Alan Dunn

Today in our first hour we’re going to consider the pastor’s care for himself, how we are to make a priority of our own spiritual life in particular. And then in our second hour, the pastor’s care for his family as we will consider our responsibilities to our wives and to our children. And then in our other meetings that I will be ministering in, we are going to look at the whole matter of biblically regulated worship. No doubt one of our priorities in the pastoral ministry is to guide the people of God into the presence of God in biblically regulated worship. And so we’ll consider that subject as well this week. Now, each of these priorities are so important and could be opened up to such an extent, that many sermons could be preached on each one of these subjects. So we’re only going to survey them, but we’re going to survey them with the realization that we have a very serious calling, that our ministries and our lives as pastors are very serious things in light of the coming judgment of Jesus Christ.

When you turn to first Corinthians chapter three, reading from verse ten to verse fifteen we see these words as especially relevant to us as pastors, “according to the grace of God which was given to me, like a wise master builder I laid a foundation and another is building on it, but each man must be careful how he builds on it for no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man’s work will become evident for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work. But if any man’s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burnt up he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved yet as though through fire.” Each of us are attempting to build upon the foundation that has been laid by the apostolic gospel, that foundation being Christ Jesus, and this passage warns us, urges us to be very careful what it is that we construct upon that foundation as we endeavor to see local churches being built as living temples for the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. And we’re to be told, we are told to be careful about the materials that we use, to be sure that we use material that is fire proof and that will in fact be purged and purified by the fire of God’s judgment. We are therefore to avoid the use of anything that would be considered hay, wood, or straw, and build with the precious things of gold and silver, precious stones. Jesus is going to ask us to give an account for our ministry. He’s going to ask us what we have done with His word. He’s going to ask us what is the condition of his flock. He’s going to ask us how we have honored and defended His name in the midst of the world of wicked men. Our desire as we turn to Matthew twenty-five is that we might hear these words from our Lord and from our savior on that day when we will give an account. Our desire will be to hear Him say in the words of Matthew twenty-five and verse twenty-three, “well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Enter into the joy of your master.”

It is our prayer that this conference will help each of us to make priority of those things that are most important to our master so that we might build upon the foundation which is Christ with that material that will honor Him, that will be preserved through the fire and that will be a commendation to God’s grace working in us in a faithful ministry that will be to the praise and glory of Christ. Well, with that introductory perspective behind us, let us consider in this hour the pastor’s care of himself. The pastor’s care of himself. We need to first of all realize what God’s method is. God’s method is godly men. Here I underscore what we heard yesterday from Pastor Meadows concerning how the Lord designs godly men as pastors to be used to set things in order and to bring about reformation to bring the leadership that is needed by the people of God. This is God’s method. So we must begin with ourselves if we’re going to begin with the priorities that God would have us consider. We must start with ourselves and with our ministry to our own souls. Why? Because this is God’s method. When we turn to the beginning of the gospel of John we see something that is very significant. We are now in the beginning of a new era of redemptive history; God is about to move with great power and grace, announcing the words of the gospel, the coming of the Messiah. John tells us in John one six, “there came a man sent from God whose name was John.”

When God acts for His glory and for the good of His people He employs a method, here’s the method: He sends a man. He does not send an angel to pastor His people; He sends men. Men who have been converted, men who have received the Holy Spirit, men who have been given gifts by the Spirit who has qualified them to be a gift to the church to shepherd the flock of God. God’s method is not to send a new program. It’s not a new mission’s technique. His method is to send a man; He sends men. Christianity is not merely a system of theological doctrine. It is not merely an order of worship and ritual. It is not merely a religious organization and structure. It is essentially the transformation of fallen men into conformity with Jesus Christ. It is primarily evident; Christianity is primarily evident in the man. In Romans chapter eight in verse twenty-nine we see God’s purpose when we read, “for whom He foreknew, these He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His son so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren.” Here is the goal of our salvation, that we become conformed to Jesus Christ, that Christ be firstborn among His family who bear His likeness. The goal of Christianity is the transformation of a sinner into Christ-likeness. What does God do when He commences this method, when He begins this process to bring sinners into conformity with His son? Well, in John chapter one again in verse fourteen, “the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Here is God’s method. When God comes to effectively accomplish the purposes of His salvation His word becomes flesh. He doesn’t send merely a program. He doesn’t write something in the sky. He comes in the flesh. The incarnation of the second person of the godhead, the life and the ministry, the crucifixion, the resurrection, the ascension, the exaltation to God’s throne, the second coming, and the resurrection of the dead, it all has to do with the glory of God revealed in human flesh. The ministry of the Son of God is accomplished as the divine man and so too this is God’s method for dealing with His people, to give the ministry to be accomplished in human flesh, by men who themselves are holy men, who are godly men, who are personal incarnations of the truth. They themselves are the embodiment of their message. They are like Christ, the Word becoming flesh, not as the incarnate God, but as an incarnation of the truth. Their lives, their words, their actions, their relations are all a display of Christ’s ministry to His people.

