Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in . . . conduct. (1 Timothy 4:12)

My brother pastor, this tragic world has no idea how much you’re worth. But in the eyes of the risen Christ, you so matter. You carry weight with him, and you can carry weight with the people in your church. And this gravitas has nothing to do with your age.

If the ministry makes you feel inadequate, welcome to the ministry! Even the prophet Jeremiah felt that way. But the Lord told Jeremiah to stop his defeatist thoughts: “Do not say, ‘I am only a youth’; for to all to whom I send you, you shall go, and whatever I command you, you shall speak” (Jeremiah 1:7). And then God reached out and put his own words in Jeremiah’s mouth (Jeremiah 1:9). Why? Because what matters more than your mouth is whose words are in your mouth.

And, remember, your calling is to pastor, not only to preach. These two primary tasks are inseparable but distinguishable. Preaching declares gospel doctrine, and pastoring nurtures gospel culture. When the pastor’s message is good news, and his manner is gentle warmth, “church” can start feeling like an experience of Jesus himself. And it’s exemplary pastoral conduct, surrounding both preaching and pastoring, that leads people into those green pastures and beside those still waters.

You don’t have to be brilliant, but you must be exemplary. First Timothy 4:12 says so. And how could it be otherwise? We can think of gifted ministers whose shameful conduct has discredited them and grieved us all. The whole world, along with the entire Christian church, has every right to expect us to be surprisingly exemplary in this age of corruption. Brother, let’s stand tall with Christlike integrity, as true-hearted men of God. If we corrupt ourselves, we, like King David, will give “great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme” (2 Samuel 12:14 NKJV). So much is at stake right here: “Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in . . . conduct.”

Pastoring in ‘Little’ Moments

Conduct, in the original text, suggests your multifaceted lifestyle, your many moments on many fronts, your total way of life in all its variety. This word covers all your interactions with people, all aspects of your job performance, all occasions of family life and leisure. George Abbot-Smith’s Manual Greek Lexicon catches the sense with “a wheeling about” — that is, a turning from one moment to the next as each day unfolds.

The whole-life-ness of conduct reminds me of one way I’ve changed over the years. Back in college, all my friends were reading The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. So I took it up too. But I couldn’t stick with it. The story unfolded so slowly, with one subplot after another slowing the onward movement of the drama. I started thinking, “Get to the point!” In my impatience, I gave up. That was in the 1970s.

Then the summer before the first LOTR movie came out in 2001, I tried again. I wanted my own imagination to paint the pictures. And this time, I couldn’t put the books down. Why? Tolkien hadn’t changed. I had changed. I had come to realize, by my fifties, that my real life is just like Tolkien’s portrayal — one tiny subplot after another, but each one meaningful within the larger story. I now understand that all my tiny moments are building toward the final denouement promised by God. So, I get it. Many small moments are how our lives actually work. They are where our conduct is formed and displayed. They matter.

The Book of Common Prayer gets us praying that “among the swift and varied changes of this world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found.” Exactly. That’s the realism, and the hope, empowering exemplary pastoral conduct.

Your Life Can Persuade

Let’s admit it. In lots of moments, ministry can feel insignificant. But your little moments are not little. Each one fits meaningfully into your story, as told by the Lord Jesus. Every meeting, every conversation, every quiet minute of study — all of it constitutes your conduct, declares your character, and can inspire your congregation. So, think long-term, and be patient. If God isn’t rushing around in a hurry, why should you? Over time, your exemplary conduct, growing into a magnificent totality, is convincing. You will win the respect of good people.

“Over time, your exemplary conduct, growing into a magnificent totality, is convincing.”

Yes, sadly, some church people will never respect you. But most others will be reasonable and will admire your example. They will feel proud that you are their pastor. You will prove the wisdom of saintly old J.C. Ryle: “Your life is an argument that none can escape.”

