A Preacher of the Gospel, ordination
A Preacher of the Gospel
1 Corinthians 9:16-27
Ordination certificate – signed by your pastor, Dr. Joe B. Brown, along with my signature and the signatures of the others who had the honor of serving on your ordination council.
Certainly, there’s significance to those signatures. We have prayed over you, we have questioned you, we have watched you, and we feel led of God to recommend you to ordained by this congregation.
Our signatures, however, are by far less significant than one particular statement on your ordination certificate: “Bobby McGraw was solemnly and publicly set apart and ordained to the work of the Gospel Ministry.”
That’s what this is about: the ministry of the gospel.
And so, I have taken as my text …
1 Corinthians 9:16-27
A beautiful passage from the hand of Paul – a man consumed the glorious calling of being a preacher of the gospel.
[Read text]
Based on this passage, I want to issue four simple charges to you today as a preacher of the gospel.
1. Preach the Gospel Freely
Paul made it a point that he would preach the gospel without charge.
Worked long nights making tents, so that he could preach the gospel without having to rely on support from those who received his ministry.
Now, this is not to teach that a church should not support the work of the preaching of gospel financially. Paul is clear elsewhere in the chapter that preachers should be supported financially by the church.
1 Corinthians 9:8, “You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain.”
While I am not particularly flattered at being compared to an ox, I am thankful that God has called for God’s church to take care of God’s preacher.
So, Paul acknowledged that he could have received financial support. But still he said,
1 Corinthians 9:16
For if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast of, for necessity is laid upon me; yes, woe is me if I do not preach the gospel!
1 Corinthians 9:18
What is my reward then? That when I preach the gospel, I may present the gospel of Christ without charge, that I may not abuse my authority in the gospel.
He preached the gospel freely. He was not in ministry as a profession, but as an obsession.
God had laid upon Paul the calling to preach. “Woe is me if I do not preach the gospel!” He couldn’t help but preach.
IL: First semester seminary student. Last class on Friday afternoon. Hop into my Jeep, and drive from Wake Forest, back to Greensboro. As I drove down that road, I would cry out to God with tears, because I didn’t have somewhere to preach that Sunday. If someone had called me and said, “Stephen, we’ll let you come preach for us if you’re willing to drive 1,000 miles one way and pay $100 before you preach,” I would have scraped up the money and gone. I was hungry to preach, because God had called me.
“Woe is me if I do not preach the gospel!”
I never want to get away from that attitude.
2. Preach the Gospel Fervently
Beginning in verse 19, Paul describes his heartbeat, his passion, his fervor to proclaim the gospel.
He was willing to give up his preferences in order that people might hear the good news of Jesus Christ.
He became a servant to all men, that he might win people to Christ.
He culminates in verse 22 with these words:
1 Corinthians 9:22
to the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.
IL: The great British preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon – who preached to perhaps more people than anyone else on planet earth during his lifetime – famously refused ordination. He said it was “the laying of empty hands upon an empty head.” So we call him Mr. Spurgeon instead of Rev. Spurgeon.
Even so, in his wonderful book Lectures To My Students, Spurgeon defines the call of ministry by listing several of its attributes. I will give you the four attributes he listed in reverse order:
4. The will of the Lord concerning pastors is made known through the prayerful judgment of His church. It is needful as a proof of your vocation that your preaching should be acceptable to the people of God.
3. In order further to prove a man’s call … he must see a measure of conversion-work going on under his efforts.
2. In the second place, there must be aptness to teach and some measure of the other qualities needful for the office of a public instructor.
1. The first sign of the heavenly calling is an intense, all-absorbing desire for the work. In order to be a true call to the ministry there must be an irresistible, overwhelming craving and raging thirst for telling others what God has done for our own souls.
Fervor. Fervor. Fervor in the ministry. I know you have it. Don’t ever let it die.
Don’t let education ruin your fervor.
