Audio Transcript

As we stand on the threshold of a brand-new year, we’re talking Bible reading. The question is from an anonymous listener, a man and a new believer. Wonderful! We love getting messages from new believers. Here’s his email: “Pastor John, thank you for this podcast. I’m simply overwhelmed at how much I don’t know about the Bible as a young Christian. I want to be knowledgeable about Scripture so that it can guide me and so that I can use it to guide others in the future. But there is so much. I don’t know where to begin. If I were studying for an exam in a class, I would start with a list of essential topics to be tested on. But with the Bible, I feel like the test is life, and I don’t know what I need to know to be prepared, if that makes sense. In other words, where do I start? What is the first and most essential thing I need to know to follow Christ by reading his word?”

Well, my answer is probably going to be a little bit frustrating because he’s asking for a particular truth in the Bible, and I’m going to say “Bible, Bible, Bible, Bible.” I have never met a mature, fruitful, strong, spiritually discerning Christian who is not full of Scripture, devoted to regular meditation on Scripture, and given to storing it in the heart through Bible memorization. And that’s not a coincidence.

So, what I want to do is persuade our new believing friend that it is absolutely essential, after coming to faith in Christ, to be radically, deeply, experientially devoted to Scripture, to be unshakably, unwaveringly persuaded that reading and meditating on and understanding and memorizing and enjoying the Scriptures is absolutely essential for the Christian life. This would include being in the word every day, with the aim that we will meet God there and, little by little, the glory of his truth will fill and transform our lives.

And that may seem obvious to him or to others, but it isn’t obvious, because I know fairly well-along Christians who don’t do this. They don’t do this, and they’ve been Christians for years. They’re lackadaisical. They think it’s optional because they know so much already, and they read so many other books. I don’t regard that as a very good habit at all. I think it’s dangerous.

I have ten reasons that I believe this, ten reasons to make Bible reading, Bible understanding, and Bible memory essential to the Christian life. Resist feelings of self-sufficiency that say, “I don’t need Scripture every day.” So, here are my ten reasons.

1. Salvation

Scripture saves: “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 4:16). Salvation has happened to God’s people. Salvation is, at this moment, happening to God’s people. And salvation will happen completely at the resurrection of God’s people. It is happening now by means. Paul says, “Hold fast to the teaching, and save yourself.” God saves us daily by Scripture.

2. Freedom

Scripture frees from Satan: “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). The context is that the Jewish leaders think they are not slaves, but Jesus tells them, “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires” (John 8:44). Satan is your enemy, young Christian. He’s a thousand times stronger than you are.

John writes to the young believers, “I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one” (1 John 2:14). This is our only hope for defeating a supernatural enemy. Every time Jesus was tempted by the devil, he struck back with “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:17). He had it memorized so that he didn’t have to carry a book in the wilderness.

3. Grace and Peace

Scripture imparts grace and peace: “May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord” (2 Peter 1:2). Knowledge of God gained through Scripture is not identical with grace, but Peter says that it is a means of grace. If we want to be made peaceful and powerful through divine grace, Peter says, it happens “in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.” That knowledge is found in one place: Scripture.

4. Sanctification

Scripture sanctifies: “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth,” Jesus prayed (John 17:17). Sanctification is the process of becoming holy — that is, becoming more like Christ and like God, who is perfectly holy. This is not optional. Hebrews 12:14 says, “Strive for . . . the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.” We don’t become perfect in this life, but we do become holy. God sanctifies his people, and so Jesus prays to his Father, “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.” It couldn’t be more plain or more important.

5. Joy

Scripture gives joy: “You received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit,” Paul told the Thessalonians (1 Thessalonians 1:6). Or Psalm 1:2 says, “His delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.” Life without joy is unbearable. The Christian life is a life of many afflictions, but in them all God sustains joy, and he does it by the Scriptures.

6. Protection

Scripture protects us from destructive error: “Until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God . . . so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro . . . by every wind of doctrine” (Ephesians 4:13–14). How do young Christians keep from being leaves blown around by cultural and theological winds and opinions? Answer: “the unity of the faith” and “the knowledge of the Son of God” — knowledge that they experience not as the opinion of man, but as the word of God. That’s found in one place: the Scriptures.

7. Hope

Scripture is the hope of heaven, and what I mean by this is that full understanding, full enjoyment, of the truth of Scripture will be experienced only in heaven: “Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known” (1 Corinthians 13:12). The knowledge of God — all the fullness that a created being can comprehend and enjoy properly — will not be withheld from us indefinitely. The frustrations of our present limitations of understanding and enjoyment will be removed. How fitting it is, then, that we be ever-growing now in what will be our final joy in the age to come.

8. Defense

Scripture will be resisted by some: “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” (2 Timothy 4:3). In other words, we need to know the Scriptures so that we’re not taken off guard, knocked off-balance, or led away by false teachers. We need to receive the Scriptures regularly to be ready to meet those who refuse to receive the Scriptures.

9. Approval

The right handling of Scripture is approved by God: “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). It is a precious thing to be assigned to do a very important task and then to find the Master approving of what he’s asked you to do. We’re all assigned, in some measure, to handle the word of God, and what a wonderful opportunity to be pleasing to the Lord.

10. Life

Finally, Scripture gives and sustains life: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God,” Jesus said (Matthew 4:4). Spiritual life, eternal life — just like physical life — must be fed, though not by bread, but by the word of God. If you think that you have eternal life as a kind of vaccination against hell, which needs no nourishment, you don’t know what spiritual life is.

So, there are ten reasons for why young believers should resolve with all their might, with all the might that God gives them, to make reading and meditating on and understanding and memorizing the Scriptures an essential, nonnegotiable part of their Christian life.

Like most kids her age, our four-year-old has no filter. Several months ago, she closed our front door, sat down, and announced, “I only like English.” We had been living in a new culture for a little over a year at this point. When I asked her what she meant, she made her stance clear: “I only like people who speak English.” Then suddenly checking herself, she asked, “Does God speak English? Or does he speak [the language where we serve]?”

She couldn’t explain why she felt such a strong preference for those who spoke her language. However, as a fellow human wrecked by sin, I understood well the desire to surround myself with those who do not make me feel alien or uncomfortable. As with her, what any of us really thinks or feels about the nations is directly related to what we believe about God.

As Christians, we’re not aiming for the mere flower of common courtesy or appreciation for otherness. We want the fruit of genuine love that comes from God (1 John 4:7). This love does not end in talk, but in deed, caring for both the temporal and eternal good of others (1 John 3:16–18). Raising our kids to love the nations means raising them to obey from the heart God’s command to love their neighbor, including those from other people groups. It’s part of bringing up any child in the Lord’s discipline and instruction (Ephesians 6:4).

So how do we cultivate that kind of love in young children? Parents can begin to draw them into God’s global work in at least five practical ways.

1. Tell them the whole story of Scripture.

Loving the nations begins with seeing the wider story of what God is doing in the world. We can tell our children that God created people, unlike any other creature, in his likeness (Genesis 5:1–2), but sin broke our relationship with God and one another (Romans 5:12). In the beginning, all mankind spoke one language (Genesis 11:1), but in response to humanity’s evil plan at the Tower of Babel, God confused the people’s language and scattered them to live all over the earth (Genesis 11:7–8).

Since the beginning, however, God has been sculpting the history of the nations and determining the boundaries of their dwelling place so “that they should seek God” (Acts 17:26–27). “He gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him” — without discrimination — “should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Jesus reconciles us now to God and one another by his blood on the cross (Ephesians 2:16). The nations will be his inheritance (Psalm 2:8), and one day they will stand before him, crying out, “Salvation belongs to our God!” (Revelation 7:9–10).

First, keep this story warm in your own heart (because our kids do learn to love what we love). Then proclaim it to your children. Before they can love the nations, our children must first behold the King of the nations and marvel at his love and salvation for every people. Let his words build their view of the world, brick by brick. Start from a young age and tell them, in terms they can understand, the faithful story.

2. Pray for them and with them.

Hudson Taylor, a missionary to China in the nineteenth century, credited his parents and their prayers when asked about his love for the nations. His father was deeply moved after reading about the millions in China who were “sealed against the truth,” so he prayed that, if he had a son, one day “he might be called and privileged to labor in the vast, needy empire” (A Retrospect, 2). Over twenty years later, God answered his prayer.

While raising our kids, our “primary business,” as J.C. Ryle calls it, should be prayer. If we want our children to love the nations, we should pray they would. Whether we pray through the news, through missionary newsletters, or with the help of resources like the Joshua Project or People Groups, we can invite our children to pray specific requests with us (and let them begin voicing their own simple prayers).

Parents need prayer, too. Some of us want our children to love the nations — but not if love’s expression means they give their time, talents, and money in ways we think are dangerous or wasteful. Not if it means abandoning our secret dreams for their lives. Some of us might even be quietly praying, “Anything but the mission field!” Pray against such tightfistedness, and pray that you would never be the one standing in the way of your children’s obedience to love the nations.

3. Introduce real faces and stories.

My kids’ love for the particular people group we’re serving started with friendship. It took just one friend or two in each of their lives. Even my four-year-old has come a long way since the days of unloving declarations. She probably could not explain what it means to love the nations, but she can tell you that she loves Gem (a local friend whose name has been changed). Now, instead of shutting doors against the local culture, she asks to knock on Gem’s door to play.

Many of you do not need to travel far to meet those whose lives and cultures are vastly different from yours. Some of you even go to church with them. Even if not, many of God’s people began to love the nations by reading books or missionary stories. Hudson Taylor’s father was “deeply stirred about the spiritual state of China” after reading several books, especially one about the travels of a certain Captain Basil Hall.

