O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave     O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

These lines, written by Francis Scott Key (1779–1843), were not penned in the aftermath of the Revolutionary War and its elation. Nor in the euphoria of the late 1940s and early ’50s, when Americans felt they had saved the world from the Axis powers. Key’s poem hails not from one of American’s high times, but one of its lowest. The star-spangled banner he saw was not a symbol of American dominance, but of mere survival in one of the darkest moments.

Key’s poem was written in the midst of a war that Americans today don’t talk much about: “Mr. Madison’s War” of 1812. The President and Congress responded to Great Britain’s mistreatment of American ships and sailors on the high seas by making a landgrab at Canada. It wasn’t pretty. At many junctures, it proved humiliating.

In August of 1814, the British sacked and burned the nation’s new capital named Washington City, including the White House and the U.S. Capitol. But at that point, Washington had only been the capital for fourteen years. The real prize for the British would be Baltimore, just forty miles away.

The Battle of Baltimore came two weeks later on September 12–15, 1814. America was weak and vulnerable, on its heels. Francis Scott Key witnessed the bombardment of Fort McHenry, anticipating another devasting loss for America.

But “through the night” by the light of “the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,” Key caught glimpses of the banner still flying — not as a symbol of American dominance and strut, but mere survival under great duress. The flag still waving was a sign that hope was not yet forsaken. Despite the odds, the fort — and its weak nation — still endured as long as the banner yet waved.

Shock, Devastation, Fear

So too Psalm 60 mentions a banner as a sign of survival and a place to fall back and flee in devastation, when the invading army is advancing and routing the front lines. As the tides of defeat rise around them, surviving soldiers turn to look for the banner, a place to return and regroup, to escape and fight another day. While the banner still flies, hope remains, even as the odds mount.

Psalm 60 is the seventh and final psalm in the sequence of Psalms 54–60, which mention seven specific enemies of David. What a catalogue of foes we’ve seen: “Relatives from his own tribe, a closest friend, neighboring Philistines, King Saul, rulers of the land, murderous henchmen, [and now] enemies from distant lands” (O. Palmer Robertson, The Flow of the Psalms, 110–111; see Psalm 54:7; 55:12; 56:2, 9; 57:3–4; 58:1; 59:1, 10; 60:3, 11–12). In each psalm, David is under threat from foes. Yet each, significantly, ends with a note of David’s confidence in God.

We learn the particular context of Psalm 60 in the superscript: “When [David] strove with Aram-Naharaim and Aram-Zobah, and when Joab on his return struck down twelve thousand of Edom in the Valley of Salt.” Aram was the region to the north and east of Israel in David’s day, sometimes called Aramea; you may have heard of the ancient language Aramaic, which Jesus would have spoken a thousand years after David. Later, this region became Syria.

Interestingly enough, this conflict may have started, like the War of 1812, with a landgrab. Along with 2 Samual 8, we find some background in 1 Chronicles 18:3, which says, in summarizing David’s victories, “David also defeated Hadadezer king of Zobah-Hamath [same Zobah], as he went to set up his monument at the river Euphrates.” It may have been that David heard that Aram had its back turned, and David tried to catch the nation off guard.

Meanwhile, while the Israelite army went north to Aram, the nation of Edom, to the south, invaded Israel. That’s the reference in the superscript about Joab, leader of David’s army, “on his return” striking down “twelve thousand of Edom in the Valley of Salt.” Joab had gone north, but then had to return south to address Edom.

David’s Spiritual Dynamic

If we only knew the broad brushstrokes of 1 Chronicles 18 (and 2 Samuel 8), with its refrain “the Lord gave victory to David wherever he went” (verses 6, 13), we might assume that David just rolled from victory to victory, no sweat, no anxiety, no desperation.

But Psalm 60 gives us a remarkable window into the fears and uncertainties of that moment, as well as into the spiritual dynamic that eventually led to victory after victory — but not without painful setbacks and fears and distresses along the way.

Psalm 60 comes in the dark moment when David has been caught off guard by Edom, suffering an unnerving, even devastating, first wave of losses. David and the nation are undone. In their shock and embarrassment and fear, they feel rejected by God.

As we’ll see in Psalm 60:1–3, David and his people are anxious, in some measure, about God’s abandonment. Was he not supposed to protect them? And yet, in this psalm, in this painful defeat, David sees the banner still flying. Hope is not lost yet. He falls back to the banner.

Four Lessons for Our Devastation

I love that the superscript says “for instruction.” Psalm 60 not only captures a moment in history, when David finds himself in the tension between present darkness (vv. 1–3) and the light of God’s promises (vv. 6–8). It’s not only David’s expression of self-humbling in that moment, and rehearsing of God’s word in that moment, and a fresh plea to God for help in that moment.

What’s implicit in all the Psalms is explicit here: they are “for instruction.” That is, for teaching God’s people in David’s day and in every generation since, including ours, the spiritual dynamic of fleeing to God in our devastations. So, let us learn! What timeless lessons, then, might we draw as instruction for our times of devastation from Psalm 60?

1. Hope begins with the sovereignty of God.

Whatever the devastation — cancer diagnosis, loss of a loved one, loss of a job, divorce, disease, depression — hope does not begin by pretending that God didn’t see it coming or couldn’t have stopped it. A God so small that he couldn’t have prevented it will be no real help and comfort in it.

David does not begin with a few exercises in shrinking God or trying to get him off the hook. Rather, from the get-go, he owns God’s absolute sovereignty over the defeat of Israel’s army, and in doing so, he acknowledges a God big enough to actually pray to for help. Look at Psalm 60:1–3:

O God, you have rejected us, broken our defenses;     you have been angry; oh, restore us.You have made the land to quake; you have torn it open;     repair its breaches, for it totters.You have made your people see hard things;     you have given us wine to drink that made us stagger.

Acknowledging God’s sovereignty does not make David and Israel cavalier. They feel rejected. They feel confused, disoriented, made to stagger. Not only is this humiliating, but now they are pierced with fear. Will Edom win the next battle? Will Edom march on Jerusalem? Will Edom overthrow the nation? Has God rejected his people?

David begins with “O God” and then says “you” six times. And he does so, not with his finger pointed to heaven in accusation, but with his hands spread, prostrate on his knees: O God, you, you, you, you, you, you. He is humbled, not arrogant.

“God not only rules over the greatest triumphs of his people, but also their greatest losses.”

God not only rules over the greatest triumphs of his people, but also their greatest losses. The devastations of his beloved are by his allowance, but not toward the end of destruction but in service of his good purposes. We might talk of an asymmetry in his sovereignty over the good and bad. He stands directly behind the good, as it were, and indirectly over the evil. The good reflects his character, but he is no less sovereign over devastation. But for his people, for David, for us in Christ, any felt-sense of rejection from God is never the final word for his covenant people.

So even as David casts this military defeat as quaking earth and a cup of staggering, even as he counts it as if God has rejected the nation (not actually rejected, but it feels like that in the moment), David does not come at God in cynicism, but humbles himself. So our first timeless lesson is, in our devastation, hope begins with the sovereignty of God.

2. Our God gives us a banner to flee to.

As Francis Scott Key saw the banner flying and knew there was still hope, so too, in the midst of devastating news, David sees a banner still flying. Psalm 60:4–5:

You have set up a banner for those who fear you,     that they may flee to it from the bow.
That your beloved ones may be delivered,     give salvation by your right hand and answer us!

So, all hope is not lost. But what is this banner David sees? Where does he flee? It’s not a star-spangled banner. It’s not cloth waving in the breeze at the top a pole.

In one sense, the banner is God himself (as we’ll see), but more specifically here, it is something that God has “set up.” One way to say it would be that the banner is prayer. God has set up a banner for his people in his covenant with his open ear. He hears our prayers. In our devastation, he inclines his ear.

So then, this very psalm is David’s running to the banner. It is “a hand upon the throne of the Lord” (Exodus 17:15–16), petitioning him for help. In particular, the culminating plea to God comes in Psalm 60:9–12.

God Has Spoken

But before we get there, we have an even more specific answer still as to what this banner is. Verse 6 is the hinge of the psalm. Verses 1–3: devastation. Verses 4–5: hope, there is a banner. Verses 6–8: specificity, “God has spoken.” The word of God is the turning point in the psalm. “God has spoken” changes everything.

“In your fears, in your disappointments, in your anxieties, do you fly to the banner of what God has spoken?”

Brothers and sisters, this is so precious and practical. Our God has spoken! His oath, his covenant, his blood-bought promises support us in the overwhelming flood. He has spoken. Do you flee to the banner? In your devastations, in your fears, in your disappointments, in your anxieties, do you fly to the banner of what God has spoken?

Not to a visual banner, star-spangled on a pole, but to the audible banner of God’s own words to us. Not to an image-banner, but to a word-banner. Do you ask, in your devastation, in your fears, “What does God have to say?” That God has spoken changed everything for David, and that God has spoken will change everything for us.

Cities Church, very practically, the Bible is no ordinary book. These are the very words of God to us his people, a record of his words to his people in the past and the treasury of his words to us in this age. They are not dead words, but living and active by the power of God himself in his Spirit.

How well do you know this Book? How well do you know this treasure chest of holy balms and tonics, not just applicable to our devastations, but designed especially for them? Do you come to this Book when the arrows come your way? Do you fall back first to God’s banner or flee elsewhere?

