This message was part of a larger session at the 2022 annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society under the title “Receiving Christ as a Treasure: The Affectional Element of Saving Faith.” Watch the entire session here.

I’ll start with an assumption I hope we share: Saving faith is a receiving of Christ. John 1:11–12: “He [Christ] came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” So, saving faith is a receiving act, not a giving act or a performing act.

When God justifies the one who has saving faith, he does not have respect to faith as giving him anything or performing anything to prove our merit. God justifies through faith because faith receives Christ as the sole ground of God being one hundred percent for us. That’s my assumption, my starting point.

Question and Proposed Answer

My question is this: More fully, what do we receive Christ as? And more specifically: What is the actual experience of receiving him? What is happening in our soul when we experience saving faith?

My answer to the first question is that whether we are receiving Christ as Savior, or Lord, or Shepherd, or Friend, saving faith receives Christ as a treasured Savior, a treasured Lord, a treasured Shepherd, a treasured Friend, a treasured righteousness. Saving faith receives a treasured Christ.

Thus, the answer to my second question is that what is happening in our souls when we experience saving faith is that we are treasuring Christ. We are experiencing the spiritual affection that corresponds to the greatness and beauty and value of Christ. Therefore, the thesis of my book What Is Saving Faith? and this talk is that “saving faith has in it the affectional dimension of treasuring Christ” (20).

Historically saving faith has been described as including knowledge, assent, and trust. I agree with that. But what needs to be drawn out of this great tradition is that this knowing includes a spiritual sight of the glory of Christ (2 Corinthians 4:4, 6), and this assenting includes the consent of the soul to the value of that glory (Philippians 3:7–8), and this trusting includes the treasuring of that value as eternally satisfying (John 6:35). That’s my aim — to draw out this reality from the great tradition by showing it as biblical.

Two Reasons Affection Is Vital

I regard this affectional dimension of faith as essential for salvation. Where it is absent, there is no saving faith. Where Christ is not received as a treasured Savior and treasured Lord, he is being used, not trusted in a saving way. Or to say it another way, “Saving faith does not see Christ as useful to obtain something treasured more than Christ” (224).

To be sure, Christ is useful. He is the means of escape from hell, and forgiveness of sins, and resurrection of a pain-free body, and a new creation. And for these we should be leaping for joy. But if we receive Christ because no-hell, no-guilt, no-pain, and new-creation are our treasure, while Christ himself is not the supreme treasure, then that receiving is not saving faith.

It is possible to trust a surgeon to operate on your brain and have no desire to spend time with him at all. He is simply useful. You trust him because he’s competent and because your health is valuable. When the cancer is removed, or hell is escaped, we may have no interest in him. A pain-free heaven without Jesus would be perfectly acceptable to thousands of professing Christians. Which is one reason I wrote the book.

“Saving faith embraces Christ both as useful for his saving gifts and as precious for his satisfying glory.”

The spiritual affection of treasuring Christ is essential not only because it leads to human salvation, but also because it leads to God’s glorification. The reason this is so is that saving faith embraces Christ both as useful for his saving gifts and as precious for his satisfying glory. The affectional dimension of saving faith is essential both for the salvation of sinners and for the glorification of the Savior. Without it, the all-satisfying worth of Jesus would not be magnified in salvation as God intends.

Substantial Precedent

My defense of this claim — that saving faith has in it an affectional dimension — is not mainly by showing how widespread this truth is in historical theology, but rather to draw it out of biblical texts.
But it is important to me that I not say anything without substantial precedent in the history of God’s people. I am fallible. And it is good that my reading of Scripture be chastened by two thousand years of other people’s reading of the Bible.

So, I do take heart when I read:

Calvin describing saving faith as “a warm embrace of Christ” that consists in “pious affection.”
Turretin describing faith as the “embrace of . . . that inestimable treasure.”
Owen calling it a reception of the “Lord Jesus in his comeliness and eminency.”
Mastricht saying that it “denotes desiring and reception with delight.”
Shedd saying that “evangelical faith . . . involves an affectionate love of Christ.”
Berkhof saying that it is a “hearty reliance on the promises of God.”

To my knowledge, I am not saying anything that has not been said in various ways by others far more gifted than I.

Biblical Support

But in the end we go to our Bibles. So let me point to several of the key Scriptures where I try to show the affectional nature of saving faith. I’ll try to point to the nub of the exegesis, hoping that you might look at the fuller argument in the book or bring it up for discussion in the panel.

2 Corinthians 4:3–7

First, we look at 2 Corinthians 4:3–7. And the thing to look for is, What is missing in the experience of the one who lacks saving faith in verse 4? And then, given what God does to change that in verse 6, what is the experience of the one who has saving faith? And what is it called in verse 7?

Even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers [those who do not have saving faith], to keep them from seeing the light [the shining] of the gospel [the good news!] of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said [at the beginning in creation], “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light [shining] of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.

