A generation ago, “surrendering to ministry” was common parlance in Baptist churches. In fact, hardly an invitation was extended in my home church that did not include a call to surrender to ministry, immediately after an appeal to follow Christ, be baptized, or join the church.

As a boy, the phrase “surrender to ministry” both mystified and unnerved me. It sounded as though one was embracing an unwanted life, a call to a distant land to engage in an undesired work. It seemed like a call one intuitively resisted—as long as possible—until finally buckling under the Spirit’s pressure and embarking on a life of ministry that, albeit noble, would be marked by sacrifice and hardship.

In hindsight, I do not think that is what my pastor meant, nor do I think that is what the New Testament implies. As I found in my own life, surrendering to ministry is not caving to an unwanted vocation; it is embracing what becomes increasingly irresistible—the gospel ministry.

“Surrendering to ministry” is a phrase the church needs to recover and a ministry-posture the church needs to cultivate. Every faithful ministry begins with a surrendered life, and that submissiveness shapes every aspect of one’s ministry, including why, where, and what one preaches.

Why You Preach           

First, “surrendering to ministry” rightly establishes the preacher’s motivation. After all, the preacher’s incentive should not be filthy lucre, the applause of men, or any other earthly enticement. Rather, the preacher should, like the Apostle Paul, know in his heart, “If I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast of, for I am under compulsion; for woe is me if I do not preach the gospel.”[i]

Surrendering to preach is to be so gripped by God’s call and so moved for his glory that one knows Jeremiah’s burden: “If I say, ‘I will not remember Him or speak anymore in His name,’ then in my heart it becomes like a burning fire shut up in my bones; and I am weary of holding it in, and I cannot endure it.”[ii]

The urgency with which one preaches may ebb and flow based on a multitude of factors including: the receptivity of the congregation, the preacher’s spiritual vitality, and the tenor of the text itself. But, for the preacher rightly surrendered to ministry, the “why” of the ministry is settled—it is for Christ and his glory.

Where You Preach

Second, “surrendering to ministry” includes a determination to follow God’s call—wherever it may lead. The minister is to be at God’s disposal, sensing and seeking his leadership for where he would have the minister go and to whom he would have the minister serve.

Initially, this includes a willingness to leave family and friends, to go to a distant place, or to undertake a new work.  After all, Jesus reflected, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”[iii] Too many ministers are perfectly willing to follow God’s call as long as it does not lead out of their hometown. Such kingdom restrictiveness is alien to the New Testament and stymies one’s availability to be used by God.

Additionally, a willingness to go wherever includes a willingness to minister to whomever. There are churches across the land poised for anything but numerical success.  Challenging demographics, an unreceptive audience, or a dilapidated neighborhood might make God’s call unattractive, but if it is God’s call, it is a glorious one—regardless of the zip code. After all, struggling churches and dying communities need ministers too.

What You Preach

Third, “surrendering to ministry” means operating under the authority of God’s Word. Most especially, this relates to the act of preaching itself. The role of the preacher is not to cobble together anecdotes with human insights, and then sprinkle in a couple of Bible verses to produce a “homily.”

To surrender to ministry is to submit to preach God’s Word. The surrendered preacher knows he has a predetermined message—the Word of God—and a predetermined responsibility—to preach that Word. The preacher’s job description is to read, explain, and apply the text, bringing it to bear on God’s people.

The faithful preacher tunes his ear to the Spirit of God, not the critic’s grumble. His finger is on the text, not in the air gauging the wind, and his voice is given to preaching the Word—not peddling shallow sermons for shallow people.

Too many pastors are textual acrobats, contorting their preaching to avoid Scripture’s sharper edges. Such preachers have become adept at explaining away angular texts and dodging confrontational verses. On the contrary, the preacher’s charge is clear: “Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke and exhort with great patience and instruction.”[iv]

Conclusion

These days the phrase “surrendering to ministry” seems to have gone the way of the El Camino car and the waterbed. This is more than unfortunate; it is altogether unhealthy—and the church is the big loser.

A surrendered life is integral to a healthy ministry. “Surrendering to ministry” is a phrase to be recovered, but, more importantly, it is a heart-posture to be cultivated and pursued.

Has God called you to ministry? If so, in the words of Martyn Lloyd-Jones, he has issued to you “the highest and the greatest and the most glorious calling to which anyone can ever be called.”[v] Respond to him by surrendering to his ministry and cultivating a life of submission to Christ and his Word.

As we would think about the semester before us and that to which Christ has called us, I want to draw our attention to John 15:1–11. I have entitled this sermon, “Abide in Christ: Priority One for Every Gospel Minister.”

I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. You are alreadyclean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples. Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.

{Prayer}

Convocation unmistakably symbolizes a new day for a seminary. There is something special about an event such as this. This is something special for us who are here. The formality of the service, the academic regalia, historic references, and the full institutional attention on this chapel service, on this place and time, reminds us that there is something unique about this day. Academic convocations are rooted in the medieval university. It is a sign of marking the beginning of an academic year or academic event. It is a sign of consecration, of dedication to that which the Lord is calling us. It is to formally ask the Lord’s blessing.

Perhaps more than anything else, convocation is an academic expression. It is an academic reminder that we intend to love the Lord our God with our minds, to renew our minds, to give our best intellectual efforts to glorify God. It is an academic event first and foremost, and this is an academic day. It starts an academic semester, and we know that theological education is first and foremost an academic endeavor. Yet, if you think about it, there is a certain inequality in what we do. There is a certain inequality in the ministry to which this seminary has been called, and a certain inequality in that we invest in you, the students, because the seminary is primarily of the mind, of reading, of learning, of memorizing, of equipping oneself to speak, of preaching and instructing, of counseling, of instilling the word of truth in others. Though this season is primarily of the mind, the ministry seems to be primarily of the heart. You give your life to the people of God and to the lost. Your affections are given to Christ, and you are to serve him with all that you are. The inequity is this: virtually every metric a seminary has to gauge your progress and grade your growth is academic, intellectual; whereas, the primary measurement of ministry faithfulness is the heart, the motive, the life, the affection, the spirit.