Start with just one nation (or a few), and teach your kids who they are. Wonder with them over a map. You could try different foods with them until they find ones they like, or give to the work of the gospel and relief efforts in specific nations. Teach them to give generously, even if it is small, and their hearts might just follow where they’ve put their treasure.

4. Teach them negative examples too.

Wise parents study the false narratives and negative examples that actively compete for our kids’ hearts. Do their extended family, cultural history, and society tell them that some ethnicities are friends and others are enemies? Are they learning to look upon some cultures with suspicion and others with favor? As our children look to us, are we perpetuating any lie or hate in our lives with our words or actions?

Our enemy of old loves to sow hatred and pit the nations against God and one another. Examples of hate will be plentiful, so our kids must be taught that our adversary is not flesh and blood (Ephesians 6:12). Satan wants the nations to fear and consume one another, but we remind our children that no nation or person can take away our treasure, heritage, or lasting city, and that God means to have a family from every people group on earth. The cross levels every barrier and boundary between us. God “made from one man every nation of mankind” (Acts 17:26), so we do not deride the language, music, customs, foods, or dress of other cultures.

Like us, our children will sin, make mistakes, and fail to love the nations. In those moments, we can show them how to confess sin and seek reconciliation, because God the Father understands and accepts the prayer of the repentant in whatever language (even English).

5. Invite other believers into their lives.

Our children will learn a lot from the words and lives of people outside their immediate family. Especially while they are young, we can create good opportunities by sharing our family life with other believers.

Long before we moved overseas, through the blessings of church family, our kids enjoyed the friendship of “aunts” and “uncles” who looked, talked, and ate differently from us. They heard faithful pastors and teachers exposit every part of Scripture. They saw the body of Christ praying for the nations and giving sacrificially. They heard uncomfortable but good conversations about how we as a church of various cultures could give preference to one another. They observed God’s people expressing love for the nations in ways as different and unique as they were. In our little church, they saw a foreshadowing of the kingdom to come, those ransomed by the blood of the Lamb “from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Revelation 5:9–10).

As our kids grow up, the responsibility to love the nations will belong to them. For now, though, we can show them the good way and urge them to walk in it, trusting the God who loves the nations to work what is pleasing in and through our children.

We’ve all been disappointed by someone. We’ve all known what it feels like to be let down. The bitter taste, the sharp sting, the nagging sense of betrayal — it hurts when people fail us. It hurts even more when the people who fail us are our friends. The deeper the relationship, the deeper the potential wounds from disappointment. David knew that deeper pain:

For it is not an enemy who taunts me — then I could bear it; it is not an adversary who deals insolently with me — then I could hide from him. But it is you, a man, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend. (Psalm 55:12–13)

In another psalm, he says, “Even my close friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me” (Psalm 41:9).

As Christians, our deepest relationships are often those found and cultivated within the local church. And rightfully so, for, as the church, we are “members one of another” (Romans 12:5). Unlike all our other relationships, we are called to “love one another with brotherly affection (and) outdo one another in showing honor” (Romans 12:10). This makes church relationships uniquely deep and glorious. That means they can also be uniquely, deeply disappointing.

Do you know this by experience? If so, how have you sought to handle it?

The Way of the Cynic

One way to handle this potential for disappointment is cynicism. As a defense mechanism, cynicism markets itself as a way to avoid future disappointment by assuming everyone’s an imposter. The cynic leans on his familiar formula: “You only do (action), because you want (result).” He can attribute impure motives to just about anyone, even those in the local church.

The young man volunteering in childcare is only trying to impress his girlfriend.
The older woman attending multiple Bible studies is only trying to earn the respect and admiration of her peers.
The pastor preaching God’s word is only trying to grow his church (and his salary).

No one in our churches, whether in the pulpit, or on the platform, or in the pews, can evade the cynic’s accusations.

Sadly, cynicism often seems to work, at least for the moment. The one who views the whole world as a fraud is very rarely disappointed. Instead, he appears to have exchanged his potential of future disappointment for the present impression of power (“Now I’m the one who gets to criticize”), and control (“I decide if and when to trust them”), and courage (“I don’t need anyone but me”). And yet, those impressions of power, control, and courage, are only just that: counterfeits of the real things. And as counterfeits, they take more than they give.

Consider, after all, the glorious works of God that any cynic must disregard. When face-to-face with a man who has been radically transformed by God, or a woman who has found her happiness in Jesus despite all the suffering she’s endured, or a whole host of elderly believers who have held on faithfully to God since childhood — what can the cynic do but scoff? A God of miracles and love can’t exist if every saint’s a fraud. We might take up cynicism as a shield against disappointment, but it ends up functioning as a shield against the living God. It keeps us from seeing the wonders of all he’s done.

How ironically disappointing is the world of the cynic?

Disappointment from friends can hurt. Disappointment from brothers and sisters in the church can hurt more still. For those who know this all too well and have found themselves growing cynical as a result, I invite you to lay down your shield and take your disappointment somewhere else.

What Would Jesus Say?

Jesus is the thoroughly genuine man. He says what he means and he means what he says — before every audience, in every context, at all times. He cannot be charged with guile. Insincerity hides from his presence. He is true. He is pure. He is peerless. He is the cynic’s kryptonite. Because of who he is, we can go to him with our church-inflicted hurts, disappointments, and fears, and we can ask him, “Jesus, what do you have to say about these people?” What do you think he would say to us?

“I have called them.”

Faults, blemishes, sins, and all, Jesus has been at work in the lives of those around you. He’s known their names since “before the foundation of the world,” and from eternity he has set his love upon them (Revelation 13:8). At the right time, he came and laid his life down for these sheep, weak, sinful, and ungodly as they were (and weak, sinful, and ungodly as they still are at times) (Romans 5:6–8). Knowing all this beforehand, he still called them (Romans 8:30). Many of them, long before you ever knew them, and long before they ever joined your church.

Yes, they may have disappointed you. Yes, they may have hurt you. But Jesus has been at work in them all the same — calling them out of death, into life, and, in this season, into the membership of your church. Will you choose to love the brothers and sisters whom Jesus has already chosen to love?

“I am still calling them.”

Jesus never calls people partway home. When he calls, he calls all the way: “Those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified” (Romans 8:30). And all along the way, he himself is working in them for his own good pleasure (Philippians 2:13). Although they, like you, might go through seasons of spiritual drought or despair, he will yet sustain them and make them blameless (1 Corinthians 1:8).

They are, right now, members of the church — his very body of which he is the head. And one day, they will be presented as a bride before him in splendor without spot, wrinkle, or blemish (Ephesians 5:27). He has begun a great work in them, and he promises to finish that work (Philippians 1:6). So will you choose to love this great work even when, at times, it results in great disappointment? He has not grown cynical about them. Should you?

The Hope in Excommunication

But what if some members of your church aren’t actually believers? What if they really are hypocrites? What if they are “lovers of self, lovers of money,” . . . “lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power” (2 Timothy 3:2–5)? Or, what if they are genuine lovers of God but seriously and actively walking out of step with their faith?

Either way, the church responds with action, not inaction. Where cynicism would only sit on its hands and sneer, Christian courage, fueled by love and oiled by grace, gets up on its feet in pursuit of the one who is living out of step with godliness. We don’t say, “I told you so,” but, “Brother, come back.” And should our efforts fail, and the time comes to remove them from fellowship, even then, things would not be done as the cynic would have it, but in hope — hoping for miraculous repentance and restoration (1 Corinthians 5:5).

God’s people, with all our faults and immaturities, are God’s glorious works in progress. Though our hearts are often fickle, they are also cleansed. Therefore, we don’t write one another off, but commit to one another, rejoice with one another, give grace to one another. In the process, we will certainly be disappointed, but Jesus will even more certainly be a sufficient salve for our wounds. So, we renounce the way of the cynic and lay our disappointments and fear with Jesus, listening to what he says about his people, and then believing he’s at work in them, even when we don’t see it.

I was watching the Super Bowl this past February, expecting to see the newest commercials from Doritos and Budweiser and Coca-Cola, when this unusual music began to play. On the screen were still shots of kids doing adorable things — helping each other, hugging each other, wrapping arms around the family dog. At the end, the words came up,

Jesus didn’t want us to act like adults. . . . He gets us.

It was a heartwarming riff on Jesus’s teaching about being childlike. I liked it. This is the Super Bowl, with hundreds of millions of people watching, and a 30-second spot comes up commending Jesus. I love Jesus. I worship Jesus. Yeah, let’s commend Jesus.

Then another spot came up in the second half. Harsher music. Pictures of adults demonstrating manifest outrage and hatred, in each other’s faces. Sometimes it’s a physical altercation. All of it from the last three years. Then the message:

Jesus loved the people we hate. . . . He gets us.

And my response was, Ouch and yes.

The ads are from a non-profit looking to “put Jesus in the middle of culture.” They paid $20 million for the Super Bowl ads and plan to spend $3 billion in the coming years.

So, I’ve seen more of these “He gets us” ads in recent months. Sometimes, I like them. Other times, I cringe a little, concerned it will give a skewed impression of Jesus.

Jesus was judged wrongly.Jesus had strained relationships.Jesus welcomes the weird.Jesus was fed up with politics.Jesus invited everyone to sit at his table.Jesus chose forgiveness.

Then last week I took my twin sons to their first Minnesota Wild hockey game at the X, and now there’s a hockey “He gets us” on the thin digital screens around the side of the arena: “Jesus had great lettuce, too.” “Lettuce” means hockey hair. (I had to ask my boys for help on that.) I don’t want to be too picky, but I wonder if “great lettuce” might represent some mission drift for the “He gets us” campaign. Admittedly, it doesn’t speak to me personally like it would if it said, “Jesus was losing his hair, too.”

