Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Weight of the Sacred Desk: Exposing the Peril of Presumptuous Ambition and the Reality of Stricter Judgment (James 3:1)

Transcript

The Weight of the Sacred Desk: Exposing the Peril of Presumptuous Ambition and the Reality of Stricter Judgment (James 3:1) · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Welcome to Reform Thinking. Today is Wednesday, March 11th,
• 0:03
  2026, and we are opening up a rigorous theological and
• 0:07
  exegetical study of a single, highly sobering verse of
• 0:11
  Scripture. We are putting our focus
• 0:12
  entirely on James chapter 3, verse one.
• 0:15
  Yeah. It is a heavy text to handle.
• 0:17
  It really is, the text reads. Not many of you should become
• 0:20
  teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be
• 0:23
  judged with greater strictness. Now we bring to this deep dive a
• 0:27
  very specific perspective. As Protestant Christians who
• 0:31
  hold to the Westminster Confession of Faith, we evaluate
• 0:34
  all textual sources through a reformed, redemptive historical
• 0:37
  lens. Right, that framework changes
• 0:39
  how we read everything. It does, and today our mission
• 0:42
  is to unpack the exegetical and theological materials gathered
• 0:45
  on this verse. We're going to draw out the
• 0:47
  severe warnings against ecclesiastical ambition found in
• 0:51
  this text, and then we will highlight the glorious painters
• 0:53
  to Christ hidden within that severity.
• 0:56
  Which is so necessary, especially today.
• 0:58
  Absolutely. Because when you look at the
• 1:00
  landscape of modern culture, this verse runs completely
• 1:03
  contrary to everything we see in here.
• 1:06
  I mean, we live in an age of brand building.
• 1:08
  We live in the era of influencers.
• 1:10
  The supreme goal for so many people today is gaining an
• 1:13
  audience, acquiring followers, maximizing reach.
• 1:16
  Spot on The microphone is the ultimate prize in our culture,
• 1:20
  Yeah. Yet the Holy Spirit, speaking to
• 1:23
  the Apostle James, throws up a massive stop sign right in front
• 1:27
  of the sacred desk of teaching. He restrains the rush toward
• 1:31
  that microphone. And right at the outset, we need
• 1:34
  to make a clear connection for you, the listener.
• 1:37
  So true. You might be listening to this,
• 1:38
  thinking that because you never plan to stand behind a pulpit,
• 1:41
  this warning does not alley to you.
• 1:43
  Right, like it is an insider issue for pastors only.
• 1:45
  Well, precisely. But understanding the gravity of
• 1:49
  the teaching office changes everything about your life in
• 1:51
  the local church. It changes how you listen to
• 1:53
  sermons. It changes how you pray for your
• 1:55
  elders. It shapes how you discern truth
• 1:57
  from error in a media saturated world.
• 2:00
  So to really grasp the weight of what James is saying here, we
• 2:04
  have to look at where he places this warning, the literary
• 2:07
  context. The context is striking.
• 2:09
  In chapters 1 and 2, James systematically tears down the
• 2:13
  idea of a dead faith. He insists with incredible
• 2:16
  clarity that true belief always results in obedience.
• 2:19
  Faith without works is dead. A very heavy theological claim.
• 2:24
  It is then, as soon as he opens Chapter 3, James introduces the
• 2:28
  ultimate, undeniable test of that obedience, the tongue.
• 2:33
  The tongue is the instrument that reveals the true state of
• 2:36
  the human heart. He moves from the general
• 2:38
  necessity of a living faith to the practical daily
• 2:41
  manifestation of that faith through human speech.
• 2:44
  He zeroes in on the most difficult thing for any human
• 2:47
  being to control. Yeah, he really does.
• 2:49
  So if the entire congregation is struggling to tame the tongue,
• 2:52
  why does James start Chapter 3 by singling out the teachers?
• 2:56
  I mean, why put the crosshairs on the guys the front of the
• 2:58
  room? Because no one uses their tongue
• 3:00
  more publicly, more regularly, and more influentially in the
• 3:03
  life of the Church than the teacher.
• 3:04
  Think about the scale of the impact here.