God has spoken — and not casually but “in his holiness,” that is, with the full force of divine authority and power. And in the last part of verse 6, “with exultation.” He not only speaks promises good as gold, but greatly rejoices to say them for us. He will not change his mind. His heart is settled. Fly to his banner.

3. God’s action is decisive; our action matters.

Now, there are glorious exceptions — our action is not always required. In fact, there are moments when we dare not act, except to watch in faith. We see this in Exodus 14:13–14, just before God parted the sea: “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today. . . . The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.” Or in Psalm 46:10: “Be still, and know that I am God.” Or in Galatians 2:16: “A person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ.”

David does have his moment of being still and knowing that God is God, when he rehearses God’s promises and bows in prayer. But then David doesn’t stand by passively. There’s another battle to fight. He sends Joab. He sends Abishai. He sends the army. And so the psalm ends with a prayer that leads to action and a burst of confidence. When David asks, “Who?” in verse 9, he knows exactly who. He has rehearsed God’s word. Now he asks,

Who will bring me to the fortified city?     Who will lead me to Edom?Have you not rejected us, O God? [echoes verse 1 and their felt-sense of rejection]     You do not go forth, O God, with our armies. [However, in light of God’s promises:]Oh, grant us help against the foe,     for vain is the salvation of man!With God we shall do valiantly;     it is he who will tread down our foes. (Psalm 60:9–12)

“We act in faith, but God’s action is decisive. And our acting will be in vain, unless he acts.”

Vain is the salvation of man. In other words, we dare not go forth in our own strength. We dare not try to effect our own salvation. To do so is to live like the lost, to be like Edom. But verse 12 says, “With God we shall do valiantly; it is he who will tread down our foes.” Notice that we-he sequence: we shall do, and he will tread. We act in faith, but God’s action is decisive. And our acting will be in vain, unless he acts.

The decisiveness of God’s action does not make us passive, nor do we dare act in our own strength. But word-informed, prayer-requested, faith-inspired action works here in David — and in God’s people — by replacing fear with valiancy. That is, it provides the courage needed for war.

War demands the training of two kinds of strength: (1) bodily strength and (2) emotional strength, a determined, undeterred spirit or soul. We call it valor, or bravery, or courage; the heart of a lion (2 Samuel 17:10). And this is precisely what Balaam prophesied in Numbers 24:18, hundreds of years before David, about Israel one day defeating Edom: “Edom shall be dispossessed; Seir also, his enemies, shall be dispossessed. Israel is doing valiantly.” (1 Samuel 14:47–48 also makes this connection between Edom and fighting valiantly.)

So, though quaking and staggering, David and the nation will put to rest their fears. How? Now that we have some key pieces on the table, let’s trace the spiritual dynamic: in our devastation, fleeing to God includes acknowledging his sovereignty, flying to the banner of his word, and trusting his words, and then turning to him in prayer and asking for help. This is very basic, and yet powerful, and this is our life.

This is what God made us for: to turn to him, come to him, listen to him, trust him, ask him for help, and act in faith. This is the dynamic of the Christian life, individually and corporately, again and again. This is what we do every Sunday in worship, and this is the pattern for our days. Let every fear and threat turn you to God, to hear him, trust him, ask him for help, and act in reliance on him.

But we have one final lesson that’s at the very bottom and center of the spiritual dynamic.

4. God protects his own without fretting or breaking a sweat.

The raging of his people’s enemies is child’s play to our God. The heart of Psalm 60 — and this is the main lesson — is the bigness and calmness and power of our God in verses 6–8. It’s this vision of God through his word that then leads to David’s confidence in verse 9–12. But God’s majesty and composure comes first. So let’s finish with Psalm 60:6–8:

God has spoken in his holiness:     “With exultation I will divide up Shechem     and portion out the Vale of Succoth.Gilead is mine; Manasseh is mine;     Ephraim is my helmet;     Judah is my scepter.Moab is my washbasin;     upon Edom I cast my shoe;     over Philistia I shout in triumph.”

Verses 6–7 mention parts of the land God has promised his people, going back to Jacob. Shechem (in Canaan) and Succoth (across the Jordan) were the first places Jacob settled when he returned from Aram, of all places (Genesis 33:17). So too Gilead is across the Jordan. Manasseh spans the Jordan. And Ephraim and Judah (north and south) compromise the heart of the promised land.

The effect of rehearsing God’s claim on these lands in verses 6–7 is that it reminds David in his time of need of God’s unbreakable commitment to Israel, and that God would not let Edom take his lands.

In fact, now in a reversal, God calls the neighboring lands his. That’s verse 8, the culminating declaration showing God’s bigness and strength and power. Fret as David may over Edom, Edom does not make God sweat. He will wash his feet in Moab. And he will fling his shoe on Edom like it’s just a shoe rack in the corner. And by the way, Philistia will be his too. This vision of God in his power — without fretting, without sweating, calmly bringing his people’s foes into submission with his feet resting on their backs — is the heart of what moves David and the nation from fear to faith.

God Threw His Shoe on Edom

Forty years ago this fall, our mother church Bethlehem Baptist was worried about this massive stadium that had come to downtown, just across the street. Tens of thousands of Vikings fan would be descending on that corner of downtown on Sunday mornings before noon games, and little Bethlehem across the street wondered, “Are we doomed? Will the hordes streaming in overrun us and send us fleeing to the suburbs for a place to worship?”

On Sunday, September 12, 1982, the Viking hordes came. And two days later, on September 14 — so exactly forty years ago this week — pastor John Piper quoted Psalm 60:8 and wrote this:

Picture Edom in rebellion against Yahweh and his people. Picture them mustering thousands and thousands of warriors. Picture the iron chariots, the war horses snorting and stamping, the bulging muscles and bronze skin of the mighty men, the razor sharp swords, the awful pointed spears, the shields flashing in the sun, the unflinching countenance of seasoned solders. . . . Fearful, dreadful, fierce and powerful.

When God sees them coming he sits down. . . . God sits down to wash his feet! And then, as one would flick a fly, he tosses his shoe on Edom. And 18,000 soldiers fall. God never even looked; he scarcely heard the noise. The world sits stunned at the victory; God sits with his feet in the water.

God is never ruffled. He never jerks. When attacked from behind, he is never startled. At just the right moment he tosses his shoe and all the enemies are crushed. He does not honor them with any nervous preparation. He has set his own schedule for the day and he will accomplish all his purpose. The enemy may try to interrupt, but will not be able to cause the slightest pause in the washing of his feet.

Cities Church, this is our God. He never frets about our enemies. He never sweats over our foes. Not because he doesn’t care. Oh does he care! But because he is God! “The nations rage and the peoples plot,” says Psalm 2. “The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his Christ . . .” And: “He who sits in the heavens laughs” (Psalm 2:1–4). “All the nations are as nothing before him,” says Isaiah 40:17, “they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.”

Never ruffled. Never jerks. Never startled. No nervous preparation. At just the right moment he tosses his shoe and all the enemies are crushed. As Derek Kidner says about verses 6–8:

It is as though, at the height of a children’s quarrel, which has come to blows, there could be heard the firm tread and cheerful voice of the father. . . . Like a colossus, God dominates the scene [of verses 6–8]: it is no longer a matter of rivals fighting for possession, but of the lord of the manor parceling out his lands and employments exactly as it suits him. (Psalms 1–72, 217)

Here’s how Piper closed his letter to Bethlehem back in September of 1982:

Last Sunday the Vikings drew their crowd. And we survived. We not only survived; Sunday School attendance shot beyond last fall . . . . The dome is dead as a threat to Bethlehem Baptist Church. We saw the hordes coming. But we waited for God, and he threw his shoe upon Edom. He was never nervous. He never wrung his hands. He had no plan B. And now?

Let us dream. We will be at 13th Ave. and 8th Street in ten years. The dome is dead as a threat. It is as harmless as a big strapped marshmallow.

Staggering to Clarity

So we come to the Table. In Christ, we now know so much more than David about this God and his salvation, as we come to God’s banner, the place where we flee in danger. And the banner of God’s word tells of the banner of the cross to which we fly in our sin. “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son” (Hebrews 1:1–2).

In Psalm 60:3, David said, about God’s will in allowing Israel’s first loss to Edom, “You have given us wine to drink that made us stagger.” But here at the Table, Christ gives us wine to drink that awakens us, and brings clarifying reminders of his word, and makes us rejoice. At the Table, in Christ, our God reminds his people who feel rejected that they are, in fact, his beloved.

Brothers, we are living in times that deeply condition us for “ease” and for paths of least resistance. Unless we retrain ourselves, we are subconsciously always on the lookout for shortcuts, for time-savers, for life-hacks. For the closest parking spot. For the optimized schedule, with no hour wasted. The quickest route from point A to B, even if not the most enjoyable one.

Steven Wedgeworth, a pastor in South Bend, writes, “Much of what we call ‘technology’ does not actually help us to become more productive at our work but rather does our work for us. While claiming to help us become more efficient, this sort of technology actually trains us to do little or nothing at all.”

I believe he’s right, that our generation is being trained “to do little or nothing at all.” And we too have been influenced by a society increasingly thin on work ethic. We’re clearly not becoming more Protestant in our work ethic. That is, we’re not becoming more Pauline.

Herculean Labor

In his excellent commentary on the Pastoral Epistles, Bob Yarbrough pauses in his introduction to celebrate Paul’s “herculean labors.” He says, “God’s mighty work in Christ resulted in Paul working mightily.” Paul’s “open ethical secret” is that he had “a ferocious work ethic” (29).

