant of Christ—in fact, as an ambassador of Christ. We are salt and light. Therefore, what was true of Paul as a servant, as a minister, should be true of us. And what was true of his ministry by the grace of God ought to be true of us and ours, our ministry.
Now, last week in studying verse 2, we discovered that the first two marks of a true minister, true ministry, true servanthood, true service of Christ—number one is opposition. Opposition, and bound up in this, really, suffering and boldness. That's unfettered freedom leading to a full disclosure of the truth of God.
So we're told, "but after we had already suffered and been mistreated in Philippi, as you know, we had the boldness in our God to speak to you the gospel of God amid much struggle." So opposition is one of the marks that really characterize true ministry, true servants. But in the midst of that, you have boldness. You have full disclosing of the mind of God.
And we saw together that this is not a boldness that is rooted in personality or in experience, but in our relationship to God. Notice what he says, "we had the boldness in our God." This is not boldness in my abilities, boldness in my experience, boldness in my cleverness. No, no, this is boldness in our God to speak to you the gospel. That's the mark of a true servant, the mark of a true ministry.
Well, tonight, beginning with verse 3, the apostle lays out some more of these marks of true ministry in a series of negatives and positives—negatives and positives. So he'll say our message and ministry was not this, but it is this. It was not that, but it was this. Well, this evening, as time permits, we shall study verses 3 and 4 as the first series of negatives and a positive.
Notice verse 3 with me: "For our exhortation does not come from error or impurity or by way of deceit." —That's the negative. That's the negative. Now the positive, verse 4:— "But just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God who examines our hearts." So let us now, with the help of the Spirit, seek to understand what the apostle is saying.
Let's begin with the negative. And the negative is found in verse 3, particularly the first series of negatives, begins in verse 3 with these words: "For our exhortation does not come from…” —this, this, or that. Paul summarizes his whole ministry as an apostle under this descriptive word, our exhortation—our exhortation, paraklēsis. This is a very broad word, Greek word. Sometimes this word means instruction. Sometimes it means admonition. Sometimes it means comfort. Sometimes it means entreating. Sometimes it means encouragement. Well, sometimes it takes in all of these things. All of them.
So Paul describes the whole discharge of his ministry, his labor, under the heading paraklēsis. It's a very flexible term. And he uses this all-embracing word. Now he says, our exhortation, that is, the whole substance of our ministry, of our labor in the Lord, he says, does not come from planē, error translated. It's a word which in its root means to wander away from the proper path, planē. It's wandering out of the right way.
In Matthew 18, verses 12 and 13, it is used that the sheep that goes—what?—astray. It wanders from the proper path. It wanders from the right path. And when a sheep goes astray, what does he do? Well, he moves out of the path marked out for him by the shepherd. Now the root word has that concept of leaving the beaten track. Leaving the proper path. And then when it's transferred into the realm that Paul is using it, it's used as the exact opposite of the truth. The truth.
For instance, in 1 John 4, verse 6, John says, "From this we know the spirit of truth,”— and notice the opposite now,— “and the spirit of”—planē,— “error." Error. Same word. So what's the opposite of truth? Error. So it's properly translated here in the LSB.
Now Paul says our exhortation does not come from error. Now why does he bring this at this point? Why does he mention this at this point? Well, for the simple reason that suffering and boldness are not of themselves sufficient marks of a true minister and a true ministry. They're not sufficient by themselves.
For instance, Joseph Smith, the leader of Mormonism, suffered great opposition. In fact, he was killed and certainly was very bold. And he would pass the first two marks of a true servant, with the exception that he cannot say we had boldness in our God. The real God, at least. The God of the Bible. Maybe an heteros God, another of a different kind, his own imagination. While he was bold, he suffered opposition.
Judge Rutherford and Charles Taze Russell, the founders of Jehovah's Witnesses, they certainly were bold. And Jehovah's Witness movement to this day bears the shadow and the imprint of the brazen boldness of its founders. These men were bold. They suffered opposition. So if the only two marks of a true servant, true minister, true ministry are opposition and boldness, then these men would qualify.
