Synod Sermon by Rev H M Cartwright
Acts 20:28. Take heed therefore unto yourselves, 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.
These words need little introduction. The Apostle summoned the elders from Ephesus to meet him and this is part of his farewell address to them. He sets himself before them as an example of what a minister ought to be. He does so not in a proud spirit, but with characteristic humility: “Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ” (Eph 3:8). He was the least of the Apostles, not deserving to be called an Apostle, because he persecuted the church of God. By the grace of God he was what he was. It could not be said of Paul, as the Lord said of the Pharisees of his day: Do what they tell you but not what they do. He was an example of the duties which he pressed upon the Ephesian elders.
As enabled we shall think firstly of the preciousness of the church: “the flock . . . the church of God which He hath purchased with His own blood”; secondly, of the provision which God has made for the care of the church in the midst of danger: “the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers . . . take heed therefore . . . to all the flock”; thirdly, of the responsibility which lies upon those to whom the Lord has entrusted the care of His church: “take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which He hath purchased with His own blood”.
1. The preciousness of the church.
These words are applied to the church at Ephesus. The distinction between the visible and invisible aspects of the church is very important, and must be maintained; but how often in the Epistles the church, as we see it in the world, is addressed in terms which are applicable, in their deepest sense, only to the church as it is before God – the invisible church. We see that in the case of Corinth. It was a mixed church, needing much discipline to be applied, yet the Apostle Paul wrote “unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours” (1 Cor 1:2). The elders of the visible church in Ephesus are addressed, and yet they are spoken to as elders of the church of God which He hath purchased with His own blood.
“The church of God” is a term which brings before us the fact that the church owes its origin to God, belongs to God and exists in a unique manner for the manifestation of God’s glory. It is not a human institution. People did not sit down and devise a constitution for the church. It is God who elected His people, God who redeemed them, God who regenerated them and God who united them to the Saviour. It is God’s church. It is also described as “the flock”. God’s church is not a collection of individual persons. It is a unity into which lost and scattered sinners have been gathered by the grace of God. They are members one of another. The flock is a unit. The Lord’s people are to provoke one another to love and to good works, not forsaking the assembling of themselves together, as the manner of some is (Heb 10:24,25), because the church of God is a flock. It is a body to which the individuals belong.
We notice particularly that Paul speaks of it as “the church of God which He hath purchased with His own blood”. What a wonderful description of the church of God! It is His purchased possession, His peculiar people, a people whom He has redeemed and purchased for Himself: “not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold . . . but with the precious blood of Christ” (1 Pet 1:18,19). The Lord’s people, the church of God, required redemption in their lost and ruined state. God could not inhabit this church or bring it into fellowship with Himself and into the enjoyment of His favour, without atonement being made for sin and satisfaction being given to justice. He said to Israel: “I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopa and Seba for thee” (Is 43:3), but that was just a shadow of what He was to give for the redemption of His people: “for God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son” (John 3:16). That is the purchase price of the church of Christ – the blood of Christ – and the wonder of it is in this form of expression: “the church of God which He hath purchased with His own blood.
What a wonderful revelation is here of what is made so clear elsewhere in Scripture: the mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh. Here is a person who is God over all and blessed for ever, the brightness of His glory, the express image of His person, upholding all things by the word of His power, the eternal Son of God. God is a spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable. That is true of the Redeemer, yet He had a true humanity, brought into union with His Divine Person. It was human blood that was shed, blood that flowed through the veins of human beings in this world; but it was the blood of the man who is God’s fellow, it was the blood of a Divine Person, it was the blood, not of God as God, but of a person who is God. That is the glory of it! God could not suffer. God could not die. God is a Spirit.
We must remember that today, when it is becoming so common in some circles to speak of a suffering God. We have to remember that the reason for the Incarnation was that there might be a person with divine being and divine glory who could yet take the place of sinners, and die for them. That is what Christ did on the cross of Calvary. This is the blood of a Divine Person, the blood that flowed from the human nature of one who is Himself the eternal God. O how precious is the doctrine of the person of Christ as it is set before us in our Shorter Catechism! If people would keep in mind what the Shorter Catechism has to say of the Redeemer, they would be kept from many of the errors concerning His person which abound in our day.
The preciousness of Christ is reflected in the preciousness of the church. The church has been redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son. How precious the church is to God and how precious it should be to us – there is nothing like it in all creation! Wonders are being discovered by scientists in the creation of God; more wonders may be discovered yet; and there is much more in the works of creation and providence than people will ever discover. But all this is as nothing compared to the wonder of God having a people, chosen out of this lost race, whom He has redeemed by the blood of His Son and brought together in this body of elect, redeemed, regenerate souls who will inhabit glory. The preciousness of the church of Christ, the church of God!
