http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/16287665/preach-christ-embody-christ
Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in . . . love. (1 Timothy 4:12)
Setting an example is a powerful and essential part of pastoral leadership. A strong line of reasoning in preaching, even a soundly biblical argument, might fail to persuade. But a personal example of Christlikeness, especially what Francis Schaeffer called “the beauty of human relationships,” is unanswerable (Two Contents, Two Realities, 141). Beauty can be martyred, but it cannot be denied, and it will rise again.
A young pastor can and must deeply resolve to love everyone in his church and outside his church with Christlike love. He can and must set the believers an example by his gracious, patient, gentle, forgiving, pain-tolerant love. But without the beauty of love, any pastor, however orthodox, becomes a living denial of Christ. To quote Schaeffer again, “There is nothing more ugly than an orthodoxy without understanding or without compassion” (The God Who Is There, 34). Schaeffer was even more blunt: “I’ll tell you something else, orthodoxy without compassion stinks to God” (Death in the City, 1968, 123).
Pastoral ministry is not a career track, not a job, not a gig. It is a sacred calling from above. And the pastoral calling is basically twofold: to preach Christ and to embody Christ. The former is a matter of declaring the truth, the latter of demonstrating the truth. And how can we truly declare the truth without also demonstrating it? If we pastors do not set an example in love, we unsay by our lives what we say by our doctrine. Such an anti-example betrays the gospel. And that horrible betrayal is not a remotely hypothetical possibility. That betrayal of the gospel is common.
We pastors need not be perfect. All of us have many shortcomings. But still, following God’s call, we pastors must accept, deeply accept, that we have signed up for sacrifice. It’s how we set an example of love.
Our Sacred Calling
The apostle John says, “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him” (1 John 4:9). Jesus died that we would live. That is how love thinks, how love behaves — paying a price, that others might enter into the life that is truly life. So, Bonhoeffer was right: “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die” (The Cost of Discipleship, 89).
Recently I was in conversation with a friend who serves in a church-planting network. He told me that one of the questions he hears, as men consider that call, is whether they might have to exceed a forty-hour workweek. I was astounded, as was my friend. Limit ourselves to a forty-hour week? Love doesn’t think that way. Love does whatever it takes for others to live. Should a pastor attend to his family at home too? Of course. But a self-protective minimalism is not love.
“Pastoral ministry is not a career track, not a job, not a gig. It is a sacred calling from above.”
When the apostle Paul was describing the great heart of God for us, he had to strain at the leash of language to say it. He speaks, for example, of “the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us” (Ephesians 1:7–8). If God loves us richly and lavishly, then his pastors cannot love with a guarded heart that holds back. We pastors have the privilege of hurling ourselves, by faith in God, into the depths of his love for people. Then we find out along the way what it will cost us. And we’re fine with that, because we will also see how wonderfully people will come alive — even through us, flawed as we are.
Beauty Through Sacrifice
I remember my final Sunday as pastor at Immanuel Church Nashville in 2019. Jani and I were sitting in the front row, waiting for the service to begin. The band was playing a pre-service number. I forget what it was, but it was a bluesy, rocky something, to the glory of Christ, and utterly delightful. Then my peripheral vision noticed movement off to my left. I looked. And there, about fifty feet away, was a young mom in the church, no longer sitting but standing and moving and even dancing. She wasn’t making a spectacle of herself. There was no hint of self-display. She was just too happy to sit still. And Jani and I knew that dear lady. We knew she didn’t live a charmed life. But there she was, her heart moved by the music and lifted up to the Lord, dancing.
The sight of her joy was so beautiful, I choked up. And in that moment, I knew and felt that all the pain and heartache and sheer hard work we went through to establish Immanuel Church as a gift to our city — it was all worth it. Why? Because it funneled down to one final moment in 2019 when a young mom was enjoying the felt presence of the living Christ so wonderfully she had to get up and dance. In that sacred moment, our sacrifices no longer felt sacrificial. We were too happy to care about all that.
Love and Its Opposite
I wish I could say I always feel that way. But I don’t. Many times, I have to grab myself by the scruff of the neck and say, “Ray Ortlund, you’re going to go do the right thing, and you’re going to like it!” I expect you understand. And here is a line of thought I use as a diagnostic, a way of helping myself realign with Jesus, even in the moment. It’s these two opposites: what a loving pastor is not, and what a loving pastor is.
What a loving pastor is not: He is not out for himself. He does not perceive other people through a lens of cost-benefit calculation. He does not treat others as props on the stage of his grandiose drama. He does not make people into stepping stones on his upward path to ministerial stardom, a big platform, epic book sales, and invitations to speak at big-deal events. He does not curve reality back in on himself, his own advantage, his own importance. He is not self-referential in how he navigates reality. In fact, a selfish mentality is repugnant to a loving pastor.
“If we pastors do not set an example in love, we unsay by our lives what we say by our doctrine.”
What a loving pastor is: He is a man for others. He sets a cheerful “for you” tone as the culture of his church. He feels a gentle fierceness that people will not walk out of church on a Sunday without feeling seen, understood, valued. He is willing to lose, but he is determined to protect others. He will explain himself, but he will not fight for himself. He gives his all, and he enjoys doing so, because the people he serves matter that much to him. If he feels successful, it’s because more and more people are coming alive to Jesus. And he marvels that the Lord has given him such a glorious privilege.
Love Has a Future
As you set the believers an example in love, sadly, some might not see the beauty of it. They might even dislike you for it. Your selfless love might stand as a living reproach to their own selfishness and worldliness. In their eyes, your love might be made into your crime. They might even throw you out. But it is better to fail by doing what is right than to succeed by doing what is wrong, better to fail in the Spirit than to succeed in the flesh. Such a failure still contributes to the great battle being fought in the heavenlies in your generation.
