As one who consistently responds to other peoples’ suffering and sin, sometimes I find myself at a loss for what to say. Other times, I know exactly what I want to say, but the person to whom I’m speaking doesn’t seem able to listen. I know I’m not alone in this experience. And I’m not just talking about professional counselors either, but anyone who tries to counsel others, whether at home, at church, in the workplace, or elsewhere. What do we do when we can’t seem to break through?

Let me offer a fourfold framework by which we can both listen and respond to others with Christlike wisdom. We see this framework in Christ’s own counseling — specifically as he counsels the churches in Revelation 2–3.

Counseling in Four Perspectives

The four elements of this framework are commendation, comfort, conviction, and challenge. Before I explain each below, first let me give a caveat: this is not a formula for counseling. Though I will present these components in an order — the order that occurs in my own counseling most frequently — there’s no strict progression. Each conversation may have a different combination of these four elements — or may, in fact, focus on only one or two of the four. These four elements are not so much a pattern or a formula as a multifaceted perspective by which to view the counseling task.

That sort of flexibility is exactly what we see in Christ’s counsel to the churches. As many commentators have noted, two of the seven letters lack any words designed to convict (Smyrna and Philadelphia), and yet with other churches (Sardis and Laodicea), Christ leans hard on convicting language and nearly eliminates commendation. Why the variability? Because the particulars of the situations vary. It’s often when we as counselors become formulaic (relying too much on a specific method), or we try too hard to force one particular element (because we trust our own evaluation), that we find ourselves stuck. In other words, when we become slaves to our own comfort or pride rather than servants of Christ, our counseling becomes inefficient and stale.

Commendation

The first component of this framework is commendation. By commendation, I mean finding thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that are in accord with scriptural wisdom and giving them attention. Quite honestly, commendation can be the most difficult of the elements with which to become competent. Often, we need to hunt through the muck and mire of obvious sin to find a small gem of Christlike behavior. Commendation also requires genuinely knowing the person in front of us in order that our words don’t come across as mere platitudes. Yet finding the praiseworthy in a situation can be key for both building confidence and bringing hope.

Jesus does this with the church of Ephesus when he says,

I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary. (Revelation 2:2–3)

“Finding the praiseworthy in a situation can be key for both building confidence and bringing hope.”

Though Jesus will move on to tell the church what they need to correct, he takes a moment to commend them for what they have done well. Often, before others can hear constructive criticism, they need to know their situation isn’t hopeless, that they’ve been doing something — anything — right.

Mark Dever cautions that young pastors often lead with critique rather than encouragement when they first begin preaching — and the same is often true for young (or inexperienced) counselors. In many cases, we find it easier to sniff out what others are doing wrong than to identify what they are doing right, especially if they are turning to us in a time of failure. Yet in nearly every situation I’ve faced, I could find at least one quality to commend in my counselee. And typically, I find much, much more.

Comfort

The second component of this framework is comfort. By comfort, I mean finding appropriate words that bring peace, relief, and consolation. Comfort is especially fitting when we speak to the suffering, but even in situations where others need conviction, it is not uncommon that, without first receiving some amount of comfort, they will not be able to hear the conviction. In other words, rather than hearing the one thing we think they so desperately need, they will hear nothing at all.

Notice how Christ gives his suffering church in Philadelphia words of comfort:

Behold, I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews and are not, but lie — behold, I will make them come and bow down before your feet, and they will learn that I have loved you. Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth. (Revelation 3:9–10)

Before he exhorts them, he comforts them with the coming public recognition of his love for them and his promise that they will be spared a future trial.

Offering the comfort of God’s word requires genuinely understanding what is causing another person pain and applying God’s specific promises. The glorious assurance of Romans 8:28 will comfort many, yet some will need to know the comfort of fellowship — that not only they but the whole of creation groans with pain (Romans 8:22). Others will need the comfort of an active God of protection: “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31). Still others will need the comfort of a God of forgiveness, in whose Son there is no condemnation (Romans 8:1). And yet others will need the reassurance that their suffering is not in vain, and that “the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18). All of this comfort comes from a single chapter of Scripture! And God has so much more to give.

“True Christian comfort combines sympathy and action, not settling for one without the other.”

The dark side of comfort is that it can become an all-too-comfortable trap. The willingness to endlessly sympathize and pacify without the ability to convict or challenge allows sin to fester, slowly choking out the desire for righteousness. True Christian comfort combines sympathy and action, not settling for one without the other.

