Aiming for His Glory

Hear the word of the Lord. For you yourselves know brothers that are coming to you is not in vain. Though we had already suffered and been shamefully treated in Philippi, as you know, we had boldness in our God to declare to you the gospel of God in the midst of much conflict. For our appeal does not spring from error or impurity or any attempt to deceive, but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel so we speak not to please man, but to please God who test our hearts. For we never came with words of flattery, as you know, nor were the pretext for greed. God is witness. Nor did we seek glory from people, whether from you or from others, though we could have made demands as apostles of Christ, but we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children. So being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God, but also our own souls, because you had become very dear to us. For you remember brothers, our labor and toil. We worked night and day that we might not be a burden to any of you while we proclaimed to you the gospel of God. You are witnesses and God also how holy and righteous and blameless was our conduct toward you believers. For you know how, like a father with his children, we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a worthy manner of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory. The Word of the Lord, you may be seated. The title of the message this morning is aiming for his glory. It arises out of two passages that come from the rest of our liturgy. It comes directly from the larger catechism question that we recited earlier altogether and at the very end of it, it says that the preacher is to preach the word, sound doctrine, so forth, aiming at his capital H, the glory of God, aiming at his glory. And then in the ordination service which will take place at 930 for Lee, the ordained questions, the very last one says in charging the candidate with these questions, have you been induced as far as you know your own heart to seek the office of the Holy Ministry from the love of God and a sincere desire to promote his glory in the gospel of his son. Ultimately, that's why we preach the gospel. Some people would incorrectly answer, why don't you preach the gospel, so we can get everybody saved. Well, that's concurrent with the whole notion that is our desire to see all men and women, boys and girls, name the name of Christ, come to a saving knowledge of Christ and it is certainly a strong motive in preaching to see converts and to see souls saved. But the supreme reason for preaching the gospel is for the glory of God, because the gospel glorifies God and it glorifies God in all of his person, in all of his great attributes, reaching the gospel glorifies the righteousness of God in that it sets forth a standard of righteousness which men cannot meet but which God in Christ has provided for them, a righteousness that's acceptable to God and God is glorified by this righteousness. God is also glorified in the gospel by the preaching of condemnation to the lost. It is the holy, undefinable justice of God that gives us a reason to preach. For when we preach the gospel and warn sinners of the wrath to come, as Paul just did in the very last verse of that before the verses we read, as we warn sinners of the wrath to come and the reality of judgment and justice and condemnation and hell and eternal lostness we glorify God's justice, his holiness that he will not let it slide, he will not let it slip, he will not wink at sin, he will not dismiss that which is against him in every way. The hate sin, his holiness detests it and his omniscience detects it everywhere it is that if it's found in you it must be dealt with. That's the gospel is how God is dealt with sin and every time we preach the gospel we're lifting up those great attributes of God, his mercy, his love, his righteousness, his justice, holiness, his covenant faithfulness to his chosen people as well as his repeated and repeated warnings and admonitions to those who reject him, defy him, deny him and fight and struggle against him. We preach the gospel because he glorifies God. God is glorified in the salvation of the sinner, God is glorified in the condemnation of the wicked and the vile, those people that are treacherous, wicked, abusive, harmful and hurtful, violent, lying, cheating, hurting, harming, calling, God's not going to let him get away with it. I don't care whether they're next door neighbor or they're the worst terrorist on the other side of the earth, there's a just and righteous God and not one single sinner is going to get away with anything he's done. Every hijacker, every terrorist, every murderer, every rapist, every abusive person that's ever lived is going to give an account to a holy God for those deeds that's done during his lifetime. That's what the gospel says, it's the righteousness of God revealed from heaven, Paul says in Romans and it's the wrath of God revealed from heaven, Paul says in Romans and God is glorified in the preaching of the gospel. So we preach the gospel to glorify God. That's why we preach the gospel to a throng and not one single person makes a decision for Christ, every disappointing to us and we feel like maybe the gospel has failed, but no it is not. The herald of the king has announced the edict and the verdict of the king and established his authority and his power over every soul in every life and if that's not lifting up in glorifying God, I don't know what is. That's why we preach the gospel is to glorify God, not only to move the purposes of God forward in every way, but just to lift him up, to put the spotlight where it ought to be and that is upon our sovereign God, the God above all the other gods, the living and the true God, the one who makes a mockery of all idols and all pretenses to his power, his authority and the God who is most loved, most compassionate, enduring sinners, forbearing his judgment, waiting, longing, calling, wooing, drawing, generation after generation, waiting on people to come and to turn to him, not acting capriciously, not acting hurriedly, but his long