So here the gospel is defined in verse 4 as the “good news of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God,” or as verse 6 describes it, “the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” I think those are two ways of describing the one divine glory revealed in the gospel. This glory shines with spiritual “light” through the gospel story of Christ crucified and risen.

On the one hand (according to verse 4), the god of this world, Satan, knows what he must do in order to prevent saving faith from happening when that gospel is proclaimed. He must prevent the spiritual sight of that glory. That is what he does in verse 4. He blinds the minds of those without saving faith.

On the other hand (according to verse 6), God, the Creator, knows what he must do in order to change that and bring about saving faith. He must cause this divine glory in the gospel (“the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ”) to shine in blinded hearts. That is, he must cause the light of the glory of Christ — the glory of God in Christ — to be seen (with what Paul calls “the eyes of your heart” in Ephesians 1:18).

In our unbelief we saw Christ in the gospel as foolish, or a stumbling block, or boring, or mythical, or unimportant, or negligible (1 Corinthians 1:22–24; 2:14). And then the Creator of the universe caused us to see Christ as glorious, true, valuable, all-sufficient, satisfying — all of that I think is implied in “the glory of Christ” (v. 4). And in that miracle of spiritual sight, saving faith came into being.

And how does Paul describe this in verse 7? He says, “And we have this treasure.” What treasure? The glory of Christ seen in the gospel. “We have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.” Paul sees the experience of the glory of Christ in the gospel as a great treasure. Christ in his beauty is a treasure. The gift of seeing him that way is a treasure.

Since those who are blind to this treasure in verse 4 are called “unbelievers,” I infer that those who see him this way in verse 6 are believers. What they see now, but could not see before, is glory. The glory of God in the face of Christ. Or, as verse 7 says, they see him as a treasure.

I conclude, therefore, that saving faith includes a treasuring sight of the glory of Christ in the gospel. (Consider also 1 Corinthians 1:21–25; 2:14; Ephesians 1:18; and John 5:44.) The very nature of the new birth that causes the sight of the treasure of Christ, determines the nature of the faith it creates — namely, a treasuring of the treasure of the glory of Christ.

2 Thessalonians 2:9–12

Second, we look at 2 Thessalonians 2:9–12. What to look for here is the relationship between faith in the truth and love for the truth.

The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

First, what is the meaning of the strange phrase in verse 10? Another way to put it is: “They did not welcome/receive the love of the truth.” My suggestion is this. At the end of verse 12 it says that these people “had pleasure in unrighteousness.” That is, they loved unrighteousness (cf. 2 Peter 2:15). So, in verse 12 they love unrighteousness, and in verse 10 they will not welcome a love for the truth.

This is similar to Romans 1:18, where men “by their unrighteousness suppress the truth” (cf. Romans 1:28). And 1 Corinthians 13:6, where love rejoices in truth rather than rejoicing in unrighteousness. So I take 2 Thessalonians 2:10 to mean that in the deception of unrighteousness, these people would not even consider replacing love of unrighteousness with love for the truth. Even if it were offered to them as a gift, they would not receive a love for the truth.

Now, with that clarification, Paul connects faith in the truth and love for the truth in two ways to show how there is no faith in the truth without love for the truth.

“There is no faith in the truth without love for the truth.”

First, he says in the middle of verse 10 that people are “perishing, because they [did not welcome a love for] the truth.” Then, in verse 12 he says that people are “condemned who did not believe the truth.” So, failure to love the truth condemns, and failure to believe the truth condemns.

And then, second, to make the connection between loving the truth and believing the truth one piece, Paul points at the end of verse 12 to a surprising contrast. We would expect him to say, “They did not believe the truth but believed a lie.” But what he says is, “[They] did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” Which could be stated, “They did not believe the truth but loved unrighteousness” (cf. 2 Peter 2:15).

Instead of loving or finding pleasure in the truth of the gospel, they loved and found pleasure in unrighteousness. Which I think implies that believing includes loving what is true and right as it is presented in the gospel. And this loving is an affectional element in saving faith, because it is clarified here as “finding pleasure in.”

So, I conclude that the (new birth) miracle of welcoming a love for the truth of the gospel, is part of the miracle of saving faith in the truth of the gospel. And this “loving” is essentially what I mean by “treasuring.” A shift of loves is at the root of saving faith.

Hebrews 11:1, 24–26

The third text we look at is Hebrews 11. The thing to look for here is how the writer describes faith as looking expectantly and confidently for a treasured reward. I’ll read verse 1 and then verses 24–26:

Now faith is the assurance [or substance] of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. . . . By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.

When he says, “Faith is the [substance] of things hoped for,” he implies that there is an affectional element in faith because, in the biblical understanding of hope, we only hope when we feel a confident expectation and desire to gain something we treasure.