Now I do not want to create this great chasm of distinction between the two because that is not true, and we know it not to be. Our growth in Christ begins with the mind and penetrates to the heart, so I do not want to set up this vast dichotomy between the two. I do want to remind us and charge us this morning that we must be careful to tend our hearts day-by-day as we are here, all the while also tending our minds. The world is littered by former pastors, former ministers, former missionaries, former teachers of God’s Word who no longer serve in that capacity. Rarely are they formerly ministers, formerly missionaries, formerly pastors because of doctrinal drift, though that happens too often. Often they leave the ministerial ranks because of some scandalous sin that brings reproach on the name of Christ and harms the church of Christ. But most of those who forsake their call to ministry and find themselves no longer serving the church and the gospel do so not because they have embraced theological liberalism, and not because they have committed some scandalous sin; most do that because they simply wither away. They have failed to tend their own hearts, failed to tender afresh the call of God on their lives, failed to engage in the spiritual disciplines, failed to fill their souls and nourish their spirits, and their hearts grew cold because they failed to abide in Christ.

My charge to you this morning is of course an academic charge: that you do your very best in the semester ahead, class-by-class, day-by-day to glorify Christ with your mind and to honor him by working hard. And I pray that you make “A’s” in a lot of them. But my super-abundant prayer is this: if you leave this place and have to choose between an “A” in your head and an “A” in your heart, that any day of the week you choose an “A” in your heart. My prayer is that you leave here more mature in Christ, more committed to following Christ, more committed to serving his gospel from the overflow of your heart, and that you be careful stewards thereof. As we celebrate academic convocation and we mark a new semester, let us give our minds to the academic task of theological education; but let us here, in this time and place, renew our commitments to love the Lord our God with all of our hearts as well as all of our minds.

I want to call us this morning to John 15:1–11. I want to remind us this morning of the stewardship we have over our spirits, over our hearts, and that priority number one of a faithful gospel minister is to abide in Christ. Now you may recall where we are—in the middle of this Upper Room Discourse in the Gospel of John. And those of you who know your New Testament and this gospel well, know that there are seven great “I Am” statements in the Gospel of John. In John 6, Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life.” In John 10, he declared, “I am the good shepherd.” In John 10, he declared, “I am the door of the sheep.” In John 11, Jesus declared, “I am the resurrection and the life.” In John 12, he declared, “I am the light of the world.” In John 14, he declared, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” And now the seventh and final “I Am” statement is John 15: “I am the true vine.” As Jesus utters these statements in the gospel, they are not veiled, subtle references to his deity. Every Jewish girl and every Jewish boy from childhood had been told of the great story of Moses facing the burning bush. And where the Lord spoke to Moses through that burning bush and commanded him to go to Pharaoh and command Pharaoh to let his people go. Moses asks, “Who do I tell Pharaoh that I have been sent by?” And the Lord told him, “You tell him that I Am who I Am sent you.” So Jesus adopts this title for himself in the Gospel of John throughout his earthly ministry, and every time he does so, his Jewish hearers get bug-eyed because they know exactly what he is doing. He is equating himself with the Father, taking the form, taking the title, of deity.

The theme in the passage before us in John 15 is clearly fruit-bearing and abiding in Christ to bear fruit. We see it in verses two, four, five, eight, and 11. All of this culminates in joy: joy for the believer, joy for the disciple. And so the summary of these verses is that as we abide in Christ, we bear much fruit, and as we bear much fruit in Christ our joy is completed. But I want us to think about this not merely as a devotional exercise, but as a ministerial evaluation. See these verses with me.

Notice first in verses 1–3 that the Father’s purpose is for you to bear fruit. This is not reserved for some other person in some other place. It is not reserved for you post-seminary degree when you think you will have more time. You will not. Trust me. It is not reserved for you in some other stage of life after your kids are grown or out of the house, or your baby is our of diapers, or some other position in life. No. Life gets busier. Ministry gets busier, and if you do not root yourself in abiding in Christ during this season, have no assurance that you will in some other season. Note the Father’s purpose is for you to bear fruit. Jesus says, “I am the true vine.” Not the nation of Israel, “I am the true vine and my Father is the vinedresser.” The viticulturist, we might say. “And every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away. And every branch that bears fruit, he prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.” Jesus states so very pointedly his and the Father’s role. There is a collective trinitarian concern and enterprise of seeing disciples of Christ grow and bear fruit—Jesus being the vine, the Father being the vinedresser who actively engages in pruning through the ministry, and the work of the Holy Spirit so that we might bear more fruit. Verse 2 tells us he “takes away,” which I take to mean that he lifts up. He prunes. He disciplines. A part of your season in seminary is to be pruned and is to be disciplined. Please hear me this morning: the point is not that you push to the sidelines of your life your academic commitments. No, the point is that as you give the best of your minds to them, there is enough self-discipline in Christ to push to the very center of your attention and to the center of your concerns that you first and foremost abide in Christ and bear fruit.

How does our Father do this? How does he prune us? Well, you know how. You know your New Testament. In Hebrews 12, we are reminded. The author of Hebrews tells us beginning in verse 5:

And have you forgotten the extortion which addressed to you as sons? My son do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by him. For those whom the Lord loves he disciplines, and he scourges every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as with sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline. But if you are without discipline of which all have become partakers, when you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we have earthly fathers to discipline us and we respected them. Shall we not much rather be subjected to the Father of spirits and live? For they discipline us for a short time, as seems best to them. But he disciplines us for our good, so that we may share his holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful. Yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

What am I saying? I am saying this: the Lord’s preeminent concern for you is not registered on your transcript. It is registered in your character, in your life and in the faithfulness thereof, and in the way you rightly reflect and bring honor and glory to his holiness and his ministry as evidenced through you. The Father’s purpose for you is to bear fruit.