suffering, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and we preach the gospel and bring in all these little things that we know about God, God is glorified in the preaching of the gospel. Now Paul in this particular passage and you only have a moment or two and that's okay because I'm just going to hit just a few things. Paul in this picture passage, you remember the story now in in first Thessalonians, Paul has gone from Philippi where he had gotten the Macedonian call, gone over to Philippi, started the little church there and had the thing, and remember he and Silas were thrown into prison and they were put in the stocks and they were beaten and of course they being, Paul being a Roman citizen, that was not legal for them to do that and so Paul made them come to some kind of accounting and held them to some justice for violating the Roman law, but from Philippi he moved on with the soreness and the infection and the stiffness still in his body from that night and the stocks following that beating and probably still nursing his wounds, he moves over then down the great Roman road to the town of Thessalonica and so when he speaks to them, this is what he talks about, you yourselves know that our coming to you was not in vain. It was not empty, it was not powerless. Paul says when we came to you, that is Silas and probably in the group now was also Luke and Timothy at that point and maybe a few others from Philippi, that was the traveling party when they came to Thessalonica, Paul says when we came to you, we didn't just show up in town and find a place to check into a nice comfortable motel and stay there and rest. He said we came with a mission, we came with the gospel, the same gospel that got us put in stocks, the same gospel that got us beaten in Philippi, the same gospel that caused us to be abused in the worst sort of way physically and emotionally and it was also shameful by the way when they were beaten, they were stripped naked, tied to a post in beaten in a public square. That's not real enhancing to your ego, is it? But after that they come to Thessalonica just a few days later and there they begin preaching the gospel. So Paul begins to now incarnate, he's writing this letter back to the church at Thessalonica, the first Thessalonians and telling them about his coming to them and he reminds them. In fact, he says, you remember, I remind you, you are my witnesses, several times in the passage, he's not telling them anything, they don't remember, but he is surveying kind of the nature of the character of his ministry. Now Paul does this a lot and I am so glad he does because it is the best thing in the world for pastors, for all Christians of course, but for pastors especially in preachers, to reread these admonitions and exhortations from Paul, he has them in first Corinthians when he deals with some problems there writing to the Corinthians, he deals with them in second Corinthians, he has to deal with them in Galatians where he talks about and defends the nature of the gospel ministry. And since we're ordaining a man this morning to the gospel ministry and we have countless men in our denomination and around the world who have been active and working in the ministry, it is good to review kind of what should be the nature of operation of the ministry. And I'm going to survey a few things kind of lightly and slightly because we don't have much time, but let me just hang around three hangers here where you can say, and Paul is going to say his message is true, he's going to emphasize that several times, it came from God, it is God's word, he's going to mention more even later in this particular book, but his message is true. Paul wants to authenticate his message against all the other teachers and philosophers. That's the little Nikolaik, all of those towns along that great Roman road that went across what is now Macedonia in that area across there, there were traveling philosophers and schools and teachers and sages and all kinds of teachers of religion, the Roman indifference to local religion enabled a certain freedom of religion. And so there from the east and from the west, they would come across and so all of these towns, big towns like Philippi across that stretch of road, I tend to preachers and teachers and philosophers coming in, gathering audiences, lecturing the people, putting on a big show, drawing a crowd, gathering a group, setting up some kind of organization and above all taking an offering. And so that was nothing new, that was not unique to the Christian church, all of the philosophical systems of that day had their leadership. So Paul wants to authenticate and to distinguish what he's doing in preaching the true gospel of the authentic and living and true God from all the other stuff that's going on in that day. And so he insists that his message is true and you'll see that several times in the passage. He also wants to insist that his motives are pure. He talks about what impels him and what compels him to preach and how he preaches out of certain motives and how he's not in it for money, he's not in it for fame, he's not in it for exploitation of any kind. And one of the things that went on in that is these men would come in and they would have outstanding rhetorical skills and they would preach various venues in public and in semi-public places and they would put on a tremendous show because rhetoric and discourse and speech-making and oratory was a finely tuned art in that day. The Greeks and others had been working on that for centuries and they had men who were incredible orators and they would put on an incredible show and they became kind of superstars. They became kind of the men that people would be attracted to and there was a certain number of women and groupies that would sort of be attracted to them and these men could take advantage of that of that stardom by taking advantage of some of these women. And so there was a whole culture that went on and we done take us long to see it. We see it in our own days with rock stars and politicians and others who seem to have and a lure and an attractiveness that sometimes we can't explain but there it is. And so they're easy able