And this understanding of faith is made explicit in the case of Moses in verses 24–26. By faith Moses turned his back on the “fleeting pleasures” of Egypt (v. 25) and looked to the promised Messiah and hoped in the “reward” to come (v. 26). His faith was the substance — the experienced present reality of that future reward — which he treasured more than the treasures of Egypt.

So, I conclude that the writer to the Hebrews understands saving faith as having in it an affectional dimension, which he would call treasuring the reward that God promises to be for us in Christ.

Gospel of John

Let’s consider one more brief but hugely important cluster of texts from the Gospel of John. John never uses the noun faith, but he uses the verb believe ninety-eight times. I think the reason for this has to do with the affectional nature of saving faith as John presents it. As I read these passages, watch for how John describes believing as drinking, eating, and seeing with satisfaction.

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. . . . I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.” (John 6:35, 51)

On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” (John 7:37–38)

Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than [loving!] the light because their works were evil. (John 3:18–19)

From these and other passages in John, I conclude that Jesus treats believing as having an essential affectional dimension. That dimension is described as eating the bread of life so that our souls do not hunger (John 6:35, 51), and as drinking living water so as never to thirst again (John 4:10–11; 6:35; 7:38), and as loving the light of the world for the glorious brightness that he really is: “We have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father” (John 1:14; 3:19).

For this experience of saving faith to happen in hearts that are mere flesh (John 3:6), Jesus says that we must be born again (John 3:3, 7). When that happens, saving belief comes into being as a compelling preference — thirst, hunger, longing — for Christ as living water, heavenly bread, and the light of the world.

As Peter puts it, we are born again as infants who “have tasted that the Lord is good” (1 Peter 2:3). The life-giving milk of Christ is pleasing. This tasting is not a neutral act. Saving faith comes into being as a God-given preference — desire, hunger, thirst — for the water and bread and light that Christ is. And it exists as a satisfied drinking and eating and beholding of Christ.

“Christ is most magnified in our faith when our faith is most satisfied in him.”

I suggest that John never uses the noun faith but uses the verb believe ninety-eight times because he wants to foreground the spiritual act of the soul in receiving and coming and drinking and eating and loving. He prefers not to speak of believing as a state or position of the soul but as an act of the soul — a spiritual imbibing, ingesting, embracing, and savoring of the all-satisfying glories of Christ.

Magnify Jesus

My main point has been that saving faith has in it the affectional dimension of treasuring Christ. The ultimate reason this matters is that God designed saving faith such that he would be maximally glorified through it in salvation. That happens because such faith glorifies Christ not only as useful but also as precious. As a treasuring grace, saving faith magnifies Christ’s all-satisfying worth.

Or we might say Christ is most magnified in our faith when our faith is most satisfied in him.

We have over two hundred pastors in this room, and if Barna’s recent report is accurate, then about 85 of you considered quitting in the last twelve months.

This past March, Barna’s survey on pastoral confidence and vocational satisfaction reported that 41 percent of the pastors they queried thought about walking away in the last year. That was down 1 percent from 2022, which was up 13 percent from 2021.

But most of us don’t need survey numbers to know that these last few years have been hard times to be a pastor and to endure in the challenges of pastoral ministry. And in such times, Philippians is a great choice for a pastors’ conference.

In particular, I love the pairing of “the epistle of joy” with this theme of endurance. Paul wrote while enduring incarceration, and he wrote to a church enduring opposition. And yet Philippians is known for radiating with joy. No other epistle, and maybe no other biblical book, shines so brightly with so many explicit mentions of joy and rejoicing and gladness in such short space. So we are set up very wisely and wonderfully for illuminating both this theme and this letter, and for learning to count the joys of ministry, not just the costs.

Unity, Humility, and Joy

Chapter 2 continues the focus on unity begun in Philippians 1:27, with exhortations to unity within the church (verses 1–2, 14–16), and humility in the soul (verses 3–4), and with four personal examples.

Verses 1–2 extend the charge to unity, and verses 3–4 commend humility as the channel to such unity. And the Philippians are not on their own to obey, but God himself is at work in them (verses 12–13) to humble themselves, and so, in the face of external opposition, to strive side by side for the gospel, not against each other.

For the Philippian church, opposition was not new. Acts 16 tells us how quickly persecution followed on the heels of the gospel first coming to Philippi. Paul cast the spirit out of a slave girl, and he and Silas were soon beaten with rods and imprisoned. What’s new, and newly threatening, is that Paul has heard of some emerging divisions inside this local church. So Paul, imprisoned again, now in Rome, writes with the burden that the Philippians freshly seek unity and humility, and follow four tangible examples of humble, joyful endurance.

Chapter 2 is wonderfully concrete with these four personal examples: Timothy and Epaphroditus in verses 19–30, and Christ himself in verses 5–11 — which is the heart of the chapter and the Christian faith. And it’s where we’ll focus in this session, and see not only that Jesus endured but ask how. And there’s a sneaky fourth personal example, Paul himself, in verse 17.