Notice secondly, in verses 4–5 that the Son’s power enables you to bear fruit. Jesus says, “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” I love the personalization of this call in verse 4. Jesus is saying, “Abide in me and I in you.” When we are converted, the Holy Spirit takes up residence in our lives. We are in Christ, established in him formally, legally in a sense, and before him made right. But also I love the tenor of verse 4, the personability of this, “You abide in me, and I in you.” The metaphor he offers is that the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in me. Get that. Your ministry, your Christian life—the faithfulness of your ministry and the fruitfulness of your ministry—is tethered to your abiding in Christ.

I did not say the success of your ministry. I said the faithfulness of your ministry and the fruitfulness of your ministry because those are the two biblical metrics that ultimately matter. Are we faithful to the Lord and to his word? And are we fruitful in that effort as he so blesses? Jesus says we cannot be unless we abide in him. To abide means to grow in Christ, to practice the spiritual disciplines of prayer, Bible study, devotion, and to find our joy in Christ, our hope in Christ, and our growth in Christ. There is a certain built-in challenge to all of this, we confess, because as those who are in ministry in the year 2013 and the years going forward, you will have a to-do list longer than your day most any day of your life in ministry. You have sermons to prepare; you have counseling sessions to undertake; you have meetings to attend; you have fires to put out; you have things that must be done; you have urgencies imposed on you by others that you have no control over.

There is a sense in which it sounds as though I am speaking out of both sides of my mouth because we want to give ourselves and expend ourselves to the great call, to the needs of the church, to live and labor for the church, but the irony is that that very ministry can preclude us from abiding in Christ. The irony is that there is a troubling barrenness in a life of ministerial busyness. Jesus would speak of this so very clearly, and so very poetically in Luke 10, when we are told of this encounter between Mary and Martha:

Now as they were traveling along, he entered a village and a woman named Martha welcomed them into her home. She had a sister called Mary who was seated at the Lord’s feet, listening to his word. But Martha was distracted with all of her preparations, and she came up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all of the serving alone? Tell her to help me.” But the Lord answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things, but only one thing is necessary. For Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.”

If we all were to drink a vile of truth serum, we all would confess to having moments—and perhaps even patterns—of being “Marthas.” The troubling reality is that virtually all of the measures in the contemporary church that evaluate ministerial effectiveness require one to be a Martha to attain it. As you undertake your ministry, now in seminary and as you seek to serve Christ throughout the duration of your life, you will have to combat that day after day after day because not only does the world and our flesh press in on us to be Marthas, but the requirements of the church and the call of the ministry seem to as well. If we are not careful, we could build an institution that cultivates and graduates class after class after class of ministerial Marthas preparing for class after class after class, preparing for Bible study after Bible study after Bible study, sermon after sermon, attending ministerial event after event, facilitating, fostering, cultivating, creating a whole generation of ministerial Marthas. I am a man of activity. I will certainly confess that. I love productivity. I love doing things where I can see progress. That is how I’m wired. So I know this temptation as well as any of us. The point is not to become irresponsible or negligent or to excuse laziness under the auspices of the Bible. No, the point is to press to the very front of our life’s to-do list and our life concerns to be first and foremost rooted and growing in Christ; to first and foremost engage in those disciplines that produce eternal fruit—that bring about growth in Christ and that whatever we do—we do not let our studies nor our ministries keep us from the one we are ostensibly serving—Jesus Christ.

Notice with me thirdly verses 6–11. Your passion should be to bear fruit, and we are given here several references as to why. First, notice that verse 6 evidences our eternal security: “If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned.” Now, to be quite frank, verse 6 is something of an unclear verse, and many people have many interpretations. One of the basic rules you will learn in your hermeneutics courses here is that when you come to a knotty verse that is difficult to interpret, interpret the less clear verses in the Bible by the clearest verses. We know from other places like John 10, Romans 8, and 100 other places that one cannot lose his or her salvation. At the same time, though, we know that as we grow in Christ, and as we evidence the marks of conversion, as we see the fruit of the Spirit exude from us, we gain further confidence in our eternal security. We do not earn it, but we demonstrate it. So I say to you this morning, if you truck through life and through ministry as one would define it without seeing the fruit of the Spirit and the fruit of Christ in your life, do not think because you have a seminary degree that you know for certain that you are going to heaven when your time on this earth is done.

Notice also in verse 7 that our passion should be to bear fruit because of a vibrant prayer life: “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” Of course this is not some promissory note, but it is a realization that as our hearts are Christ’s and Christ’s heart is ours, then our minds are tuned to Scripture; our minds are tuned to Christ. As we think like Christ, we desire like Christ, and our ambitions are like Christ, then there is a harmony of our will and a harmony of our desires.

But notice verse 8. This is a big verse to me. I have thought about this much as we would think about our time together this morning as we abide in Christ and we bear fruit: “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.” Each one of us in the room today is a steward of the glory of God. The president of this seminary is. Everything I do and do not do, say and do not say, preach and do not preach, and live and do not live reflects to a greater or lesser degree, and to a more or less helpful degree, the glory of God. But take no refuge in my bearing that burden because you bear it, too. Everything you do or do not do, teach or do not teach, instruct or do not instruct, learn or do not learn, live or do not live, bear by way of fruit, or do not bear, you are a steward of the glory of God, and you best glorify God in your life and in your ministry as you abide in him and reflect that fruitfulness. Do you realize that your ministry is first and foremost dependent upon your character? First Timothy 3:1–7 lists the qualification of the office of an elder or pastor. It is a rundown in character traits up to which your life should measure. It is not a one-time threshold to be passed. It is an ongoing accountability to be maintained with Scripture. Not only that, though. As you glorify God and as you bear the fruit of abiding in Christ, and as you draw near to him, you will have the personal capital and credibility to lead others spiritually. Your life will radiate the joy of Christ and the love of Christ, and so others will want to follow your spiritual leadership. Not only that, I dare say that the success of your ministry will be dependent upon, first and foremost, the character that you have cultivated through abiding in Christ.

