Zealous for Christ

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Ben 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. Mark, we've been highlighting some of the main sessions and breakouts from our recent pastors conference. You want to highlight one more, Jeff Purswell's excellent sermon on the topic of zeal.

Mark Prater:

I do, I debated whether we should hit another pastors conference message, but I just can't pass this one up because I thought Jeff's sermon on the pastor's zeal from Romans 12:11 was a denomination shaping type of sermon. And it really established for us a category we don't often talk about, at least in recent years. That category being zeal. Jeff preached from Romans 12:11; "Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit." His whole sermon was unpacked from that verse, and it was, as you know, Ben, just an outstanding sermon. It's one that I hear most commented about when I ask guys or their wives about the conference. Jeff's message really impacted them.

And so, I would encourage you, if you're listening to this podcast, if you've not listened to Jeff's message, to listen to it. And if you have listened to it, let me encourage you to listen to it again, because it really is a category for us as Christians, and in this context for pastors and their wives, to be people who have zeal. They have zeal for Christ, and meaning that we have a fervent spirit. We are passionate about Christ. And that's just so important not only in pastoral ministry, but in the Christian life. One of my hopes of the effect of this sermon is that when people walk into Sovereign Grace churches, they say "these people, they're passionate, they're zealous for Christ." And yes, I I pray that happens by the grace of God.

Now, one of the important points that Jeff made in his message is that zeal is not self manufactured. Zeal is not something we can work up in our own strength. We can appear zealous, but it's not gonna last. He really just did a skillful job showing us that it is those who are weak, those who are dependent upon God, who cry out to him, asking for God to stir zeal in them; those are the people that are gonna be zealous for Christ. This was so helpful for all of us because it unburdened us. All of us can go in dependence to the Lord and say, oh, Lord, make me a zealous believer. Stir me to be a zealous pastor. And one of the things he did skillfully in that text, he connected Romans 12:11 to Romans 12:8 that says, "those who lead, lead with zeal". And that speaks specifically, obviously, to those in leadership within the church. And that speaks to us as pastors. We wanna be zealous men, and we want our people to know what we are most passionate about. And may that be the Lord Jesus Christ. So, just some encouragement from me to listen to this sermon; that anyone can have fervency of spirit when you just cast yourself upon the Lord, in dependence, and ask him to help you.

Ben Kreps:

Yeah. That's excellent. I was so affected by that sermon in a number of ways. I felt at the same time, a deep sense of my shortcomings in this area. But also faith and hope rising. I just thought, "oh, be more dependent. I think I could do that. I think I could cultivate dependence on the Lord." I also felt like a complete idiot because I preached this text a few years ago and I didn't do what Jeff did. <laugh>. Yeah. But what was helpful was, zeal seemed more exegetic. And for Jeff to inform that category the way that he did, was paradigm shifting and I think helpful for so many of us.

Mark Prater:

Yeah. And what you did do though, is you took this message back home and were intentional to discuss it with your pastors and wives. Tell us about that.

Ben Kreps:

Yeah, we have a monthly pastors and wives get together for fellowship. And that sermon was so helpful because it gave this category for us, of zeal. It's specific instead of, you know, more generally speaking about how are we doing and serving the Lord. It's "how is zeal functioning in serving and informing", even the quietest among us. It doesn't have anything to do with a charismatic personality type; loud, aggressive. Even the quietest, most gentle among us can be zealous, can be fervent in spirit, in serving the Lord. And so just to ask in that in our get together, "how is zeal in your life functioning? Is there zeal functioning?" "Is there a need to go back to cultivating dependence on God to provide that zeal, that fervency, in serving the Lord through the Holy Spirit?" So that's just a helpful category. It gets at something more specific when discussing, in fellowship, and certainly shared it with my church, and shared all of the sermons, but a few I highlighted and that was one of them, because we certainly wanna see our church members grow in their zeal and fervency on serving the Lord, as well.

Mark Prater:

Right? That's such good leadership on your part. To be, you know, pastoring your pastors and wives and to be encouraging and exhorting your church to grow in their spiritual fervor for Christ. May we be marked by that. And it's so important to us in a couple different ways. You know, for us as pastors, we can have our theology nailed down, pretty well anyway. We can preach effective sermons; good structure, good exegesis, good exposition. We can pastor people effectively. But if all of that is lacking zeal, it doesn't have the same impact as doing those things with zeal. Because, people that are listening to this that are pastors know, that our people are watching us, and they can tell what, what matters most to us. They can tell by what we are most passionate about. I think it's also important to us, in a couple of ways, let me speak generationally. Guys that are my age or older, one of my prayers is that I would not lose my passion for Christ. As we get older, if anything, it would grow more zealous. And you see that in some of the bibical examples in scripture. I think it's one of the ways to finish well; to maintain, and even grow in zealousness for Christ. And for younger guys, you're in ministry and doing ministry, but is it really marked by zeal? And one of the things Jeff said, there are founding pastors in Sovereign Grace that have maintained their zeal. And for the next generation or two, let's be like them, let's not lose our zeal. Let's cultivate zeal. As we think about the potential, if God allows it, multi-generations of Sovereign Grace churches, let them be marked by zealousness, a zeal, for the Lord Jesus Christ.

Ben Kreps:

Yes. Amen. I was reminded during the sermon of a verse I've always enjoyed in 2 Kings chapter 10, where he says, "come with me and see my zeal for the Lord." And certainly, as we lead our churches and seek to pastor and care for folks in our churches, may we be men who can say the same sort of thing to our people as well. Come with me and see my zeal for the Lord,  so that we inspire zeal in those that we love and care for. So thanks for your thoughts, Mark. Thank you, Jeff, for just an excellent sermon, and thank you all for watching or reading. We'll see you here, Lord willing, next week. Bye for now.