I often need to check myself as to whether I am placing the emphasis on “the Lord’s ministry through me” or “the Lord’s ministry through me.” I suspect most pastors and leaders know what I mean.

The weed grows quietly. How are my articles doing? How is my small group maturing? How is my book selling, my podcast rating? Are my Sunday-morning prayers especially encouraging? Is my preaching, my marriage counseling, my evangelistic effort particularly effective?

I am not talking about the holy ambition proper to a minister who loves souls and the glory of Christ (Romans 15:20). I am talking about a self-congratulatory spirit that pats oneself on the back and thinks better of the work simply because it is his. I am talking about tangled motives. The silent smirk or sunken shoulders. The slipping of some glory into one’s pocket. The temptation captured in John Bunyan’s response when someone told him he had preached a delightful sermon: “You are too late; the devil told me that before I left the pulpit.”

The success of others, even close friends, can reveal the drift. The warm sensation that washes over when they excel in the area where your strengths also lie. The gnawing suspicion, the feeling of threat, the envy, the bitterness, the embarrassment, the self-pity. Instead of rejoicing that God has advanced his own name and benefited souls, all is not well simply because the eternal God chose to use them instead of me.

The temptation stands to full height, however, when others succeed in the very place that we have failed. Someone else takes the people higher than we could climb, leads them farther than we could walk. We, like Saul, have conquered our thousands, yet the people sing of another who has conquered his ten thousands. We are the lesser light. The comparison drove Saul mad. He hurled a spear at David to kill him (1 Samuel 18:10–11). What is our response?

We might pray, however much ministry still lies ahead of us, that we have the shepherd’s heart that Moses did in his final days.

Looking at the Promise

Let’s appreciate the difficulty facing Moses at the end of his ministry. After Moses had “refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter”; after he had chosen rather to be “mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin” (Hebrews 11:24–25); after bringing Egypt to its knees, leading Israel through the Red Sea, climbing Mount Sinai, and wandering for decades in the wilderness, his journey ends overlooking — but not overstepping — the boundary to the Promised Land.

Old age, you may remember, did not bar the prophet from the land of milk and honey. “Moses was 120 years old when he died. His eye was undimmed, and his vigor unabated” (Deuteronomy 34:7). The Delilah of old age did not cut the lock of his strength; God did.

God kept Moses from the Promised Land because of sin. Frustrated with the people (who were yet again complaining and grumbling), Moses struck with his staff the water-giving Rock, a type of Christ (1 Corinthians 10:4; Numbers 20:11). God told him to speak to the rock, but Moses went with a more aggressive approach (Numbers 20:8). Afterward, God said,

Because you did not believe in me, to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them. (Numbers 20:12)

And he did not.

“God allowed Moses to lead them out of Egypt, but not into the land of promise.”

In his final days, God led Moses up a mountain and showed him the full breadth and length of the Promised Land (Deuteronomy 34:1–4). And there — overlooking the land he led the people toward for decades — Moses died. The privilege to lead the people across the Jordan fell to his assistant, Joshua. God himself buried his servant on that mountain, on the wrong side of the Jordan (Deuteronomy 34:5–6). He allowed Moses to lead them out of Egypt, but not into the land of promise.

Heart of a Shepherd

Disciplined and disappointed, how does Moses respond?

After the Lord calls him to go up the mountain and reminds him why he won’t enter (Numbers 27:12–14), Moses, the meekest man on earth (Numbers 12:3), answers,

Let the Lord, the God of the spirits of all flesh, appoint a man over the congregation who shall go out before them and come in before them, who shall lead them out and bring them in, that the congregation of the Lord may not be as sheep that have no shepherd. (Numbers 27:15–17)

Here is the heart of a faithful shepherd. Here is an example for pastors and leaders to follow. Moses does not grumble. He does not accuse God of unfairness. He does not mope that God would not listen to his requests to enter the land (Deuteronomy 3:25–26). He does not sabotage Joshua or hurl spears at him. He does not consider his reputation, or his ministry, above the God he ministered for and the people he ministered to. He asks his God, in full submission to his will, not to leave the people shepherdless.