So we must make priority of ministering to ourselves as pastors, to take care of ourselves and to nurture our own souls, our own health and vigor that we in the totality of our manhood may be the embodiment of the message that we are communicating to our people. If you’re not nurturing your own health, you’ll not be able to engage in the ministry which is a demanding labor, which is an exhausting labor. To be the instrument that God would have you to be you must be as healthy as you can be so that you might be vigorous in your engagement to His word and you interactions with God’s people and with your engagement with the forces of darkness on this battlefield. So God’s method is John one and verse six, “there came a man who was sent from God whose name was.” You can put your own name there because that is the method that God is employing wherever he has placed you. You’re God’s method. You’re the man with a name sent from God to the place where God has put you. When the apostle Paul speaks to pastors in Acts chapter twenty, he tells them that they are to make priority of their own spiritual health. He tells them in Acts twenty and verse twenty eight, “be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.”

Before you will be able to stand on guard and to shepherd the flock of God and to take care of that most precious, purchased possession of Christ, you must first be on guard for yourselves. Likewise in first Timothy chapter four, reading from verse fourteen, “do not neglect the spiritual gift within you which was bestowed on you through prophetic utterance with the laying on of hands by the presbytery. Take pains with these things; be absorbed in them so that your progress will be evident to all. Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching; persevere in these things for as you do this you will ensure salvation both for yourself and for those who hear you.” Paul says to the young man Timothy, you cannot neglect yourself, you cannot get so caught up in the work of the ministry that you neglect the nurture of your own soul. You must yourself be an example of what growth in grace looks like. Your progress should be evident to others; therefore, watch yourself attentively; pay close attention; be careful to cultivate both your spiritual and your physical health. Paul was concerned for Timothy’s stomach as well as for Timothy’s spirit. You are God’s method. You’re not introducing some program; you are the program. You’re not introducing a new gimmick; you are God’s method. The man who is an incarnation of the message, you are to fulfill this ministry by being yourself a personal embodiment of the ministry. Robert Murray M’Cheyne says, “You are God’s sword, His instrument, a chosen vessel to bear His name. In great measure according to the purity and perfection of the instrument will be the success. It is not great talents that God blesses so much as likeness to Christ. A holy minister is an awe full weapon in the hand of God.”God’s method is a godly man.

Secondly, the pastor must be a true Christian. You might think, “Well, this is not necessary to say, that a pastor must be a true Christian.” But when you think about what a pastor is and when you ask yourself, “Where must I begin if I am going to address pastors on the matter of their spiritual health?” I must begin by saying, “My dear friend, you must be born again. You must truly be regenerated, for if you’re not spiritually alive, there is no use to talking to you about your spiritual health.” I am not going to walk up to that graveyard and talk to the tombstones about what diet they’re having whether they’re getting enough exercise. They’re dead. So it’s no use to talk to men about staying spiritually healthy unless you first press upon their consciences the necessity of the new birth, of having truly been converted, of having really come into union with Christ through faith and repentance and that you are before you are a pastor, you are in fact a true Christian and a genuine disciple of Jesus Christ, not a formal Christian, not a notional Christian, not merely a cultural Christian.