Robert Murray McCheyne would famously say, “The greatest need of my people is my personal holiness.” As God has a minister who is holy and entirely set apart to him, it is an awful weapon in the eyes of Satan. Most urgently, the glory of God is at stake, as verse 8 reminds us. Your ministry, your time here, your life in Jesus is a little repository of the glory of God. The church is plagued by hypocrites who rob God of his glory and slip in the little things like forsaking John 15 and the call therein. Slippage in the little things often leads to calamitous falls. The glory of God is at stake. Moreover, as you abide in Christ, you will be able to avoid what the New Testament presents to us a Pharisaism. Jesus would rebuke the Pharisees as being whitewashed tombs, being appropriately clean on the outside, but dead and rotten and stenchy on the inside. The ministry is well populated with such people. Let us not add to their number in this place.

I would say, finally, as we think about the glory of Christ in these things, there is a stewardship that rests on you—not only in the lofty ways of the glory of Christ, and not only in the personal ways, as pastors and missionaries have invested in you and to you—but I would say currently, as you are here, you are seated in seats that others could be seated in. There are 16 million Southern Baptists around this country and around this world who have paid the bulk of your expenses to be here. Not only this day, but have been doing so for decades and have been building an infrastructure and a system and all that we have here. They have invested so that people like yourselves could learn and graduate as quickly as possible to go take the gospel to the nations and go and minister for the church. So in a very real way I bear, and you bear, a stewardship to all of these many millions of Southern Baptists from times past and times present who have made all of this possible. So honor them through your testimony being represented in Christ. Jesus says in verse 8, “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.”

Notice also though, as we abide in him and as our passion is to bear fruit, we also will enjoy the love of the Father and the Son. Notice verses 9 and 10: “Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.” The point is not one of legalism, that to the degree that we abide in him we are moving in and out of the domain of his love. No. I think Martyn Lloyd-Jones helps us to understand this. He would talk of the analogy of a father walking on the beach with his child, or walking down a road with his child. There is always proximity there. He is holding the child’s hand and expressing affection to the child, but there are particular seasons of sweetness where the father may lift up the child and carry him. The father may lift up the child and love on him as they walked. I think that is what we are getting at in verses 9 and 10. Not that one moves in some formal way in or out of the love of the Father. No, we are protected and loved by him for all of eternity if we are in him. But the sweetness and the rightness and the full sense of that love we know as we draw close to him. So much so, that in verse 11 Jesus tells us that as we abide, our joy may be made full: “These things I have spoken to you so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be made full.” Be a happy minister. Let the joy of Christ overflow from your life. We are too privileged a people not to be. As we reflect upon what we have through Christ—what we gain through him, the double call upon our lives—we have been too richly blessed not to be a happy people. We need happy warriors who are happy combatants. As you serve the cause of Christ and fight the forces of darkness—as you do so with courage, with bravery, and with conviction and as you are willing speak prophetic words that are unwelcome to a culture declining into further darkness—be able to do it with the joy of Christ in your heart. As you abide in Christ, you absolutely can.

My great concern this morning is not so much that we graduate students who do not have it right theologically. Of course, that can always happen. Some people can pass through here and study for years but still leave crooked theologically. But by-and-large, we can control that because we have a confessional conviction. I know what our faculty signs and what they teach. So, my great concern is not that you would graduate from here not being rightly trained in sound doctrine. I am concerned that some of you will flame out in a scandalous way in ministry and bring reproach on the name of Christ, and on your church, and to some extent, this school. But my most pressing concern this morning, and the one that has been dogging me in recent weeks as I think of you and think of the school is this: that just as you are here, you will learn a little and do a little, and serve a little, and do a whole lot of little things, but you would leave here less like Christ than when you came; and that instead of flaming out in ministry, you would just sort of fizzle out of ministry, and you would wake up one day so far removed from what initially drew you to ministry that you do not hardly recognize yourself.

Many years ago when I was wresting with a call to ministry in college, I had several friends—about seven or eight of us—who were similarly wresting with and seeking that call. And all of us disembarked at the same time, going to different schools and different seminaries—some Southern Baptist, and some not Southern Baptist—and then some not going at all, thinking, “I’ll go next year” or “I’ll go the next year.” And even thinking back to that group of nine or ten guys, now some fifteen or so years removed, three or four of us—depending on how you define ministry—are still in ministry, but about half are not. None of those guys have left their wives. None of those guys have committed some scandalous act that brought obvious reproach on the name of Christ. They just sort of drifted away. What once was a burning passion to serve Christ became incrementally displaced by other concerns, other cares, other things, until they just woke up one day from being in ministry, to sort of being in ministry, to kind of not being in ministry, to now being so far from it that they do not even think of themselves in their self-identification as a minister. Let that not be true of us. Let us hold a standard high of ministry and hold a standard high of preparing for ministry. And as we train our minds and give them to the glory of Christ, let us know we lead this with our hearts—hearts warmed by Christ, moved by his word, filled by his Spirit, submitted to his Lordship, overflowing with joy because of his salvation and his call.

{Prayer}

Full Transcript:

It is an honor to bring a word of charge and commendation to the graduates who sit before me this morning and to the parents and friends and family who have gathered here in this room. My words will not be long today. This is not a full sermon, but rather, a word of encouragement and exhortation from Matthew 28.