• 3:06
  Right, it is a numbers game in one sense.
• 3:09
  Yeah, a private citizen in the congregation might utter A
• 3:12
  careless word, spread a piece of gossip, or give some bad advice
• 3:16
  that causes localized damage. And it is certainly sinful, but
• 3:21
  a teacher's careless word has the potential to mislead a whole
• 3:25
  congregation. The blast radius is just so much
• 3:28
  larger. It is huge.
• 3:29
  The teacher's words form the theological understanding of the
• 3:32
  entire flock. The stakes are infinitely
• 3:34
  higher. The teacher stands at the
• 3:36
  absolute most dangerous intersection of human speech and
• 3:39
  divine responsibility. I was reading through the
• 3:42
  exegetical notes we gathered, and one commentator pointed out
• 3:45
  something fascinating about the original Greek structure here.
• 3:48
  Oh, the present middle imperative.
• 3:50
  Yes, that is it. The phrase is Milo de discolou
• 3:53
  geneste, that is a present middle imperative with a
• 3:56
  negative particle. It translates to stop becoming
• 4:00
  or do not continually strive to be teachers.
• 4:03
  Which is very specific. Extremely specific.
• 4:06
  This phrasing implies a very active situation in the early
• 4:09
  church. People were not just passively
• 4:11
  falling into teaching roles, they were actively, eagerly
• 4:15
  rushing to grab the microphone. They were striving for the
• 4:18
  position. That active striving makes total
• 4:20
  sense when you look at the cultural background.
• 4:23
  In the Greco Roman world, and equally within 1st century
• 4:26
  Judaism, the title of Didaskalos, the formal
• 4:29
  instructor carried massive cultural prestige it.
• 4:32
  Was a status symbol. A huge one.
• 4:34
  It was a position of high honor, extreme visibility, and
• 4:38
  unquestioned authority. There's a sharp contrast between
• 4:41
  that title and the word methetes, which means a disciple
• 4:45
  or a learner. Sitting and learning requires
• 4:47
  humility. Standing and teaching brings
• 4:49
  public applause. Spot on.
• 4:51
  That cultural prestige was highly attractive to the
• 4:53
  ambitious flesh. Men were drawn to the office not
• 4:56
  because they trembled at the word of God, but because they
• 4:58
  loved the respect of men. They craved the title,
• 5:00
  completely ignoring the terrifying accountability
• 5:03
  attached to it. That ambition is a native sin of
• 5:05
  the human heart, and it is just as prevalent today.
• 5:09
  Consider the Christian media you consume on a daily basis.
• 5:11
  This is a great diagnostic for the listener.
• 5:14
  It is when you listen to a sermon, read a theological blog,
• 5:18
  or watch a video from a Christian communicator, look
• 5:21
  closely at their demeanor. Ask yourself, do the voices you
• 5:24
  listen to display a holy fear of the biblical text, or do they
• 5:28
  display a casual desire for the spotlight?
• 5:31
  Are they handling the Scriptures with reverence, or are they
• 5:34
  treating the Bible as a stepping stone to build their own
• 5:37
  personal platform? Yeah.
• 5:39
  That diagnostic question cuts right to the heart of the modern
• 5:42
  evangelical landscape. This ancient text clashes
• 5:45
  violently with modern church growth pragmatism.
• 5:48
  We see so many seeker sensitive movements today where the
• 5:51
  primary metric for leadership is charisma.
• 5:54
  The evaluation focuses on communication skills, visual
• 5:57
  appeal, cultural savvy, and social media reach.
• 6:00
  It feels very corporate. It does.
• 6:01
  The modern church often operates like a corporation looking for a
• 6:04
  dynamic CEO to boost the quarterly numbers, rather than a
• 6:08
  vulnerable flock looking for a faithful shepherd to protect
• 6:11
  them from wolves. We have all seen it.
• 6:13
  The guy who treats the pulpit like an open mic night or a Ted
• 6:16
  talk. He is up there with the designer
• 6:18
  sneakers, pacing the stage, dropping a slightly edgy joke
• 6:22
  just to prove how relevant and relatable he is.
• 6:24
  It is a performance. Total performance.