But most people who claim Christ are reasonable. They will rejoice to receive your ministry, and they will join you in your spirit of Christlike love. Even if it does end badly, “they will know that a prophet has been among them” (Ezekiel 33:33). And the resurrection of Jesus proves this promise: “There is a future for the man of peace” (Psalm 37:37).
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Resisting the Inner Skeptic in Our Bible Reading
Audio Transcript
Monday, we looked at doubt. Can we ever hope to experience a deepening joy in God during recurring seasons of doubt? And your answer, Pastor John, was yes. We can experience deepening joy in God during recurring seasons of doubt. And you explained how. And in the Monday episode, one of the battles you briefly mentioned was the battle when thoughts enter our minds that make us wonder whether something the Bible teaches is really true. That’s one form of doubt that we face as believers. And today we drill down into Bible-doubt.
So, how do we fight off this inner skeptic in our Bible reading? The frank and honest question comes from a listener named Kristen. “Pastor John, I am ashamed to say that my Bible reading is often hijacked by a sense of doubt. It sometimes even feels more like a spiritual battle than an intellectual battle, and it scares me because it attacks my faith at the foundations — the truth of the Bible. Do you have any advice for attacking a spirit of doubt and cynicism when reading the Scriptures?”
Tony, I stop and I pray over every one of these questions as I try to answer them so that in the hundreds of things you could say, the Lord will help me choose the things that might be most helpful. And this one felt like I needed to pray more, because when she conceded that it’s a spiritual battle and not just an intellectual one, I felt that’s really true — and not just for her, but for all of us. The intellectual things that rise up that make the Bible seem problematic are often covering a satanic attack. The devil really hates the Bible. He hates truth. He’s a deceiver from the beginning, and he can make things look merely intellectual when in fact some pretty heavy, heavy spiritual stuff is going on.
I’ll just tell Kristen now that the answer is yes, I do have some advice, and I based every one of these six counsels on Scripture, and I’ll mention the Scripture. So, I’m praying for Kristen and lots of people who, when they read the Bible, find stumbling blocks that get in the way of their enjoyment and their belief. And one of these maybe, if not all of them, might prove from the Lord for her.
1. Pray for help.
Pray that God would help you — that he would fight your doubts and cynicism with you and for you. In other words, cry out to God, “Fight for me. Help me. Defeat these obstacles.” And we all know where that’s coming from — Mark 9:24. To the father of the child who had this epileptic fit that nobody could heal, Jesus said, “Do you want me to do anything here?” And the man said, “If you can” (Mark 9:22). And he said, “What’s this ‘if’ stuff?” And then the man cried out, “I believe; help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24). That’s a strange way to say it. Help your unbelief do what? Die, that’s what.
So, this means that Kristen and I need to preface our Bible reading every day with prayer. God, help me with my unbelief — that is, kill it, destroy it, get out whatever is causing it.
2. Long for a glimpse.
Seek in all your reading and praying in the Bible not just to know truth, but to see the glory of Christ. There is a spiritual light shining from Christ that is self-authenticating if you saw it. And I’m thinking here now of the doubting Thomas. I’m glad he exists and is in the Bible for Kristen and me. Remember, Thomas said, “Unless I . . . place my hand into his side, I will never believe” (John 20:25). And so, here, Jesus shows up and he says, “‘Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.’ Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’” (John 20:27–28). In other words, he did not touch him. He saw him.
“Seek in all your reading and praying in the Bible not just to know truth, but to see the glory of Christ.”
Something happened when he saw him. He thought that he would need to do more. He would need more evidence for a ghost — “He’s going to be a ghost. I’m going to be tricked.” And when Jesus showed up, he didn’t need any more. He didn’t have to push it to the limit of his evidential demands. And Jesus said, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29). And I think that means, “Blessed are those who have not seen the way you’ve seen, but who have believed by the seeing that comes through the word.”
So, I’m saying to Kristen that when she reads, ask the Lord for this kind of not physical but spiritual discernment — a spiritual sight of Christ that is different than an argument from evidences drawn with inferences.
3. Meditate on Jesus’s kindness.
Think much about the patience and mercy of God to doubters. Peter said, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water” (Matthew 14:28). He’s going to walk on water. And Jesus said, “Come” (Matthew 14:29). So, Peter got out of the boat, walked on the water, and came to Jesus. And then it says, “But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, ‘Lord, save me’” (Matthew 14:30). And Jesus did not say, “Tough, man. I don’t want to. What a jerk. I just told you that you could do this, and you were doing it.” No, that is not what Jesus said or did. “Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, ‘O you of little faith, why did you doubt?’” (Matthew 14:31).
So, meditate on the kindness and the patience of Jesus to doubters. Peter is doubting, and Jesus reaches out his hand. Maybe that’s what Kristen would feel as she reads this — he is reaching out his hand to me in my doubt.
4. Seek out the strong.
Seek out people of strong faith to read outside the Bible and to be around in person, and make them your heroes. “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:7–8). So, he explicitly wants us to look to people who are ahead of us in this battle of faith, and take heart from looking at the outcome of their faith. And here’s another one in Hebrews. Hebrews seems to be really big on this communal nature of fighting the fight of faith.
Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving [you could say doubting] heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. (Hebrews 3:12–13)
In other words, we need to be in groups where people fight with us and help us and direct us to things that will give strength to our faith rather than weaken it.