Matthew 28:16–20 is a passage with which most of us in the room are familiar, at least to some degree. You do not have to have grown up in church, for being a Westerner has probably brought you into contact with this passage sometime during your life. This passage is paradigmatic for Christians, paradigmatic for churches, and paradigmatic for this institution. We exist For the Church, and to exist For the Church means that we exist unto the same end as the church exists: for the gathering in of the nations for the glory of Christ through the proclamation of the gospel to all people. I want to read from Matthew chapter 28:16–20.

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshipped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

{Prayer}

Since my childhood I have had a certain interest in politics and enjoyed, even as a young boy, watching different political debates, following the evening news, reading newspapers, and observing political dynamics. One of the most interesting presidential elections of this generation has to be in my estimation the presidential election of 1992. Most of us in the room are old enough to remember it and recall what was taking place then. President George H. W. Bush was running for re-election after his first term with Dan Quayle as his vice president. Though President Bush had a dramatically successful Iraqi War and approval ratings soaring towards the 90s, economic recession and slumping national morale caused the nation to second guess whether or not he should have a second term. To complicate matters more, a bright, young charismatic governor from Arkansas named Bill Clinton was running against him as the Democratic nominee. Mr. Clinton chose another Southerner, Al Gore, a senator from Tennessee, as his running mate. Then to really spice things up, a Texas billionaire by the name of H. Ross Perot entered the race as an Independent candidate and proved to be the most plausible Independent candidate of the 20th century, other than Teddy Roosevelt.

All eyes were turned to the presidential debates, but attention also turned to the vice presidential debate when Senator Gore, Vice President Quayle, and H. Ross Perot’s running mate, Admiral [James] Stockdale, would take the stage. Everyone knew who Dan Quayle was—the seated vice president of the United States. Many people knew who Al Gore was—a United States Senator. But no one knew who Stockdale was. He took the platform, and introduced himself by saying, in an attempt at a joke, “Who am I and why am I here?” His joke proved ruinous for his debate and in some ways, ruinous for the campaign. Now, those words fell flat that day, but I suspect they are actually timely for us this morning, especially as our graduates contemplate who they are, why they are here, and unto what God has called them.

These are big picture questions about life, ministry, what is before us, and what should be before us. I say to you, who are you? If you are in Christ, you are indeed in Christ. You have been adopted into his family. You have been called out of the world to serve him and you have a double calling upon your life to serve as a pastor, a teacher, a minister, and an evangelist in his church. You identity, if authentically represented by your presence and sense of call today, that your identity is fixed in him. And it is not just an identity he has given you as a formal title, but it is an identity he has given you unto an end, and it is the end that called you to this institution, I trust. It is a sense of calling to do something for the gospel, a calling to give your life to serve the cause of Christ, a calling that intersects with the Great Commission. That is why we are here today. As each graduate will pass across this stage, there is joy in seeing them graduate. But there is also joy in seeing them go, because we are not in the business of accumulating people and to keep them here. We are in the business of graduating people and seeing them go to serve the cause of Christ wherever that call may lead. Jesus said as much in Matthew 28, where he gave this Great Commission that was repeated five times in the Gospels and Acts. This is a call to take the gospel beyond ourselves, beyond own localities, our own churches, our own regions, and to take it to the uttermost parts of the earth. In this generation, as none prior, we have the unique capability to do just that through travel, through the Internet, and through technological advancements. In a very real sense this generation can see the eradication of what is known as an “unreached people group.” Currently there are over 3,000 different people groups around the world who have no exposure to the gospel. But all of that is changing, can change, and it must change. I say to graduates sitting before me, be a part of that change.

When Jesus speaks these words in verse 18, he begins in a peculiar way. Before launching into the Great Commission in verse 19, in verse 18—as something of a prologue—he reminds his disciples, “All Authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” Why a declaration of our King’s authority before he gives this Great Commission? What does this mean? What does it mean to us? What does it mean to you? Jesus is unmistakably declaring that he has authority over the cosmos, over his church, and over you today. Philippians 2 tells us that though Jesus came and died as a servant, on a cross, humbling himself to the ultimate point of humiliation, the Father has highly exalted him and given him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus Christ every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

To our graduates this morning, I want to remind you what these words say: that all authority has been given to Christ. In that phrase comes an expression of your own subjection to him. Ultimately, you do not report, you will not report, and you must to not report to any human group. Your ultimate responsibility is not to a personnel committee, a deacon board, or an elder board, though God uses those things in his tiering of structure and authority. Your ultimate accountability is to the Word of God and the Spirit of God, by which Christ mediates his rule and authority over his servants. You go forth to serve as one under charge. Your ministry is not your own, your message is not your own, and that which you seek to undertake is not something you craft on paper that looks to be the easiest or most likely successful ministry course. Rather, you have a pre-committed end to your life, the end to which Christ is calling you. For parents and family members listening to this, these may be upsetting words, but I remind us this morning that this is an upsetting gospel. The Great Commission is an upsetting task and the very enunciation of it should dislodge complacency in our hearts. I pray that you have a faithful ministry, I pray you have a bold ministry, I pray you have a courageous ministry, and I pray you have a fruitful ministry, but I will never pray that you have an easy one. May you have joy untold, yes. May you have blessings uncountable, yes. Do not pray for ease, but pray for fruitfulness in your gospel labor.

Jesus says, “All authority has been given unto me.” That phrase comes to us this morning calling for our submission, but also it comes to us this morning instilling us with confidence. The same Jesus who declared in Matthew 16, “I will build my church,” is the Jesus who here is commissioning servants to go and do it. I remind us this morning that God plus one still equals a majority. Jesus is saying, “As you go, fear not, for I rule and reign over this universe and I will use you, I will work through you,” as you are faithful to him. Men and women before me this morning, I remind you that you are men and women under commission. You are a part of a conscripted force. You are under charge. Do not take that lightly; do not turn from that easily.