and Paul would say that's not what we're doing is gospel preachers. That's not our business. We're not here to attract people that would be attracted to us so that we can exploit them in any way either financially or sexually or any other way. We are free of impurity. So he wants to let you know that his motives are pure and that his methods are effective. He talks about him. When he preaches he preaches with a boldness but it's a boldness that doesn't come from just the great force of his personality. Several times in the scriptures we get a little hint that Paul was a little shy, a little bit reluctant to speak. He constantly asks several of the churches in his letter to pray that he would have boldness to preach. We think Paul just went out there and came at him. But Paul was a little reticent to share. He was reflective and he was maybe somewhat introverted. Who knows? But whatever it was he had his boldness not in his personality, not that he wanted to assert his oratorical skills over people but that he had a gospel that compelled him. Who is me if I preach not the gospel? Necessity is laid upon me. He says in another place. So his methods are effective because he's bold. He is very gentle. He uses two analogies. He's gentle like a nursing mother. It's actually the nurse with a babe but it's more than just your average nurse. It's the affection that comes from actually being the mother of the baby. And he says, I gave to you not only my message but I gave to you my very soul. In other words Paul, what does Paul put into his preaching? What does Paul put into his gospel? Does he put into it? A lot of study. Oh yes, does he put into it? A lot of analysis. Yes, does he put in it? An effort to make it understandable? Yes, but he puts his whole heart, his whole soul. Preaching to Paul was giving of himself. And on another occasion and another epistle, Paul speaks of preaching as being in the Old Testament how they had the drink offering. It would be oil or milk or some kind of perfume or some kind of fluid and they would pour it over the fire of the altar. They just pour it out and it would make a big steam and a big odor and had a tremendous cloud of steam and smoke. And Paul says that's what his life is. He's being poured out as a drink offering. So he puts himself into it. And then he goes even so far to emphasize at the very beginning he says we spoke with clarity. Spurgeon called this plain Saxon, plain Saxon English, something that was not filled with a lot of rhetorical, flighty phrases. Paul will tell the Corinthians what he writes to them sometime later. He's going to say I did not come to you in wisdom of man. I believe that Paul was very familiar with the philosophers. I believe he had read because you'll see time and time again in his epistles how he touches on the same subjects that so many of the Greek philosophers do, the Stoics and the Epicurians and others. I believe he was very familiar with Greek poetic literature. The reason I believe that is he was from a Greek city, the city of Parsis because he was trained in Jerusalem. You remember Paul's background was growing up as a Jew, a Hebrew of Hebrews, as a Roman citizen growing up in a very Greek town. And I think part of Paul's education and training was that. So he knew how the secular and the humanist and the Greeks and the pagans presented their messages and he wants to distinguish time and again about what the Christian messenger does. And he says that he's been entrusted. That's a stewardship. He's been entrusted with the gospel. So he works as a steward. He even tells a young pastor says more over it is it is required and most important that a steward be found faithful. So Paul won't emphasize that he's nodded it for the money. And one of the ways he does that is he says when I came to you I worked. Paul was a titmaker by trade and he labored he says here day and night in the work. To support it. Preachers need to realize that we can and often do and it's perfectly proper. In fact, Paul gives a good outline as to why we have the ministry as vocation. How you can draw a paycheck preaching the gospel. It's very appropriate that that be done. There's a way that that needs to be established by the churches and our church and our denomination even has a most excellent system and most most groups do filled with with all sorts of thought and care and concern for the ministry and integrity and financial responsibility and all the rest. But even if you don't make a dime you still need to preach the gospel if you've been called to preach. You can always preach the gospel. One of the things I did for years we had an intern program here and we'd get those young men then you know to train them for the ministry and I just love working with those guys and they were just out of seminary and they were brilliant almost every one of them that we had was just over the top intelligence that we brought them in and we were trying and I would always have a little session I would conduct with them and it was the most uncomfortable thing that I ever did with them. They would squirm and ask questions and they you know but I would talk to what happens if you never get a call. What happens if you've gone three years to seminary and now you're working this year's internship and you plow everything you've got you've gone maybe into some debt you've sacrificed your family has helped you no matter what and you've done everything else and you get out here and there's not a PCA church in North America that even knows your name and you put out resumes and you get on the you know you get on the email and you sense that and you fill out all the big forms of denomination gives you and you tell everybody you know that you're available that you've graduated you finished and you've got all your cadets and you never get a call what do you do quit preaching you fold it up and say let's go and so I talked to them about my vocational ministry I talked to them about making a living being an accountant being an engineer being a lawyer but working at Sears Robuck anybody working Sears anymore and used to be what the preachers used to say if I can't pastor I'll go you know