Almost everything about having a young family works against a standing multiple-hour commitment on Sunday mornings.

Just to physically get all parties out the door and into the same vehicle (at any time of day, on any day of the week) can feel like some kind of sophisticated military operation — waking the sleepy and corralling the antsy, feeding the hungry (of varying ages, appetites, and tastes), finding matching socks (or at least reasonably matching socks) for several sizes of feet, packing sufficient rations to hold the troops over until lunchtime (lots of rations, an irrational amount of rations), finding another outfit for the 2-year-old because she just rubbed her breakfast all over that dress, avoiding the last-minute tantrum or blowout (there’s something about those last five minutes that brings the worst out of kids, literally and figuratively).

And if you make it to church before it ends, you’ll need to hone a variety of specific and targeted tactics to keep each child quiet, still, and attentive. For the rest of you without children, if a kid suddenly bursts out in tears a couple of seats down and distracts you, don’t miss the miracle that he or she wasn’t crying or yelling or giggling for the last thirty minutes (and say a quick prayer for Mom and Dad).

Over the last six years (since our first was born), I’ve come to believe that spiritual warfare intensifies between 5 o’clock Saturday evening and noon on Sunday. I’m convinced Satan sends in demonic reinforcements to cause as much havoc as wickedly possible. To be sure, young families are certainly not the only ones tempted to skip church, but they have as many reasons as any (and often more). The Bible is clear, however, that we have even more reasons to go anyway.

Incomplete Joy

God gives us parents plenty of reasons to keep showing up to church, but as a father of three under 7 years old, I still love finding more. The apostle John writes to a church he knew well,

Though I have much to write to you, I would rather not use paper and ink. Instead I hope to come to you and talk face to face, so that our joy may be complete. (2 John 12)

“No family can afford to regularly sit out Sunday morning.”

Our faithful presence on Sunday morning is worth all the effort and expense because some precious joys aren’t possible apart from gathering. “I have so much I want to say to you,” John says, “but paper and ink won’t do.” The people are the same, the meaning is the same, the very words may even be roughly the same, but something is different when those words are shared face-to-face. John had learned the spiritual power of steady proximity.

John, of course, had a lot to say in writing (fifty chapters across five books in the Bible), and he wrote about some of the most serious and thrilling realities in the universe. And yet he also knew that some words were far better said (and heard) in person. Some realities were far better tasted, seen, and experienced face-to-face. He knew that the fullness of his Christian faith and joy couldn’t be felt from a safe distance.

Presence completes joy in a way that technology (like pens and ink and high-definition cameras) can’t. That’s one reason young families keep spending all it costs us to get to our pew each week. More than anything else, we want our family to be happy in God — and being fully happy in God requires consistently sitting with the people of God under the word of God.

That Your Joy May Be Full

John’s second letter isn’t the only place he talks about this fullness of joy. One could actually argue that his Gospel and letters were one long attempt to bring this joy to fruition in us. He explicitly says in his first letter, “We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete” (1 John 1:4). When you trace that thread back through his Gospel, you see that this joy is not a pretty garnish along the plate of Christianity, but the sweetness in every course and bite.

As Jesus prepares to go to the cross, for instance, he says to his disciples, “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” (John 15:11). Jesus wasn’t merely making sure that their doctrine was organized and accurate, but that their hearts were full. He wanted the truth inside of them to catch fire. Christ came, and taught, and worked miracles, and died, and rose not simply for the sake of truth and justice, but for joy — that his joy would be sparked and inflamed in us.

A chapter later, Jesus says to the same men, “Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full” (John 16:24). Joy is the final answer to all our prayers. We pray, and keep praying, so that we might taste a depth and intensity of happiness we wouldn’t experience otherwise. And then a few verses later, he says,

You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy. . . . You have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. (John 16:20, 22)

So, when John writes, “I hope to come to you and talk face to face, so that our joy may be complete,” that joy is thick with meaning for him. It’s a loud echo of his last hours with Jesus, and of the hundreds of hours they spent together before that — walking the same roads, eating the same food, experiencing the same memories, serving the same needy people.

This joy, for John, isn’t simply about the refreshment of good company; this is near the heart of what it means to follow Jesus. We were made and called and redeemed and commissioned to find joy together — to meet God side by side, not merely over Wi-Fi.

