Faithfulness - Dr. Albert Mohler

Dr. Albert Mohler, President of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary spoke to the 2018 Alabama Baptist Convention and shared his appreciation of the faithfulness of Alabama Baptists. He also shares personal reflections on impactful events throughout his life including landmarks of faithful Baptist influence, and a challenge of faithfulness from Acts 20 in our walk with Christ.

• Theological Faithfulness
• Moral Faithfulness
• Evangelistic Faithfulness
• Congregational Faithfulness

The Messages Podcast is a product of the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions. Subscribe to hear messages delivered by pastors at our events held throughout the year. This ministry is made possible by your gifts through the Cooperative Program.

Chapters

• 22:00 Introduction of Passage Acts 20
• 29:24 Theological Faithfulness
• 34:23 Moral Faithfulness
• 38:19 Evangelistic Faithfulness
• 43:18 Congregational Faithfulness

Transcript

Mitchell Bruce (00:05):
You are listening to the Messages podcast by the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions. This podcast is a curated collection of talks, breakouts, and conference main sessions from ministries of the State Board of Missions. All of this content was made possible by your gifts through the cooperative program.

Dr. Albert Mohler (00:26):
I had the great benefit of being born to two Christian parents deeply devotedly, actively adamantly Southern Baptist. And growing up in in what has been described as a tall steeple Southern Baptist church. It had the full program. We had everything. And I was in everything. My father was in the grocery business, and I was the eldest of four. And we were in everything. It was a full body, southern Baptist experience. It was a full immersion experience. I spent somewhere between 10 and 15 hours every single week at church. I told folks at lunch today that my parents only reluctantly allowed me to be a Boy scout.

(01:12):
And I had to promise that I would advance more quickly as a royal ambassador than as a Boy Scout. And there was a certain irony to this, since it was the same boys with the same leaders in the same room, just on different nights in the same church. It, it was, it was basically all the same people. Everything I knew came to me by means of of growing up in an experience that I lament many younger Southern Baptists never had. My father was the director of Training Union, which meant I was always a training union, but I was at everything else. Anyway, my, my father was one of those old southern Baptist deacons who know how to do it which meant everything. But he may, he wasn't the most verbose man. He he led many, many people to crisis funeral.

(02:03):
And even since I, I got to know so many people, he led to Christ. But he kept a close watch on me. The day I turned 14, he picked me up from school, which worried me, because that had never happened before unless I was having a baby brother. And there weren't any that I knew of coming. So the, there had to be some other explanation. What have I done? And so my, my dad picked me up. He took me to the state employment office, and he said, you be quiet. I'll do all the talking. And he went in and he said, I would like for my son a a hardship labor permit. And he was very careful. He didn't say I needed one. He just said he wanted one. And so he gave it, and my, and I said, what does this mean?

(02:43):
He said, it means you work for me now, <laugh>. And I said, when does this start? He said, at 3 0 5, it was three <laugh>. And and when, when I was 16, he, he called me into the the, we were cleaning the store and all this. He called me up to what they called the office. It was really like a cubicle. And he, he called me in and he, I don't know what was on his mind, but he turned to me and he said you're 16 years old. I said, yes, sir. He said you haven't had an adolescent rebellion yet. I said, no, sir. He said, you oughta have one <laugh>. And I thought I was perplexed by what in the world my dad was doing. I said, what do you mean, dad? I I, I ought to have one. He said, every teenager needs one.

(03:29):
You need to have one. And I said, what do you mean? He said, I mean, you have 15 minutes. And he looked at his clock and he said, have at it for 15 minutes, whatever, what, whatever you wanna do, all's fair. And I said, dad, I just wanna go home. He said, well, that's fine. That's fine. Oh, he worked me so hard. I wanted to go, go to bed. Anyway, but I, I, I, a few days later, I did have a teenage rebellion. It came on a Sunday afternoon. It was a, actually was a Sunday afternoon dinner. My mother was the kind who put the roast in early on Sunday morning. And you got home in time to have this wonderful meal after the, after the service, and before you went back. For, for me, it was for the youth choir practice at four o'clock.

(04:12):
And that's when I decided I was gonna draw my line in the sand. Now is the time of my teenage rebellion. And I even liked choir. I liked it. I don't know why I did this, except there was just some impulse in me. And I said, dad, mom, I'm quitting the youth choir. I don't even know why I said it. It just, but it felt good to say it. <Laugh>, I probably would've done the reverse a week later. But I declared, I'm, I'm quitting the youth choir. And my dad didn't get angry. He just put his quark down. He looked at me and said, son, you didn't join <laugh> <laugh>.

