The following message is a presentation of the National Center for Family Integrated Churches where we're proclaiming the sufficiency of scripture for church and family life. More information about the NCFIC is available at www.ncfic.org. It's So good to see you this morning. Thank the Lord for your willingness to come out and the trust that what the Lord has placed on my heart would be a blessing to you, help you understand some aspect of holiness that is very often neglected in our culture today and maybe something of the process of how holiness is developed. My heart is for pastors.

I've been a pastor by the grace of God about 30 years and Have such a heart for pastors and trust that the Lord would use what we'll preach on today to encourage and strengthen pastors. I have a handout there before you with some statistics on pastors that will bring things into perspective of the landscape of where we are in a nation as far as the pastorate. I believe pastors are absolutely essential, teaching elders are essential to the lifeblood of the work of the Lord. God calls men to do this, and it's the labor of love, and he equips and sustains and have the privilege of serving a body of believers in northeast Georgia that I love very much and thank the Lord for the length of time that he's given me to serve those believers but I also have this not on your hand sheet but years ago there was a in the two-year period of time there were 246 pastors who went out of the ministry from Dallas Theological Seminary. This is before Howard Hendricks departed the earth and entered eternity.

So he discipled these men and spent a lot of time with them. And he began to investigate and interview them on what happened to them. How could it be that you spend all that time and energy and finances to have such an advanced seminary degree and have commitment of all your life to the Lord and have this atrocious fallout rate? And I'd like to share with you the findings from Howard Hendricks's research. So of the 246 men who were no longer in the ministry in a two-year period of time, none of the men were involved in any kind of personal accountability.

That was the first thing. The second thing, 80% of them got involved with a woman through counseling. As a pastor, I do not counsel women. I don't have any meetings with any women other than my wife and my daughters. I just don't do that.

And so I thank the Lord for the women in the church who do minister to other women. The third ingredient was that 80 percent of the people or the vast majority of them thought that they would never this would never happen to them. And the most important significant, the most important feature to this finding was that all of them made a willful decision that they did not need to spend time alone with God anymore. So those things contributed to the downfall. Well, you have to go back and understand this very important aspect of time alone with the Lord in the life of pastors in the past.

It's very rare that you would get very much encouragement at all for a pastor to be alone, time alone with the Lord today in our culture. It's just oftentimes pastors have deviated so much from the call, from the desire of Jesus for the ministry. The man would always come before the message. How God develops and transforms that man to be more like Christ through his personal time alone with God is absolutely indispensable to any ministry. So on the hand that I gave you, Again, it gives you the lay the land for Pastors there's about 1, 500 leaving the ministry a month.

That's staggering There's 4, 000 churches approximately start new church plants in America every year 4, 000 7, 000 churches closed their doors every year Reading a book from a friend of mine in Georgia Through the Georgia Baptist on why why children stay in church what keeps them in church? The first thing he says in here is the church in North America is eroding. And my belief is it is eroding very, very rapidly. And there's so many men, if you ask, I had a friend of mine, the director of missions there in Association and they have somebody through the Georgia Baptist that comes in and he has them about once a Quarter and just does different things to make kind of keep pastors aware You know what's going on said this guy come in for the Georgia Baptist who deals with churches in crisis. He was a lovely, just a very, very helpful person and had so much to share about churches in crisis.

But during the course of his time, he made a just a side note. He was under the assumption that we knew. And so he said, if you went to any mainstream seminary today in America, any of them, and you had a group of 30 people in the room, master divinity level class, and asked those men for a show of hands how many of them wanted to be in the ministry, how many hands would go up? And I said, out loud, 15. I thought half of those men would go into full-time Christian ministry.

It was laughter in the room. This is about 25 or 30 pastors. Of those 30 people in Master of Divinity classes, only two of those people will be interested in going to ministry. Only two. And of those two, one of those two will not last, statistically, one of those two will not last five years.

It's incredible. What in the world has happened to the pastorate? Why are pastors so averse to the idea and communicating to their people on the necessity and modeling holiness. I believe one of the best definitions of holiness is, you know, simplistically is conformity to Jesus. How the process of God working providentially in many ways to press and conform us into the image of his son Jesus.