In Acts chapter fourteen we read from verse twenty-one, “After they preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Listra and to Aconium and to Antioch strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith and saying, ‘Through many tribulation we must enter the kingdom.’ When they had appointed elders for them in every church, having prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord in whom they had believed.” I submit to you that the elders that were first appointed were drawn from the disciples. Before they were elders they were disciples. They were part of that local church. A disciple is one who has been given new life by the holy spirit, who has put his trust and faith in Jesus Christ, having repented of his sin and resolved to follow Christ as his Lord and as his savior. He is a true Christian, bottom line. Before we can talk about the exercise of his gifts, and the exercise of his ministry, his fundamental, spiritual identity is: true Christian, disciple of Jesus Christ.

I’m sure we’ve all met people who call themselves Christians because they’ve been born into a family that attends church, because they’re not a Muslim and they’re not a Buddhist and they’re not a Hindu, so what are they? Well, I guess I must be Christian. I live in the United States. I suppose I’m a Christian. And they’re only talking about something that is traditional, something that is cultural, something that they’ve acquired through the social context of their family. In some countries, I’m not sure if Spain is now one of them, you are given a nation identity card where your religion is associated on the card. Is that right, in Spain, no? Okay. But there are some countries where you have the religion put on the card. Are you Muslim? Are you Christian? What are you? If someone says, are you a Christian? Sure, I’m a Christian. Here’s my card. Does that make you a Christian? I’ve met men in the ministry who are in the ministry, why? Well, my father was in the ministry, and now I’m in the ministry. It’s a good job to be in the ministry. I get a lot of prestige; I get respect, and I like the work of the ministry. I get to read books and talk to people and so I’m in the ministry because it’s part of the way in which my father trained me to be.

Well, such men are not qualified to be in the ministry because they’re not true Christians. The ministry is a job, a job that is designed to sustain the traditions of a subculture, not in order to promote the life and vigor and vitality of the kingdom of God. If a pastor is going to cultivate his own spiritual health he must first be spiritually alive. So the first place we start is to ask you, are you born again? Are you truly converted? Is your trust in Christ alone by faith alone? Have you repented and turned from your sin and confident of the mercies of God through the cleansing power of the blood of Jesus Christ. The pastor must be a true Christian and as a pastor, as a Christian as we turn to Philippians three, he must have an ever growing hunger to know Jesus Christ and to grow in his knowledge of Jesus Christ. Beneath the work of the ministry, beneath the labors of sermon preparation and pastoral counseling and all of the administrative work, in order to see that the building is tended to and this matter is tended to, beneath all of that what are we if we’re not simply disciples of Jesus Christ who are striving to grow in our knowledge and our experience of Him.

Paul says in Philippians chapter three verse eight, “More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.” Here is the hunger, the appetite of a spiritually healthy man. He wants to feed with greater vigor upon Jesus Christ. To know Christ involves the knowledge of my sin, having been forgiven, having a righteousness imputed to me by the grace of God on the basis of the work of Jesus Christ so that I stand justified in Christ, not with a righteousness of my own, but that righteousness which comes through faith in Christ. A knowledge of Christ involves a willingness to suffer with Christ and that in that suffering to experience the triumph of the resurrection and the power and the hope of the glories to come. That’s spiritual life, that’s vigor that undergirds whatever we’re doing in the work of the ministry. The knowledge of Christ is something that we’re to pursue to the end of our days, pressing forward as he continues to say later in this very passage, I haven’t attained this, I forget what lies behind, I press on. What? For the knowledge of Christ, to know Christ. That’s the godly man, that’s the instrument of Christ in His church, not a man who is simply doing the work of the ministry, but a true disciple of Jesus Christ who is seeking to live with Christ, to know Christ, to grow in union with Christ and to be constantly living with Christ. So when we speak about spiritual health, this is what we’re talking about; we’re talking about this pursuit of the knowledge of Jesus Christ. We’re talking about the pursuit of the knowledge of Jesus Christ, experientially knowing Christ.