Hebrews 2 is a “he gets us” passage. But it’s also clear that he not only gets us, but he helps us. He rescues us. Saves us. Getting us is good; as we’ll see, that can lead to real, genuine help for us in our need. But getting us, on its own, doesn’t do a whole lot for us. Yes, he gets us. He really does. And this is a slice of what we celebrate in Advent. But there’s no real joy in Advent if he only gets us and doesn’t also help us, save us, change us, lift us up. In Advent, we celebrate that he became man, fully human like us, not just to be one of us, but to save us.

Our Pioneer and Champion

Hebrews 2:10 has a name for Jesus that I’ve come to love, and it’s hard to find an equivalent word for it in English. The ESV has founder: God “make[s] the founder of [our] salvation perfect through suffering.” Founder is a good translation, but I want to fill out the meaning for us a little bit.

The Greek word is archegos, and it’s built on the word archē, which means “beginning.” So archegos, we might say, is “the originator” or “the beginner.” The problem is we mean something else by “beginner” in English: “a person just starting to learn a skill or take part in an activity.” Jesus is not a “beginner” in that sense. Rather, he’s a “beginner” in the sense that he’s the leader who goes first and others follow him. Like a pioneer. This archegos, however, doesn’t just go first into uncharted territory, but into battle. So “champion” or “hero” could be a good translation of archegos as well.

Again, we don’t just stand back and watch this champion fight from afar. We’re connected to him and come with him. He doesn’t just fight for us; he leads the charge, and we follow in his wake. So, Jesus as our archegos, is both our hero and example. He is “the beginner” in that he births the people, and he leads us into the battle, and he rescues us through faith in him, and then he also inspires us as our model to follow. We benefit from what he does for us (and couldn’t do for ourselves), and yet in his work for us, he opens up a path that we might follow in his steps.

And Advent is where our “beginner” begins, so to speak. That is, Advent is the beginning of his humanity, and his getting us, saving us, and helping us. But Advent is not the beginning of his person. So, let’s walk with Hebrews chapter 2 through the Advent drama of our “beginner,” our “champion,” from the very beginning until now. There are four distinct stages here in the drama of Hebrews 2 — four movements in the story of Advent.

1. Jesus Did Not Start Like Us

Our champion, our “beginner,” did not begin like we did. His person was not created like ours. He is a divine person, the second person of the eternal Threeness. His humanity was created, conceived in Mary’s womb and born in Bethlehem, but not his person.

The book of Hebrews begins with glimpses of his godhood. Before any world existed, he existed and was “appointed the heir of all things” (Hebrews 1:2). Then through him God (the Father) made the world. “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature” — he is distinct from the Father in his person and same as his Father in divine nature. “And,” verse 3 adds, “he upholds the universe by the word of his power” — as only God can do.

So, the story of Advent begins before time, before creation, before “the beginning.” Jesus himself is God, and if you have eyes to see his divinity, it’s all over the New Testament.

Greg Lanier, in his recent book Is Jesus Truly God?, shows how the deity of Christ shines on just about every page in the New Testament:

He is preexistent before Advent, and before creation.
He is the unique “Son” of the heavenly Father, eternally begotten.
He is called “Lord,” which refers to God’s Old Testament covenant name (Yahweh).
He receives worship.
He relates to the Father and Spirit in ways that reveal his person as one of the divine Threeness.

So, let’s get this clear before we talk about his humanity and how he gets us. In Jesus, a man did not become God. Rather, God became man. We say that Jesus is fully God and fully man in one person, but we do not mean that he became God and man at the same time. There is a profound asymmetry in the story of the God-man: he has been God for all eternity, and he became man at the first Christmas.

2. Jesus Was Made Like Us

Now we come to his first Advent and the first Christmas, when God made God in the image of God. Without ceasing to be God, God the Son took on humanity. He added humanity to his divine person.

Humanity, as a created nature, is “compatible” with the uncreated divine nature. Deity and humanity are not a zero-sum game. The divine Son did not have to jettison any eternal deity (as if that’s even possible) to take on humanity. Uncreated deity and created humanity operate at different levels of reality, so to speak. Without ceasing, in any way, to be fully God, the Son took on our full created nature and became fully human. As Hebrews 2:17 says, he was “made like his brothers in every respect.” Look at verses 11–14:

“For he who sanctifies” (Jesus) “and those who are sanctified” (us) “all have one source” (that is, one nature). “That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying, ‘I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise.’ And again, ‘I will put my trust in him.’ And again, ‘Behold, I and the children God has given me.’ Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things . . .

We’ll come back to finish verse 14, but let me just say about these Old Testament quotations in verses 13–14 that Pastor Jonathan explained them so well in a previous sermon as pointing to Jesus’s solidarity with us in our suffering.

“Flesh and blood” in verse 14 refers to our humanity. We are flesh and blood, and so Jesus became one of us — to which Hebrews 4:15 adds, “without sin.” Sin is not an essential part of what it means to be human. Jesus was fully human, made like us in every respect, and “without sin.” So, then, what’s included in this “every respect” of our humanity? What does it mean for Jesus to be fully human, like us?

One of the biggest moments in the collective formation of early Christians in saying what the Scriptures teach about the humanity of Christ is a church council called Chalcedon in 451 AD. The Chalcedonian Creed says Jesus is “perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood; truly God and truly man, of a rational soul and body.”

Jesus has a fully human body. He “became flesh,” which means at least a human body. He was born and grew and grew tired. He became thirsty and hungry. He suffered, and he died. And his human body was raised and glorified, and he sits right now, on heaven’s throne, in a risen, glorified human body.

But becoming fully human also involved taking “a rational soul,” or “the inner man,” including human emotions. He marveled. He expressed sorrow. “He was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled” and he wept (John 11:33–35). And he rejoiced and was happy. John Calvin memorably summed it up, “Christ has put on our feelings along with our flesh.”

A “rational soul” also includes a human mind (in addition to his divine mind). So, Jesus “increased in wisdom” as well as in stature (Luke 2:52), and most strikingly, he says about the timing of his second coming, “Concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (Mark 13:32). With respect to his humanity, and his human mind, there are things he does not know. His human knowledge is limited, like all human minds. Yet, at the same time, for this unique two-natured person of Christ, he also knows all things with respect to his divine mind. As one-natured humans, this is beyond our experience and ability to understand, but divine and human minds are compatible. And this is no contradiction for the unique person of Christ, but one of his unique glories.

So too with his human will, in addition to the divine will. Jesus says, “I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me” (John 6:38). Jesus, speaking with respect to his human will, says that he came “not of [his] own will” but his Father’s. And that divine will, while not proper to his humanity, is proper to his person as God. When he prays in Gethsemane, “Not as I will, but as you will” (Matthew 26:39), he aligns his human will with the divine will, which also is his as God.

So, Jesus has a fully human body and emotions and mind and will. And verse 11 says, “That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers.” He is not ashamed to call you brother (or sister). Jesus could have been a brother in our nature, and yet ashamed to call us his brothers. But mark this, he is not that kind of brother. He’s not ashamed of his siblings. He’s not worried that our weaknesses and immaturities, or even our follies, will mar his reputation. He’s not stuck with us and embarrassed by them.

That’s not how Jesus is with me, and with us. I want to be like Jesus is with me. I want to be like this as a dad, and be like this as a friend, and be like this as a pastor: not mainly concerned about how others’ behavior reflects on me, but mainly concerned about my brother or sister in Christ, so that I can be loving, rather than self-focused — especially in the moments when love is needed most.

3. Jesus Suffered Like Us

Being fully human, he suffered both with us and for us.

Suffering is an important aspect of his being fully human, and saving us in his full humanity. If he was only God, he could not suffer. God is “impassible,” unable to be afflicted or be moved from outside. But not humanity. So, Jesus becoming fully human involved not only a human body and reasoning human soul, emotions, mind, and will, but he also entered as man into our fallen world, which is under the curse of sin. And even though he himself was not a sinner, he was, as a creature, susceptible to the afflictions, assaults, sufferings, and pains of our world. He entered into our suffering, and did so in two senses.

One, he suffered with us. He knows what it’s like to suffer in created flesh and blood. And verse 10 says that he was made “perfect through suffering.” This language of “perfect” or “complete” is important in Hebrews. Verse 10 doesn’t mean that Jesus was imperfect, or sinful, but that he was made ready, or made complete, for his calling, as our champion and High Priest, through his suffering. Having become man, he was not yet complete, not yet ready, but needed to be made ready, complete, “perfect” through suffering. Hebrews 5:8–9 says,

Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him.

Which leads, then, to a second sense in which he suffered: for us. Not only does he, as man, suffer with us, but he, as the God-man, suffers for us — in our place, in our stead. This leads us to the connection between suffering and death. Verse 9 introduces “the suffering of death” (of Jesus suffering and dying for us): “by the grace of God he [tasted] death for everyone.” Jesus not only experienced suffering with us but for us. He not only gets us, but saves us, and that “through death.”

Now look at the rest of verse 14 and verse 15, and two achievements of Jesus for us through this human suffering of death at the cross. Pick it up in the middle of verse 14: Jesus shared in our humanity “that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.” The first achievement through his human death is that he defeated Satan. His suffering unto death conquers the one who had the power of death.

We should not forget this as a Christmas theme: “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8). How? “He appeared in order to take away sins” (1 John 3:5). They go together. Jesus destroys the devil by taking away sins. The weapon Satan had against us was unforgiven sin, “the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.” But through the suffering of death, Jesus “set [this] aside, nailing it to the cross” and in so doing, God “disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in [Jesus]” (Colossians 2:14–15).