If we try to capture Paul’s essential structure in this chapter of exhortations and examples to a church newly encountering tensions within, perhaps it would go like this: pursue (1) unity in the gospel, (2) through humility in your minds, (3) learning foremost from Jesus’s enduring to the cross. So: unity in the gospel, through humility of mind, like Christ at the cross.

And since this is a pastors’ conference, let’s work through that sequence with our work as pastors in view. I don’t think Paul would begrudge this approach because he addressed this letter “to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers and deacons” (Philippians 1:1). Overseers, plural. In the New Testament, “overseers” and “pastors” and “elders” are three titles for one office, the lead or teaching office — the office that is our common denominator in this conference.

So, let’s ask of chapter 2, How would the pastors in Philippi have received Paul’s letter to the church? And what might be our calling, as pastors today, related to congregational unity and personal humility and the work and example of Christ in helping our local churches obey Paul’s letter?

From that perspective, then, consider the call to pastoral endurance here in Philippians 2 with its key and its incentives.

1. The Call: Lead our people into unity in the gospel.

The specific unity in view is local-church unity. The focus here is not elder teams, or large denominations, or evangelicalism at large, but the particular congregation in Philippi, and your particular congregation.

And that qualifier — “in the gospel” — is critical. We have stated terms on which to maintain and seek unity. Verses 1–2:

If there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.

And remember what Paul has just written in Philippians 1:27: “standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel.” This is not simple unity, or general unity, or undefined unity, no matter the cause. This is unity in the gospel — the unity of striving side by side for the faith of the gospel. This unity is not just getting along without conflict, but unity in the gospel, on gospel terms.

So, given the qualification, it’s good for us doctrinal, theological types to pause and appreciate that unity in the local church matters. Paul values it, and means for us to value it. When the whole church maintains and enjoys Christian unity, with the pastors leading the way, it serves both the endurance and health of believers and the evangelism and conversion of unbelievers. Gospel advance is the context in which Paul calls for gospel unity.

The reason to say maintain is that unity in the gospel isn’t first something we produce. First, God gives it. That’s why Paul talks in Ephesians 4 about maintaining unity: he says, “With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, [be] eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:2–3). God gives us, as his church, unity in knowing his Son, believing his gospel, and having his Spirit.

Then we, eager to maintain it, beware incursions into it — however big or small; doctrinal or ethical; what we believe about God, his world, and his gospel; how we’re influenced and shaped by unbelieving society (especially through our devices); and how we treat each other in everyday life.

Pastor — and Peacemaker

And we, as pastors, have a requirement for our office that helps us in the work of leading the charge for gospel unity in the local church. Pastor-elder-overseers, says 1 Timothy 3:3, are to be “peaceable” or “not quarrelsome” (ESV), or “not a brawler” (KJV; Greek amachon). In pastoral ministry, unity, not conflict, is our long game. We’re not angling for conflict. We angle for real peace and unity in the gospel. Our calling is not to spoil the peace, but to pursue true peace, even when it requires tension and conflict to get there.

At heart, pastors are peacemakers, not troublemakers. And we sometimes (if not often) discover trouble that regretfully requires more trouble, in order to pursue true unity and, in the end, have less trouble. But we don’t delight in trouble. Nor do we seek to add unnecessary trouble to the sad amount of necessary trouble we already have in this age. Rather, we delight to be unified in the gospel — and unity in the gospel is precious enough that we’re willing to endure intermediate tensions and conflicts along the path to peace and unity.

Which presents us as pastors with countless needs and challenges for wisdom. We need to know when to handle challenges to gospel unity with one-time private conversations, and when to give trouble more extended private attention, and when to address trouble with public attention in some form, as in a sermon or sermon series, or in a letter, or at church meetings.

In other words, how much attention do we give to error and for how long? These are some of the most difficult challenges in pastoral ministry. And this is why plurality in leadership is so important and precious. Alone, none of us makes such decisions perfectly, and perhaps not even very well. We need a team of brothers to help discern what challenges in our own congregation to unity in the gospel are worthy of our attention, and not, and how much attention, and for how long.

And is this unity uniformity? Twice verse 2 says to be “of the same mind” and “of one mind.” We might call it like-mindedness, a shared perspective or cast of mind. It doesn’t mean sameness, that everybody believes all the same things about all the same things, but that at the heart, and in the end, there is a like-mindedness in what matters most — in getting the gospel right and longing for it to advance.

So, we are not afraid of relational tensions in ministry, and we check ourselves to make sure that our part in those tensions is owing to the long game of unity, not division, and especially those divisions that stem from selfish ambition and conceit.

Which leads us to verses 3–4 and humility, which is set in contrast to conceit.

2. The Key: Lead our people in humility of mind.

In other words, we aim to serve the church’s needs, not the pastors’ preferences. Paul’s call to unity from Philippians 1:27–2:2 leads to the focus on humility in 2:3 and following.