Which brings us thirdly to become more specific then in regard to how it is that we are to promote our own spiritual health. We must understand that godly men is God’s method. We must understand that means that we must be indeed true Christians, biblical disciples whose life is oriented toward Christ, to be conformed to Christ, to know Christ, to walk with Christ, and that beneath all that we have to do as pastors, whether our ministries focus primarily upon preaching or teaching or counseling or administrative or however God has put us in the church to function, beneath all that we are disciples of Christ who hunger after Him, to know Him and to be like Him. Well that will involve then, thirdly, that the pastor must be disciplined in his devotion to Jesus. He must be disciplined in his devotion to Jesus. We are disciples, disciplined in our devotion to Jesus Christ. As disciples, as those who are under the discipline of our master, our lives are to be marked by certain spiritual disciplines, certain spiritual exercises, regular habits of devotion to Jesus Christ so that we might know Him, so that we might grow in our knowledge of who He is and communion with Him and are being conformed to Him. It’s what Paul urges Timothy in first Timothy chapter four and verse seven, “But have nothing to do with worldly fables fit only for old women. On the other hand, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness.” Discipline yourself; in the English we get the English word “gymnasium” from this word discipline. Go to the gym, go to the exercise room and there you have certain muscle groups that you’re going to exercise. Come over to a man and he’s doing curls, you say, you know I saw you here last week, you were doing curls then. That’s enough, isn’t it? You’ve already done that, you don’t need to do that anymore. No, no, I’m going to repeatedly do this exercise to strengthen these particular muscles. So, it’s not like we’ve read our Bibles once and that’s all we need to do, we’ve prayed and, no there are repeated exercises that we are to cultivate as habits of disciplining ourselves unto godliness. What does that involve? Well, it involves certainly the fact that the pastor must cultivate the discipline of devotional reading of the word of God, of devotional reading of the word of God.

We must, as disciples, we must come to our bibles not for the purpose of trying to get something to preach in our ministry for somebody else, but we must come like Mary who sat at the foot of Christ and was ministered to as a disciple. We come to the word of God to feed our own souls, to sustain our own spiritual health, not in order to do our job, but to remain healthy, spiritually. We need to feed our souls upon the Scripture as the food of our souls. We must know our Bibles. We must know our Bibles, and how do you do that? How do I get to know this book? I just rub it on myself enough, maybe it will get in, I just try to get…That’s not what you do. You got to open it up and you got to read it. You’ve got to read it in a disciplined, systematic, regular way. In Psalm chapter one, in Psalm chapter one, reading from verse one to verse three, “How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked nor stand in the path of sinners nor sit in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord and in His law he meditates day and night. He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water which yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither and in whatever he does he prospers.”

Rather than filling our minds with the words of the politicians and the entertainers and the fools of this world, we’re to take delight in the words of our God. And our minds are to be preoccupied night and day with the counsel and the words of Scripture. In Psalm one hundred nineteen we see the psalmist’s love for the word of God throughout this entire chapter of the book of psalms, throughout this psalm, but notice verse one forty-seven and verse one forty-eight, “I rise before dawn and cry for help; I wait for your words. My eyes anticipate the night watches that I may meditate on your Word.” Here is man who had a disciplined approach to the word of God. He rises in the morning; he begins with prayer, and he puts his mind upon the word of God. He says, “At nighttime I will be assigned the night watches and I’m looking forward to it because then everything will be finished and I’ll finally be able to meditate afresh upon the word of God.” Morning and night, there’s a disciplined approach, there’s a regular approach to the reading of the word of God. You’re not going to learn the content of your Bible by accident. It’s going to happen on purpose; it’s going to happen because you have a plan. It’s going to happen because you are resolved and determined that you’re going to make the time and be consistent in the habit of devotional reading of the word of God. You need to set time that you might read through the Old Testament, read through the New Testament, “For it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” In Matthew chapter twenty-two, Jesus is dealing with the Pharisees and He indicts them and charges them with this very deficiency, that they do not know the content of their Bibles. They are the professional clergy who have become more knowledgeable in the traditions of men than in the words of God. In Matthew chapter twenty-two, reading from verse twenty-nine, “But Jesus answered and said to them, ‘you are mistaken, not understanding the Scriptures nor the power of God, for in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven, but regarding the resurrection of the dead you have, have you not read,’” rather, “‘What was spoken to you by God. There are many places in the gospels where Jesus asks that question of the Pharisees, “Have you not read?” He’s talking to these men who are professional clergy men and he asks them specifically, “What are you reading?” Oh, I’m reading this theology book; I’m reading this history book, and, and, but he’s saying to them, “Are you not reading you Bible? Are you not reading your Bible? Do you not know what the Scriptures say?” In Colossians chapter three and verse sixteen the apostle Paul encourages Christians and certainly we as Christian men are to be encouraged by the admonition of Colossians three sixteen, “Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you.” You must know your Bible. You must read your Bible. You must read it systematically, in a disciplined habitual, habit and devotional way to Jesus Christ as disciples of Christ.