But now we move into verse 3 and we immediately confront this third mark of a true ministering, the ministry, the true ministry. Namely, that his ministry is rooted not in error, but in objective truth. So the apostle declares of himself, our exhortation was not rooted in, drawn out from a source that was wrong, that was false. It was not, to use the word under inspiration, it was not a ministry framed by leaving the beaten path of revealed truth. It wasn't a ministry framed by leaving the beaten path of the right way.
But everything we preached, everything we appealed, every appeal we made, everything we delivered was found to be right smack, dead center, in the path of the truth that God revealed in Holy Scriptures, consistent with the mind of the Holy Spirit. That's what he's saying.
So then we're confronted with this third mark of a true ministry, the third mark being this: its content is one characterized by truth. By truth. Now, we live in a day that likes to downplay any concept of objective, revealed, definable truth. We live in a day where the whole thrust is, we've got to love one another, hold hands, sing kumbaya, we've got to be kind, we've got to be concerned about this and that and the other and with the mess of the world that the world is in. We've got to really just kind of love each other, and we've got no time to sit around and debate whether a certain statement is wrong or right, true or false. We've got to put all that behind us, just all syrupy, gushy, sticky love.
Paul would say no, no, for the simple reason that what you believe may damn your soul if you believe error. Truth matters. So then the mark of a true minister is that he is committed to that pathway of truth, which is the Holy Scriptures. "... Your word is truth," our Lord said. John 17:17. And by way of extension, the mark of a true parent discharging His ministry as a parent is that He discharges it within the framework of the truth of God. The mark of a true witness as he stands in his neighborhood, in his classroom, on college campus or university campus, seeking to be a witness to his neighbors, to his fellow students, is that he does so within the framework of revealed truth, objective truth.
Now if that's to be true of you and me, then a tremendous responsibility lies upon us that we know then what the beaten path is, right? How are you going to tell if somebody is ministering to you outside of the beaten path if you don't know what the beaten path is? Right? How are you going to tell if somebody is doing that? I mean, the only way to preserve the truth of God in the church is by the grace of God to make theologians out of everybody sitting in a chair or the pew. That's what R.C. Sproul said. Now, not theologians in the sense that they understand all of the technical terms and all of the refined aspects of theology, that's not what is meant. But when they hear a statement like justification, they know what it means. They know what it means.
And if someone stands up and says, well, justification has to do with a just life, they'll immediately say, absolutely not. That is false. That's wrong. That's an error. Justification has nothing to do with how you live. Justification has to do with something God declares. God declares to be true of men in the courts of heaven when they put their trust in His Son, when they believe in His Son. And they'll be able to know the difference between justification and sanctification. Yet, knowing the difference, if someone should say, well, it's perfectly possible for a person to be justified and have a right standing in heaven, but not be sanctified and be living like the world, then they'll be able to say, absolutely not. That's out of the beaten path. It's out of the beaten path.
Although justification has to do with the court of heaven, sanctification has to do with the heart of a man, and the two, according to Scripture, are never divorced. They're always joined together. And what God has joined together, let no man separate. This is what I mean by making theologians out of people in the pew or chairs, so that if someone comes and says, well, you know, really, maybe you people have been told that what you need to be faithful is to be faithful to the words of Scripture. We need to be faithful to the very words of Scripture. But certainly you realize it's not the words that are important. It's really, really the thoughts behind the words. You'd be able to see right through that and say, wait a minute. That's impossible, because thoughts are framed by words, and if you change the words, you change the thoughts.
Do you know that whole denominations have gone down the drain of liberalism as a result of putting lies into the hands of people in the name of truth? And people are taking it in, assimilating it into their very bloodstream, and being damned and poisoned with lies. Why? Because people who sat in the pew figured, well, only the preacher needs to know theological distinctions. That's not important to me. Just— I want to love Jesus. Beloved, it is important, for if you're to know the difference between a true ministry and a false ministry, you've got to know what the beaten path is before you can discern when someone's gone out of that path and went off on a tangent.
