If Jesus were here in the flesh, instead of me, he could step down off this platform, and walk among you, and put his hand on your shoulder, and look you in the eye, and say, “You, follow me, and I will make you a missionary. You, follow me, and I will make you a missionary. You, follow me, and I will make you a missionary.” He could be that specific.

This is what he did with the twelve apostles when he was here in the flesh. There were many faithful followers of Jesus in his lifetime who were not apostles. They were devoted lovers of Jesus. They were ready and willing to leave everything if he asked them to. But he didn’t ask everybody. Most of them stayed in their jobs. Like Zacchaeus, or the centurion. Most of the people that Jesus saved went on their way rejoicing, with their sins forgiven, ready to make much of Jesus in every sphere of their lives.

But the Twelve, he looked them in the eye and said, “You, follow me. You will be fishers of men in an unusual, focused, vocational way. You will be my global emissaries. That will be your life. You will be the first shock wave of my ambassadors to all the nations of the world.” If he were here physically, that’s what he could do at this conference.

Miracle of Making a Missionary

But he’s not here — not in the flesh. Oh, he’s here. Just not visibly. So how does he do it? How does he touch individual persons so that from that moment on they are devoted to lifelong missionary service? Because, be assured, he does still do this. He has been doing it for two thousand years. And he has been doing it the last two days. He will do it tonight. And he will do it in the days to come.

He will do it as you sing. He will do it on your way home. He will do it as you lie in the hospital after an accident. He will do it as you come to your senses after a mindless-drunken spree, or an almost lethal overdose. He will do it in the silent hours of the night. He will do it at the end of the R-rated, sex-saturated movie when you feel dirty and empty. He will do it after you speak cruelly to your best friend and then step outside into the warm sunlight and feel the breeze of God’s mercy on your undeserving face.

How does that happen? We do not know. It is a great mystery. A hundred people read the same Bible, love the same Savior with the same passion, have similar gifts, hear the same message, sing the same songs, and 75 are profoundly moved to live their lives more radically for the fame of Jesus where they are. But five people in that hundred will never be the same again. Something takes hold of them — some precious truth about God, some gripping reality about the lostness of people, some heaven-like joy of seeing dead people live forever, some sense of strategic usefulness in a global purpose, some vision of multi-colored, multi-ethnic bands of happy worshipers.

Something takes hold of you. And never lets you go. To the end of your life you say with Paul, “I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24). The inexplicable miracle happens. A missionary is created. For fifty years I have seen it happen over and over. A shoe salesman, a financial planner, a counselor, a building contractor, a student. And then, inexplicably, a missionary for 40 years.

Jesus is still doing this. And I mention it to heighten your expectancy and to focus and intensify your prayers. Jesus said to us, “Pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest” (Matthew 9:38). He will not perform this miracle of the missionary calling on most of you. For most of us, there will be engagements of equipping, and supporting, and sending, and rejoicing every time we see this glorious thing happen — an ordinary person becoming a lifelong missionary. Amazing.

My prayer is that God will use this message for such a miracle.

Why and How of Mission

My assignment is 1 Corinthians 9. I’m going to read the entire chapter and then talk about (1) Paul’s motivation in his mission and (2) his method in his mission.

Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are not you my workmanship in the Lord? If to others I am not an apostle, at least I am to you, for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.

This is my defense to those who would examine me. Do we not have the right to eat and drink? Do we not have the right to take along a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas? Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working for a living? Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard without eating any of its fruit? Or who tends a flock without getting some of the milk?

Do I say these things on human authority? Does not the Law say the same? For it is written in the Law of Moses, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain.” Is it for oxen that God is concerned? Does he not certainly speak for our sake? It was written for our sake, because the plowman should plow in hope and the thresher thresh in hope of sharing in the crop. If we have sown spiritual things among you, is it too much if we reap material things from you? If others share this rightful claim on you, do not we even more?

Nevertheless, we have not made use of this right, but we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ. Do you not know that those who are employed in the temple service get their food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share in the sacrificial offerings? In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel.

