Good morning from Singapore. We have wrapped filming in Cambodia and made our way to Singapore for a long layover. By this evening we will be making our way to the Pacific Islands to do it all again.

(Yesterday on the blog: Where Did All This Expository Preaching Come From?)
The Garden at the End of the Universe
Bethel McGrew has a lovely bit of writing here. It’s timed for Easter but appropriate for every day of the year.
5 Reasons to Go to Prayer Meeting
“None of us needs another excuse to skip our church’s prayer meeting. We have more than enough: we’re busy, it’s difficult to wrangle the kids, it’s dark and we don’t feel like going out again, we’ve got an early appointment the next day, or we’re scared of being asked to pray in front of others. What we need instead are a few reasons for going.”
Why Are the Books of the Bible in the Order They’re In?
We often take for granted the order of the books of the Bible. This is an explanation of how they ended up that way.
The Gospel Never Does Nothing
There are lots of things the gospel does. But it never does nothing.
Humility and Overcommitted Busyness
Here is a challenge many people need. “I want to direct our gaze to a significant blemish on humility in our own generation where we need further chipping and sanding: our overcommitted busyness.”
The Goal Is Knowledgeable Love
Knowledge is necessary. You can’t believe, or obey, or love someone you don’t know; but your knowledge of someone will only be destructive if you don’t love them.“ Justin explains…
Flashback: When The Great Resignation Comes to Church
When it is not perfectly clear that we must leave or when we haven’t received wide affirmation that it’s wise to leave, we ought to set aside thoughts of finding a new family and instead joyfully recommit ourselves to loving the family we are already part of.

The reality is that God simply does not give you children in order for you to feel that your life is worthwhile. —Paul David Tripp

A friend of mine recently went to be with the Lord after enduring a long battle with leukemia. In his final weeks, as his strength slowly faded away, he told his family that he wished he could write a book titled What To Do While You Wait To Die. There would be no time to write a book, but I did tell him I would gladly share on my blog whatever he was learning along the way.
He expressed joy in the relationships God had blessed him with. As God gave him strength, he reached out to as many of these people as he could to thank and encourage them.

[I am] thankful to those who have been mentors to me. I’m young enough that many of those mentors are still alive, so I get to honor them and encourage them and just thank them so much for God’s ministry in my life.
On the other side, the Lord has given me pleasure in brotherhood and working shoulder to shoulder with men at church, men in different ministries, and that is just a great and wonderful thing. I certainly don’t deserve it, but I love it. The Lord is so kind and so good.

So, the first thing to do while you wait to die is invest in people. A committed evangelist, my friend also called as many unbelievers as he could to tell them about Jesus one last time.
He also rejoiced at how the Lord was using his disease to challenge other people and to give them an opportunity to respond with faith and love.

I’m beyond thrilled by how so many young people have come and encouraged me and my family. Oh, what a balm for these last few days. I never expected that, but what a lovely thing. I’ve told my family often that I don’t deserve that, but I am so grateful for it and I wish it. I don’t wish this disease on my worst enemy, but I do wish these discussions for all of my family and friends. God’s people can be so glorious and so kind and so gentle. It makes my bed softer. It makes the journey sweeter. I know it’s only by His goodness and His grace.

So I suppose the second thing to do when you are waiting to die is to be grateful and to look for every evidence of God’s grace.
And then he told of his deepening understanding of what matters the most in this world. A man who had been very successful in life and business, he was well-regarded by associates and ministries alike. He led companies and served on boards. Yet he realized that everything was being stripped away and he was being left with the one thing that matters.

As I graduate to the finish line, I can see quickly all of the shiny armor I thought was on me, fall and clink away as I make steps towards that final, final round. God wants me to be, essentially, free of anything in this world. What I came with is what I’ll leave with. Pretty much the exact same things. That’s nothing but Him, nothing but His providence, nothing but His mercy and grace. What a glorious shedding that has been! I’m no longer a CEO or COO or CIO or any fancy title, no longer part of a Board of Directors, or anything. I’m just a man who has to submit to God’s good and gracious will and just be faithful to Him.
When you store up treasures in heaven, it makes it much easier to leave this world behind.

The third and final thing, then, is to submit to God’s will and to rejoice that while we may leave this world as weak and helpless as when we arrived, we leave safe in the hands of a mighty God.
It was a blessing to know my friend, a blessing to see him serve the Lord to the end, and a blessing to join with so many others to honor him at his memorial service. And it will be a blessing to see him again when the Lord calls me to follow the same path.

