Over the past few years, there has been a lot of attention given to the ways that pastors may abuse their parishioners. Such attention is appropriate and every pastor ought to prayerfully guard himself against such abusive behaviors. Every church leadership structure ought to build rigorous systems of accountability and follow biblical guidelines in the event they observe abuse among themselves or are accused of it by others.
My interest in this article, however, is related more to the misuse of the office than to the outright abuse of it. Having considered churches I have been part of through the years, having observed many pastors locally and at a distance, and having gazed into the sometimes ugly depths of my own heart, I’d like to offer three ways in which pastors may be tempted to sin against the people they are called to serve. We might consider these “respectable sins,” to borrow Jerry Bridges’ term—sins we can easily dress up as virtues.
(Note: I am a firm believer in a plurality of elders who have equal authority, and though I write this in the singular, it applies equally to a board or team of elders. That said, one of the benefits of a plurality of elders is that it ought to mitigate some of these concerns by placing a church under the leadership of several men rather than one.)
Three Sins
Pastor, you may be tempted to use your congregants as raw material for enacting your dreams or pursuing your passions. As a pastor, you are called to lead your church and this often involves casting vision and setting direction. We like and need visionary leaders! Yet you must be wary of the temptation to cast a vision that reflects your desires more than God’s or that leads in a direction that massages your ego more than it serves God’s purpose. If you are not wary, you may put your parishioners to work at fulfilling your mission rather than God’s. When this happens, the church members may think they are serving the cause of the Lord when really they are serving the cause of their pastor. Hence, you must carefully separate your personal passion projects from what matters to God or those objectives that make you feel successful from those that make God look great.
In the world of business, it may be appropriate for a founder or leader to call employees to rally around his vision or to serve his mission. But not so within the church, for the church already has a founder and it already has a mission. The members of the church are to be loved, valued, and cared for and then tenderly and patiently directed to serve in ways that foster God’s purposes. A church is not a collection of willing workers called to serve your cause, but precious children of God called to be devoted to his. Your mission must fit within God’s mission and your vision of success be consistent with God’s vision of success.
Pastor, you can use the church’s budget to serve your own purposes rather than God’s. You may be far too upright to enrich yourself from the church’s accounts, but just as you can misuse people to fulfill your own vision instead of God’s, you can misuse funds in much the same way. As the one who directs the church’s spending, you can insist it go toward expenditures that shore up your ego more than they build up the people of God or to expenditures that make you feel good more than they make God look great.
There may be good reason, for example, to purchase excellent audio-video equipment to record or broadcast your sermons. But it may also be that your vision of success is to look great on YouTube, and you may have directed church funds in a way that makes you feel successful. You aren’t exactly stealing, but you are still misusing the church’s funds. There is nothing easier than spending other people’s money, and it’s possible that all of those expenses do a lot for you but little for the church and less still for the Lord. Another example might be spending a lot of money to bring in a very famous preacher one Sunday, not because the church will benefit all that much, but because it makes you feel good to be associated with him—to have friends in high places. There are many expenditures that may be respectable, yet still be sinful.
Pastor, you can communicate standards of righteousness that reflect your ego more than biblical commands. You can make the church feel like they have honored God by doing—or dishonored God by failing to do—things that are more important to you than to the Lord. In other words, when circumstances threaten to make you feel like a fool or a failure, you may cajole the church members to do things that are beyond your rightful jurisdiction.
Perhaps a fundraising drive can serve as an example. You may be a bit embarrassed by how old or how small the church building is, so you press the members to give beyond what they usually do—even though those members are already giving willingly and cheerfully, each as the Lord has directed them. Yet based on your admonitions, they begin to feel good about giving more and guilty about failing to give more. But that standard is yours, not the Lord’s. You have no right to push them to give more than God has directed, especially when the cause is more important to you than to the God who cares so much more for the sanctuary of the heart than the sanctuary of any building.
Be careful what you tell people they “ought” to do and honestly assess why you feel it so strongly.Share
Or perhaps there is a ministry in the life of the church that means a lot to you but is not clearly prescribed in Scripture. Yet you feel like a failure if people do not show up in droves. For that reason you may press people to participate, using words like “should” or “ought” when you speak about it. Yet because the Bible offers no “should” for such a ministry, you are creating a standard of righteousness that flows from the idolatry of your heart rather than the purity of God’s. Be careful what you tell people they “ought” to do and honestly assess why you feel it so strongly.
What Matters To God
In light of such misuse of the office, it strikes me how little the Bible says to pastors about the ways they are to direct the people to serve within the church. That’s certainly true when compared to how much it says about the ways pastors are to tend to them and care for them. What matters to God is his people—the people he called, created, and redeemed. It is of the utmost importance to him that they are faithfully shepherded by pastors who are willing to deny themselves—to deny their own egos, their own desires, their own visions of success—for the sake of caring for what he values most.

We are weak creatures—little, frail, and lacking in wisdom and knowledge. But all is not lost because the Bible assures us that God is fully aware of our weaknesses and, even better, cares about them. As the author of Hebrews says, “We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses.”