But I have made no use of any of these rights, nor am I writing these things to secure any such provision. For I would rather die than have anyone deprive me of my ground for boasting. For if I preach the gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting. For necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward, but if not of my own will, I am still entrusted with a stewardship. What then is my reward? That in my preaching I may present the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my right in the gospel.

For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified. (1 Corinthians 9:1–27)

What Motivates Mission?

Let’s start with the puzzling paragraph in verses 15–18. In verses 1–14, the point is this: I have a right to be paid for preaching the gospel. Verse 7: “Who serves as a soldier at his own expense?” But then in verse 15, he explains why he doesn’t demand his rights, and he reveals part of the motivation of his mission.

But I have made no use of any of these rights, nor am I writing these things to secure any such provision. For I would rather die than have anyone deprive me of my ground for boasting. For if I preach the gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting. For necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! (1 Corinthians 9:15–16)

In other words, “On the Damascus road when I was converted, I met the King of the universe. He conscripted me like a soldier into the army. He bought me like a slave in his household. He gave me an assignment and told me how much I would suffer.” And woe to any soldier who goes AWOL with such a commander. And woe to any slave who tries to escape from such a master. Conscripted soldiers and slaves don’t boast about doing what they have to do.

Motivated by Reward

Therefore, Paul says, I will not settle for serving my commander and my owner in that way. I will have a boast. I will have a reward. What is it? Verses 17–18:

For if I do this [ministry] of my own will [willingly, gladly], I have a reward, but if not of my own will [if I act begrudgingly, slavishly], I am still entrusted with a stewardship. [Like it or not, I have to do it.] What then is my reward? That in my preaching I may present the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my right in the gospel.

In other words, I could be motivated by the desire for money — I ought to be paid! Or I could be motivated by the desire to get my rights. And he says “No!” to both of those. I will not be motivated by the desire for money. I will not be motivated by the desire to throw my weight around and demand my rights. I will present the gospel free of charge. This is my boast. This is my reward.

“Paul’s motivation is to do his mission in a way that magnifies the all-satisfying worth of Christ.”

By the grace of God, I will be the kind of person who does not find his reward in the pleasures of money and does not find his reward in the pleasures of rights-demanding power. I will find my reward in presenting the gospel in such a way that it will be plain that the fruit of gospel ministry itself is my satisfaction. I will commend the gospel — I will magnify the worth of the gospel, the worth of Christ — by showing that the satisfaction it gives — that he gives — does not need to be supplemented by the pleasures of money or the pleasures of power.

So, Paul’s motivation is to do his mission in a way that magnifies the all-satisfying worth of Christ and his gospel, apart from the pleasures of money and the pleasures of power.

People Are the Reward

Now, let’s press into this motivation further, because Paul invites us in. What, more specifically, is the gain for Paul of this “reward” of presenting the gospel without charge (1 Corinthians 9:18)? In verses 19–23, he answers over and over, “I gain people. I gain fellow lovers of Christ. I gain my doubled joy, my glory, my crown of boasting” (cf. Philippians 4:1; 1 Thessalonians 2:19).

Paul has turned away from serving in order to gain money and from serving in order to gain power. Now, according to verse 19 (in the middle of the verse), he has become the servant of all in order to gain people.

Verse 19 (at the end): “that I might win more of them.”
Verse 20 (at the beginning): “in order to win Jews.”
Verse 20 (at the end): “that I might win those under the law.”
Verse 21 (at the end): “that I might win those outside the law.”
Verse 22 (at the beginning): “that I might win the weak.”

That word — “win” — is ambiguous in English. You can win a prize. Or you can win an argument. If you win a prize, you gain it. If you win an argument, you defeat someone. What kind of “win” does Paul have in mind? There is no doubt. He is speaking of gaining people as a prize, not defeating them as an opponent. This is crystal clear in the original language. Because the word translated “win” (kerdainō) means “gain.”

As in Matthew 16:26, “What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?” Or Philippians 3:8, “For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.” That’s the word. His aim is to gain the Jews, and gain the Gentiles, and gain the weak.