I once read of a pastor who made the commitment to spend several days out of every month with his parishioners at their workplaces. He made it his habit to arrange visits to their factories and offices, their stores and schools. He had a specific purpose in mind and one he believed would make him a more effective pastor: He wanted to understand their day-to-day lives so that in his preaching and counseling he could make application that would speak to their circumstances. He acknowledged that the life of a pastor is very different from the life of a student, a laborer, a CEO, or a store clerk. He acknowledged that unless he was aware of how their lives differed from his own, he could easily assume too much and understand too little.

This pastor discerned that one of the challenges of being a pastor—and particularly one who is paid to minister on a full-time basis—is to continue to have a realistic assessment of how the world works “out there.” It’s to acknowledge that much of what troubles an employee in the workforce does not trouble a pastor in his church (and vice versa). It’s to acknowledge that many of the factors that may enhance a pastor’s reputation may diminish a non-pastor’s (and, again, vice versa). The very things that can gain acclaim for a pastor and even fill the pews of his church may gain a warning for a non-pastor and even get him fired. (This is very much on my mind because, as a full-time writer who pastors on a part-time basis, I am also largely outside the workaday world and, therefore, in a similar position to this pastor.)
One of the women who attends his church works in an office setting. She is told she needs to take a course that will address matters of diversity, equity, and inclusion. At the end she is expected to write a pledge that will address her responsibility for the past marginalization and future empowerment of “sexual minorities.” What is she supposed to do in the face of this mandatory exercise? What counsel has she received from the pastor’s teaching and preaching ministry that can guide her right here and right now?
One of the teens in that congregation—a young woman who was brought to the church by a friend and who has just recently professed faith—has a part-time job at a restaurant. As she walks through the doors one morning her supervisor presses a rainbow bracelet into her hand. All around her the other service staff have slipped those bracelets onto their wrists. What is she to do? What guidance has the pastor provided that will meet her in this moment?
One of the men is a department manager at a nearby grocery story. He is handed a new shirt with his name on it and a place to write his pronouns beneath. Does he do it? One of the young women works in an office setting in which the entire department has been invited to a wedding shower for a same-sex couple. Does she attend? One of the men is a high school coach and is being told that he must welcome biologically male students onto the girls’ team and treat them as if they are female. What does he do?
All of these situations are happening today. They are happening in my church and, I rather suspect, in yours as well. Yet most of these situations are ones that pastors are sheltered from by the nature of their vocation. So many of the pressures of the modern workplace are absent in the church office. And even if a pastor did find himself in a similar situation, his refusal to participate would not jeopardize his position or diminish his reputation in his place of work. To the contrary, the congregation would actually honor him for his stance. People who heard what he did might actually begin to come to his church because of it.
So what is a pastor to do?
Mostly, I think pastors have to be aware—aware that their lives may be very different from those of many of their church members and aware that their instinctual response to a situation may reflect the security of their position, not the jeopardy of another person’s.
I also think pastors could take a cue from their colleague I mentioned earlier and do what they can to understand the current environment. This may mean they make regular visits to workplaces or it may mean they just spend time with people to hear what challenges they face. Either way, that kind of information will helpfully equip them.
And then pastors can speak about these situations with care and precision, admitting complexity rather than assuming the solution is always straightforward. The pastor can make sure he’s considered the social cost to a 16-year-old girl who won’t slip that bracelet over her wrist, the financial cost to the man who may get fired for declining to use the pronoun “she” to describe a man.
None of these factors will necessarily change the counsel, and neither should they. Right is right and wrong is wrong regardless of the context and regardless of the cost. We are not relativists. Yet though these factors may not change the counsel, they may shape it or condition the way it is delivered. The pastor’s greater knowledge will allow him to think more carefully, to pray more earnestly, to search the Scripture more exhaustively, and to empathize more truly. It will keep him from inadvertently assuming that his situation is normative rather than exceptional.
We have arrived at a cultural moment in which Christians often need extra counsel and encouragement as they navigate new realities and tough complexities. We have arrived at a moment in which simply living according to Christian principles in the workplace and simply speaking biological truth may exact a substantial cost. I’ve often heard it said that the easiest thing in the world is to spend other people’s money. But it’s just as easy to give people counsel that may cost them dearly but cost you nothing. I know I can be prone to this and suspect other pastors can as well. Hence, my encouragement to myself to others is to do our absolute utmost to count the cost—to count the cost for the people we love, the people we are called to serve, the people we are called to teach and guide.