(04:48):
I I never actually volunteered for the choir. I was just put there <laugh>. And evidently the one who put me there was going to keep me there, <laugh>. And that was it. It was all over. And, but I looked back on those years. I recognize I probably learned as much in the choir as I did in Sunday school because of a godly minister of music who loved the Lord and taught us about Jesus. Even as he taught us about music. I come here to Alabama Baptist, and my first thought as I am seeing you tonight and knew I would be with you, is to say thank you. And there are lesser and greater ways of saying thank you. There's a perfunctory thank you. Thank you for having me. Thank you for for being you. You be you. That is not what I'm saying.

(05:36):
I'm saying that I, I want to thank you for some very specific realities that frame my life very personally. When I was 18 years old called to ministry and and, and, and needing an education. And at the time, my parents were unable really to to help me with that to any great extent. Alabama Baptist made it possible for me to receive a college education. And I was a Florida Baptist kid, but there was no school I stopped at before getting to Sanford in 1978. And felt the call to be there, an Alabama Baptist, out of the generosity of of the hearts of Alabama Baptist churches, made it possible for me. I went in to see Travis Tindell, who was the the, the, the director of admissions. And some of you will remember Travis. I went in to see him, and I said, I can't afford this.

(06:36):
And he said, you, you really can't. I thought, well, this is not going very well. And and he, he said <laugh>, he said, we have a, we have a ministerial scholarship. And I was called as a ministerial student, so we were able to check that off. Didn't get me as far as I needed to go. Then he said, we have a, a scholarship for Alabama students. And I said, I am not from Alabama. He said, how long have you been to the dorm? I said, two weeks. He said, you qualify <laugh> And <laugh>. I've never been more thankful for anything in my life. When I think about how at that point I could have gotten in my car and gone home, but instead, Lord made it possible for me to to study and then to go on to seminary after that, I, I, I've never received anything that has not been supported by and encouraged by, made possible by Southern Baptist.

(07:27):
And in so many points in my life, Alabama Baptist, all the early preaching in my ministry, I preached my first sermon at age 17 at the First Baptist Church of Pompano Beach, Florida. I preached almost every sermon between one and 100, maybe more in Alabama. I was president of the Ministerial Association at, at Sanford. And went out on H Day had the terror of being interrogated by Dr. Vernon Davidson to qualify me for going out to preach on H Day. I can still remember the conversation. Dr. Davidson was then 175 years old <laugh>. And I, I, I, I did not know how this conversation was gonna go. He said he said, son, have you preached before? I said, yes, sir. He said, how many times? I said, once he, he said, so you have one sermon? And I said, actually, I, I had three kind of preach all three of them. <Laugh>.

(08:27):
 at first I, and he grilled me on some basic questions of orthodoxy and orthopraxy gave me some instructions and sent me out. And Alabama Baptists encouraged me all along the way. I, I told some folks again earlier today that when I was elected president of the Ministerial Association, I decided I was going to do something with it. And I did something. I did several things. One of them was, I invited Herschel Hobbs to come and speak to the Ministerial Association banquet. It seemed like a very good idea. He was the most famous Southern Baptists of that age. I had heard him preach only at a distance and was very moved by his preaching. I knew that he had ties to Howard College, to Sanford, who had ties to Alabama. And so I just wrote him a letter and invited him to come speak to the Ministerial Association, a bunch of 18, 19, 20, 21 year old young men at Sanford University.

(09:25):
And I just wrote him, and he wrote me back and said, I'm coming about seven 30, just a few days later in the morning, Dr. Wright, Dr. Leslie Wright, the president of Sanford, his secretary called me and she said Dr. Wright would like to see you this morning. And I said, I've got a class at eight o'clock. She said, no, you don't, <laugh>. And I got the message. I put on the, the best dress up clothes I had, and I went to see Dr. Wright. Dr. Wright was so courtly, saw me into his office, sat me down in a chair. He sat in the other chair, he looked at me, folded his fingers, and he said, it has come to my attention that you have invited the most famous Southern Baptist pastor to speak to the Ministerial Association at this university. I said, yes, sir.

(10:09):
And he said, it, it, it, it might have crossed your mind that it would've been kind to have informed the president of the University of this fact <laugh>. Rather than that, I find out from his sister at Sunday lunch at the club, okay, lesson learned. It's one of those moments that you all of a sudden realize you have done something very, very wrong. And at that point, I would just bill with tear. Where's this gonna go from here? And then, so graciously, he said, actually, it's a very, very good thing. And this will bring honor upon Sanford. It'll be a wonderful thing. He, he didn't leave it at that. He took over <laugh> a very wise move. And he said to me, how are you going to go get, how are you gonna convey Dr. Hobbs? And I said, I've got a car. And he looked at me as if, I bet you do.