So, the first achievement is destroying Satan, and second in Hebrews 2:15 is delivering us. How? We might expect what follows in verse 17, but not expect the next verse. Verse 17 gives us one reason that he had to be made like us in every respect:

so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.

We had sinned and needed covering before the holy God. We had a “record of debt that stood against us” because we were humans with sin. So, to rescue us, God needed not only to become fully man, and suffer with us, but suffer for us, unto death, that his death might be for us, his brothers, the death we deserved for our sins. That’s what it means when the high priest “[makes] propitiation for the sins of the people.” The people’s sin against the holy and infinitely worthy God deserves his righteous, omnipotent wrath. And in becoming human, and suffering with us, and unto death, for us, Jesus absorbs the just penalty due us that we might be delivered from hell and the justice due our sin.

And verse 18 gives us one more reason, embedded in the first, for why Jesus was made like us, in every respect, including suffering and then dying in our place.

4. Jesus Helps Us Right Now

Verse 17 is amazing in that he deals with our sin, and gets us right with God, and verse 18 is amazing in that he’s ready and eager to help us right now. He both makes atonement for us in his death, and he rises again, and sends his Spirit, that he might help us in our struggles right now. Look at verse 18:

For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

Because Jesus suffered, he can help us in our suffering. That is, because he suffered unto death to atone for our sins, he is able to indwell us by his Spirit, draw near to us in our time of need, and help us in whatever tests and challenges and trials and temptations we face in the ongoing struggle of the Christian life. Jesus not only saves us out of sin’s curse, but also through sin’s temptations. He atones for our sins, and stands ready to come to our aid in temptation and in our own suffering. Having saved us from sin’s guilt, he is poised to save us from sin’s power.

So, as Hebrews 12:2 says, Jesus is not only the founder, the archegos, the beginner, the champion of our faith, but also the finisher. He’s not only the beginner but finisher. Our champion not only leads the way and goes ahead of us to face the foe, but he also doubles back to check on us, to help us, to keep us.

What Child Is This?

Let’s close, then, with this question: What help do you need this Advent? How are you suffering? What’s your present trial (or trials)? What’s testing your faith most right now? What’s tempting you to sin or give up? What’s your biggest need this Advent?

In Advent, we don’t just remember what he did in the past; we remember who he is in the present. Christmas is not only a was; it’s an is. Get his help. He not only gets us; he helps us. So, as we come to the Table, let’s ask for his help afresh. What need do you bring to the Table this morning? How do you need his help to persevere?

The one who meets us here is fully divine, the second person of the eternal Godhead, who in his happy, expansive, overflowing, gracious nature, took our full humanity to come rescue us. And he suffered with us — and for us unto death. He destroyed Satan, and he delivers us from our sins. And he rose from the dead, and ascended, and is now enthroned in heaven, where he stands ready, by his Spirit, to help us in the fight of faith.

“You are fettered,” cries Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. “You are fettered,” exclaims he, trembling before the spirit of his former business partner, Jacob Marley. “You are fettered. Tell me why?” (23).

“I wear the chain I forged in life,” comes the ghost’s reply. “I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it” (24).

Marley’s appearance uproots Scrooge. Marley had been dead seven years now — years, he reports, of “no rest, no peace” (25). At first, Scrooge tries to escape the solemnity with a joke: “You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There’s more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!” But “the truth is, that he tried to be smart, as a means of distracting his own attention, and keeping down his terror; for the spectre’s voice disturbed the very marrow in his bones” (22).

Marley soon raises a frightful cry and shakes his chain “with such a dismal and appalling noise, that Scrooge held on tight to his chair, to save himself from falling in a swoon” (23). When the ghost’s jaw drops down to his chest, Scrooge cries, “Dreadful apparition, why do you trouble me?” (23). Marley presses the ill omen upon Scrooge’s unsettled conscience, intimating that he can see Scrooge’s waiting fetter. It was the length of Marley’s seven years ago, and “you have labored on it since. It is a ponderous chain,” he portends (24).

Scrooge looks around, waiting to be devoured by the irons, but nothing. “Jacob,” he says imploringly. “Old Jacob Marley, tell me more. Speak comfort to me, Jacob!” (24). “I have none to give,” the ghost replies.

What Marley did not have to give, the story of Christ and Christmas does. But too many will not have it — not because they’re too despairing, but because they’re too untroubled and carefree. Christmas is merely the luxury of time off of work, visiting family, delicious food, and exchanging presents. They are not sensible enough, desperate enough to receive the glad tidings. So I’ve come to ruin our Christmas — at least the commercial, tinseled, gift-wrapped, Christ-neglecting, man-centered, consumeristic festival it too easily becomes when we forget our total calamity without the Messiah’s coming.

I want one soul in Scripture — a ghost in his own right — to unnerve us, to shake his chains of despair in our ears, and bring biblical sobriety to our Christ-sprinkled Christmases. May he disturb us to the marrow of our bones, as Marley did Scrooge, and lead us beyond the fright to a truly felt and deeply merry celebration of our only hope, Immanuel.

Ghost of Christmas Past

He dressed in purple linens once. He threw the greatest holiday parties and feasted sumptuously every day. His life, like Scrooge’s, was paved with gold coins — “the rich man,” Jesus calls him. His luxury lifted him too high for the concerns of one poor creature whimpering outside his gates — a man itching his sores and swatting away the dogs who licked at his wounds. This hungry man dreamed of a day when he could eat the scraps from the rich man’s table. “Lazarus,” Jesus names the poor man (Luke 16:19–21).

Lazarus dies, doubtless believing in the coming Messiah, and is carried by angels to Abraham, the father of faith (Luke 16:22). In the twinkling of an eye, his soul travels from outside earthly gates to inside those of paradise. No more blisters, no more hounds, no more scratching at an empty stomach. Miserable in life; merry in death.

“The rich man,” Jesus tells us, “also died and was buried” (Luke 16:22) — having heeded neither Moses nor the prophets, nor having waited intensely for the Messiah, nor having loved his neighbor, nor having repented of his sin. He sinks into Hades and,

being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. And he called out, “Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.” (Luke 16:23–24)

Here in sacred Scripture, Jesus gives voice to a spirit, locked in burning chambers on the other side of death, pleading. We hear him in terrible anguish, tongue-twisted by fire, utterly parched and imprisoned on one side of a great chasm. “You are fettered,” we say. “Tell us why!”

“Sin!” returns his sweltering reply. “I wear the chain I forged in life. I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.” He is now the dog, begging to lick the flesh of Lazarus’s finger to taste some dew upon it. How awful those flames, and how dreadful those blows, that make even a drop of water seem like heaven.

Wish of a Dead Man

Before our eyes of faith appears a ghost, horrible his image, hideous his voice. “Speak comfort to us,” we implore him. He has none to give. But this fearsome soul has something to say. Jesus tells us: “I beg you, father,” says he, “to send [Lazarus] to my father’s house — for I have five brothers — so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment” (Luke 16:27–28).

He wishes his (and our) family gathering would no longer be a warm fireplace to escape the cold realities of sin and death and judgment, a time of triviality climaxing in a fat man falling down a chimney. He would warn all who would listen of what lies just past the careless drinking and laughing and eating: a place of torment.

If he cannot make the trip, he pleads for Abraham to send the spirit of Lazarus back into his body so that he can show up to their party with grave omens and solemn appeals. The rich man reasons, “If someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent!” (Luke 16:30). Imagine it: the pale body of Lazarus now vomited from the grave, placed again outside those shut gates, banging, howling, warning of the wrath to come. This would be enough to amend their erring judgments and change their sinful ways, he thinks. O Abraham, please!

Then comes the final, stunning reply: “If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead” (Luke 16:31).

O Holy Night

Do we now begin to feel (again) what makes Christmas glorious? Warm holiday smiles, good food, fond memories with family do nothing, on their own, to overcome our peril. Ponderous our chains would remain; unspeakable our torment would soon be. Tree lights and Christmas decor and anchorless sentiments cannot overcome our winter’s darkness. At Christmas, we celebrate that the only one who could overthrow our curse and its unending consequence came. “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone. . . . For to us a child is born, to us a son is given” (Isaiah 9:2, 6).

Midnight, our darkness; shattered, our hopes; a blaze of unquenchable fire, our rightful destiny. We were “condemned already” (John 3:18), but suddenly the clouds broke and multitudes of angels sang to earth, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” (Luke 2:14). The Father foretold of this coming one,

I will give you as a covenant for the people,     a light for the nations,     to open the eyes that are blind,to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,     from the prison those who sit in darkness. (Isaiah 42:6–7)

Such glory makes it a befuddlement to heaven (and to even the rich man’s tortured soul) why we should partake in a Christmas without Christ shining at its center. What madness to lift our glasses to the Messiah’s birth, but not cherish him; to pretend to notice the fallen prison door, but not follow him out into life; to know the Savior shall be born in the town of Bethlehem, but not go fall at his feet to worship him. Christmas, if it means anything at all, means everything. We celebrate a miraculous night, a divine night, an indispensable night when God came to dwell with man as man to save man from eternal misery.

Far as the Curse Is Found

Look about you this Christmas. Can you catch even a glimpse of the ponderous chains that these, your unchristian family, coworkers, and friends, or perhaps you unmindfully wear? Impenitent coworkers and relatives already in the grave, if anything like our rich man, would return as apparitions at Christmas, pleading for us to escape the unendurable wrath to come. Will we who know the truth and have escaped such a fate not pray earnestly and speak intimately to even one lost soul? What do we mean when we say we love them?