2. The provision which God has made for the care of His church in the midst of danger.
It is obvious, even from what the Apostle says here, that the church needs care because it is in danger from without and from within. “For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them” (vv 29,30). Dangers from outside and inside have characterised the church of Christ in every generation. We cannot afford to think that this generation is any different. The external dangers were not from persecution or from the opposition of the world. When the Apostle spoke of perilous times coming he spoke of the moral and spiritual state of society. The danger to the church’s well-being does not come from the powers of persecuting foes but from the intrusion of error, as we see from church history. We see it in the nineteenth century in the history of the Free Church of Scotland. Men got into the ministry and professorships of the Church through subscribing a Confession in which they had no confidence and used their position to put poison into the Church’s system. They came in as wolves in sheep’s clothing. There has also always been danger from within, from unexpected sources: men rising up and creating factions, sometimes by perverting the truth, in order to draw people after themselves.
There are dangers from outside and from inside. The Lord has provided means for safeguarding the church, but the ultimate care of the church is in the hands of the Lord Himself. We have every reason to be thankful that what preserves the church of Christ – the church of God “which He has purchased with His own blood” – is the covenant faithfulness of God: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, acting in accordance with the terms of the everlasting covenant. This is the assurance: “the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are His. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity” (2 Tim 2:19). God’s choice of His people, God’s knowledge of them, God’s sanctifying work in them, preserves them. But the Lord uses means, and one of the means He uses is the provision of those who are described here as elders and overseers in the church of Christ.
Paul sent to Ephesus and called the “elders”, and the word is just the word which, translated literally, is “presbyters” or “presbytery”. He called for the presbytery of Ephesus to come and meet him and no doubt that presbytery, like every other presbytery, consisted of those who ruled in the church’s affairs and also those who ruled and were responsible, in addition, for labouring in word and in doctrine: those we call elders and those we call ministers. The minister’s responsibility is particularly that of preaching the Word of God, sowing the seed of the gospel, and giving himself to prayer and to meditating upon these things. The work of the elder is principally to watch for the fruits of the ministry. The Second Book of Discipline, one of the Reformation documents, makes that point particularly. The ministers, the pastors and doctors (or teachers), are to give themselves to sowing the seed of the gospel and the elders are to be looking for the fruits of the ministry. They are more among the people and are to be watching and caring for the effects upon the congregation of the Word preached.
God has provided elders and overseers (or bishops). These are not different people. A presbyter and bishop are the same. One has a Jewish background, the other a Greek. One emphasises age, experience and gravity; the other the responsibility of overseeing, watching over, the church of Christ. God has made this provision of overseers in His church, to feed His flock and to watch over the interests of Christ’s cause. He has given the body of presbyters a flock of their own over which to watch. He says, “Take heed unto yourselves and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers”. The Pope claims to be a universal shepherd – one of his many delusions and false claims. The gospel way is to make presbyters responsible for a number of people that they can look after – not looking after all the ends of the earth, but the flock over which the Holy Ghost has made them overseers.
This provision was made by the Holy Spirit – “the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers”. It is in the Word of God inspired by His Spirit we discover this office. It is God the Holy Spirit who puts men properly into this office. He gives His people a mind to call them to it. He gives those who were in the office before them a mind to receive them and to admit them. He gives themselves an inclination and qualification for that work. It is solemn to think that those who are rightly elders and overseers in the church of Christ were put in that position by the Holy Spirit of God, not by themselves and not by men, whatever instrumentality the Holy Spirit uses. God has given overseers. He has given them their flock. He has put them in that position. He has given them the responsibility of caring for the flock amongst whom they labour.
Those whom God has appointed to oversee His flock must recognise that the flock requires their full attention, that they have to give all diligence to feeding, shepherding, watching over its interests. That is true particularly of those who labour in the word and doctrine, being set apart from other occupations for this work. The Apostles were not standing on their dignity when they said, “It is not reason that we should leave the word of God, and serve tables” (Acts 6:2). They introduced deacons into the church to look after the temporal interests of the Lord’s people, not because they thought that was beneath them but that they might devote themselves entirely to prayer and the ministry of the Word. Paul himself said, “I will very gladly spend and be spent” (2 Cor 12:15). He gave all the energy he had, all his effort, to the work of the ministry. Ministers must be careful, not only to confine themselves to the work of the church, but also to concentrate upon the work of the ministry and not be distracted by other ecclesiastical matters. The Lord calls His overseers to devote themselves to the work of caring for the flock of God.