sell washing machines at Sears well whatever you steal preach and you don't have to have a big old beautiful incredibly designed pulpit like this to do it you can preach sitting and talking to one person over a cup of coffee you can preach in a home you can preach in a nursing home you can preach on the street corner you can preach the gospel you can implore men and women to consider the claims of Christ and to reckon with an eternal God about their souls and you can preach and you don't have to have to have a church or draw a paycheck to be a minister and to be a preacher you do it out of you out of the call that God's giving you and one of the best things that I ever did in my life my God's providence and by my great sin my great rebellion the Lord took what I was was sin in my life and turned it around and made it one of the best things that ever happened to me was I was in the ministry and I was going strong and I had a big church in Georgia and it was the fastest growing church in the state of Georgia today it's bigger than Prestonwood that's how big it was and we were going to town and I was still in my twenties and I left the ministry I had a lot of things that just ticked me off about the ministry and I felt like I didn't like it and I was under stress and I said I ain't going to do this anymore I'm too young and good looking to be based my life in the ministry and oh you can't know the pride of the rebellion and the filthiness of my heart but I just I said I'm out they don't pay me enough they don't respect me enough they don't appreciate what I'm saying I'm so far ahead of these people and you know blah blah blah blah blah and I left it and I went back to school and studied a different trade move my family back got out of the ministry completely and did it for over two years stayed out completely but I could not stay there was fire in my bones God had called me to preach I knew under that laying across that old fallen pine log under those pine trees down there in ringgo Louisiana in the summer of 1968 that God had called me to preach and I didn't want to be a preacher I wanted to be a lawyer but I knew God had called me and I had had enabled me to get a good training and a good start and I'd walked away from it all and for 20 years after that for 20 years I didn't earn a paycheck preaching I had a couple little small churches I pastored small churches but I worked my own job that eventually I got my own company and I ran it had my own little operation worked all day long five sometimes six and seven days a week to make a living from my family to be able to buy house in a car put my kid through school and all of that but then God would open doors for me to preach on the weekend small churches even had for three years of church it met in my house those poor people listened to me I preached 100 sermons 100 sermons in a row in about a three-year period 50 of them were on the five points of Calvinism and 50 of them was on the 10 commandments the Lord had mercy on the souls of those poor little people that he endured that preaching did you know what I did during that period of time I learned the five points of Calvinism and I learned a little bit about the commandments of God because I was studying them and still working day and night that the the call to preach is an option that's placed upon us and we can't get out from under it God opens doors and he blesses and he if he who has called you is faithful he will accomplish it and this is of course what Paul is telling them oh you need to read this text again I was going to do that as a conclusion but we're out of time and just go back and see some of the things affectionately desire us of you ready to share with you not only the gospel of God knows how many times the gospel of God is used in these few verses not only the gospel of God but also our own selves now the interesting thing here is the way this thing ends up he said we exhorted each one of you had encouraged you and charged you by the way there's just so much preaching here I can't really stand it there's holy righteous and blameless was our conduct that's the threefold thing you know like Paul uses in several other ways Paul also describes uses different words different Greek words to exhort to comfort to to review you know there's just they're all in here about the different nuances in phases of how to deal with people you know what you need to do to the old hard heart you need to thunder from Zion you need to bring just a little bit of the flames of hell and put it up under his nose and let him know that he's a sinner and he's hardened and he's on his way to a devil's hell if you don't repent and trust Christ but you don't do that to attend or so someone that's already broken in their sin someone that has already knows that they've lost that you know you're gentle you share the love the mercy the grace the long suffering of God that's why Jesus had such a good ministry with the prostitutes and the tax collectors and they already knew they were sinners they already knew they were condemned they already knew that they needed Christ and all he did was just offer himself coming to me all you that laborer heavy lady I will give you rest take my yoke upon you learn of me you'll find rest to your souls so that there's just all kinds of ways we preach the gospel sometime it must be hard to the hard heart and sometimes it must be tender and sweet that's why Paul uses these terms like a nurse like and then like a father exhorting disciplining and so forth but the way it ends up is this we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you so there's three points sermon right there we exhorted you we charged you we encouraged you to walk in a manner worthy of God the word here means your lifestyle here's we forget about preaching here's where it comes to you your lifestyle should reflect the gospel and it too should bring glory to God the aim of our walk the aim of our conversation the aim of our lifestyle is aiming for the glory of God aiming for the glory of God Paul will tell another group of Christians he'll say whether you eat our drink or whatever you do do all to the glory of God