No organization will be healthier than its leadership. That is true in business, politics, sports, and education. It is also true in churches, Christian networks, and denominations. As a pastor that is a sobering reality that constantly challenges me never to lose sight of the Apostle Paul’s admonition in 1 Timothy 4:16 to keep a close watch on myself and on my doctrine. The reason that Scripture places far more emphasis on a pastor’s character than his gifts or proficiencies is because what a pastor is required to be is more important than what he is called to do. When a pastor forgets this, he can easily drift into professionalism, relying more on mental muscle-memory than the Holy Spirit to carry out his responsibilities. That quickly devolves into trusting in gifts rather than grace and can result in a pastor operating on autopilot rather than walking and leading by faith. It is spiritually deadly—both for the man and the church he serves. Good, courageous leaders—including church leaders—serve as stack-poles for those who follow them. They will stand if they have someone to lean on. Absent such leadership, good causes will go unsupported and bad causes will go unresisted. Good people often remain timid and uncertain when their leaders remain mute in the face of such causes—both good and bad. This has been demonstrated time and again the last few years in the American evangelical world and especially in the Southern Baptist Convention. Key Christian leaders have refused boldly to support the good cause of seeking equal protection under the law for unborn babies. Some have even boldly opposed it. Too many influential Christian leaders have also failed to oppose the infiltration of godlessness and godless ideologies, including critical theory and feminism, into their churches, seminaries, and organizations. As a result, many Christian churches, organizations, and institutions are floundering, and many sincere Christians confused and suffering. The need for godly, courageous leadership in our churches has never been greater. That’s why I deeply appreciate the insights of Alistair Begg on this subject. My wife and I are reading through volume 2 of his daily devotional book, Truth for Life, 365 Daily Devotions. The following is taken from his March 15 entry. May the Lord give more godly, courageous shepherds to His people in these needy days. 
In the middle of the 20th century, the Church of England commissioned a report entitled Towards the Conversion of England. The goal was to discover what was taking place within the parishes of the Anglican Communion. In that report, the writers came very quickly to the topic of leadership, on which they observed, “A spiritual leader can often make an astonishing difference.”* The adjective “spiritual” is crucial. If the church is going to flourish in the world, it must have spiritual men in the position of leadership. Although we are distanced from that report by many years, and although a lot has changed since then, the strategic necessity for spiritually mature leaders, in whatever country or denomination we are in, has not changed. No church of Jesus Christ progresses beyond the spiritual progress of its leaders.

Every sports team has a captain or equivalent. Each member of the team may be equally valuable, but someone has to lead. Without a captain, a team loses direction and will often lack the discipline needed to win. The same is true in an orchestra: without a conductor, it risks losing coordination and any meaningful sense of harmony.

The necessary role of leadership is true in every area of life—and it’s no different with God’s people. Jesus was the leader of a group of twelve disciples. When He ascended to heaven, Peter and James appear to have become the leaders of the apostles and the church in Jerusalem. The apostles then established leadership in the local churches. When Paul wrote to Titus, he was very concerned that the right kinds of men were appointed to positions of leadership within the church (Titus 1:5-9). If an error was made in who was appointed, then the resulting damage would not be easily undone. And when he had limited time near Ephesus, it was “the elders of the church” who Paul summoned to Miletus in order to encourage and exhort.

Without good leadership, chaos easily follows. Many of the unsolved problems in the life of local churches can be traced back to defective leadership. Conversely, the resolution of problems almost always can be traced back to effective leadership.

If success depends upon the quality of leadership, then Christians should care deeply about leaders within their local church. Christ purchased the church with His own blood, and it is through the church that God intends to display His glory in the world and to the spiritual realms (Ephesians 3:10). Take time, then, to pray for your leaders. Consider how you can actively encourage them to faithfulness and in their labors. Be someone whom to lead is an occasion for joy and not groaning (Hebrews 13:17)—for your leaders’ sake, and for yours.

*Towards the Conversion of England (J.M. Dent, 1946), p. 3.

This article is part 8 in a series by Tom Nettles on Remembering Jesus Christ. (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7).

