Listen or read the following transcript as D. A. Carson gives a charge to the pastor in this installation service.
Now this part of the installation service is regularly referred to as the charge to the pastor. I will be speaking to Steve Matthewson, and if the rest of you would like to listen in you’re more than welcome to do so. Hear, then, what Scripture says.
“What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us. You know that everyone in the province of Asia has deserted me, including Phygelus and Hermogenes. May the Lord show mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, because he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains.
On the contrary, when he was in Rome, he searched hard for me until he found me. May the Lord grant that he will find mercy from the Lord on that day! You know very well in how many ways he helped me in Ephesus. You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others.”
This is the Word of the Lord. Let us pray.
Grant, merciful God, that as we hear again the voice of the Spirit of God through the apostle to a new generation in his day, we may hear the voice of the Spirit of God coming to us afresh, to new generations, to Steve Matthewson, and to those he will train in our generation. Grant, Lord God, that as the central heart of this message is to cherish and to guard the deposit of the faith, the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, so Christ, himself, will be placarded before our eyes as we think on these things. For Christ’s sake, amen.
1. Steve Matthewson, I charge you to value the gospel.
For although I began reading at verse 13, in fact, these verses tie to the immediately preceding paragraph. In verse 13 we read, “What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching …” and so forth. Yet, this is picking up on what has already been said in verses 8 and following:
“So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord or ashamed of me, his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God who has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done, but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.
And of this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher. That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet, I am not ashamed, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day.”
In other words, the burden of this entire passage is the centrality, the non-negotiability, of the gospel. In chapter 2, verse 8, the same theme continues. “Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David.” There is the heart of the gospel. In other words, the heart of what must impel you, the heart of what you must think about and cherish is not your ministry. It’s not your preaching. It’s not the power structures. It’s the gospel. It is so easy in the flow of ministry to start focusing on the tools rather than on the substance. You simply must not do that.
Recently, there was a book published that purported to teach us what the teaching of Jesus is. There were some elements of the book that were really very compelling. The author, rather disingenuously, at the beginning, says that he is not going to talk about the cross or the resurrection; he is just going to focus on the teaching of Jesus. As soon as you read that you scratch your head and say, “Is that possible? Is that conceivable?”
How are the four gospels of our canon put together? Some wag has said that they really are long passion and resurrection narratives with extended introductions. To try to extract the teaching of Jesus and not see how all of that teaching is part of the fabric of the narrative that climaxes in the gospel of Christ crucified and risen again is, in fact, to give us something closer to Gnosticism. That is mere knowledge but not somehow the gospel.
That, of course, is what the apostle Paul picks up elsewhere. Is it not? When he says in 1 Corinthians 15 that he passed on to the Corinthians that which he had also received, “that which was of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, that he was seen of witnesses,” and so on. These are the matters of first importance.
When you read through these preliminary verses you see that we have passed from death to life. He has given us all we need for holiness. We have reconciliation with God. The gospel, itself, is what transforms. You must never, ever become a technician of ministry. Your passion, your heart must always be the gospel of Jesus Christ. That, then, becomes part of the contagion that spreads out through the entire gospel. That will also affect even your preaching.
It is possible to preach Scripture in such a way that while you are accurate at a certain level within the section that you’re actually dealing with, to descend into a kind of atomism, an atomistic approach to the text that does not see how this section of Scripture, rightly interpreted, fits within the storyline of that book and within all of Canon so that somehow people see again and again and again how this section with its ethics, or with its dealing with marriage, with its eschatology, or whatever it is, is still taking you back to what is of paramount importance, the gospel of Jesus Christ. Value the gospel.
In fact, the language here in verse 13 is quite stunning. Isn’t it? “What you heard from me keep as the pattern of sound teaching with faith and love in Jesus Christ.” The word sound in contemporary ears often means faithful, orthodox. The word sound in the original means life-giving … life-giving ministry and transforming, life-giving teaching with faith and love in Christ Jesus that, at the end of the day, is bound up with the gospel of Jesus Christ. I charge you. Value the gospel.