Now let’s get practical. As in my last article on exemplary speech, let’s see how Titus 2:2 can help us: “Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled.” The “older men” are the grown-ups in the room. Your conduct can make you one of those heroes right now. Whatever your age, you can help set the tone for everyone else.

SOBER-MINDED

The exemplary pastor’s conduct is calm. He strides forward with gentle confidence. It isn’t bravado. It is sober realism. You are, in fact, serving the One who has all authority in heaven and on earth. You have no right to be inflated with pride or crippled with fear. The Lord of the universe called you into the ministry. He has been preparing you all your life for the duties and challenges of this very day. You’re more ready than you feel. Dare to believe it. And go do the next right thing.

“The exemplary pastor’s conduct is calm. He strides forward with gentle confidence.”

You can be a mature father-figure in your church. And good fathers know what to do, what to say, as the occasion requires. Then the other family members feel reassured, safe, grateful. What a wonderful calling your Lord has given you! You don’t have to deserve it, but you do have to receive it. Your exemplary conduct proves to your people that “Papa’s home.”

DIGNIFIED

The exemplary pastor’s conduct is noble. The longer I live, the more I desire this in my own life. That title “Reverend” before your name calls for this very quality of dignity, nobility, honor. I have no respect for pompous grandiosity in a minister. But gravitas — I revere it, and I expect it.

Is there laughter in the ministry? Oh, yes! How lovely a sound is the hearty laughter of the saints! But infantile silliness, common in our declining culture, deserves no place among the blood-bought people of God. We worship here below in harmony with “angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven,” as the Book of Common Prayer reminds us. Please, brother, show your church, by your exemplary conduct, what that dignity can look like — even this Sunday.

SELF-CONTROLLED

The exemplary pastor’s conduct is steady. Maybe at times you notice some unruly emotions inside you, as I do inside me. That bad neighborhood between our two ears can be a crazy place to dwell in. Our dark thoughts and feelings can dominate us, even defeat us. But godly men fight back. They dare to live in Spirit-given self-control.

Why not go to a trusted friend at church to talk and pray through together what most unsettles you? No one grows in isolation, not even pastors. But all of us can walk in newness of life by going to a wise friend with this humble request: “Help me see myself.” Who wouldn’t benefit from that? Your vulnerability itself will be exemplary conduct. And you will grow in the steady self-mastery that adorns the gospel you preach.

Exemplary or Cool?

The great thing about being 73 and half-dead is that I’m not cool anymore. It’s freeing. I don’t have to project an idealized false Ray. I can get over myself and love others. And here is my plea to you, my brother pastor: Why not enter that freedom right now, at your younger age? You can be exemplary in your conduct, by God’s grace, at a level that surprises even you.

Rolling Stone magazine interviewed Billy Joel back in 1990. Here’s a snippet of what he said:

I need substance in my life. And the world needs substance. The world doesn’t need any more hip. Hip is dead. The world doesn’t need more cool, more clever. The world needs substantial things.

The world needs substantial pastors too. That’s what I believe. It’s what you believe. Okay then: set the believers an example in your conduct.

In the winter of 2001, I was a sophomore at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina.

As a freshman, I had become part of a ministry called Campus Outreach. Its theology was called “Reformed,” which I did not grow up with. In my teens, I heard talk about God being “sovereign,” but I had never wrestled with the extent of his sovereignty — that he was sovereign over all, over good and evil, over angels and demons, over sunny days and natural disasters, over my good deeds and my sin, and (most uncomfortably) over my own will and choices. But once I saw the verses, dozens of them (if not hundreds), I couldn’t deny that the Bible taught that God’s sovereignty was absolute, over all, no exceptions.

But what I also knew from two decades of human life, and from dozens (if not hundreds) of verses, is that I was accountable. I had thoughts and feelings. I had a will and made real decisions that mattered and had consequences. So, how do I reconcile these two — not just my experience versus what the Bible says, but what the Bible says versus what the Bible says?