• 6:27
  But the text we are evaluating today suggests that God is not
• 6:30
  impressed by the sneakers or the follower count.
• 6:33
  In fact, he views that level of casual presumption as incredibly
• 6:38
  dangerous. The notes we have on this
• 6:40
  passage breakdown the specific temptations that make the
• 6:43
  teaching office so hazardous, starting with pride and
• 6:46
  visibility. Pride is the most obvious trap
• 6:48
  here. There is a natural, fleshly
• 6:50
  thrill in having an audience. It feeds the ego to be the one
• 6:54
  with the answers, the one who is admired for intellectual
• 6:57
  sharpness or oratorical skill. Because everyone is looking to
• 7:00
  you. Yes, when a congregation looks
• 7:02
  to a man for spiritual direction week after week, the temptation
• 7:05
  to believe your own press clippings is immense.
• 7:08
  And that leads directly to the second temptation, which is
• 7:11
  self-reliance. Relying on the flesh instead of
• 7:13
  the spirit. Exactly.
• 7:14
  A gifted public speaker can very easily begin to trust his own
• 7:17
  rhetorical skills. He starts relying on his humor,
• 7:20
  his emotional appeal, or his storytelling ability to move the
• 7:23
  room. Rather than relying entirely on
• 7:26
  the Holy Spirit to eliminate the text.
• 7:28
  He learns how to manufacture a spiritual response using fleshly
• 7:31
  tools. I noticed 1/3 temptation
• 7:34
  highlighted in the theological commentary Novelty.
• 7:37
  Oh novelty is a massive issue in our current hyper connected era.
• 7:41
  It really is. There is an insatiable urge to
• 7:44
  find a fresh take on a text. Teachers feel the crushing
• 7:48
  pressure to hold people's attention in a world of endless
• 7:50
  content, so they deviate from historic Orthodox
• 7:53
  interpretations just to sound original.
• 7:55
  They want to be the guy who saw something in the text that no
• 7:57
  one else has seen for 2000 years.
• 7:59
  Yeah. They trade theological precision
• 8:01
  for popularity. And the fourth temptation might
• 8:04
  be the most insidious of them all, Hypocrisy.
• 8:06
  That is a scary one. It is terrifying when a man
• 8:09
  speaks constantly about the things of God.
• 8:11
  It becomes frighteningly easy to talk about holiness without
• 8:15
  actually practicing it. Behind closed doors.
• 8:17
  You learn the vocabulary of righteousness.
• 8:19
  You know precisely what to say to sound pious, but the reality
• 8:23
  of that piety is absent from your private life.
• 8:26
  You become an actor playing a part.
• 8:28
  So if the current Church model is so broken and the temptations
• 8:31
  are so severe, how does this ancient command actually
• 8:35
  function for the man who is genuinely called to ministry?
• 8:39
  Does a verse like James 3.1 just crush him under the weight of
• 8:42
  impossible standards? That brings us to how Reformed
• 8:44
  theology understands the law. We look at this through the lens
• 8:48
  of the third use of the law or the uses didacticus.
• 8:51
  The teaching use of the law. Right.
• 8:53
  We understand the law acts as a mirror, showing us our sin and
• 8:56
  our desperate need for grace. But for the believer who was
• 8:58
  already justified by faith, the law also acts as a guide for
• 9:02
  holy living. The way forward.
• 9:04
  Yes, this specific verse, the severe command stop rushing into
• 9:08
  the teaching office, is not meant to paralyze the genuinely
• 9:12
  called man into legalistic despair.
• 9:14
  It is meant to produce a filial fear.
• 9:17
  Filial fear being the reverence a child has for a loving father
• 9:21
  rather than the terror a criminal has for an executioner.
• 9:24
  Precisely. It is a reverent, loving awe of
• 9:26
  God's holiness. That filial fear drives the
• 9:30
  pastor to meticulous study. It drives him to his knees in
• 9:33
  desperate prayer. It forces him to handle the
• 9:36
  original Hebrew and Greek texts with absolute care, knowing he
• 9:40
  is handling the very breath of. God, he knows he cannot rely on
• 9:43
  his own cleverness. No, he cannot.