5. Know your need of others.
Remember that the body has many members, and some are scholars who have thought long and hard about things that puzzle you, and have solved many of them. “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you’” (1 Corinthians 12:21). And vice versa. And it may be that, sometimes, those of us who are doing footwork at any given time might need to remember, “Hey, there are some heads.” (And don’t let this conflict with Jesus as the head.)
That’s what he says here in 1 Corinthians 12:21 — some are heads, and some are feet. And the feet should never say, “I don’t need you, head,” when the head has spent ten years solving the problem that you’re just stumbling over. No, no, no. The point of the body of Christ is that there’s an answer to our problems. God is a God of coherence; he’s not a God of contradiction. There are answers to the issues in the Bible and the issues of culture. And people have gone before us. And there’s a wealth of wisdom in books, and we should befriend those people.
6. Persevere.
Finally, don’t stop reading your Bible because of these doubts and because of a spirit of cynicism. One of Satan’s main aims in your doubt and your cynicism is to get you to stop reading, when, in fact, the Bible says, “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17). And one last text:
Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers;but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.He is like a tree planted by streams of waterthat yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither.In all that he does, he prospers. (Psalm 1:1–3)
So, the seasons come, the dry desert winds blow, and those whose roots are not planted by the streams wither by cynicism and doubt. But the person whose roots have gone down, meditating day and night on the word of God, is like a tree that has roots way down by the water, so that they’re not killed by the droughts of doubt.
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The Healer of Bruised Reeds: How Jesus Changes the World
There are two opposite ways to change the world: our way versus the Jesus way. Our way is to get pushy, even violent. The Jesus way is to get humble, even overlooked. Both the extreme political left and the extreme political right in our nation today too often choose the foolish way. And any politics, without the beautiful humanity of the Jesus way, ends up making life worse for everyone.
Advent is a good time for all of us, whatever our politics, to slow down and stare at Jesus for a while. Doing so can only make life better for us and for everyone.
Change Through Swagger
The prophet Isaiah foresaw the only one who can change the world for the better — permanently. One of Isaiah’s favorite ways of describing Jesus was as “the servant of the Lord.” But right before Isaiah introduces him in chapter 42, he shows us another world leader in chapter 41. In the words of God himself:
I stirred up one from the north, and he has come. . . . He shall trample on rulers as on mortar, as the potter treads clay. (Isaiah 41:25)
“Advent is a good time for all of us, whatever our politics, to slow down and stare at Jesus for a while.”
God is claiming sovereignty over Cyrus the Great, the Persian warlord whose armies swept victoriously over the ancient world five centuries before Christ. Cyrus was one of this world’s typically successful tough guys. He stepped on people to get ahead (Isaiah 41:2).
And brutality is one way to change the world, I suppose. But does it work, really? One political overreach only sets in motion a pendulum swing in sharp reaction, back and forth, on and on. That’s our way.
Change Through Humility
Thanks be to God, the bullying and brutality all across the sad length of human history — our defunct strategies — are not our only hope. There is also the Jesus way of changing the world. Isaiah introduces this humble servant with words from God himself:
Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights;I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street;a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice.He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his law. (Isaiah 42:1–4)
The key word is justice. We see it three times. Isaiah’s Hebrew is not easy to translate. The English word justice is accurate, but the Hebrew suggests more than legal correctness.
This word is used, for example, in the book of Exodus for the plan of the tabernacle (Exodus 26:30). God gave Moses a kind of blueprint for building the tabernacle, and it came out just right. That’s the word Isaiah uses. It tells us that God has a plan, a blueprint, for truly human existence. But we can’t achieve it by fighting to get our own way. “He will bring forth justice” the Jesus way — by serving us, as an egoless nobody.
He Heals the Bruised
He was not Jesus the Great, to outmatch Cyrus the Great. He came to us as the Lord’s servant, with spiritual power not of this world. Two thousand years ago, with no fanfare, no hoopla, Jesus began a change that will not stop until all his people are healed (Matthew 12:15–21).
A world conqueror with no threats, no saber-rattling, no big-deal-ness? Jesus lived so modestly that no one paid him much attention until he started performing miracles. Even then, his miracles were always to help someone else, never himself.
“A bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench” is a roundabout way of saying he will heal that bruised reed and will rekindle that faintly burning wick. Jesus restores broken people. He isn’t recruiting the heavy-hitters. He wants wounded people, exhausted people, people with doubts, people with weaknesses, injured by their own sins and by the sins of others. Those are the people he brings into his kingdom and serves.
Jesus is the only world leader who can say to us, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).
He Never Grows Weary
But can Jesus handle all this human need we bring to him? What about all my need, plus yours? Does he care enough and love enough and forgive enough, to make everything right again for everyone who comes to him? Look again:
He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth, and the coastlands wait for his law. (Isaiah 42:4)
“Today, the risen Jesus is caring for our needs, and he is not overwhelmed.”
He is gentle, but not weak like us. We start projects with high hopes. Later, we quit. But at his cross, the servant of the Lord took all our failures to himself as if they were his own. Today, the risen Jesus is caring for our needs, and he is not overwhelmed. He doesn’t need to get away from it all for a few days. Right now, as you’re reading this, Jesus is not tired, and he is not tired of you.
The Jesus Way to Change
A new world of perfect justice, created the Jesus way, is not an ideal we must attain. It is a promise of God that he will fulfill.
Even “the coastlands,” Isaiah says, will wait eagerly for his new way of life. And the coastlands were the most remote areas Isaiah could think of. The complete triumph of the gospel is not a hot trend to hit the big cities but leave out the boondocks. There’s just no pride in Jesus at all. His heart is moved for you, wherever you are.