So, that winter of 2001, a pastor from Minnesota, named John Piper, spoke at our Campus Outreach New Year’s conference in Atlanta, and not long after that event, I visited desiringGod.org to look for more messages.

There I listened to a sermon he had preached that Christmas Eve. And this one message put together for me — so clearly and memorably — how these major theological truths of God’s sovereignty and my human responsibility come together in my everyday Christian life and experience. The sermon was on the end of Romans 6 (verses 22–23), but at a key moment, Piper flipped over to Philippians 2:12–13 to explain this real-life dynamic. As he did so, lights went on for me one after another.

So, 23 years later, it’s personally significant for me to be assigned these verses, and I pray that for some in this room, new lights might go on like they did for me in those days. How the truth of God’s sovereignty and his choices relates to my responsibility and my choices, in fighting against sin and for Christlikeness, doesn’t all come together at once. Much of it is a lifetime journey. Yet, for me, there was a particular sermon, and a particular text — Philippians 2:12–13 — where new categories were created that have deeply affected my everyday life.

Humbled and Exalted

Last Sunday, we stood in awe at the foot of the mountain of Christ’s accomplishment for us in Philippians 2:5–11. First, he chose to become man. He did not cling to the comforts of heaven, but he emptied himself of that privilege. Precisely because he was God, gracious and merciful, full of steadfast love and faithfulness, he took on our creatureliness and limitations, and the pains and frustrations of our fallen world. His emptying himself was not an emptying of his deity, as if that were possible, but it was a taking, as verse 7 says. His emptying came through addition of humanity, not subtraction of deity. He

emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (verses 7–8)

Then came that amazing “therefore” in verse 9: “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name.” In the biblical pattern of self-humbling from Exodus to the Epistles, Jesus stands at the center as our greatest example: he humbled himself, and therefore God exalted him. Jesus went down, down, down: human, death, the cross. And his Father brought him up: up from the grave, up in the ascension, up to the very throne of heaven. So we walked through three truths about the example of Jesus.

Which leads us right into verses 12–18, and how Paul turns from Jesus’s obedience and his reward to ours. So this morning, we look at three truths about our following his example. Or how we become like Jesus.

1. We follow the one who obeyed and was rewarded.

There is a second huge “therefore” in Philippians 2. The first one was verse 9. Jesus humbled himself; therefore God exalted him. Now, verse 12: in light of Jesus’s self-humbling and God’s exalting him, therefore . . .

I can see at least two ways this “therefore” works in verse 12. One is the straightforward charge He is Lord; therefore obey. God has highly exalted Jesus. Now his name is above every name, and at his name every knee should bow and every tongue confess he is Lord. Therefore, Christians, obey. Simple as that. He is Lord; we are servants. He says it; we do it. Children obey their parents; servants obey their masters; and all the more, creatures, obey your Creator, and Christians, your Lord.

But there’s also another way this “therefore” works: as an appeal to desire, as a pattern and promise of reward. I say that because the word “obedient” just appeared in verse 8 (and “obey” in verse 12). Jesus was “obedient to the point of death,” and because he obeyed, he was rewarded. Therefore, Christians, obey like Jesus so that you might be rewarded like Jesus. Humble yourself, like he did, that you too might be exalted.

Which is crazy countercultural for self-exalting sinners! We want to be exalted, so what do we do? Exalt ourselves: in our own minds, in our words and humble brags, in what we post online, in how we angle for opportunities. And God says to us in our folly, “No, sinners. I do the exalting. Exalt yourself, and I’ll humble you. But humble yourself, and I will exalt you.”

So, “therefore” in verse 12 is an appeal to desire and a profound glimpse into what it meant for Jesus to endure the cross “for the joy set before him” (Hebrews 12:2). As man, Jesus humbled himself, obeying to the point of death, by looking to the joy of being exalted by his Father. And so too for us as we obey him. Christian obedience is not from sheer duty and force of will. We obey for the joy set before us.