And so the apostle declares, our ministry, our exhortation does not come from error. But by contrast, it was what? What is he saying? It was one of truth. It was one of truth.
Then he says in the second place, and this is the second negative now we find here, it does not come from impurity. It doesn't come from impurity. Akatharsia. Akatharsia. This word, in almost every instance in the New Testament, it is used in the connotation of sexual impurity. In Romans 1, for example, in that terrible list of perversions, it's mentioned in verse 24. In Ephesians 5:3, it speaks of the impurity, uncleanness, along with the sexually immoral person. In Ephesians 5:5, it is used as an adjective connected with the sexually immoral person where we read, "For this you know with certainty, that no one sexually immoral or”—here's the word, akatharsia,— impure or greedy, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God."
Now here's the question. Why would Paul ever use such a word as this here in our text? Well, I mean, he says, for our exhortation does not come from error or akatharsia, impurity, uncleanness. What meaning would this have to the Thessalonians? Well, beloved, it would have a very real meaning to them. Remember, many of them had been what? Idol worshipers. How you turn from idols to worship, serve the living God, right? Chapter 1, verse 9. This is how Paul spoke concerning them, how they turned from that. They were idol worshipers and one of the marks of many of the heathen idols in the day in which Paul lived in the Roman government under Roman rule.
In these heathen temples, you remember, the deities, the gods who are worshipped were notorious for their sexual escapades. In fact, many of the gods had little gods by illicit relationship with other goddesses. And so it was not uncommon for heathen temples to be filled with prostitutes and to have immoral acts as part of the worship of the heathen deities. It's only logical that if your gods are like that, the ultimate is to be like your God. Therefore, unclean gods produce unclean worshipers. So Paul, by contrast, says, our exhortation does not come from error or impurity. This would have had real meanings to these people.
The opposite, of course, of impurity is what? Purity. Holiness. And by the way, the two things are used as opposite. In chapter 4, where Paul says in verse 7, "For God did not call us to,”— and here's our word,— “impurity,”—akatharsia— “but”— look at that,— “in sanctification." Our message, rooted in truth, and our motive under God to see purity and holiness produced in the hearts and the lives of people.
The apostle recognized, as we must recognize, the fourth mark with a true ministry is this. It will not only be a proclamation of truth, but a proclamation of the truth that leads to purity and godliness of life. Titus 1:1, he uses a term, the truth, which is according to what? Godliness, godliness. Truth and holiness are always joined together, and conversely, error and impurity are generally joined together.
Listen as I read several passages that show the relationship between error and impurity, and this is fascinating, fascinating. Revelation 2, verse 20, the Lord Jesus says to the church of Thyatira, you remember, "But I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess"—you see, she's claimed to speak truth, right? That's what she claimed, to be speaking truth in the name of God. She claimed to be speaking inspired truth, and you know, a prophet was one who spoke as the mouthpiece of God, right? And Christ says to this church, you've allowed that woman who calls herself a prophetess to deliver so-called truth in the name of God, but what was the result? What was the result of that? What was the practical outworking of that? Here it is. He goes on to say,— “who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and deceives My slaves so that they commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols." You see? You see, the error proclaimed was inseparably joined to impurity of life, which followed an embrace of the error, always.
In the book of Jude, you have the same thought. The theme of this chapter, of course, dealing with false teachers and their influence upon the people of God. Notice what he says about them in verses 10 through 13. Jude, verse 10, "But these men blaspheme the things which they do not understand, and the things which they know by instinct, like unreasoning animals, by these things they are destroyed. Woe to them! For they have gone the way of Cain, and for pay they have poured themselves into the error of Balaam, and perished in the rebellion of Korah. These are the men who are hidden, who are hidden reefs in your love feasts"—see, they attend the church, they're part of the church—"when they feast with you without fear, caring for themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted; wild waves of the sea, casting up their own shame like foam; wandering stars, from whom the black darkness has been reserved forever."