Notice what Jesus says here. After this statement of authority, he then directly speaks to his disciples—and to us—about what they are to do. Recall the context here. Jesus has ministered with his disciples some three years. They have seen him, they have heard him, and they have learned from him. They saw him heal, restore sight to the blind, restore health to the lame, multiply food, walk on water, and raise the dead. Unto what end have they seen all this? Now Jesus is about to go. Their confidence, their hope, everything they have longed for, their expectations have been in him, and now he is going. He gives them this instruction as to what they are now to do in light of his departure: “You go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” I love these two verses because they are packed with action. They are packed with words of industry, words of movement. It is not as though this is a pile up of words with little meaning. Every word has meaning. Hear the words of action in here, “You go.” You go. I remind us this morning that our calling at Midwestern Seminary is not to train a generation of church theorists, church critics, hypothetical church servants, or ostensible Great Commission servants. There is something old fashioned and perennial and timeless about this word. “You go.” You do something, you depart. “You go therefore and you make disciples.” Now we understand, ultimately the Lord is the one who converts, but any reading of this Great Commission that does not see us going and doing something is a false reading. You go, you make disciples, you preach the gospel, you teach the gospel, you instruct in the gospel, and you make disciples.

What is a disciple? A disciple is a learner, a follower of Christ. You are here today as an ultimate expression of discipleship. You have come to an institution that is committed to the Bible as the Word of God. You have been taught in these things so that you may be a more equipped disciple. So that, in Paul’s words to Timothy, “You, having been taught, may be able to teach others faithfully also.” You are a disciple and your being here is a sign of the seriousness with which you take discipleship. Now he is saying, “you go,” and the mission you fulfill is not merely making generic gospel touches, but rather actual conversions. Let me say that again: actual conversions. We are not just spreading religious platitudes. We are not just complaining about a culture drifting further and further into decadence. We are not just preaching sermons, even if they be faithful. We are seeking converts to Christ.

Notice the scope of this call: “you go, you make, of all nations.” I alluded to this earlier; there still are more than 3,000 unreached people groups, many of which are an identifiable group of people with a particular language—a particular tongue—and the gospel is yet to get to them and they are yet to gain access to it. If you have watched the progress of the church throughout 2,000 years, you see it attaining to lesser or greater degrees of faithfulness, lesser or greater degrees of success in fulfilling the Great Commission. What started in the Mediterranean region spread further throughout Asia Minor and beyond until finally spreading to where it is today. I recently read an interesting article about this. The author stated that if you look at the history of the church in the past 2,000 years, it tends to be like a rain shower where it goes. It is like a rain shower that moves to a region, goes to a people group, wets it as a rain shower would, then it will move on to another region. So today you see places like North Africa which once were thoroughly Christianized, but now they are insufficiently Christian. Look in a region like Europe, which is going by the year into unbelief. Ten years from now there will be more Muslims living in England than Anglicans, the established church of England. The author said that Islam, on the contrary, becomes like a lake where it goes. It floods the place and tends to stay there. So it is with that particular geo-political context in mind that we hear the words of Christ saying “you go therefore and make disciples of all nations.”

Now the next word here I find to be deeply important, not merely because I am president of a Baptist institution, but because I am a Biblicist. He says “you baptize them.” This is an expression, a sign, of one’s conversion to Christ, we believe taking place after conversion by immersion. I say to graduates sitting before me this morning, this is not the most urgent thing in your Bible, but it is not far from it. Do not take baptism lightly. Take it seriously. We understand and believe it to be one of the two ordinances of the church remaining for us to practice. We see prescribed and described in the New Testament a mode and method of baptism that occurs by immersion after conversion. Hold to that. Own that. Do not be embarrassed by that. That is a biblical concept we believe in. Notice what he says here, “you baptize them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” This great Trinitarian formula which in itself is a confession of what we believe: we believe in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and we make disciples and we baptize them into that formula.

Notice that Jesus says we “teach them to observe all that I have commanded you.” We have a predetermined message. It is the message of Christ. It is the message of the New Testament and Old delivered to us. We are to be preachers and teachers of the Word, not merely peddling modern opinions. We have a predetermined message: you be faithful to the Word. You be faithful to teach disciples that which Christ and the apostles have taught us. You be faithful to these things as people who have backbones of steel and knees that do not knock because we cannot help—if we look to our culture and the world before us, and if we have much realism in our hearts—to see storm clouds ahead for those who hold to biblical truth, biblical truth about human sexuality, biblical truth about life, biblical truth about the exclusivity of the gospel, which is an unpopular message that will become fiercely unpopular—I regret but predict—in the years ahead. That middle terrain between what is acceptable socially, and what is expected and demanded biblically, that middle terrain of ambiguity is already evaporating before our eyes and will all the more do so. If you have not settled in your heart that this is God’s Word, if you have not settled in your heart that these things you must teach and preach and prescribe, if you have not settled in your heart that you are a man or a woman under authority to these things, I fear for your ministry. I fear for you. But if you have settled in your heart that this is God’s Word and that it is true, and that you are a man or woman under authority, that what can someone do? They can do a lot, but ultimately they can do nothing to you of eternal consequence.

I love the reading of verse 19 and the first half of verse 20: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” There is a personalization to this, meaning that people—men and women—are to go and make converts of men and women and boys and girls. Let me tell you that ultimately, humanly speaking, this is what will bring you the most joy and the most satisfaction in ministry: seeing not just the gospel work to a crowd, but seeing people who are saved. You see people whom you know and to whom you were able to speak the gospel embrace and believe it and you see Christ change their lives. I am not an old man, but I have been serving in ministry in one form or another for about 15 years. Throughout those years, the relationships that, in my memory, are the most precious, and those relationships that I impulsively want to keep up with—and those relationships and people who impulsively want to keep up with me—are not the biggest givers in my churches over the years. They are not even necessarily the most faithful attenders. But they are the people who have very clear conversion stories where they knew they once were lost but now are saved and I saw God work in their lives, they saw God work in their lives, and it forged a personal tie between us that stands the test of time.

