A Sermon by John Macdonald
1 Thessalonians 2:19,20. For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming? For ye are our glory and joy.
The ministry of the gospel of Christ is in its substance purely spiritual. Outwardly it may be connected with many things material and temporal; but, in its own self, it is declared to be a divine grace. “To me”, says the Apostle, “is this grace given, that I should preach . . . the unsearchable riches of Christ.” Hence the grand moving principle is not sight but faith. We “believe and therefore speak”. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
This ministerial faith, like personal faith, lives on the testimony of God and is sustained by the revelation of objects presented there. These are made present by being spiritually received and cause us to move as we ought in our holy ministry. Bible truth is our stream of light, and Bible objects are our field of vision. Here we live and move and have our being. O how rich, how blessed, how glorious is this land of faith!
We believe in our unseen God and Father. His sons we are. His servants we desire to be. His will is the basis of our ministry. His mind is the very element of our office. Our message is the “glorious gospel of the blessed God”.
We believe in an unseen Mediator, our Saviour. He is our official head; we are His personal ambassadors. We stand in His stead; we speak, we act, we suffer for Him. We receive our people from Him; we lead our people to Him. He is our life, our glory.
We believe in the unseen Comforter. He is the Holy Spirit of our God, coming in the Saviour’s name. It is He who excites, calls, sanctifies, directs, gladdens and blesses us in our ministry. Dwelling in us, if we be true men and not hirelings, He empowers, carries out, accompanies, applies and seals our work in the Lord, accomplishing by us the will of God.
We believe in an unseen kingdom of heaven upon earth. This kingdom “cometh not with observation”, but is within us. It does not consist in “meat and drink”, but in “righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost”. Into it men enter by regeneration of the Holy Spirit, and by faith in the gospel of Christ. Into this blessed and glorious kingdom we labour
1Macdonald (1807-47) was the son of the better-known father of the same name, the Apostle of the North. This was a farewell discourse in May 1837 to his Church of Scotland congregation in London, before leaving to become a missionary in Calcutta. It is taken, slightly edited, from his little book of sermons, A Pastor’s Memorial to His Former Flock.
to bring our fellow sinners, by preaching the message of reconciliation.
We believe in an unseen eternity of existence beyond this life. We anticipate this immortality of being, in itself unknown but revealed by God. We hope and desire to be with our Lord for ever – this is our eternal heaven, our last and joyful end for which we strive. Into His heaven shall enter all who believe, repent, are justified and sanctified, through the ministry of the gospel. We believe also in an eternal hell, into which shall be cast those “who know not God, and obey not the gospel” of His Son, all who reject the message of grace and who prefer a life of sin to a course of holiness. We believe in “the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone”, and in the “smoke of . . . torment [that] ascendeth up for ever and ever”.
But, finally, we believe in the future, and therefore unseen, coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. We look forward to this sure event with deep interest and with joyful expectation, and we call it “the day of the Lord”. Then shall this present system of things be finally concluded. Then shall our Lord Jesus Christ visibly appear in the clouds of heaven and in His Father’s glory. Then shall the whole world be assembled before Him and be judged by Him according to the state, good or bad, of every individual of the race. Then shall all hearers of the gospel be tried as to whether their hearing was of life unto life, or of death unto death.
Then shall all unsent ministers of the gospel, who served self and not Christ, be consigned to eternal infamy and unending torment; then shall His own true servants – called, sent, upheld and sealed by Him – be accepted, owned and blessed by their beloved Lord and be invited to enter into the joy of their Master. This acceptance shall not be personal only but ministerial; as ministers we shall be accepted firstly for the simple discharge of duty apart from all results – that is, without reference to the fact whether men believed us or not – and secondly in the fruits of our ministry, when we shall be enabled to present many or few of our hearers and say, Behold us, and the children whom Thou hast given us! These persons shall then be to us our “crown of rejoicing” in the presence of our Lord and Judge; and happy is the man who shall have his quiver filled with such in the great day of Christ’s coming! O how joyful will Paul and Peter and John and Philip the evangelist be; how happy will Wycliffe and Luther and Calvin and Knox be, and many such men even of our own day, the honoured servants of their Lord!
If there be evidence that any of you, my dear hearers, have been converted from sin or reclaimed from backsliding, brought to Christ or built up in Him, under my ministry, which is to close this day amongst you – if there be any such evidence, and I know there is – then all such persons are now my “rejoicing” on the day of our separation and shall be my “crown of rejoicing” on
the great and terrible day of the Lord, when we shall be for the last time all gathered together again. This is a matter on which it is surely pleasant to dwell. Let us then here wait for a little and inquire:
1. Who shall constitute our “crown of rejoicing”? This we need not discuss from our own observation, but scripturally. We need not go in quest of texts from the whole Bible; the Apostle himself furnishes us with the description of the very persons in the foregoing part of this epistle. Those described in the first and second chapters constitute the “crown of rejoicing”. Let us consider their characteristics in the order in which they occur.