(10:59):
 And it, it turned out that he did not think it was a great idea for me to pick up Dr. Herschel Hobbs in my Mustang. And instead, he sent me in his Oldsmobile 98 <laugh>. And which was a giant automobile but fully dignified to pick up Dr. Herschel Hobbs. I picked up Dr. Hobbs at the airport and dropped him off at his sister's house where he was staying. And I was in instructed to come back and get him at three o'clock. I did. I went back the appointed hour. His wife, his sister met me at the door, and she said, Herschel's on the back porch. Go out and talk with him. He's expecting you. I went back there and Herschel Hobbs was in a white strap T-shirt and white boxer shorts, <laugh> with socks, and with Gars holding up his socks, <laugh> with, with either a two or a pellet gun, shooting at squirrels to chase them away from his sister's bird feeders. And I was absolutely dumbstruck. I expected that I was going to find, you know, a, a man dressed, you know, ready to preach. And I, I had never seen anything like this in my life, and I didn't know what was gonna happen next. Dr. Hobbs picked up another gun, put it in my hand, and said, have at it son, <laugh> <laugh>.

(12:17):
So I will tell you that one of the unexpected treasures of my life was shooting squirrels with Herschel Hobbs <laugh>. I don't think either one of us hit one <laugh>. But after that as president of the Ministerial Association and going out on H Day, I got to preach in so many Alabama Baptist churches. And Dr. Wright asked me to go with him to the state board admissions meeting, which was a, which was a tremendous a tremendous experience. I just learned a lot. It was the first big Baptist meeting I'd ever gone to. Now, I'll never forget, I had to step in the restroom. I stepped in the restroom, and there was a big man pulling himself together.

(12:57):
He looked at me and he said, son, you look pretty young to be at this meeting. I said, yes, sir. I'm a student at Sanford. I'm here with Dr. Wright. I didn't know what in the world to say. The I'll, I'll just tell you, the etiquette in such a moment is not abundantly clear. And <laugh>, I I was only 18, 19 years old, and this was outside my skillset. I did not know what to do. It got a lot more dramatic. It was Dr. Dawson Nelson, who was then the pastor of the Mountain Brook Baptist Church. I didn't know him. I knew of the church. I would later preach for him at Mountain Brook. I had no idea what was going to happen next. I didn't know what to do. When he lifted up his shirt, Lyndon Johnson style, he had had open heart surgery, and it was a sight like I had never seen. And he simply said, that young man is what ministry will do to you, <laugh> and <laugh>. Oh my goodness.

(13:55):
Oh my heavens. I I certainly didn't know what etiquette was required after that. But but I do remember that he pulled down his shirt and then tucked it in, and he looked at me and with a wing said, but it's worth it. I met Dr. George Bagley, who was the executive secretary. I thought Dr. Wright had a big car. Dr. Bagley had a Chrysler Imperial <laugh>. They basically are again, aircraft carriers with wheels, <laugh>. But Dr. Bagley was the, say, executive director. I invited him to come speak to the Ministerial Association at Sanford. And, and only later do I realize how kind of unusual that was. He said yes. And he came and spoke to a bunch of students on the ground floor of Pittman Hall, and told us about the cooperative program. And it was actually the first time in my life it all kind of came together, right?

(14:52):
Understood how this worked. And I realized I, I knew this because of the I, I, I, I knew of the cooperative program. I've heard of the cooperative program. I was raised in a church that, a again, I, I, I I, I had the same offering envelopes many of you had offering giving. My parents taught me. They gave me something to put in at every single Sunday before I had anything to put in it myself. My boy had pastor been chairman of the Foreign Mission Board. We had, we had speakers like Baker James Coffin and Duke MCC McCall, and so many others when I was a boy, I got to hear them. I'm, I'm one of the last of of, of a dying breed of Southern Baptists, who, who got to see so many of these men in the flesh. And I met missionaries.

(15:36):
And we, I, I, I knew a little something of what happened, but I didn't know how it worked. I also knew that I, well, I'm a creature of Southern Baptist Convention. I'm a creature of Southern Baptist churches and of state Baptist conventions. The Sunday I was baptized when I was nine, I went home and the next morning I left for Lake Yale, the Baptist Assembly. I received my call to ministry the Friday of that week when I was nine years old. I didn't really perceive all that it meant then. But at age 18, when I knew of a call to ministry, I called my boyhood pastor, long retired, and he told me, you filled out a card when you were nine saying you believe God had called you to ministry. And I said, you never mentioned it. And he said, neither did you.

(16:24):
And then I realized that someone in that state office had mailed that card to my pastor who had held onto it until God brought it to my attention in a very vivid way. I came to Christ at Vacation Bible School. And I grew up in the Southern Baptist world, or for that matter, the, the southern world, in which if you were a child, you did not go to vacation Bible schools. You went to vacation Bible schools. I, I, I I, I know that it was it was because of a biblical urgency, but it was also, I think because they had to put us somewhere in the summer. And this is, so, the church has all staggered them. The church where I came to know the Lord Jesus Christ is Savior. And, and where, where the gospel reached me, where sitting in a pew, I heard the gospel for the first time as directed to me.

