All to Him I Owe

A young pastor wrote John Newton and asked him for any thoughts on the occasion of his entering into ministry. John Newton complied and responded with a letter that is entitled “The Snares and Difficulties Attending the Ministry of the Gospel.” It can be found in the book the Christian Pastor’s Manual which was compiled by John Brown. For your encouragement and exhortation I want to share a synopsis of his thoughts with you today.

Newton began with these words: “You have doubtless often anticipated in your mind the nature of the service to which you are now called, and made it the subject of much consideration and prayer. But a distant view of the ministry is generally very different from what it is found to be when you are actually engaged in it.” Newton went on to say, “If the Lord was to show us the whole beforehand, who, that has a due sense of his own insufficiency and weakness, would venture to engage?” Think about the grace of God in this. Isn’t it kind of the Lord to show us the difficulties of ministry gradually over the years? He draws us into the ministry by His constraining love and a vision for souls. Then, over time, He reveals the difficulties in a progression that prevents us from being completely overwhelmed.

The letter continued on to highlight two primary difficulties that a minister of the gospel will face. Newton explained that the first difficulty is adversity and the temptation to respond incorrectly to it. He called that temptation the adversity within our adversity. The adversity in our adversity is to respond in one of two ways to the inevitable difficulties of ministry life. We can respond to adversity in our own strength and try to solve the problems ourselves. Or, we can respond to adverse people causing our adversity in like kind. Both of these responses are wrong and add a weight of consequence to our adversity. Newton’s simple advice to this adversity was this, “A patient continuance in well doing, a consistency in character, and an attention to return kind offices for hard treatment, will, in a course of time, greatly soften the spirit of opposition.”

The first difficulty in ministry is adversity. The second difficulty Newton highlights is popularity. He says, “If adversity has hurt many, popularity has wounded more.” I love the next phrase, “There will be almost the same connection between popularity and pride, as between fire and gunpowder; they cannot meet without an explosion, at least not until the gunpowder is kept very damp.” To avoid this adversity I would greatly encourage you to keep the gunpowder (our prideful hearts) as damp as possible through the water of the Word. Allow the Word of God to correctly assess your condition before God. Avoid reading your Bible this week simply to prepare for your next sermon. Read it with the intent of seeing it perform an autopsy on your soul revealing who you really are, not what people think you are.

Newton concluded his letter with a phrase that surfaces in a number of his discourses both in private letters and in public lessons. “May the Lord make you wise and watchful! That he may be the light of your eye, the strength of your arm, and the joy of your heart.”

This past weekend, it was a delight to take truths we have learned together here at FBC and share them with couples from another church at their couples’ retreat. I suspect that my concentrated time with couples over the weekend is the reason that the married couples that God has gracious given our church have been on my mind this morning. Below are three truths that permeated my teaching this past weekend. I believe you will find them to be a help to you, as well.

1. Spiritually strong marriages are not the result of a couple being in agreement with each other but in agreement with God. Pop psychology teaches that a strong marriage is best accomplished when the marriage partners are operating in full agreement with each other. This teaching appears sound on the surface, but it has one major flaw in it. What if the couple is in agreement with each other about doing the wrong thing? Adam and Eve were in agreement about their sin, but the results of their sin were catastrophic for them and all who followed them. Spiritually strong marriages come when both partners are living in agreement with God. My goal in marriage should not be to persuade my wife to agree with me, but to persuade her to agree with God.

2. Spiritually strong marriages are not marriages free from sin but marriages that are dealing with sin the right way. Because marriages made up of two fallen sinners, it is impossible to have a marriage without the presence of sin this side of heaven. Spiritually strong marriages are characterized by couples who have learned to identify and respond to sin in a Biblical way. This means that they have learned to confront sin, not cover it. They have learned to confess their sins against each other to God and to their spouses, and they have learned to forgive the other’s sins. Many problems exist within marriages simply because couples have a long-lasting pattern of unbiblical responses to sin within the marriage.

3. Spiritually strong marriages are not marriages where both spouses know the Word of God but a marriage where both spouses are applying the Word of God. Churches like ours are filled with couples who know the Word of God well! We can quote the pertinent passages and even give others good counsel from the Word of God. But spiritually strong marriages are not created just because the Word of God is known. Spiritually strong marriages occur when husbands and wives strive to diligently apply the Word of God to all areas of their lives and marriages.

Spiritually strong marriages are possible and worth striving for!