Humility is far more conducive to real unity than pride and arrogance. Pride may lead to semblances of unity for a while, but in time, pride will produce division. And humility will at times lead to awkward moments and seasons of necessary conflict, but in the end, humility tends toward, and is essential for, true and lasting unity. Much division in churches stems from pride — selfish ambition and empty conceit. And often the first practical step toward addressing division in local churches is individual Christians coming to humble themselves. So, verses 3–4:

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Verses 3–4 are the key exhortations in the chapter, leading into verse 5 and the example of Christ. And as pastors, these are charges not just to teach to our congregations, but first to apply to ourselves and model.

“Brothers, let’s not wait till we’re on the brink of quitting to count the joys.”

The idea of humility as looking to the interests of others holds this chapter together from Jesus, to Paul, to Timothy and Epaphroditus. Though he was sick and almost died, Epaphroditus, says verse 26, “has been longing for you all and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill.” And Paul says of Timothy in verse 20 that he “will be genuinely concerned for your welfare.” Then verse 21, most strikingly: Timothy will not seek his own interests, but those of Jesus Christ.

Verse 4 calls it “the interests of others,” and verse 21 calls it “those of Jesus Christ.” There’s a good caution for us here in how to understand the terms of verses 3–4. Counting others more significant than ourselves does not mean catering to their whims. Looking to the interests of others does not mean letting their desires, however sinful, set the terms for how they will be loved by us or not. Rather, the terms are clarified, and sanctified, in verse 21: the interests of Jesus Christ. The interests of others to which we look, in humility, are those that correspond to, and are not in contradiction to, the interests of Jesus, as revealed in Scripture.

Why ‘the Mind’?

But why the emphasis on “the mind”? I said this key was to lead our people in humility of mind. The reason for emphasizing the mind is that Paul talks about unity “of mind” in verses 2 and 5, and then twice talks about “counting” or “reckoning” or “considering”:

Verse 3: “In humility count others more significant than yourselves.”
Verse 6: Jesus “did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped.”

It’s the same verb in verses 3 and 6. Paul is telling the Philippians, and us, to do what Jesus did. He counted. He reckoned. He regarded. He considered. This involves thought, making calculations and valuations. It requires the use of the mind that serves the forming and shaping of the heart, which then issues in choices and behaviors.

And how we think about ourselves, and others (in our own minds and hearts), really matters. It is critical to actually being humble and not just putting on an external pretense of humility. Humility grows first in the quiet, unseen place of our own thinking and feeling. It is the product of habitual thoughts about ourselves and others that are humble or conceited, loving or selfish.

And this is first and foremost for us as pastors. One danger in ministry is that we quietly, subtly, inconspicuously come to count ourselves as more important, gifted, necessary, respected. Leadership comes with privileges. I deserve them, so we might begin to think. How good a preacher I’ve become. Or what great leadership instincts I have. How many years I’ve put in for these people.

Slowly, over time, pastors can begin to count ourselves more significant than our congregants. We’d never verbalize it that way, but in our own patterns of thought our minds and hearts develop those instincts. And ministry decisions begin to serve our preferences, rather than the true needs of the congregation — which are often at odds with our preferences.

When we come to forks in the road in pastoral leadership, sometimes (if not often) the truly loving, humble course of action for us as pastors is the more personally costly path — more work, more study, more care, more double-checking, more conversations, more patience, more teaching, more time. But the reason we are pastors, and the reason we sit together at the table making week-in and week-out decisions for the church, is not to cater the church’s life to our comforts and ease, but to discern and seek to meet the church’s needs.

In other words, we are workers for the joy of our people. That’s how Paul talks in 2 Corinthians 1:24: “Not that we [leaders] lord it over your faith [that is, to our convenience and private benefit], but we work with you for your joy.” And serving the church’s needs, putting the church’s joy foremost in our counting, is often the harder, more costly avenue for the pastors — but not joyless. In fact, in the end, more joyful. But in the meantime, less convenient.

So, our call is to endure in leading our people into unity in the gospel, and the key is to lead, through our teaching and modeling, in humility.

3. The Incentives: Lead our people to count like Jesus.

And now the focus is especially on how to endure in ministry — that is, to endure in our work as Jesus endured. And how did he endure?

Now, Philippians 2 does not mention explicitly the joy of Jesus. Verses 5–8 put Jesus’s endurance in terms of self-humbling. But what in the world are verses 9–11 doing here? Incentivizing our self-humbling with what incentivized Jesus’s self-humbling.

We have in this famous Christ hymn something like six stanzas, each with three lines. The first three stanzas capture the increasing degrees of Christ’s self-humbling descent:

[1] [Being] in the form of God,[he] did not count equality with Goda thing to be grasped,

[2] but [he] emptied himself,by taking the form of a servant,being born in the likeness of men.