“I am here tonight to warn you that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate,” says Marley to Scrooge. “A chance and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer.”

“You were always a good friend to me,” replies Scrooge. (28)

Will we be a good friend to any souls this Christmas? Perhaps the soul you need to be friendliest to is your own. With the chains of this rich man still jangling in our ears, let us be intentional in our celebration, prayerful in our witness, and overjoyed in our Jesus, who shines the brighter because of such terrible darkness. Our Christmas does not hide from the grimness of the world, but sings the heartier of its coming redemption:

No more let sins and sorrows grow,nor thorns infest the ground;He comes to make his blessings flowfar as the curse is found.

Part 3 Episode 179 How might our lives change if we set our minds on the glory of the Lord that will be revealed in the new earth? In this episode of Light + Truth, John Piper opens Romans 8:18–25 to explore the transforming glories awaiting us.

It feels like a Norman Rockwell painting. Your family is gathered around a luxuriously set table. A huge roasted turkey makes its arrival. Side dishes crowd the scene. Relatives begin to drool.

Suddenly, the background music veers into an ominous minor key. Your brother-in-law, who has already had too much to drink, announces, “I suppose we need our token religious guy to pronounce some kind of prayer, right? Let’s not take too long on this — the food’s getting cold.”

Everyone turns to you, the lone Christian of the family. Which prayer do you pray?

Choice A: “Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts, which we are about to receive from thy bounty, through Christ our Lord. Amen.”

Choice B: “Thank you, Lord Jesus, for coming to earth to save sinners. Thank you that all who receive you as their Savior and Lord can be born again, can have their many, many, many sins forgiven, and can have eternal life. What a great God you are! And thank you for all this delicious food. Please protect us from gluttony. In Jesus’s name. Amen.”

Of course, I’ve exaggerated this scenario. But for some of us, going to a holiday gathering (or hosting one) can be fraught with spiritual tension when few (or none) share our Christian faith. And given numerous trends in our society, the tension may only get worse in the days ahead. Not long ago, most of our non-Christian family, friends, neighbors, and coworkers believed that Christianity and church membership contributed to the well-being of society. Today, many people blame us for all sorts of problems in our world. We’re the bigoted, intolerant, homophobic, gun-toting, anti-science Neanderthals that are dragging our country down, backward, and into decay.

Into such an environment we gather together to celebrate “the holidays.” How do we navigate this terrain? How might we evangelize our family on what appears to be a minefield? It may prove helpful to begin with some internal preparation before we brainstorm strategies for external interaction. In fact, framing the topic through before, during, and after scenarios might ease the burden of our endeavor.

Before

Have you been praying for the people you’ll see at the upcoming gathering? If not, it’s not too late to start. If so, it’s never a bad idea to intensify your efforts. Jesus taught the disciples to “pray and not lose heart” because he knew they — and we — would be tempted to quit (Luke 18:1). Prayer takes perseverance, especially when it comes to praying for people who seem resistant to change or closed to the gospel. That’s one reason Paul tells us to “continue steadfastly in prayer” (Colossians 4:2).

It’s also good to check your attitude toward your family. Do you love them, or do you find them difficult to love? Perhaps both feelings swarm together. For many, family is the realm where love is assumed but not so often expressed (or, at least, not expressed well). If we’re honest, some of us disdain our family. So at times, preparing to connect with family should include confession of a cold heart. God is the one who has sovereignly placed you in your particular family. Perhaps your chief objection about your earthly family is toward your heavenly Father.

A little self-reflection about your default settings regarding evangelism also can help. Are you pushy when it comes to sharing your faith, or are you an evangelistic chicken? Do you tend to “always be closing” when telling people about Jesus, or do you live more in the realm of the wallflower-witness? If your family dreads seeing you, fearing your questions about their eternal destiny, perhaps you need to consider a less overbearing approach. If you never or seldom broach the topic of faith, perhaps you need to make God’s glory a higher priority than your comfort or family harmony.

During

Some Christians think of evangelism as convincing others to agree with cognitive arguments and logical propositions. Others imagine evangelism as overwhelmingly emotional. They say that people need to be loved, not argued, into the kingdom. But the Bible sees us as whole persons with both brains and hearts. We need multifaceted approaches to connect with multifaceted people. We proclaim truth and express love. We craft arguments and also embody hope, joy, and peace.

If you tend toward the cognitive side, perhaps this Thanksgiving and Christmas you’d do well to talk about what you’re thankful for, why you’re encouraged about the future, and how you have felt buoyed by the ways you’ve been provided for in the past. You might consider ways to convey care for people: listening more, sympathizing more, and pontificating less. Explore common interests as avenues for further, deeper conversation, which could make room to discuss God’s goodness shown through common grace and general revelation.

If you lean more in the direction of the silent witness, perhaps you should prepare to explain what you believe, and then try verbalizing your faith to one or two relatives who are most likely to converse in respectful ways. To be sure, you’ll find this uncomfortable. Again, perhaps you need to repent of making comfort an idol.

After

Before the age of social media, email, texting, and other modes of electronic connection (can you remember such ancient history?), holiday gatherings were some of the only times to have substantive conversations with family. If we didn’t broach important topics then, another year or more would pass before we could.

It’s a whole new world now, which does offer some advantages for evangelism. We can continue the conversation long after the family gathering, and some forms of electronic communication might be better than the face-to-face variety. Many people feel put on the spot or backed into a corner when they’re asked about their religious beliefs. Those moments can be so uncomfortable, they resort to dismissing the topic out of hand, changing the subject, or offering mindless clichés: “I think religion is a private matter,” “Well, who’s to say what’s right or wrong?” or “I think all religions contain some truth.”

A follow-up email after a brief in-person conversation may prove more fruitful. First, it’s one-on-one, with no one overhearing. Second, it gives people time to reflect before responding, allowing them the chance to think deeply about what they really do believe.

Many people almost never think about spiritual things. If you ask them about their beliefs, it may be the first time (or the first time in a very long time) they’ve considered the topic. That’s why some resort to clichés, which protect them from deep reflection. But as they sit in front of their computer or look at their phone, with the question you posed waiting patiently before them, they have time to consider a new perspective.

Let’s not forget that considering the gospel unnerves many nonbelievers. When people seriously think about their sinfulness or God’s holiness or Jesus’s uniqueness or the world’s emptiness or their own lack of inner peace, we shouldn’t be surprised if they need space to wrestle on their own before coming to painful conclusions. As C.S. Lewis observed about the kinds of gods in which we would rather believe instead of the real God,

An “impersonal God” — well and good. A subjective God of beauty, truth, and goodness, inside our own heads — better still. A formless life-force surging through us, a vast power which we can tap — best of all. But God Himself, alive, pulling at the other end of the cord, perhaps approaching at an infinite speed, the hunter, king, husband — that is quite another matter. (Miracles, 150)

Battle for Family

It shouldn’t surprise us if witnessing to family members seems tougher than talking to strangers or close acquaintances. It is more difficult! Our emotions run deeper with family. We’ve known them longer, and will know them longer still.

But on a larger scale, the family is a favorite battlefield for the devil. He hates marriage, family, and, most of all, the God who calls himself “Father.” God places a high value on families, and they are a high priority for him. If family is a high priority for God, then family is certainly a high priority for the evil one.

So, as we come together for holiday celebrations, let’s not be naive: there’s a lot more going on than just turkey and all the trimmings.

Audio Transcript

Pastor John, about a month ago, in APJ 1993, an episode on expository preaching and youth ministry — namely, should youth ministries work through books of the Bible? — you mentioned “how artificial it is to distinguish between exposition and application,” because the preacher is always moving from language to reality. There’s no faithful exposition if the preacher isn’t constantly feeling the tug from words to reality. This is a profoundly important point, with a principle behind it.

I was wondering if you could explain today on the podcast one line from your new book, Foundations for Lifelong Learning: Education in Serious Joy. There you wrote this: “Every ‘therefore’ in the Bible” — and there are about five hundred of them in the Greek New Testament alone — “is a doorway to life and love.” Explain this principle. How do these five hundred “therefores” in the New Testament — translated in different ways into English, but all from the same Greek word — open the door to life and love?

Just a word about that statistic. I wanted to find some juicy therefores, so I did a search on the word therefore in the Gospel of John. I think I found sixteen matches, but it’s translated into words like thus or so instead of therefore, which is just fine.

Now, I love this question, especially the last part about the therefores opening the door to life and love. Before I go there, I really want to say something about the other comment you drew attention to first — namely, “how artificial it is to distinguish between exposition and application.”

That can be quite controversial because of the real danger of reading our situation back into the biblical situation, and possibly missing the original meaning because we smother it with our own sense of what it must mean for our situation. That’s the danger, and I want to warn students about that. I want to warn our listeners about that.

First-Century Readers and Me

A great deal of emphasis usually is put on figuring out the original intention of the author for his situation first. Then, only after you have done that hard work of interpreting the original meaning in the original setting, you ask the question about whether it has any application to your own life. What you’re drawing attention to when you quoted me is that I have said that this approach can be quite artificial — meaning, it simply won’t work to keep the intention of the author separate from my situation, because my situation may be a part of his intention originally.

For example, when Paul, quoting Jesus and the Old Testament, says in Romans 13:9, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” whom does he have in mind by you? He has in mind, I think, everybody reading his letter. Whether it’s the Romans or a church in northern Germany, he wills for everyone to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.

So, what does it mean to interpret that sentence apart from applying it to myself? It would mean trying to grasp the meaning of the word love from Paul’s other uses of the word love, not just my use of it — which would be a mistake. And it would mean trying to understand the meaning of the word neighbor as Paul, Jesus, and the Old Testament use the word neighbor.