This world will never change by our tribe, whoever that might be, finally winning so big that the victory can’t be reversed. Our tragic world has already begun to change for the better — the Jesus way. Here we find the delight of God, the Holy Spirit, humble modesty, gentle healing, faithful resilience — all of this in Jesus Christ crucified, risen, reigning, and returning.
Advent reminds us not to stake our hopes for the future on worldly strategies. Let’s dare to follow the Jesus way. It’s how his new world appears even now.
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Not Dead Yet: Fighting Nine Fears of Old Age
I need to join you in the fight against the fears of aging by faith in future grace. I have nine fears we will walk through together, and I’ll give you biblical antidotes for those fears. These antidotes will work through faith, and without faith they won’t work. But by faith they will work, and fear will be overcome, and we will go to be with Jesus in due time without walking in fear during our last season. That’s my hope.
Living by Faith in Future Grace
Let me give you a word about future grace. I picture the Christian life as a stream of divine grace flowing to me from the future. I’m walking into it. It flows over the waterfall of the present into a reservoir. The reservoir is getting bigger and bigger, which means our thankfulness as we look back should be getting bigger and bigger, right?
As grace comes to us, it flows over the waterfall of the present, and it accumulates in a reservoir that will get bigger forever and ever. We’ll never stop getting grace from God because, for eternity, we will never be deserving of what good comes to us. (Read Ephesians 2:7. It’s one of the most amazing verses in the Bible.)
“We’ll never stop getting grace from God because, for eternity, we will never be deserving of what good comes to us.”
So what’s the disposition of the heart that relates to the future stream and the disposition of the heart that relates to the past reservoir? The answer is gratitude as we look back and faith as we look forward. That’s why I’m calling it faith in future grace.
And by future, I mean the future five minutes from now or in an hour, when we finish. Will God sustain me, or will I not be sustained for this hour? I am trusting grace to arrive moment by moment as sustaining power from God — free and gracious. And you’re going to sit there, being held and sustained by grace. It’s coming to you moment by moment, and we’re called to trust him.
Four Fruits of Faith
That’s what I mean by future grace and having faith in it, and my goal for this faith is fourfold. If I succeed, by the power of the Holy Spirit, in these next few minutes, four things are going to happen in your life.
First, underneath the growth and strengthening of faith in God’s promises, there’s going to be a joy welling up in your heart — the “joy of faith,” it’s called (Philippians 1:25). Because if you trust God to take care of you, you’re happier than if you don’t trust him. So joy will happen.
Second, God will be glorified by that joy in him, but it’s invisible glory because joy is in your heart. It might come out (that’s number three), but before it comes out, your joy is in your heart. God can see it, and he’s honored by it when you believe his promises and feel joy. He looks at it, smiles, and says, “I’m made big by that joy.” God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. That’s the watchword of my life.
Third, if you have that joy, and if he gets that glory, then you are going to be set free to think about other people and not just about your poor aging self. That’s the great outward need of people our age. We tend to get together, and all we talk about is how we hurt. We say, “My eyes aren’t right, my ears aren’t right, my joints aren’t right, my digestion is not right. Nothing’s right.”
I want you to be freed to serve wherever you live. You’re going to wind up living in a senior home probably. Well, there are needy people everywhere, and maybe you’re just a little bit ahead of them, and you have something good to do. You can do good to them. So that would be number three: to free you from being self-preoccupied and to serve.
And the fourth point would be that God gets public glory from that. That’s visible. Let your good works shine, and God will get glory from you being freed from selfishness and sent into the lives of other people. And it doesn’t have to be a big paid thing.
Those are the four goals I hope will result from increased faith, so now we move to the nine fears. The last eight are specific, but the first one is general.
1. The General Fear of Aging
Number one: fighting the fear of aging in general.
Bel bows down; Nebo stoops; their idols are on beasts and livestock;these things you carry are borne as burdens on weary beasts.They stoop; they bow down together; they cannot save the burden, but themselves go into captivity. (Isaiah 46:1–2)
Do you get the picture? You must sustain other gods. That’s what they demand of you. They say, “You’re a slave. You serve me. I need your help. Take my cart and my idol wherever I tell you.” That’s not good news. Most religions of the world operate on that principle, but not Christianity (or Judaism, rightly understood).
Listen to me, O house of Jacob [or Bethlehem Senior Sojourners], all the remnant of the house of Israel,who have been borne by me from before your birth [we’re not carrying; we’re being carried], carried from the womb. (Isaiah 46:3)
Do you believe that? Seventy-seven years ago, John Piper was carried by God out of Ruth Piper’s womb. He has been carrying me ever since. There is no way I could live without the everlasting arms.
Even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you.I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save. (Isaiah 46:4)
He wants you to get the point: “I’m going to carry you. I’m going to carry you.”
The eternal God is your dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms. (Deuteronomy 33:27)
Faith feels that. But if you struggle to believe it and feel it, let me give you this verse: “God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work” (2 Corinthians 9:8).
Your outward sufficiency is getting smaller, right? You are weakening. Your body is weakening, your eyes are weakening, your ears are weakening, your memory is weakening, and everything is wasting away. That’s what it means in this age to die. We all will die if Jesus doesn’t come, to which we say, “Come, Lord Jesus.”
But I believe the promise of 2 Corinthians 9:8 is that every good work that you are expected to do by God, you will have the resources to do it — the mental resources, the physical resources, the affectional resources, the financial resources. If you don’t have the resources to do it, he doesn’t expect you to do it.
“Every good work that you are expected to do by God, you will have the resources to do it.”
Now, they’re God-given resources. This is not autonomy. This is not me contributing to God. He supplies everything. Also, if you say, “God, I can’t do what I used to do,” don’t feel like God is going to say, “Well, you should do what you used to do.” He won’t. He won’t say that. He’ll just say, “Do what you can do.” Do what you can do, and you’ll have the resources for it. So you don’t need to be afraid. He will carry you, and the grace will be there for what you need to do.