Drop down to verse 16. "These are grumblers, finding fault, following their own lusts." And in verse 19, he describes them as what? “...worldly-minded, not having the Spirit.” They have their own lusts, and they're worldly-minded. So you see that there's connected with false teaching, false uncleanness, and immoral living.
So the Apostle Paul vindicates his ministry by saying that his message was not only rooted in truth, but the whole motivation, the proclamation of that message, was that it might produce purity, holiness of heart, and holiness of life.
Now, notice how history bears out this principle. Joseph Smith claimed to be a prophet, didn't he? Right? And he claimed to have special gifts to interpret and to read these golden plates that were buried near Palmyra. But wonder of wonders, when he reads the plates, he finds that it's all right for a man to have a bunch of wives. Of course, you've gotta do this in the name of God. But what was he doing? Finding justification for giving himself over to the flesh. That's it. The uncleanness of the flesh was inseparably joined to the error that he proclaimed.
And so the Apostle Paul, in vindicating his own ministry and in giving the marks to the true minister, he says that our exhortation was not in its content of error or in its motive of impurity or uncleanness. Nor, in the third place, he says, was it in deceit. That's the next negative. In deceit. And the word deceit is the Greek word dolos. It means guile, crafty, deceitful, deceitful talk, cunning conduct.
Maybe I can best illustrate it with a little humor story. Perhaps I may be silly, but I hope it makes the point clear. Think of a little fox. And foxes are known for their wily, guile ways. So this fox sneaked into farmer Brown's chicken coop. Creative, farmer Brown, right? So one night he sneaks into farmer Brown's chicken coop by a little hole that he just about barely could squeeze himself through, the corner of the chicken coop. And so he's got in and just had the best feast on chicken that night. And when he was all done, he was so stuffed up that his side was so swollen, he couldn't get out. The hole now is so tiny for him.
So he said to himself, oh my, oh my, I'm in a bind. I'm in a tight spot here, I'm in a fix. When farmer Brown comes out to the coop in the morning to check for eggs and he finds me in here, I mean, I'm done. So this has really been my last meal. That's it for me. So the fox figured, well, what shall I do? Well, he came up with a plan. So that morning while he was looking out the chicken coop, he could see through the little hole. Though he couldn't squeeze out, he saw farmer Brown coming. In the midst of all the feathers that have been flying around and the chickens there now inside his tummy and the other chicken, the rest huddled over in the corner, scared.
As he drew near the chicken coop, farmer Brown, the fox lay down right in the middle, played dead. And so farmer Brown came in, saw that fox lying there, looking dead, saw the evidence of what had happened, what had been done, and in his anger, he picked it up by the tail, threw it, what he thought was dead carcass, out the front of the chicken coop front door. And no sooner than he'd done that, that that little wily fox ran away with his tummy full. You see, the fox caught farmer Brown with guile. He deceived him. He was sly, we say, as the fox. He was being true to his fox nature.
Well, that's the thought behind the word dolos. That which is deliberate, planned, deceit, cunning, guile, craftiness, and now the Apostle Paul says, my ministry, my preaching was not in its content of error. My message was truth, nor was my motive to produce impurity, but conversely holiness, and now he seems to be touching not so much on the message, not so much on the motive, but now on his methods, he says it was not by way of deceit. He uses a different preposition here. First, he uses ‘ek’, now he uses ‘en’. He said, for example, it was not ‘ek’, literally out of a source of error, or out of a motive of impurity, but ‘en’, in the context of honesty and openness.
Here, there was no deceit, no guile, there was no craftiness in my ministry. And as I mentioned, it seems that Paul here is referring to his method. Now, notice the relationship. When he came with a message that was rooted in objective truth, revealed truth, with a motive that God would so work as to produce holiness, he didn't have to use any tricks. He didn't have to be underhanded. He didn't have to be sneaky. He could come right into the synagogue, open up the scriptures, and proclaim that Jesus was the Messiah.