But so many pastors, they don't want to be pressed into the image of Jesus. They would much rather be pressed into the image of some picture that's seen on Hollywood or some person they hear through an MP3 play or something like that, somebody that they would never have any affinity to, no one would ever help them. But this process of pressing and being conformed to the image of Jesus is very critical in the life of the pastor. Because as the pastor goes, as the teaching elder goes, so goes the church. And you can't supplement that really through programs.

There's no way to do it. It has to come through a brokenness and contrition of heart of Walking humbly before the Lord with a sincere desire Urgently to be conformed more and more to the Lord Jesus So if you go back in and I'm a novice but if you have any type of acquaintance with church history, you'll see so many things that God has done providentially to produce effective for the long-term Pastors who had a multi-generational view of not only personal effectiveness But training and investing and pouring their life in to men that lasted for a long time You know a hundred years just a tremendous view of the necessity and the urgency. One of those men is Charles Simeon. It's really a tragedy that it's God's providential, but so many people are not familiar at all with Charles Simeon. I would not be, but the Lord prompted my heart through a series of frustrations and failure in my own life to learn rather rapidly on Christian Biography and how God had worked in the past Let me show you Jeremiah 6 16.

We'll start there and then we'll Unpack some of his life. It's not going to be exhaustive but over there at the Table Reformation Heritage they have the biography that I'm going to use today. They have it over there I think for $3. I'd encourage you to get it. H.C.G.

Moole's book on Simeon. They called him the Chin, so he did not have strong oratory skills. It's his lifetime weakness. So oftentimes today pastors want to be celebrities. I believe God's called us into the pastor to fulfill the Great Commission.

I don't believe pastoring is disconnected from The Great Commission which is to cry of Jesus to go make disciples We're much more inclined to make a convert It's easier to make a convert or get people to make a decision. It's a tremendous investment of time and there's a there's a nutrition rate oftentimes is very high in discipleship. But still we must view the ministry as the Lord Jesus as a way to fulfill the Great Commission. Jeremiah 6 16. Notice with me the word of the Lord here.

Jeremiah 6 16. Thus says the Lord, Stand in the ways and see and ask for the old paths where the good way is and walk in it and you will find rest for your souls. But they said, we will not walk in it. And their rejection to walk in the ways that God had prescribed to them was their demise. And so I just encourage you to don't be foolish and be so drawn and so mesmerized by what's cute and innovative that you forget the biblical principle of pursuing the old path.

And that's not to mean that you be puritanical and don't have electricity and things like that, not calling for that type of measure, but to realize that oftentimes the way for us to be effective is for us to identify with what God has done in the past and Be familiar with it and embrace it and not be not be ashamed of it not be you know not be To feel any way put out by being ostracized or rejected by other people because we're following a path that is off the beaten path today. We need an example of faithfulness. We need an example of somebody who was rejected, was disdained as a pastor, had just an unbelievable length of time in a ministry in the face of unbelievable adversity. So in the outline that you have before you, the church, the current trends of America is that the North American Church is eroding that's probably the understatement but at the minimum it would be eroding so we need examples of God's faithfulness in difficult days These are difficult days and I thank the Lord for his word and his spirit and his son but I also thank the Lord for what he's been kind to teach me through the avenue of Christian biography and I try to Cut time away on Sunday afternoon Sunday evening before before going to sleep to kind of invest some time in the 18th century.

I just love going there to kind of get a better idea of how the Lord would have us to have me to go and to endure. Let me get you turned to Psalm chapter 50 verse 15. So our days are not very, very far away from the days of Charles Simeon. These are deplorable days, these are difficult days, these are days of erosion, rapid, rapid erosion. So many of my friends who were one time in the ministry are no longer in the ministry.

So many of my pastor friends are no longer pursuing anything at all. The man who was instrumental, the human instrument in pointing me to Jesus is now involved with some interfaith witness. He's a Muslim. It just breaks my heart how there's just such a mass exodus. And I think part of the contributing factor is that pastors have made willful decisions not to embrace holiness.

And there's consequences for that that are far beyond what you would ever imagine. Psalm 50 verse 15. So in difficult days and days of erosion, we have to rely upon the faithfulness of God, the promises of God. And I encourage you to glean from the promises of God in these days. Don't rely upon impulses and your reaction.

Don't despair. Don't throw your hands up and quit. But become more familiar with the promises of God. So I'll give you three. Psalm chapter 50 verse 15.

Call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me. Psalm 91 15. Psalm 91 15. Secondly, so the trouble seems to intensify, or at least it does in my life. Makes me acutely aware of my need for the Lord and calling upon Him and relying upon Him for His help.