2. I charge you to maintain a willingness to suffer for the gospel.
Now there is a sense, of course, in which in Libertyville the suffering is not likely to be all that acute compared with what some of our brothers and sisters are facing in southern Sudan, for example. A week or so ago I was in Hungary working with leaders who came from central and eastern Europe. The bishop of the Lutheran Church of Lithuania could quietly tell me he had been imprisoned 600 times by the KGB. He couldn’t remember how many with torture.
It is unlikely you’re going to face suffering in quite that dimension. On the other hand, it is quite stunning in these two chapters to see how often the gospel itself is connected to suffering in some sense. Hence, verse 8 again, “Do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord or ashamed of me, his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the gospel.”
Now, obviously, he is not saying, “Come, and join me in jail.” He understands there is some kind of suffering that is bound up with being faithful to the gospel even if it doesn’t land him in jail the way Paul has landed in jail. It’s not just there. The text comes back to the same theme in verse 12, “That is why I am suffering as I am,” because he was appointed a herald, and an apostle, and a teacher of this gospel.
Elsewhere, he can write to the Philippian believers, who were not suffering so as far as we know. We’re having quite a nice time, thank you very much. Philippians 1:27 says, “To this also you were called, not only to believe on his name but also to suffer for his sake.” Even in our relatively free culture people can sometimes find themselves marginalized because they wish the gospel to work out in the integrity of their lives in the business front. Whereas, people a little higher up the pecking order may want you to cut corners, and skim on contracts, and the like.
Then just the little pressures that come along from not being entirely pleased with endless dirty jokes and snide comments, and so on. There can be pressures of that sort as well. Of course, in the ministry itself, there is another whole set you just have to come to grips with. We are charged with teaching people the whole counsel of God, and some people don’t like it.
It works out sometimes in church discipline. Some people don’t like that. We are charged with not only instructing people in the truth of the gospel (read the Pastoral Epistles) but correcting. Oh, I know correcting with humility and softness of heart, and so on. Nevertheless, it’s still correcting, and some people don’t like that. Especially in an age when any correction sounds as if you’re not being very pluralistic. I mean, “Who are you to tell me that I’m wrong?”
Inevitably, in the ministry there is a strange combination of really great joys as you see people conformed to the glory and likeness of Christ, growing in holiness. There are huge joys in the ministry, but there are some real kicks in the pants, too. There are some real downers. It is not something just to put up with. It is something to absorb. It is something almost to rejoice in, that you’re counted worthy to suffer for the name. I charge you to maintain a willingness to take it, and in some very, very, very small measure thus fulfill your ministry to the suffering Christ.
3. I charge you to guard the gospel.
It is not enough simply to cherish it (though that is central), or to be willing to suffer for it (that is unavoidable), but to guard it. Verses 13 and 14, now explicitly, “What you heard from me keep as the pattern of sound teaching with faith and love in Christ Jesus.” Now notice even there, keep this pattern of healthful teaching with the conduct that goes with it, faith and love in Christ Jesus.
“Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.” That presupposes discernment, understanding what the gospel is, studying, restudying Scripture, understanding the peculiar pressures of your time. Although the truth may be one, errors are many. Slants come in from different perspectives and angles with time. Part of being faithful to guard the deposit is to understand your times, too.
It is more slippery than that. This is not suggesting a mere defensive posture, that’s for sure. Part of guarding the gospel is cherishing it as that which is central. I know quite a good seminary (which shall remain nameless) where there has been faithful instruction in the Word of God for many years. There are pretty good New Testament departments, Old Testament departments, Systematic Theology departments, Pastoral Theology departments.
It is a pretty good school, and it has sent out over the years many pastors and missionaries all over the world. Eventually, they started sending back some of their folk to the seminary. With time, the seminary has become a fairly international place, a pretty remarkable percentage of international students and some international faculty. In one small way, they are beginning to reflect the globalization of Christianity in this one campus.
Some other schools in the broader seminary consortium, including liberal and fundamentalist and anywhere in-between schools, the whole lot, took notice of the international cast of this school and recently awarded it a plaque, certain honors, because of its international cast. So many, many, many people nowadays talk about the importance of diversity and globalization, and so on, but most who talk about that still remain basically white, middle class American preserves. To see this school doing it right attracted a whole lot of attention. Do you see?