2. The Fear of Difficult Decisions
Number two: fighting the fear of difficult decisions. I wrote down a few, like the decision of where to live. Most people, as they age, have to make choices about staying in their houses or choosing somewhere else to live.
Another one is what to do. Maybe you’re thinking, “What shall I do with my time? I can’t do much. But what can I do? There are three or four different things I could do. What should I do? How do I relate to my kids, my grandkids? They don’t even want me around. They don’t like me. They believe I go to a cult called ‘Bethlehem.’” We laugh, but it’s not funny for those of us who have to deal with grandkids who can barely stand us.
So how do you relate? Noël and I sit in our chairs, and we say, “Should we text? Should we write? Should we invite? Should we email? Should we call? What should we do? What does love do?” That’s the kind of thing I’m talking about — tough decisions.
Instructed Sinners
Here are a few relevant, glorious truths for those decisions. Psalm 32:8 says, “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you.” And Psalm 25:8 says, “Good and upright is the Lord; therefore he instructs sinners in the way.”
Isn’t that good news? Because all of us qualify. If I had to be a non-sinner in order to get instruction, there would be no hope for instruction. And so I get this glorious promise: “I instruct sinners.” So I think, “Forgiveness comes, and then instruction comes in the way.”
Then Psalm 25:9 says, “He leads the humble.” That’s important. If you get your back up at God and start finding fault with God, this is not a good prospect for instruction in what is right. He “teaches the humble his way.”
Freed from Indecision
When I was a pastor, I faced so many decisions that had to be made, and I didn’t know what was best. What do you do amidst indecision? The story of Mephibosheth in 2 Samuel 19 can help us, especially the part when David, the king, says to Mephibosheth, “Why speak any more of your affairs? I have decided: you and Ziba shall divide the land” (2 Samuel 19:29).
Now this is the situation. David has come back from being driven by Absalom out of the city. He had victory with Joab, so he comes back, and Mephibosheth hasn’t shaved or washed. He approaches David, and David says, “Why didn’t you go with me?” For Ziba had lied about Mephibosheth and said to David, “He’s not on your side. He’s on the side of your son, Absalom.” That was not true, but David didn’t know how to prove it. It was Ziba’s word against Mephibosheth’s word.
What are you going to do? He was a king. He has a thousand decisions to make in a day, and he didn’t know what to do. This is what he did. He said, “Why do you speak anymore? I’ve decided to split it fifty-fifty.”
Now we might look at that and say, “That’s a bad decision. Ziba, the liar, gets fifty percent?” But David had work to do. We cannot be paralyzed by indecision. So many people are paralyzed by indecision. Since we don’t know the best thing to do, we don’t do anything.
So as a pastor, I retreated to this story over and over and said, “God, at least count it as a C+ effort, please. I don’t know whether this structure for pastoral care is best, or this hire in the nursery, or this . . .” So many things are not in the Bible. In fact, most things you have to do are not in the Bible. There are little decisions from day to day you have to make. And just take heart: he will instruct you, and he will guide you.
God’s Will in Every Choice
I wrote to a man the other day who is tormented about whether to stay in his apartment or to go to another apartment, and I said, “Look, here’s my counsel. I know the will of God for you. It’s in 1 Thessalonians 4:3: ‘For this is the will of God, your sanctification.’”
So I said, “You pursue holiness, and do whatever you want to do as far as where you live.” It was very freeing to him. And I think that’s what God wants you to do. You should think, “I’m going to be holy. God, make me holy. I don’t want to be merely selfish. I don’t want to use all kinds of worldly criteria. I want to honor you, and I still don’t know what to do. I’m going to make a choice.”
And once you’ve made it, this is where the gospel comes in. Isn’t it glorious? Suppose you made a decision that was contaminated by selfishness, and you didn’t see it. But it was, and it was not the best decision. Now what do you do? You trust the cross. We have to have forgiveness every day.
3. The Fear of Insufficient Finances
Number three: fighting the fear of not having enough money. You might think, “Will I outlive my pension? Will I outlive my 401(k)? How much should I give to the kids? What should my will look like? Will I have enough? I don’t want to be a burden to anybody.”
When it comes to these fears, I think this is just about the most important verse in the Bible (though there are several competing for my affections in this regard): “He [that is, God] who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32). This means that if God did the hardest thing in the universe — namely, giving his Son to be tortured and killed — what would he not do for you? That’s the logic, and he states it. He’ll do everything for you. He will give us “all things.”
“If God did the hardest thing in the universe — giving his Son to be killed — what would he not do for you?”
Now, a prosperity-gospel preacher would say, “That’s a promise of health, wealth, and prosperity.” But the problem with this is that three verses later, it says, “‘We are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:36–37).
Paul, you just said God will give us all things because he loves us that much, and now you’re saying Christians get killed, and in getting killed, they’re more than conquerors? Paul says, “Yes.” So I take “all things” here to mean everything you need to glorify God and bless people.
It’s not everything you can imagine. You might think, “I want health. I want to be done with this broken arm. I want to be done with this arthritis. I want to be done with this macular degeneration. I want to be healed.” And you don’t get healed. You’re going to die before you get healed, and the promise of Romans 8:32 is still true. You will have what you need in order to honor him and bless people.
As Philippians 4:19 says, “My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” I believe that. If you don’t get it, you don’t need it. That’s a sweet promise and a great way to live.