Then Feed My Sheep

This is not the last time we see Moses alive in Scripture. Do you remember where else he appears?

Many hundreds of years later, Moses would meet the great Shepherd of God’s people face to face. On a different mountain, the Mount of Transfiguration, Moses would speak with Jesus. What did they discuss? Jesus’s “departure” (literally, his “exodus,” Luke 9:31). Moses stands with Elijah, speaking to Jesus, the Good Shepherd, about how he would not abandon his sheep to the wolves as a hireling might, but would lay down his life for them. And about how he would rise, for he would not leave the sheep shepherdless.

This is the love that disentangles the nagging sense of self from our service.

“Love for Christ’s bride shakes us free from posturing for her attention and admiration.”

We find due north again in our labors when we, like Paul, begin to yearn for the church with the affections of Christ Jesus (Philippians 1:8), to be in labor pains until Christ is formed in her (Galatians 4:19). When we see her — in the small measure we get to labor in her service — as our hope and our joy and our crown of boasting before the Lord at his return (1 Thessalonians 2:19).

This love purifies our ambition for lasting influence while restoring the humble delight when greater success falls to another. We seek to do the church good while hoping others do more good than we ever could. Threats become brothers to us again when we learn to long for others’ success where we have failed, when we long for others to take God’s people across the Jordans we never could. When we begin to pray, “Feed the sheep by any hand.”

This love for Christ’s bride shakes us free from posturing for her attention and admiration. We play our parts, knowing that loving her is loving him, as Jesus himself reminds us: “Pastor, leader, minister, do you love me? Then shepherd my lambs” (John 21:15–17).

I recently had the incomparable joy of visiting the Grand Canyon. Though visit isn’t quite the right word, I suppose. You don’t just visit the Grand Canyon — you marvel at it, stand in awe of it, catch your breath before it, and find yourself transfixed and transformed by it. You come away “canyoned” by the juxtaposed emotions of feeling smaller and bigger at the same time. As a Christian, I reveled in knowing that the Creator of such beauty also happens to be the Savior of my soul.

I believe gospel-shaped humility can have similar effects. It makes us feel smaller and bigger at the same time. But only if we have a proper understanding of humility, carefully defined, delineated, displayed, and distinguished — that is, only if we move past some common confusions about humility.

Humility Confused

I’ve heard some Christians say things like, “I’m nothing. I’m just a worm.” Or, “I didn’t do a thing. I’m just an empty vessel.” I don’t think such statements reflect a healthy view of humility. The New Testament calls us saints and God’s children and goes out of its way to declare just how loved, redeemed, and blessed we are. Our new identity cannot square with “I’m nothing.”

It’s easy to get confused about humility. Consider how C.S. Lewis put these directions into the mouth of Screwtape, the senior demon in charge of training a new tempter:

Your patient has become humble; have you drawn his attention to the fact? . . . Catch him at the moment when he is really poor in spirit and smuggle into his mind the gratifying reflection, “By jove! I’m being humble,” and almost immediately pride — pride at his own humility — will appear. If he awakes to the danger and tries to smother this new form of pride, make him proud of his attempt — and so on, through as many stages as you please. But don’t try this too long, for fear you awake his sense of humor and proportion, in which case he will merely laugh at you and go to bed. (The Screwtape Letters, 69)

Humility Defined

Merriam-Webster defines humility as “freedom from pride or arrogance.” But that leaves us needing another definition — one for pride. And we need the Bible’s authority, not the dictionary’s, to help us most.

“Humility is not thinking of yourself more highly than you ought but with sober judgment, according to what God says in his word.”

I suggest this definition adapted from Romans 12:3: humility is not thinking of yourself more highly than you ought but with sober judgment, according to what God says in his word. Thus, growing in humility is a lifelong venture as you increase in knowledge of God’s word and in appreciation for God’s work through Christ.

Humility Delineated

Clear thinking about humility is on display in Andrew Murray’s classic short book Humility: The Beauty of Holiness. He starts with this insight: “There are three great motives that urge us to humility. It becomes me as a creature, as a sinner, as a saint” (10).