Psalm 91 15, He shall call upon me and I will answer Him. I will be with Him in trouble. I will be with Him in trouble. I will deliver him and honor him. I will be with him.

So one of the reasons I love the Lord Jesus is because of since receiving him, I've never been alone. I've never had a trouble that he has not been acutely aware of. I haven't used my prayer life to inform him of what's going on in my life He knows every detail of what's going on And so this is a beautiful example and we'll try to draw this out from the example of Peter in first Peter and I believe it was what they saw from the Lord Jesus. It's how he responded. And it so struck Peter's heart and I trust that the Spirit of God would work in our hearts and we would be drawn to be imitators of Christ to follow Jesus example in difficult days and that would never lead us to panic or Never lead us to you being despair But we have to be like the men of Isherkar know the times that we live in and know that The erosion is very rapid.

Isaiah 43 two. Isaiah 43 two. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned neither shall the flame scorch you Notice in isaiah 43 to the to the promise is when you walk through these things. We're walking through them.

We're not going to walk around them or over them, but as we're walking through, we're relying upon the one who was walking through them with us. If he wasn't with me, I would quit. There's no way. How in the world could family-integrated churches make any type of difference in the...how could these types of churches impact the lostness in our culture? Just about every community in Georgia, it's about 85% unchurched.

There's places in Atlanta, Georgia that are 98% unchurched inside the Beltway. 98%! Where I live, in Northeast Georgia, the community is 11 percent churched. So how in the world could God use us in this expression of his body to impact lostness? How?

Well, we must wrestle with that and ask the Lord for wisdom. But I believe part of the solution for that is God raising up pastors who understand call of holiness, which is conforming to Jesus through affliction and being faithful to the word of God and loving the people of God through those adversities and not not quitting, not throwing in the towel. The average life expectancy of a pastor today is 18 months. Charles Simeon was 54 years. He has a lot to say to us for endurance not just enduring this for Novelty sake but he endured and he was useful to the day.

He died. That should be our prayer not only just to endure You know just to say that we've done something that very few people do, but to endure in such a way that by the grace of God he would still be using our life even as we're growing older. What a joy Simeon is an example of that. Our tendency oftentimes is to quit today. We are emotionally fragile people.

We really are. So many people in the church have the attitude that is expressed by the sentiment that says, if that's how these people are going to treat me, I'll find another church. And that's how so many pastors view the ministry. So many pastor friends of mine are habitually floating their resumes out. They always have their resumes out.

They're always on the lookout. It's terrible. It's not pleasing to the Lord. It must break his heart. We should be committed to the bride of Christ.

We should be committed to our earthly brides, false and all. And with the grace of God, commit to a long-term view of ministry. Not a quick and easy approach. It's perhaps through the longevity and faithfulness and being conformed to the image of Jesus through affliction. Perhaps God would be merciful and raise up other men, young men, who would just see that, be drawn to that, the endurance through affliction, and that could really be a catalyst that would motivate them.

So this is this is simming kind of a while we need the promises where to go we need to rely upon the faithfulness of God not our natural resources kind of where we are in the lay of the land. So there's three quick things I want to show you from Simeon. First of all the man and then the ministry and first and lastly is the method. There's a part on the back, there's three parts to the back, but the man. His life before Christ is very, very insignificant.

He never met, in his own words, own expression, he never met an earnest Christian until God saved him. And he was in the ministry. He was a pastor. And that's a very curious word that we've lost today in our culture, but I'd encourage you, you may want to write that word down, earnest, and be familiar with it, because that's how they would describe a Christian, they would describe a ministry, a man of God, the work of God has earnest and we've lost it today. We've lost the meaning, we've lost the idea.

It's very impulsive today, very emotionally driven, very drawn to what's sensational and huge and cutting edge and innovative. We're so silly and deluded in our thinking that we think that we have to make the Word of God relevant when the Word of God is relevant. You do not have to make the Word of God something that it already is. It is the most relevant book. It's the living word of God.

And we just need to herald it without apology to a lost and dying culture through the adversity that would that it would cause. But Simeon, just briefly about his life. He was born September 24, 1759, departed November 13, 1836. His father Richard, mother Elizabeth, both had parents who were in the ministry. This is where his life, and I encourage you to read Read moles biography of him There's his dad and mom both had pastors in their lineage So there The Bible was never read in his home.