Families Made for a Body

This joy can’t be fulfilled through a live stream because our souls weren’t made ultimately for lyrics and sermons; we were made to be a part of a body. The apostle Paul writes,

Just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. . . . For the body does not consist of one member but of many. (1 Corinthians 12:12, 14)

Families who consistently skip church are like severed hands or rogue eyeballs. We’d not only be ugly, but functionally useless. And not only useless, but we’d actually harm the body that needs us — spiritual amputations. Where’s the sense of hearing? At home, under blankets, watching the live stream again. Where’s the sense of smell? Getting some extra rest because it’s just too hard to go out. Where’s the sense of joy? It’s been quenched and diluted by our absence.

Christian joy depends on regular physical presence because that’s how a body works.

Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. (Ephesians 4:15–16)

“We were made for eye-to-eye, shoulder-to-shoulder joy in the church. We were made for a body.”

Along with Paul, John knew this joy worked itself out in real, ongoing, life-on-life relationships. After all, he gave us Jesus’s all-important charge: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34–35). How will the world recognize who’s been with Jesus? By how we love one another. And how will we love one another without committing to see one another?

What Families Cannot Afford

When I was still single, I was sometimes baffled why families had such a hard time getting to church. Sure, there might be more hairs to comb and shoelaces to tie, but how hard could it really be? That naive confusion crashed on the rocks of our own terrible twos. The hurdles to normal church life with small kids are undeniable. Hear me, though, fellow parents: the rewards are too.

No family can afford to regularly sit out Sunday morning. Sure, we won’t always be as put together as we want to be, and we probably won’t always be on time, but over time our whole family will be happier for having been there. Pen and ink won’t do; neither will podcasts and emails. We were made for eye-to-eye, shoulder-to-shoulder joy in the church. We were made for a body. We were made to belong. And only our presence brings that joyful belonging into full reality.

I count this a great honor and joy to speak to you about the man I was named after, even though I haven’t always loved it. David is a fairly common name in my generation; sometimes I wished for something more distinctive. But as I’ve aged, I’ve grown to appreciate that first David. He has his clear failures, and yet he is such a compelling and genuinely good king and man. And it’s his manhood we’ll focus on in this session — not humanity, but masculinity.

To encounter the life of David some three thousand years later can be a challenge for modern men. We might find in it a call to cultivate some reasonable Davidic strength of body and soul. Whether as king or father or husband or friend, our people don’t want men with limp wrists, but with strong arms. Yet not with strong arms alone, as we’ll see.

Expert at War?

Perhaps one reason I haven’t always thrilled at being named David is that I long misunderstood him. Maybe I didn’t realize that David and Goliath were not to scale on the felt boards and as pictured in children’s books. At least well into adulthood, I had a pretty one-dimensional and domesticated idea of David.

I thought of him as the shepherd who became king and “the sweet psalmist of Israel” (2 Samuel 23:1). And so he was. Of course, we all know David killed Goliath as a youth, but I assumed that came from one lucky shot, rather than any skill in battle or as any reflection of his manhood. I didn’t think of David as particularly masculine. (It may also betray my mistaken idea of shepherds, who I thought to be more like mothers than warriors. Only later did I realize those guys carried a rod and staff, both to protect the sheep and to strike wolves. Ancient shepherds had to be fighters, not just feeders.)

But a specific scene near the end of David’s reign began to pop that bubble for me and give me a glimpse into the masculinity of David, and see him as more than just the singer-songwriter.

In 2 Samuel 17, when David’s son Absalom has rebelled against his father, marched on Jerusalem, and sent David retreating, David’s loyal friend Hushai pretends to have swapped sides to Absalom in order to defeat the rebel counsel. As Hushai makes his case, which ends up carrying the day, he characterizes David in terms that all the wise men of the day agreed with. Hushai says to Absalom,

You know that your father and his men are mighty men, and that they are enraged, like a bear robbed of her cubs in the field. Besides, your father is expert in war. (2 Samuel 17:8)

Not just his men, but David himself is mighty — and David in particular is expert in war.

Man of Valor, Man of War

In fact, the first time Scripture speaks of David, even before the Goliath account, he is introduced by one of Saul’s servants not only as “skillful in playing” but as “a man of valor, a man of war” and “a man of good presence.”

Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, who is skillful in playing, a man of valor, a man of war, prudent in speech, and a man of good presence, and the Lord is with him. (1 Samuel 16:18)

In the following chapter, we learn that David, though still a youth, has already killed lions and bears (1 Samuel 17:34–36).1 And based on such preparation, and his faith in God’s help, David has the courage to step forward and face Goliath. Though he does not intend to fight Goliath hand to hand, he will engage him in personal battle as a projectile warrior, putting his own life at stake if he is unable to land the death blow.2 And once David has struck him, this youth is at least strong enough to draw Goliath’s massive sword from its sheath and cut through his giant neck to take off his head (1 Samuel 17:51).