And Paul puts his own joy on display in verses 17–18. Jump down there:

Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering [this is his self-humbling obedience] upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me.

Paul calls the Philippians’ obedience “the sacrificial offering of your faith.” This is like Romans 12:1: the Christian life of faith “as a living sacrifice.” God’s people no longer offer slaughtered animals as sacrifices, as they did under the first covenant, but offer themselves, all they are, their whole lives, in obedience to him. This is what Paul is giving his life to: that Christians — like the saints in Philippi, and like us — would be living sacrifices, obedient to Christ.

“Don’t presume that God will defeat your sins while you’re passive. And don’t presume to fight sin on your own.”

And Paul, in prison in Rome for his labor, says to them, “Even if I die in this prison, I rejoice.” The pursuit of joy got him into prison, and joy will be his if he never makes it out of prison — because he looks forward to the reward of being with Christ and having worked for others’ joy in Christ. And in this joy, Paul casts his work in self-humbling terms. The Philippians’ lives of obedience are the main sacrifice, and his labor is just the drink offering, the side offering, the supplement to their healthy, obedient Christian lives.

So, first, like Paul and like Jesus, we obey our Lord in joy, anticipating reward. We follow the one who obeyed and was rewarded.

2. We work out the salvation he worked for.

Now, the rest of verse 12:

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling . . .

So, the obedience that Christ, through Paul, is calling for here is “work out your own salvation.” I realize that sounds like nails on a chalkboard for some ears. If so, perhaps I could just warn you: this might feel uncomfortable for a few minutes. Remember, we’re praying for biblical categories. And to get there, we may need to sit in the challenge of this “work out your own salvation.” It’s in the Bible. And this is a good translation. The Greek doesn’t fix our discomfort but might only make us cringe a little bit more. What if we said, “produce your own salvation,” or “give rise to your own salvation,” or “grind out your own salvation”?

As we sit in this tension, it’s okay to remember Christ’s obedience on the front end and underneath — and in just a few minutes, we’ll see that we have even more help on the back end. But we need to linger here. Just because there’s help in front and back doesn’t mean our lives in the middle aren’t real. We need to stay here in the call and dignity of the Christian life to be, to think, to feel, to will, to act. God is sovereign, and we are responsible.

This word for “work out” is a typical word for “work” but with an intensifying prefix. The kind of work we’re getting at here is not just overflow. Some work feels effortless. But this work means expending effort. It’s the kind of work that requires effort to move inward desires into outward acts. In other places, this word is translated “produce” or “accomplish” or “perform.”

So, this is not just overflow. It requires counting, reckoning, considering (as in verses 3, 5, and 6). There is effort to be given, energy to be expended, work to be done. “Work out your salvation,” Paul says. Not “work for” — Jesus uniquely worked for our salvation in verses 5–11 — but now we “work it out.”

Our Gift and Duty

An important question to ask at this point is, Salvation from what? Paul implies the Philippians need deliverance, but from what? Well, what’s clearly at stake in chapter 2, going back to 1:27, is their unity (their fellowship, their relationships in the church). Paul says he longs to hear that they “are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel.” And 2:2: “Complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.” He’s saying that because, at present, they’re not that. Then verse 3: “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit.” Note that: two specific sins from which the Philippians and we need deliverance — selfish ambition and conceit.

And Paul has more specifics to give in verse 14: “Do all things without grumbling or disputing.” Okay, so now we have at least four specific sins from which Paul says to “work out your salvation.” Want it, will it, act it, produce it. Christ died to save you from grumbling — from constant complaining and criticizing and scoffing and wallowing. He died to deliver you from petty disputes. So, trust him and don’t grumble. Trust him and be free from disputing.

The new category this leads to is this: the Christian life is both gift and duty. Fighting sin is both a gift from God and a duty we act. Increasing holiness is both gift and duty. It is a gift of grace we receive from Jesus, and the way we receive a grace that involves our own thoughts and desires and actions is by having the thoughts and desires and doing the actions. That is, living out the gift, or working out your salvation.

