By engaging in God-centered preaching and pastoral ministry, we will redirect people’s natural inclination to focus on self and lead them to turn their eyes upward to contemplate and worship a holy, loving, and righteous God. 

Pastoral ministry is exceedingly demanding and requires us to tackle a large number of tasks, such as preaching, administration, counseling, and many more. Preaching, in particular, is an enormous challenge and serious responsibility, as pastors must weigh what, when, and how to preach, among many other questions that confront them in their ministry. In the present series, I will discuss ten major doctrines that every pastor should address, starting with the doctrine of God. How does the doctrine of God inform a pastor’s ministry?
Why God Matters
It is hard to think of a doctrine that matters more than the doctrine of God. A. W. Tozer said, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” God is the Alpha and Omega. He is the eternal, infinite, self-sufficient God, one God in three persons, Father, Son, and Spirit. God is the Creator, revealed in the Old Testament as Israel’s covenant God who redeemed his people from bondage in Egypt and gave them the law at Sinai. He is the “I am” who is without rivals; there is no other God (Exod 3:14; Isa 45:5).
All creation is oriented toward God. He is the sovereign ruler of the universe and worthy of all glory and praise. Thus our preaching, like our praying, should be theocentric rather than anthropocentric. As Jesus taught his followers to pray, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt 6:9–10; cf. Luke 11:2). Jesus’ followers should “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added” to them (Matt 6:33).
7 Truths to Teach about God
Developing a theocentric focus in our preaching is crucial for providing a proper theological framework for our congregation. Starting with God will be vital in helping the people in our church think rightly about God and relate rightly to God. While the following list is far from exhaustive, here are seven suggestions regarding how pastors can help their congregation think more about God and think about God in light of biblical revelation.
1. Consider not merely God’s works, but also his being.
Counteracting our natural tendency to view God from our self-centered human perspective, pastors should consciously seek to redirect and reorient people’s thoughts to God’s person and character, even apart from any of his works. God is an awesome person, a beautiful, majestic being. We cannot fully comprehend our eternal God, but we can pause in wonder at such a glorious, mysterious, infinite being. That’s certainly the right place to start, and to return to often.
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While putting away bitterness and all its sinful relatives, we must also put on Christlike virtues like kindness, tenderheartedness, and forgiveness. Forgiveness is the golden key to uprooting bitterness in your relationships. Forgiveness is letting go. “Let go” or “put away” is what the word forgive means. Therefore, to forgive someone is to actively let go of the wrongs your heart is tempted to grip tightly.

Two posts ago, we began thinking about what the Bible teaches about bitterness. Namely, that Scripture presents bitterness first as an experience and then as a response—first as something that happens to us, and then something that arises within us. Biblically speaking, the word bitter means to be angry, chafed, and discontent. We also learned that Scripture reveals two major categories of bitterness. The first explains the bitterness of hard life experiences, which impact the way we view ourselves and God. The second exposes bitter responses to these hard life experiences and the wrongs committed against us.
Today, our focus is on the second category of bitterness; that is, the response of bitterness which comes from within our hearts. The heart is the always-active, ever-worshiping, always-wanting-something control center of our lives. Therefore, when something or someone gets in the way of our desires, we are tempted to respond in anger. If this anger lingers—if it simmers in the crock pot long enough—then we become bitter. To confront this second category of bitterness, we will set up camp in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. Here the Spirit of God warns us against bitter responses, but also provides us with the remedy.
Pay Attention to Biblical Warnings
If you are in Christ, then you are a new person; you have a new life. In Christ, you are dead to sin and alive unto God because the Spirit of God has caused you to be born again by the power of the life-giving gospel. Therefore, you must put off your sinful ways and walk in the righteousness of Christ (Eph. 4:1-24). Then, in verses 26-27, the apostle warns us about anger in two important ways.
Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil.
Eph. 4:26-27
Righteous anger quickly becomes unrighteous when you linger there. You might say, “I didn’t know there was such a thing as righteous anger.” But Scripture commands us to be angry, and the Gospel accounts inform us that Jesus, the sinless Son of God, was angry at times. So, yes, it is possible to have righteous anger. However, the line between righteous and unrighteous anger is extremely thin—it is easy, even natural for us to quickly cross over. So, even when our anger is righteous, we must not linger there: “Do not let the sun go down on your anger.” Deal with it immediately. Work through interpersonal conflicts as soon as possible.
Lingering anger gives the devil the advantage and opportunity to destroy. When we don’t get what we want, we often become angry and bitter (see James 4:1-10). The devil then exploits our unmet desires, tempting us to remain angry and discontent. If we linger there, we give Satan ownership of some of the real estate of our hearts, and we become easy prey for him to gobble up. This was certainly true of Esau, whose bitterness produced the desire to murder his brother, and corrupted his heart further (see Heb. 12:14-17). Bitterness will turn you into a murderer too. Maybe not by taking a person’s physical life, but by destroying their spirit with your words or your silence.
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When necessity is laid upon a man to preach the gospel, the best thing for him to do is to pray to the Lord for continued grace, study the Scriptures for continued knowledge, and depend on the Holy Spirit for continued power. Then, when he enters the pulpit with faithfully studied sermons in hand and heart, his sole task becomes this: To joyfully fulfill the necessity of preaching the gospel!