He’s not trying to gain the pleasure of money. He’s not trying to gain the power of rights. The gospel has already assured him that he will gain the fullness of the enjoyment of Christ. And now, he wants to gain people.

He Enjoys Their Joy

What does it mean to gain people? Verse 23 gives the answer: “I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them [all those gained people] in its blessings.” His aim is to gain more and more people so that he can “share with them in blessings of the gospel.” Notice carefully the wording. He does not say, “So that they can share with me in the blessings of the gospel.” I’m sure that’s true. He wants them to share with him in the blessings of the gospel. But that’s not what he says because the note he’s striking here is his reward, his gain, in this mission.

So what he says is (last part of verse 23) “that I may share with them in the blessings of the gospel.” I want to gain people — all kinds of people — so that I can be a sharer with them in the blessings of the gospel — that I might enjoy their enjoyment of Christ.

“Our gospel joy is authentic and satisfying only if we desire to taste this joy in the hearts of other people.”

What does this imply about the nature of joy in gospel blessings — blessings like the forgiveness of sins, the declaration of righteousness in the court of heaven, the removal of all condemnation, reconciliation with God, adoption into his family, fellowship with Christ, the hope of eternal life? What does it imply about the nature of our joy in such blessings?

It implies this: our gospel joy is authentic and satisfying only if we desire to taste this joy in the hearts of other people. I want to gain people. I want to gain people — all kinds of people — in order that I might share in their experience of gospel joy. Do you?

‘That I Might Save Some’

Did you notice where I stopped in my listing of those five kinds of people he wanted to gain — what I left out? I stopped in the middle of verse 22. Pick it up there with me: “I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some.” He switches from “win some” (or “gain some”) to “save some.” Paul said in Romans 5:9, “Since we are now justified by Christ’s blood, much more shall we be saved from the wrath of God.” And in 1 Thessalonians 1:10 he says, “Jesus delivers us [saves us] from the wrath to come.” Being saved, in Paul’s language, is first and foundationally being rescued from the wrath of God. By Christ’s taking our condemnation, God rescued us from God.

Then, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9:23, “I want to share with them in gospel blessings” — that gospel blessing. I want to be there when they walk out of the courtroom of condemnation and do handsprings down the sidewalk, and they leap for joy and shout, “I’m not going to be executed. I’m not going to be condemned. I’m not going to be punished.” I want to be there when it lands on them that they are not only saved from hell, but are adopted as God’s very own children and will inherit the world. I want to gain people for this: I want to share in their experience of this joy.

That’s Paul’s motivation for his mission, which is interwoven with his motivation. Not the pleasures of money. Not the power of rights. But the pleasures of blood-bought joy, especially as he tastes it welling up in the hearts of other people gained from every tribe and language and nation.

What Was His Method?

We turn now to Paul’s method in his mission. We could sum it up with that last half of verse 22: “I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some” (1 Corinthians 9:22). Or, as he says it in verse 19, “I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them.” Then, he begins to flesh it out in verse 20: “To the Jews I became a Jew, in order to win Jews.” Verse 21, “To those outside the law [Gentiles] I became as one outside the law.” And so on.

We could talk for hours about how this is worked out in practice — becoming all things to all people that we might save some. But given the constraints on this message, I’m going to cut through to what I think is the single most important reality behind Paul’s missionary method in 1 Corinthians 9.

Radically New Identity

The clue is in verse 20: “To the Jews I became a Jew, in order to win Jews.” I think Don Carson is exactly right to point out that Paul was a Jew. He did not have to become a Jew in order to win Jews. Or did he? What does this imply that Paul, who calls himself a Hebrew of Hebrews in Philippians 3:5, says that he becomes a Hebrew, becomes a Jew, to gain Jews?

What it implies is this: when a person becomes a Christian, that person’s deepest and truest identity is no longer the identity of his family, or tribe, or ethnicity, or race, or political party, or nation. Why? Because of what happens by faith when you are united with Christ at conversion.