(17:16):
I understood for the first time, not only that I sin, but that I am a sinner. And I knew I needed Jesus. And Jesus was preached. And even though I had been raised by Christian parents and always in, involved in a, in a wonderful church, it was at that moment the Holy Spirit opened my heart to receive Christ to Savior. And only later did I figure out it was a bivocational church. That was what we would now call a church plant of the state Convention. The, the man who was preaching was a phosphate minor six days a week. But he preached on Sunday. My church had a pipe organ in stained glass. This was a church that had pews and that was about it. But the Lord used it as the place where I heard the gospel preached. For the last 25 years, I've been actually almost 26 now, the President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

(18:07):
And I also am a graduate of that institution. My, my entire life I is one of gratitude to Southern Baptist. And in particular, tonight I want you to know gratitude to Alabama Baptist. Several months ago, I asked our vice president for business to do a retrospective analysis of the financial support for Southern Seminary going back to 1859. Now, there are some gaps in the record, especially as you get back in the 1860s. But the record, because we are Southern Baptist, after all, we keep records, we hold onto those records, and we were able to put together a pretty much unbroken line going back to the 1870s. And there are individuals who gave incredibly to help Southern Seminary to survive. There were, there were countless people who invest in themselves. And of course, the cooperative program at the Southern Baptist Convention beginning in 1925.

(19:09):
But if you look especially over the 20th century, the biggest single donor to the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary is the Alabama Baptist Convention. So I want you to know of my gratitude to you. It's a very personal gratitude, because as a student and as president for a quarter century, I can tell you that what you do as such a generous state convention and cooperation with other Southern Baptists makes such a material difference, a, a difference that will outlive us all. You think of all the people who have given so generously throughout all those decades in realize most of them are now with the Lord. But what they have given and what they have done continues to speak. And there are people in nations yet unreached who will hear the gospel because of what you and the churches of this state are doing and how you are giving.

(20:03):
There are young people who'll be trained for the ministry who otherwise would not receive that training in preparation and education. It's because of who you are and what you've done. So I want you to hear a very sincere thank you from me, not just speaking to any group of Southern Baptist, but to the a Alabama Baptist Convention. I want you to hear me say thank you. And on behalf of now 5,700 students at Southern and nearly 20,000 students, and you put all Southern Baptist seminaries together, I just want you to hear a chorus of thank you. And then you think about about 60,000 graduates from your seminaries over the course of the last 50 years. How can you say thank you? And so here we are tonight. What a pleasure and privilege to be together, to sing and to hear greatest th faithfulness. I wanna thank you for for the people of the Alabama Baptist Convention.

(21:00):
I wanna thank you for the trustees you have sent the Southern Seminary. I'm looking across this room, ed Hayes, John Tweet, I, and, and Bradley rushing a new trustee. You, you have sent us some of your very best. And and John also served as chairman of our board. And that that means you have shared in the governance, not just in the generosity, but in the governance of your mother seminary and now for a very, very long time. And I want to thank you for your state executive director, Dr. Rick Lance. We've been in partnership in this work for a very long time. And I first heard him preach when he was the pastor of First Baptist Coleman. And I don't think either one of us could have, and by the way, he didn't even know that I was there and wouldn't have known or cared that I was there at the time.

(21:43):
But in God's providence, he has given us the opportunity to work together for decades. And I just want to thank you because the one thing you can count on is the Alabama Baptists are gonna show up in the right way just when we need Alabama Baptists to show up. Want to invite you to turn with me to Acts chapter 20, acts chapter 20, concerned tonight with the theme of faithfulness, says, you as a state convention have looked at faithfulness. I I want us to look to this crucial turning point in the Book of Acts, in the history of the early church to understand what we are told here about faithfulness. Even though the word faith is used is used only sparingly in this text, the entire text is about faithfulness. This is Paul's charge to the Ephesian elders found in Acts chapter 20 beginning in verse 17 when we read Now from my leaders, he's sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church to come to him.

(22:39):
And when they came to him, he said to them, you yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time. From the first day that I set foot in Asia serving the Lord with all humility and with tears, and with trials that happened to me through the plots of the Jews, how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable and teaching you in public and from house to house, testifying both the Jews and the Greeks of repentance toward God and the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. And now, behold, I'm going to Jerusalem constrained by the Spirit, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me. But I do not count. I do not account my life of any value, nor is precious to myself.

(23:29):
If only I may finish my course and the ministry that I receive from the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. And now behold, I know that none of you, among whom I have gone about proclaiming the kingdom will see my face again. Therefore, I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all of you, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole council of God, pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. I know that after my departure, fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock, and from among your own selves will arise. Men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them.