Eventually, of course, the upper echelon of this administration was asked, “How did you do this?” Now, the right answer would have been, “Don’t have a clue. I mean, we didn’t try. We just believed the gospel. We are intent on getting the gospel to men and women from every tongue and tribe and people and nation. Our graduates go everywhere. They’re working in a lot of different countries. We see brothers and sisters in Christ from every tongue and tribe and people and nation, because that is what’s going to be around the throne. This is what has happened in the entailment.” That would have been the great answer.
Instead, the administration was thinking, “Oh, we got an award for this. We have to think through how we did it,” and started giving lectures and talks and addresses on how to mobilize a seminary to become diverse and how to be, in effect, politically correct and say the right kinds of things at seminary consortia.
It is not that there is nothing to learn from this. I know for a fact that seminary did not get into this position by thinking through how to be PC. It was merely intent on the gospel and was doing a lot of things right. Then, after the fact, once the awards were there, they sort of had to become PC.
What has happened? The gospel has been betrayed. It is not that there’s nothing to learn from principles of diversification. I’m not saying that. I’m saying that somehow the gospel has been betrayed, because now what excites some of the seminary’s upper echelon is how to get awards to prove that we’re more PC than other people instead of having at the center of everything the primacy of the gospel again and again and again. It is not that the gospel is being formally denied. It is no longer what is transparently exciting the upper echelons.
Guard the gospel. That must be what you’re excited about, what you’re focusing on, what you enthuse over. You must see its entailments in all of life and relationships and marriages and integrity and discipleship and evangelism … everything again, and again, and again. At the center, always guard the deposit. Make what is central, central. Paul says in the preceding epistle, “Watch your life and doctrine closely.”
4. I charge you, Steve Matthewson, to distinguish the betrayers and the supporters of the gospel.
Seems like a slightly dicey thing to say on such an auspicious occasion, but Paul immediately moves in that direction. Doesn’t he? Verse 15, “You know that everyone in the province of Asia has deserted me including Phygelus and Hermogenes. On the other hand may the Lord show mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, because he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains.” That is, ashamed that Paul was in prison for the gospel.
“On the contrary, when he was in Rome he searched hard for me until he found me. May the Lord grant that he will find mercy from the Lord on that day! You know very well in how many ways he helped me in Ephesus.” That is quite remarkable. Let us be quite frank. Even in a fine church like this one it’s possible to start playing power games of various sorts. Isn’t it?
I heard an old man say (This was a bit cynical. I acknowledge it. Take it with a grain of salt, but still there was some truth to it), “When you come into a new church don’t trust any of the people who try to befriend you in the first sixth months.” Now that’s too harsh. In fact, there are all kinds of people in a church who are trying to befriend you because they are friendly and openhearted and trying to make the way easier for you and love you and make sure your wife knows everything she needs to know for the surrounding environment, and so on. I understand that.
But there is an element of truth to it, just the same. Some people are trying to get close to the power center early on and hope by having this inside track to control certain things in later times. Then it is possible to sort of have favorites. Then you’re contravening what Scripture says, “Avoid partiality.”
Where there is to be some kind of discernment about who is on side and who is not, it’s a gospel division. Who is supporting the gospel? Who really doesn’t give a rip and at the end of the day is just interested in power of one sort or another? Flying off here, flying off there, but somehow not centered on the gospel itself.
I charge you to use the gospel as your criteria for where your true support and strength and future lie, even within the local congregation. That is to say, work hard to promote the gospel, to strengthen those whether they agree with your personality or otherwise, so long as they are passionate about the gospel, and see that that is where the future runs.
5. Finally, Steve Matthewson, I charge you with the passing on of the gospel.
Chapter 2, verses 1 and 2, “You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others.”
Of course, we have a chapter break here. Once again, we have to remind ourselves of things that we’ve mentioned in the past. There were no chapter breaks in the original manuscripts. Today we read chapter 1 in devotions then tomorrow we read chapter 2, and we’ve forgotten what’s in chapter 1, so we don’t see the connection.