There is an essential duty that every minister of the gospel is called to do: Preach the gospel. Of course, in a broad sense, every believer is called to proclaim the gospel, defend the gospel, and answer questions about the gospel. As Peter orders Christians in 1 Peter 3:15, “in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,” so all Christians today are to be always ready to proclaim this same gospel to others.
Pastors are not exempt from these things. In fact, it is arguable that a pastor is called to do all these things to an even greater degree than other Christians. But the pastor is called to do one thing with the gospel that other Christians are not called to do: He’s called to preach. This is not something that he ought to boast in himself for doing, nor should he seek the praise of men for it. He must do it, however, diligently and faithfully, for failure is not an option in this calling. As Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 9:16, “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!”
At first glance, this verse may seem strange. Is it a joy to preach the gospel or a burden? A privilege or an imprisonment? How should Paul’s use of the word “necessity” be understood when it comes to preaching the gospel? And, in light of this, what are the traps that pastors may fall into if they boast in themselves for doing what was laid upon them as a necessity? Or, what is the danger for the pastor who fails to do what was a necessity?
The Joy of the Necessity Laid upon the Pastor
To understand what Paul meant when he wrote that a necessity to preach the gospel had been laid upon him, we must first understand that he was in the middle of defending himself against those who were attempting to examine him (1 Cor 9:3). As Paul encountered more than once, there were false prophets—only wolves in sheep’s clothing—whose entire existence was wrapped up in trying to devour the people of God.
By the very nature of Paul’s missionary journeys, he would found churches, install elders, and then move on to the next location. This opened the churches he had founded to the attack of these false prophets in his absence. After all, one of the surest ways to attack the church is to sow discord amongst the flock, especially by casting doubt upon the gospel that Christians have heard preached and which they have received with gladness. But, to cast doubt upon the message, these false prophets knew it was essential they first cast doubt upon the messenger.
So, when he begins to make his defense before his examiners, Paul immediately appeals to his dutiful joy in preaching the gospel itself. At first glance though, the argument he makes seems almost entirely to have to do with receiving compensation for preaching; evidently, when it came to the Corinthians, Paul had never taken any financial remuneration for preaching. This, he says, is evidence of his apostleship and love for the saints there. It’s not that pastors and ministers don’t have the right to receive compensation for their preaching; on the contrary, it is a God-ordained right for the pastor to be compensated, and one which churches ought to seek to uphold for the men who care for them as elders and overseers of the flock. Indeed, “the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel” (1 Cor 9:14). Despite what many even today try to suggest, the clear teaching of Scripture is that churches ought to support their pastors financially, as co-laborers in the gospel (1 Cor 3:9).
But Paul did not make use of this right with the Corinthians. Why? Because, he says, “We endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ” (1 Cor 9:12). Paul saw something in Corinth that made it clear that his accepting remuneration for the gospel would actually hinder the growth of the church there. So, from the Corinthians he accepted nothing, though he did at times receive from other churches. For example, to the Philippians he wrote, “I have received full payment, and more. I am well supplied, having received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent, a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God” (Phil 4:18).
But, to the Corinthians, he wrote, “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” (1 Cor 9:18). And, again, “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” (1 Cor 9:22–23). We see here, then, what is at the heart of the necessity laid upon pastors. Paul’s great source of joy came through preaching the gospel to others, and so too must pastors find joy in this duty.
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