[3] And being found in human form,he humbled himself bybecoming obedient to the point of death . . . (Philippians 2:6–8)

Then, the last three stanzas, which we’ll come to, capture the heights of his incentivizing, rewarding exaltation.

But in the very middle, Paul breaks the three-line pattern and includes one extra line that is conspicuously out of place at the very heart of the hymn: “even death on a cross.” And the stray line is all the more arresting because it ends with an obscenity.

In the first century, the cross was known to be so horrific, so gruesome, so shameful that it was not a topic of polite conversation. The Latin crux, the Greek stauros, pained the ears and imaginations of the dignified.

Think of all the trials Jesus faced, of all his needs for endurance. He endured decades in obscurity, rejection from his hometown, spiritual dullness and unbelief in his own disciples, opposition from religious (Pharisees) and political (Sadducees) leaders, carnal and fickle masses, one of his own betraying him, another denying him, all his men fleeing, being unjustly accused, tried, and condemned, flogged, reviled, mocked, blasphemed — and worst of all, the suffering and shame of crucifixion.

How did Jesus endure this, of all things? How did he keep going? How did he humble himself and obey to the point of death, even death on a cross?

In a similar passage, Hebrews 12:2 says, “For the joy that was set before him [he] endured the cross.” So, joy, yes — but I want to know more. Specifically, what joy could that have been? What reward could have been valuable enough in his reckoning, in his counting, to pull him forward to finish this race, with the very emblem of suffering and shame standing in the way?

What foretaste of joy, or joys, could endure the cross?

The Gospel of John gives us the best glimpse into his mind as he readied himself for the cross and counted not only the costs, but the joys. Two particular sections speak to the substance and shades of his joy as he owned and embraced the cross in the hours leading up to his sacrifice.

John 12

The first section is John 12:27–33, not long after Jesus’s Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem. Previously, Jesus (and John) had said “his hour had not yet come” (John 2:4; 7:30; 8:20). Now he owns that it has:

“Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” (John 12:27–28)

Here we find a first source of his joy: the glory of his Father. When Jesus owns the arrival of his hour, and need to endure, this is the first motivation he vocalizes. He had lived to his Father’s glory, not his own (John 8:50), and now, as the cross fast approaches, he prays first for this, and receives the affirmation of an immediate answer from heaven: “I have glorified it [in your life], and I will glorify it again [in and through your death, even death on a cross].”

Next comes a second joy: what the cross will achieve over the ancient foe. John 12:31: “Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out.” Satan, whom Paul would call “the god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4) and “the prince of the power of the air” (Ephesians 2:2), would be decisively unseated as “ruler of this world,” and Jesus would experience the joy of unseating him, and being his Father’s instrument to disarm “the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them” (Colossians 2:15) at the cross.

Jesus mentions a third joy in John 12:32: the saving of his people. “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He would be lifted up from the earth — which first meant being lifted up to the cross, as John immediately adds (John 12:33). Make no mistake, in the “joy that was set before him” was the joy of love. He had come to save (John 12:47), and on that Thursday night, he would wash his disciples’ feet to show them the love that, in real measure, sent him to the cross. John 13:1: “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.”

John 17

The second passage is Jesus’s High Priestly Prayer in John 17. On the very night when he gave himself into custody, he echoes two of the joys already introduced, and adds one further “joy that was set before him” that brings us back to Hebrews 12 and, with it, Philippians 2.

First, Jesus prays explicitly about sharing his own joy, and that (again) as an expression of his love for disciples. John 17:13: “These things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.” Jesus’s joy — deep enough, thick enough, rich enough to carry him to and through the cross — will not only be his, but he will put it in his people, through both his words and sacrificial work, that they too might endure. John 15:11: “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” This is love: it was his joy to share his joy to increase their joy.

Second, Jesus also prays in John 17 in anticipation of his Father’s glory. He recalls that his life has been devoted to his Father’s glory, to making known his name (John 17:4, 6, 26). But now, in the consecration of prayer, and on his final evening before the cross, he prays, third, for his own exaltation:

Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you. . . . Now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. (John 17:1, 5; see also verse 24)

Misunderstand the holiness of Christ, and this moment, and we will misunderstand this culminating joy: returning to his Father, and being seated, as the God-man, with his work accomplished, on the throne of the universe. The joy of being enthroned in heaven — glorified — at the right hand of his Father, will not come any other way than through, and because of, the cross. And his exaltation and enthronement will mean not only personal honor but personal nearness (“in your own presence” and “with you” in John 17:5). “At the right hand” is the seat of both honor and proximity to his Father. Jesus wanted not only to have heaven’s throne but again to have his Father.