First, we should be humbled by the fact that we did not create ourselves or have any say in the specifics of our birth. How is it that you weren’t born in the 1300s in an obscure, poverty-stricken, disease-ridden village? Can you provide breath at any given moment? Which talents came from your blueprint, and not God’s? Consider Paul’s insightful question, “What do you have that you did not receive?” (1 Corinthians 4:7).

Second, humility befits our fallenness. We’re sinners, rebels, transgressors, and worshipers of false gods. Reflect on Paul’s recounting of our before-salvation résumé: “We ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another” (Titus 3:3).

Third, we are saved by grace, “not because of works done by us in righteousness” (Titus 3:5) “so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:9).

Humility Displayed

Humility’s central text is Philippians 2:1–11, where Jesus is lifted up as the perfect example of humility. It’s easy to zoom in on verse 5, “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,” and think, “I should be humble like Jesus was humble.” He is indeed our supreme example.

But we can follow his example only because he was also our supreme sacrifice. Don’t race past the first phrase of this chapter: “If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ . . . .” It is your union with Christ that transforms you into a new creature who can “consider others better than yourself,” and “look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:1–4 NIV).

Humility Distinguished

Humility, as the Bible puts forth, must be distinguished from vague ideas apart from the specifics of the gospel. Humility is not feeling bad about oneself. Humility is not comparing ourselves to others. And humility isn’t merely the absence of boasting. (What goes on inside our heads can be disgustingly self-exalting even while we keep our mouths shut.)

“Humility shaped by the gospel shows us just how bad we are and, at the same time, just how great God’s salvation is.”

Humility shaped by the gospel shows us just how bad we are and, at the same time, just how great God’s salvation is. It chastens while it emboldens. It puts us in our place, which, amazingly, is a place of both contrition and confidence. It is a proper and complete understanding of who we are — created, fallen, redeemed, and blessed. We live out our lives in humble boldness, knowing we deserve wrath instead of grace, judgment instead of justification, separation from God instead of the indwelling of his Spirit.

Humility Pursued

Note what immediately follows Philippians 2:1–11. Verse 12 begins with “therefore” and goes on to tell us to “work out [our] salvation with fear and trembling.” We do have a part to play in pursuing humility. Consider some practical suggestions.

Bodily Prayerfulness

The position of our bodies can make a difference in our prayer lives. Kneeling while interceding, raising our arms while praising, and opening our palms while giving thanks can intensify the blessings received through prayer. And it can help us grow in humility before God. It’s hard (although not impossible!) to feel self-empowered while kneeling.

Rigorous Confession

I’ll let C.S. Lewis present this case for me. He writes in The Weight of Glory,

I find that when I think I am asking God to forgive me I am often in reality (unless I watch myself very carefully) asking him to do something quite different. I am asking him not to forgive me but to excuse me. But there is all the difference in the world between forgiving and excusing.

Forgiveness says, “Yes, you have done this thing, but I accept your apology; I will never hold it against you and everything between us two will be exactly as it was before.” But excusing says, “I see that you couldn’t help it or didn’t mean it; you weren’t really to blame.” If one was not really to blame then there is nothing to forgive. In that sense forgiveness and excusing are almost opposites. (178–79)

Humility makes a regular practice of asking God, and others, to forgive us instead of excuse us.

Regular Periods of Fasting

Simply put, fasting makes us feel physically weak. That’s a good state for trusting entirely in God’s provision for everything. Fasting can take all sorts of forms and varieties. All of them can help in growth toward humility.

Outward-Facing Intercession

Jesus told us to include “our daily bread” (the most basic unit of physical sustenance) as well as “your kingdom come” (the most expansive scope of church growth) in our prayers. Prayer guides like Operation World (both the book and the app), which inform us how to pray for gospel advance in every country, help us see our individual needs on a larger canvas and forge humility.

Others-Centered Conversation

Many so-called dialogues are really simultaneous monologues. A gospel-humbled conversationalist can allow the interchange to be unbalanced — in the direction of the other person. Asking questions to draw more out of the other person can display Philippians 2 humility in tangible, practical ways.