“Paul saw Christian preaching and teaching as hard work, not a nice fit for guys with soft hands.”

Yarbrough goes on to say, “. . . what Paul modeled and counseled in his letters to Timothy and Titus reflects an embrace of arduous labor at many levels and in many ways” (30). Yarbrough notes “the fingerprints of Paul’s work ethic at 29 places in 1 Timothy, 24 in 2 Timothy, and 15 in Titus, for a total of 68 references” (31). Paul saw the ministry of Christian preaching and teaching, done rightly, as hard work, not a nice fit for guys with soft hands and a preference for an indoor job.

So Paul writes to the Thessalonians, “We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work” (1 Thessalonians 5:12–13). And he says to Timothy, “Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. For the Scripture says, . . . ‘The laborer deserves his wages’” (1 Timothy 5:17–18).

Under Siege

Such pastoral labor is not only cursed (like all labor) but specifically opposed and targeted by Satan, who often focuses his assaults on opposing lieutenants. If he can cut off the leadership and supply lines, he will soon overwhelm the ground troops.

In fact, if I could channel Screwtape for a moment, I suspect Satan and his minions are doing everything they can to make our age and its patterns as inconducive to preaching as possible. Visual over audible, distraction over focus, increasingly short attention spans over normal human attention spans. This is not a side effect, I suspect, but demonic intention.

If Satan didn’t already know to make a special attack on preaching, I’m sure he took notice when the apostle Paul, at the climax of his last letter, gave this exalted preamble and charge: “I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word” (2 Timothy 4:1–2).

High Costs of Faithful Preaching

What I’d like to do under this banner of “the hard work of preaching” is, first, give some time to counting the costs — and they are significant, enough to make most men very eager not to preach. Then let’s conclude with a few reasons why it’s worth the hard work. So, we’ll linger in the costs, and then glory in the rewards.

And to clarify what I mean by preaching in this workshop: preaching is the heralding of God’s word in Christ to the church in the context of corporate worship. I mean the Sunday morning feeding of Christ’s sheep, as worship, with his word by their local pastors.

In counting the costs, let’s distinguish among the hard work of preparation, the hard work of the preaching moment, and the hard work outside the pulpit.

1. Hard Work of Preparation

The hard work begins in preparation, long before the moment of delivery. Preachers often bear the burden weeks before a particular message, a weight that gets greater the week of, and is especially heavy the night before and morning of.

First of all, preparation for preaching is hard work because we are stewards. We have been charged to give a message that is not our own but God’s: “What we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake” (2 Corinthians 4:5).

Faithful preaching resists the allure of simply telling other people in public about myself and what I think and what I have done. Rather, it is a stewardship from God (Titus 1:7; 1 Peter 4:10) to serve others, not self, by announcing the good news about who he is, what he thinks, and what he has done and will do, based on what he says in his word. “Whoever speaks, [let him do so] as one who speaks oracles of God” (1 Peter 4:11). Brothers, we are stewards, and “it is required of stewards that they be found faithful” (1 Corinthians 4:2).

Which leads to a second aspect of the hard work: study. I know many of us find this part enjoyable, but it also quickly becomes hard work when you have a due date. Paul says to Timothy, and to you, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15). A pastor who doesn’t sweat and strain at his study and teaching is not fulfilling his calling. And diligent word-work is hard work, when done well.

“To preach God’s words well requires that they first land hardest on the preacher himself.”

Third, part of the hard work is that preaching requires heart work. Before we graciously expose the church to the words of God, he calls us first to submit ourselves to him. To preach his words well requires that they first land hardest on the preacher himself. Again, we bear another’s message, not our own. In our preparation, we carry a weight that involves not just the mental work of study, but the heart work of repentance and the spiritual work of shepherding a particular people.

Preaching is hard work because it calls for self-humbling, not self-exaltation. Did not our Lord himself say, “everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 18:14)? Brother preachers, tremble, and do the hard work of applying Scripture to yourself — internalizing first, then applying to your people.

Fourth, and relatedly, the goal of preaching makes it hard work: “The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith” (1 Timothy 1:5). Not just love, but love “that issues from . . . faith.” That’s hard work: not just telling our people what to do but preaching in such a way that hearts are purified, consciences calibrated, and sincere faith fed. To stir love, we aim to incite faith.

We play the music first and foremost, not to bark dance steps — though we do give dance steps. Rather, we want our people to come away thinking not, “Wow, that was a lot of dance steps,” but thinking, “What music! Oh, do I want to dance to that music!”

Fifth, and finally, the hard work of preaching includes preparing hard words — “cutting sharp doctrines” that do not please carnal hearers. As J.C. Ryle said:

Mark what I say. If you want to do good in these times, you must throw aside indecision, and take up a distinct, sharply-cut, doctrinal religion. . . .

The victories of Christianity, wherever they have been won, have been won by distinct doctrinal theology; by telling men roundly of Christ’s vicarious death and sacrifice; by showing them Christ’s substitution on the cross, and his precious blood; by teaching them justification by faith, and bidding them believe on a crucified Saviour; by preaching ruin by sin, redemption by Christ, regeneration by the Spirit; by lifting up the brazen serpent; by telling men to look and live — to believe, repent, and be converted. . . .

Show us at this day any . . . village, or parish, or city, or town, or district, which has been evangelized without “dogma.” . . . Christianity without distinct doctrine is a powerless thing. . . . No dogma, no fruits!

It is easier to think and speak indistinctly. It’s hard work to cut sharp doctrines that you yourself will deliver to real people.

And then, taking all that into account — the text itself and our careful study of it, our own heart work and repentance, the context and needs of our people — then the time approaches. And deadlines are hard work. There is a big difference between prepping a sermon in theory and prepping it by today at 5pm. (All of a sudden, manual labor sounds really nice.)

Perhaps the most stress, for me, comes in the pinch between a coming assignment, on a fixed day, and the uncertainty of what specific direction to take in the message. What does God want me to say to this people and at this time, and how will I approach it? What’s the outline?

That might cause some of us the most stress, but the hardest work, I find, often comes at the end: cutting. That is, determining what not to say. Or, not saying too much, going on for too long. (It’s better to leave them wanting just a little bit more, rather than feeling like they got a little — or a lot — too much). It’s hard work to not say what you personally want to say but is not a faithful stewardship, and it’s hard work to not say what you’re prepared to say but is just too much for this one short message.

Labor to Labor

Brothers, preparing well for preaching is hard work. And because it’s private, not public like the preaching event itself, we can be tempted to cut corners in our preparation. And if that’s a common pitfall for you, you may need to step back and learn some Protestant work ethic. You may need to learn to work.

Now, to be sure, hard work does not mean excessive sermon prep when you have other responsibilities; I’m not advocating for giving half your work week to sermon prep; nor am I saying that hard work means long sermons. In fact, it takes more work, and some of the hardest work, as we just said, to cut and make the sermon tighter, to decide what to leave for another time.

Rather, what I mean is taking what time you have and really working hard, not dillydallying, checking twitter, texting, allowing yourself to be given to diversion in those precious few moments you have to think hard, pray hard, work hard, to prepare the meal to feed your people.

If “feed my sheep” was easy work, Christ may not have said it three times to Peter (John 21:15–17). It is hard work. Not just overflow. Yes, overflow is an important starting point. We want our preaching to begin with overflow from our hearts before God, but overflow rarely (I’m tempted to say never) finishes a good sermon. What starts in overflow finishes with hard work.

2. Hard Work in the Moment

So preparation for preaching is hard work. Now, what about in the moment? For Christians, corporate worship, in a real sense, is our most important hour of the week, and single most important habit.

We want to be careful with this way of thinking and talking, because the importance of the hour lies not in our performance or individual roles, but in what God delights to do by his Spirit when his people gather together in worship. And yet it’s unavoidable that the preacher plays a significant part — which should humble God’s spokesman, not puff him up.

For preachers, the public nature of the sermon is both a necessity and a cost. It is necessary because the very nature of the task is heralding God’s word to his church. And it’s hard work because, among other pressures, most of us agree that public speaking is challenging.

Survey after survey reports that on the whole, modern people fear public speaking more than anything else. Some of us remember the famous bit from Jerry Seinfeld: “Speaking in front of a crowd is considered the number-one fear of the average person. Number two is death. Death is number two? This means to the average person, if you have to be at a funeral, you’d rather be in the casket than doing the eulogy.” Public speaking on its own is hard work, and all the more to make it good.

Second, add to that the solemnity of the task. Now back to Paul’s charge his protégé, and us, in 2 Timothy 4:1–2, of which John Piper writes, “There is nothing quite like it anywhere else in Scripture. . . . I am not aware of any other biblical command that has such an extended, exalted, intensifying introduction” (Expository Exultation, 66).

Note the “five preceding intensifiers” to Paul’s charge to Timothy to preach the word: “(1) I charge you (2) in the presence of God (3) and of Christ Jesus, (4) who is to judge the living and the dead, (5) and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word.” To those today who suspect previous generations overestimated the place of preaching, Piper comments, “I doubt that anyone has ever overstated the seriousness that Paul is seeking to awaken here.”