To remember Jesus Christ, we must affirm his deity. To reject the true eternal deity of the singular person, Jesus of Nazareth, is to deny him and bring on us the consequence that he will deny us. This mysterious reality that the man, Jesus of Nazareth, was at the same time and in the same person the Son of God constitutes our redemption and the source of our eternal worship.

Twice Luke tells us that Mary kept certain things “in her heart.” (Luke 2:19, 51). On the first occasion, Luke adds the words, “pondered them.” Both the events and the words that accompanied the event were too large for immediate comprehension. But that she kept them in her heart means that she remembered them intensely, she sought more expanded understanding of what had happened and what she had been told. Not only deeper cognition was needed, but a spirit of adoration and worship fitting for the eternal wonder of the event. 

As a virgin, she was told that the Holy Spirit would come upon her to impregnate her in order to bear a child that she would call Jesus (Luke 1:31). He would be called “the Son of the Most High” (1:32). She learned, therefore, that not only does the Holy Spirit make her pregnant with a child according to her seed to be established and nurtured in her womb, but the “Most High” Himself, God the Father, will overshadow her simultaneously with the Spirit’s coming upon her. The result of that is that not only will her child conceived by the Holy Spirit in her womb be a man called Jesus, but as the result of the overshadowing of the “power of the Most High,” the Holy One conceived in her would be called “the Son of God” (Luke 1:35).  

To reject the true eternal deity of the singular person, Jesus of Nazareth, is to deny him and bring on us the consequence that he will deny us.

Within the time span of a few minutes, the leading mysteries of classical orthodoxy were present in the very body of Mary. The Trinity and the duality of natures in the single person of Christ were concentrated in a moment in the angel’s announcement and in her own body. The fulfilling powers of redemptive history operated in perfect harmony to assure that “her seed” would bruise the head of the serpent (Genesis 3:15) and destroy “him who had the power of death” (Hebrews 2:14). Paul said it succinctly, “When the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons” (Galatians 4:4). Her womb was the location of the “fullness of the time,” and Holy Spirit, Holy Father, and Holy Son all converged, as it were, “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,” to bring into the world the Redeemer. This Redeemer could, and did, effect forgiveness, procure righteousness, rob Satan’s fold, reconcile God and sinners, overthrow death as sin’s boon companion, and fit his people for heaven. The glory of the Father would be most fully and beautifully expressed when “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Philippians 2:10, 11). Just as was announced the name “Jesus” would designate the Savior and Lord. His humanity in the womb of Mary was due to the Holy Spirit’s impregnation of her seed; his deity as Son of God comes from the Most High’s extension of his eternal generation of the Son onto this fertile egg; his singularity of person with a complex combination of natures came from the Son of God’s condescension to take the form of a servant and be made in the likeness of men in Mary’s womb, though eternally he was “equal with God” (Philippians 2:6-8).

When she went to visit her relative, Elizabeth, Elizabeth exclaimed, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed in the fruit of your womb! But why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Luke 1:43). This child was indeed the fruit of her womb, a seed of David but also was the Lord.

Mary’s immediate response to the words of Elizabeth were, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior. … He has helped His servant Israel, in remembrance of His mercy” (Luke 1:46, 47, 54). When John the Baptist was born, Zacharias saw this child as “the prophet of the Highest,” as the one who would “go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways” This birth of John was in concert with the coming birth of “the horn of salvation in the house of His servant David” (Luke 1:76,69). These events were the action of God, “to remember His holy covenant, the oath which He swore to our father Abraham” (Luke 172, 73). We remember Jesus Christ, because God remembers his covenant. In remembering, we confess with the mouth and believe in the heart the Person and the pre-ordained events by which we are “delivered from the hands of our enemies,” and that we “might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life” (Luke 1:74, 75). 

We remember Jesus Christ, because God remembers his covenant.