The pastor not only must discipline his devotional reading of the word of God, but he must cultivate the discipline of secret prayer, secret prayer. In Matthew chapter six, verse five and six, “When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full, but you when you pray go into your inner room, close your door, and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.” We’re not talking about leading your congregation in prayer. We’re talking about secret prayer, alone with God in prayer. When no one else sees you, when no one else hears you, when no one else is going to comment upon that nicely put phrase. When you pray is the assumption Jesus makes of his disciples that they will do so alone, seeking the face of their heavenly Father. In Psalm five reading from verse one to three, “Give ear to my words, oh Lord, consider my groaning, heed the sound of my cry for help my King and my God for to you I pray. In the morning, oh Lord, in the morning I will offer my prayer to you and eagerly watch.” I submit to you that there is biblical reason to encourage you to begin your day in God’s presence in prayer. This is what David is doing here, in the morning, first thing; he orders his prayers and lifts his voice to his God. In Mark chapter one and verse thirty-five, we learn that this indeed was the habit of our Lord Jesus Christ, “ In the early morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up left the house and went away to a secluded place and was praying there.” Jesus would rise early and get alone with His father. Let me ask you, I know you’re very busy and some of you men are working in the work of the ministry, working other jobs, and you’ve got a wife and children and the demands are constant and pressing upon you. When are you going to find the time? I suggest first thing in the morning is a biblical pattern. Do you have a set time to pray secretly, personally, as a committed, disciplined habit of your life? If you only pray when you feel like praying, you’ll find your feelings will soon fade and you’ll become a prayer less man. You need to be principled; you need to be disciplined; you need to have commitment to a discipline and a pattern that you are going to be devoted to. Sadly, we can become formalists even in our private devotions and go through the motions without any real heart engagement. We need to pray that God would give to us an experience of knowing Jesus Christ in our use of the means of grace. In Philippians chapter, I’m sorry, Ephesians chapter three reading at verse fourteen, “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father and from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you according to the riches of His glory to be strengthened with power through the Spirit in the inner man so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith and that you being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.” You need to pray to experience being loved by Jesus Christ. Not simply coming in and doing your devotions, checking off the mark, read my verses, prayed my prayer, but to pray to be strengthened with the Spirit that you might experience Christ present with you, you present with Christ, you being loved by Christ and you expressing genuine love for Christ. Ask yourself these questions: Am I striving to be regular in my devotional life? Am I convinced that these basic disciplines are essential to being a true disciple of Jesus Christ? Do I understand that before I am a pastor, I am a disciple, I am a Christian and as one who is spiritually alive I must exercise myself, discipline myself unto godliness? Now, I know that we all miss times of devotion. I know that sometimes we can even go for days without having concentrated, disciplined, devotional engagement with the word of God and with Jesus Christ, but we ought not to be content with that. That ought to grieve us, that ought to bring us to fresh repentance, that ought to bring us to a renewed resolve; this is the way we must go and it is the way we must go until we cross the finish line, brethren. It’s not that well, I used to have a good disciplined devotional life, but I’ve gone beyond that now and, no, devotional habits of prayer and reading of the word of God is to characterize the true godly man through the course of his days. The pastor must be disciplined in his devotion to Jesus.

And then fourthly, the pastor must maintain a good conscience before man and before God. The pastor must maintain a good conscience before God and before men. I submit to you that the most important thing that we possess as men, as pastors, as Christians, is a good conscience. Regardless of what kind of house you live in, what kind of car you drive, your most valuable possession is a good conscience. No matter what size your library is, that’s not your most valuable possession. Walk into some men’s homes and their library is huge, you say, oh, what a possession. The most valuable possession is a good conscience. A compromised conscience will weaken you from within. You will grieve the Holy Spirit and you will lose the spiritual power that is necessary to have influence upon the souls of other men. You’ll become apprehensive. You’ll become reluctant to use the sword because when you take the sword out your own conscience will be cut by it. So you keep the sword sheathed lest your own conscience become pricked by it. So you begin to go through the motions. You see, the place where we influence others and the place where we influence culture is the conscience, that’s how we are the salt of the earth, that’s how we are the light of the world; it’s by illuminating conscience with the light of the word of God, and if our lives do not convict and convince the consciences of others we will not be able to influence them for the Lord Jesus Christ.