Bowing Low, Standing Tall

Some might say standing before the Grand Canyon should have made me feel like “nothing.” But that wasn’t my experience. To be sure, I had no doubt that the nearly two thousand square miles of a mile-deep chasm dwarfed my 5-foot, 9-inch frame. If I did not know the Creator of both the physical universe and my physical body, I would have felt like dust.

But standing before an even greater wonder — the cross, where we are “united with Christ . . . in the comfort from his love . . . with the fellowship of the Holy Spirit . . . with tenderness and compassion” (Philippians 2:1 NIV) — forges a gospel-humility that bows us low and stands us tall.

Gandalf is beloved by many, and for good reason. J.R.R. Tolkien’s wizard is a noble picture of wisdom and strength in the face of great evil. It’s hard not to like him. In Gandalf, Tolkien sets forth the wizard in his most positive and righteous light.

This positive light has been captured recently in a wonderful book called Tolkien Dogmatics, a systematic theology of Middle-earth by Austin Freeman. Freeman ponders the wizard-orb, writing in one place,

The Wizards’ central function . . . is to encourage and bring out the inherent powers of God’s creation against the diabolical encroachments of Sauron, inspiring [Elves and Men] to use their own inborn gifts to come together and overcome this evil. . . . [Wizards] are not to do their job for them, but to advise and instruct, and so they take the form of old sages. (148–49)

For me, these words bring to mind the nature of the pastoral ministry, in which I am privileged to serve. Fixing this text as a light upon our staffs, let us search for jewels of heavenly wisdom by considering the pastor as such a wizard.

Wizards Versus Sorcerers

But hold on just a spell-casting minute. Wizards are bad, aren’t they? Surely the necromancer communing with spirits or the dark magician peering into his crystal ball is the furthest thing from the biblical picture of God’s men. Doesn’t the Bible forbid us to “seek after wizards” (Leviticus 19:31 KJV)?

The unquestionably elegant King James Bible does say that; however, the word wizard is probably not the clearest rendering for modern readers. Newer versions read otherwise. The ESV has necromancers, while the NIV says spiritists. Here and elsewhere the meaning becomes plain in context: God forbids his people from procuring the services of mediums and from finding out the future through fortune telling.

But let us return to Freeman’s description, for there we see a much different picture. The wizard, according to Tolkien, is to “bring out the inherent powers of God’s creation.” In other words, he serves God within the natural order of time and space (those very bounds that necromancers and spiritists seek to break). The good wizard doesn’t tell the future through magic arts (though, through wisdom, he tries to discern its likely motions), and he doesn’t bend the powers of nature (though he seeks to summon them into their full strength). His life and deeds are characterized by a wisdom in submission to God’s law.

In the Scriptures, sorcerers and evil magicians often find themselves up against God’s holy wise men. Joseph is endowed with insight more than all the wise men of Egypt (Genesis 41:8, 38–39). The staff of Moses dominates Pharaoh’s magicians (Exodus 8:16–19). The witch of Endor is baffled by Samuel’s appearance (1 Samuel 28:11–12). Daniel outshines the luminaries of Babylon and is pronounced the “master of the magicians” by Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel 4:9 KJV). Simon the magician is confounded by the apostles (Acts 8:18–20). God’s holy men stand against the powers of darkness. And that is very Gandalf of them.

Wizard’s Work

According to Freeman, the work of a wizard is not to do the work — at least, not to do the jobs of others. So, what does Gandalf do? We find him on the move. He goes about Middle-earth observing what passes and offering his counsel freely. He aids Thorin and Aragorn on their paths to the crown, even as his archetype Merlin aided King Arthur. The wizard’s destiny is to help others find theirs. In the same way, pastors come alongside the children of God, aiding them with counsel and encouragement on their way to their heavenly thrones. We do not walk the path for our people; we walk it with them.

Pastors are tools in the hand of the Father as he goes about his holy art of forming his children into the image of his Son. “Reprove, rebuke, and exhort” are the sacred chisels of our work, removing what does not belong, and strengthening what should remain (2 Timothy 4:2).