What does it mean that we have weaknesses? Certainly it means that we are morally weak, that we are prone to sin and that we face constant temptations to rebel against God. But it means more than that. It means that we are physically weak, embodied beings who get sick and get tired, who are prone to illness and who eventually die. It means that we are intellectually weak, limited in our understanding and, therefore, in our ability to make sense of circumstances and make good decisions. It means that we are emotionally weak, that our minds and hearts easily grow weary and downcast, and are sometimes even diseased and afflicted. All this and much more.
And then all of these weaknesses accompany us through the toughest of circumstances. We most certainly do experience many great joys in this life, but also many deep sorrows. We face bodily diseases and mental traumas, we face relational discord and friendships that are cut off by death. We have children who disobey and spouses who betray, we face the fires of persecution and the consequences of our own poor decisions.
And as if all this was not already hard enough, every sorrow, and every pain, and every trial brings with it the temptation to sin. It is so often when we are at our weakest that temptations are strongest, when we are most broken that sin promises to make us whole. It is right then that the world entices us, the flesh ensnares us, the devil incites us. Our enemies don’t fight fair. We can never for a moment let down our guard.
We are so weak. Life is so hard. Our enemies are so vicious. But God is so good. For it’s to weak people, not strong or self-sufficient people, that the Bible assures us that Jesus knows. He knows the facts of your weaknesses, and even better, he knows the experience of your weaknesses.
We can be certain that he knows the facts of them because, as it says in the verse before, Jesus has passed through the heavens, which means that he is reigning over this world, seeing and knowing and maintaining authority over all that happens within it. He sees your suffering and he knows all about it. He hasn’t missed it. He hasn’t failed to spot it. It is before his eyes and within his mind. And you can be certain he knows the experience of your weaknesses as well because Jesus, the eternal Son of God, the one who was present at the creation of the world, the one who with the word of his power upholds the world, took on flesh and entered into the world. He laid aside his glory and became weak. Without ceasing to be God, he became man. And as a man, he faced the sorrows and the temptations and the weaknesses that any human being endures. He was “tempted as we are.”
The text says he was tempted in every respect as we are. That doesn’t mean he faced every possible temptation a human being can face, but that he faced every kind or category. He was tempted to outright defy the revealed will of God; he was tempted to only partially obey the will of God; he was tempted to twist the Word of God. And then he was tempted by the circumstances of his life, for he existed within a finite, weak body like yours and mine. And in that weak body he endured sorrow and loss, he endured insults and betrayal, he endured physical pain and emotional agony. He was weak and in those weaknesses surely tempted to respond poorly, to add sin to sorrow, to add rebellion to pain. It was when he had been fasting for 40 days and 40 nights—when he was hungry and weary—that Satan launched his full-out assault. It was when he was already in physical and spiritual agony that people goaded him to forsake the cross and save himself.
Yet there is this great difference between Jesus and us: He passed through each and every test of character and through each and every temptation without sin. Never once did he mess up, never once did he fail to the love the Lord his God with his whole heart, soul, mind, and strength. Never once did he fail to love his neighbor as himself.
The writer of Hebrews wants us to understand: because Jesus was weak and tempted, he knows—he knows what it is to be weak and tempted. He has experienced it himself. He has endured it himself.
There is such comfort to be had here. There is such comfort in understanding that Jesus knows what you are going through. He sees it all, so understands the facts of it. But he also knows what it is like to face the most grievous circumstances, to endure the greatest sorrows, to face the fiercest temptations. Which means that as you face the trials, difficulties, and even traumas of life, you can remember and you must believe—Jesus knows and Jesus cares. In your most difficult hour and your darkest valley, you have the sympathy of God himself.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you today, my friends.
There are lots of good books coming our way this fall. Westminster Books has a Fall Pre-Order Sale going on that allows you to get them at a discount.
There are a few new Kindle deals today. You may also want to scroll down to the bottom of the page to look at the deals that have been valid through July and, hence, are coming to an end tonight. There are some interesting general market deals to consider as well, among them Cal Newport’s not-Christian but still helpful Deep Work.

Kevin DeYoung lists and briefly explains 10 errors we need to carefully avoid when talking about sanctification and the gospel.

Writing for Desiring God, Joann Pittman offers a historical look at Christianity’s explosive growth in China. She also makes several observations about its particular strengths.

As the world watches Olympic athletes compete for gold, Ligonier Ministries is raising a question of eternal significance: Are you running the race of faith? A free ebook by R.C. Sproul hones in on this question and presents an accessible summary of the gospel. Download The Race of Faith and share this digital resource in 15 languages to start evangelistic conversations or encourage Christians in their faith. (Sponsored)

Mission House has been releasing some excellent music. I think you’ll enjoy this new one titled “Faith More Precious Than Gold.”

Brad Hambrick: “There is nothing easy about overcoming an addiction. As we explore what would be the hardest part of this process, I want to be careful not to minimize other parts of the journey. But when you talk to people who were once slaves to substance abuse and are now experiencing significant freedom, a common refrain emerges when you ask: What was the hardest part of your journey?” It may not be what you think.

Bob Kellemen explains the three different “generations” of the modern biblical counseling movement and explains why it’s important for counselors to locate themselves within them.

“Have you ever wondered whether there will be repentance in hell? Should we imagine that those in hell will eventually cry out to God for salvation, only to have their cries rejected? Will they plead for his redemption, pledge themselves to him, and renounce their wickedness, only to have their desperate cries met with divine contempt?”

Joseph was a man of faith, a man who chose to believe God’s word and obey God’s direction, a man whose decision to accept Mary was also a decision to share her shame.

He that is more frequently in his pulpit to his people, than he is in his closet for his people, is but a sorry watchman.
—John Owen