The power o f the ministry is found in keeping a good conscience. In Acts chapter twenty four and verse sixteen, this is Paul’s statement, “In view of this, in view of the certainty of the resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked I also do my best, I make it may priority, I give it my utmost to maintain always a blameless conscience both before God and before men.” Maintaining a good conscience before God, what does that involve? Well, it means certainly this: it means that you are not hiding sin from God. You’re not putting on a fig leaf and crouching behind a bush, trying to get away from the sight and from the gaze of God. You see, sin deceives us. It tries to convince us to accept it into our lives, and to tolerate it. It will not, sin tells us, do us as much damage as we might think. But the presence of sin is perceived by Jesus Christ, and unless it is acknowledged, and unless it is confessed, if it is hidden, we think He sees it nonetheless. And it will separate us in our communion with Him. And our souls will begin to be distanced from Him, because Christ will not commune with us while we are hugging our sins affectionately and accepting sin.

Sin hardens us, it blinds us, it deafens us; it makes us insensitive to the ministry of the Spirit. And if you’re principled and committed to the discipline of secret prayer that commitment oftentimes will be the occasion in which the Spirit will meet you in your regular reading of the word of God and in your habit of secret prayer and confront you with the sin that you’ve become too comfortable with. You come into the presence of God as a disciple and the Spirit is present to expose your sin. In Psalm one hundred thirty-nine, “Oh Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up. You understand my thought from afar. You scrutinize my path and my lying down and are intimately acquainted with all my ways. Even before there is a word on my tongue, behold oh Lord, you know it all. You have enclosed me behind and before and have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is too high; I cannot attain to it. Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?” What can we hide from God? All of our thoughts, all of our words, all of our actions are open and laid bare before the Lord God. In Psalm nineteen, reading from verse twelve of Psalm nineteen, “Who can discern his errors? Acquit me of hidden faults. Also, keep back your servant from presumptuous sins, let them not rule over me. Then I will be blameless, and I will be acquitted of great transgression. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight oh Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.” Here is a prayer to have your heart opened and your sins exposed and in the regular reading of the word of God, because you’re a disciplined disciple of Christ you’ll come to these texts that compel you to take these words into your prayers and to open your heart and say, “Lord, search me and know me.” In Psalm fifty-one, the prayer of confession, “Be gracious to me oh God, according to your loving kindness, according to the greatness of your compassion, blot out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin for I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only I have sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified when you speak and blameless when you judge. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin my mother conceived me. Behold, you desire truth in the inner most being and in the hidden part you will make me know wisdom. Purity me with hyssop and I shall be clean, wash me and I will be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness, let the bones which you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sin and blot out all my iniquities, create in me a clean heart oh God and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and sustain me with a willing spirit. Then, I will teach transgressors your way and sinners will be converted to you.” Before I enter in to a public ministry of dealing with sinners and instructing others from the word of God, I must know myself clean in the presence of God, and that’s not going to happen if I’m hiding sin. That’s not going to happen if I’m avoiding passages like this and not dealing with them in my heart. Sin, rather maintaining a good conscience with God means I’m not hiding my sin. It means I’m not ignoring what God wants me to do. I’m not refusing to do what He commands. I’m doing His will and willing to do His will so that whatever duty I meet in my Bible I’m willing to walk in the path of that duty. To have a good conscience before God means I’m not denying or rejecting anything that the Spirit is going to teach me from the word of God, willing to submit my mind to whatever the Bible teaches, even if I discover that some long-held beliefs are being challenged by the Scriptures. I’m willing to repent not only of unbiblical activity, but unbiblical thinking, to submit my mind to the word of God.