Conviction

The third component of this framework is conviction. By conviction, I mean making others aware of how they have transgressed God’s law by their thoughts, feelings, or behaviors — either in the doing or the not doing.

Paul tells Timothy, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16). Note the dual emphasis on reproof and correction. It is part of Scripture’s nature that it shows us where we have fallen short of God’s glory. Conviction rarely feels good; however, conviction need not be harsh. Paul describes his own ministry of conviction to the Ephesians with these words: “For three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears” (Acts 20:31). We would do well if kind, compassionate tears marked our ministry of conviction as well.

Jesus himself admonishes the Ephesians when he writes, “I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first” (Revelation 2:4). Here and elsewhere, he speaks earnestly to the churches and does not spare honest and difficult words for fear of hurting his hearers’ feelings. Indeed, what a gift that he would be so forthcoming!

As mentioned above, in all but two of the seven letters to the churches, Christ has some form of conviction to bring. Yet notice that he does not convict all of them: that in and of itself is instructive. Did those other two churches (Smyrna and Philadelphia) have no sin? Of course not. They were made up of sinners. Yet for his own reasons, Jesus felt no need to bring conviction there and then. Similarly, there are times when those we counsel do not need our conviction.

When do I prioritize conviction? When others are either unaware of their sin or are making excuses for it. In situations like these, I emphasize the unsurpassed goodness and mercy of God in his willingness to forgive (1 John 1:9), yet I also remind them that God’s forgiveness requires honest and earnest confession. As I often tell my counselees, one theme in Scripture is that he who repents first wins.

Challenge

The fourth component of this framework is challenge. By challenge, I mean helping others come up with a plan for how they can begin to think, feel, and act in harmony with their design according to Scripture.

Jesus does not leave the seven churches to fumble for a way forward. Rather, he exhorts them clearly — as when he tells those in Sardis, “Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God. Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent” (Revelation 3:2–3). Action words saturate this small section: wake up, strengthen, remember, keep, repent — a biblical battle plan if ever there were one!

A challenge helps others walk away with an action plan; it gives them some assurance that this week can be substantively different than the previous one. Nearly all of my counseling has some challenge at the end — a plan we devise in accord with Scripture about how we are going to move forward rather than spinning our wheels or moving backward. I have needed to learn over the years to have realistic expectations for these plans: often, growth happens gradually, one small step at a time. But without challenge, growth is far less likely to happen.

Four Doors to the Heart

Each of us will have greater facility with some of these elements than with others. We may find that we easily see where others are going astray and what they need to do; therefore, conviction and challenge come naturally. Others may be natural encouragers with strong compassion; thus, commendation and comfort come easily. We don’t want to fight our natural strengths; however, we do want to recognize the need for all four of these elements in our various relationships.

It’s easy to get stuck when we are trying to give good scriptural counsel, and sometimes that’s not the fault of the counselor. Before we walk off assured that others’ hard-heartedness is to blame, however, we can try reframing our counsel using one or more of the elements above. We may find that a door opens that allows us to speak truth into a heart that seemed all but locked just moments earlier.

Audio Transcript

Good Monday morning. You may remember that last year Pastor John and I recorded five podcast episodes in Nashville, at the Sing! Global 2022 Getty Music Conference. We recorded live before a couple thousand of you who were there. A lot of church leaders and worship leaders and musicians were in the house. It was a great experience. And they were very engaged, as you’ll hear. Today we feature one of those recordings, on getting the Sunday-morning worship vibe right.

Let’s get more specific into musical worship and how you begin a Sunday morning gathering. Let’s talk about the call to worship for a moment. Steven is a listener to the podcast in Indiana. He writes in with a question about the call to worship. “Hello, Pastor John, and thank you for Ask Pastor John. It has helped me think through a lot of pastoral issues over the years. I don’t exactly remember where I heard it, but I remember you saying that Paul’s claim that Christians are ‘sorrowful, yet always rejoicing’ (2 Corinthians 6:10) — that dual claim informed how you framed your welcome and call to worship in the opening moments of the Sunday morning gathering. You believed it was your calling to set the tenor of the corporate gathering in such a way that whether people were coming from a glorious wedding feast last night, or whether they just arrived from the hospital with a dying spouse in the ICU, that this moment of worship together should feel relevant to both groups. Can you expand on how your call to worship did this on Sunday morning?”