So how could that be? How could that be such a just a break right there? There's nothing. No Christ, no Bible, no family worship, no nothing there in his life. He was the youngest of four.

His mother was an attorney and his mother died after Charles. He never mentions her right after Charles' birth. He was the youngest of four boys. His father never gathered his family around the Bible. So oftentimes as I think in my own life, I think that somehow the people that were greatly used of God had things around them that were, in my thinking, rather ideal.

I completely reject that idea. No one had ideal circumstances. God makes His man out of very rough circumstances. He builds a ministry through affliction. He builds a man through affliction.

And it's providential. I should not be the cause of that through an immoral life or deception or those types of things. It's just the natural flow of the maturation and holiness is affliction. It's just part of the process. And oftentimes today in the West, we're just totally, we reject that idea at all.

If there's an affliction, then it can't be from God because God loves me. Let me get you turned to Lamentations chapter 3. And he loves you. He does love you. He loves you and I so much that he's already predetermined that he's going to conform your life to be like Jesus.

That's Romans 8, 28 and 29. There's one pattern that He's going to cut all of our lives off of, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the pattern. He is that incomparable. Lamentations chapter 3, notice this.

When I read Lamentations 3, I just finished this in my personal time. I thought so much of how the Lord worked through Simeon's life. I'm a man, verse 1, who has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. He has led me to make me and made me walk in darkness and not light. Surely he has turned his hand against me time and time again.

Throughout the day He has aged my flesh and my skin and broken my bones. He has besieged me and surrounded me with bitterness and woe. He has set me in dark places like the dead of long ago. He has hedged me in so that I cannot get out. He has made my chain heavy.

Who in the world would do that? Who would make your chain heavy? God! And He would make my chain heavy in my life, to conform and press and squeeze me into the image of Jesus. Prosperity will never produce this.

It cannot do this. It cannot. When you read the Puritans, You'll see sermon after sermon after sermon on the dangers of prosperity. And the church is so silent on this issue today. That's what we want in America.

We want a carefree Christianity. We want to follow Jesus without having any difficulties. And we're drawn to pastors who communicate this. It's terrible. It's atrocious.

And it's because to a large degree, I believe pastors have just lost sight of the necessity of affliction in the life of holiness. They don't see how they're connected, because oftentimes we're pursuing some type of glamorous approach to the ministry. Isaiah chapter 50, verse 10. Notice this, if you have not meditated upon Isaiah chapter 50 verse 10, I'd encourage you here. I don't know what's happening providentially in your life or your ministry, but I trust that the Lord could use an unprofitable servant like myself today to encourage you, to point you to the sufficiency of Scripture, the sufficiency of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And what He's doing providentially is conforming your life to His Son, the Lord Jesus. Isaiah 50 verse 10, Who among you fears the Lord, who obeys the voice of his servant who walks in darkness and has no light what do you do you quit You just throw the towel in and go into greener grass somewhere. No, God is providential He turns the lights on and he can turn them off All right. So here's what we do is wise they at 50 10 It's perhaps one of the most one of the verses that speak most to pastors in our country because providentially I believe he's turning the lights out He is what he's doing. This is how we must live Let him trust in the name of the Lord and rely upon his God So when He turns the lights out, we must turn to Him more intently, more directly.

Let so many other things go, but focus your attention upon the Lord. With affliction comes an increased focus on the work of the Lord and what He's doing, how He's developing, He's developing character, He's developing Christ's likeness, He's developing holiness, conformity to Jesus through this affliction. So many things that are non-essential go through affliction. Well you need to see somebody, you and I need to have somebody we can identify that actually God has turned the lights out, that actually modeled Isaiah 50 10 and God sustained him through this and how he did it. That's his troll Simeon It's one of the clearest examples of this.

I know and not once again. I'm a Neophyte, I'm a novel at this but troll Simeon has been very very helpful, but his father back to your outline his father never gathered the family around the Bible. He was very athletic. He could stack six chairs on top of each other and snuff a candle out with his feet. He was athletic, he was eccentric, he was extravagant, he was a hedonist, he had no concern for God.

He was inherited, a lot of money. It really is a tragedy that we know so little and thankfully there is a lot written. Moole's biography is really good. There's another one called Simeon of Cambridge that's very good by Hopkins. It's a very good biography.