When the Shepherds heard the speech of the angel, they learned that a child was born in Bethlehem who was “a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11). Without doubt, this was told to Mary by the shepherds. The accumulation of titles of deity for this child surely startled and puzzled her, but she believed them. “Mary kept these things and pondered them in her heart” (Luke 2:19). Upon his presentation in the temple after the days of Mary’s purification, Simeon, under the immediate direction of the Holy Spirit and anticipation that he would see “the Lord’s Christ,” took the child and called him the Lord’s Salvation, with the affirmation that the child would be a “light of revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel” (Luke 30, 32). Upon that, Joseph and Mary “marveled at those things which were spoken of Him” (Luke 2:33). Marveling, pondering, and keeping are necessary and helpful responses to these events that are the fulcrum of time and eternity.

When he went to the temple during the week of Passover at twelve years of age, He took the position of a teacher, staying there several days beyond the week. He had gathered a fascinated and amazed group of scholars and teachers around him, answering their questions. As Joseph and his mother approached him, oppressed by worry at his whereabouts, He responded, “Why did you seek me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” They were puzzled at the calmness and confidence of his demeanor and “did not understand the statement which he spoke to them” (Luke 2:49, 50). In spite of not understanding the fullness of Jesus’ meaning and how his business in the temple was his “Father’s business,” Mary “kept all these things in her heart” (Luke 2:51).

The “mystery of godliness” that “he appeared in flesh” (1 Timothy 3:15) will never be exhausted of its wonder and mystery. It is infinite as an expression of wisdom; it is inexhaustible as matter for worship now and in heaven; it is full as the substance of the covenant of redemption. The interpenetration of all the persons of the Trinity both in their fitting personal operations and their singularity of purpose, power, essence, mind, and will is startling to the soul. These actions of God with their ontological implications press the intellect with its insufficiency in investigating the ways of God. But the “hope of eternal life” is filled to overflowing with the prospects of living in the presence of this God and of observing and participating in the praise and worship of the man Jesus Christ in the eternal glory of his deity and his work of redemption. “Remember Jesus Christ.”

This article is part 8 in a series by Tom Nettles on Remembering Jesus Christ.

Join us at the 2024 National Founders Conference on January 18-20 as we consider what it means to “Remember Jesus Christ” under the teaching of Tom Ascol, Joel Beeke, Paul Washer, Phil Johnson, Conrad Mbewe and Travis Allen.

This article is part 4 in a series by Tom Nettles on Remembering Jesus Christ. You can read part 1, part 2 and part 3.

Having examined the theological importance of the call “Remember,” we want to examine some points of New Testament admonition in which the substance of the command is at work. As Jesus prepared his disciples for his departure, he promised them the help of the Holy Spirit. One operation of the Spirit that served the cause of redemption and the full truthfulness of the apostolic recording of it was couched in the promise of Jesus: “These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you” (John 14:25, 26). The faculty of memory under the teaching of the Holy Spirit became the avenue for a theological and spiritual transformation. They had heard the words of Jesus, but none of the disciples grasped their meaning, and certainly not their world-transforming importance. But, when the Spirit of truth came and brought these words to their “remembrance,” the message was sealed in their thought and its overturning power in an upside-down world became the theme of their lives and their hope of eternal life.

At the empty tomb we have the first post-resurrection call to “Remember.” When women arrived very early in the morning following the sabbath and found the tomb empty, an angel said to them, “Remember how he spoke to you when he was still in Galilee, saying ‘The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again’” (Luke 24:6, 7). As they gazed into the empty grave where they had observed that his body was laid, the angel asked them to gather the words of Jesus into their minds and to consider with their hearts that the dark emptiness they saw was in itself a settled and infallible proof of the truth of Jesus’ words and the confirmation of his person and work. Had they remembered these words before the angel prompted them, they would have known what had happened. “Jesus has risen just as he said. Death is conquered, sin is forgiven; eternal life is the unfading, immutable reality.”