Listen to what has happened to you if you are a Christian:

You have been born again (1 Peter 1:3).
You are a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17).
You have died and been raised with Christ, and your life is hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3–4).
You are seated with him in the heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6).
God has transferred you to the kingdom of his beloved Son (Colossians 1:13).
You are members of the household of God (Ephesians 2:19).
Your citizenship is in heaven (Philippians 3:21).

In other words, the Jewish man, Paul, was so profoundly and pervasively redefined — given a new identity — by union with Christ Jesus, that Jewishness was not his truest, deepest identity anymore and, therefore, in order to win Jews, he had to become a Jew. When you become a Christian, your family roots, your tribal connections, your ethnicity and race, your nation of origin — all of them become secondary, at most. And the real you is something supernaturally new, different. A new creation. A new family identity in Christ. A new citizenship in his kingdom. Every other identity and allegiance is relativized.

Adapting to a New Culture

The implications of this for method in missions are profound. When you become a missionary, and cross a culture, and learn a language, you do not go as an emissary of your nation of origin, you go as an emissary of the kingdom of Christ. Your aim is not to create cultural enclaves replicating your earthly home. Your aim is to establish outposts of the kingdom of heaven.

Yes, this is complicated by the fact that Paul really was ethnically a Jew. And you — every one of you — is embedded in a cultural and ethnic identity. But as a Christian you are both embedded in human culture and transcending human culture. The gospel came to you in culturally familiar dress and began reidentifying you as an alien and a sojourner in your own culture. Christians are always embedded in human culture and always at odds with human culture — even our own.

“When we cross a culture in missions, we find ourselves adapting to culture and challenging culture.”

So, when we cross a culture in missions, we find ourselves adapting to culture and challenging culture. Always. Everywhere. We are never at home in any fallen human culture, because our citizenship is in heaven. Yet we are always at home, because our Father owns the world. We will inherit all of it. As missionaries we leave as aliens; we arrive as aliens. Yet we leave what belongs to our Father. We go to what belongs to our Father. You found ways to be Christian in your home culture as an alien, and you will find ways to be Christian in your new culture as an alien.

God will guide you by the Spirit of your true heavenly homeland, and by the law of Christ, so that your cultural adaptations do not involve sin and do not distort truth.

Miracle of a Missionary Calling

And so I end: if you find your deepest identity in Christ, and your decisive citizenship in his kingdom, and if you know yourself to be an alien and a sojourner wherever you live, and if you pursue your joy not in the pleasures of money or the power of rights, but in tasting gospel blessings in the joy of others as you gain them as eternal friends in Christ, then you will be useful to your own people and a very likely candidate for the inexplicable miracle of the missionary calling.

Audio Transcript

Welcome back to the Ask Pastor John podcast. About a month ago, we looked at how to apply Old Testament stories to our lives — some helpful Bible reading tools there for how to move from ancient Old Testament narratives to our own lives now. That was APJ 2118.

Today, we look at sermon application more specifically. How important is life application to a sermon? Can you even have a sermon without application? Or is application optional and unnecessary? It’s a great question from a young woman from Washington state: “Hello, Pastor John, and thank you for the Ask Pastor John podcast. I’m writing to say that my pastor does a great job teaching us the details of the Bible. But Sundays are also very much academic lectures. While I leave church with a head full of knowledge and history and facts, I don’t often come away with a message I can apply to my life that helps me grow as a Christian. I’ve asked him to consider adding some application to his sermons, but the suggestion has led to no changes that I can perceive.

“You’ve heard this exact same criticism yourself. I remember you saying in APJ episode 1968, titled ‘Ten Criticisms of John Piper’s Preaching,’ that the number nine criticism was ‘You don’t give enough application, Piper. You focus mainly on exposition, and not enough on application to real-life situations.’ And then you suggested that a decade of ten-minute applications in Ask Pastor John episodes is your way of ‘doing penance for all those years without ten minutes of application at the end of the sermon.’ Quite funny. But seriously, how much life application should a preacher seek to offer in a Sunday sermon?”

