Embracing Holiness, Grace, and Support in Ministry

Well. I was told to be quiet, but I'll be very brief. R.C. is absolutely right that it keeps coming back to the holiness of God. Is God who He says He is? Or is He what we make Him to be? And I think one of the great ways the holiness of God needs to be considered in America today is relative to the church. Are we, as Christians, looking for churches that live their lives and do their teaching the way God has called us to be? Or are we looking for churches that make us feel good and, and the feel-good, self-centered church is one of the greatest problems America faces today, I think. [00:41:36]

I think one of the big issues when, when you think about God, we go back to Calvin's Institutes and he talks about do we learn of ourselves by looking to God? Do we look to God, we learn of ourselves. And of course, the first thing that Calvin takes us to is the image of God. And that we are created in the image of God, which is also revealed in special revelation and is a biblical truth, but it's also just fundamental to nature. It is revealed in the natural law. And I keep circling back to this, especially for this next generation of identity issues and that fundamental challenge, that we are not created in the image of God, that we as a church need, as you told us, we need to speak that truth and we need to proclaim that truth. [00:45:00]

This is a very important matter, and I am grateful that we're discussing it, because I think that meekness and the subject of humility in general, because meekness does, does relate to humility, I think it's actually one of the most overlooked characteristics in the church. It's not something that we talk about as much as we ought to. And I also think it's one of the most misunderstood characteristics, particularly, in our culture today. It's misunderstood in that we associate meekness, as Steve was saying, meekness with weakness, in being a pushover, being a doormat, just being a nice guy who gets along and, you know, just goes along with anything. [06:11:46]

Christ was meek when He cleansed the temple. Christ was meek when he castigated the Pharisees and Sadducees. And so, we need to understand how we need to be able to stand firm and remain steadfast and remain humble and gentle and bold and unwavering. [08:02:06]

I think one of those is, sort of what came up in John, is Jesus came out of an interest for eternal life, not just the life of this world. And increasingly, people are being guided in our culture by a conviction, stated or unstated, that we only live in this life, so you have to grab all the gusto. How old of an ad is that? You have to grab all the life you can because you're only going around once. And we as Christians, I think, have to challenge that fundamental attitude. No, there's an eternal life to think about and an eternal death to think about, and we have to contemplate that. [09:02:41]

The truth of the gospel is freedom and forgiveness from sin, and that is compassion. It's the opposite of compassion to say to someone, you're better off remaining bound in your sin, remaining not what God created you to be, to remain bound to your idolatry and not free to worship the true God. The truth of the gospel is full of compassion, and we need to remember that as we preach that. [11:18:41]

I think when I first, when I first became a minister, I think, I think first and foremost, I was a preacher, an expounder of the Word of God. But I think as you, as you grow in ministry and you, you get older, you, you also realize that there's a lot of pastoral work that can be done and should be done in preaching. So, preaching to the affections of people, preaching to the needs of, of, of people, enabling them to see how this Scripture is meant to help them, help them grow, help them become what God wants them to become. [17:11:21]

Well, Paul says, 1 Timothy chapter 1, "The aim of our charge is love." And I think all I want to add to what Derek has said is, there are probably numbers of pastors here, but most of us who are here are not pastors, and you probably have very little idea how much you mean to your pastor. Because if he is really called to be a pastor, he loves you. If he doesn't, if he has not developed love for you, he should be doing something else. It is the absolute sine qua non of being in pastoral ministry, that in preaching and teaching, you do that not because you love to preach and teach, but because you love the people that you want to feed by preaching and teaching. [18:48:01]

One of the main reasons that pastors leave ministry is because of people having expectations. Just as you were talking about, Bob, that are not rooted in Scripture. Pastors are not the administrators. They are not fundamentally your counselor. They are not fundamentally the social organizer of the church or of the community. Pastors are not your mother, your father, or your best friend. Pastors are not deacons. Much of the work that we expect our pastors to do is the work of the diaconate. So many of the things that we expect of our pastors are not the primary work of the pastor. [24:28:06]

I want to give just a slightly different perspective, because I grew up in a pastor's home and very grateful for it. And, just very grateful from, you know, the time I can remember, just being in the church all the time. It's not necessarily grandiose big things. I think just little things people can do to encourage their pastors. And also, remember the pastor's family. They're not called to be the pastor of the church; the pastor is called to be the pastor. The wife is not called to be the assistant pastor. The kids are not called to be perfect. So, remember that. [26:02:46]

I've had probably hundreds of little notes or letters or cards. These days it's email and texts, which, which are more difficult to print out. But I've, I've kept them all and they're still in that blue file, and there are hundreds of them in there. And every now and then when I'm feeling a little blue, I'll, I'll take one out and I'll, I'll think, "Oh, well," you know. I've had my share of anonymous letters which I don't read. I just throw them in the trash. But those little, those little notes, they've taken time, they've taken ten, fifteen minutes to write, write it on a card. [27:47:06]

You know, people have said to me, "I pray for you every day." And that just blows my mind away. And I've often thought over the years, somehow or another, my survivability has been rooted in the prayers of the saints. And you know, if you do one thing for your minister, pray for him. If there's one thing you shouldn't do is say to your minister's wife when a visitor has preached, "That was a wonderful sermon," unless you have frequently said that to her about her husband's preaching. [29:27:06]