Zeal for Christ

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Benjamin Kreps:

Hey everyone and welcome to the Mark Prater Podcast – where our aim is to connect our global family of Sovereign Grace churches with our Executive Director.

Those who are checking out the podcast right now may remember a couple of years ago, Jeff Purswell taught a really important sermon at our Pastor's Conference on the topic of zeal: sacred zeal. Actually, that sermon was captured and published in a small book you can get through Sovereign Grace.

But a couple of years after that important sermon — and you were talking right before we started recording — this is not something that we want to leave behind or forget, because a focus on the cultivation of the importance of zeal in the Christian life is not a one-and-done deal. It's a priority for us to pay attention to and cultivate each and every day. And you want to talk about that — first about how that functions, or should be functioning, in the life of the pastor.

Mark Prater:

Yes, I do. Because as you well said, Ben, it's not a one-and-done thing for a pastor to have zeal. That fire you have — that passion you have for Christ — is a fire that continues, that continually needs to be fed and stoked, is what I find.

I find this in my own heart. I was going to talk about something else today, but I felt like the Spirit of God wanted to redirect me just a few moments before we started recording — that I was supposed to talk about this today. So, I hope it does serve in that regard.

Part of what I'm going to share comes from my own need. I was just even thinking recently, as I was examining my heart and my relationship with Christ: has my zeal waned? Has my passion for Christ diminished a bit? And it concerned me. I just realized I've got to make sure I give attention to this. And so that's what I've done in my heart, my life, devotionally. And I've been very grateful for those times with the Lord — that He does meet us in our need and that He will help us in stoking our zeal for Him.

We're not doing this in our own strength. We can't work it up on our own — we desperately need Him to be passionate for Him. So I say that really out of my own need.

And when I'm in those places, I just find there are certain passages I go to, and they deeply affect me. One of those is in Philippians 3, beginning in verse seven:

"But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes through the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness that comes from God that depends on faith — that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and may share in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead."

Just a wonderful passage. Paul calls it this thing of surpassing worth — knowing Christ, knowing Christ and loving Christ. Just reading those verses stirs my soul to know Him more and to love Him more. And I just find that I need that as a Christian, but I especially need it as a pastor and a leader, for so many different reasons. One of them is that it really gets at the motivation for why we do what we do as pastors. It's why we're in ministry — it's for Christ, and for knowing Christ, and for others to know Christ and love Christ.

But even more fundamental than that, I love 2 Corinthians 5:9 — it gets at our aim: "We make it our aim to please Him." To please Christ. And if we lose that motivation in ministry, if we lose that focus in ministry — that it's about Christ — we'll just go through the motions and we'll begin to have a listless ministry. We'll be serving people, but it will lack the holy zeal that ministry needs, because ultimately our ministry is about Christ. It's about pleasing Him and loving Him, and therefore our zeal for Christ affects everything that we do as pastors and as leaders. I think as husbands and fathers and grandfathers as well.

Benjamin Kreps:

Yes, that's excellent and beautiful as well, Mark. And as you know, especially as guys continue in ministry over many years, there can be an increasing ability — as we exercise our gifts, competency, and so forth — that means we can functionally get by, and sometimes go unnoticed, without a living and vibrant zeal for Christ. What you call going through the motions. This is so important for us as pastors. But this is not reserved for pastors alone. Zeal is important for all of us.

Mark Prater:

It is important for every Christian, not just for pastors. I think the importance for pastors is that our people will not be zealous for Christ if we're not zealous for Christ. And that's just very important for us to remember in serving them.

There's a wonderful lecture that Spurgeon has in his Lectures to My Students. The title of the lecture is "Earnestness: Its Marring and Maintenance." And by earnestness, I think he partly means zeal there. He says, "I delight in the maxim's remark." This is the remark:

"It is not so much great talents that God blesses as great likeness to Christ." 

And then Spurgeon says this:

"In many instances, ministerial success is traceable almost entirely to an intense zeal, a consuming passion for souls, and an eager enthusiasm in the cause of God. And we believe that in every case, other things being equal, men prosper in the divine service in proportion as their hearts are blazing with holy love."

Again, it gets at our motivation there. We can go through the motions of ministry, but what our people need is a likeness to Christ seen in us, and a zeal for Christ that is obvious in all that we do. And not just in pulpit ministry — although I think that's a main one — but in the way that we counsel them, and the way that we talk with them, and the way that we lead them. We must have a prominent zeal for Christ that stokes their fire, that they would have a zeal for Christ as well.

Spurgeon also reminds us how people can come on a Sunday morning — and this is a good reminder for us as pastors. He says:

"For the sake of our church members we must be zealous. Those who attend our ministry have a great deal to do during the week. Many of them have family trials and personal burdens to carry, and they frequently come into the assembly cold and listless, with thoughts wandering hither and thither. It is ours to take those thoughts and thrust them into the furnace of our own earnestness, of our own zeal; melt them by holy contemplation, and by an intense appeal pour them into the mold of truth. A blacksmith can do nothing when his fire is out, and in this respect he is the type of the minister. If all the lights in the outside world are quenched, the lamp which burns in the sanctuary must still remain undimmed; for that fire no curfew must ever be rung."

Oh, that is so well said. We've got to remember the way many of us can come to church on Sunday morning — just distracted, having had a hard week, our thoughts wandering hither and thither. And then they encounter God through the preaching of His Word, through the singing of truth, through a pastoral prayer that has zeal in it. And we fire them, mold them into the truth of God's Word. And they again are stirred — stirred by our zeal, stirred by the truth, stirred by these truths of God that they had forgotten about during the week, and now are being stirred again.

So we just have to remember that as we as pastors go to church every Sunday. And so members of the church say: we go because we need to have our earnest zeal stirred for Christ.

Well, I'll just say one other thing and then we'll end. Besides Scripture, I go to some books that help me. I have certain quotes that help me stir my zeal for Christ — I'm not going to list all of those now — but one of them is The Glory of Christ by John Owen. And it just stirs my zeal for Christ. And I want to read this quote because I want to remind us all of what we need. I want to remind pastors: this is what your people need; this is what you need personally. And I want to remind any member of the church reading or listening to this podcast: this is what we all need. And this is what Owen says:

"Only a sight of His glory, and nothing else, will truly satisfy God's people. Are you desiring satisfaction from God? Only a sight of His glory, and nothing else, will truly satisfy God's people. The hearts of believers are like a magnetized needle which cannot rest until it is pointing north. So also a believer magnetized by the love of Christ will always be restless until he or she comes to Christ and beholds His glory."

Benjamin Kreps:

Beautiful. Beautiful. Thank you for that reminder and that encouragement, Mark. I pray that we will be a family of churches just filled to the brim with pastors and members who can say — it reminds me of the words of Jehu, who in 2 Kings 10:16, as he rode out in the name of the Lord, said, "Come with me and see my zeal for the Lord." And let's pray and work by His grace to be able to say that humbly — but with integrity — say that to those around us: "Come with me. See my zeal for the Lord. Let us pursue Christ together." So thank you, Mark, for your example in that. Thank you all for checking out the podcast. And we'll see you here next week, Lord willing. Bye for now.