I doubt that it is possible to give a quantitative answer to the question “How much life application should a preacher give in a sermon?” But I think we will get at it by analyzing what application is in preaching. It’s not a simple thing. How does application relate to exposition (or another word for exposition would be explanation)?

Expositing by Applying

I want to make the case that all good application is further exposition. That is, it’s part of the explanation of the meaning of the text. It’s not something merely added on to the exposition or explanation. Good application more deeply explains — makes the original meaning clearer, sharper, more compelling. And I want to make the case that the other way around is also true — namely, no exposition or explanation of the text is complete as exposition without application to real contemporary living.

Now, that may sound like I’m just contradicting my pattern in life, but hear me out. God’s communication to us is never without implications for the living of our lives. Those implications are part of what he is trying to communicate in the Bible. They’re not a separate thing. It’s part of what he’s trying to communicate — the implications for our lives of what he teaches. Therefore, the exposition of that communication is not complete if those implications do not touch the lives of the people in the pew. And that touching we often call application.

So, you can see I’m not happy with the hard dividing line between explanation and application. Good and full explanation includes application, and good and helpful application deepens explanation. There is no hard-and-fast line between them.

Example of Simple Exposition

I think I can show this by taking a sample text and describing three stages or kinds of exposition merging with application. So, let’s take Romans 8:13. Paul says, “If you live according to the flesh you will die.” Let’s just take that phrase. The rest of it says, “but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live,” but I don’t have time to deal with both halves.

“Good and full explanation includes application, and good and helpful application deepens explanation.”

“If you live according to the flesh you will die.” Now, the preacher’s first job is to explain what that means. What is God trying to communicate to his people? To do that, we need to explain what “flesh” is, we need to explain what “dying” is, and we need to explain what “live according to the flesh” is. So, flesh, dying, living — that has to be explained. At least those three things have to be exposited or opened or explained — not with ideas coming out of our own head, but with Paul’s ideas, so that we’re thinking his thoughts after him, not just making up our own thoughts and putting them in his mouth.

So, to explain the meaning of “flesh,” the preacher might back up a few verses and see how the word “flesh” was used in verses 7 and 8. Or he might go to Galatians 5:19 and show from “the works of the flesh” what the flesh is. With regard to the meaning of “death,” he might observe that everybody dies of physical death, whether they live according to the flesh or not. And so, death in this verse must be more than physical death, because only those who live according to the flesh will die this death. He might argue that way and go to Romans 6:23 to flesh it out. Thirdly, he might observe that “living according to the flesh” would mean that the impulses of the flesh that he has now defined get the upper hand and control the life.

Now, the pastor may take five or ten or fifteen minutes to do that. I just took two. And he unpacks the three explanatory ideas of flesh, death, living, and he may do so with zero reference to the people sitting in front of him. That, I think, is what gives preaching a lecture feel and makes a person think that his mind is being taught, but his life is not being shaped.

Applicatory Exposition

So, what I think is better than that is for the preacher, at every point in the exposition, the explanation, to look the people in the eye over and over again in the exposition using the pronoun you — they’re in the third pew — and asking them, “Do you see these realities? Do you see them right now in your own life? Do you know what your flesh is? Do you know what living is and what dying and heaven and hell are? I’m talking to you.” And he’s doing that as he does exposition. He’s not abstracted, like he’s outside the room during exposition and inside the room during application.

No. Every explanation is not an explanation in the abstract, but an explanation, as it were, of some dynamic in our lives. I would call this “applicatory exposition” or “applicatory explanation.” The preacher’s not waiting until the explanation is done to press these realities on the hearers. You look at them in the eye and you say, “Do you know what your flesh is?” And he’s saying that during his exposition on what is the flesh. If you don’t know what your flesh is, how will you obey this text?

In other words, you’re creating an existential problem for these people as you’re doing the exposition to show them how the exposition itself is very relevant for their lives right now in this moment. “Do you want to know what your flesh is? Or are you just sitting there indifferent to whether you live or die, according to this text?” Those kinds of questions are eyeball-to-eyeball connections. They don’t have to wait for application.