And this coming exaltation, with its nearness, is the particular joy that Hebrews 12:2 points to, like Philippians 2: “For the joy that was set before him [Jesus] endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Joy Will Have the Last Word

Which brings us back to the epistle of joy. As Paul’s hymn says, Jesus endured the cross, and therefore God “highly exalted him.” Jesus endured by looking to the reward — that is, through joy. He counted the joys — his Father’s glory, his people’s good, his enemy’s defeat, and his own exaltation and nearness to his Father, which the final three stanzas of the Christ hymn celebrate:

[4] Therefore God has highly exalted himand bestowed on him the namethat is above every name,

[5] so that at the name of Jesusevery knee should bow,in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

[6] and every tongue confessthat Jesus Christ is Lord,to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:9–11)

So, weary pastors, “Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood” (Hebrews 12:3–4).

And let’s learn to count the joys like Jesus. We can hardly rehearse too often that the glory of Christ is our great goal and great joy. What a calling we have in him, as we lead our little churches in the cosmic victory, crushing Satan underneath our feet. And we pastors, as workers for the joy of our people, enrich our joy (not impoverish it) by folding others deeper into the joy we have in Jesus.

The day is coming when the many sacrifices and challenges and costs and self-humblings of pastoral ministry will be done. Brothers, on that day, “when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory” (1 Peter 5:4).

Then the frustrations and discouragements of ministry in this age will feed our unending joy. At last, we will see how our trials and setbacks have been setups for eternal glory. And the church — of which we are part, and for which we have labored — will be finally perfected, in perfect unity, a bride holy and without blemish, presented to Christ in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing.

Final unity will come. Division and threats will be no more. And every hard step along the path of pastoral endurance will be swallowed up in peace, and glory, and joy beyond our best imagining.

Brothers, let’s not wait till we’re on the brink of quitting to count the joys.

If you could learn to preach from one man in particular, whom would you choose? Some may want to mention big names of today. Others may be entranced by great preachers of the past, the names that echo through history. Perhaps, closer to home, a dear mentor left a particular imprint upon us.

But what about the apostles, men full of the Holy Spirit, and their inspired sermons recorded in Scripture? Should we not learn from them first? In a delightful book called Peter: Eyewitness of His Majesty, my friend Ted Donnelly speaks of Peter as a disciple, as a preacher, and as a pastor. The book is a magnificent treatment of this servant of Christ. Some years before my friend himself passed into Christ’s presence, he preached on Acts 2 and identified some of the features of Peter’s preaching. I gladly acknowledge my debt in what follows.

What, then, can the record of apostolic preaching teach us? What lessons might we learn to help us declare the whole counsel of God? Turning to Peter’s sermon at Pentecost (Acts 2:14–40), let me suggest seven features of apostolic preaching that we can and should pursue.

Peter manifestly preaches in the here and now, beginning with the striking assertion about the disciples’ sobriety (Acts 2:15). Peter preaches an immediately relevant sermon as a man who knows where and when he speaks, and with whom. His sermon proceeds from a real person and is to, about, and for real people — those in Jerusalem who crucified the Lord of glory. He focuses on the most important matters — salvation from sin through faith in the Christ who died and rose. The sermon is earthy, preached by a dying man to dying men, yes, but also by a living man to living men, about the man who lived, died, and lives again forever.

Do we preach with the same sense of immediacy, with the same sense of reality? Do our messages seem like history lectures, or are people made to feel that this sermon pours from a present me to a present you?

2. Scriptural and Reasonable

Peter moves from explanation to exposition to application to persuasion. He takes account of his hearers’ experience, but he uses Scripture to interpret, explain, and confirm it (as in 2 Peter 1:19). Dealing with what his congregation knows, sees, and hears, he turns to Joel 2 to explain the work of the Spirit, to Psalm 16 to emphasize the reality of the resurrection, to Psalm 110 to connect the ascension of Christ with the grant of the Spirit.

Again and again, Peter makes the point, “This is that! That is what it says, and this is what it means.” He is preaching like Christ, employing what I call an apostolic hermeneutic, which Christ patterned for his disciples in Luke 24:27 and 44–48. Does our preaching rest in and rely upon the word of God? Are we manifestly proclaimers and explainers of divine truth, and chiefly of Christ as he is set forth in all the Scriptures?

3. Doctrinal and Instructive

I doubt anyone has ever been asked to preach a distinctly Trinitarian sermon, blending the richest insights of biblical and systematic theology, and covering such topics as theology proper, Christology, pneumatology, prolegomena, anthropology, soteriology, sacramentology, eschatology, and ecclesiology. You might consider such a request ridiculous or even impossible. Yet I suggest that Peter manages it here!

All these notes resonate and combine at Pentecost. Peter introduces all of them naturally, accessibly, substantially, and forcefully — sermonically! Peter is a true theologian, and his sermon is the fruit of Christ’s instruction and the Spirit’s illumination. But he is also a true preacher: though well taught, he doesn’t feel the need to parade his learning. He is neither entertaining the goats nor straining the giraffes. He is calling and feeding the sheep, and therefore he both knows and shows his theology appropriately. His scholarship is not lofty and academic, but consecrated to save and sustain souls through the plainest of declarations.