Look over to Philippians 3:12. Two of the best texts for getting this dynamic of the Christian life as both gift and duty are right here in Philippians. So, first 2:12–13. Now 3:12:

Not that I have already obtained this [resurrection to eternal life] or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.

This is so important in getting the order right between God’s working and ours. Paul says, “I press on to make it my own” — I count, I will, I act, I choose righteousness, I fight sin, I press on. Why? “Because Christ Jesus has made me his own.” Mark this: I don’t become his by pressing on. Rather, because I am his, because he already took hold of me, I strive and strain and press on. He worked for my salvation. Now I work it out over sin. (Other key texts that show this gift-and-duty dynamic: Hebrews 13:20–21; Romans 15:18; 1 Corinthians 15:10.)

The Christian life is grace from beginning to end. Some graces we receive instead of our effort and action (justification), and some graces we receive as our effort and action.

Look, Trust, Pray, Act

This leads us to verse 13. But let me first try to make this more practical. Let me take you back to my time at Furman University. Now it’s the fall of 2002, my senior year, and I’m trying to figure out what to do after graduation. And I am awash in anxiety. I didn’t remember being so anxious in my life before then, and I don’t remember being as anxious since.

So, I needed deliverance from anxiety. What do I do? Just wait? How do you seek to be free from oppressive anxiety when God is sovereign and you are responsible? As one who is justified by faith in Jesus, how do I work out my salvation? First, I need truth to work with. I need a specific word to believe. So I found three biblical promises about anxiety:

Do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. (Matthew 6:34)

Humble yourselves . . . under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. (1 Peter 5:6–7)

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:6–7)

I printed them out, posted them next to my bed, and reviewed them every morning when I woke up and every night when I went to sleep. And (with Christ before me and his Spirit in me), I worked out the grace of my deliverance from anxiety. God gave me the gift of deliverance from the dominance of anxiety in that season. And that doesn’t mean I don’t still fight anxiety as it comes in new ways in new times and seasons of life. But I know how to fight: recognize it, address it with promises of reward, pray for help, and act.

So whether it’s sinful anxiety, selfish ambition and conceit, grumbling and disputing, or sinful anger or lust or greed, work out the deliverance Christ has worked for you. Don’t presume that God will defeat your sins while you’re passive. And don’t presume to fight sin on your own. Look to the sovereign Christ, trust his promises, pray for his help, and act the miracle you seek to have from him.

Shining Unity

And just to comment very quickly on verses 15–16: I think Paul has in mind the relationship between unity in the church and witness in the world like he did in 1:27–28. There he said that our “standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel” leads to the church “not [being] frightened in anything by your opponents” — and this is “a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation.” In working out our salvation against the relationship-killing sins of selfish ambition, conceit, grumbling, and disputing, we come to stand out “in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation.” Unified in Jesus, we “shine as lights in the world.” How? “Holding fast to the word of life,” that is, the message about true life, eternal life — the life and death of Jesus in place of our death to give us life.

So, if ever you find yourself discouraged about the “crooked and twisted generation” in which you find yourself, remember two truths from Philippians 2: (1) this is nothing new for Christianity (this is how it usually is in this age), and (2) grumbling and disputing are not the Christian response. But exactly the opposite. The Christian response is this: hold fast to our word of life, work out our salvation from grumbling and disputing, and shine as lights in the world, not as more of the same darkness.

What about that last phrase in verse 12, “with fear and trembling”? Now our third and final truth.

3. We have his Spirit at work in us.

We finish with the end of verse 12 and with verse 13:

Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

What in the world could Paul mean here by “with fear and trembling”? Perhaps “fear and trembling” sounds only negative in your ears. Fear and trembling — yikes. How about “with hope and joy”? Why fear and trembling?