Don’t let time erode your fervor.
Don’t let disappointment dampen your fervor.
Don’t let success sour your fervor.
Preach the gospel freely, preach it fervently … Then …
3. Preach the Gospel Fully
Why did Paul do what he did? What did he preach the way he preached? He answers that question in …
1 Corinthians 9:23
Now this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I may be partaker of it with you.
He loved and respected the gospel. He understood that the gospel was not his gospel, but God’s gospel. Not his Good News, but Heaven’s good news.
He was committed to preach it fully. What was the full message? Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4:
1 Corinthians 15:3-4
For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures,
He had determined not to be ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for he knew that it is “the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek” (Romans 1:16).
Some have moved away from it so far that the gospel is barely recognizable anymore.
IL: Most recent issue of Time magazine. Ten questions for Katharine Jefferts Schori, the newly elected Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church of the USA. One of the questions had to do with the election of homosexual bishops in that denomination. Here is part of her answer:
“These decisions were made because we believe that’s where the Gospel has been calling us.”
Now, we would pray that Bible believing Christians would never move so far away from the Scripture as to affirm such an unrecognizable, unscriptural version of the gospel.
But, always in every situation, there is a temptation to shy away from the gospel, to softpedal the gospel, to add to the gospel, to take away from the gospel.
Don’t do it. Stick to the stuff. Stick to the gospel. Stick to the sufficiency of Christ. Stick to the authority of the inerrant Scripture. It’s sufficient for your preaching, your teaching, your counseling, your approach to worship and church growth, and every part of your life.
Preach the gospel freely, fervently, fully … and then …
4. Preach the Gospel Faithfully
In verses 25 and 25, Paul talks about the physical discipline, the emotional discipline, the spiritual discipline, the personal discipline required for the preacher of the gospel.
He concludes in verse 27 by saying:
1 Corinthians 9:27
But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.
“Disqualified” – A Greek word that means unapproved, unworthy, and worthless.
Dr. Jim Shaddix’s class – video of a great preacher. After it was over, wrote on the board all kinds of complementary things about this man’s sermon.
His masterful delivery.
His sesquipedalian vocabulary.
His deep theology.
His impeccable exegesis and interpretation of the Scripture.
Listed all of those things as the class oohed and ahhed abou this preacher. Then, the professor wrote across the board: “Disqualified.”
What a shame to become disqualified!
A wicked man can make a good pair of shoes.
An ungodly man can design a beautiful house.
An evil person can write a good newspaper story.
But a backslidden, sin-ridden preacher cannot preach a good sermon.
What what you let into you eyes, what you let in to your ears, what you let your hands touch, where you let your feet go, what you let your mind dwell upon.
CONC:
George W. Truett was born on May 6, 1867, at Hayesville, Clay County, North Carolina. He was converted to Christ at age nineteen after hearing a sermon based on Hebrews 10:38: Now the just shall live by faith. The following Wednesday night, his pastor encouraged him to share his testimony, and the crowd was amazed at the power and passion of his words. From that time on, many people encouraged him to enter the ministry. His primary vocational interest, however, was teaching school.
Whenever asked to speak at church services or evangelistic meetings, he demonstrated remarkable ability. He was once introduced with the words, “Brethren, this is George Truett, and he can speak like Spurgeon. George, tell them what the Lord has done for you …” Still Truett worked at school, teaching, and toyed with the idea of studying law.
One Saturday, he heard that a special business meeting was going to be held at his church that night. He arrived to discover that the church was meeting to vote to ordain him into the ministry. The oldest deacon present rose to his feet and said, “I move that this church ordain brother Charles Truett to the full work of the Gospel ministry.”
Truett, twenty-three, rose to protest, but the church would have none of it. He later recalled, “There I was, against a whole church, against a church profoundly moved. There was not a dry eye in the house … one of the supremely solemn hours in a church’s life. I was thrown into the stream, and just had to swim.”