4. The Fear of Being Alone
Number four: fighting the fear of being alone. Maybe you lost your spouse, or you’ve been single all your life. Maybe singleness has been fine, but singleness is not looking as great when you’re outliving all your friends. Maybe you start to wonder, “Is anybody going to remember me?”
So Jesus says, “Behold, I am with you always” (Matthew 28:20). I think “always” is even more important than the phrase “to end of the age.” It’s one thing to say he’ll be with us to the end of the age; it’s another for him to say, “I’ll be with you every minute of your life.”
John Paton was a missionary to what’s now the New Hebrides. He was driven up into a tree as 1,300 aboriginal natives were trying to kill him. As they were beneath him, he laid hold of the promise of Matthew 28:19–20: “All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. . . . I am with you always.”
And here’s what he wrote later, because he survived:
Without that abiding consciousness of the presence and power of my dear Lord and Savior, nothing else in all the world could have preserved me from losing my reason and perishing miserably. His words, “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world,” became to me so real that it would not have startled me to behold him, as Stephen did, gazing down upon the scene. I felt his supporting power. . . . It is the sober truth, and it comes back to me sweetly after 20 years, that I had my nearest and dearest glimpses of the face and smiles of my blessed Lord Jesus in those dread moments when musket, club, or spear was being leveled at my life. (John G. Paton, 342)
Oh, the bliss of living and enduring, as seeing “him who is invisible”! (117)
He will be there for you. Now, I don’t want to create the impression that you should discount human people in your life. God made us a church. You shouldn’t have to live by yourself with nobody caring for you. That would be a failure of the community of Christians, and we should work at that. Senior Sojourners is a little part of that, but there are many other dimensions.
So I exhort you: While you can, be there for others. While you can, look around, and see who’s alone. This may be the most important thing to say as far as how you can live now so that, later, there might be a few people who will remember and help you in your last hours. I think it always comes back to you. If you care for other people, then when you can no longer do that, a lot of hearts will be leaning your way.
5. The Fear of Being Useless
Number five: fighting the fear of being useless. I’m a man, so I think of men here. Ralph Winter said, “Men don’t die of old age in America. They die of retirement.” Which means, built into men’s lives is the need to be productive. I’m sure that’s true of women in different ways, but I’m thinking of men right now. A man who loses his sense of productivity, usefulness, and accomplishment is running the risk of losing his entire identity and reason for being.
Belief as Obedience
During the Olympics in 1992, I preached on “Olympic Spirituality,” comparing the Games with Paul’s language of running and fighting and boxing and wrestling. I looked out on the people there, a lot of them old and a lot of them young, and said, “Come on — let’s fight against sin and unrighteousness. Let’s be valiant for Jesus. Let’s be Olympic, spiritual people.”
The next day, I was told that Elsie Viren was in the hospital, dying. I had been saying, “Come on — let’s fight,” so then I asked, “How does Elsie, probably ninety-plus years old and dying, do that?” I wrote an article called “How Can Elsie Run?” in the Bethlehem Star, in which I asked, “What does her marathon look like right now?”
The key verses are 2 Timothy 4:6–7: “I am already being poured out as a drink offering” — yes, she was. She served the church faithfully for 62 years. Then Paul says, “. . . and the time of my departure has come [yes, it had come for Elsie]. I have fought the good fight [that’s like the Olympics], I have finished the race [that’s like the Olympics], I have kept the faith.”
When Paul ends by saying, “I have kept faith,” he’s interpreting the first two phrases, about fighting and finishing. Keeping the faith is something Elsie can do, and that’s really the meaning of the other two. So imagine she had said, “Hey, pastor. I heard you preached about ‘Olympic Spirituality.’ Are you kidding me? What am I supposed to do?” The answer is believe. Believe him. Trust him. Rest in him. Don’t let Satan win this battle to destroy your faith.
Receiving Back from the Lord
So believing is the way to fight the fear of uselessness. Is it not amazing that Paul says in Ephesians 6:8, “[We know] that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord”? He says, “Whatever good . . .”
Picture the smallest, most hidden good deed you can do this afternoon. It’s just some simple good that nobody knows about. This text says that God wrote it down. He doesn’t need to write it down because he doesn’t forget anything. But on the last day, you will receive some reward. I don’t know the nature of those rewards entirely. There is some way your future for eternity will be different and better because of that. That’s useful. You’re useful. The smallest thing is eternally significant. That’s amazing. That really is in the Bible.
Or here’s Philippians 1:20–21: “It is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” Here’s somebody for whom the only thing in front of him now is death. Someone might say, “Are you telling me, pastor, that there’s usefulness in the next three days before I die? I can be useful? I have a tube down my throat.”
And the answer is that Paul said his aim was that Christ be magnified by his death. There is a way over the next three days for you to die in a way that magnifies Jesus — or not. And here’s the way to do it: Die like Paul did. Die like death is gain.
Now that takes huge faith, and it takes some presence of mind, which you may not have. Take Patty and Glen Larson, for example. Patty was in her mid-forties. She was married to Glenn, had four kids, and got cancer. She died, but before she died, she made a video for us. We showed it on a Wednesday night. She had a bandana on because her head was hairless, and in this video she spoke to us for about eight minutes, exhorting us to hold the faith.
She was a mighty woman, but her last half hour was horrible. When you throw up for the last thirty minutes of your life, you’re not singing, and you’re not praising. I preached at this funeral. It might have been one of the biggest funerals we ever had. That room was packed, and a lot of people wondered, “What is he going to say? She was a mother of four, and she didn’t just die — she died horribly.”
I remember what I said. I was looking right at one skeptical psychologist in the balcony. I knew what he was thinking because we were kind of friends, and I said, “The most significant, useful, glorious thing that Patty accomplished in the last hours of her life was that she did not curse God. She couldn’t do any praising, but she could have spit out some real ugly stuff if she had felt like it. And she didn’t.” You do what you can do, right?