Scripture has a broader vision for inward fear and outward trembling than modern people do. Throughout the Bible, “fear and trembling” is what wise, in-touch, healthy humans do when they find themselves in the presence of God almighty. Like Moses at Mount Sinai, as we saw in Hebrews 12:21: “I tremble with fear.” And Paul talks about how the Corinthians received Titus as a messenger from Christ “with fear and trembling” (2 Corinthians 7:15).

Or perhaps most instructive of all is the way the Gospel of Mark ends: with the women who found the tomb empty and heard from the angel, “He has risen; he is not here.” Mark 16:8: “They went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them.” Or, as Matthew 28:8 reports, “They departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy.”

“Fear and trembling” is not only the response of someone taken aback by great horror, but also of someone struck with great joy. It’s the response of a believing heart in the presence of God himself — and it’s the appropriate response of a Christian who learns that God himself has come to dwell in me.

Verse 13 provides, essentially, a threefold confidence for us as we expend energy and effort to obey our Lord and live the Christian life. So, as we close, let me turn to verse 13 and address it to you.

First, brothers and sisters in Christ, you have God in you! How awesome to have the Holy Spirit, poured out on us, sent into our hearts, dwelling in us, leading us, working in us. You are not on your own to fight against sin and for Christlikeness. You have God in you! This is no standard joy. This is cause for fear and trembling.

Second, he is in you not only to will but even to work. God works in us to (will and) work our work. He gives us new desires and willing, and even then, he doesn’t leave us to ourselves. He is in us to prompt, to lead, to empower, to execute our working out those holy desires through the exertion of effort.

Third, all this stands on the rock of God’s own joy, his delight, his good pleasure. He is not reluctant in helping us fight sin and pursue Christlikeness. He is happy to do it, thrilled to do it. He delights to do it. He works in us, in our willing, in our working, for his good pleasure. We work with the grain of God’s own joy when we work out our deliverance from sin.

So, we close with this question: What sin or sins came to mind this morning in our time of silent confession? Or, what do you most often confess week after week? Brothers and sisters, don’t just say it again, move on, continue in sin, and make empty confession again and again. Work out your salvation. Act the miracle. With Jesus before you and beneath you, and his Spirit in you and through you — hemmed in on every side by his grace — work out your salvation. Will it, work it, act it, do it — with prayerful dependence in every step.

Jesus Willed and Worked

What makes possible our having the Holy Spirit at work in us to will and work is that first the Spirit was at work in Christ to will and to work. How he worked for the joy set before him is an example we follow. How he worked by the Spirit is imitable. But what he accomplished at the cross for us is inimitable.

At this Table, we do not mainly remember Jesus as our example but as the one who worked for us in a way in which we could not work for ourselves.

That Sunday evening, between the hours of 7:00 and 9:15, is permanently etched into my memory banks. I was 17 and had just arrived in Aberdeen, “The Granite City” (as it has long been known because so many of its buildings and houses are constructed of gray granite).

I was there to begin my studies at the university. I had never seen it before and knew almost nothing about it. But my first duty was already on my mind: “When Sinclair goes to Aberdeen,” an acquaintance of my father had said to him, “tell him to go to hear Willie Still of Gilcomston South Church — he gives great Bible readings.” Following up on that suggestion has left a permanent mark on my life and, I trust, on my ministry.

First Service at the ‘Gilc’

I had never heard of Willie Still and had no idea where Gilcomston South Church might be — “Gilc,” as I later discovered people referred to it. And as for “Bible readings” — I had no real concept of what they were. But having attended morning worship at the college chapel, I walked into the town center to find out where “Gilc” was, came back to my residence for a meal, and returned at the stated hour of 7:00 for the evening service.

Around 7:25, after singing and two prayers, a seemingly elderly, balding figure in the distant pulpit began to read from the Old Testament. He took around half an hour to read through two chapters, interspersing the reading with a variety of fascinating comments (he did not know then, I suspect, that the Westminster Assembly’s Directory for Public Worship frowned on such interruptions to the reading of the sacred text!).