• 9:45
  John Calvin had a brilliant observation regarding this
• 9:47
  dynamic. In his commentaries, Calvin
• 9:49
  noted that the desire of mastery is a common and destructive vice
• 9:54
  in the church. The desire of mastery.
• 9:55
  That is a striking phrase. It is, he pointed out, the
• 9:58
  ironic tragedy of ambition. The men who are most eager to
• 10:01
  seize the teaching office, the ones throwing elbows to get to
• 10:04
  the microphone, are frequently the least qualified to hold it.
• 10:07
  Because the ambition itself disqualifies them.
• 10:09
  Yes, they're very Eagerness to rule over others reveals A
• 10:13
  fundamental lack of the humility required to shepherd the flock
• 10:17
  of Christ. The man who runs toward the
• 10:19
  pulpit is often the man who should be kept furnace from it.
• 10:22
  Yet despite the sharpness of Calvin's observation and the
• 10:25
  severity of James's warning, we cannot miss the incredible
• 10:29
  pastoral warmth in the text itself.
• 10:32
  No, we cannot. Look at how James frames this
• 10:34
  prohibition. He begins by addressing his
• 10:36
  audience as my brothers. It is a term of endearment.
• 10:40
  It is a tone of gentle familial correction.
• 10:43
  James is not yelling down from an ivory tower, detects from the
• 10:46
  struggles of the local congregation.
• 10:48
  He speaks as a fellow member of the Covenant family.
• 10:51
  That reframes the entire concept of church leadership.
• 10:54
  True spiritual leadership does not flatter the sheep.
• 10:57
  It does not coddle their egos or tell them what they're itching
• 11:00
  ears want to hear. True leadership tells hard truth
• 11:03
  to protect the flock. In the context of the Church,
• 11:06
  admonition is a function of family love.
• 11:08
  James is warning them because he loves them too much to watch
• 11:11
  them destroy their own souls through unchecked ambition.
• 11:14
  And there is a deliberate and beautiful shift in the grammar.
• 11:17
  Right after that tender address, James shifts from addressing the
• 11:22
  brothers to using the first person plural.
• 11:25
  He says we who teach he. Deliberately includes himself
• 11:29
  under this severe threat. He does.
• 11:31
  He does not stand above the text.
• 11:33
  He places his own neck under the very same yoke of
• 11:35
  accountability. He is the half brother of the
• 11:38
  Lord Jesus Christ, a pillar of the Jerusalem Church.
• 11:41
  Yet he acknowledges that he too will face the strictest
• 11:44
  scrutiny. The implication of that plural
• 11:46
  pronoun is massive. The teacher is a man under
• 11:49
  authority long before he is a man exercising authority.
• 11:53
  Standing behind a pulpit does not grant a man diplomatic
• 11:56
  immunity from divine evaluation. In fact, it guarantees a more
• 11:59
  rigorous evaluation, which makes me want to ask you, the
• 12:02
  listener, to evaluate the culture of your own local church
• 12:04
  right now. Think about the atmosphere among
• 12:07
  your leadership. This is a vital exercise for any
• 12:09
  church member. Is there an atmosphere of mutual
• 12:12
  loving accountability? Do your pastors and elders
• 12:16
  invite correction? Do they acknowledge publicly and
• 12:19
  privately that they are men under authority?
• 12:22
  Or are the leaders treated as untouchable celebrities who
• 12:25
  cannot be questioned? A culture that views leadership
• 12:27
  as immune from critique will inevitably produce spiritual
• 12:31
  abuse. Every single time.
• 12:33
  That brings us to the core rationale behind James's
• 12:35
  warning. What drives the severity?
• 12:38
  James anchors his command in an absolute eschatological reality.
• 12:43
  He uses the phrase idos hoti, which translates to knowing
• 12:46
  that. Knowing that, he assumes they
• 12:49
  already grasped this theological truth.
• 12:51
  He is appealing to an established, undeniable
• 12:53
  theological axiom. He is not grounding his warning
• 12:56
  in the bylaws of the Jerusalem church or social preferences or
• 12:59
  practical convenience. He is grounding it in the final
• 13:02
  judgement. Every man who opens the Bible to
• 13:04
  teach must know that an audit is coming.
