(music) There's much to learn from 18th century pastor and hymn writer John Newton. Newton's autobiography was a best-selling hit in his day, and we still sing his hymns today. His whole life is a testament to God's sovereign grace in saving a wretched sinner, a story captured well in his most famous hymn, Amazing Grace.

And we celebrate John Newton's birthday today. So today has me thinking about him, his hymns, and his living legacy. It's a rich legacy he left behind. I was honored to write a whole book on his pastoral counsel, and that really gave me the chance to soak in his pastoral letters for about three years.

He wrote amazing letters to people who were in need and needing answers, something very reminiscent to this podcast. And Pastor John has a wonderful biographical message looking at the life of Newton. It's titled, "John Newton, the Tough Roots of His Habitual Tenderness." And particularly, Newton has a lot to teach us on the topic of controversy and how to argue like a Calvinist.

Here's Pastor John in that 2001 biographical message, talking about John Newton's approach to controversy and speaking to a room of pastors. Here's what he said. Now maybe the most illuminating way to get at this man's pattern of tenderness is to talk about the way he handled his Calvinism and his doctrine and controversies of his day and so on.

This is something I'm very, very interested in for us and for myself in particular. At this point, we're going to see the root bearing fruit in tenderness. The root of truth bearing fruit in tenderness called love. I think his patience and his perception guided him between a doctrinaire intellectualism over here and a doctrinal indifference and carelessness over here.

So let's talk for a minute about his patience, tenderness as it relates to his doctrine. Here's what he says first. A lot of people ask me, I've been here 20 years now, so I'm starting to feel old and people are starting to treat me that way. And so I get asked a lot about what did you do at this point, at this point, at this point, this, this, this.

He said, "I have been 30 years forming my own views. And in the course of this time, some of my hills have sunken, some of my valleys have risen. But how unreasonable within me to expect all this should take place in another person and that in a course of a year or two.

I mean, some of you have been on your way theologically for 20, 30, 40 years and you might have a thing or two figured out. And you start preaching and teaching as though this class should have fixed the atonement for these people. "Predestination, we got this now. You've been to my classes." And it took you 20 years to settle in on where you are.

So he's calling for us with tenderness and patience to realize that that's the case. It's not going to happen for our people any faster than it did for us and for some slower. Yes, he had a passion for propagating the truth, the whole reformed vision of God as he saw it.

But he did not believe controversy served the purpose. Here's what he said, "I see the unprofitableness of controversy in the case of Job and his friends. For if God had not interposed, had they lived to this day, they would be still disputing." So he labored to avoid controversy and replace it with positive demonstrations of truth.

Here's what he said, "My principal method of defeating heresy is by the establishing of truth. One proposes to fill a bushel with tares. Now, if I can fill it first with wheat, I shall defy his attempts." He knew, given his Calvinism, that the embrace of many glorious, precious truths required supernatural spiritual illumination from God on the inside.

And therefore, he made his approach patient and unobtrusive. He's the way he said it, "I am a friend of peace and being deeply convinced that no one can profitably understand the great truths and doctrines of the gospel any farther than he is taught of God. I have not a wish to obtrude my own tenets upon others in a way of controversy.

Yet I do not think myself bound to conceal them." He said in the introduction of the old hymns, "The views I have received of the doctrines of grace, code name Calvinism, are essential to my peace. I could not live comfortably a day or an hour without them. I likewise believe them to be friendly to holiness and to have a direct influence in producing and maintaining a gospel conversation.

And therefore, I must not be ashamed of them." But then he adds this, "The cause of truth itself may be discredited by an improper management. The scripture which teaches us what we are to say is equally explicit in the temper and spirit in which we are to speak. Though I had knowledge of all mysteries and the tongue of an angel to declare them, I could hope for little acceptance or usefulness unless I was to speak in love." Listen to this.

He says, amazing, "Of all people who engage in controversy, we who are called Calvinists are most expressly bound by our own principles to exercise gentleness and moderation. The scriptural maxim, 'The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God,' is verified daily in our observation. If our zeal is embittered by expressions of anger, invective or scorn, we may think we are doing service to the cause of truth when in reality we shall only bring it into discredit." He noticed one of the most Calvinistic texts in the New Testament calls for patient tenderness.

You know which one I'm thinking about? One of the most Calvinistic texts in the New Testament. It's 2 Timothy 22-24 to 26. I'll read it. Notice what Paul brings together here. Newton noticed it. Had a huge impact on him. "The Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kindly to everyone, an apt teacher, forbearing, correcting his opponents with gentleness." Then comes the Calvinistic part.

"God may perhaps grant that they will repent and come to know the truth, and escape from the snare of the devil, after having been captured by him to do his will." Wow! That's a very powerful text. God grants repentance. God brings people to know the truth. So what's our part?

"Not quarrelsome, kindly to everyone, apt teacher, forbearing, correcting in gentleness." There's the Calvinistic agenda. Isn't it amazing what he puts together there? Newton saw it. Have you seen it? Do you do it? And given that Calvinistic truth that God's the one who grants repentance, God's the one who opens the eyes of the blind to see the truth, prayer became utterly crucial for him.

Prayer is asking God to do what only God can do. Man can't do it. God has to do it. You preach to people on Sunday, you're not going to change anybody in an evangelical, deep, heartfelt way. God's got to do that. You have your role. It's described right there.

But God's going to do it. So if you don't obey that thing in prayer, you're missing one of the great means of grace that God has appointed for you. And this is what he said about prayer in controversy. He writes to a friend, "As to your opponent, I wish that before you set pen to paper against him, and during the whole time you are preparing your answer, you may commend him by earnest prayer to the Lord's teaching and blessing.

This practice will have a direct tendency to conciliate your heart to love and pity him, and such a disposition will have a good influence upon every page you write. If he is a believer, in a little while you will meet him in heaven. He will then be dearer to you than the nearest friend you have on earth.

Anticipate that period in your thoughts. If he is an unconverted person, he's more properly the object of your compassion than your anger. Alas, he knows not what he does, but you know who has made you to differ. Namely, not you. You didn't make you to differ. 1 Corinthians 4, 7.

God made you to differ." Yeah, one of my all-time favorite biographical sketches. Newton, of course, could draw lines. He drew very bold lines around Wesleyan perfectionism, for example, and he roundly condemned it. And in the second half of his life, he spoke out boldly against the African slave trade, the very trade that he participated in in the first half of his life.

He could draw very bold lines, but he was so careful to do it in a humble sense of God's sovereignty. You can read Newton's famous letter on controversy. That's its title, "On Controversy." There's even more of this theme. This sermon excerpt was taken from the message titled, "John Newton, the Tough Roots of His Habitual Tenderness." That full biographical message is available online at DesiringGod.org.

And the title of my book is, "Newton on the Christian Life to Live as Christ." Well, in a week, we will look at how controversy is both essential and deadly. There's a powerful lesson to be learned here, and that's coming up next Wednesday in a week. Stay tuned for that.

But first up, if we read our Bibles, why do we need to listen to sermons also? Isn't personal Bible reading enough? Pastor John will say an emphatic no and explain why not next time when we close out the week with Pastor John back in the studio with us. I am Tony Reinke.

We'll see you on Friday. Thanks for listening. (Music playing) (Music playing) (Music playing)