(24:18):
Therefore, be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish everyone with tears. And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. I coveted no one silver or gold or apparel. You yourselves know that these hands minister to my necessities and to those who are with me in all things. I have shown you that by working hard in this way, we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus. How He himself said, it is more blessed to give than to receive. And when he has said these things, he knelt down and prayed with them all. And there was much weeping on the part of all. They embraced Paul and kissed him being sorrowful, most of all because of the word he had spoken, that they would not see his face again, and they accompanied him to the ship.

(25:15):
It's hard to know where to begin a passage like this. Of course, in this sense, we should look back to verse 16, where we are told that Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus so that he might not have to spend time in Asia for he was hastening to be at Jerusalem if possible. On the day of Pentecost, Paul felt a very direct call to go back to Jerusalem. But he knew that going back to Jerusalem, he would assuredly be arrested and being arrested, he would be tried. And he understood that that could very well mean not only his imprisonment, but it could mean his himm. But the Apostle Paul was in his obedience, not delaying getting to Jerusalem, but hastening to get to Jerusalem. And so he avoided Ephesus. He had avoided the entire area of Asia minor in order that he might get in time to Jerusalem in order to be there for Pentecost.

(26:05):
Now, there could be a lot behind this, but certainly at Pentecost, he would be there with an optimal opportunity for the preaching of the gospel, as you see in the early chapters of the Book of Acts. So also we see here, as in chapter two, in chapter 20, the fact that the feast day of Pentecost was for Paul an opportunity for the, the massive public preaching of the gospel. But Paul nonetheless is not avoiding Ephesus and the Ephesian church because he does not long for them. That's made very clear when he is a elitist and he sins for the elders of the Ephesian church to come him. And what we have in Acts chapter 20 is the Holy Spirit inspired testimony of what was said by the Apostle Paul to the Ephesian elders in this last opportunity when he would ever see them. The poignancy of this has to touch your heart.

(26:57):
When we are told that Paul said to them, now you will never see my face again. And then at the end of the passage, they reflect upon that and their hearts are so gripped by the fact that they will not see him again. That they, they weep and they accompany him to the ship, that they don't hinder his obedience. They they encourage his obedience, but it's with the bonds of affection that can only be explained in the gospel of Jesus Christ. And in the gospel ministry, I recognize tonight that there are some who are pastors and preachers in the midst. In fact, I would assume many, but not all. But the one thing we know is that all of us are members of churches and those churches have pastors. So when, when there's a passage like this that is addressed to the leadership of the church, it's actually addressed to the entirety of the church in order that the church will understand the kind of leadership that every congregation should seek, should expect and should support.

(28:01):
What you see in this passage is that Paul will talk about being faithful. He, he prays that he will be allowed to finish his course and and to be faithful to the ministry that he received from the Lord Jesus finishing the course. Isn't that what we all want? I think I would've known to say that when I was 18. But at that point, to be honest, finishing the course, at least according to the actuarial table, seemed a long way off. I, I'm, I've been president in the Southern Seminary now for over 25 years. When I came to Alabama as a college student, I couldn't imagine being 25. That's the way life works. And, and, and I'm in a different position now in the sixth decade of my life to think about what it means to finish the course. Like the Apostle Paul. I want to finish the course.

(28:49):
I want to be found faithful in the end. And in this passage, which is in the old English, sometimes described as Paul's defense to the Ephesian elders, but that's in the same sense as apologetics. It doesn't mean we're apologizing. It means we're ready to give an account, we're ready to give an answer. Then Paul was ready to give an answer for his ministry to the Ephesian elders. It was a message he wanted them to take back to the Ephesian church. And thus, we see that faithfulness is multifaceted. I want us to see in this passage that the first dimension of faithfulness is theological faithfulness. The apostle Paul's very clear about this when he was with the Ephesians, he preached the gospel, and then the gospel has content. And you'll notice how the Apostle Paul can't stop being theological at any point, even when he is giving a greeting, even when he is saying thank you, he's just deeply theological.

(29:45):
He mentions the church, which Christ purchased with his blood. There is substitution, there is atonement. He, he mentions the gospel, he concentrates himself with the gospel. He says, the one thing you know is that when I was with you, I preached the gospel of Jesus Christ. I preached it consistently. I preached it to everyone. I preached it at every opportunity and at every opportunity I preached the very same gospel. And whether it's a pastor or a church, or a state convention or the Southern Baptist Convention, we cannot possibly be faithful in any other dimension if we are not theologically faithful, doctrinally faithful. The the Christian faith is not an attitude. It is first of all, a truth claim. The first imperative that is given in the gospel is believe. And, and that belief has content. We do not that we, we do not believe that we are justified by faith alone, meaning by faith.