Whether my call to worship did it, some others will have to judge, but that certainly was my aspiration. It starts like this. The leader, let’s just say the pastor, who’s going to welcome people into this event right now called corporate worship — at that moment, he’s setting the tone for what he thinks should take place here.

Weight of Glory

He ought to be profoundly aware that to be a human being, a consciousness in a universe created by, governed by, upheld by, guided by a person — God, three in one — is an awesome thing. To be a person is an awesome thing. To be a human being is a staggering reality.

So you start there. You say, “I’m alive. I exist in that kind of personal universe, created in the image of the one who made and upheld everything.” You just let it sink in. You exist, pastor! This is awesome! Then add to that the fact that God exists, Christ exists, the Holy Spirit exists. The incarnation — unspeakable — happened. The Son of God lived. He died. God died for sinners. He rose again. He reigns in heaven today. The Holy Spirit inhabits his people. Faith connects us with God. There’s a hell to which people are going. There’s a heaven, an eternal joy to which we’re going.

These are staggeringly glorious realities — all of them beyond imagination, beyond speaking. He should be utterly overwhelmed with the weight of glory. That’s where you start.

Another World of Joy

And if you start there, you don’t welcome people with slapstick. You don’t. I mean, we just get an hour a week, basically, and we’re dealing with the greatest and most glorious and weighty things in the world. People have been saturated with television, saturated with movies, saturated with social media all week long. I find it incomprehensible that pastors would think, “Well, what we need to do is sound more like that entertainment.” That’s just the opposite of the way I think. I’m desperately pleading to God for words and a demeanor that would communicate another world of joy than that.

“I’m desperately pleading to God for words and a demeanor that would communicate another world of joy.”

And I have the suspicion that most people today younger than me — younger than 76 — have grown up mainly in a world of entertainment, and they are shot through with the whole world of this world. And happiness and joy and gladness and pleasure and well-being are all in those categories, so that if I try to present an alternative to that, it will only sound like morose, dismal, glum, boring.

They have no categories for an alternative. If you say, “Not that — not that chipper, superficial, chatty, slapstick, casual, talk-show-host demeanor,” then the only thing they can think of is dull. That’s tragic — as if there were no such thing as 2 Corinthians 6:10: “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.” So that’s one way to come at it — namely, it is a mysterious and glorious thing to be a human being. And the realities of the Bible are the greatest realities in the world. And the emotions that correspond to them are infinite in joy, infinite in horror as we contemplate hell, and they’re not trivial.

This Morning’s Tragedies

The other way I came at it was this: I tried to keep my finger on the pulse of the tragedies of the world. So, my people have heard this week — and if they haven’t, they’re watching the wrong newscast — that Pakistan today is one-third underwater, some of it ten feet deep. A thousand people have been killed, three million are displaced, and it is desperate. One-third of America would be the east coast to the Mississippi, underwater.

This is what I’d be saying to my people. I’d be saying, “Folks, as we gather, we know that this has happened.” And I would just say, “That’s the world, folks. That’s this morning’s world.” And if you don’t have a theology that can turn that into serious joy, you don’t have the right theology. Because if knowing about Pakistan can only ruin your day, all your days will be ruined. There’s always a Pakistan. It’s just one of a dozen horrors that are going on right now. So that’s a piece.

Pulse of the Room

Then lastly, I’ll just say, I try to keep my finger on the pulse of this people right now in this room and what they’re dealing with. For example, I can remember this one. Our Fighter Verse was Psalm 34:20, “He keeps all his bones; not one of them is broken.” We always recited our Fighter Verse. I tried to weave it into our welcome.

“The realities of the Bible are the greatest realities in the world.”

Well, there’s a boy sitting in the third row with a cast on his arm. He’s probably 9 years old. And I’m saying, coming out of my mouth from the word of God, “He keeps all his bones; not one of them is broken.” What are you going to do about that — ignore it? Now, I hadn’t seen him until I got down there. I didn’t have this plan, but I spotted that cast. And how easy it would have been to joke. I don’t know how you would turn it into a joke with a psalm, but somebody would.

And I walked back to him. I said, “Whoa.” I think I knew his name. I can’t remember right now. “What happened?” This is in the welcome to worship. And then I said — let’s call him Timmy — “Timmy, you know what I think the psalm means?” You’ve got to decide for yourself what that psalm means, because Psalm 91 and Psalm 34, they say things like that.