Then we sang a hymn. I stood standing at the end of the last verse, but realized everyone else was sitting down. Assuming this was a signal that instead of a benediction there would be a closing prayer, I bowed my head and closed my eyes. It took only a second or two, however, to realize that the words I was hearing were not the opening words of a prayer but the first words of a sermon. An hour and fifteen minutes later, he pronounced a vigorous “Amen! Let us sing hymn number . . .” — and then, at last, the benediction.

A “Bible Reading,” I realized after a few weeks, was not what Mr. Still had done earlier in the service. It was evangelical speak for systematic exposition, what is traditionally referred to as the lectio continua approach to biblical exposition. That approach is now so common that many have little idea how novel it seemed in the post-war English-speaking world.

I was shy and socially a little awkward (only a little?). It was another eighteen months before I spoke to him for the first time.

Meeting Mr. Still

Born in 1911, Mr. Still became minister of Gilcomston South Church in 1945. He remained there for over fifty years. He was my minister for six years and remained a mentor and friend until his death in 1997.

It would be difficult to calculate what I owe to Mr. Still. We were very differently wired. His preaching style was not one I could have or should have imitated — perhaps mercifully. Because of illness, he had received little or no formal education between his early teens and his mid-twenties. That lacuna left its mark on the way he thought — rarely, it seemed, in a straight logical line, although on many occasions he would follow a biblical-theological line through the whole Bible in order to bring depth to the passage from which he was preaching. I often thought that listening to him was like watching a deep-sea diver disappear into the water, eventually surfacing with a precious pearl in hand.

His conduct of worship was one of his spiritual gifts — “bathed in prayer,” as he often said. The church met for prayer on Saturday evenings, summoned by the weekly Lord’s Day announcement, “The elders will meet for prayer at 7:00 and the congregation at 7:30.” The meeting usually concluded just before ten o’clock in the evening — but in those hours it was often difficult to get a word in edgeways, such was the flow of prayer.

I have sometimes likened that gathering to a helicopter ride round the globe, dropping down in places I had never heard of to intercede for the advance of the kingdom and people of God there. To be in the services the following morning and evening was evidence enough of God drawing near to those who draw near to him. We were, as young students, often bowed down in “wonder, love, and praise” at the end of the services.

“Mr. Still delighted to bring out new treasures, and he never tired of putting again on display treasures that were old.”

It is not possible in brief compass to describe Mr. Still’s ministry in detail. His approach is well summarized in his little book The Work of the Pastor. I have heard numbers of men who never met or heard him comment on this book’s impact on their own ministries. Some of the recurring themes in his preaching are expressed in his Towards Spiritual Maturity, not least what he often referred to as “the three dimensions of the Cross” — Christ’s atoning work dealing with sins (plural), sin (its reign), and Satan (our ultimate enemy). As he liked occasionally to put it, Christ dealt with “the root, the fruit, and the Brute!”

Somehow — I think under the earlier influence of authors probably more pietistic than Reformed — he had grasped the Pauline emphasis on the death and resurrection of Christ as not only the foundation for our justification, but the ground plan and pattern for the whole of the Christian life (“Many deaths and resurrections for us,” as he would have put it). Significantly, his brief autobiographical book is entitled Dying to Live.

Poring Over, Pouring Out

Here there is space to reflect on only one particular lesson that I hope I learned from him — although I should emphasize that this was not because he spoke to me about it with any frequency (he “mentored” not in the modern vogue of “discipling,” but — at least in my own view — in a more biblical pattern of friendship). He modeled for us what it means to pour the word of God into people’s lives. This was the focus of his whole ministry — feeding the flock of God whether in his preaching, pastoral visiting, pastoral counseling, or pastoral writing to and for them.