(30:44):
In faith alone, there are gonna be plenty of people of faith in hell. It's faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ. As Paul said to the Corinthians, for I delivered unto You, which I also received as a first importance, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and that God raised him up on the third day. According to the scriptures, Christianity for the Apostle Paul, the gospel of Jesus Christ has specific doctrinal content. It is making a specific comprehensive truth claim. And where you find a faithful church, where you find a faithful people, you find a faithful denomination or a faithful preacher, you're going to find an unapologetic embrace of the entirety of what is given to us in the revelation of God in holy scripture. And that is specific theological content. You look across denominations and, and you see what has been going on.

(31:42):
I had a reporter call me today and then just in, in haste this afternoon, and I, I called him back because of a, an issue that had arisen in another one of our state conventions. And and the reporter said, why, why would this happen? Why would, why would anyone make this an issue now? And I had to say to him, because the gospel is at stake, because we can't cooperate if we do not share common convictions. If, if we're, if we don't have a common understanding of who Jesus is and what the gospel is and what the word of God is, if we don't, if we don't have a common understanding of what the gospel is in order to share the gospel, we can't possibly send people to take the gospel to the ends of the earth if we're not even clear about what the gospel is.

(32:21):
And, and so the Apostle Paul is really clear, as, as you will not be surprised over and over again, he, he speaks of the whole council of God. In other words, he's saying, I didn't preach to you a little bit of gospel, a little bit of doctrine and a slight amount of theology. He says, I delivered it all now. Now, don't you wanna be able to say that preacher? Don't you wanna be able to look back over your ministry and say, I didn't shrink back from preaching anything that is revealed in God's word. That's what I wanna be able to say. Now, that doesn't mean we're gonna get to preach every text. Not even Charles Burgeon preached every single text, but I dare say he preached every single truth he comprehensively defended the Christian faith, preached the Christian faith, joyously, expounded the Christian faith, text by text and verse by verse, and, and, and he didn't hold anything back.

(33:15):
Charles Burgeon didn't get in trouble for holding back. He got in trouble for preaching the whole council of God. And by the way, that's going to happen. The Apostle Paul did not say to the Ephesian elders, he did not remind them that he didn't hold anything back because there had been a lack of controversy about not holding anything back. He's simply reminding them that this is what the gospel comes down to. This is what faithful ministry looks like. It is the whole council of God. The faith has doctrinal content and theological faithfulness is the first faithfulness. This is why we know that preaching is the first mark of the church. The, the reformers understood that in the 16th century. The question is, where do you find a church? Well, it is not going to be just because you find a building. And, and, and so the reformers ask the question, then how are you gonna know if it's a church or not? And and as Luther said, the first mark of the church is the preaching of the word of God. If you find the word of God preached, then guess what? There's a church. If you do not find the word of God preached, then it doesn't matter how glorious his building is. It doesn't matter what kind of stained glass is. God doesn't matter if it's got a pipe organ or for that matter, the coolest praise man. If the word of God is not preached, it isn't a church.

(34:22):
The second faithfulness is ethical faithfulness. It's a, a moral faithfulness. And, and this might catch us a little bit by surprise, but you'll notice in, in his defense to the Ephesian elders, Paul mentions not only what he did, but what he didn't do. And, and as he says, he didn't take financial advantage. He didn't covet their gold or their silver. He points to his own hands and he says, you know, us with these hands that I sustained the ministry, that doesn't mean you shouldn't pay the preacher. I mean, be clear about that. But, but it does mean that no one should be in the ministry and no one should be sustained in the ministry because of personal greed. And of course, there's comprehensive ethical content to the gospel and comprehensive ethical content to the church. In one Timothy three, Paul will describe those qualifications necessary for one to be an elder, for one, to be a, a teacher, one to be a preacher in the, in the church.

(35:19):
And, and again, he'll repeat it to, in his Holy Spirit inspired letter to Titus. And, and of course we understand this is in the entirety of the New Testament. And then the entire Canada scripture, the old and New Testament together, there is doctrinal expectation, there is moral expectation because as Peter will remind us, looking back to the Old Testament, God said, you must be holy for I am holy. The Apostle Paul was able to look back over his ministry to the Ephesians without worrying about any scandal. These days, by the way, this is one of the greatest challenges we face. It's it it it's not just doctrinal and theological content. It is the moral extension of that content. You just think about the, the revolution and morality taking place in the society around us. There are very few people who are going to say, we are those people because we hold the substitutionary atonement.

(36:14):
There are very few people who are gonna be angry with us because of our Trinitarian doctrine. There, there are very few people who are going to, to, to protest outside our churches or outside our institutions because we hold to the natine infallibility of the word of God. But on certain cultural, moral sexuality issues, it's very different. Now, we as Christians understand there's a comprehensiveness to the truth claim. The doctrine and the morality go together. The morality and the doctrine are all a part of God's own self revelation. Even as the attributes of God are unified, such that he, he is himself infinite in all of his perfections. His revelation to us is both doctrinal and its moral at the same time. There's no such Christian conception as a doctrine that doesn't have morality or morality that doesn't require doctrine. But you know, at different times, you can get in trouble for different things.