The little word then ought to alert us. “You then, my son, be strong in the grace and entrust it to reliable people.” In other words, Paul is connecting this instruction with what he has said in the previous verses. Yes, cherish the gospel. Make sure that you see the value of the gospel. Be willing to suffer for the gospel.
Guard the gospel. Make sure that you can distinguish betrayers and supporters of the gospel. Now, how do you do all of that? How do you value the gospel? How do you display this willingness to suffer? In what way do you guard the gospel? In very large measure, it is by the passing on of the gospel to a new generation.
Let me come at this from another angle. It’s possible to envision our own ministry, whether vocational ministry like that of Steve or any of our ministries, as kind of an end in itself. So long as we are faithful in our small patch, in how we handle our children and our Sunday school class or whatever we’re doing, what happens next at the end of the day is not up to us.
So long as we’re faithful, so long as we can hear the, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” at the end, we’re okay. We might actually bless this view with a certain proof text or two. There’s the apostle Paul, at the end of this very epistle, saying, “I have fought the good fight. I have run the course. I have kept the faith.” “Yes, that’s what I would like to do,” and then think of that in highly individualistic terms.
Here Paul is saying that one of the measures of running the course faithfully is thinking through what comes next and passing it on to the next generation. Most of us, many of us, at least, are parents. If we’re not parents, we have parents. We’re familiar with this inter-generational thing. Aren’t we? Things get passed on to another generation. I’ve got children, and I spend some time thinking about what will happen to them after I’m gone.
What will they be like? How will the gospel have shaped them or not shaped them? What will they be like? In moments of extreme agitation I might actually think what my grandchildren will be like if I ever have any. I haven’t, I confess, thought an awful lot about what my great-grandchildren will be like, or my great-great-grandchildren, or my great-great-great-grandchildren.
There are some in this congregation who think quite a lot about their grandchildren. They tell me, “Oh, it’s nice to have grandchildren. I’d much rather be a grandparent than a parent. I’d love to be a grandparent without being a parent. You know, all of the fun and none of the responsibility.”
I understand that. It looks pretty attractive to me. Yet there is a sense in which that is already betraying our own self-focus. Isn’t it? It’s understandable because I know the primary responsibility for the grandchildren is your children. I know that. Yet, here is a concern to pass on the gospel beyond yourself, beyond faithfulness in your ministry, to another generation.
Not all of us have children. All of us should have spiritual children in some sense. We’re concerned to pass things on. This is not merely a Pauline point of view. This is something that is found pretty often in the New Testament.
Here’s Peter writing, for example, “I will always remind you of these things, even though you know them. I think it is right to refresh your memory as long as I live in the tent of this body, because I know that I will soon put it aside, as our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me. And I will make every effort to see that after my departure you will also be able to remember these things.”
In other words, he’s thinking about how to pass the gospel on. What does the text say? “The things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others.” One of the saddest stories in all of Scripture is the account of Hezekiah. You find it in 2 Kings, 2 Chronicles, and Isaiah 36–39.
He was told he was going to die. He turned to the wall and sulked. He cried to the Lord, and the Lord was very merciful. He gave him 15 more years. In the course of his life he nevertheless had sort of a show-off time, show-and-tell time. He displayed the treasures of his small kingdom to emissaries from Babylon who were beginning to suss out the surrounding regions. Babylon was just beginning to rise as a regional superpower.
It would take some time before it came to fruition, but that’s where it was headed. Hezekiah, instead of walking humbly or seeking the Lord’s face or being circumspect had a sort of show-and-tell time that actually disclosed all the secrets to the Babylonians emissaries, who took notes of them all, too.
Then God confronted Hezekiah through the prophet Isaiah, and said, “Do you not understand? Because of your folly in this regard the days are coming when Babylon will surround and destroy Jerusalem. Your own children who come from your own loins will be captured and taken off into captivity. There will be a horrible slaughter. The city will be destroyed.” Do you recall what Hezekiah says? He says, “The word of the Lord is good.” The text comments, “Because he thought to himself, ‘I will have peace in my lifetime.’ ”
