Paul writes to Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:16, “Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching; persevere in these things, for as you do this you will ensure salvation both for yourself and for those who hear you.” This has rightly become the ministerial mantra for many pastors and ministry leaders today.
Understanding what these words mean is not that difficult. We must pay careful attention to our lives to ensure that we are living according to the truth, for we are holy and set apart for the Lord and His Word. We must pay careful attention to our teaching to ensure that we are teaching according to the truth, that we proclaim sound doctrine and build up the Church. But why must we do this? Why is it so urgent for us to guard our life and our doctrine? What is at stake? Consider these five reasons with me.
First, we guard our lives and doctrine because of the eternal realities.
As we serve our churches faithfully, guarding our lives and doctrine, there are eternal realities taking place for ourselves and for those to whom we are ministering. Each of our ministries is dependent upon our character. Any church that will hire you despite your character flaws is a church you don’t want to serve. Any church that will overlook your character flaws is a church that is flawed in its character. Paul is clear in 1 Timothy 3: 1–7 and Titus 1:6–9 that one’s character must be in order for that person even to get out of the batter’s box in ministry. Even if you have acute family or administrative abilities, a great imagination, or a compelling voice, these are merely ancillary to ministry qualifications.
As we look at 1 Timothy 3 carefully, we see that all the pastoral qualifications, other than the ability to teach, are character-oriented in nature. You must set good habits for yourself concerning the spiritual disciplines and create good patterns for godliness in your life to put you on a trajectory for a faithful and enduring ministry. In other words, you must guard your life and doctrine because your ministry is first dependent upon your character. The crucible of spiritual leadership demands that you guard your life. When the ministry pressures mount, the underlying cracks in your character will be revealed. Therefore, when you practice the spiritual disciplines and guard your doctrine in the easy times of ministry, all of this will help you survive in times of ministry tumult. Our ministries serve eternal purposes, and we would be foolish to minimize these eternal realities by minimizing our character.
Second, we guard our lives and doctrine because the glory of God is at stake in our ministry.
In every century, the Church has been plagued by hypocrites, those who have done much reputational harm to God’s name and the cause of Christ. As ministers, we must make every effort to ensure that our names don’t show up on the list of those who did such harm to Christ’s Church.
I was in my early twenties when I interviewed for my first pastorate. With a young wife and a baby on the way, the church began asking me a set of routine questions. However, out of the blue, they asked, “How are your finances?” After being caught off guard a bit, I replied, “Well, I’m a seminary student. I don’t have much money. I don’t have any debt. But why do you ask?” They replied that about 40 years prior, the church had had a minister who had written some bad checks in town, and the deacons had been forced to clean up the mess. The deacons promptly fired the pastor, but despite their proper response, there remained a reputational stain on that church for nearly a half-century. To that day, some business owners in the town had never forgotten the incident.
Churches have stories. Towns have stories. Cities have stories. Denominations have stories. The glory of God is at stake in all these things. And a singular slippage that leads to a catastrophe that results in a fall brings reputational damage that may outlive all of us.
Third, we guard our lives and doctrine because doing so will better ensure that we will enjoy the simple pleasure of abiding in Christ.
Through all our service to Christ and His Church, we have the focused privilege of abiding in Him, growing in Him, and flourishing in Him.
And through this foundation of abiding in Christ, we function on an elevated plane that will be a propellant for us through more difficult seasons. It will propel us beyond more difficult conversations and guide us through seasons of relative dryness. We want that basic pleasure in our life of growing and abiding in Christ, and our abiding is aided through guarding our life and doctrine.
Fourth, we guard our lives and doctrine because it will grow our spiritual confidence.
The Bible conveys two components to the assurance of salvation, the objective and the subjective. In the objective component, we ask, “Have you called upon the name of Christ? Have you repented of your sins? Have you believed in Jesus? Has His blood washed you whiter than snow?”
In the subjective component, we see those questions verified in our lives. We sweetly observe the work of God in our lives and see our hearts being more conformed to the image of Christ. We become more sensitive to sin and, over time, our lives reflect Christ more and more.
So, as we guard our lives and doctrine, the assurance of our salvation grows, strengthens, and ripens with each passing year. Thus, by the time we get ready to meet Jesus face-to-face, we already recognize in our hearts that we’ve been walking with Him all along.
Fifth, we guard our lives and doctrine because we will enjoy a robust level of spiritual accountability.
Small groups can be helpful, accountability teams are appropriate, and a friend’s probing questions might be just what you need. However, in those environments, you can mislead other people. But if you will get in God’s Word and allow it to probe you and shape you, it will bring an additional level of accountability that no third party can give.
In conclusion, these five reasons aren’t comprehensive; there are several more reasons we should guard our lives and doctrine. Nonetheless, all these reasons listed above are essential for a faithful ministry. As a minister writing to a fellow minister, I solemnly urge you to guard your life and doctrine for these reasons and many more. By so doing, you will protect yourself, your wife, your children, and the sheep whom the Lord has entrusted to you.
Jason K. Allen | President, Professor of Preaching and Pastoral Ministry