He entered Eaton School at eight and he remained there 12 years. The school provided no Instruction in the Christian faith zero so we hear so much about public education today This is nothing new under the sun. It really isn't. The one in five, the statistic that he gave there, one in five of the young men were ordained in Christian ministry. They didn't have any instruction in Christianity.

It's deplorable. Let me read to you a quote from Moo About the time that he lived in he described the condition as deplorable He said quote that he would have been tempted to take the life of his son Rather than let him see the vice that he saw in school in quote You think the times that you live in are any different than Srosimion? Oftentimes we want to think what we're doing is no one else has experienced this before. It's completely false. We have to identify and realize that we're not the first people here that's faced deplorable situations We're not the first people that God providentially has removed so much of Christianity the vital nature of Christianity But we're reacting like it is it's not true We are we are one of many people and God the good news of it is that God is able to work through that darkness.

That darkness cannot conquer Jesus Christ. That deplorable condition is not greater than the gospel of Jesus. The question is, do you believe that? Are you more concerned about the darkness or about communicating the gospel who could overcome that darkness? We should be much more concerned about learning how to communicate this gospel more effectively because that's the antidote To this to this darkness in our culture, but would have killed his son.

It's a deplorable condition He arrived at Cambridge and if your It's sheet says 11, but it was 17 79 at 20 destitute of a saving relationship with God through Jesus He was never in the company of an earnest Christian ever in his life flamboyant Athletic hedonistic. Does that describe anybody you know? A culture? Deplorable culture? No mention of Christianity?

Nothing? There's nothing here. You can't read it. There isn't. There's no ray of hope.

Nothing here. It's amazing how the Lord worked. His quote here is on page 35 of the mole. Before that day, before he wished the day was in seminary, he was never in the company with another earnest Christian. Never.

20 years old and never in the company of an earnest Christian. So our days are not unique. They're really, Ecclesiastes is right, there really is nothing new under the sun. What is new is beyond the sun. In what the Lord Jesus is doing, His strategy to counteract and ultimately destroy what's happening under the Son.

So the ministry. Upon entering Cambridge 1779, this is his conversion. He was told that he was expected to attend the Lord's Supper in three weeks. That was it. Can you imagine?

There's no family worship, no Bible, no earnest Christian, nothing. And he comes to Cambridge, 1779, his director says, the Chancellor says, hey by the way, three weeks we're going to do the Lord's Supper. And immediately he knew he was unfit for that. What's that called? That's called conviction of sin.

And the Spirit of God does not need any help from a human, because there isn't any human here other than this guy, and he's just following a protocol. And so they were doing the Lord's Supper, but it was just a formality. It was just a formality. Yeah, I'll have to read to you Moul's statement or Simeon's statement about this time. It was the third day after my arrival when I understood that I should be expected in the space of three weeks to attend the Lord's Supper.

What? What said I? Must I attend? He didn't have any question about it. He was a non-negotiable.

He had to attend. On being informed that I must, the thought rushed into my mind that Satan himself was as fit to attend as I was. And that I must attend, I must prepare for my own attendance there without a moment's loss. I bought the whole duty of man, which Wesley said wasn't fit to be thrown into a fire, the only religious book that I had ever heard of, and began to read it with great diligence, at the same time calling my ways to remembrance and crying out to God for mercy. The first book which I got to instruct me in a reference to the Lord's Supper was one of his professors, but I remember reading it and this is what happened.

It was the Bishop Wilson's book on the Lord's Supper. I continued unabated earnest to search out and mourn over the numberless iniquities of my former life and greatly was my mind depressed with the weight of them that I frequently looked upon the dogs with envy, wishing if it were possible that I could be blessed with their mortality, and they be cursed with my immortality in my stead. I set myself immediately to undo all my former sins as far as I could, and did it in some instances which required great self-denial, though I did not think it quite expedient to record them, but having done it has been a comfort to me, even to this very hour. My distress of my mind continued for three months, as well have continued for years, since my sins were more in number than the hairs of my head. But in Passion Week I was reading Bishop Wilson's book on the Lord's Supper.

I met with an expression to the effect that the Jews knew what they did, that when they transferred their sin to the head of the offering, The thought came into my mind, what? May I transfer all my guilt to another? Has God provided an offering for me that I may lay my sins on his head then, God willing, I will not bear them on my own. So one moment longer accordingly I sought to lay my sins on the sacred head of Jesus and on Wednesday began to have hope. On Thursday that hope increased.