But do I know what this command means — I mean, really means — if I can give no illustration or application of what it would mean for me to love my neighbor this afternoon? I don’t have any idea. The command is addressed to me, not just to the Romans, not just to a first-century Jew listening to Jesus. And if it is addressed to me, the line between original meaning and application to me vanishes.

“I have not finished finding the original meaning until I know some of what it means in my life this afternoon.”

Here’s what I mean by that, because I could be misinterpreted. What I mean is that I have not finished finding the original meaning until I know some of what it means in my life this afternoon. What would it look like for John Piper, today, to love his wife, his children, his neighbor, the people on the street, the beggar at the corner? If I have no idea what that sentence means for my life, I have not interpreted it yet fully, according to its original intention, because that was God’s and Jesus’s and Paul’s intention — that whoever reads this text would do what it says in his or her situation. That’s the intention of the text. That’s its fullest, original meaning.

So, by all means, let the original usage of the words and the grammar and the historical context govern our interpretation. But let’s not think we are done interpreting, done grasping the author’s original intention, until we have a sense of how the text works itself out in our lives. This is urgent for us to the degree that we believe God is addressing us — not just the first century, but us — by the words of Scripture.

Logic, Life, and Love

Now, here’s the connection with all those life-giving, love-producing therefores in the New Testament. Dozens and dozens and dozens of these therefores are intended to have a practical, emotional, intellectual, behavioral effect on our lives today. That’s their purpose. That’s their intention. We don’t know the full meaning of these therefores until we see what their effect is, or is intended to be, on our lives.

What shocked me 55 years ago, in the fall of 1968, was the realization that every time you see one of these therefores in the Bible, you should realize that the authors are arguing — arguing, not squabbling (that’s another meaning for arguing, but I’m not talking about squabbling). They are making logical arguments. That’s what I mean by arguing. They are stating premises and drawing conclusions.

Like, if I were to say to a weary traveler, “You haven’t eaten for two days? You’re hungry. I have a lot of food. Therefore, sit at my table and eat your fill.” Now, that is a life-giving therefore, and it is a logical argument, like hundreds of texts in the Bible. There are three premises:

Premise 1: You haven’t eaten for two days.Premise 2: You’re hungry.Premise 3: I have much.

And there’s a conclusion:

Conclusion: Therefore, sit at my table and share my food.

Of course, there could be other premises added to those three, like “I love you” and “I’m not afraid of you.” Now we have five premises that lead to the great “Therefore, share my table.”

So, when you ask me, Tony, about the therefores, you’re asking me to celebrate one of the simplest and greatest discoveries I’ve ever made — namely, that the biblical authors make arguments, and the signal that they are making arguments is words like because and therefore. And hundreds of these are life-giving, love-producing therefores.

‘Therefore’ in Action

For example, consider Jesus’s words in Matthew 7:11–12: “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! So [therefore] whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them.” That’s worth an hour’s reflection. How does that therefore work? Where does love come from? That’s what Jesus is answering: Where does the power to obey the Golden Rule, to treat others the way you’d like to be treated, come from?

And Jesus says that it comes from the reality behind the therefore — namely, the confidence that your omnipotent Father in heaven will meet every need you have when you ask him. Period. Do you believe him? He will give you the good you need; therefore, do unto others as you wish them to do unto you. That is what I mean by a love-producing therefore. If you don’t grasp the logic and the reality of the therefore, you will forsake one of the great powers and motives for obeying the Golden Rule.

Or take 1 Corinthians 15:56–58. Paul has just spent fifty verses describing and defending the glories of what it will mean for us to be raised from the dead, and he ends the chapter like this: “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”

That’s what I call a life-giving therefore. Death does not end your life. You’re going to be raised from the dead. Therefore, nothing you do, nothing you do in the name of Jesus, is in vain. Press on, be steadfast, abound in good work, and live — live because of the therefore of 1 Corinthians 15:58.

There are hundreds of these texts, but we have to stop. Therefores give life, therefores produce love, and we have not gotten to the full intention of those texts until we see this.

What verses do you reach for most often when you pause to give thanks to God?

Maybe you’re bowing over a home-cooked meal after an especially long and frustrating day. Maybe God came through in a moment of more acute desperation or need — at the office, with the kids, over the family budget. Maybe you and your friends got to do that thing you love to do together (but rarely get the chance to anymore). Maybe you simply felt the warmth of the sun on your skin after a week of overcast skies. And you know that meal, that friend, that sun is from God, and so you want to thank him. What verses come to mind?

One comes to mind for me, one I’ve leaned on countless times in prayer:

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. (James 1:17)

It’s a heart-warming, soul-stirring perspective: Every good thing you have, you have from God. In just a few words, James pulls every conceivable blessing — from the smallest snacks or shortest conversations to the weightier gifts of children, churches, homes, and health — all under the brilliant umbrella of the Father’s love.

Recently, though, as I slowly read through James again, I stumbled over the familiar verse because of the verse immediately before it. What would you expect to read before such an immense statement of God’s lavish generosity? Probably not this:

Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above . . . (James 1:16–17)

Don’t Be Deceived?

What could be deceiving about a cherished truth like this? To understand the deception at work among these good and perfect gifts (and the real power of the verse), we have to follow the thread back to the previous paragraph.

Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him. (James 1:12)

The apostle James writes to a suffering people, a people bearing heavy trials. He begins his letter, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds” (James 1:2). He says that because some were tempted to grumble and despair. They wanted to give up. They also started pointing fingers at God. As James writes in verses 13–14,

Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.

While God stands over all that transpires, and sovereignly works all things for the good of those who love him, no one can ever say that temptations come from him. He never devises evil. He’s not trying to make you stumble, but holding out his hand to keep you upright.

No, temptations arise from our own desires, which gets to a second problem James addresses in his letter: the problem of worldliness. Christians were growing faint under painful opposition. They were also giving in to sinful, fleshly desires (James 4:1–3). They were seeking comfort and relief in indulgence. They had formed an adulterous friendship with the world (James 4:4). So, James says to the church,

Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above . . . (James 1:16–17)

What might suffering people hear in such a warning? How might this kind of wide-eyed thankfulness guard us against the lies we’re tempted to believe in the midst of trials?

To the Lies of Indulgence

First, to those tempted to seek comfort and relief in sinful desires, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above.” How does God’s immeasurable generosity weaken worldliness? How does wide-eyed gratitude take the edge off of deceitful desires? God is the giver of every good we might sinfully crave.

When we see the hand of God behind everything we might idolize, we remember why every good and perfect gift exists in the first place: to help us see, taste, touch, smell, and hear the glory of God. The goodness of our world is rooted in the God-ness of our world. Nothing is good when it is ripped from his purposes and turned against its Maker — when a gift of God becomes a rival to him. “What do you have that you did not receive?” the apostle Paul asks. “If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?” (1 Corinthians 4:7). Every pleasure we’re tempted to chase or demand is designed to lead us to see God, thank God, and enjoy God.

When we see he’s the giver, we remember again why we have anything we have. We also remember just how small and fleeting every other pleasure is compared with him. Jeremiah Burroughs writes, “A soul that is capable of God can be filled with nothing else but God; nothing but God can fill a soul that is capable of God” (The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment, 43). Our sinful, worldly desires are attempts to fill a God-sized canyon with crayons and animal crackers. We remember not only that he gives every good thing, but that he himself is better and more fulfilling than every good thing, even the very best things.

So don’t be deceived when temptation comes. Your sinful cravings will not soothe or satisfy apart from Christ. In fact, they’ll kill you if you let them: “Desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death” (James 1:15). That means good gifts can be deadly ones if they don’t draw us nearer to the good and greater Treasure.

To the Lies of Despair

Second, then, to those groaning under trials, tempted to doubt or even grow bitter against God, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above.” This God doesn’t give bad gifts. Again, “God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one” (James 1:13). No, if he has made you his own, everything he gives you or allows you to experience will ultimately be good for you.

Not only that, trials are opportunities to feel the goodness of all we’ve been given. He’s not only the giver of everything we might have or crave; he’s also the giver of every good thing we lose or fear to lose — a first home, a beloved pet, a dream job, a decades-long friendship, a clean bill of health, a precious spouse, a faithful church. God gave you whatever this trial has taken from you. Even the pain is its own reminder of his kindness and generosity.

And he’s still, even in the loss, giving you more than you deserve — “life and breath and everything” (Acts 17:25). James says in the very next verse, “Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures” (James 1:18). As troubled and discouraged as you may feel in these painful circumstances, through faith, you are a new creation. God raised you from the dead and opened your eyes to see, in Christ, what you could never see on your own.

This gift of new, eternal life is why Paul can say of any suffering, even what you’re suffering now, “This light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Corinthians 4:17). Not only will these fleeting trials soon give way to glory, but they’re actually preparing glory for you — and you for that glory.

Could Losses Be Gifts?

If we can begin to see our trials through the eyes of these promises, even the losses themselves hold their own gift. James says earlier in the same chapter,

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (James 1:2–4)

How can someone possibly count the sting and heartache of trials as joy? When the trials produce something more valuable than they took away. And is anything more valuable to you than the steadfastness of your faith in Jesus? Wouldn’t you pay any price to know that you’ll make it to glory and live in his presence — without pain, without frustration, without sin, and with him?

So, when your trials and temptations come, don’t let Satan and his schemes have your ear. Don’t assume that God’s sovereignty over all things means that temptation is from him. Rather, in your suffering, remember that he’s a good and perfect Father. He’s the giver of every good thing you might lose, and he’s the giver of every comfort or pleasure you might crave. And better than any of his other gifts, he holds out himself, the gift that surpasses every other one.