I said, “I think that means he will never let your bone be broken unless he’s got something amazing planned that he wants to do through that broken bone. So watch out for it.” Something like that. Now that was serious. It was light in the sense that he’s a 9-year-old, so I’m not going to sound real heavy. But it was a powerful moment for me and for our church.

So, a human being is big. God is big. The world is horrible. Pain is in your church. How can you be chipper? How can you create silliness as the modus operandi of welcome to worship?

Not many of us are farmers. Not anymore. And relatively few of us have served as soldiers in combat. But perhaps some of us have tried our hands at competitive athletics — the kind you train for, and not just show up to play.

You may not have been aware of it at the time, but if you have been a soldier, an athlete, or a farmer, you have been challenged, like increasingly few modern people, to learn how to really work. That is, you were presented with some objective, concrete challenge — train for battle, till the field, practice for gameday — and you either put in the required effort to be successful on the field, or you grew weary, cut corners, and soon gave up. You either demonstrated you didn’t have it in you to keep straining forward, against the obstacles, to persevere and achieve the goal; or you found it, doubtless with help from coaches or teammates.

However firsthand your experience as a soldier, athlete, or farmer, Scripture stands ready to fill in, supplement, recast, or override our personal experiences (or lack thereof) and teach us a Christian work ethic — for our own joy, the good of others, and the glory of Christ. And one of the classic places to anchor in Scripture to ponder our work ethic mentions the very concrete and objective occupations of soldiering, athletics, and farming.

Like the Apostle

What Paul has in view in 2 Timothy 2:1–7 is gospel advance through disciple-making. The gospel he has entrusted to his disciple, he now charges Timothy to “entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also” (2 Timothy 2:2). That’s four generations in a blink: Paul to Timothy to “faithful men” to “others also” — and implied is that the “others also” will disciple still others also.

But simple as the plan for gospel multiplication may sound, the work will not be easy. It will be opposed by the world, the flesh, and the devil, almost constantly, and often at the most inconvenient times. Paul himself writes from prison. Timothy can read the writing on the wall: if such efforts dedicated to gospel advance landed Paul in jail, how long until it catches up with Timothy? But rather than shy away from the task, Paul calls his protégé to “share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.” Then verses 4–6:

No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. It is the hard-working farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops.

Consider first, and together, the requirements of soldiers and farmers; then we’ll turn at greater length to athletics.

Like Soldiers and Farmers

Even if soldiering and farming are foreign to you, as they are to me, the broad nature of the work is plain enough.

Soldiers are men “under authority” (Matthew 8:9; Luke 7:8), who do not serve alone but alongside other soldiers (in bands or battalions). A single trained champion with a weapon may be a formidable foe — until met by hundreds or thousands trained to act as one. The power in soldiering comes from this collective force: men trained together, to act together, under the authority and clear direction of an able commander. And to do so — to both get battle-ready and stay ready — soldiers must overcome the temptation of getting “entangled in civilian pursuits.”

The soldier is one who has been called out of normal civilian life, and received into a new company, to train and stand ready to act to defend civilians. And good soldiers, Paul says, aim “to please the one who enlisted” them. They deny themselves the immediate appeals and comforts of civilian life to endure in their calling and, in the end, enjoy greater, more enduring satisfaction than abandoning their mission for trivialities.

“Maturity comes through training, not through coasting or indulging desires for comfort.”

Similarly, though distinctly, farming requires the hard work of both foresight and physical labor. Farmers plan, till and sow, weed, wait with patience for rain and growth, and in the end, engage in the arduous labor of harvesting. And in doing so, the farmer holds in his hands, and enjoys, the reward, as he ought: “the first share of the crops.” Farmers have much to teach us, not only about hard work, and anticipating rewards, but also patience: “See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. You also, be patient” (James 5:7–8).

Like Athletes

Paul in particular may have more to teach us through athletics than we first expect. In addition to 2 Timothy 2:5, he takes up athletic imagery in 1 Corinthians 9:24–27; Philippians 3:13–14; 1 Timothy 4:7–8; and 2 Timothy 4:7. Hebrews also (not written by Paul but someone in his circle like Luke) draws on athletic imagery (Hebrews 5:13–14; 12:1–2, 11–13). The lesson in 2 Timothy 2 is consistent with the portrait of athletics elsewhere in Paul’s letters and in Hebrews.