Beyond the solemnity of the moment is, third, the call to courage. Public speaking is one challenge. Speaking into the church’s most important hour is another. Preaching with courage, when God’s word is at odds with the prevailing word in society (which inevitably takes root in the church in some form or fashion), requires even more. If we are faithful to God’s voice, it is almost certain that someone within earshot each Sunday, if not many, will not like what we are saying.

Related, fourth, speaking to our context is hard work. Right after Paul tells Timothy to preach the word, he says that “the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths” (2 Timothy 4:3–4). This is the context of preaching. We are living in those days.

Fifth, preachers also are unusually exposed spiritually. Extended monologue, on God’s behalf, to human souls, unavoidably reveals a man’s own heart, both by what he says and what he does not — which produces a deep, unconscious aversion to preaching in many men. Preaching is tacit self-revelation: what we don’t say also speaks. And we hold ourselves to a standard by saying it in public.

And then, sixth, is the hard work of authentically embodying the message: heralding what needs to be heralded; gently saying what needs gentleness. Without being overly and underly affected, dramatic or deadpan, emotionally engaging with the message, with appropriate forcefulness and urgency.

Seventh, there is, in preaching, what is for some a paralyzing exposure to criticism. To preach this Book to these people, in whatever century, means that every Sunday someone in attendance, if not many, are not going to be happy with something you said.

This is why Paul talks twice, pastor to pastors, in Acts 20 about not shrinking back. To preach the Christian scriptures is to encounter the regular temptation to shrink back. Paul says, “I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house, testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:20–21). And: “I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27).

3. Hard Work Outside the Pulpit

Finally, sacrifice in good preaching is intimately intertwined with the preacher’s own life. Faithful preaching is not just a once-in-a-while event but a lifestyle. Paul’s charge to Timothy to preach the word includes “be ready in season and out of season” (2 Timothy 4:2) and “always be sober-minded” (2 Timothy 4:5).

When a man stands before God’s people as God’s spokesman, the stakes are not only raised for his words in the moment but for his life outside the pulpit. So Paul admonishes Timothy, “Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers” (1 Timothy 4:6 ).

Then James 3:1 says, “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.” For the man who addresses God’s people as his herald will be looked to, unavoidably, as an example. “Set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity” (1 Timothy 4:12).

Lazy preachers may get by for a time, but their laziness will be revealed soon enough. “Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress” (1 Timothy 4:15). Sunday after Sunday becomes a public demonstration of whether the preacher is growing or stagnant, and it will be plain over time (1 Timothy 5:24).

Preaching, then, is not just something we do from time to time. In a real sense “preacher” is something we’re called to be. Be ready in season and out (2 Timothy 4:2). Always be soberminded (2 Timothy 4:5). Be alert (Acts 20:31). “Preacher” is not just a job; it is a life-vocation. And preaching, like singing (not like athletics), is a lifetime skill, not something that peaks in your 30s, 40s, or even 50s.

And one of the greatest costs outside the pulpit is the subtle (and at times not-so-subtle) way the preacher’s wife and children endure the ups and downs Daddy navigates. It is no small thing to carry the height of one’s vocational responsibilities during the weekend, when the kids are out of school and most available. It takes work, and emotional fortitude, to give yourself fully to family all day Saturday, without being distracted by the task of preaching to dozens or hundreds of hungry Christians in less than twenty-four hours. (Which is one great benefit, of many, in team preaching!).

Burden Gladly Bearing

So good Christian preaching and teaching requires regular, and at times enormous, self-sacrifice. Brothers, done rightly, it is hard work. In the preparation. In the moment. And outside the pulpit. It’s often a quiet, private, behind-the-scenes mantle the preacher’s wife and children see, but the congregation does not. It is not heavy lifting physically, but it can be unusually taxing spiritually and emotionally.

It is a burden good preachers gladly bear, and yet it is a burden. Faithful preachers say to their people, as Paul said to his, without pretense, “I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls” (2 Corinthians 12:15). So then, in closing, how do we do it with joy? How do we bear the burden gladly? We look to particular rewards. I’ll end with four brief rewards, among others.

First, mysteriously, and almost irrationally, some of us find in our ourselves a holy ambition to do this. Without meaning exactly what Paul meant as an apostle, whose calling was so bound up with his conversion, we can’t help but say with Paul, at a less ultimate level, “Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!” The first reward, then, is getting to do what you sense God has called you to do: let out the Holy Ghost fire shut up in your bones. Like Eric Liddell, you think, “When I preach, I feel his pleasure” — even though the hard work of preparation and delivery doesn’t always feel immediately pleasurable.

Second, when you’re doing what you’re called to do, you enjoy the hard work and its completion — the satisfaction of work well done and finished. First, it’s felt at the sermon level. Very practically, it will be more satisfying if I push through the resistance and finish this sermon well.

Third, then, at the life-work level, is the satisfaction someday of a life-calling completed and well done. Oh, to be able to say with Paul: “I am innocent of others’ blood” Acts 20:26. And: “I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God,” and anything else that is profitable, not matter how immediately unnerving (Acts 20:27).

Finally, there is the joy of being Christ’s instrument in life-change and life-sustenance. It’s such a joy to be used by God in ministry that we can come to find our joy more in being used that in having Christ ourselves — thus the need for Christ’s word in Luke 10:20.

“Don’t let the joys of preaching replace the foundational joy that is Christ himself.”

So, brothers, don’t let the joys of preaching replace the foundational joy that is Christ himself. And the joys of preaching, the joys of being used by Christ in others’ lives, are real joys. They are part of the blessing of giving. In their place and proposition they are part of the rewards to look to, to sustain us in the hard work.

God Means for You to Labor

Let’s go back to Paul to end, and with a word of hope for those who battle laziness. Paul would be quick to challenge today’s hardest workers with the truth that, apart from God, our best labors will prove futile in the end.

And for those who know they need help, who have more regrets about laziness than over-work, he would remind them, “We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10).

Brothers, God has not left you to labor in your own strength. But he does mean for you to labor. He has good works prepared ahead of time for you, and as a pastor, preaching and teaching will be some of the central good works for us. And he doesn’t demand a dead sprint, but invites us to walk in them.

“Men cannot do the one thing most necessary and most miraculous in our existence . . .”

It’s an arresting claim, and warranted. And all of us, women and men, congregants and pastors, mothers and fathers, will do well to take note. So, what is this most necessary and miraculous ability?

The author, pastor Kevin DeYoung, continues,

Men . . . will not nurture life in the womb; they will not give birth to the propagation of the species; they will not nurse an infant from their own flesh.

Women have wombs. Men do not. And it’s no isolated feature, but one of the most stubborn, obvious manifestations of the glorious God-designed differences between men and women that run from head to toe, from physiology to psychology. First, God had his design and plan, then he built men and women accordingly. That is, with their shared and complementary callings in view, God constructed the first man and later his wife. And his design and building of men and women is not limited to their bodies, but extends, fittingly, to their psyches, or souls.

With the bodily ability to gestate, give birth to, and nourish new human life comes natural domestic proclivities and graces. With men’s taller, stronger, faster, womb-less bodies comes a kind of steadiness. Men do not experience in their own bodies the glorious interruptions of periods and pregnancy and childbirth and nursing. God designed men to venture out first from the home, to shoulder the greater risks, to bear the heavier burdens of protection and provision, and when necessary to engage in combat. Technology might give us guns to equalize women’s bodies against men, but technology cannot alter the God-fixed capacities of the soul, whether for war or for being mom.

God built women, not men, to be mothers. And God built men, not women, to be pastors. And this line of work — unlike athletics, farming, and war — puts the emphasis especially on the soul.

Souls of Grown Men

Fitted to the man’s calling, God built men’s souls with particular capacities to rise to external challenges, address community-wide obstacles, make personal sacrifices for the good of the whole family and society, draw other men into the mission, and think for, care for, provide for, and protect the whole for the long haul. God made the souls of men to rise to the severest of threats, endure the sharpest of criticisms, and bear up, sometimes for painfully long seasons, under great duress. And to raise a hand, or sword, against a foe, not for sport but for the safety of family and friends.

If someone responds, “Well, I know all sorts of men whose inner person does not seem to be rugged and resilient; I know men who are manifestly more weak-souled than their wives,” my answer would be, Of course, I know of them as well. But men who are immature and ill-formed, due to sin, are not examples of divine design (or models to follow). The fact remains: God made men with the particular capacity to rise to this calling. Not all women yet have enough maturity of their female psyche to be worthy mothers, but that doesn’t mean that a mature man should try to be mom. Nor that mature women should try to be pastors.

In saying “the particular capacity to rise to this calling,” we note the plasticity of men’s souls (that is, their minds, emotions, and wills) to grow and develop over time, and in doing so become more masculine, and fit to their calling. God made men for this, but they don’t come turnkey. As the body needs growth and conditioning, so too the inner man needs forming.

Glimpses of a Manly Soul

Paul’s speech to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20 serves as a remarkable window — from one mature man, and apostle, to a team of mature men, and local church elders — into how God built men to be pastors. Consider six such glimpses of the mature man’s inner man in Paul’s charge to the pastors.

1. Self-Sacrifice for the Whole Flock

We see Paul’s own self-sacrifice in his willingness, even eagerness, to risk his life “to testify to the gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24), as well as in his expending his own time, energy, and strength in “working hard” to “help the weak” (Acts 20:35). Paul gives of himself; he pours out his own life to give life to others. He expects the same of the elders.