In this first session, I would like for us to linger together in my favorite eldership passage: 1 Peter 5:1–5. But before I read those verses and pray for our time together, let’s mark the word “So” at the beginning of verse 1. “So” links this passage to chapter 4 and therefore to the hard times Peter and these elders knew.

First Peter 4:12 mentions “fiery trials.” Verse 13, “sufferings.” Verse 14, “insults.” Verses 15, 16, 19: “suffer,” “suffers,” “suffer.” This is a passage for pastor-elders who know hard times, like the last three years may have been for some.

Bright and inspiring as the words of 1 Peter 5:1–5 can be, they are set against a dark backdrop. Don’t miss this context. The joys of pastoral ministry are not joys in a vacuum. They are amazing joys, accentuated and deepened against the backdrop of struggle and hardship and suffering. In the endless challenges of pastoral ministry, its joys shine out all the clearer.

And note how Peter gets to elders in chapter 5. A context of suffering makes the teaching and leadership of the elders all the more essential. Pastor-elders, and their teaching and leading, are always vital to congregational health, but especially in suffering.

Gift of the Great Shepherd

So, 1 Peter 5:1–5:

So I exhort the elders among you, as a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as a partaker in the glory that is going to be revealed: shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight, not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you; not for shameful gain, but eagerly; not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

One of the most precious promises in all the Bible for pastors is Jesus’s words in Matthew 16:18: “I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Jesus is the chief Shepherd; he is “the Shepherd and Overseer of [our] souls” (1 Peter 2:25; 5:4). He is “the great shepherd of the sheep” (Hebrews 13:20). He builds his church. And his work will not fail. He will prevail — over hell, and sin, and death, and disease, and division.

And one of the ways Christ builds and governs his church, and blesses her, is by giving her the gift of local leaders under him: “He gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ” (Ephesians 4:11–12).

Faithful pastors and elders are a gift from Christ to guide and keep his church. As pastors, this is a truth that may not be healthy to regularly emphasize in public (as it will seem self-serving), but it can be good to have someone else say it to you from time to time. So that’s what I’d like to do here at the outset of our time together today: brother pastors and elders, you are a gift from the risen Christ to your flock.

No matter what that recent email said. No matter how flat the last sermon fell. No matter what you hear whispered about leaders in society (not to mention the cynical thoughts that aren’t whispered). No matter what that person posted online about your church or your elder team, or you in particular — and you didn’t see it, but your wife saw it and said, “Did you see this?”

No matter what has been said explicitly or implied to the contrary, you, dear brother, as you lean on Christ and remain faithful to his word — you are a gift from him to your church.

Of course, we pastors and elders are flawed and sinful. Some who carry the name “pastor” have made terrible mistakes, sinned grievously, fleeced their flocks, and harmed the very ones they were commissioned to protect. But such failures were not owing to the biblical vision of what true leadership is. Rather, such failures fell short of God’s vision, or departed from it altogether. In fact, such failures show — by way of contrast — what real leadership in the church should be.

That’s our focus today: what Christ calls leaders in his church to be — especially the “lead office” or “teaching office” in the church, that of “pastor” or “elder” or “overseer,” three terms in the New Testament for the same lead office.

Preliminary Observations

Now, in this session, I want us to give most of our focus to the three not-but pairs in verses 2–3, but first let me make three preliminary observations on the passage, which are vital to the vision of eldership and pastoral ministry that we’ll be rehearsing today.

1. Elders are plural.

Elders is plural in 1 Peter 5:1. One of the most important truths to rehearse about Christian ministry is that Christ means for it to be teamwork. As in 1 Peter 5, so in every context in which local-church pastor-elders are mentioned in the New Testament, the title is plural.

Christ alone reigns as Lord of the church. He is head (Ephesians 1:22; 5:23; Colossians 1:18), and he alone. The glory of singular leadership in the church is his alone. And he means for his undershepherds to labor, and thrive, not alone but as a team.

The kind of pastors we long for in this age are good men with good friends — friends who love them enough to challenge their instincts, tell them when they’re mistaken, hold them to the fire of accountability, and make life both harder and better, both more uncomfortable and more fruitful.

Now, if pastoral ministry for you is not teamwork, if you find yourself in a lone pastor-elder situation, for whatever reason, I don’t think that means you’re in error or sin. But I do think it’s an error to prefer it, and not dream toward more, and pray for more, and take some modest steps toward looking for and raising up the kind of men who could minister alongside you.

So, number one, elders here (as elsewhere in the New Testament) are plural.

2. Elders are pastors.

Second, observe the main verb in 1 Peter 5:1–5, which is Peter’s charge to the elders: “shepherd the flock of God.” Shepherd, as a verb, is a rich image. Consider all that shepherds do: they feed, water, tend, herd, protect, guide, lead to pasture, govern, care for, nurture. To shepherd is a picture of what we might call “benign rule” (the opposite of “domineering,” as we’ll see). In shepherding, the good of the shepherd is bound up with the good of the sheep.

The concept of shepherding also has a rich Old Testament background, not just in the patriarchs and the nation of Israel in Egypt and in the wilderness, but also in King David, the shepherd boy who became the nation’s great king, God’s anointed one, who came to anticipate the greater Anointed One to come.

So, with David, and in the prophets, shepherding takes on messianic overtones. David, of course, had his own grave failures in shepherding the nation, but after David, the trend of the nation’s kings became worse and worse, with only a couple exceptions.

Shepherds Feed

Five centuries later, the prophet Ezekiel condemned the nation’s leaders for “feeding themselves” rather than feeding the sheep:

Ah, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep. The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the injured you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought, and with force and harshness you have ruled them. (Ezekiel 34:2–4)

The appointed leaders of God’s people should have fed them, not fed on them. They should have strengthened their people, and sought them out, and healed them, bound up their wounds, brought them back to God, but instead they governed them “with force and harshness” — not benign rule but malignant rule.

So, the people long for a shepherd, a king, who will rule them with strength and gentleness, with clarity and kindness, with decisiveness and persuasion and patience and grace, even as he protects them from their enemies. And in response, again and again, God not only says, “I will rescue my flock,” but also, “I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd” (Ezekiel 34:22–23). Note the prominence of feeding in shepherding.

The Good Shepherd’s Charge

The prophet Micah foretells that from Bethlehem, the city of David, will “come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel” (Micah 5:2; Matthew 2:6). During his life, Jesus himself says he is the good shepherd (John 10:11), who, rather than taking from his sheep, comes to give, and to give them life, and even to give his own life for them. He is the long-promised Shepherd.

Then amazingly, at the end of the Gospel of John, when Jesus asks Peter three times if he loves him (this same Peter who wrote 1 Peter), Peter says yes, and then Jesus says three times to him, “Feed my lambs,” “Tend my sheep,” and “Feed my sheep” (John 21:15–17).

Here “feeding” and “shepherding” (or “pastoring”) are synonymous. Jesus, the good shepherd, has finally come, and given himself as the Lamb for his sheep, but now he is leaving, and now he will pastor his sheep through Peter and other undershepherds — not just apostles, but local-church elders, overseers, pastors.

So Paul says in Acts 20:28 to the elders in Ephesus, “Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock [!], in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for [that is, pastor] the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.” The elders are also overseers, and they are to “care for” — or literally, pastor — “the church of God” (elders = overseers = pastors).

Finally, in the book of Revelation, we find two images of Jesus as shepherd. The Lamb, as shepherd, “will guide them to springs of living water” (Revelation 7:17), and in three texts, he will rule “with a rod of iron” (Revelation 2:27; 12:5; 19:15). Which doesn’t mean he is forceful or harsh with his people, but that he protects them from their enemies (with his rod). The shepherd’s rod and staff are for protecting and guiding his flock: “Your rod and your staff, they comfort me” (Psalm 23:4).

Elders shepherd. That’s just a quick taste of the richness in this shepherding image: centrally, feeding and watering (“green pastures” and “still waters,” Psalm 23:2), but also protecting. Shepherding means caring for the sheep, and leading with gentleness and kindness, with persuasion and patience, and wielding the rod of protection with strength and decisiveness toward various threats to the flock.

So, elders is plural, and elders are pastors.

3. Elders exercise oversight.

A third and final preliminary observation, more briefly: the verb that augments “shepherd” is “exercising oversight” (episkopountes). It’s a form of the noun overseer used in Acts 20:28, as well as in four other New Testament texts (Philippians 1:1; 1 Timothy 3:2; Titus 1:7; 1 Peter 2:25). “Oversee” in this context doesn’t mean only to watch and observe, but also to “see to it” that important observations about the flock, and any threats to it, also become tangible initiatives and actions in the church.

Which brings us to the heart of this passage, where Peter gives us three “not-buts” — not this but that. Verses 2–3: “Shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight . . .

not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you;
not for shameful gain, but eagerly;
not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock.”

Let’s take them in reverse order.

1. Not Domineering, but Exemplifying

We saw God’s condemnation for the leaders of Israel who ruled “with force and harshness.” Peter says, “not domineering” — which is the same language elsewhere translated “not lording it over.” It’s built on a strong verb (katakurieuo) that can refer in other contexts to

Jesus’s lordship (Romans 14:9; 1 Timothy 6:15);
the kind of lordship sin once had, and should no longer have, over us (Romans 6:9, 14; 7:1);
or the kind of lordship Christian leaders do not have over those in their charge (Luke 22:25).

The intensified form of the verb here in 1 Peter 5 is the same one Jesus uses in Mark 10:42–43:

Those who are considered [dokeō, seeming, purporting, thinking (hoi dokountes archein)] rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you.