6. The Fear of Affliction
Number six: fighting the fear of affliction. Now here I have in mind just about everything you can imagine, but I especially want to point out something really precious in one of the next verses I share.
When you’re as fit as you are now — by which I mean you are all able to get here, and that’s pretty fit — you can have this in mind: “We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:3–5).
So your mindset with regard to suffering and affliction and pain should be this: “It’s doing something good in me and for me and through me. It’s making me a kind of person.” That’s what that text teaches.
Made Glorious by Suffering
What about when the hour of death arrives and that doesn’t make sense anymore? What I mean is that you might think, “I’m not going to be alive to show anybody my character tomorrow. I’m going to be dead at six o’clock, and it’s now noon. What’s the point of my suffering in the next six hours, Pastor John? What’s the point of the affliction? There are all these arguments I’ve heard you give for all these years of how suffering can be turned for good. But I don’t understand the point of the next six hours, because I’ll be gone after that.”
Now, 2 Corinthians 4:16–17 is very precious to me at that very point. See if you see what I see: “So we do not lose heart [that’s what I want for you right now]. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction [by that he means a lifetime] is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.”
The Greek word that’s translated as “preparing” is katergazomai. Do a word study on it. It means “to produce,” “to bring about,” or “to prepare.” So this affliction is preparing, bringing about, producing “for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.”
Let’s say I’m at a hospital bedside, or maybe in hospice, and this person knows he has maybe one day at the most. He says, “Pastor, it hurts. It hurts. What’s the point?” I answer, “As God gives you the grace to endure to the end without cursing him, resting in him as much as you can, these next twenty hours are going to make a massive, precious difference in the weight of the glory you experience on the other side. These hours are not pointless.”
I really believe that. They’re not pointless. They won’t make your character here shine because you are going to be gone. There will be no character left to shine. But as soon as you cross that line from now to eternity, in some way God is going to show you why those twenty hours were what they were and what they did for you. That’s good news.
I’ll tell you, I’m glad God is a healing God. I pray for my wife’s healing — she broke her arm last week. I pray for healing almost every day for people. And I believe he does it, and I rejoice when he does it. But that’s not the gospel, because you’re going to die anyway. Most people dealing with horrible things don’t get healed.
Good News for Lifelong Suffering
There was a man who lived in a tower across the street. His name was Robert, and half his face was gnarled and purple, and he looked like a monster really. He only went out very early in the morning and late at night. I jogged, and I would see him, and I thought, “That man can’t go out in public. Kids would scream if they saw him. They’d run away. And he lives with this. What’s the gospel for this man? He has lived all his life in a way that you can’t look at him without cringing.”
I have a gospel for him. So I was jogging one morning, and I just stopped and said, “Hi, my name’s John.” He was utterly startled. Nobody probably talked with this man. I said, “I’m the pastor of the church down the street there. What’s your name?” And he said, “Robert.”
And I said, “Robert, I know life is hard for you because of your face.” I just cut to the chase. There’s no point in acting like, “Let’s have some small talk here about this man.” I said, “I know life is hard for you, but I’ve got the best news in the world for you. You may know it already. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came into the world to die for our sins, to forgive us for all our sins, to take us into his family, and someday to give every one of us a new body with a magnificent face.”
We had a little conversation, and I let him go. I don’t think I ever saw him again. I’m just unashamed that I’ve got good news everywhere, in the most horrible situations. You give me any horrible situation, and I’ve got good news. I do.
7. The Fear of Dementia
Number seven: fighting the fear of dementia. Now this is tough, and I’m thinking about memory loss here. You go to the doctor, and they make you draw a clock. Then you have to remember the window, the butterfly, and the door and repeat it back.
I’ve done this before. So I’m sitting there, and I don’t want to fail this test. I’m thinking, “I can still make it. Don’t take away my driver’s license.” My memory is not nearly what it used to be, especially with the short-term. If you tell me your phone number, I can’t remember the first number by the time you get to the last number. So it’s pretty bleak, and it’s not going to get better.
What does the Bible have to say about that? I don’t know of any verses that directly address this. You might wonder, “What are these verses for?” None of us wants to cease to be ourselves, and if you lose your memory, you’re not yourself anymore. If you can’t remember anything, you’re a different person. You have nothing to draw on.
My dad went there, but he always remembered me. I was so thankful. But basically, he was in another world, and it was a glorious evangelistic world. He was on a crusade, and he was preaching somewhere. I just played along, and we had a great time in his imaginary world. It was wonderful, sad and wonderful.
Here’s 1 Corinthians 15:42–43, about the resurrection: “So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown [what dies and is buried] is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power.” When your body dies and is sown in the ground like a seed, it is three things: “perishable,” “dishonorable,” and “weak.” Let’s ponder those three words and apply them to specific situations.
“Perishable” means food that rots. You have to put it in the fridge, and it doesn’t last very long. It’s perishable. And that’s our bodies. They rot, they decay, they waste away. That’s what sin has done to us, and God is going to remove that dimension of sin and its effects at the resurrection.
Second, it’s sown in “dishonor.” Right now I’m 77, but here I am. I’ve got energy, I’m talking to you, and I feel good. I’m driving a car, and I can dress myself. I can still tie a knot. But I think most people look at me now and think, “That’s a dishonorable reality up there.”
You may think I’m macabre in this regard, but I took pictures of my dad when he was dead. I was there when he died, and I took three or four pictures of him as a dead dad. I have them on my phone, and I think I look just like them when I get up in the morning. I try to comb my hair and get the blood flowing, but someday I’m going to die, and it’s not going to be pretty.