I grew up in a church. No pastor is perfect. My pastor was not perfect, but he preached the gospel to me and I was saved under his ministry. His feet may be clay, but to me they will always be beautiful. For to hear someone else criticize the pastor under whom I came to Christ makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I say to you who are going to serve the gospel, you will see people love you, embrace you, support you, and stay with you throughout the course of your ministry as you are faithful to get the gospel to them.

Notice what Jesus says here at the end of verse 20, “And behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the earth.” This last phrase brings a promise for us to cling to. Jesus is not tossing you out today as we toss you out. He is not sending you forth alone as we, in a sense, are sending you forth alone today. Not entirely, for we are here for you, but as you go you will be distant from us. Jesus is saying to his church, and he is saying to those who are seeking to undertake his Great Commission, “I am with you always,” always throughout the duration of your ministry, but get this, always, even to the end of the age. I want Christ with me throughout my ministry, as do you. That encourages me. But the reminder that he is with me when I pass from this life to the next—throughout the end of the age—brings ultimate assurance. Graduating class of Spring 2013, why are you here? You are here because Christ has saved you and Christ has called you. You are here because the church affirmed that. You are here because you believe he is calling you to the next stage of gospel ministry. But why you are here is now why you must go. Christ has called you to go and he is sending you forth to advance his gospel as you personally undertake to fulfill his Great Commission. As you go, I say be faithful, be courageous, be winsome, be cheerful, and know that the one who has called you forth by his authority will be with you throughout the end of the age. Amen.

Full Transcript:

Never in one room have so many been gathered to which one man owed so much. I am honored by your presence; I have been humbled by kind words said to me and of me in recent days and on this day.

I am deeply honored by the participants in the inaugural events. Most especially, Drs. Tom Elliff and David Dockery, thank you. I am especially grateful for the keynote speaker, Dr. Al Mohler. One I have known as a friend, mentor, colleague, president, and who apart from my family, is more responsible than any other person on earth for me being here today.

I am gratified by the presence of my family: parents who have lovingly supported me my whole life, and two brothers who in adulthood remain among my closest friends. Beyond family, there are too many friends to name, but know Karen and I love you, appreciate you, and thank God for you.

To the Midwestern Seminary community, thank you for so warmly receiving us, honoring us, serving with us, and believing in me and in our future together in service of the church. I am daily honored to serve as your president.

Most of all, my dear wife, Karen, who lovingly—and tirelessly—supports me daily; and five children—Anne-Marie, Caroline, William, Alden and Elizabeth—who bring me more joy than one heart can hold. Thank you. God has blessed me beyond measure. I am an unworthy recipient of a relentlessly kind providence, and, as the psalmist said, “the lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places, and my cup overfloweth.”

Though my heart is full, today my words shall be concise. I want to focus our attention, briefly, this morning on the topic to which I have been focusing Midwestern Seminary’s attention since the day of my election, and to which I shall increasingly focus it every day going forward—the church of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Indeed, our vision is full, yet simple: we exist For the Church. Our stewardship is rooted in the biblical convictions that Christ died for his church, is the head of his church, promised to build his church, gifts followers to serve his church, is calling out pastors, teachers and evangelists to minister to his church, issued his Great Commission to expand his church, and shall one day return for his church.

Moreover, the urgency of Midwestern Seminary’s vision to exist For the Church is amplified by the fact that the Southern Baptist Convention consists of some 45,000 local churches that need pastors and ministers to shepherd congregations and to equip the members gathered therein, and because we are a Great Commission people deploying pastors, ministers, and missionaries globally to reach the world for Christ.

To our watching denomination I say, this day a man has been installed that loves the churches of this convention. He resolves to serve, in both letter and in spirit, in good faith with the churches of this convention and welcomes the oversight and accountability the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention exercise over this seminary; this seminary they own.

My vision, and the vision for Midwestern Seminary, is to serve the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention. We happily welcome students from beyond this convention, and we will happily deploy graduates beyond it as well. We do not train students only for the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention, but we unashamedly train students intentionally and especially for the churches of this denomination. We bear a moral stewardship to our Southern Baptist forebears and a contemporary stewardship of the same to focus and calibrate our instructional efforts and academic programs to train pastors, ministers, and missionaries especially for Southern Baptist churches. “Southern Baptist” is a label we wear proudly, colors we fly boldly, and a constituency we shall serve humbly.

In a very real sense, Midwestern Seminary’s identity and vision to exist For the Church was established in Matthew 16, underscored with urgency in Romans 10, mandated and expounded upon in Ephesians 4, denominationally conceptualized in the 1850s, institutionally realized in 1957 and, today, in our midst, is being renewed again and declared once more. We exist For the Church.

In leading this seminary, I am not holding emergency strategy sessions to determine who we should be. We are not enduring sleepless nights attempting to find our identity. Donors are not being polled, trustee whip-counts are not being taken, student focus groups are not being conducted, nor are marketing agencies being consulted to help us determine our market niche, our identity.

On the contrary, to be a seminary is to be a pre-committed entity. We look to the Scriptures for our purpose and as we do, we realize we must exist For the Church. Christ has promised to build his church, not his seminary, and Christ’s jurisdiction and headship over his church shall define this seminary’s rationale and will drive its mission.

Midwestern Seminary’s resolve to serve the church is formal, structural, and systemic, but it also is attitudinal. Our posture toward the churches we serve will be one of deference. We do not portend to know the needs of the churches we serve better than the churches know their own needs. Furthermore, our role is neither to prod nor drag churches, but to serve them. This seminary does not sit in judgment of the church; rather, the church sits in judgment of this seminary.