(37:04):
A and right now, the moral witness of the church is, is is where we're seeing many churches and untold denominations and institutions failing. That must not be true of us. And and it's not because we hold ourselves to be morally superior. The apostle Paul was very clear about that. It is because we're the people who are redeemed and we are morally accountable. And, and there are things we cannot not know. Just think about that there are things we cannot not know. We can't act as if we do not know what God's plan for humanity is. It, it's not that we cannot know what the difference is between male and female. We cannot not know these things. And, and, and, and these are not lamentable truths and lamentable commandments that we've somehow got to find a way to live with. This is the very plan and purpose of God for humanity that he made in his own image.

(38:01):
And, and, and thus, it's love of God and love of neighbor that requires us told fast to all that God has revealed in his word. And not just privately, but publicly. There's another dimension of faithfulness. And this is so clear in the text, it is evangelistic faithfulness. You'll notice the, the, the insistence of the Apostle Paul that he had been faithful to the gospel ministry and and that meant he was preaching the gospel. And, and, and, and so this, this was Paul's urgency. And you'll see, even as you look to verses 25 to 27, notice how clear Paul's words are.

(38:41):
Therefore, I testi testified to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all of you, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God, I testified to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all of you. How clever of the Apostle Paul to come up with that language. Well, you press back and you say, well, that's not just the Apostle Paul. That's the Holy Spirit inspiring the Apostle Paul. But that's where you know enough of the Bible to know that's not just the apostle Paul. It is the prophet Ezekiel. It's Ezekiel chapter three, where God spoke to the prophet and said that he had appointed him as the one who would stand as a watchman for Israel.

(39:28):
Wherever, whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me. If I say to the wicked, God says, you shall surely die, and you give him no warning, nor speak to him to warn the wicked from his wicked way in order to save his life, that wicked person shall die for his iniquity. But his blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the wicked and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his wicked way, he shall die for his iniquity. But you will have delivered your soul. Brothers and sisters, I pray this for myself. I pray this for our denomination. I pray this for all of our churches may on the day of judgment, we have no blood on our hands. And and that will only be true if we are evangelistically Missy Missiologically faithful.

(40:20):
It's only gonna be true if we tell lost people how they can come to salvation through Jesus Christ, our Lord. It's only true if we preach and mean that all who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And if we remember what the apostle Paul tells us in Romans chapter 10, that that means not just that they call upon the name of the Lord, but that they confess with their lips, that Jesus Christ is Lord and believe in their hearts that God has raised him from the dead. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. If we don't preach the gospel of Christ, then here's the logic of the Apostle Paul in Romans chapter 10. If we don't preach, they can't hear. If they won't hear, they won't believe. If they don't believe they won't be saved. And of course, there's further logic they will not hear in order to hear and believe and be saved if we do not send them sending, you know, missions is not a Southern Baptist plan.

(41:11):
We, we have a Southern Baptist plan for how to work together in missions, but missions is the very heart of God and the command of Christ to his church. And evangelism isn't just something we do, it has to be something we are otherwise we will not be able to say as the apostle Paul was able to say to the Ephesian elders that he had no blood on his hands. Yeah, you, you know, that is a pretty offensive metaphor to the modern mind. Is, is you, do you really have to put it that crudely, I mean blood for crying out loud, the entire world around us, liberal theology, going back to the 19th century said, we gotta get done with the blood. We gotta give a, we, we gotta get rid of this blood terminology. It's old, it's crude, or brothers and sisters. It's cross and it's our salvation.

(42:02):
You notice the Apostle Paul, and, and by the way, what audacity to believe that the cross is grotesque to the 21st century, it was grotesque when the prophet Isaiah saw in the future the brokenness of the son of man and made very clear that we would turn our eyes from him. It, it was grotesque in the first century. It was meant to be grotesque. That, that, that's a reminder of the grotesque nature of our sin. You, you'll notice the Apostle Paul doesn't shrink back from this language. Instead, he ha having preached the gospel, he then reminds the Ephesian elders of what was at stake. May we as Southern Baptist in this generation may, may, you as Alabama Baptist in this generation, may your church, may each of us be innocent of blood on our hands. And we need to read a passage like this again and again to remind ourselves.