That’s the way you talk as you do explanation. If “living according to the flesh” means daily life without reference to God, say, you call attention to the fact that this is your life we’re dealing with right now. “As I do this explanation, I’m dealing with your life. You’re going to die if you live according to the flesh. Pay attention to what I’m doing here. This is for you. This exposition has enormous immediate applicatory significance for your life. Is your life lived without reference to God most of the time?” If “dying” means permanently and in hell, ask them, “When was the last time you pondered the possibility of hell? Does it have a functioning place in your life? This verse sure calls you to have that place in your life.”

Another name you might give to this kind of exposition or explanation is “urgency of exposition.” Exposition itself can be done academically or existentially with a sense of urgency, because everything in this text matters ultimately. You don’t have to wait until the last ten minutes of the sermon to urgently press these realities that you’re expositing onto the hearts of the hearers.

Illustrative Exposition

Now, here’s the second stage of exposition after this kind of urgent applicatory exposition. I might call it “illustrative exposition,” and I think this is what many people think of when they think of application. You look at your people and you ask, “What would be an example this afternoon at three o’clock of living according to the flesh?” And you pause and you wait. Let them think.

And he might say, “You will be living according to the flesh this afternoon at three o’clock, husband, if your wife says something that feels demeaning or dismissive, and you sink into a sequence of emotions like self-pity, anger, sullenness, pouting, withdrawal. That is not the way of Christ. That is not the way of the Spirit, men. That is the way of the flesh. And if you live in that way without repentance, you will go to hell. It’s that practical, guys.” That’s what I’d call “illustrative exposition.” And I say it’s exposition. Yes, I say it’s exposition, not just illustration. Because at that moment, this text just might open up with its proper meaning to those husbands who have been daydreaming until I nailed them.

Soul-Penetrating Exposition

Let me mention one more stage of the exposition, which we might call “soul-penetrating exposition.” At this point, the preacher might pose the question, “How does this verse motivate you, congregation, not to live according to the flesh? How does it motivate you?” Pause. Wait. Let them look down at their text. The answer is, “It threatens you with death and hell if you do live according to the flesh. That’s how it motivates you.”

Now, that’s going to make people really uncomfortable, right? You’ve just created a big problem, because everybody knows that’s not a good enough motivation. But then you ask the more penetrating question, “Is the fear of hell, which this verse creates — it ought to — an adequate motivation for putting the flesh to death?” And you pause and you wait. See what they would answer in their head. All of this is application with urgency. And then you take another ten minutes in your sermon to unpack how it is that you put to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit — and not just by fear — and what that means.

So, what I’m saying is that there is a way to do exposition that is applicatory and illustrative and penetrating. And we’re not to insist that pastors carve up their sermons between exposition and application. I want to encourage pastors to have a flavor and a spirit of penetrating, urgent, applicatory exposition at every moment in the sermon.

Tom Carson died thirty years ago this month. He was an ordinary pastor.

He grew up in Ottawa a century ago, attended seminary in Toronto, did evangelism in Montreal for a decade in the 1930s and ’40s. Then from 1948 to 1963, he was a paid pastor in Drummondville, which I understand to be about seventy minutes from here.

In 1963, at age 52, he returned to Ottawa as a translator for the Canadian government and began serving as an unpaid pastor. He died quietly and without fanfare on October 26, 1992. He was not well-known or celebrated in his day. He was an ordinary pastor and elder.

In fact, his son, Don, as you may know, wrote a short book about him called Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor. Today some of us remember Tom because of Don, and because of the book, but we remember Tom Carson for his blessed ordinariness. So, in his honor, I’ve entitled these two sessions tonight “Ordinary Elders.”

In this first session, I would like for us to linger together in perhaps my favorite eldership passage of Scripture: 1 Peter 5:1–5. But before I read those verses and pray for our time together, note the “So” at the beginning of verse 1, which links this passage to chapter 4 and therefore to the hard times Peter and the 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 word for elders who know hard times, like the last two years perhaps for some.