“Good mothers sacrifice themselves for their children; good men sacrifice themselves for women and children, and other men.”

Now, mothers do this too, for their children. It is not self-sacrifice that is uniquely masculine but self-sacrifice for the whole, or as Paul says in verse 28 for “all the flock.” God designed an order to the self-sacrifice that gives and sustains life among his people. We rightly do not expect women to sacrifice themselves for men. Good mothers sacrifice themselves for their children; good men sacrifice themselves for women and children, and for other men. And the self-sacrifice of men for the whole flock, according to nature, empowers women to self-sacrifice for their children.

2. Public Teaching of the Whole Flock

Today we often focus on the glory of public teaching, on the platform, in the moment, but overlook the immediate and long-term costs to the faithful public preaching and teaching of God’s word.

Again, that important phrase “all the flock” is in view. We are not talking here about all teaching. In some sense, all Christians teach (Colossians 3:16; Hebrews 5:12). And mature women teach — specifically, younger women to their children, and older women to the younger women (Titus 2:3–5), as well as men in private settings (Acts 18:26). But the public teaching of “all the flock” — including women, children, and fellow men — God expects of men. And he designed their souls specifically with the capacity to grow into this mantle, and take the criticisms that come with it, and endure in it, even thrive in it, not for a moment or spurts but over time. Which relates to the next glimpse.

3. Declare Hard Words and Call for Repentance

Such public teaching of God’s word, while appearing to be mainly privilege to some eyes, can be a heavy burden and responsibility — that is, when preaching “the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27) and not just the parts that go down easy in this generation. Twice in Acts 20 (verses 20–21 and 27) Paul testifies to “not shrinking from declaring” because he felt a real temptation to shrink back. How many pastors today, tragically, do shrink from declaring God’s “whole counsel”?

But God built the souls of men to be able to rise to such a burden, and gladly bear the weight of publicly, courageously, and carefully declaring hard words (Acts 20:20) — and calling for repentance (Acts 20:21). Elsewhere Paul refers to such exhorting and charging as fatherly, rather than motherly. In 1 Thessalonians 2:8, Paul speaks of his motherly heart for the church and eagerness to give his own self to nurse it. Then just two sentences later, he mentions his words of challenge as fatherly: “like a father with his children, we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God” (1 Thessalonians 2:11–12).

Lest we fall into narrow stereotypes, both the beginning and end of Paul’s speech (Acts 20:18–19, 36–28) are not ruggedly masculine (in caricature) but express virtues that many might think of as more feminine. He mentions serving “with tears” while among them, and kneels to pray with them, weeps with them, and receives their embraces and kisses — and then, in a more manifestly masculine act, the pastors accompany their dearly loved brother to the ship to send him off to the certain conflict and suffering that await.

Christianity is a teaching movement, requiring its pastors and elders to say clearly what it is and is not, what it espouses and does not, what are its ethics and not. That requires the cutting of distinct, sharp lines on the issues that are most offensive and embattled in every age. The setting of such boundaries is masculine work — not that women are unable to do it, but God built the souls of men to rise to this, and thrive in this, over the long haul.

4. Persist in Daily Vigilance

Acts 20 is one place, among others (2 Timothy 4:2, 5), where the apostles call for particular alertness, daily vigilance, and “not ceasing night or day” in the formal leaders of the church. “Be alert,” Paul says in Acts 20:31, “remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears.” While calling all the flock to readiness for his return, Christ himself acknowledged the challenges to being “always ready” that come with the glorious dynamics of childbearing (“Alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days!” Matthew 24:19; Mark 13:17; Luke 21:23).

God chose to couple glorious dynamics of body and soul with the rhythms of pregnancy, birth, and nursing. And in complement to these dynamics, God designed men’s bodies and souls for steady-state, less dynamic persistence. We might even say, “the far more boring” bodies and souls of men — leading to a fifth glimpse.

5. Combat Wolves Without and Within

God built men with bodies and souls primed to be conditioned for combat. Note well: training is required. Just because a man is grown doesn’t mean he is ready for battle. Strength, skill, and stamina need development. Combat makes requirements of the body and psyche. And men need to learn when to attack (and not), and whom to combat (and not), and how to attack (and not), as well as ready themselves for the emotional toll of war.

Paul warned the Ephesian pastors that wolves were coming for their flock — from without and from within. “I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them” (Acts 20:29–30). God made the souls of men in particular to rise to the unpleasant and essential work of protecting the flock from wolves, with its emotional and physical costs.

Now, professing Christians and churches who do not believe in the existence of wolves — or in divine judgment and eternal hell and total depravity — will not find “combating wolves” to be a compelling reason for the calling of men to the office of pastor-elder. But Paul believed in wolves. Jesus believed in wolves (Matthew 7:15; Luke 10:3). If we take the Scriptures seriously, we too might see that the threat of false teaching, and the necessity of pastors protecting the sheep from wolves, perhaps shows plainest of all God’s building of men for the pastorate. God made men to be conditioned for this calling.

6. Embrace the Most Threatening Risks

In places where Christianity is not outlawed, and its leaders do not face immediate risks to persecution and death, we might soon forget that the church’s formal leaders are typically its first martyrs. To be an officer in the early church was less a privilege to enjoy and more a risk to embrace. The pastor-elders were marked men when persecution arose. And so it is today in some places in the world.

God made men to put themselves forward as enemy targets, to be the ones who take not only the lash of criticism but also the first literal lashes of persecution when they come.

We glimpse such holy masculinity in the apostle when he declares, “Now, behold, I am going to Jerusalem, constrained by the Spirit, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me” (Acts 20:22–23). Many valiant Christian women have risen to, and would rise to, embrace persecution for the name of Christ. And God built men, and pastors in particular, to put themselves forward for the first attacks.

Give It Time

We could name other distinctively masculine traits, even in Acts 20, but let’s leave it at six for now, and conclude with just a brief word about ability, which is often a flashpoint in these discussions. Some today are quick to emphasize what some women are able to do, and often better than some men: women can take risks, women can take initiative, women can teach in public, women can say hard things and address error and call for repentance, women can embrace suffering for the name of Christ and good of his church.

“Preaching is not for all men, nor for most men, but this work and calling is for men.”

Such discussions often have a momentary focus: in any given moment, a woman can prep and give a sermon, take on a threat, confront an error. But what’s typically lacking is the broadening of our considerations from what’s possible in a moment to what’s fitting for the long haul. She may well be able to do what’s required of pastors in a day, or for a few weeks or months, perhaps even a few years, but will she really do it ably, and thrive, with joy, for years, for decades, for a lifetime? Is it fitting to her nature as God designed it?

God built the souls of men with the capacities to rise to the calling of the pastor-elders, and even thrive in it, over the long haul. Pastoring is not for all men, nor even for most men, but this work and calling is for men. Long before Christ put it in the mouths of his apostles, he wove it into the fabric of his creation, including our bodies and souls. And if we don’t find nature’s teaching convincing enough, that’s no grounds for overturning Scripture’s.

God built men to be pastors.

Shallow enough for a child to play at the shore, and deep enough for an elephant to drown.

As has often been said, such is true of the Christian gospel and Scriptures and doctrine. So in the cascading recovery and resurgence of Reformed theology in recent decades, many stripped off their socks and waded into the tides. As they did, memorable slogans served as great entry points for new students, but also became potentially distorting categories for those who never matured beyond the basics.

Many of us learned the past, present, and future aspects of salvation: I was saved. I am being saved. I will be saved. Of course, we came as well into TULIP: total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and perseverance of the saints. So too we learned the “five solas” (as they came to be known in the twentieth century): faith alone, grace alone, Christ alone, Scripture alone, to the glory of God alone.

Of the five, “faith alone” might be the most frequently distorted — both caricatured by foes and misunderstood by friends. “Faith alone” for what?

How to Be Accepted by God

Often the instinctive response of new initiates to the question, “‘Faith alone’ for what?” has been “for salvation.” However, salvation is often a more general category, as we see in the past, present, and future aspects above. The more particular focus we’re looking for is justification.

It was specifically justification that was the material principle of the Reformation — that is, How does a sinner have right-standing with God Almighty? Or, how do the ungodly come to be fully accepted by the holy God? The Reformers answered that such a fundamental divine embrace, justification, rests on the basis of Christ’s person and work alone (not ours), and is received by sinners through the instrument of faith alone, not our own doing, whether in whole or in part. Basis: Christ. Instrument: faith.

Again and again, Protestants opened, as Luther had, to the apostle Paul’s epistle to the Romans. They sought to follow and explain his overall argument. And they pointed to particular verses, like Romans 3:28: “One is justified by faith apart from works of the law.” Here “works of the law” is not a loophole but an intensifier: “works of the law” are acts commanded by God himself under the terms of the old covenant. What works could be more good and righteous than those expressly issued by the mouth of God? And yet, Paul writes, God’s full acceptance of sinners, in Christ, is by faith, not by obedience even to the best of commands. In Christ, we are justified by faith, “not because of works done by us in righteousness” (Titus 3:5; so also, among others, Galatians 2:16, 21; 5:1–3; Philippians 3:9).

“Faith is an expression of the whole inner person, not the intellect alone.”