Are we preaching meaty or milky sermons, according to the needs of our hearers? Good preaching sets forth doctrine sometimes centrally, sometimes incidentally, so that the truth comes across as deep, clear, and sweet to the congregation.

4. Christian and Adoring

Peter’s sermon is theologically rich, but it zeroes in on the Lord Jesus Christ. Peter’s sermons, like Paul’s and others recorded in the New Testament, are full of the Lord Jesus, overflowing with precious truth concerning him. The Pentecost sermon is ardently and urgently Christ-centered, Christ-focused, Christ-exalting. The prophets spoke of him; God sent him; we trust him. He who is God the Son is also identified as true man, the promised man, the sent man, the crucified man, the risen man, the ascended man, the exalted man, the gracious man, the saving man.

“Have we preached, will we preach, a gospel that is whole and holy, free and full, sweet and saving?”

Remember, Peter is preaching to people who knew the Old Testament and among whom Jesus of Nazareth had physically walked. If they needed such instruction, how much more do hearers today? People do not know, or even know about, Jesus of Nazareth. They need men who are urgent and ardent to tell them of the Savior. Are we as preachers going out to tell people about Jesus Christ? Are we eager for people to hear of him, or do we not believe that the preaching of Christ will prove God’s means of bringing sinners to faith?

5. Applied and Direct

“Men and brothers,” said Peter, “Let me speak freely . . .” (Acts 2:29 NKJV). And he meant it! Read through the sermon again. Peter is plain, open, bold, and courageous. He looks his congregation in the eye and speaks to them. He speaks with startling bluntness: “This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. . . . Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified” (Acts 2:23, 36).

This is not hectoring speech; nor is it unrighteously aggressive. We should expect the word of God to dig, to press, to probe, to trouble the soul, to cut to the heart. When the Spirit brings it home, hearers cry out, “What shall we do?” (Acts 2:37). The seraphic Samuel Pearce pleaded,

Give me the preacher who opens the folds of my heart; who accuses me, convicts me, and condemns me before God; who loves my soul too well to suffer me to go on in sin, unreproved, through fear of giving me offence; who draws the line with accuracy, between the delusions of fancy, and the impressions of grace; who pursues me from one hiding place to another, until I am driven from every refuge of lies; who gives me no rest until he sees me, with unfeigned penitence, trembling at the feet of Jesus; and then, and not till then, soothes my anguish, wipes away my tears, and comforts me with the cordials of grace.

Do we expect such preaching? If necessary, will we seek it out? Do we as preachers express truth directly, or do we fudge and shave, blunting the edge of the Jerusalem blade? Do we expect and desire our preaching to provoke the question, “What shall we do?” or have we become experts in turning aside the thrust of divine truth?

6. Affectionate and Gracious

Peter’s most direct speech does not lack love. He speaks to them and toward them, for them (Acts 2:14, 21–22, 29, 38–39). He holds back neither the horror of sin nor the hope of salvation. These last days are gospel days! The good news is being proclaimed to all: repent and believe in Christ, and you shall be saved. (Matthew Henry delightfully calls this offer “a plank after shipwreck.”) Then be baptized, identifying yourself with the Jesus of Scripture, the Christ from Nazareth. Forgiveness will be granted, and the Holy Spirit, who is God himself, will dwell in you to purify you, to bless you, to keep you.

Do we know how to combine the straight and the sweet? Have we learned, under God, to wound and to bind up? Do we know and love the people before us and around us, and so speak? Have we preached, will we preach, a gospel that is whole and holy, free and full, sweet and saving? Have we received the Jesus who brings salvation, and do we delight to tell others of him?

7. Blessed and Fruitful

Peter’s sermon strikes home hard and deep. Those cut to the heart cry out, “Brothers, what shall we do?” And soon after, “those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls” (Acts 2:37, 41). Solemnity and scorn gave way to serious concern, and the Lord granted salvation to thousands. This sermon, preached by a man full of the Holy Spirit, instructed by the Savior and illuminated by the Helper, is a carrying out of the Great Commission. As Peter obeys the command of Christ, three thousand receive the word, are baptized, and so are added to the number of the believers (perhaps more than Christ saw in all the days of humiliation, if we so read John 14:12).

Do we not have the same gospel? Do we not have the same Savior? Do we not have the same Spirit? Can we not preach similar sermons? Can we not pray for and expect similar results? I mean not so much the great numbers (though neither do I dismiss them), but rather the same spiritual reality and heavenly force?

Here is a model for truly apostolic preaching, an example for those who follow in the faith and labor of the apostles. We are not apostles, but we can desire more of the apostolic spirit. In that sense, we can and should seek to preach apostolic sermons, not as cold constructs according to some dry standard, but as the products of burning hearts taken up with Christ and desiring, above all things, the glory of God in him, and the eternal good of all those who hear.