This last dimension he developed in the congregation’s Monthly Record, which included an extensive pastoral letter, news of the congregation and the much larger “congregation” beyond who were upheld in prayer, and Daily Bible Reading Notes that he wrote himself. By the end of a ministry that extended through six decades, he had probably preached and written his way through the entire Bible three times.

I use the word pour deliberately here. It actually began with his own poring over God’s word. He loved it deeply and obviously. And the poring over of his own study and meditation (never one without the other) emerged in his pouring out what he had learned for himself. In that respect, he was a “scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven,” who “is like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old” (Matthew 13:52). He delighted to bring out new treasures, and he never tired of putting again on display treasures that were old. But what struck me preeminently was the sense that the poring over and the pouring out were conveyed by what I can describe only as a pouring in of God’s word — into the minds and hearts of the congregation he served.

He certainly loved the word and studying it. I think that he did indeed love to preach. We are accustomed to seeing both of these characteristics in many preachers. But on their own, they do not constitute the same quality of pouring in. They lack a third essential ingredient for true ministry — namely, pouring into the people to whom one preaches “the affection of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:8) in the understanding that “the aim of our charge is love,” not merely knowledge (1 Timothy 1:5).

Preaching with Depth

Mr. Still had come to recognize long before I met him that what is requisite for such a ministry is sharing the Pauline experience of being among the people “in weakness and in fear and much trembling” (1 Corinthians 2:3) — a profound, sometimes almost debilitating consciousness of one’s own inadequacies. Paul later calls this experience being “weak in him” (2 Corinthians 13:4) — being weak not apart from him, but precisely because of our union with him. When up close and personal with Mr. Still, this deep costliness of the ministry of the Word was self-evident.

“Mr. Still’s preaching became the chariot on which the presence of the blessed Trinity was carried into our hearts.”

It was this element in ministry, it seems to me, that Paul was describing when he told the Thessalonians that “being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us” (1 Thessalonians 2:8). And it was this element that took Mr. Still’s preaching beyond the level of surface exegesis and analysis of passages of Scripture to evoke the living realities of which they spoke. There was in his exposition of the word of God a manifestation of the truth and a manifestation to the conscience (cf. 2 Corinthians 4:2).

This gave a kind of emotional and affectional depth to his preaching. But more than that, it brought a sense of God himself, of his worshipfulness, into the preaching. The late Jim Packer used to say about Martyn Lloyd-Jones that he had never heard preaching that had “so much of God about it.” What I am describing here belonged to that same order of reality. Mr. Still certainly honored Calvin’s dictum that we give the same reverence to Scripture as we give to God because it is his word.

But (if one may put it this way without being misunderstood) while that was true, he never lost sight of the fact that God himself is not to be reduced to words to be analyzed and discussed in their interrelations, plotlines, and literary structures. He is the One whose throne is in heaven and whose footstool is the earth, the One whose greatness none can fathom, the One whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain — and yet is willing to look to him “who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word” (Isaiah 66:2).

Mr. Still longed for this reality himself and for the congregation to experience it in worship and under the ministry of the word. And thus his preaching became the chariot on which the presence of the blessed Trinity was carried into our hearts. Looking back now with gratitude, I nevertheless believe those days spoiled me. For when we experience this, we can never be satisfied with less.

Written on My Heart

One day when I was a graduate student, Mr. Still gave me something. In itself it was of no real consequence, but having known him for several years as pastor and friend, I said to him, lightheartedly and somewhat teasingly, “You have known me now for several years — but this is the first time you have given me something!” I passed the gift back to him, saying, “You will need to write your autograph on it.” He pointed to the object, brushed it away, and said, gently but clearly conscious I would not doubt the integrity of his words, “That is not where I want to write my autograph.” Then, pointing his finger at my heart, he said, “There is where I want to write it.”

That is what lies behind and is expressed in and through a ministry in which the word of God is poured into the hearts of his people. The ink in which Mr. Still’s ministry has been written into my heart is now dry; but please God, I hope what he wrote will remain clearly legible to the end of my life.