We must not lay stress on our service, as if it deserved our hire. When we have done all, we are unprofitable servants. Indeed, though He say, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” yet our reply ought to be, “When saw we thee hungry, and fed thee?”

Moses, the great leader of God’s people in the Old Testament, was characterised above all by his meekness. His brave leadership in exceedingly testing circumstances was marked neither by harshness nor self-aggrandizing. Although it subverts worldly ideas of what a strong leader looks like, those who want to be the greatest in Christ’s church have to be servants, and serve God by serving others. In the following excerpt from one of his sermons, the godly pastor Alexander Wedderburn explores the huge dignity that belonged to Moses when God called him, after his death, simply, “My servant.”
Commendations for God’s servants.
The great testimony of God to Moses is, “my servant.” It is the highest commendation of a man after his death, that in his life he was God’s servant. It is true, all the creatures are in their kind subservient, and God’s greatest enemies do His work. But to be “His” by way of distinction or propriety, as Moses is said to be, is a man’s greatest eulogy in death.
In Scripture, “servant” is the name given to the most eminent saints as their title of greatest honour. Think of “Abraham my servant,” “Job my servant,” “Jacob my servant,” “David my servant.” The greatest prophets and apostles glory in it; Paul, for example, prefixes it to some of his epistles, “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ.” This name is also given to the greatest princes, such as Nebuchadnezzar, head of the Assyrian empire (Jer. 25:9) and Cyrus, head of the Persian empire (Isa. 45). It is given to the excellent martyrs (Rev. 19:2), to the saints in glory (Rev. 22:3), and to the blessed angels (Rev. 19:10). Lastly, this name is given to Jesus the Mediator, “Behold my Servant …” (Isa. 42:1). When you see all these uses of the name laid together, it shows what an eminent testimony of honour it is.
Many things are fixed on in the world, as things which commend people after their death, according to the diversity of their lives. Some have been commended for their honour, some their courage, some their wisdom, some their riches. Where there is a concatenation of these, how eminently commendable that person must be! Well, in spending your life in service to God, a multitude of these concur. How deservedly then is a servant of God commended!
There is wisdom in being God’s servant.
It is the highest wisdom. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and a good understanding have all they that do His commandments. Moses is brief in determining what wisdom consists in. “Keep his statutes, for this is your wisdom” (Deut. 4:6). Yea, where His service is absent, the Scripture speaks of men as fools. Since they have rejected the word of God, what wisdom is in them? (Jer. 8:9) The foolish virgins are foolish indeed, to make no provision for the time to come. Though they should be able, with the philosophers, to dispute de omni re scibili (about every knowable thing), or, with Solomon, to traverse nature from the cedar to the hyssop (1 Kings 4:33), yet he who does not walk circumspectly is a fool (Eph. 5:16).
There is honour in being God’s servant.
There is no trade of life so honourable as to serve God. “The way of life is above to the wise” (Prov. 15:24). There are four things which show how honourable a service it is.
First, they are taken up with the noblest objects. Philosophers call their metaphysics the most noble science, because it deals with the highest beings. God’s servants, like Caleb, constantly follow Him (Num. 14).
Next, they act from the noblest principles. Love constrains them, and indeed, by regeneration, they partake of the divine nature (2 Pet. 1), which elevates the spirit far above what the most famous among the Greeks or Romans could ever reach.
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Written by R. Scott Clark |
Wednesday, July 27, 2022
Paul was “set apart” for the Good News that Christ has saved sinners. Christ justifies sinners. He sanctifies sinners and he glorifies sinners by sola gratia, sola fide. Does that scandalize you? That is a warning sign, is it not? If it scandalizes you, if that sounds a little Antinomian to you, then perhaps you are not yet a gospel-man like Paul.