God-Given Under-Shepherds

Now to 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 in particular 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, and the Shepherd and Overseer of our souls (1 Peter 2:25; 5:4), “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 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. This is a truth that may not be healthy to regularly preach to ourselves personally, but it can be good to have someone else preach to you from time to time. 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 it seems your last sermon fell. No matter what you hear whispered about leaders in society, not to mention the cynicism that isn’t whispered. No matter what that person posted online about your church — 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.

Are we pastors and elders flawed? Of course. Sinful? Regrettably. Have some who carry the name “pastor” made terrible mistakes, sinned grievously, fleeced their flocks, and harmed the very ones they were commissioned to protect? Sadly, yes, some have. But such failures were not the fulfilling of the vision of what true Christian leadership is. Such failures fell short of God’s vision, or departed from it altogether. In fact, such failures show — by contrast — what real leadership in the church should be.

That’s our focus this evening: 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, 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.

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.

“One of the most important truths to rehearse about Christian ministry is that Christ means for it to be teamwork.”

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 under-shepherds 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.

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 an image of what we might call “benign rule” (the opposite of “domineering,” as we’ll see), in which 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 greatest king, the anointed one, who anticipated the great Anointed One to come. So, with David, shepherding takes on messianic meaning. 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.

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 leaders of Israel should have fed the people, not fed on them. They should have strengthened the people, and healed them, bound them up, brought them back, and sought them, but instead they have governed them “with force and harshness” — not benign rule but malignant rule.

The people long for a shepherd, a king, who will rule them with gentle strength, with persuasion and kindness, with patience and grace, even as he protects them from their enemies. And God says in response, again and again, “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.

Good Shepherd and His Help

The prophet Micah foretold that from Bethlehem, the city of David, will “come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel” (Micah 5:2; Mark 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, 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 asked Peter three times — this same Peter who wrote 1 Peter — if he loved him, Peter said yes, and then Jesus said three times to Peter, “Feed my lambs,” “Tend my sheep,” and “Feed my sheep” (John 21:15–17).

Here “feeding” and “pastoring” are synonymous. Jesus is the good shepherd, but he is leaving, and he will now pastor his sheep through Peter and other under-shepherds — not just apostles, but local church elders, overseers, pastors, as 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 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 have 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. So there’s just a 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 toward various threats to the flock.

3. Elders exercise oversight.

A third and final preliminary observation, more briefly: the verb that augments “shepherd” is “exercising oversight.” It’s a form of the noun “overseer” used in Acts 20:28, as well as 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 we see 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); or 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:

Those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you.

Then, what will be so among us? Verse 43: “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, their good, their joy. Like Christ himself, not coming to be served but to serve.

And so 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/private benefit; benefit from them (versus through or with them). Rather, 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 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).

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 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 examples to the flock (in the words of Peter): “not domineering over those in your charge, but being examples to the flock.”

Pastors Are Examples

Examples. You might hear that as terrifying, if you don’t want your life observed and imitated. Or, you might hear “examples” as humbling. “Examples? That’s all? Nothing about great oratory, or thoroughly entertaining, or gifted communicator, or local hero?” Examples might sound so normal. And it is. Ordinary elders. What was Tom Carson? He was an example.

Twice Peter says the elders are “among” the flock: “I exhort the elders among you . . . : shepherd the flock of God that is among you” (1 Peter 5:1–2). Not above, or off to the side, or far away — not remote — but among.

“Good pastors are first and foremost sheep. They know it and embrace it.”

Good pastors are first and foremost sheep. They know it and embrace it. Pastors do not comprise a fundamentally different category of Christian. They need not be world-class in their intellect, oratory, or executive skills. They are average, ordinary, healthy Christians, thinking for the flock, praying for the flock, and serving as examples for the flock, while among the flock, as they lead and feed the flock through teaching God’s word, accompanied with wise collective governance. The hearts of good pastors swell to Jesus’s charge in Luke 10:20: “Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” Their first and most fundamental joy is not what God does through them as pastors but what Christ has done (and does) for them as Christians.