3. The responsibility which lies upon those to whom the Lord has entrusted the care of His church
“Take heed therefore unto yourselves, 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”. We must feed the flock of God, shepherd it, care for its interests, endeavour by the grace of God to provide it with spiritual food and to guide and guard it. That is the aim of preaching, church discipline and church government, although we often forget it. These things do not exist for themselves but for the care of the flock, the well-being of the church of Christ.
We are given the responsibility to feed the flock, to take heed to all the flock. We are conscious of how far short we come in the matter, but overseers must endeavour to have regard to all kinds and conditions of people who come under the sound of the gospel. John had something to say to little children, fathers and young men. Peter was to feed the lambs and the sheep. We must have regard not only to the man with the golden ring and goodly apparel, but also to the man in vile raiment. The gospel ministry must take heed to all the flock. The elders must take an interest in all the people. The office-bearers of Christ’s church must care for, feed and look after not just those easier to deal with but all the flock. We must be alert to the danger of the flock, concerned about its well-being and devoted to doing all within our power, by God’s grace, in its interests.
We have a particular responsibility to take heed to ourselves. We must do so because the salvation of our own soul must have a significant place in our concerns. At times we who are ministers are afraid of being like signposts by the roadside pointing others to a heaven we will never reach ourselves – perhaps even helping others heavenwards but lost ourselves at last. Being ministers, elders, deacons or members in the church of God on earth does not exclude us from the requirement urged upon Nicodemus by the Saviour: “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). There are those who will reach the judgement seat of Christ and say, “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name? (and the present equivalent of that is: “Have we not preached Thy gospel?”) and in Thy name have cast out devils? and in Thy name done many wonderful works?” And what will the Lord say to them? “I never knew you: depart from Me, ye that work iniquity” (Matt 7:22,23). We pointed others to a Christ to whom we did not come ourselves; we emphasised the need of a regeneration we had never experienced; we called people to a faith we did not have, to a repentance to which we were strangers. O what a deep place in hell will be occupied by Christless preachers, elders, deacons and church members!
Take heed unto yourselves, even when you are born again, are in Christ and on the way to heaven, because the same grace that brings salvation and teaches others, teaches you also to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, to live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world. A professionalism can creep into our Christianity when we are in office in Christ’s church. We must beware lest we read the Word of God, pray and listen to the sermons of others, not as poor sinners who need a Saviour, but in a professional manner. We must take heed to ourselves for the sake of the salvation of our own soul and dread to think of coming to eternity and finding, after having preached to others, that we ourselves are cast away.
We also must take heed to ourselves, for the sake of the flock, with regard to how we are performing our duties as office-bearers in the church of Christ. There are times when questions put to us as we entered into the work of the ministry really shake us, when we consider how it has been with us since these days: “Are not zeal for the honour of God, love to Jesus Christ and desire of saving souls, your great motives and chief inducements to enter into the function of the holy ministry, and not worldly designs and interests? Do you engage, in the strength and grace of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Master, to rule well your own family, to live a holy and circumspect life, and faithfully, diligently and cheerfully to discharge all the parts of the ministerial work, to the edification of the body of Christ? Do you accept of and close with the call to be Pastor of this congregation and promise, through grace, to perform all the duties of a faithful minister of the gospel among this people?” Does that not make you shudder at times? Perhaps we did not realise the gravity of it when we first took these vows, but as eternity gets nearer to us, does it not become a more solemn matter? Is not the well-being of the flock dependent, humanly speaking – instrumentally speaking – upon the faithfulness of ministers, elders and deacons to the vows they have taken? We must have regard to how things are with ourselves in the discharge of our duties for the sake of the well-being of the flock.
These words also exhort us to care for one another: “take heed to yourselves”. I cannot remember if it was Richard Baxter, who has a whole book on this verse, or someone else, who asked, “Who is going to take care of the souls of the pastors?” Who is going to speak faithfully to the office-bearers of the church regarding spiritual matters? They must love one another, speak to one another and care for one another. That is one of the fundamental reasons for the Biblical form of church government being Presbyterian. Not diocesan bishops with others under them, or independent congregations with office-bearers quite apart from the rest of the church, but presbytery – the gathering of office-bearers locally, regionally and nationally – is the Biblical form of church government.