Paul Was A Gospel Man
Gospel means good news and Paul was a “gospel man.” I am uncertain where I first heard this expression but it is a good expression because it captures a basic orientation to the faith. There are those Christians who are perpetually glum, whether about the state of the world (this is a big pothole into which it is easy to fall) or about the state of their sins. To be sure, there are plenty of examples in the Psalms and elsewhere of believers reckoning with both and crying out to the Lord, but there is a difference between realism and honesty before the Lord and others about the state of things or the state of one’s soul and perpetual, relentless misery. I am increasingly convinced that those whose spiritual environment (e.g., church, Christian friends, the spiritual culture in which one lives) is dominated by the law (e.g., “do this” “you need to get better at that”) tend toward glumness. Eeyore (the fictional donkey in Winnie the Pooh) is amusing because he represents such a contrast to the generally upbeat characters in the stories. Christopher Robin is generally cheery. Of course, Pooh, so long has he has had his honey, is cheery. Eeyore is the exception and we only have to bear with him briefly.
A gospel-oriented spiritual culture makes a real difference in a congregation and in one’s outlook generally. Paul was a gospel-oriented Christian. To be a gospel-man, of course, means that one is utterly committed to the Good News of Jesus Christ. Paul was that. He brooked no corruption of the good news by anyone, not even by a fellow apostle (e.g., Peter. See Gal. 2:11–14). When the Apostle Peter compromised the gospel by refusing to eat with Gentile Christians (for fear of offending the Judaizers), the Apostle Paul rebuked him publicly and to good effect. If the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15) happened after the rebuke, then we see the fruit of it. Peter stoutly defended the gospel against the Judaizers and insisted on their full inclusion into the visible church. After all, in Christ the dividing wall (contra the Dispensationalists) has been torn down (Eph. 2:11‐22). In Christ there is no Jew nor Gentile (Col 3:11; Gal. 3:28–29).
Because he was a gospel-man, Paul preached the Good News. He preached the law in its three uses (pedagogical, civil—contra the theocrats, we never see him calling any magistrate to enforce the 1st table—and the normative, i.e., as the rule of the Christian life) but the thing that got him into trouble with the civil authorities, with the Jews, and with some Christians was that he was relentless about preaching the good news. We may infer from Romans 6:1 that some were accusing him of antinomianism. “The Doctor,” Martyn Lloyd-Jones, is famous for his comments on Romans 6:1:
If your presentation of the Gospel does not expose it to the charge of Antinomianism, you are probably not putting it correctly. What do I mean by that? Just this: The Gospel, you see, comes as this free gift of God–irrespective of what man does. Now, the moment you say a thing like that, you are liable to provoke somebody to say, “Well, if that is so it doesn’t matter what I do.” The Apostle takes up that argument more than once in this great epistle. “What then,” he says at the beginning of chapter 6, “shall we do evil–commit sin–that grace might abound?”… So, let all of us test our preaching, our conversation, our talk to others about the Gospel by that particular test…If you don’t make people say things like that sometimes, if you’re not misunderstood and slanderously reported from the standpoint of Antinomianism, it’s because you don’t believe the Gospel truly and you don’t preach it truly.
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It might seem strange that the confession’s teaching on providence deals mainly with its darker side. Of course, everything the confession says about God’s redemption of humanity could also be considered under the heading of providence. But providence does often rattle our faith. Yes, our heavenly Father providentially cares for his children (Matt. 6:25–34). But sometimes his care feels lacking. How can we make sense of providence when God leaves “his own children to manifold temptations, and the corruption of their own hearts”? 

God “works all things according to the counsel of his will” (Eph. 1:11). We study God’s decree—his eternal plan—to grapple with his sovereign foreknowledge. We reflect on God’s providence—his working all things—to appreciate his present involvement in our world. God has not left us to fend for ourselves.
Still, the relation of God’s decree and his ongoing work in this world raises challenging questions. We wonder how providence affects human choices. We struggle to relate providence to human sin. And, if God works all things for the good of the church, why does providence sometimes seem hard even for Christians? We can’t answer all these questions to the satisfaction of our curiosity. We can’t perfectly harmonize Scripture’s teaching on how a good God can be totally in charge of a broken world. But trying to understand God’s work in our world can help us develop more mature trust in him.
How Does God’s Providence Work? (5.1–3, 7)
“God, the great Creator of all things doth uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things.” The living Word who created everything still “upholds the universe by the word of his power” (Heb. 1:3). Nothing is outside of God’s control. King Nebuchadnezzar learned the hard way that God “Does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, ‘What have you done?’” (Dan. 4:35). The king discovered that “the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will” (32). Truly God is “the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords.” To him belongs “eternal dominion” (1 Tim. 6:15–16).
Because God is the “First Cause” of everything, even “second causes” are under his control. God is involved even when his hand is invisible. Nothing can evolve independently or be emancipated from the Creator. God commonly uses means to work his will. Skilled doctors are merely instruments in the great Physician’s hands. But God isn’t bound to means. God can work without means, as when Jesus raised Lazarus with his mere voice (John 11:43–44). God can work above means, as when he provided a son for aged Abraham and barren Sarah. God can work against means, as when he preserved his servants in a fiery furnace (Dan. 3:27).
And God’s providence is not only sovereign, it is also good. He governs according to his perfect “wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy.” No one else has a fraction of the qualifications to unfold world history. And God’s goal is perfect. God’s providence brings him glory and promotes the good of the church. We can’t always see how. But we believe that he will glorify himself (Lev. 10:3) and that, because of his rich love for the church, he will, at the close of history, present her to himself perfect (Eph. 5:25–27).
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