First, maturity comes through training, not through coasting or indulging desires for immediate comfort. That is, even before the competition, even before the discomfort of enduring on race day, is the obstacle of training. Effective training requires discomfort (Hebrews 12:11). The body is not conditioned by leisure but by stress and strain, and especially through persisting in discomfort. Both body and mind are “trained by constant practice” (Hebrews 5:14), leading to maturity. “Those of us who are mature,” Paul writes, “straining forward to what lies ahead . . . press on toward the goal for the prize” (Philippians 3:13–15). All training, whether bodily or spiritual, requires some measure of toil and striving (1 Timothy 4:7–10).

Second, then, in the competition itself, athletes press on through weariness, frustration, discouragement, and pain. Learning to press through and endure discomfort in training readies the body, and will, to press on through resistance on race day. Verse 5 highlights a specific temptation to overcome: cutting corners. “An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules.” Whether in training or competition, the successful athlete knows that his subjective desires do not rule over the objective rules of the contest. He is not bigger than the race or the game. He cannot train or compete as he pleases, according to his momentary wishes, but must exercise self-control. This is Paul’s own testimony in 1 Corinthians 9:24–27:

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.

Third, and most significantly, across the New Testament passages, the key to enduring discomfort is looking to the reward. Whether in training or in the event itself, Paul and Hebrews emphasize the reward, the crown, the prize — a vital element that makes the lesson for work ethic particularly Christian. Paul explicitly commends the prize: “So run that you may obtain it” (1 Corinthians 9:24). The imperishable crown that awaits is not icing on the cake but the reward to be kept in mind, and remembered, to keep us going when met with obstacles and resistance. Paul himself, as he comes to the end of his “race,” is not ashamed (but intentional) to draw attention to the reward, which, through anticipation, has fueled his perseverance:

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing. (2 Timothy 4:7–8)

But not only Paul. Where did he learn it? No one teaches us to look to the reward like Jesus, in his teaching, his example, and more.

Like Jesus

In his teaching, Jesus again and again draws our attention to the reward that is “from your Father” and “great in heaven.” In Matthew 5–6 alone, he explicitly mentions the reward some nine times (and then does so again in 10:41–42; see also Mark 9:41 and Luke 6:23, 35). Perhaps it was this plain, almost hedonistic thread that prompted Paul to capture an aspect of Christ’s teaching as “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35).

Yet every bit as clear as Jesus’s teaching is the power of his example. The climactic eleventh chapter of Hebrews turns our attention, several times, to the coming reward (10:35; 11:6, 26) and then presents Christ himself as the paradigm of pressing on, and persisting through pain, by looking to the reward:

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:1–2)

“Christ’s perfect grit comes first, which then makes our imperfect but growing effort possible.”

When we look to Jesus, we look to one who himself endured the greatest of pain and shame — the cross — by looking to his reward: for the joy that was set before him, that is, being seated at his Father’s right hand. He finished his course, looking to the reward. And so too, in like fashion, and looking to him, Hebrews would have us run our race with endurance, not grow weary or fainthearted, but lift our drooping hands and strengthen our weak knees (Hebrews 12:1, 3, 12).

Like a Christian

But Jesus not only taught us to look to the reward, and then practiced what he taught. In finishing his course, and achieving the victory of the cross, he secured us, who have faith in him, as his own. Mark this: we do not earn him with our holy grit, but he earned us with his. We press on, as Paul did, “because Christ Jesus has made me his own” (Philippians 3:12). Don’t reverse the order. Slavery or freedom hangs on the sequence. Christ’s perfect grit comes first, which then makes our imperfect but growing effort possible. Or, you might say, Christ’s full acceptance comes first; then he goes to work on our work ethic.

So, a common thread links the work ethic of soldiers, athletes, farmers, Christ himself, and Christians alike: we recognize and own the particulars of our calling; we exercise self-control to overcome the immediate desires of the flesh; we endure in discomfort, with God’s help, for the reward, the greater joy promised at the end, which streams into the present to give meaning and strength to keep straining and striving.

And what makes it particularly Christian, and not simply human, is this: we do all our pressing on, from fullness and security of soul, not emptiness and insecurity, knowing that Christ Jesus has made me his own.