• 13:06
  Hold on, let's put a guardrail up right here.
• 13:08
  When people hear phrases like stricter judgement and an
• 13:11
  impending audit, their minds immediately jumped to salvation.
• 13:14
  They do. It causes a lot of panic.
• 13:16
  Someone listening might think, wait, does a pastor have a
• 13:19
  harder time getting into heaven? Is his eternal soul in more
• 13:22
  jeopardy because he taught Sunday school?
• 13:24
  How do the Westminster Standards help us parse out the difference
• 13:28
  between justification and the specific evaluation James is
• 13:31
  talking about? That distinction is absolutely
• 13:34
  crucial. Let us define the central phrase
• 13:36
  of this rationale, Maison crema. This is the Greek term for
• 13:41
  stricter judgement or a heavier judicial verdict.
• 13:44
  We draw our theological guardrails explicitly from the
• 13:47
  Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 11 on justification,
• 13:51
  which is. Such a clear comfort.
• 13:52
  It is the bedrock. When Juden speaks of a stricter
• 13:55
  judgment for teachers, this absolutely does not mean
• 13:58
  teachers face a different path to salvation.
• 14:00
  Justification remains by faith alone, resting entirely on
• 14:04
  Christ's imputed righteousness. There is no secondary workspace
• 14:07
  salvation track for pastors. None at all.
• 14:10
  The teacher standing before God, His adoption, his forgiveness,
• 14:13
  his eternal life is secured permanently by the blood of
• 14:15
  Christ, just like the newest convert in the back Pew.
• 14:18
  So we're talking about the Bema seed of Christ, the judgement of
• 14:21
  a believer's works. Yes.
• 14:24
  Think of it like a building inspector coming to a
• 14:26
  construction site. The inspector is not there to
• 14:28
  decide if the builder gets to keep his citizenship or his
• 14:31
  life. That status is already secure.
• 14:35
  The inspector is there to take a blowtorch to the drywall to see
• 14:38
  if the foundation and the materials hold up under stress.
• 14:41
  To see what was built with integrity.
• 14:43
  Exactly. The Apostle Paul talks about
• 14:45
  this in First Corinthians chapter 3.
• 14:47
  He says a man's work will be tested by fire.
• 14:50
  He contrasts building with wood, hay and stubble versus building
• 14:54
  with gold, silver and precious stones.
• 14:57
  Which applies heavily to the pulpit.
• 14:59
  It applies directly if a teacher built their ministry on the wood
• 15:02
  hay of self promotion, cheap laughs and pragmatic church
• 15:06
  growth tactics. That work burns up in the final
• 15:09
  evaluation. The man himself is saved as
• 15:12
  through fire, but he suffers a massive loss of reward.
• 15:15
  He smells like smoke. And we must explicitly reject
• 15:18
  the Roman Catholic notion of purgatory in this context.
• 15:21
  Yes, very clearly. This evaluation at the Bema seat
• 15:24
  is not a process of burning off residual sins to achieve a state
• 15:27
  of readiness for heaven. Christ's atonement is completely
• 15:31
  sufficient for the penalty of sin.
• 15:34
  This specific judgment is about the public vindication of God's
• 15:37
  holy standard regarding how His truth was handled on earth and
• 15:41
  the corresponding loss or gain of heavenly reward.
• 15:44
  Speaking on behalf of the Almighty God is a terrifying
• 15:47
  stewardship. The weight of this audit covers
• 15:49
  every conceivable angle of a man's ministry.
• 15:52
  A teacher's tone, their theological content, their
• 15:55
  methodology, and their hidden internal motives are all laid
• 15:58
  bare and scrutinized by the Lord.
• 16:00
  And the sources we gathered make a sharp distinction here.
• 16:02
  To illustrate the spectrum of this judgement, consider the
• 16:05
  leaders of established cults. The false teachers.
• 16:08
  Right. Like the founders of Mormonism
• 16:09
  or the Jehovah's Witnesses, these are individuals who
• 16:11
  systematically twist the original Greek text to deny the
• 16:14
  deity of Christ and teach a false gospel.