On Friday and Saturday it became more strong and on Sunday morning, Easter day, April 4th, I awoke early with these words upon my heart and lips, Jesus Christ is risen today. Hallelujah! From that hour peace flowed in rich abundance into my soul and at the Lord's table and chapel I had the sweetest access of God through Jesus Christ now he's converted that's beautiful So I don't know if you've ever heard of someone being drawn to Christ through the Lord's Supper. Oftentimes today we've so minimized the beauty and the significance of the supper. So there's how he was converted.

And then very quickly he entered the ministry with virtually no training at all in the ministry. None. Some evidences of his new light were that his conviction of sin, his change of mind towards money, his brother gave him a large sum of money, he rejected it, he embraced a life of simplicity all of his life, an earnest desire to pursue Christ's honouring conduct. It was his conformity to holiness that drew other people to him And it wasn't so much his speaking ability didn't have it was his lifelong struggle with his communication ability With very little training. He entered the ministry in 1782 1782 his ministry began at st Edwards Church in Cambridge in May of 1782, and he accepted the call to Holy Trinity Church in Cambridge in November of that same year, And he stayed there.

He remained there 54 years. How do you endure? For 54 years How do you do that? 30 years is a long time but not in comparison to 54 years. How do you do that?

What What did God do? How did God use to develop his life? And how did he mold his life in Christ? If that's all you knew of Simeon, you think, well, this is great. He received the Lord.

He had a long tenured pastured. He used 54 years and just incredibly used of the Lord and he must have had a life of ease Absolutely. It's exactly wrong idea. It was horrific. It was unmitigated disaster Under the method how'd so how'd my question in my heart was?

How did God work just briefly? How did He work to develop holiness in the life of this servant, His servant, Charles Simeon, doing His work in an area That was completely... They had no regard for the scripture. It was irreligious like our culture is. We could identify so well with Simeon and what he was facing there in England.

Well, the one word description of this would be affliction. As I was reading his biography for the last several years, this affliction is how he received that, how he responded to it, how he reacted to it. In my own failures in understanding this, it's caused so much of my inner frustration. I didn't know this. No one taught me how to respond to affliction in a Christ-honoring way.

So the pains that were had, I just internalized them and didn't know what to do to my shame So I thank the Lord for what he has taught me through his word primarily and through a simian's life He's one of my favorite if not my my favorite person to study The first 12 years of the church first not days or months first 12 years that they lock the church pews So I've shared with my church before, if I go in there and the doors are locked on Sunday morning at 10 30 and there's a sign that says no service today, I'm out of there. You know, I'm not going to come back. But he didn't do that. They, he would set up pews or set up chairs in the outside in the court. Well, they bring the chairs back inside.

They didn't want him. They made it unmistakably known to Him, they did not want Him. Well how in the world? In our culture, if people give us the impression they don't want us, then we don't want them back. That's so wrong oftentimes.

We miss the point of what God is doing in developing holiness in the life of His servant. Look, if you would, at Psalm chapter 94, verse 12, Psalm 94, verse 12. Notice the word of the Lord. What is this is a promise. Blessed to be envied.

Blessed is the man whom you instruct, O Lord, and teach out of your law. So every time he was rejected, what Simeon did is what we must do. He went to the Lord. He took that has owned the Lord and grew in his communion with God. It didn't matter how they treated him.

It didn't matter what they said about him. He took whatever he heard and took that as a catalyst for a deeper communion with the Lord. Now think through the beauty of that. If God's intention of affliction and adversity and pain, the very things that we hate, if the intention And one of the purposes of those things in our life providentially is to be a catalyst for us to have a deeper Communion with the Lord wouldn't wouldn't that change your perspective of those things? Wouldn't it change them from being taking it personal to using that viewing them as a catalyst to get to know God better, specifically in that area.

Well that's an example of Simeon. And ultimately, that's the example of the Lord Jesus. That's the example of Christ. This is our master. This is the pattern of our Lord.

He was slandered, He was personally slandered. He was rejected. His ministry was rejected at every possible turn. Today, oftentimes, we view the ministry as a catalyst to be a celebrity. We want people to embrace us.