And if people say, well, what are you doing here? Well, what do you want, Paul? And you could say, as we'll study later on, I really don't want anything from you, absolutely nothing from you. I've come to do nothing but to give the message of life to you, that's all. No tricks, no gimmicks, none of the arts and crafts of the false teachers, that's it.
When you read 2 Corinthians 11 about false teachers, this very word is used about the false teachers, that they're marked by their cunning craftiness, by their guile, by their deceit. We read in 2 Corinthians 11, verse 13, “For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ." And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.
This is true of the so-called religious teachers who stand in the name of Christ and truth, and will give things that are not in the beaten path of the revealed will of God. And frankly, beloved, it's a deep concern. With so much of the popular methods that we hear concerning evangelism today, they're marked by the craftiness, the wildness of the false teacher. The modern gospel invitation—much of it is psychological manipulation, craftiness.
You see this whole idea of using psychological pressure and gimmicks and tricks, the tricks of the sales world to somehow get a response out of people—beloved, this is entirely foreign to the ministry of Paul. He said that my ministry, my exhortation, was not by way of deceit. I stood among you in my motives and my message and my method; we're all above board, and we're disciplined by the word of God, regulated by the word of God, rooted in the word of God.
May God grant that you and I can say that as parents, that you and I can say that as witnesses, salt and light to our neighbors, to our friends, to our fellow workers. What a tremendous thing, by the grace of God, at the end of one's life, to be able to say, in spite of all of my failures, in spite of all of my shortcomings, by the grace of God, what I sought to tell my neighbors, to tell my children, to tell my friends, to tell my work associates, to tell the people to whom I ministered, was rooted in the truth of scripture, had as its motive the producing of purity, and was carried out in the realm of absolute honesty and openness. There was no deceit, no guile, no craftiness.
That's the negative. Well, we get to the positive. He doesn't leave us with a negative. Verse four—he turns in verse four to the positive, and the reason why verse three is true is because of verse four, because of verse four. What keeps a man sticking to the beaten path of the Word of God? What keeps a woman sticking to the beaten path of the Word of God? What keeps a person, a child in his motive, pure, longing to see the truth produce purity? What keeps a man from tricks and gimmicks and guile in his witness, in his ministry, in his service? Verse four is the answer.
"But just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God who examines our hearts." And here's the first positive statement. Paul says, I speak as a man who has been approved by God, appointed of God. Why don't I swerve from the truth? Why don't I swerve from the beaten path of revealed truth? Why, I dare not? Well, because the God of truth has appointed me to proclaim His truth. He's approved me. He's appointed me.
Why will I not swerve in my discharge of my duty, my responsibility in the ministry, as a witness, as a parent, as a friend, as a brother, as a sister? Why? Because I have been appointed and approved of God. Notice a larger statement of this in 1 Timothy chapter 1, allowing the scripture to interpret scripture. 1 Timothy 1:11 through 14. I want you to see that with me.
1 Timothy chapter 1, verse 11. Paul says, "According to the gospel of the glory of the blessed God, with which I have been"—same word—"entrusted." —And we'll take up that thought in a moment, this whole idea of a trust.— "I am grateful to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because He regarded me faithful, putting me into service, even though I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor. Yet I was shown mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord was more than abundant, with the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus."
He's saying God has counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry. And the question that arises: is Paul saying that God looked down, as it were, watched his conduct for a period of time, and said, well, you know, by the way you're living and acting, Paul, you qualify, therefore, I'm going to put you in the ministry? No, that's not what happened. That appointment came by an act of divine sovereignty in the context of what? Mercy and grace. Mercy and grace.
Notice this so clearly stated in Acts 9, verse 15: "But the Lord said to him, 'Go, for he is a chosen instrument of Mine, to bear My name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel.'" A literal translation would be, he's a vessel of election unto Me. He's a vessel of election unto Me. He's a chosen instrument of Mine. I have chosen to lay hold of him and to make him a minister to the Gentiles. And it's all by the grace of God, sovereign grace.