Soon the imposing Saul, Israel’s lead warrior, who stood head and shoulders above the rest, hears women dancing in the streets, singing of the strength they see in David: “Saul has struck down his thousands, and David his ten thousands” (1 Samuel 18:7; 21:11; 29:5).

And this David does not stay a youth but grows up to be a fierce warrior. So, Saul sets David over the men of war. And to win Saul’s daughter as his bride, David brings the king two hundred Philistine foreskins. Later we hear of David leading thirty thousand warriors in battle (2 Samuel 6:1) and being victorious wherever he goes (2 Samuel 8:6). At the end of his life, the reason God gives for why David will not be the one to build the temple is that he is “a man of war” (1 Chronicles 28:3; also 22:8).3

What Made David Great?

Then comes Psalm 18, which appears in 2 Samuel 22 at the end of David’s life as a celebration of God’s deliverance from all his enemies. The psalm represents the physical strength and skill that God gave to David:

He “can run against a troop,” he says, and “leap over a wall” (verse 29).
He writes that God “equipped me with strength” (verse 32) and “made my feet like the feet of a deer” (verse 33).
God “[trained] my hands for war,” he adds, making his arms strong enough to “bend a bow of bronze” (verse 34).

David, it seems, is a physical specimen and all-around warrior: He runs with speed and agility. He can climb and leap. His arms are strong enough to wield weapons, and his hands have been trained, over long years, in the skills of battle.

Yet right here, in Psalm 18, as he celebrates God’s good provision of physical, manly prowess, David makes a striking claim in verse 35. This takes David’s manhood to a new level, and surpasses the glory of slaying a giant in his youth. He says to God in 2 Samuel 22:36 (and Psalm 18:35), “Your gentleness made me great.”

Physical strength and skill, with proven valor and combat experience, may have made David “expert at war,” but that’s not what made him great. These are good things: strong arms, quick feet, skilled hands, military triumph. But those physical manifestations of manliness are not what made him great, he says. It was God’s gentleness that made David great.

What does it mean that God’s gentleness made him great? We might understand this in two ways. One, God had been gentle with David. David had flaws, many failures and sins. God could have rejected him and cut him off from the throne at any point. Yet God was gentle with him; he was gracious with him. David did not deserve it, and God was not exacting with his anointed, but gentle with him.

While that’s true, I think David is saying even more here. Not only had the omnipotent God been gentle with David, but God’s own gentleness with David had changed David. God’s own gentleness had come to take root in David’s heart and characterize his own life and leadership. As he came to the throne and wielded the powers of kingship, he did so with gentleness. David has been gentle with others.4

But this is such a quick and passing statement in Psalm 18 and 2 Samuel 22. How might we increase our confidence that we’re reading David correctly? How might we confirm that his own self-understanding of what made him great was not his manly physique and martial abilities but his godly gentleness?

Several key episodes in the life of David accent his gentleness, tenderness, or grace as greatness, not tragic flaw.

Saul and Nabal

First, at the end of 1 Samuel, David exercises a form of Godlike gentleness even before becoming king.

The second half of 1 Samuel chronicles his journey into the wilderness to elude Saul’s desire to kill him. In chapter 24 and then again in chapter 26, David happens upon a vulnerable Saul and could have ended Saul’s life violently. Yet David (himself God’s anointed, 1 Samuel 16:12–13) chooses not to reach out his hand against God’s anointed to seize the kingdom (1 Samuel 24:6, 10; 26:9, 11, 23; 2 Samuel 1:14, 16). Rather, he waits for years on end for the kingship to fall to him. Trusting in God and his timing, in manly humility and the godly gentleness that flows from it, David lets Saul go.

Right in the middle of those two accounts, in chapter 25, David almost avenges himself. A fool named Nabal insults him. The warrior-prince reacts in a very natural way: he tells his men to strap on their swords. But then a wise woman, Nabal’s own wife, Abigail, intervenes, and pleads for David to be gentle — and be the bigger man. Rather than stretch out his own hand to avenge himself, David deals gently with the fool, whom God strikes down just ten days later.

“Gentleness is not the absence of strength but the addition of Christlike grace to cushion power to life-giving ends.”

Later, after Saul’s death, David takes initiative to show kindness to the house of Saul (2 Samuel 9:1, 9), which (similar to gentleness) he calls “the kindness of God” (verse 3). In time, he will show such kindness and gentleness to Amnon and to Shimei, and even to his ruthless and severe cousins Joab and Abishai. It’s a striking pattern in David’s life once you see it. David, for his flaws, is serious about his own sin, and he, wielding the power of the kingship, is gentle with others in their sin and failures.