Note well that “faith alone” as a Reformation slogan has a particular referent: justification. Faith is the sole instrument of justification. And “faith alone” does not mean that our attitudes and actions do not matter in the whole of the Christian life. Genuine faith, which alone justifies, is a “faith working through love” (Galatians 5:6). Nor does “faith alone” mean — and this may need fresh emphasis in some circles — that faith is less than an act of the whole soul, we might say, including the will and what we call “the heart” or the emotions. To put a point on it, faith is an expression of the whole inner person, not the intellect alone. As Paul himself says in Romans 10:10, “with the heart one believes and is justified.”

Not Only True but Desirable

Luther and Calvin both spoke of such whole-souled faith, exercised not only in the reason but in the will and emotions. Groping for language, Luther preached in a sermon on Luke 16:1–9, “Faith is something very powerful, active, restless, effective, which at once renews a person and again regenerates him, and leads him altogether into a new manner and character of life, so that it is impossible not to do good without ceasing.” Faith does not amount to solely the calculus of the bare intellect but expresses more and affects more.

Calvin too saw justifying faith as manifestly more than an exercise of the mind, referring to justifying faith as a “warm embrace” and “pious affection.” “By faith,” he writes,

we not only acknowledge that Christ suffered and rose from the dead on our account, but, accepting the offers which he makes of himself, we possess and enjoy him as our Savior. . . . In a word, faith is not a distant view, but a warm embrace of Christ, by which he dwells in us, and we are filled with the Divine Spirit. (Commentaries of the Epistles of Paul to the Galatians and Ephesians, translated by William Pringle, 262, emphasis added)

“Saving faith not only reckons Christ’s person and work to be true but also receives him as desirable and good.”

Saving faith not only reckons Christ’s person and work to be true but also receives him as desirable and good. For Calvin, even the concept of assent “is more a matter of the heart than the head, of the affection than the intellect.” “Pious affection,” he claims, is not “an accessory to assent.” Rather, assent “consists in pious affection” (Institutes, translated by Henry Beveridge, 3.2.8).

Treasure Versus Ticket

So too some contemporary Reformed voices, in the wake of late twentieth-century “easy-believism,” have freshly emphasized that saving faith includes more than intellectual assent. John Piper’s recent What Is Saving Faith? argues the point at book length, while R.C. Sproul’s 2010 Justified by Faith Alone claims that saving faith

is usually understood as involving something in addition to the cognitive or purely intellectual element. It involves the volitional and affective elements of human response. It includes an awareness (which is also intellectual and cognitive) of the sweetness and excellence of Christ. It involves a change in us wrought by regeneration, which change includes a change in affection, disposition, inclination, and volition. We now choose Christ. We embrace Christ. We gladly receive Christ. (4)

Indeed saving faith gladly receives Christ. It is not disinterested in Jesus or apathetic about him and his gospel. It welcomes him, embraces him, gladly receives him — that is, as Piper says, not as one would receive a blow, or a gift you need but don’t want, or help from someone you dislike, or a package from a postman you scarcely know or care to:

Receiving Christ in a saving way means preferring Christ over all other persons and things. It means desiring him — not only what he can do. His deeds on our behalf are meant to make it possible to know and enjoy him forever. We do not receive him savingly when we receive him as a ticket out of hell or into heaven. He is not a ticket. He is a treasure — the greatest Treasure. He is what makes heaven heaven. If we want a pain-free heaven without him there, we do not receive him; we use him. . . . Justifying faith means receiving, welcoming, embracing Jesus for all that God is for us in him.

With Luther, we grope for language that will not overlook something vital, or overstate the case. Saving faith gladly receives Christ. Which can make some confessors of “faith alone” uncomfortable. Some might simply be living with Sunday school caricatures of “faith alone”; others genuinely may be concerned that this emphasis on gladly receiving might upset the frail faith of some. Will not some be misled that the “receiving grace” of faith is actually a kind of “giving grace” through leaning on themselves to generate adequate gladness?

Three Distinctions

In stressing that the nature of faith is not indifference or apathy toward Christ but, conversely, a “warm embrace” or “glad reception” of him and his work, we might ask, How warm does our embrace need to be? How glad our reception? That is, must the believer consciously reckon (and declare) Christ to be the soul’s supreme treasure, as implied in Piper’s words above (“preferring Christ over all other persons and things”)?

In other words, if faith merely receives Christ gladly and delights in him but does not deliberately count him greater than all other treasures and joys, is that “faith” not justifying? We close with three distinctions that might help those hung up on such preferring of Christ being superlative.

1. Joy in God grows with time.

According to the nature of saving faith as “treasuring trust” (not indifference or apathy), the Christian, as he grows in faith, will grow in “the joy of faith” (as Paul refers to such progress in Philippians 1:25). The “joy of faith,” while there at inception, may be relatively small and underwhelming. Or the emotional discernment of the new Christian may be undeveloped. Not consciously experiencing, and testifying to, what one might call “joy” does not warrant altering our understanding of the nature of faith from the biblical testimony.

2. We all still battle sin.

Sin, in its nature, is the preferring of other things to God. And at the heart of holiness is the heart’s valuing Christ more in accord with his true value. The joy or gladness we look for in saving faith that gladly receives Christ need not be grown and mature gladness. It’s not fully formed and manifestly dominant. Nor is it absent. The acorn may be small and overlooked by untrained eyes, but when grown it will be an oak, not a weed.

To profess Christ as supreme treasure is not to deny the reality of our indwelling sin, and the fickleness of our hearts, but it is to declare (1) his value and worth quite apart from my fluctuations and (2) my settled profession, in my right mind, by virtue of the new birth.

3. Jesus is never safely second.

We would be wise to make a distinction between a new believer professing such supreme gladness unprompted, and being pressed to respond to the question. There is no necessary fault to find in a believer expressing warm embrace without clarifying it to be the warmest of embraces. However, if someone were to call the question, would a soul with saving faith in such a moment of reflection profess Christ to be a treasure worth less than any other? To do so would be to betray such a deep misunderstanding of the God-man and his work as to call the reality of faith into question.

While the new believer might not yet declare, of his own, the supremacy of Christ over other loves, when pressed the heart that receives Christ as Lord and Savior will not deny him as supreme treasure. Given who he is as God, and given what he has accomplished in our own flesh as man, and given who he is right now, seated in glory at the Father’s right hand, how could he be professed as anything other than supreme?

With such distinctions in mind, perhaps those of us who rally to the slogan “faith alone” will together both guard justification from the addition of works and protect saving faith from the subtraction of the heart.

The Lord’s Supper has never been a meal that goes down easy.

From the beginning, Jesus’s own words about eating his body and drinking his blood were widely misunderstood. “When many of his disciples heard it, they said, ‘This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?’” (John 6:60). Not only were they confused, but this proved to be the turning (away) point for many. “After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him” (John 6:66).

So too in the history of the church, the Supper has not gone down easy. Such simple language as “This is my body” and “This cup is the new covenant in my blood” can be anything but simple to understand and apply in the practical life of the church. For example, at the Reformation, the nature and meaning of the Lord’s Supper became a major flashpoint for debate between Catholics and Protestants. The Supper even became a point of divide among Protestants — and in some instances, the only major point of divide.

What, then, is the Lord’s Supper? Acknowledging the historical differences of view, and not pretending to speak for all Christians, we can highlight at least four clear truths from the apostle Paul’s treatment of “the Lord’s supper” in 1 Corinthians 11.

Ordained by Jesus

First, as Paul states, he and the apostles (and we through them) “received from the Lord” this sacred practice in the life of Jesus’s church. Essentially all Christians are agreed that practicing the Lord’s Supper is a critical aspect of what it means to be his church.

On that solemn final evening before his crucifixion, at his “last supper” with his men before he gave himself at the cross, Jesus instituted or ordained this holy rite. Without ambiguity or figurative language, he said, “Do this” (Luke 22:19). Far and away most Christians have clearly understood that much and consider this “ordinance of the Lord” vital, alongside at least baptism (instituted in Matthew 28:19).

However differently we might understand what the Supper is or what it does, we acknowledge that our Lord said, to his disciples and all his church, “Do this.”

For His (Gathered) Church

A second area of clarity, particularly in 1 Corinthians 11, is that this is a meal for Christ’s gathered church. The Supper is a family meal, a church meal, that gives identity and definition to the new-covenant people of God.

Now, many individual Christians today are unaware of (or do not understand) the formal position of their churches and denominations. Also, some traditions have made a practice of giving the Supper in private to the infirm or dying, or to segments of the congregation (say, on a youth retreat), or to the bride and groom at a wedding.

Such a loose understanding of the occasion for the Table overlooks the emphasis and significance of Paul’s repeated clause in 1 Corinthians 11: “when you come together.” In fact, he repeats it five times (in verses 17, 18, 20, 33, and 34) and so makes plain what he considers to be the occasion for this meal: the gathered church. He writes to the whole church (1 Corinthians 1:2), and he provides instructions for the Supper “when you come together” as a whole.

To Remember Him

“Do this,” Jesus said in instituting the Supper, “in remembrance of me.” However we understand the spiritual efficacy of that remembering, Jesus’s words in the Gospels, echoed by Paul, make this remembering critical to the meaning of the Supper.

One of Christ’s aims at the Table, among others, is to keep his person and work central in the life and worship of his church. In a world of complexity and tangents, we are prone to forget what matters most. We are disposed to drift, to shift, to waver, to allow our spiritual feet to move to the margins and not stay planted in the center. We all have need to rehearse the fundamentals.

“The risen Christ designs, in the corporate habits of his church, to remind us again and again of what’s most important.”