• 16:17
  They face unmitigated ruin and eternal condemnation for leading
• 16:21
  souls into heresy. They are wolves.
• 16:23
  But on the other hand, there is the orthodox but careless
• 16:26
  Christian teacher. The man who preaches the true
• 16:28
  gospel but does so with sloppy exegesis, arrogant rhetoric, or
• 16:33
  selfish ambition. He faces a severe loss of
• 16:36
  reward. He will answer for the careless
• 16:39
  syllables. Both realities under score the
• 16:41
  terror of mishandling the Word of God.
• 16:43
  I think one of the most striking historical examples of a man who
• 16:46
  properly understood the weight of the Maison crema is Charles
• 16:50
  Haddon Spurgeon. I am so glad you brought him up.
• 16:52
  The notes on Spurgeon are fascinating.
• 16:55
  They really are. We are talking about the Prince
• 16:57
  of Preachers in 19th century London.
• 17:00
  He was preaching to crowds of 5 or 6000 people at the
• 17:03
  Metropolitan Tabernacle long before the invention of electric
• 17:06
  microphones. Just the physical reality of
• 17:08
  that is wild. The sheer physical exertion of
• 17:11
  shouting to a crowd that sighs for an hour is staggering.
• 17:15
  But the physical toll was nothing compared to the mental
• 17:18
  and spiritual toll. Spurgeon suffered intensely from
• 17:21
  what he called the Fainting Pastor syndrome.
• 17:24
  He experienced severe bouts of depression and physical
• 17:26
  collapse. His journals and letters detail
• 17:29
  this agonizing anxiety. People often attribute his
• 17:32
  physical ailments strictly to gout or Brights disease, but his
• 17:36
  biographers clearly link his physical breakdowns to his
• 17:39
  ministerial stress. He was crushed under the sheer
• 17:43
  weight of souls. He knew what was at stake.
• 17:45
  He knew that thousands of people were hanging on his every word,
• 17:49
  shaping their eternal destiny based on his exposition of the
• 17:53
  text. He understood the audit was
• 17:55
  real. He knew that every sentence he
• 17:57
  preached would be weighed in the scales of heaven.
• 17:59
  He was terrified of misrepresenting his king.
• 18:02
  That reality literally brought him to his knees and physical
• 18:05
  exhaustion. He felt the weight of James 3.1
• 18:08
  in his bones. And frankly, if the Prince of
• 18:10
  Preachers felt that kind of terror standing before an open
• 18:13
  Bible, it makes the casual, flippant attitude of the modern
• 18:16
  celebrity pastor look incredibly arrogant.
• 18:18
  It reveals a severe theological deficiency in the modern church.
• 18:22
  This text forces us to confront the massive theological
• 18:25
  implications regarding the nature of God Himself.
• 18:28
  First and foremost, this verse reveals the absolute holiness of
• 18:31
  God. Cares precisely how his truth is
• 18:33
  handled in our modern therapeutic context.
• 18:36
  People often excuse bad preaching by saying, well his
• 18:39
  theology is a bit off, but he is such a good heart.
• 18:41
  He is so sincere. Sincerity alone is an utterly
• 18:45
  insufficient substitute for theological accuracy.
• 18:47
  It is God is jealous for his own honor.
• 18:50
  Misrepresenting His word, even with a smile and good
• 18:53
  intentions, is a slight against His holy character.
• 18:56
  That ties directly into a high doctrine of Scripture.
• 18:59
  We find this perfectly summarized in the Westminster
• 19:02
  Confession Chapter one of the Holy Scripture.
• 19:05
  The teacher is a steward of a closed Canon.
• 19:07
  And the extra genical notes aligned perfectly with the
• 19:09
  historic Protestant view of cessationism.
• 19:12
  This means the modern teacher has no new mystical revelations
• 19:16
  to offer the congregation. No one is receiving fresh
• 19:19
  prophecies that are on par with the biblical text.
• 19:21
  The teacher is not an innovator, he is an expositor.
• 19:25
  His soul terrifying duty is the accurate, faithful explanation
• 19:29
  of the written, closed Canon of Scripture.