What Spurgeon says of sermons may be said of the work of shepherding: “A sculptor believes, whenever he sees a rough block of marble, that there is a noble statue concealed within it, and that he has only to chip away the superfluities and reveal it” (Lectures to My Students, 75). He knows his masterpiece ahead of time. As we spend time with our people, we spy glories taking shape in their souls, glimpses of the good things to come. Heavenly destiny unfolds in the souls and lives of the saints. How this gladdens our hearts in our work! Our labor is patient work, but it is sure work — because it is his work.

Wizard’s Whisper

Gandalf goes about his work at a whisper. He cloaks his power in the unassuming guise of an old man with his signature hat and staff, hanging out at Bag End and puffing a pipe with Bilbo. All the while, the wheels are turning behind those bushy brows, but he rarely shows himself openly. Rather, he wishes that his presence might go unnoticed. For example, after using considerable firepower to save Frodo and company from the Ringwraiths on Weathertop, he says with regret, “I have written Gandalf is here in signs that all can read from Rivendell to the mouths of Anduin” (Fellowship of the Ring, 290).

We meet with something like this mentality in the apostle Paul. Even though he was endowed with the full authority of apostleship, he preferred not to flex that authority except at the utmost end of need. He goes so far as to say to the Corinthians, “I beg of you that when I am present I may not have to show boldness” (2 Corinthians 10:2). He preferred to lead with quiet godliness.

In fact, it was so quiet that some people didn’t notice at all. To them, Paul was downright unimpressive in person. They said of him, “His letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech of no account” (2 Corinthians 10:10). They were like most hobbits, who could see only an old meddler (with pretty good fireworks) in Gandalf. They did not realize the heavenly power at work right under their noses.

Wizard’s Weakness

Just so, being a pastor is not about being impressive enough to get people to listen to us when we tell them the truth. Being a pastor is about being used by God to form them into the kinds of people who obey the truth on their own. This picture differs significantly from the corporatized pastor of American Christianity, who is modeled after the powerful CEO rather than the humble shepherd. We are taught to ask for powerful leaders who can get things done — more like Saruman than Gandalf — and we often have received what we wished for, when we hear about another high-profile pastor dismissed from his ministry for getting things done by any means necessary. In other words, for lording it over the flock.

Perhaps we are also tempted to take matters into our own hands. So what if we slightly manipulate the saints into doing what is best for themselves or the church? It’s for a good cause, isn’t it? But Gandalf knew better. As Philip Ryken comments, “Gandalf is careful to obey the rules of his calling, and one of the rules for us is not to make decisions for other people or manipulate them to make the decisions we think they ought to make. . . . Tolkien rightly understood that evil and the Enemy are the ones who want to dictate and dominate” (The Messiah Comes to Middle-Earth, 32). Brothers, let us not borrow from the enemy’s playbook.

Make no mistake, there are times to give struggling saints a little nudge out of the door, as it were. There are times to rebuke them plainly (“Bilbo Baggins!”). When wolves prowl about us, we confront them with fiery truth, as Gandalf does when the Fellowship is nearly taken by Wargs: “Gandalf is here. Fly, if you value your foul skin! I will shrivel you from tail to snout, if you come within this ring” (Fellowship, 298). But if Paul is to be believed, the best thing we can show our people is not impressive authority that coerces obedience, but a living example of the truth, sometimes cloaked in human weakness. What we preach, let us live.

Fellowship of the Cross

In the end, the wizard is clearly not the complete picture of the pastor. However, I dare say we have discovered a live kernel of truth under that pointy hat. Gandalf was wise enough to know that even the wise do not see all ends. He knew that it wasn’t his plan unfolding in the world; it was God’s. He intentionally postured himself in humble submission to that plan, refusing to take matters into his own hands, and yet owning that he had a real and vital part to play.

Dear brothers, in the great work of shepherding God’s little lambs, let us be wise enough to take a backseat to his sovereign plans for them. Let the Maker shape them as he sees fit under the means of grace we minister and the fellowship of the cross we enjoy together.