Fellow redeemed in Christ,
Several years ago at Mankato, Minnesota, there was an excellent heart specialist. He was skillful in detecting heart disease in his patients, and he no doubt prolonged the lives of many of them through prompt diagnosis and proper treatment. Unfortunately, he failed to apply his medical skills to himself He overlooked the symptoms of heart disease within his own body, and he died of a massive heart attack when he was still relatively young.
Why tell this story? Because the same kind of thing can happen to a Christian pastor or teacher, The called minister of the Word can become so involved in the spiritual needs of his flock that he overlooks his own spiritual needs. He can be so busy setting the food of God's Word before his hearers that his own soul finally starves to death. He can be so attentive to the lives of his members that he overlooks Satan's schemes on his own life. The Apostle Paul recognizes this sad fact that a minister of the Word can be instrumental in saving others and yet himself he lost, for he says in his first letter to the Corinthians: "1 keep under my body, and bring it into subjection; lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway" (1 Cor. 9:27).
But surely it is God's gracious will that pastors and teachers be saved as well as the congregations which they are serving. And therefore He moved the Apostle Paul to speak the words which we shall use as our text this morning, words addressed originally to the young pastor of the Ephesian congregation, Timothy: "Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine: continue in them; for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee" (1 Tim. 4:16).
At first this order of things may seem to us to be all wrong, that the minister of the Word should pay attention first to himself and then to the needs of his flock. And yet Paul means exactly what he says. In fact he said it more than once. When he several years earlier had spoken his farewell to the ministers of the congregation at Ephesus, he admonished them: "Take heed unto yourselves-mote the order--and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God which he hath purchased with his own blood" (Acts 20:28)—-first consider your own spiritual needs, and then consider the needs of those Christians whom you have been called to serve.
What this means is this: The minister of the Word should read the Bible first as a Christian, and then as a theologian; first for his own sake, and then for the sake of his flock; first for the salvation of his own soul, and then for the salvation of others. When the pastor prepares a text for the Sunday sermon or the teacher gets ready for the next day's Bible-history lesson, let him observe how the law of God reveals his own guilt and condemnation--before he decides how he will bring others to repentance. Let him dis- cover how the Gospel of Christ provides a bounteous forgiveness and righteousness for his own sin and unrighteousness--before he plans how he will comfort the hearts of his hearers. Let him come before the congregation or the class- room as one who has first himself "tasted that the Lord is gracious" (1 Pet. 2:3).
Such is the admonition that Paul gives to Timothy, and to this he attaches a remarkable promise: " . . . in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee.” Through that Word of God which the minister applies first to himself and then to his flock, the Holy Spirit shall keep both him and his hearers in saving faith unto everlasting life in heaven!
Here then we have one more reason why the public ministry, the ministry of pastors and teachers, is so good a thing in the sight of God. It has for its goal the eternal salvation of: both the shepherd and his flock - and what can be more important or more blessed than that? Because of the Lord's promise in our text, we can pray to Him with confidence:
Press onward with Thy Word
Till pastor and his fold
Through faith in Thee, O Christ,
Thy glory shall behold. Amen.