Against Celebrity

On this note, and consonant with our remembering Tom Carson as an ordinary pastor-elder, I can’t help but share quickly Bonhoeffer’s lightning strike against “celebrity” instincts in the church, as he saw it in the 1930s German church. This is at the end of chapter 4 in Life Together:

Jesus made authority in the fellowship dependent upon brotherly service. . . . Every cult of personality that emphasizes the distinguished qualities, virtues, and talents of another person, even though these be of an altogether spiritual nature, is worldly and has no place in the Christian community. . . . One finds there [in the elder qualifications in 1 Timothy 3] nothing whatsoever with respect to worldly charm and the brilliant attributes of a spiritual personality. The [elder] is the simple, faithful man [ordinary!], sound in faith and life, who rightly discharges his duties to the Church. . .

The Church does not need brilliant personalities but faithful servants of Jesus and the brethren. . . . The question of [the church’s] trust . . . is determined by the faithfulness with which a man serves Jesus Christ, never by the extraordinary talents which he possesses. Pastoral authority can be attained only by the servant of Jesus who seeks no power of his own, who himself is a brother among brothers submitted to the authority of the Word. (84–85)

Such is Bonhoeffer’s call for ordinary elders: “a brother among brothers,” present in the life of the church and accessible. They invite, welcome, and receive input from the flock. They don’t presume to shepherd God’s flock in all the world through the Internet, but focus on the flock “that is among you” (verse 2) — those particular names and faces assigned to their charge — and they delight to be among those people, not removed or distant.

2. Not for Shameful Gain, but Eagerly

“Shameful gain” would be some benefit not commensurate with the work, or some gain that is against the gain of the flock, and the glory of Christ — whether money as the driving motivation, or power, or respect, or comfort, or the chance to perform, enjoying being 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)

Here 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, as we’ve seen; it is costly work) 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.

“Pastors are glad workers for the gladness of their people in God.”

Christ gives leaders to his people for their joy. Pastors are glad workers for the gladness of their people in God.

For Your Advantage

How eager, then, might the people be to submit to such a leader? The prospect of submitting to a leader drastically changes when you know he isn’t pursuing his own private advantage but genuinely seeking yours: what is best for you, what will give you the deepest and most enduring joy — when he finds his 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.

It’s amazing to consider what actions and initiatives and care are presupposed (and commanded) 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 3:18);
fathers, do not provoke your children to anger but joy (Ephesians 6:3);
civil governors, be God’s servants for society’s good, avenging wrongdoing (Romans 13:1; 1 Peter 2:13);
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.

Pastor-elders are to 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 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 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, as I just recently have been struck by in Isaiah 53:11, “Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied.”

As workers for the church’s joy, we pastor-elders 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).

3. Not Under Compulsion, but Willingly

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).

That is, 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 not just “as God would have you” because he’s requiring something of us that is different than his own character and actions. But “as God would have you” meaning “as God himself is” and does — literally “according to God” (Greek: kata theon).

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 this way. 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 me close with just two practical manifestations of this vision for what it might mean for you, as a pastor-elder (or aspiring pastor-elder), 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 us, as we do our pastors’ meetings every other Thursday night 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, 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)?

Alone Each Morning

In the words of George Mueller, my “first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day” is “to have my soul happy in the Lord.” Don’t hear this as an obligation but an opportunity — not first and foremost a “have to” but a “get to.” To feed on God, 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. We come thirsty, and he says, Ho, everyone who thirsts come to the waters. Mueller 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? Mueller’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 experiential 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.”

He asks, “Now what is the food for the inner man?” He answers “the word of God,” and adds, “here again, not the simple reading of the word of God, so that it only passes through our minds, just as water runs through a pipe, but considering what we read, pondering over it, and applying it to our hearts” — in other words, meditation. He says at the end, “How different when the soul is refreshed and made happy early in the morning.”

So apprenticing yourself to God’s own joy, through his word, feeding on him, enjoying him, letting him satisfy your soul, and warm your heart — not for sermon prep, but food for your own soul — is the well from which we draw in pastoring from joy, for their joy.

Together as Pastors

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 it’s 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.