• 19:31
  When a man steps into the pulpit claiming God gave him a special
• 19:35
  direct revelation for the congregation, he's not only
• 19:38
  violating the sufficiency of Scripture, he is actively piling
• 19:42
  up a stricter judgment against himself.
• 19:44
  The warning in James 3.1 also assumes the doctrine of total
• 19:48
  depravity. It acknowledges that the
• 19:50
  corruption of the human heart does not magically disappear the
• 19:53
  moment someone steps into a church building or enrolls in
• 19:56
  seminary. No, it does not.
• 19:58
  Even inside the visible church, operating in the realm of sacred
• 20:01
  things, the human heart manufacturers idols of self
• 20:04
  exaltation. A man can use the holy things of
• 20:07
  God to feed his own vanity. The flesh is constantly looking
• 20:11
  for a way to gain the applause of men, even if it has to use
• 20:13
  the Bible to get it. Because of that persistent
• 20:16
  depravity, we must maintain an elevated ecclesiology.
• 20:19
  The doctrine of the Church matters immensely here.
• 20:21
  The local church is not a voluntary club.
• 20:24
  It is not a social gathering for like minded hobbyists to hear a
• 20:27
  motivational speech. It is the blood bought flock of
• 20:30
  the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, the men standing at
• 20:33
  the front, the ones handling the Word, must treat their role as a
• 20:37
  holy trust. They are handling the bride of
• 20:40
  Christ, and Christ takes the treatment of His bride very
• 20:43
  seriously. You do not handle the King's
• 20:45
  bride casually. You do not.
• 20:47
  So, looking at the head, the heart, and the hands, we need to
• 20:50
  apply this text practically for the aspirant.
• 20:54
  The young man who desires to enter the teaching office may be
• 20:57
  someone heading to seminary right now.
• 21:00
  The sources we gathered layout a severe diagnostic test.
• 21:03
  Are you willing to learn quietly for years before you ever speak?
• 21:07
  Are you seeking the office out of a genuine, sacrificial love
• 21:10
  for the sheep? Or are you driven by a love for
• 21:12
  the microphone, the platform and the applause?
• 21:14
  The aspirant must examine his own motives with ruthless
• 21:17
  honesty before presuming to speak for God.
• 21:20
  I want to issue a challenge directly to you, the listener,
• 21:22
  regarding your congregation. As church members, you dictate
• 21:26
  the culture. Churches must stop treating the
• 21:28
  visible ability to hold an audience as the primary
• 21:30
  qualification for the eldership. We have to stop functioning like
• 21:34
  casting directors looking for a leading man for a movie.
• 21:37
  Spot on. Your church must value
• 21:39
  godliness, doctrinal precision, and proven quiet character above
• 21:43
  all else. If a man is eloquent and
• 21:46
  charismatic but lacks character and theological rigor, he is a
• 21:49
  danger to the flock, not a blessing.
• 21:52
  He is a wolf in sheep's clothing, or at best a hireling
• 21:55
  who will flee when the theology gets difficult.
• 21:58
  I love how the notes tie this into the broader context of
• 22:01
  Reformed worship and the means of grace.
• 22:04
  The sermon does not stand alone as an isolated intellectual
• 22:06
  exercise. It leads naturally into the rest
• 22:09
  of the liturgy. The spoken word in the sermon
• 22:11
  points directly to the visible word in the Lord's Supper.
• 22:14
  When the teacher faithfully, carefully expounds the gospel,
• 22:18
  the congregation is prepared to come to the communion table and
• 22:21
  feed on Christ by faith. The sources also point out the
• 22:23
  immense value of historic catechesis, specifically
• 22:27
  utilizing the Westminster Shorter Catechism, in the life
• 22:29
  of the Church. Which we do not see enough of
• 22:31
  today. We really do not.
• 22:34
  Using a catechism provides a unified, orthodox vocabulary for
• 22:37
  the entire congregation. It acts as a theological
• 22:40
  safeguard when the people in the pews know the precise
• 22:44
  definitions of justification, sanctification, and adoption.