We want people to like us. We are curious of what other people are saying about us. All these things were Refuted by Simeon. He rejected all of it and we've embraced it to our shame. We've been braced so much Let me read to you from him another quote on page 53 of a CG smooth moles book on this From the very first from the very first So he's there for 54 years his first remembrance of the life there at Trinity, for many years afterwards was personally slandered, as a bad man who had a high profession of goodness, a terrible dagger thrust at any time, but never so more than when has then an outward practice of religion had fallen in general neglect." So the outward expression of discipleship around Simeon was in retrograde, And that's where you and I are living.

The expression of following Jesus Christ is in declension, retrograde. It is eroding. So it's very, very common. So when God works through your life and increases a desire for holiness in your life, that very desire will cause you to stick out like a sore thumb and people will vilify you. What do you do then?

Do we give in and follow what they... No! No, we plow the course, we stay the course and trust that through through the longevity and through endurance and faithfulness to the word of God, the Lord Jesus will be glorified and magnified through magnified through our frail bodies that other people would be caused to be. We could be a catalyst for an awakening in other people around us. But he was slandered, doors locked, rejected.

He stayed 54 years and not just endured. It was thriving at 54 years. And he was greatly, greatly used of the Lord. Let me give you an example of his rejection this broke my heart I remember the time I was quite surprised that a fellow of my own college in Cambridge ventured to walk with me for 15 minutes on green grass outside of this hall and for many years I began my ministry I was a man wondered at and by reason of the so few people who showed any regard of true religion. He thanked God for the mercy of 15 minute conversation with a young man.

See, we think that we're the first people here. No, no. We are, God is working providentially, and this is why I believe that one of the urgent needs of our hour is for God to raise up holy pastors, and holiness being conformed, lovingly being conformed to the image of Jesus by faith and trusting that as he is using, working this conformity in our life that he would draw other people to Christ through the affliction. And this is what you see in Simeon as an example. Simeon is every, every affliction was used to God to build a growing humility.

One of the greatest, one of the strongest passages in all the scripture on humility is Isaiah chapter 37, 31. Notice the word of the Lord here in Isaiah 37 31. I believe Simeon is the example of endurance, but he's a real practical example of humility. It's a foreign concept. Those two ideas, you get one biography or one man who humanly speaking was the embodiment of the Lord Jesus, is the ultimate example of this, but you've got endurance and humility encapsulated in one person.

Isaiah 37 31. It's just a testimony to the grace of God. And a remnant who have escaped to the house of Judah shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward. That's it. That's humility right there.

A humble person is growing downward first. The first inclination is down deeper into Christ, deeper into communion with the Lord, and it's through that communion with the Lord that any upward motion happens and when that upward motion happens there's fruitfulness for the gospel what we're trying to do today is to be fruitful with the gospel without any downward motion that's just not going to work it didn't work for simian is not going to work for you and I. He's not going to be God's no respecter of persons just because we're Americans. He's not going to make the exception. There must be that downward motion.

That downward motion is critical to holiness. And that's the problem we have. We reject it. We fundamentally, to a large degree, we reject any downward motion. We just don't know what to do with it because we're so drawn to be a success and we don't even know what we're doing as far as the success.

So that's the man, something of his ministry, and he's worthy of further study. The method that God used in the process of conforming him to Jesus was affliction. Multiple places of it, multiple occasions of his life. He didn't and how he responds on the back of your sermon, the method. How was the three takeaways from this method of holiness that we see from Simeon?

First of all, let me show you the example of the Lord Jesus in 1 Peter 2, verse 20 through 23. 1 Peter 2. He was vilified, he was maligned. I've had training before down through Georgia Baptists and I appreciate, I really do, I understand what they're doing. There is eroding.

They estimate about 18 million people a month or a week are looking for a church in America, 18 million, their research indicates. And so the guy said, friend of mine, he's teaching us that That's reality you're looking at in order to, somebody's gonna reach those people, so your objective as a pastor must be to be, teach, you gotta teach your people how to follow you on Facebook and Twitter, how to give sermon reviews, how to give things favorable on the internet, because that's how these people are finding a church. And he said to the group of pastors, he said, your objective as a pastor must be to be the first five-star church in your community. Can you imagine? Not that It's unbelievable.