When Paul wrote of his amazement that some in Galatia were “turning away so soon from him who called you in the grace of Christ to a different gospel,” (Galatians 1:6) he expressed the result of a failure to “Remember Jesus Christ.” When he gave his statement of being “crucified with Christ” and the results of that identity in death with Christ (Galatians 2:20, 21), he was showing what it means to “Remember Jesus Christ.” When he told the Galatians, “If you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing,” he showed what it means to “Remember Jesus Christ.” If you remember Jesus Christ the gospel is clear, the cross is dear, and the ceremonial law with its burdensome reminders—sin not yet atoned, hearts still in need of circumcision—will disappear.

 When Paul closed his letter to the Ephesians with the benediction, “Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity” (Ephesians 6:24), he highlighted the benefit of a remembrance of Jesus Christ. When he told the Philippians that neither endearment nor rivalry was of importance to him as compared to the greatness of the gospel, he remembered Jesus Christ. Paul expressed it on that occasion in this way: “What then? Only that in every way whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached and in this I rejoice, yes, and will rejoice” (Philippians 1:18). When Paul gave his extended and exalted expositions of the person and work of Christ in Colossians, he pressed those believers, “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving“ (Colossians 2:6, 7). This is a way of saying, “Remember Jesus Christ.” And when he reminded them that all of the ceremonial law had been fulfilled and put to rest with the words, “but the substance is of Christ,” (Colossians 2:17), he was telling them that the answer to every challenge of philosophy and short-circuited theology is to “Remember Jesus Christ.” When he told the Thessalonians to “stand fast and hold the traditions which you were taught, whether by word or epistle,” (2 Thessalonians 2:15), he is saying “Remember Jesus Christ.” In demonstration of this, Paul goes on to say, “Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and our God and Father, who has loved us and given us everlasting hope by grace, comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word and work” (2 Thessalonians 2:16, 17). To stand fast in those things handed down from the apostles is to find safety in Jesus Christ for he has manifested saving grace in that the Father in grace has given him to us for comfort now and everlasting hope in the eternal future.  What courage, conviction and consolation is found in the gracious call, “Remember Jesus Christ!”

When Paul highlighted the extent of the saving grace of Christ, he told Timothy, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief” (1 Timothy 1:15). Paul pointed to his saving confrontation with Christ as the pattern of how deep and infinitely gracious and powerful and how certain is the determination of Christ to save: “In me Jesus Christ might show all longsuffering as a pattern to those who are going to believe on Him for everlasting life.” Looking at his life and seeing its subjection to the one whom he persecuted, Paul was saying, “Remember Jesus Christ.”

When John warned against false prophets and gave the test, “Every spirit that confesses, ‘Jesus Christ has come in the flesh,’ that one is of God; and every spirit that does not confess that very Jesus, that spirit is not of God” (1 John 4:2, 3).  By his revelation in a body when the eternal word was made flesh (John 1:14), the eternally covenanted grace of God made the way for righteousness, forgiveness, resurrection, and glorification. Only “the man, Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5) has done, and even could do, such deeds of grace and power. You have not remembered Jesus Christ if you do not remember that the incarnation was the sphere in which every redemptive act must of necessity be accomplished.

Jude changed from writing an expressive exposition of the shared faith of Christians (Jude 3) in order to present a distilled warning against men of heretical doctrine and perverse lives. He told them “Remember the words which were spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Jude 17). In addition to their pursuit of all the “ungodly deeds” recorded in Scripture, a fatal doctrinal error undergirded their energy in turning the “grace of our God into lewdness;” that is, “they deny the only Lord, even our Lord Jesus Christ” (Jude 4). They denied the Lord because they did not remember “the words” previously spoken “by the apostles.” Had they remembered, in the biblical sense of mental submission to the eternal truths of the covenant, they would have been warned of the perversity of unbelief and have kept themselves “in the love of God, looking to the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life” (Jude 21). How salubrious and safe is the command, “Remember Jesus Christ.”

This article is part 4 in a series by Tom Nettles on Remembering Jesus Christ.

Join us at the 2024 National Founders Conference on January 18-20 as we consider what it means to “Remember Jesus Christ” under the teaching of Tom Ascol, Joel Beeke, Paul Washer, Phil Johnson, Conrad Mbewe and Travis Allen.