So, we have some reason to see his godly gentleness as what made him great. But we haven’t yet mentioned the two clearest and most important places, both in David’s own words in 2 Samuel and both set in opposition to his cousin and commander of the army, Joab, who serves as a masculine foil for seeing the greatness of David.

Gentle with an Enemy

First, in chapter 3, after the death of Saul, Joab avenges in peacetime the death of his brother Asahel in wartime.

Saul’s commander Abner had struck down Asahel as he pursued Abner in battle. Abner warned him to turn aside, but Asahel would not, so Abner struck him through in the stomach. In time, Abner sought peace with David and delivered the rest of the kingdom to him. David and Abner feasted together, and David sent him away in peace.

However, Joab heard of it and drew Abner aside, under the pretense of peace, “to speak with him privately, and there he struck him in the stomach [revenge], so that he died, for the blood of Asahel his brother” (2 Samuel 3:27).

Here a contrast begins to emerge between David and Joab. Both can be fearsome in battle. Both are strong, brave, experts at war, mighty men. But Joab, while an asset in war, is a liability in peace. It is great to have Joab on your side in the wilderness, and it could be terrible to have him nearby in the city.

Joab’s unrighteous slaughter of Abner, Saul’s former commander, now threatens the consolidation of the nation under David’s rule. So David takes public action in mourning the death of Abner, so that “all the people and all Israel understood that day that it had not been the king’s will to put to death Abner” (2 Samuel 3:37). David then speaks to his servants to make clear the difference between himself and Joab, the son of Zeruiah:

Do you not know that a prince and a great man has fallen this day in Israel? And I was gentle today, though anointed king. These men, the sons of Zeruiah, are more severe than I. The Lord repay the evildoer according to his wickedness! (2 Samuel 3:38–39)5

“Sons of Zeruiah” refers to Joab and his other brother, Abishai. They are manifestly manly men; they are men of war, oozing with testosterone. Second Samuel 10:11–12 shows us Joab and Abishai at their best. The Syrians and Ammonites have surrounded them in the front and the rear. So, Joab says to Abishai,

If the Syrians are too strong for me, then you shall help me, but if the Ammonites are too strong for you, then I will come and help you. Be of good courage, and let us be courageous for our people, and for the cities of our God, and may the Lord do what seems good to him.

Glorious. What great assets in battle. But then, as we’ll continue to see, what great liabilities at home.

You Sons of Zeruiah

For instance, when David is retreating from Jerusalem in 2 Samuel 16, a man named Shimei, from the extended family of Saul, comes out and curses David and throws stones at him and his mighty men as they walk. Abishai speaks up: “Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? Let me go over and take off his head” (verse 9). To this David replies, “What have I to do with you, you sons of Zeruiah? . . . Behold, my own son seeks my life; how much more now may this Benjaminite! Leave him alone, and let him curse” (verses 10–11).

Once Absalom is dead, and David returns to the city, Shimei comes cowering on his knees, begging,

Let not my lord hold me guilty or remember how your servant did wrong on the day my lord the king left Jerusalem. Do not let the king take it to heart. For your servant knows that I have sinned. Therefore, behold, I have come this day, the first of all the house of Joseph to come down to meet my lord the king. (2 Samuel 19:19–20)

Abishai speaks up again: “Shall not Shimei be put to death for this, because he cursed the Lord’s anointed?” Again, David will be the bigger man. This is becoming a refrain: “What have I to do with you, you sons of Zeruiah, that you should this day be as an adversary to me? Shall anyone be put to death in Israel this day?” (verses 21–22).

The refrain “you sons of Zeruiah” reflects David becoming exasperated with Joab’s and Abishai’s unbending severity and violence and inability to restrain their strength and aggression. They are great to have on your side in war, and they do not know how to control their strength.

Which leads to David’s other mention of gentleness, leading up to chapter 22.

Gentle with a Traitor

In chapter 18, Absalom has rebelled against him, Hushai has bought him time, and now David sends Joab and the army into battle. In keeping with his pattern of exercising strength and adding to it the virtue of gentleness, David orders Joab, in the presence of witnesses, “Deal gently for my sake with the young man Absalom” (2 Samuel 18:5).