Chapter 1:1. The Church. This is the general description of the body of believers in every place, the assembly of the disciples of Jesus, the company who maintain His ordinances, who love His salvation and seek His glory. The visible Church consists of all those who profess these things; the true Church consists of those who truly believe, seek and do what is Christian. The visible Church is the shell; the true Church the kernel – and the latter is that body, in this or any other congregation, which alone can become a “crown of rejoicing” to a gospel minister.
In God the Father. These persons stand in an intimate relation to God as their Father. They have been chosen, called, regenerated, justified and adopted by God. They are united to Him in filial love, the result of all His grace to them. They dwell in God as their refuge and their portion. They trust in Him with a filial affection, humble, sincere and ardent. They cry, “Abba, Father,” pouring forth their hearts before Him, and devolving all their cares on His covenant love and truth. Such persons are our joy.
In the Lord Jesus Christ. They have received Christ to be the Mediator of their salvation. They are thus united to Him, and His Spirit goes forth unto them and blesses them. They are sprinkled by the mediatorial blood and so released from the curse. They put on the mediatorial righteousness and stand accepted before God. Christ is their life and their joy and their glory. To them Jesus is precious. Are there not some such among you? They are my crown; for they love the Father and the Son, and are in Them by faith.
Verse 3. They manifest the work of faith, the labour of love and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. They have faith in Christ – the faith of the heart – believing His testimony and relying on Himself as revealed in the gospel. And this faith leads them to work for Christ, to be “a peculiar people, zealous of good works”. They are the subjects of love; they love Christ with a constraining love; they prefer His people to all people and they prefer Himself to His people; and they choose Him above everything else. Therefore they labour for His sake. They deny themselves to advance His glory; they would suffer all or do all, that He may be glorified. Faith may work, but love
will labour. Hope too dwells in them. Amidst all the trials of life and the dismal prospects of the flesh, they desire and expect something better than this world presents. In Christ Jesus they look for an “inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away” – they hope to be with the Lord for ever. They therefore with patience endure all the chastening of the Lord and glory in all the tribulations inflicted for “righteousness’ sake”. Those who are our “crown of rejoicing” are a faithful, loving and hoping people; therefore they abound in work, labour and patience for their Redeemer’s sake. Have we none such amongst us?
Verse 5. The persons referred to in our text have received the gospel, not in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance. They felt the power of the gospel, as a message of grace from God delivered by man. They believed the truth, received the grace and were sanctified, gladdened and blessed by the gospel of Christ. It came to them in the Holy Ghost in His clear, self-evidencing light, to which they cheerfully yielded their sinful selves with child-like docility, desiring to become subjects of divine operation. In much assurance. They felt assured of the truth and divinity of the gospel, of the certainty of all its statements, of the all-sufficiency of Him who is its substance, and they thus closed with it for their individual salvation. May we not indeed hope that in this little flock there are some such, who are now a source of joy and will be hereafter a “crown of rejoicing”?
Verse 6. Ye became followers of us and of the Lord. Are there not some who, under that pastoral tie which is now about to be dissolved, became decided in their purpose to follow the Lord and to do and suffer His blessed will, whatever it may be? Are there not in this congregation some who within a few years past have been induced to join themselves to the saints of God, and who have chosen as their dearest friends those whom they once most hated? Have not some of them done so in much affliction, in the midst of reproach and taunting, and other annoyances “for the gospel’s sake?” Have not some among us declared that they have often, amidst heavy earthly trials, left this house of prayer rejoicing, glorying in their Saviour? And when they looked forward to the sad gloom of the approaching week, or even to the mournful uncertainties of remaining life, they were so lifted up by the spirit of grace that they did not care what might befall them. Thanks be to God that we have had among you some such witnesses to the excellency of truth and to the efficacy of the ministry of Christ.
But is it necessary to enlarge further on this pleasant topic? Is it as safe as it is pleasant? Suffice it to add that the persons to whom we refer, are truly converted persons (verses 9,10). They once were idolaters of themselves and
of the world; “the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life” were their trinity. Now they have wholly rejected these; their grand conflict in life is to prevent the return and restoration of these cursed idols. Now their business is to serve God with singleness of mind in all the paths of righteousness and peace and joy, and they desire to connect all their prospects of perfect bliss with the second coming of their Lord Jesus Christ. Having been blessed on earth already by His death and resurrection, they desire to be supremely blessed with Him in His exaltation and glory; and it is their earnest desire to be with the Lord for evermore.
Alas, alas, that such persons seem so few, so very few, among us; yet, we trust, there are some. A remnant is precious in God’s sight; so let it be in ours. If there be any that believe, love, obey, rejoice in, suffer for and live by the word of Christ – be they what they may in other respects – these are they that now make us happy in the day of our separation. As for some others before me, they are a sorrow and a burden this day before the Lord. And although my responsibility for them may cease for ever from this day, yet until life close I expect to have many a sad thought and to heave many a deep sigh at the remembrance of their unbelief or inconsistency. I may still pray for them, but I cannot teach them any more. The Lord convert them!