Paul understood this, for he says in 1 Corinthians 7:25 that he gives a judgment as one who—by what? The mercy of the Lord—is trustworthy. By what? By his own cleverness, by his own holiness, by his own trustworthiness? No, by the mercy of the Lord is trustworthy. The Lord's mercy is what makes me faithful.
And then 2 Corinthians 3:5: "Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of a new covenant." So Paul then recognizes, I have been approved by God. God has laid hold of me. He has appointed me to this task with responsibility as a minister, as a servant.
Therefore, I dare not do anything other than speak the right message from the right motive and use the right method. That's what he's saying.
God has laid hold of me. God has appointed me. God has approved me. And secondly, He says, I have been entrusted. I have been given a trust. He says, we have been approved by God to be what? Entrusted with the gospel.
Now, when you are made a trustee of something, what do you have? What kind of responsibilities do you have? You have two basic responsibilities when you've been made a trustee of something. First of all, you are to preserve that which is put into your trust. And secondly, you are to rightly administer that trust.
Now, Paul had a tremendous sense of this concept. I have been entrusted by God with the gospel. We read about it in 1 Timothy 1. I have been allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel. Something has been committed to me that I might first, first of all, preserve it and preserve it as is, preserve it in its entirety, and that I may also administer it God's way, the way God wants it to be administered, not my way.
Oh, beloved, if God would burn this into our hearts, then a sense of responsibility comes upon us just to stick by the direction of the Word of God, that it would grip our hearts in every area of our ministry. As you're a parent and you think of your responsibility, how are you going to discharge it? If you are worthy of the name parent, you're going to discharge your parental responsibility, conscious of these two things. I've been appointed of God. He has given me this privilege of parenthood. He has put in my trust this responsibility.
I am not to determine how I should administer it, how it should be administered. I am not to determine how I should discharge the trust. I am to come to this beaten path. I am to come to the Scriptures. I am to glean from the Word of God all the principles involved in the administration of the trust, and then I am to preserve it, and I am to discharge it in its entirety without any reference to the smiles or the frowns of my children or society or the world about me.
I am put in this neighborhood there as a witness, there by the appointment of God as His child, as His witness, as His ambassador. How am I to discharge my trust? I'm to discover from the Scripture what that trust is, how to discharge it, and then discharge it without any reference to the smiles or the frowns of those about me, and so forth and so forth. You can see the wide-reaching impact of the application.
Paul could speak as a man conscious that he was chosen by God, given a trust from God, and then notice this third principle that comes into the text. So we speak, not as pleasing men. Not as pleasing men. Paul did not love the glory of men more than the glory of God, right? He didn't. Not as pleasing men. If I was still pleasing men—meaning as I used to be before I came to know the Lord, that's my lifestyle, that's the pattern of my life, right?—I wouldn't be a servant of Christ, he says. I'm no longer that. So we speak, not as pleasing men, but God who examines our hearts.
In other words, I've been appointed by God, I've been given a trust from God, and I am a servant accountable to God. And when you get those three things together in the heart of a man or a woman, then, guess what? He is immovable. She is immovable. You can't budge them. You can't budge them. They become filled with a sanctified stubbornness and immovability.
God has laid His hand upon me. God has given something to me, and I shall stand before that God. Here I stand. I could do no other. Now Paul recognizes, you see, that much of what he has given, much of what he has been given as a trust in the gospel, is not pleasing to men. He knew that. That's why he says we speak not as pleasing men. Of course.
God has charged me to proclaim to men what the Bible says about them, the full counsel that they're dead. They're dead in trespasses and sins, blind, wretched rebels, sinners who deserve the wrath of God, the curse of God. I've been charged to proclaim to them the glorious gospel that says the only hope of sinners is in the cruel, bloody Roman cross upon which the Son of God died and shed His blood. And I'm to declare to men that unless they're walking in holiness, they have no grounds to claim they are Christians, because when God transforms a life, when God saves a life, He transforms a life.