So after it was over and now we and I were taught because we're friends and I said I understand what you're saying, but I reject that to the core and he said I do too But I don't know what else to do He said you have a better idea and I said yeah the better idea would be conformity to Jesus through affliction and let it let it let him be drawn to us through his conforming work through affliction I think that would be a better a better approach and So but that's but he Simeon example was from the master. He did not retaliate first Peter chapter 2 verse 20 For what credit is it if you when you are beaten and for your faults you take it patiently, but when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, that is commendable before God. For this you were called, Simeon knew this, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that should follow his steps. Who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return.

When he suffered, he did not threaten. When he committed himself, but he committed himself to him who judges righteously." Simeon, first of all, was the first thing that God worked in his life to produce this holiness, was his lack of retaliation. He did not retaliate. He did not. There was no instance that he, in all this stuff, that he ever spoke against his church, against those people.

He wasn't curious. He didn't hunt him down. He didn't do that at all. He saw that as being unprofitable and not consistent with the Lord Jesus. I'll read 191 here.

This is so beautiful what he said. Perhaps I ought to take some notice of it. This is of criticism, but my rule is never to hear it, never see it or know it. But what if heard, seen, known would call for any criticism from me? And hence it is that I dwell in peace in the midst of lions.

My blessed Lord, whom when He was reviled did not revile, when He suffered He did not threaten. That's His example. Holiness is being like Christ, and we're like Christ through our afflictions. How we respond to adversity is so critical of our maturity in Christ. That seems to be the right thing for me to do, though Perhaps some would think it better for me to stand up for my rights.

But to all the accusations that were brought against him, our Lord made no reply. I delight in that record that he followed Jesus' example and he made no reply. I delight on that record and God helping me, it is the labor of my life So to act that on my account also the governor or whoever it would be may marvel greatly So by God keeping his mouth shut when when other people would retaliate was the catalyst for great growth in the church. Listen to what Simeon says. He was not curious about what others were saying about him.

Alright? And the thing that Guy said was you have to monitor the internet. It's crazy what people do. He gave three reasons why you should not be curious of what people are saying about us because Curiosity only leads to three emotions pride if it is good Discouragement if it is bad and anger if it is false And we are never in the word of God encouraged to pursue those emotions. Pride, discouragement, and anger.

So I encourage you to follow the Lord Jesus example and do not be curious about whether, just commit those things to the Lord. Trust the Lord would work through that slander or that pain and use it to conform your life more to the Lord Jesus. Secondly, he viewed Christianity as a remedy, not as a system. He despised system Christianity. He saw Christianity as the only remedy for fallen man through the blood of Jesus.

And so he had tassels with Wesley that were Herculean, and he's focused his whole conversation on the finished work of Jesus so he rejected and we've been encouraged this week to in our in our what we've been taught to reject Christianity as a system to view it has a remedy for sin and glory in that. The third and final thing I'll leave with you is that Simeon was conformed and made more like Christ through meditation upon the goodness of God. I don't know if you spend much time meditating upon the goodness of God but I encourage you to do so. Someone asked him, what is the way to maintain a close walk with God by constantly meditating upon the goodness of God and on our great deliverance from that punishment which our sins have deserved, were brought to feel our vileness and utter unworthiness in which we continue in this spirit of self-degregation. Everything else will go on easily.

The more you meditate upon the goodness of God, everything, so says Simeon, it's true, will work easily. We shall find ourselves advancing in our course. We shall feel the presence of God. We shall experience His love. We shall live in the enjoyment of His favor, in the hope of his glory.

Meditation, meditation is the grand means of growth and grace. So thank the Lord for his mercy, though the example of the Lord Jesus and how his servant Charles Simeon followed his example and did not retaliate through unbelievable adversity. And may God help us be men who understand the value of holiness in very deplorable conditions. And may we embrace the path, which is oftentimes through affliction. Let's pray together.

Father, we love you. Thank you for teaching us today. What truths that we would never understand, never have insight to if we were here for 10, 000 years. So Father teach us, help us to walk humbly before you, help us to receive slander and rejection and being ostracized, Help us to receive that as the very tools that you will use to make and fashion us more into the image of your Son, which is the longing of our heart, Lord, is to be more like Christ. So use our time together in the day in such a way that Christ would be magnified.

And we ask this in Jesus' name, for His sake, Amen. To visit our website at www.ncfic.org where you can keep up to date on what is new as well as find articles, videos, audio sermons and much more at no charge. The NCFIC exists to proclaim the sufficiency of Scripture for both church and family life. You