(42:59):
That is, was it what is at stake? It's not merely a missed opportunity. Isn't that kind of horrifying? It's not just a missed opportunity, it's the bloodying of hands. When we do not preach the gospel, it's also congregational faithfulness. You, you see that dimension. If we had more time to look at Acts chapter 20, the affection language is pretty remarkable. The older I get, the more emotional I get. It's an occupational chronological hazard. I'm not sure exactly why I, I, I think a part of it is the older I get, the more thankful. I just, by necessity must be the, the older I grow, I don't even know what you call it anymore. The older I get, the more I recognize that I did not put myself here and I cannot keep myself here. And all that the Lord has allowed to happen is really the product of thousands and thousands, even in our denomination, millions of people.

(44:19):
I'm never gonna get to thank, I was talking to a leader of a secular group just the other day, and he said to me, what's the real secret of the Southern Baptist Convention? What's the secret sauce? And, you know, organizationally, I could have said the cooperative program. I I could have given him a primer on Southern Baptist polity and Baptist ecclesiology. We did get to some of that. But I told him, I said, you know, I think the real secret to the Southern Baptist Convention is that there are people in our churches, there are little old ladies who go without in little country churches and, and, and give, because there will be young men training at my seminary to preach the gospel and they're never gonna get to see them. My brothers and sisters. That's just amazing. It's just amazing. And and they pray. They, they, they pray.

(45:20):
I said, you know, I, I I I think that's it. I I I I I think that's, I'm sure there's more to it than that, but it's the blessing of God through the fact that we cooperate in such a way that we give to people we'll never know in order to send them where we will never go in order that someone will hear the gospel, that we will never meet until that great marriage supper of the lamb. There's an affection that that comes. Paul's gratitude to the Ephesians is rich. It's, it, it's so clear. What what did it mean to those elders to receive a summons from the Apostle Paul? And, and then to have the Apostle Paul say, I can't see the whole church. I must go to Jerusalem. But even as I can't see the whole church, I can call you here to be with me.

(46:08):
And I want you to go back to the church and share the affection, the bonds of affection, the, the, the affection language. You know, he, here, here's one of the true signs of, of a denomination being Christlike. We love one another. The, the, this is something that perhaps we need to say to ourselves really, really carefully and concertedly and emphatically in this time. There was a time when Southern Baptist thought that affection would hold us together when we, we could give less attention to the theology. Well, brothers and sisters, I think the danger is now when we could get all the theology right and not love one another. And, and, and this text makes very, very clear that there's no justification for a ministry, no justification for a denomination, no justification for a lack of affection and, and respect and love. So I'll just tell you, I hope and pray that someone cares when I die.

(47:18):
I, I hope and, and pray that I, I I I hope that will, that will not seem release to those who are around me, but lost. I I hope if I ever have the opportunity to say, you're never going to see my face again. I, I, I, I hope that those brothers and sisters knowing that I am going where the Lord has called me to go, will walk with me to the ship. There are many dimensions of faithfulness. We've hardly scraped the surface just in considering theological faithfulness, moral faithfulness, evangelistic faithfulness, and congregational faithfulness. But let's remember the chronology here. Let's just remember as we conclude that it all depends on how we finish. And the Apostle Postal clear about this. And now behold, I am going to Jerusalem constrained by the Spirit, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city than imprisonment. And afflictions await me. I think that's the Apostle Paul saying, if I'm gonna be arrested, I'd rather it be in Jerusalem.

(48:32):
I'm headed there. But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself. But only if I may finish my course in the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. Brothers and sisters, I come from Louisville to say to you, thank you that we would encourage one another to faithfulness in this life and this work in this ministry to be thankful to God. That the Lord has allowed us to be a part of what God is doing through Southern Baptists and what you are doing through the Alabama Baptist Convention, to be thankful for your churches, and thankful for your preachers, and thankful for the bonds of affection that, that pull you together. And I do hope, I do fervently hope that I will get to see you again. But you know, let's just be honest.

(49:26):
If the Lord allows that to happen, we will not all see each other again. E e every convention. When your, your state convention meets together, it's like a snapshot. And by the time you meet the next time, there will be people who have gone to be with the Lord. And, and praise be to God. There're gonna be new people who can't spell Alabama Baptist Convention right now, but are going to be reached by one of those churches. Perhaps you've planted or, or reached on one of the college campuses through the Baptist Student Union or, or reached through one of your churches. And, and they're gonna show up at the state convention and they're gonna sing songs they never heard before because they know Jesus and they don't even know one now. But brothers and sisters, as honored as I am to be with you, let us be determined as Southern Baptists together, that so long as the Lord allows us, we're gonna work together and love together and believe together and preach together. And if the Lord allows, if we do not get to see one another again in the confidence of the gospel of Jesus Christ, we will walk each other to the ship.

Mitchell Bruce (50:35):
Thanks for listening to the Messages podcast. Stay up to date on all of our future messages. You can hear live by visiting als b om.org. This ministry was made possible by gifts from Alabama Baptist through the cooperative program.