I'm to proclaim all these truths, every one of which is repulsive and distasteful to the natural heart, for the natural man does not accept the depths of the Spirit of God, for they are, what? Foolishness to him. So Paul says, if as I take this trust, the gospel committed to me, and as I begin to administer it, and I check my approval ratings, he said, something's going to happen if I do that. If I'm worried about my approval ratings, something's going to happen. I'm going to find that I'm going to begin to alter the message. I'm going to begin to somehow change not only the message, but ultimately my methods in order to suit the desires of the people.
But he says, I dare not do that. I cannot do that. I dare not do that, because I've been appointed of God, given a trust from God, and I will stand before God one day accountable to Him.
Therefore, therefore, therefore, only His smile, only His frown is what matters in the discharging of my ministry.
I say to anyone contemplating the Christian ministry, there's nothing that will keep you faithful to your trust except these things being burnt into your heart by the power of the Holy Spirit. Now, when you stand before men and women, conscious that you stand here not because your parents had ambitions that you would be a pastor or a preacher, or one day you're sitting around somewhere in your mind, you thought, well, it would be nice to do this. And, you know, I've been told I have the gift of gab, so why don't I preach? No, no.
When you stand conscious I've been appointed by God, you realize that you've been appointed to discharge and preserve a trust. He has committed to you His holy Word, the living Word, the whole counsel of His truth to be proclaimed, the bitter and the sweet, the promises and the threatenings, the commands and the exhortations, the truth of human responsibility, and the truth of divine sovereignty, the truth of men's ruin in the fall, and the redemption by Christ. This is the awesome trust committed, and it must be preserved, and it must be discharged faithfully. And then the recognition that in the discharge of that trust I stand before God who examines my heart.
Then you realize when you stand to teach or preach, the eyes of the people to whom you're speaking don't matter. It's His eye that counts. It's in the present tense, by the way. So we speak not as pleasing men, but God who examines, who proves, who tests, who tries our hearts. His eye is upon me.
And so if there's the look of anger in the eyes of those to whom you serve or minister, that doesn't matter if you know that the look of delight is in the eye of God, your God, right? And if there's look or a smile of delight in the eyes of your hearers, that doesn't satisfy if you're not sure that there's a glint of delight in the eyes of your Heavenly Father. That's the thing that shapes and molds and disciplines the servant of Christ, to be bold in the Spirit.
That will make you a true Sunday school teacher, a true nursery teacher. Beloved, that will make you a true parent in the discharge of your responsibility to your neighbors, to your friends, as a witness, as a testimony. Oh, this sense that being accountable to God is what will keep you from ever tampering with His truth. Your message will be pure from the right motive, and it will be a motive of holiness, and it will keep you from moving aside from a right method. It will not be by way of deceit, but in honesty and in openness with unfettered freedom.
And so, beloved, we have in these verses some of the marks of a true servant and true ministry. We found together in verse 2 that that one will be marked by opposition, marked by boldness, unfettered freedom. In verse 3, the negative, his message will not be of error, but of the truth, not of impurity, but of purity, not in deceit, but in honesty and openness. In verse 4, you have the positive. He will discharge that ministry conscious that he has been appointed by God, chosen by God, given a trust from God, and stands accountable to God.
In closing tonight, may I ask you a couple of very personal questions, I hope searching questions. The ministry that God has given to you, and He's given a ministry to every one of us who are His children, no question, He has. Of that ministry, can you say before God, my exhortation was not from error or out of error? Do you know that what you're saying to your neighbors is truth because you've searched it out? Do you know that what you're saying to that Sunday school class is truth because you've searched it out? Do you know that what you're doing as a parent in the context of truth is in the context of truth because you've searched it out?
Is it of impurity or purity? Does it have as its motives that it should produce holiness of life, or is it being done in deceit, or is it in honesty? Do you have a consciousness in the discharge of your ministry this evening? Do you stand ministering as one chosen by God, given a trust from God, and that you are discharging your ministry under the eye of God? Oh, for such a God-consciousness to grip our hearts, beloved, and then we shall be true servants of Christ to the praise of His glory.
Let us unite in prayer.
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