Maintaining a good conscience before men means that I am willing to resolve any area of discord in my relationships with others. As we’ll see in our next hour, maintaining healthy spiritual dynamics in my marriage and in my relationship to my children, it also means not allowing my sins to hurt my relationship to my fellow leaders in the church or to the people of God or with those among whom I live or with whom I do business. In first Timothy chapter three, the qualifications of a man in the ministry are bookended by a primary concern that the apostle has. In chapter three in verse two, “an overseer then must be above reproach,” and then in verse seven, “And he must have a good reputation with those outside the church.” That’s Paul’s primary concern, that you be a man who is not compromising in your dealings with others, you be a man who is maintaining a good conscience before men in the church, above reproach, and to those outside of the church with a good reputation. So that men are not offended by you. So that you are a man that when the church says, this is our pastor, and others know you, they don’t look at the church and look at you and say, “You gotta be kidding me. That’s your pastor. I’ve done business with him. He’s not a good worker.” Are you a good worker? Are you industrious and diligent? Or are you lazy? Do you have the respect of other men’s conscience? Are you maintaining a good conscience before men so that their consciences are convinced of your integrity? Are you an angry man? A violator of the sixth commandment? Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God? Do you steal what is not yours? Are you an honest man? Do others trust you? Do they respect you? Would other men say to their daughters, “When you get married, I want you to marry a man like.” Would they point to you? Because you own their conscience, you are above reproach; they respect you. My friend, maintaining a good conscience cannot be over emphasized. If you do not keep a good conscience you are very likely on the road to apostasy. In first Timothy one nineteen, Paul encourages Timothy to “keep faith and a good conscience which some have rejected and suffered shipwreck in regard to their faith, among these are Homanius and Alexander.” Timothy would have known these two men and when Paul says to him, keep faith, keep doctrinal integrity, keep fidelity, and keep a good conscience, some have not kept these things and they played fast and loose with their consciences, and as a consequence they’ve suffered shipwreck, they’ve apostatized, and their lives now lie like ruins on the rocks. And Timothy would know who Homanius and Alexander were. And some of us reading in this room today have names of men who come to our minds when we read passages like this, men who we know did not keep a good conscience before God and before men, yet who could stand up and preach and lead in public prayer, but at the same time were developing a parallel life, a double life, and they were instead of cultivating secret prayer, they were cultivating secret sins. Instead of cultivating a knowledge of intimacy and relationship with Jesus Christ, they were cultivating a knowledge of intimacy with wicked men and wicked women. Sex and money are the two main pitfalls for men in the ministry. Sex and money, and some of us have known men who have fallen into habits of lust, seizing money that was not theirs to seize. Seizing sexual pleasure that was not theirs to seize, and they were able to do that for a while until God exposed them, and now their lives lie like ruins upon the rocks. Marriages, ruined. Relationship to children, ruined. Financial standing, ruined. Social reputation, ruined. A life of ministry, ruined. A psychological stability, ruined. Because they failed to keep faith and a good conscience. Even if they come to know the forgiveness of God again in grace, there is still a destruction for God will not be mocked, whatever a man sows, that shall he reap. Brethren, the battle for your soul in the ministry is right here, this is where the battle is won, this is where the battle is lost, in the maintenance of your spiritual health, in the maintenance of your devotional reading of the word of God, your devotional prayer life, and your keeping of a good conscience. Solomon says in Proverbs four twenty-three, “Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the issues of life.” Everything from your ministry especially is going to flow from the quality of your spiritual health, from the quality of your heart. And here’s our battle, even as we grow older and face the challenges of lengthy ministry, the battle is still the same, how is your conscience? Could you be at this conference and yet leading a double life, and men in this room know you in one way but God sees you living in another way? What are you doing in secret? Are you praying in secret, or are you sinning in secret? How is your conscience? Are you spiritually healthy? Are you a godly man? Are you a godly man? If you are, you are God’s method. There came a man, sent from God, whose name is you. Be God’s method, be godly men, and be a great instrument in the hand of Christ.

Let’s pray: Our Father we pray that your Spirit would come and convict us afresh of those things in our hearts, those things in our lives, those things that we know are sins and encumbrances that so easily weigh us down and hinder us in the race that is set before us. Father, give to us a desire to be spiritually vigorous and healthy. Let us not fall into the habits of the ministry in such a way that we lose the vitality of communion with Christ, that doing the work of the ministry merely becomes a job and a function. Help us, our God, to be godly men who walk with Christ that we might be instruments in Your hand for the good of your people and for the glory of Your name, Amen.

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