So the risen Christ designs, in the corporate habits of his church, to remind us again and again of what’s most important. He calls us back to the center. At the Table, we remember together the gospel, the good news at the very heart of our faith — that Christ died for our sins, was buried, and was raised on the third day, and still lives right now at God’s right hand. Like Passover, that old-covenant memorial meal for the nation to ceremonially remember its great rescue from Egypt, so we in the new covenant have the Table — a ceremonial reminder of our own great exodus in Christ from sin and death.

Those of us who emphasize that more than just remembrance happens at the Table might overlook the critical part that remembrance plays. The Supper is no less than a stubborn, vital memorial. And the context of Paul’s mentioning “as often as you drink it” implies frequency is preferable to infrequency. “As often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Corinthians 11:26). Would the apostle have us “proclaim the Lord’s death” less often or more?

To Nourish Our Souls

Finally, Christ means for his people to eat in faith and find their souls nourished spiritually by Christ himself. In other words, the Table is not only a symbolic rite that we do, but it does something to us as we eat and drink in faith. The Table serves as a means of Christ’s ongoing grace to his church.

Through the transpatial power of his Spirit, Jesus is spiritually present at the Table. We encounter him. He nourishes our souls. We even “grow in grace” at the Table, as we confess at Desiring God:

We do this in remembrance of the Lord, and thus proclaim his death until he comes. Those who eat and drink in a worthy manner partake of Christ’s body and blood, not physically, but spiritually, in that, by faith, they are nourished with the benefits he obtained through his death, and thus grow in grace. (12.4)

“Christ means for his people to eat in faith and find their souls nourished spiritually by Christ himself.”

We believe that both remembering and spiritual feeding happen in the Supper. Or to put them together, spiritual nourishing and growth come through remembering Christ and his work. Though this Reformed (or Calvinistic) view of the Table may be overlooked by many evangelical Christians today, Paul’s language in 1 Corinthians 11 pushes us to acknowledge a spiritual efficacy in the ordinance beyond what we might call mere memorialism.

Life or Death in This Meal

Paul wants the Supper to be “for the better” (1 Corinthians 11:17), not the worse — for blessing, rather than judgment. This is not a neutral meal where nothing happens. Rather, as “hearing [the gospel] with faith” brings us grace (and the Spirit, Galatians 3:2, 5), so hearing with unbelief brings judgment — as in the ministry of the apostles, “to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life” (2 Corinthians 2:15–16). Eating and drinking “in an unworthy manner” is a grave concern, and may lead to illness or even death (1 Corinthians 11:27, 30).

Paul writes, then, in hope that Christians will partake in a worthy manner through self-examination, judging ourselves, and “discerning the body” — that is, eating with faith in the broken body of Christ and with love toward his body, the church, with whom we share this meal. “Anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself” (1 Corinthians 11:29), and those who eat and drink with the discernment of faith receive nourishment for their souls through a real spiritual encounter with the risen Christ.

Supper, then, is a fitting image for what Christ designs to accomplish for and in his church through this family meal. As bread and wine nourish and energize our physical bodies, so eating in faith nourish and energize our souls in Christ.

We are a generation crying wolf.

Jesus said to beware “ravenous wolves” (Matthew 7:15). Paul warned of “fierce wolves” (Acts 20:29). And for two millennia, one of our enemy’s best schemes has been to quietly infiltrate the flock with predators. There have always been wolves.

Yet our awareness of wolves, and access to their stories, is particularly acute in our times, and with it has come hair-trigger suspicion of even worthy leaders. In an effort to expose wolves in sheep’s clothing, some today imagine real shepherds to be wearing wolves’ underwear. The contagion is tragic. In the end, those who will be hurt most are the genuine victims, whose real cries for help will become harder to hear in the din of over-eager accusations.

In confused days like ours, as in every generation, we’re called afresh to take our cues from Scripture, rather than what’s trending in an unbelieving society. We need God’s word on how to watch for wolves, and we also need a positive vision of what to look for in our leaders. As the list grows longer of what to beware, do we have any corresponding clarity on what to pursue?

Three Big Categories

Into one of the great questions of our time, the risen Christ provides some bracing and clear answers. First comes his own words, while among us, in Mark 10:42–45: his leaders don’t “lord it over,” but serve. Then, we have Paul’s remarkable words to the Ephesian elders captured in Acts 20. Add Peter’s charge to “fellow elders” in 1 Peter 5. Hebrews also sounds a clarion call in its final chapter (Hebrews 13:7–8, 13). And most extensive of all, we have the letters of Paul. Especially the Pastoral Epistles of 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus. There, among other passages, we find the “elder qualifications” of 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1, where the apostle lays out a bounty of fifteen traits in each list, with the two lists largely overlapping.

We have not been left without direction.

However, sometimes we do get lost in plentiful data. In fact, we have so much guidance available for us on what makes for true, enduring, trustworthy leaders that it might help to have some simple, memorable categories to bring organizing clarity to the many details.

Consider one such effort to slice the pie into three pieces, based on the graces catalogued in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1. The three each start with an H (or H sound). And I’ll show the work on which specific traits go under each heading.

1. Humbled

First and foremost comes the man before his God, that is, “in secret” (Matthew 6:4, 6, 18). The man is his truest self alone before God, with no human eyes watching. This is the man that family, church, and world may not see directly, but they will most definitely see him indirectly by his fruit. Over time, this man, the real man, comes out. And perhaps the chief manifestation will be a genuine, compelling humility that cannot be faked. “He must not be arrogant” (Titus 1:7).

A pastor might pretend to have first steeped his soul in hearing God’s voice in Bible meditation and having God’s ear in prayer, but he can’t pretend it for weeks on end. His spiritual thinness will manifest. The sheep will know in time.

To be clear, the humility we’re looking for here is not a virtue that a man “grows from scratch,” as if he had been born without pride and just needed to develop the opposite. Rather, he was born a sinner, with deep native conceit — and apart from the grace of God, this original pride will deepen and calcify. And God does not typically purge a man of the main roots of his pride through quiet, painless processes alone. He usually roughs him up in painful moments. He humbles him. It can be ugly. And in time, a different kind of man, by grace, emerges on the other side.

Tim Keller tells of Martyn Lloyd-Jones sitting in a gathering of older pastors who were discussing some younger preacher with extraordinary gifts:

This man was being acclaimed, and there was real hope that God could use him to renew and revive his church. The ministers were hopeful. But then one of them said to the others: “Well, all well and good, but you know, I don’t think he’s been humbled yet.” And the other ministers looked very grave.

Lloyd-Jones, says Keller, was hit hard that “unless something comes into your life that breaks you of your self-righteousness and pride, you may say you believe the gospel of grace but . . . the penny hasn’t dropped” (The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World, 119).

Humbled to Lead and Feed

We need humbled pastors. And for most, if not all, God designs the calling process to the pastorate to be part of this humbling. Aspiring to the office is critical, as 1 Timothy 3:1 notes — because in this line of work it is vital to labor “not under compulsion” or “for shameful gain” but willingly and eagerly (1 Peter 5:2). Yet aspiration alone does not make a pastor. He also needs the affirmation over time of fellows in his local church, and then, and often most humbling, the specific real-life appointment of some local church to the office. He may aspire to pastor, but he is not yet called to pastor until some real church appoints him.

“We pray for humbled, whole, and honorable pastors who together will face the challenges that come at each local church.”

So too, under this banner of the humbled man before his Lord, comes the requirement that pastor-elders be (1) “able to teach” and (2) “sober-minded.” Christ calls his undershepherds to lead and feed the flock — that is, to govern and to teach. Which relates to the particular call of church leaders to the word of God and prayer (Acts 6:4). Faithful pastors teach God’s word, not their own preferences, and they lead prayerfully, with God-given sober-mindedness, not natural human wisdom.

Such humbled men “keep their heads” (sober-minded) in conflicted and trying times. They’re calm, settled, secure, and wise — and wise enough not to go off on their own but contribute to and receive wisdom in the context of team leadership, that is, a plurality of local pastors. And such humbled men, when matched with teaching ability (able to teach), are a powerful combination in the leading and feeding of the flock, where genuine skill and ability in teaching is required and where we do not “teach ourselves” as our subject but the stewardship of Scripture we have from Christ.

2. Whole

Second, then, growing out from a man’s devotional life, and life of humility before his God, is the man before those who know him best. We might say “in private.” Does he have integrity? Is he whole, the same in public and private?

One aspect of his wholeness is the broad (and beautiful) banner of self-control (prominent in 1 Timothy 3 and mentioned twice in Titus 1). Has he gained a relative, settled, and holy mastery of his own appetites and bodily passions? Does he seem, by the Spirit, to control his own gut, or is he controlled by it? Related are the two disqualifiers “not a drunkard” and “not a lover of money.”

Intimately connected with “self-control” biblically is sexual holiness and being (literally) a “one-woman man,” which is not simply a box to check (“husband of one wife”) that he’s married and not divorced. Rather, “one-woman man” presses deeper to the fidelity of the man’s soul. Is he faithful to his wife in body, mind, heart, and words? Does he care for her as Christ does for his church? As one of the pastors, he will be part of the team of leaders caring for a particular local church.

Such wholeness, then, also relates to his own household management: “He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church?” (1 Timothy 3:4–5). Distraction and abdication at home make him unfit for the leadership the church needs.