But Presbyterianism can become something very different from what was intended if presbyters are not governed by concern for the glory of God, first of all, and the well-being of the cause of Christ and of one another. Old presbytery records show that it was common in the early Free Church for ministers to meet from time to time to discuss any matter affecting any one of them before it would develop into something harmful to the church of Christ. There must be love among the brethren before that can take place. But a Presbyterianism without love and a Presbyterianism where the presbyters do not care for one another is not the Presbyterianism of the Bible. Paul is saying that this spirit of concern for each other’s well-being, personally and in connection with the cause of Christ, should characterise the Lord’s overseers. Obviously it is for the well-being of the Church of God that those who rule it should be amicable, loving, and faithful in their dealings with one another.
Taking heed to ourselves is necessary because the office-bearers of the Church are in the front line, the firing line, of Satan’s attack. If Satan can cause a minister, elder or deacon to fall, it brings much more reproach upon the cause of Christ than the fall of several in the background of the church’s life. Therefore, because we have the same sins and temptations and weaknesses as others, and the devil’s added interest in our fall, we must take heed to ourselves. Satan had his eye on the disciples and particularly on Peter, who was the most talkative and most prominent of them all. “Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: but I have prayed for thee” (Luke 22:31,32). You are in the front line of attack; “take heed therefore unto yourselves”.
We may notice a few matters in conclusion. Would those of you who are still strangers to Christ not desire to have a place in the church of God, in the flock “which He hath purchased with His own blood”? The gospel is calling sinners into fellowship with Christ and, through Him, into fellowship with the people of God. Christless sinners may be interested enough to come to the opening of the Synod, and we would not let pass the opportunity of reminding them that each of them should ask the question: Would it not be a good thing for me if I were to seek a place amongst the people of God and be numbered amongst those who are washed in His blood?
If we are in the Church of God, which He has purchased with His own blood, how we should praise and adore Him for His wonderful grace! That is what makes the difference between us and those who are out on the mountains of vanity, living Godless, hopeless lives. If we are in the church of God, which He has purchased with His own blood, the praise belongs entirely to Him!
How we should value the provision God has made for feeding His church and taking care of its interests in this world! How we should value the offices He has established in the church: the ministry of the gospel and the ruling eldership! Paul exhorted the Hebrews: “Remember them which have rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation. . . . Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you” (Heb 13:7,17). After these exhortations the Apostle said, “Pray for us” (Heb 13:18). How often do you pray for the ministers, elders and deacons from whom you are expecting to get spiritual good? Pray for us! We need prayer. The Apostle was not too dignified to ask the Hebrews to pray for him.
If the Lord has put us in office in His church, we should be encouraged by the fact that it is His doing; it is His church, and behind us are the infinite resources of God. We may be so insignificant that we are not even counted by the world as existing, but “greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world” (1 John 4:4). And “if God be for us, who can be against us?” (Rom 8:31). It is a work too high and too hard for any man to perform, but it is God’s ordinance, and God’s grace and strength are sufficient.
Is not this a call to humble ourselves in God’s presence? Probably most have heard of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1596. The Church of Scotland was regarded as a model for Reformed Churches around the world. There was a faithful ministry, church discipline and church government. No doubt many godly men were ministers and elders in the church, but they had a list of reasons drawn up for humbling themselves before God. This included their personal lifestyle, the state of their souls and the content of their preaching. Such matters humbled them. They had a special session of Assembly with sermon and prayers between 9.00 am and 1.00 pm. John Davidson of Prestonpans preached, and we are told that there was such brokenness of heart among the 400 commissioners that for a time the place was full of the sobbing of strong men. They were not weak men in these days. They would not survive if they were. They were not sentimental Christians. The place reverberated with the sobbing of strong men. In the Presbyteries and Synods of the following year this was repeated. No doubt the Lord was preparing them for the sufferings into which most of them were soon to come. Going by the hardness of our own heart, we feel that this would be the most desirable effect of considering the exhortation given to us here. If it came home to us with the power of the Holy Spirit, it would bring us to repentance and humble us in God’s presence.
It would be a good Synod if we entered upon its business humbling ourselves under the mighty hand of God – not on account of the sins of the nation or the other churches of the land, but on account of the sins of our own hearts and of the body to which we are honoured to belong and which we believe has a faithful testimony to the cause of Christ which is not so fully found in any other denomination in the land. We need to hear the call: “Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers”. That is our first and foremost responsibility and we desire that the Lord’s praying people would join with us in seeking such an application of the Truth to our own souls at this time.
Holiness is the most brilliant pearl in the King of heaven’s crown: “glorious in holiness” (Ex 15:11). God’s power makes Him mighty; His mercy makes Him lovely; but His holiness makes Him glorious. The holiness of God is the intrinsic purity of His nature and His abhorrence of sin. A godly man bears some kind of analogy with God in this.
Thomas Watson