Some commentators see weakness and indiscretion in David at this point. However, others see the gentleness that made him great.6 Remember, David is sending out his army. Peter Leithart defends David’s directions to Joab:

These instructions were consistent with David’s treatment of all his enemies; he had treated Saul well, and just recently he had restrained Abishai from cutting down Shimei. He knew what Joab was capable of, and he wanted all his men to know that he treated enemies with kindness and compassion. David’s behavior again provided an Old Testament illustration of Jesus’s teaching about loving enemies.7

Joab, of course, defies David’s will and himself thrusts three javelins through the heart of Absalom, again accenting the difference between David and Joab. Both are strong, but only one is great. Both are warriors, but only one knows the moment when, and has the ability, to exercise gentleness.

Joab Versus David

Joab is the one-dimensional man of war — strong, tenacious, courageous in battle, willing to risk it all. Yet he is a caricature of mature masculinity, not the full expression. He can fight, but he is unable to curb his aggression when it is no longer called for. He is tough, but he is unable to cushion his strength or control his tenacity when wisdom calls for gentleness.

And a growing number in the manosphere today eagerly offer their counsel on how to be more like Joab. In many circles (some clearly unbelieving but others under the banner of Christ), voices advocate, in essence, for men to rebel against feminizing in our world, and the church, by being more like Joab: “Society has made you soft; now it’s time to man up” — and the vision ends up being little more than a caricature of manly strength and backbone. They seem to see the pendulum swing to Joab as the necessary reaction.

But brothers, Joab and effeminacy aren’t the only options. David, man of war and giant slayer that he is, offers us the more mature vision of manhood. And note well, David is not a mean between the two extremes, but one who is every bit as manly as Joab — and then, with added abilities, even more so.

In terms of strength, speed, skill with a weapon, and ability to strategize and conquer in battle, we should not assume that Joab has much, if anything, on David, the giant slayer. David is every bit the man of war Joab is, but David surpasses Joab as a man not by being more severe, but by adding to his manly strength the virtue of manly gentleness. David is the bigger man and better model. David had learned gentleness from God himself, and so David can thrive in all contexts, not just in battle. He does not have less strength than Joab, but more.

David’s abilities are multidimensional. Both strong and gentle, he can wield his strength when the moment calls for it, or with admirable restraint he can walk in gentleness. David can lead a nation, not just an army.

And David, not Joab, is the Lord’s anointed, and the man who is the type of the Anointed One to come.

High and Exalted, Gentle and Lowly

While Psalm 18 serves as a great tribute to God’s work in and through David, there is much in the psalm, writes John Calvin in his commentary, that “agrees better with Christ” than with David.

And when the apostle John, on the isle of Patmos, caught his glimpses of the glory of Christ, he too saw the exemplar of mature masculinity, strong and gentle, capable and compassionate. In Jesus he saw not only man but “the Almighty” (Revelation 1:8). He turned to hear a voice “like the roar of many waters,” and “from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength” (Revelation 1:15–16). Later John would see this Lion of a man, sitting on a white horse, as the one who “judges and makes war” (Revelation 19:11).

From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. (Revelation 19:15)

This is the one who is introduced in heaven with regal dignity and sovereign power: “Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered” (Revelation 5:5).

Yet when the apostle looked between the angels and the throne of heaven, he “saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain” (Revelation 5:6). A lamb-like Lion, and lion-like Lamb, awe-inspiring in his majestic strength, and seen to be truly great as the gentle and lowly, self-sacrificial, atoning Lamb of God.

To be clear, the risen Christ is not puny. He sits in power on the very throne of the universe, and all authority in heaven and on earth is his. He is not weak in the least. And in masculine glory, his gentleness cushions the application of his great power as he marshals it in the service of his weak people. Brothers and sisters, do not mistake his gentleness for weakness. Gentleness is not the absence of strength but the addition of Christlike grace to cushion power to life-giving ends.

The greatness of David is not that he slew the giant in his youth. The greatness of David is that as a man he slew the giants in his own warrior’s heart: arrogance and pride, selfishness, unrighteous anger, petty disputes, personal offenses, private comforts and preferences and luxuries.

David was the great king, and the type of the Anointed One to come, as a man who was not weak, but strong, brave, and more — he was kind, patient, and gentle. He did not reach out his hand to seize power, but he waited on his appointment and traveled the long path of self-humbling on the way to being exalted. Nor, once in power, did he always leverage his full force, but learning from God’s own gentleness with him, he learned how and when to be gentle with others.

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

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

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

Herculean Labor

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

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

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

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

Under Siege

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

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

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

High Costs of Faithful Preaching

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

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

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

1. Hard Work of Preparation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Labor to Labor

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

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

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

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

2. Hard Work in the Moment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3. Hard Work Outside the Pulpit

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

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

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

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

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

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

Burden Gladly Bearing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

God Means for You to Labor

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

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

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