3. Honorable

Finally, we have the inevitable public dimension: the man before the watching church and world. At first blush, we might find it strange that spiritual leadership relates so much to public perception and reputation, but we should keep in mind the public nature of church office. It is vital that our pastors be honorable.

The express trait that gets at this most clearly is “respectable,” that is, the man’s life and words make it easier (rather than harder) to respect him, both within the church and in the broader community. So, leading the lists in both 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 is “above reproach.” This likely begins with Christian eyes, though it’s complemented with “outsiders” in 1 Timothy 3:7: “Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil.”

One aspect of this honorable public life is hospitality, which is literally “love of strangers.” Rather than defaulting to fear or dislike of unknown persons, he extends welcome in Christ, whether to the church or into his own home or into conversation.

One final piece of honorable public bearing is how the man carries himself in conflict and when upset. Paul says “not violent but gentle.” Gentleness is not the absence of strength, but the addition of virtue to strength. It applies strength in life-giving, rather than life-harming, ways. One last disqualifier is “not quarrelsome.” Mature Christian leaders aren’t afraid to engage when they must, but they don’t go around picking fights for sport (2 Timothy 2:24–26).

Resilient in Conflict

The nature of the Christian faith is such that good leaders are perennially important. Yet, as many of us have learned in tough times, good leaders prove even more precious in conflict. That’s the setting in both Ephesus and Crete, as Paul writes to Timothy and Titus, and it’s foregrounded in 2 Timothy 2:24–26 and in 1 Peter 5:1–5.

“Good pastors, as a local team of sober-minded teachers, shine all the brighter in tough times.”

Good pastors, as a local team of sober-minded teachers, shine all the brighter in tough times, in the times of difficulty and suffering that already were in the first century, that many face today, and that are coming in the days ahead. And so, we pray for humbled, whole, and honorable pastors who together will meet the challenges that come to each local church.

Even as our generation cries wolf, we pray and look expectantly, knowing that such worthy leaders do not emerge by accident, nor are they as rare as some may suspect. Rather, they are divine gifts, sovereignly appointed and provided, supplied by the risen Christ, for the joy and health of his church.

Suspicion, as you may know, is highly contagious.

Its prevalence in our times has been caught more than taught. Sinful humans don’t need textbooks and grad courses to undermine trust and spiral into suspicion. We know the corruption at work in our own hearts, however much we try to suppress it, and we’re easily won over to suspecting the worst in others.

With just a few comments here and there, we’re quick to absorb the mood of suspicion. A suggestive question is raised. We catch the suspicious drift. Imitation is easy. Suspicion spreads quickly, especially against those perceived to be in positions of authority and privilege. That is, especially against those perceived to be “leaders” of whatever sort.

Suspicious Church

Pastors today are not the first spiritual leaders to encounter moods of suspicion. This is an old, old tale, with roots in Eden and branches in the Old and New Testaments. For one, the apostle Paul encountered acute suspicion in the church in his storied relationship with Corinth.

At one juncture, he realized his planned visit at that moment would likely result in more pain, not healing. A kind of cooling-off period would be wise, he thought, so he chose to write first, and visit later. For some in Corinth, already suspicious of Paul, this became a fresh occasion to voice criticisms, perhaps with the characteristic suggestive questions. Is he shooting us straight, or hiding his real plans from us? Is he vacillating not only in his travel but in his heart? Or is he simply making plans in his own flesh, saying “Yes” and “No” to us at the same time?

Into this chorus of suspicions (2 Corinthians 1:17), Paul writes 2 Corinthians to defend his “abundant love” for them (2 Corinthians 2:4), however critical some have become of him.

Joy in Their Joy

In this letter in particular, Paul seeks to communicate his love for them through an emphasis on joy — both his joy and theirs — that is, his joy in their joy. The reason Paul delayed his visit to Corinth, and wrote instead, he says, was “to spare you” (2 Corinthians 1:23). Lest that be misunderstood, he explains in verse 24:

Not that we lord it over your faith, but we work with you for your joy, for you stand firm in your faith.

Here we find, in one brief but penetrating statement, an enduring vision for Christian pastors and leaders. We work (that is, expend effort, not enjoy ease) and do so together (as a team, not solo) aiming at the everlasting (not short-term) joy in Christ of those to whom we minister. But also — and this can be easy to overlook — we work with them.
What, then, might be some of the implications today for pastors owning such a “with them” mentality in our calling? If we are coworkers not only with a team of pastors but also with the church for its joy, how will that shape the tenor, aims, and pressure points of our calling? Consider three effects, among others.

1. We remember our people want to be happy.

Spiritual leaders do well to regularly recall that our people want to be happy. They want to rejoice — first as humans (“All men seek happiness,” writes Blaise Pascal), and now in Christ in increasing holiness by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit.

The way Paul seeks to communicate his “abundant love” to a suspicious church in 2 Corinthians is striking. Some of us call this Christian Hedonistic. The pursuit of joy drives Paul in ministry. For one, he speaks explicitly of his own pursuit of joy. He himself wants to be glad (2 Corinthians 2:2) and to rejoice (verse 3) — explicitly, consciously, even shamelessly so. The reason this is abundant love, rather than selfishness, is because Paul pursues his joy in their joy. Here we find the assumption that the Corinthians, like him, want to be happy. They long to have real joy, deep and enduring — the real joy found only in God himself, through Christ.

So we pastors also find piercing clarity into the heart of Christian ministry in acknowledging that our people want to be happy — and that in God. Our people are seeking their joy. They want to be satisfied, and they know, at least in theory, that the only true and lasting source of soul satisfaction is Jesus Christ. Yet life in the present age is fraught. We pastors ourselves struggle to find and keep real joy in Christ. And we work to help our people in their struggle to find and keep real joy.

2. We dignify our people as partners, not just recipients.

Pastors are teachers (Hebrews 13:7; Ephesians 4:11), and so we do think of our churches as recipients of our efforts to faithfully teach God’s word. However, our teaching is not the real “work of ministry.” Instead, our teaching equips the saints for the work. “[Christ] gave . . . the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ” (Ephesians 4:11–12). A “with them” ministry acknowledges that our people have an essential part to play in their own joy. It’s good for them to have “skin in the game.” It’s fitting to have expectations of them, and require effort from them — that we not take up the mentality of “doing it all” for them.

“Good pastors are more like husbands than fathers.”

Good pastors don’t assume their people, professing Christians in good standing, are lazy or idiots or secretly unbelievers. We don’t assume the worst of our people. Nor do we “lord it over” them, as Jesus so clearly warned (Mark 10:42), and as both Paul and Peter (1 Peter 5:3) disavowed. In this way, good pastors are more like husbands than fathers. As Jonathan Leeman observes, parents have the rod (Proverbs 22:15; 23:13), the state has the sword (Romans 13:3–4), the church has the keys (for excommunication, Matthew 16:19; 18:17; 1 Corinthians 5:4–5), but pastors, on their own, have no enforcement mechanism. What we do have is our words. So, we seek to persuade our people. We seek to win them to truth and biblical wisdom.

Added to this is the reality that Christians are “God-taught” by the Holy Spirit. As Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 4:9, “You yourselves have been taught by God to love one another.” It is vital that we remember that, in the church, the Holy Spirit has gone to work on and in our people. In fulfilling the new-covenant prophecy of Jeremiah 31, he teaches them. And we, as teachers, are God’s gift, human instruments, of the Spirit for his teaching.

In our work, we are means of the Spirit doing his work. And his work is decisive. What a difference it makes when we recognize and rehearse that our work is God-appointed and yet it doesn’t all hinge on us.

3. We embrace labor that is harder, not easier.

Finally, convincing our people, rather than coercing them, takes more work and effort, not less. Forcing people is quick work. Winning them from the heart takes sweat, and patience. So we work with words. Acknowledging “their part” (as the church), we do “our part” (as pastors) to be understandable and accessible. We’re not afraid of abstract truths, and we work to make them concrete. A “with them” vision of pastoral ministry owns that we work indeed — that it is typically more work, more energy-intensive and patience-trying, to work with others, not just do it all for them.

“Christian leaders don’t want mere external conformity; they want glad consent.”

Other than Christ himself, if any human could just speak and require obedience in the church, it would be Paul as an apostle. Yet, what an appeal he makes for their joy. And he does the same in Philemon: “Though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do what is required, yet for love’s sake I prefer to appeal to you” (Philemon 8–9). Christian leaders don’t want mere external conformity; they want glad consent. “I preferred to do nothing without your consent in order that your goodness might not be by compulsion but of your own accord” (Philemon 14). We want our people to give from the heart, “not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Corinthians 9:7). We aim at willingness, not compliance. We want eager hearts, not begrudging hands.

And so we work to win them — to secure willing spirits, not just actions. And so we teach, we reason, we seek to persuade. Domineering and dictating can be quick and easy. Working to win the heart is hard work. But this is our calling, however suspicious our times.

Glad Work of God

God means for his willing servants to labor for the willingness of our people. And all this flowing from the willing God himself. The foundational gladness, the deepest willingness, the bottom of our joy is God’s own willingness.

Our pursuit of joy in him, through finding joy in our people’s, rests on the bedrock of God’s own pursuit of joy. Our God is not reluctant. He does not act by compulsion, whether in creating the world or saving his people. Rather, he is the happy, glad, rejoicing, willing and eager God who makes much of himself by putting the joy of willingness in his leaders and, through them, his people.