• 22:47
  It protects the teacher from careless speech, and it protects
• 22:50
  the listener from doctrinal drift.
• 22:52
  It creates a culture of theological precision that
• 22:55
  honors the command in James 3.1 it.
• 22:57
  Really does. Here is where we get to
• 22:59
  transition from the crushing weight of the Law to the
• 23:02
  magnificent relief of the gospel.
• 23:04
  Because the truth is, if we stop at the law, this text leaves
• 23:07
  every pastor terrified and every congregation suspicious.
• 23:10
  No human teacher can Florida State execute this office.
• 23:13
  Every single pastor has misspoken, let his pride slip
• 23:16
  in, or handle the text carelessly at some point.
• 23:19
  But we have a perfect teacher. Jesus Christ is the true and
• 23:22
  flawless Duskalasa. He is the Incarnate Logos, the
• 23:25
  Word made flesh. He never uttered a single
• 23:29
  careless syllable. He never once compromised the
• 23:32
  truth for cultural relevance. He never sought the applause of
• 23:35
  the Pharisees or the crowds. He was the perfect constructor
• 23:38
  in every single way, fulfilling the righteous requirement of the
• 23:41
  Law on our behalf. This is where the doctrine of
• 23:44
  penal substitutionary atonement becomes the only comfort for the
• 23:47
  man in the pulpit. When we look at the cross
• 23:49
  through the lens of James 3.1, we see a stunning, beautiful
• 23:53
  reality. Christ absorbed the Creamer.
• 23:55
  Yes, the judicial verdict that are proud, careless, and
• 23:59
  manipulative words deserved. Every time a teacher has
• 24:02
  mishandled the text out of pride, every time a pastor has
• 24:05
  leaned on his own charisma instead of the Spirit, and every
• 24:08
  time a congregant has spoken carelessly that sin was placed
• 24:12
  upon Christ, he bore the stricter judgment so that we
• 24:14
  could receive grace. Because of that sacrifice, the
• 24:17
  Reformed pastor preaches from a position of union with Christ.
• 24:21
  They do not preach from a reservoir of personal
• 24:23
  brilliance, intellectual superiority, or rhetorical
• 24:26
  skill. Their identity is not rooted in
• 24:28
  the title of teacher or pastor. Their core identity is rooted in
• 24:32
  their adoption as children of God.
• 24:34
  They are completely secure in Christ, which frees them to
• 24:38
  preach the hard truth boldly without needing the constant
• 24:41
  validation of the audience. They do not need to build a
• 24:43
  brand because their name is already written in the Book of
• 24:46
  life. To summarize the core takeaways
• 24:48
  of our deep dive today, we have looked closely at the Greek
• 24:51
  imperative demanding an absolute stop to fleshly presumption in
• 24:55
  the Church. We have confronted the sobering
• 24:57
  reality of the stricter evaluation awaiting those who
• 25:00
  presume to handle the Word. We have seen how this warning
• 25:03
  aligns perfectly with Reformed confessional theology regarding
• 25:07
  the holiness of God, the total sufficiency of Scripture, and
• 25:11
  the purity of the church. And we have found our ultimate
• 25:14
  rest in Christ's perfect record, knowing He bore our judgement
• 25:18
  and gives us His righteousness. As we wrap up this deep dive
• 25:22
  into the text, we want to leave you with a specific provocative
• 25:25
  question to ponder on your own this week.
• 25:27
  This is a vital question for every believer.
• 25:29
  Consider the Christian media, the books, the blogs, and the
• 25:32
  sermons you consume. Are you creating an economic
• 25:35
  demand for the exact type of ambitious, celebrity driven
• 25:39
  teaching that James warns the church to reject?
• 25:42
  Your attention is a currency. It is when you click, when you
• 25:46
  download, when you buy the book of the guy in the designer
• 25:48
  sneakers who handles the text carelessly, you are funding the
• 25:51
  very ambition God hates. Spend your attention on
• 25:54
  faithful, quiet men, not polished performers.
• 25:58
  Thank you for joining us for this rigorous study on behalf of
• 26:01
  Reformed thinking. We wish you grace and peace as
• 26:03
  you walk in the truth.