At the very heart of Midwestern Seminary’s call to serve the church is to abide under an Ephesians 4 mandate, wherein the apostle reminded the church at Ephesus, “He [Christ] gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ.” In a sense, the specified and enduring offices of Ephesians 4—evangelists, pastors, and teachers—are tangible and perennial indicators of Christ’s promise in Matthew 16, to build his church.

Therefore, this seminary will make priority one to be strengthening the preaching and teaching capabilities of the ministers it trains. So goes the pulpit, so goes the church; and so goes these offices, so goes the equipping of the saints for the service of the church, the progress of the gospel, and the fulfilling of the Great Commission. Therefore, we unapologetically bend our resources and energies to train pastors, ministers, teachers, and evangelists, and we purpose to conceptualize and re-conceptualize how other, more auxiliary ministerial roles and responsibilities might be configured within an Ephesians 4 template.

Moreover, I understand the Southern Baptist Convention’s central and irreducible expectation for us is to train pastors and missionaries for the church. After all, in its most distilled form, this is precisely what our convention is—a confederation of churches, with pastors (and often no other vocational ministers), partnering to win the world for Christ by collectively funding and sending missionaries abroad. These are the two irreducible components of our denomination and the two irreducible positions for which the seminary must equip. We can do more; we shall do no less.

Looking to denominational demographics accentuates the need to train pastors and missionaries for the church. A dearth of pastors looms on the horizon and, in a sense, is already here. If churches do not call out pastors and seminaries do not train them, from whence will they come? After all, we minister under a Pauline injunction. “‘Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.’ How will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things.’” Our love for the lost, for the nations, for the gospel, and the spreading thereof through the fulfilling of the Great Commission heightens our urgency to train pastors, teachers, and evangelists.

Let us be clear—to be for the church does not mean we exist to train church theorists, church critics, or hypothetical church servants. The call to be for the church is not a call to graduate men and women who spend their lives assessing, evaluating, scrutinizing, and drafting stodgy position papers about the health—or lack of health—of the church. For a credentialed ecclesiastical critic doth not a servant of the church make.

No, we aspire for something different, something more, and something altogether better, and we have a model of virtue to which we shall look. Indeed, it is altogether fitting, right, and even poetic that we reassert our commitment to exist For the Church in this time and place. In the long and storied history of Christ’s church, never has this ambition to serve the church been more embodied than in the “Prince of Preachers” himself—Charles Haddon Spurgeon, of whom Midwestern Seminary is an heir and steward. Midwestern Seminary owns Spurgeon’s library. We possess his desk. We possess much of Spurgeon’s sermon notes, correspondence, copious notations, Spurgeon’s figurine and figurines of Spurgeon, Spurgeon’s paintings and paintings of Spurgeon, Spurgeon’s pictures and pictures of Spurgeon, Spurgeon’s ornamentations, accouterments, and replicated communion table, as well as Spurgeon’s pulpit replicated and a replica of Spurgeon’s replicated pulpit.

Most importantly of all, though, we possess not merely Spurgeon’s library and artifacts, but we declare today we also possess his convictions. We possess not only Spurgeon’s legacy, but his spirit as well, and we intend to demonstrate his determination to give our lives, as he gave his, For the Church. Therefore, as sons and daughters of Spurgeon, Midwestern Seminary is uniquely positioned, and has been granted by God a singular opportunity, to own and demonstrate Spurgeon’s legacy of ministering for the church.

In service For the Church, we aim to graduate students who stand for truth in the midst of our own downgrade controversies, who preach the Word amidst our own generation of those aspiring the tickling of their ears, who have an evangelical and evangelistic fervor, as Spurgeon, in our own malaise of gospel and Great Commission apathy, and who will tend the flock of God with relentless self-sacrifice, as did Spurgeon.

What if God saw fit—to not only entrust us with the Spurgeon library and legacy, as he has, but to raise up through Midwestern Seminary a generation of Spurgeonesque pastors, teachers, and evangelists who give their lives for the church. Would to God it be so.

For the Church—this is the vision that called me to this place. It is the vision that is being renewed and is reverberating across this campus. It is the vision that we, with appropriate institutional self-confidence, are projecting across this denomination and beyond. We are confident because Christ is building his church, and in as much as we are faithful to his church, he will be faithful to us.

Under the auspices of this vision, we intend to bear any burden, pay any price, endure any hardship, seize any opportunity, launch any initiative, and embark on any effort to strengthen our claim and fulfill our mission to be the seminary For the Church.

Therefore, I invite every member of this seminary community, accomplished faculty, devoted staff, and ministers-in-training to renew ourselves once again, to pledge, as it were, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor—For the Church.

To this denomination, and to brothers and sisters of like-faith beyond this denomination, I say join us, hope the best for us, believe the best about us, and expect the best from us. Pray for us, partner with us, support us, send us your men and women to train for ministry, stand with us in solidarity of spirit, shared conviction and gospel aspiration; and, without guile, I say, hold us accountable. Hold us accountable to our denominational, confessional, and missiological commitments so that we might rightly exist For the Church.

Therefore, to those within the sound of my voice, as we depart to minister For the Church, let us resolve with the one to whom this institution looks, Charles Spurgeon, who reflected, “As long as there is breath in our bodies, let us serve Christ; as long as we can think, as long as we can speak, as long as we can work, let us even serve him with our last gasp; and, if it be possible, let us try to set some work going that will glorify him when we are dead and gone. Let us scatter some seed that may spring up when we are sleeping beneath the hillock in the cemetery.”

As with Spurgeon, let us live and minister for Christ, for the gospel, and for the Great Commission. Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, let us now go forth to live and minister For the Church.