I visited my grandfather when I was younger, and he probably weighed 85 pounds. He had a diaper on. He was curled up in the fetal position, and we thought he was gone and couldn’t hear anything. My dad went over and said, “Heavenly Father, thank you so much for daddy,” and he prayed like that for a minute. And when he was done, that corpse said, “Amen,” but he looked awful, just awful. Dishonorable.
And then third (and quickly), it’s “weak.” The opposite is that we are going to be raised “imperishable”, we’re going to be raised in “glory”, and we’re going to be raised in “power”. All you ladies are going to be absolutely gorgeous. And you men, you’ll be whatever the ideal man is.
I think the implication is that perishability, dishonor, and weakness relate to the mind as well as the body. And that’s the way I’m relating it to dementia. As the body wears out, the mind wears out, though it wears out in different degrees. And we’ve all known people who are sharp as a tack till they’re 101 and others who aren’t. There’s someone I know who’s 60 and uncommunicative with her mental condition. I did her wedding. She was a magnificent bride. Now she can’t communicate.
8. The Fear of Failing Faith
Number eight: fighting the fear of failing faith. By that I mean, “God, am I going to make it? I am so embattled, and doubts come. I have horrible thoughts.”
Take Ruth Fast, who is in heaven now, but she was one of the most magnificent ladies in Bethlehem Baptist Church when I started here. She was a prayer warrior, and everybody probably would have said she was the most godly woman in the church.
I was with her as she was dying in the hospital. Her tongue was black like a cinder. I walked into the room, and she was trembling. She took my hand. She was saying horrible stuff. It was just so unlike her.
She was being harassed by the devil. An old, godly saint was being harassed by the devil as she died. Well, that sure taught me something as a young pastor: the battle is never over. I used to think that as you lived a faithful and godly life, you became safer and safer from the evil one. That’s not true.
Philippians 1:6 says, “I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” Hold on to that. Say to God, “You save me. You save me every day, and you will save me tomorrow and bring me home.”
Pressing on Toward the Goal
Philippians 3:12 is probably even more of a favorite for me: “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.”
Here I am, pressing on, and he’s out there. I’m thinking, “I want you, Jesus. I want to make it through death as a believer and not commit apostasy and throw you away. I want you, and I want to make it. I’m reaching out for you.” He reminds me, “Hey, the only reason you’re reaching out for me is because I’ve got you.” Isn’t that what that says?
Paul says, “I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.” The only reason you want Jesus is because he took you, he got you, and he laid hold of you. The only reason you reach forward to heaven is because he has got you. You wouldn’t otherwise.
Called and Kept
Or here’s 1 Corinthians 1:8–9: “[He] will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” The implication of that is that he keeps whom he calls.
Or as Romans 8:30 says, “Those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.” The golden chain will not be broken. If you’re called, you will be kept.
Then there’s one of the greatest doxologies in the Bible: “Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever” (Jude 24–25).
That passage is all built on the fact that he keeps us. Haven’t you fallen in love like I have with that new song “He Will Hold Me Fast”? It says, “He will hold me fast, for my Savior loves me so. He will hold me fast.” I just love it.
9. The Fear of Death
Number nine: fighting the fear of death. Here’s a little glimpse into my life. I sleep on my side. I can’t sleep on my back. I lie there on my back, saying, “Oh, this feels so good. I wish I could go to sleep like this,” but I never do, ever, so I have to choose a side. I also can’t sleep in certain positions because it cuts off circulation, so I have a certain position that I have to sleep in. For some reason, it doesn’t cut off circulation when I’m in a certain position.
So I’m on my side, and I imagine the Lord saying to me, “John Piper, I did not destine you for wrath, but to obtain salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ, who died for you so that whether you wake or sleep, you will live with him (1 Thessalonians 5:9–10). Go to bed. Go to sleep.” Every night I say that.
Noël and I bought plots to be buried near our granddaughter. We’re not going back to South Carolina. We’re here to die. So over there, up on the hill, we’ve got our plot, and we’ve chosen some stones, and we’ve chosen Bible verses for our stones. And 1 Thessalonians 5:9–10 — that’s my Bible verse.
For some reason, for me to have God look me in the eye and say, “I didn’t destine you for wrath. It’s not going to happen. Are you going to die tonight at three o’clock? It’s not a problem because my Son died for you” — it helps me fall asleep.
Now, I know that in the verse’s context it means whether you are alive when the second coming happens or dead when the second coming happens. But either way, it works. He is saying, “Whether you’re awake or asleep, you’re going to be alive with me.” And I need that. I can’t go to sleep thinking, “What if I die? What if I die?” He says, “Not a problem. We’ve got that covered. We took care of that.”
Blood-Bought Confidence
So I end on what I said was one of the most important verses in the Bible: “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32). This applies to every promise that we’ve looked at. That’s the logic.
So if you get in an argument with the devil or an unbeliever in your housing complex, and they say, “How can you be sure that all these promises are going to come true?” one of your answers is going to be this: “God said in his word that since he gave his Son for me, which is the hardest thing for him to do, he’ll do the easy thing, which is fulfill all these promises.” And see what they do with that. I know what the devil will do. He runs. He cannot fight the blood of Jesus.
Therefore, trust Christ. That’s the issue in this room right now. Do you trust Christ and his purchase of all these promises? Do you trust his word? Trust his promises of ever-arriving future grace. He’ll always be there. Be glad in him. Be freed by this gladness for service, not self. Glorify him by your gladness in him and your service to others. And let’s pray for each other. We’re going to help each other die well, right? And to live well till then.