Okay, then, what will be so among us? Verses 43–45:

But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

So, the opposite of “not lording it over” others is serving them, assisting their good, attending to their joy. Like Christ himself, not coming to be served but to serve; not to be assisted, but to assist; not to be attended to, but to attend to.

With the same language, Paul says to the Corinthians about his labors as an apostle, “Not that we lord it over your faith, but we work with you for your joy” (2 Corinthians 1:24). As in Mark 10, “lord it over” implies the exercise of privilege, the seeking and obtaining of personal or private benefit — benefit from them (versus through or with them).

Paul’s vision of the opposite in leadership is “[working] with you for your joy.” The “we” here is Paul with his assistants Timothy and Silas (2 Corinthians 1:19). He says, “we work”: we give effort, expend energy; it is not just overflow but work, labor (as Jesus says in Matthew 9:37–38: “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest”). It might begin almost effortlessly, as overflow, but then it takes effort (sometimes great effort) to complete. Spiritual leadership, pastoral ministry is work, requiring a work ethic. And Paul, of all people, was not one to suffer laziness, and especially among pastor-elders.

But this work isn’t alone. Not only is there a “we” in the company of the leaders, but it’s also “with you” — with the people. Pastors equip the saints to engage, expend effort, and invest energy — to work with us (which is vital to keep in mind in our discipling and counseling; we work with them, not instead of them). We don’t do it all for them; we go the extra mile, putting in more work, to win them to leaning in, working with us, taking responsibility, not just being consumers.

And that work, Paul says, is “for your joy.” Not thin, fleeting sugar highs. He’s talking real, deep, lasting, long-term, durable joy in Christ. Joy that tastes of the next age even in this painful, evil one. In Christian joy, our promised, blissful future in Christ is brought into the painful present — which means the frictions and sufferings of our present times do not preclude real joy even now but make us all the more desperate for real joy.

So, Christian leaders, as workers for the joy of their people, are not to be controlling and domineering, lording over them. Rather, they are to serve (in the words of Jesus), as workers for their people’s joy (in the words of Paul) and as examples to the flock (in the words of Peter): “not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock.”

2. Not for Shameful Gain, but Eagerly

“Shameful gain” would be some benefit not befitting of the work — or some gain for the leader that is not a gain, but a loss, for the flock, and the glory of Christ — whether it’s money as the driving motivation, or power, or respect, or comfort, or the chance to perform and be on the platform. In terms of “eagerness,” the epistle to the Hebrews gives this important glimpse into the dynamic of Christian leadership as workers for the joy of the flock:

Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you. (Hebrews 13:17)

Hebrews 13:17 is the reason John Piper says that “there is a joy without which pastors cannot profit their people.” This is a beautiful, marriage-like vision of the complementary relationship between the church and its leaders.

The leaders, for their part, labor, they work hard, for the advantage — the profit, the gain — of the church. And the church, for its part, wants its leaders to work not only hard but happily, without groaning, because the pastors’ joy in leading will lead to the church’s own benefit. The people want their leaders to labor with joy because they know their leaders are working for theirs.

Christ gives leaders to his people for their joy. Pastors are glad workers for the gladness of their people in God. And if the people see evidence of this, and become convinced of this, how eager might they be to submit to such leaders? The prospect of submitting to leadership drastically changes when you are persuaded that they aren’t pursuing their own private advantage but are genuinely seeking yours: what is best for you, what will give you the deepest and most enduring joy — when they find their joy in yours, rather than apart from or instead of yours.

The word submission has negative connotations today in many circles. But how might the charge to “submit” in Hebrews 13:17 and “be subject” in 1 Peter 5:5 change when we see it in the context of this vision of shepherding and oversight and pastoring as working for the joy of our people? There’s no charge to submit in verse 5 until verses 2–4 establish a context of “workers for your joy” who are willing, eager, and exemplary: they feed the flock, not themselves; they attend to the flock’s needs, not their own; they gain as the flock gains, not as the flock loses.

Have you ever considered what actions and initiatives and care are required in the New Testament, from husbands and fathers and governors and pastor-elders, before the charge is given to submit?

Husbands, love and be kind, not harsh (Colossians 3:19); then, wives, submit.
“Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger” (Ephesians 6:4), but to what? Joy! Gratitude! Then, children, submit.
Civil governors, be God’s servants for society’s good, avenging wrongdoing (Romans 13:1, 4; 1 Peter 2:13); then, citizens, submit.
Pastors, feed the flock through public teaching (1 Corinthians 14:34) and paying careful attention to (Acts 20:28) and keeping watch over (1 Timothy 4:16) the flock; then, flock, submit.

Godly pastor-elders give of themselves, their time, their energy, their attention, to work for the joy of the flock. Therefore, church, submit to your leaders. In Hebrews 13:17, negatively, God will hold the pastors accountable, and positively, it will be to your advantage, church, to your benefit, to your joy, if you let them labor with joy, for your joy, and not with groaning.

When we, as leaders in the church, show ourselves to be workers for their joy, we walk in the steps of the great shepherd — the great worker for our joy — the one who bore the greatest cost for others’ good, and not to the exclusion of his own joy. He found his joy in the joy of his Beloved. “For the joy that was set before him [he] endured the cross” (Hebrews 12:2). Or, in the words of Isaiah 53:11, “Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied.”

As workers for the church’s joy, we pastors emphatically pursue gain — not shameful gain but the shameless gain that is our joy in the joy of the church, to the glory of Christ. Joy now, and joy in the coming shameless reward: “When the chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory” (1 Peter 5:4).

So, “not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock,” and “not for shameful gain, but eagerly.” Now, finally . . .

3. Not Under Compulsion, but Willingly

Brothers, our churches want happy pastors. Not dutiful clergy. Not groaning ministers. The kind of pastors our people want are pastors who want to do the work, and labor with joy for their joy. They want pastors who serve “not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have [them]” (1 Peter 5:2).

Did you hear that? Not just our people, but God himself wants pastors who labor willingly, from the heart, not under compulsion. He wants us to aspire to the work (1 Timothy 3:1), and do it with joy (Hebrews 13:17). Not dutifully, or under obligation, but willingly, eagerly, and happily.

And that phrase “as God would have you” does not mean that God requires something of us that is different from his own character and actions. “As God would have you” means “as God himself is” and does — literally, “according to God” (kata theon). Like God. Like he is and does — that’s how he likes it.

It says something about our God that he would have it this way. He is the infinitely happy “blessed God” (1 Timothy 1:11) who acts from the boundless, immeasurable bliss of the eternal Godhead. He wants pastors to work with joy because he works with joy. He acts from fullness of joy. He is a God most glorified not by heartless duty, but by our eagerness and enjoyment, and he himself cares for his people willingly, eagerly, and happily.

Happy pastors and elders, not groaning pastors and elders, make for happy churches and a glorified Savior. Pastors who enjoy the work, and work with joy, are a benefit and an advantage to their people (Hebrews 13:17).

Two Ways Toward Joy

Let’s close this first session, then, with two practical manifestations of this vision. I have two suggestions, among others, for what it might mean for you, as pastors (or aspiring pastors), to be a worker with your people for their joy in Christ. One private, early morning one. One corporate, late-night one (at least “late-night” for our pastors, as we do our meetings every other Thursday night at 8:30, after our kids’ bedtimes).

There are countless implications of this vision, whether for discipling, or counseling, or your scheduling and calendar, or sermon prep, or husbanding and fathering, or sleep and exercise, and on and on. But let me start with just two. What does it look like for me to pursue my joy in the joy of our people (to the glory of God)?

1. Alone in the Morning

In the words of George Müller, my “first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day” is “to have my soul happy in the Lord.” My prayer is that this would land on you as not a burden but a blessing, not an obligation but an opportunity — not a have to as much as a get to. To feed on God, to get our souls happy in him, not with the accent on us but on him. He gives, we receive. He speaks, we listen. We come hungry, and he says, “I am the bread of life” (John 6:35). We come thirsty, and he says, “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters” (Isaiah 55:1). Müller says,

The first thing to be concerned about [is] not how much I might serve the Lord [what I might do for others’ joy] . . . but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished.

How did he pursue this? Müller’s focus, in his words, was “the reading of the word of God and . . . meditation on it” — oh, the joys of unhurried, even leisurely, meditation on the words of God himself — “that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed; and that thus, while meditating, my heart might be brought into experimental communion with the Lord.”

How did he go about approaching God’s word? He would meditate, he said, “searching, as it were, into every verse to get blessing out of it; not for the sake of public ministry of the word; not for the sake of preaching on what I had meditated upon; but for the sake of obtaining food for my soul.”

2. Together as a Team

How often in our call to govern, to lead through prayer and collective wisdom and decision-making for the church, do we find two (or more) options lying before us?

This is a good moment to check ourselves. What is our framework for the decisions of leadership? It can be easy to slip into a selfish mindset: what is easiest, what’s most convenient for those of us sitting around the table. Without saying it, or thinking it explicitly, how might our preferences and comforts shape this church? How might church life be more convenient for us? Rather than asking, Which path, so far as we can tell, will be best for our people’s true joy in Christ?

But beware: when you ask a question like this, and answer in light of it, you find that the answer is often the path that is more costly to the pastors and elders. But this is the work to which we are called, as workers for their joy. If our team of pastors and elders trends toward the personal preferences and conveniences of the pastors and elders, then we are not loving our people well. We are not working with them for their joy. We are using them for ours.

But when we are “workers for their joy” — knowing that Christ is most glorified in his church when his church is most satisfied in him — then, from joy, we set aside our own convenience and personal preferences, and together we labor for the joy of our people in Jesus.