Pure Church

Digging around in the DG archives, I listened to this stellar talk today from Kent Hughes, "Pastoral Success and the Cross of Christ." (Link fixed)

This is a talk Hughes gave at the 1989 Desiring God Pastors' Conference, follow his 1988 publication of Liberating Ministry from the Success Syndrome. It's a gripping reflection on his struggle with the "success syndrome," coming to understand pragmatism, and he and his wife's search for a biblical definition of ministry success.

Really: This ought to be required listening for every man in any kind of ministry, and for every Christian involved in a local church.

In a word: encouraging.

"For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things?" (2 Cor. 15-16)

"Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God" (2 Cor. 3:4-5).

Self-sufficiency in the ministry kills the ministry. Self-sufficiency is antithetical to the ministry.

Consider what the minister in his preaching reveals: "the aroma of Christ." Consider how the minister appeals to the two classes of men: either as life to those being saved or death to those perishing. How can we be so sufficient as to represent to any single person (much less men in general) these great eternal outcomes dependent upon how Christ "smells"? Who is sufficient for being "the aroma of Christ"?

Self-sufficiency creeps in through two doors.

First, the screen door of pride flings wide open to the self-sufficient. The man who thinks that the work of ministry is accomplished in his own strength, wisdom, and talent dons the dunce cap of pride--serious pride. We can come to believe that all really does depend upon us. We can come to think that anything depends upon us. Our estimation of ourselves and our abilities may be too high. And so we're driven to self-sufficiency by our preoccupation with what we do. We may attempt the work of the ministry with no dependence upon God. Proud self-sufficiency.

Second, the door of laziness opens just as easily to the knock of self-sufficiency. This is the man with so little ambition that everything lies within his grasp. He doesn't attempt great things for God, so he has no reason to depend upon God. He doesn't conceive of a spiritual world with fruit in vineyards too plentiful for his tilling, so the easy and mundane become "enough" for him. His estimation of the task is too small. So, a lazy man finds in his own laziness a comfortable self-sufficiency. He's aiming to do nothing, so he needs nothing. The glory of God gets packed away in tidy phrases for a sedentary life: "don't take on too much;" "you're just one man;" "we can only do so much;" "I'll do it tomorrow."

Of course, those phrases have their place and offer wisdom for the proud man who knows no limits--but not for the lazy. But in either case, the vital thing in the ministry is that all our labors be wholly dependent upon the power of God and not ourselves. Our confidence must be through Christ toward God. Nothing comes from us. Our sufficiency comes from God.

Such dependence upon God as our sufficiency allows us to be radically ambitious for the glory of God. We may be diligent, crucifying laziness, working harder than others because the sufficiency for such zeal comes from God. Confidence in and dependence upon God gives life to gospel ministry and destroys the sin of proud self-sufficiency. We may choose something larger than ourselves and depend upon God as we labor for it, and discover the all-sufficient grace and power of God.

HT: Ray Ortlund, Jr. Good morning America featured a story about a pastor in New England who faces the town's disdain for living out the gospel and believing that Christ changes people. See here.

During our visit to beautiful Scotland, our kind host gave us something of a Scottish Christian history tour. It was a wonderful time.




I pray that my ministry--however long or short--would be a stone of witness for the supremacy of Jesus and the glory of the gospel and against ministerial unfaithfulness in all her varied forms. I pray that everywhere a faithful pastor stands and labors there an Ebenezer is raised, and the congregations of their charge take seriously their responsibility for safeguarding the gospel and calling men of sober, holy, and joyfully reverent character.

How horrible it is when the Lord's bride forsakes her first love! He surely holds that against her (Rev. 1:4). What a great height from which to fall (Rev. 1:5)! The sound of cracked and crushed bones from such a fall is eternally deafening.

The Christian world's love for novelty and fad, for ease and comfort, for popularity and influence, for entertainment and play, for riches and monuments conspires against her, and eases her ever so surely toward irrelevance and destruction, toward the crypt and rigamortis of worldliness. In so many places, Christians are, as C.S. Lewis put it, "men without chests." We are, in too many cases, phantoms rather than rock-solid, rock-ribbed, living girders and pillars holding forth the Truth.

Jesus calls us to repent and return to our first love (Rev. 1:5b) wherever unfaithfulness exists, being fearful that anyone should ever stand over the heaped ruin of our lives and ministries. Better that we be like Thomas Hog:

• Scottish divine ; M.A. Marischal College, Aberdeen;
• minister of Kiltearn, 1654-1661 and 1691-2;
• deposed as protester, 1661;
• imprisoned for keeping conventicles;
• fined and banished, 1684.

Even if it means witnessing against our people on behalf of the truth.

"He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God" (Rev. 1:7).

In the last post, we began a series of reflections on the pastor's heart in the letters of Paul. Really, I'm just skimming some verses that have made a major impact on my own heart over the years. In my travel Bible are passages highlighted with an orange marker... a color I reserve for these verses that prick and prod and ply and pry my heart each time I consider them. We come to a second sch verse today.

If you were boiling pastoral ministry down to a word, what would it be?

A good number of candidates exist, I suppose. But one passage in Paul's letters has been formative for me. "This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy." (1 Cor. 4:1-2).

The pastor should be regarded as a servant of Christ and a steward of the mysteries of God. That's what Paul desired to be known as, and it seems fitting for every pastor as well.

But the part that's been blazed on my heart is verse 2-- "it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy," or "faithful" in some versions. Of all that might be demanded of stewards, it boils down to this one quality... faithfulness/trustworthiness. Am I worthy of my Lord's trust? Am I one who will carry out my charge with loyalty, constancy, devotion, and thoroughness? Will I keep my vows to the Lord, taken at ordination, to shepherd the flock of God and preach the gospel in season and out?

Our stewardship is measured by our faithfulness. Which makes you want to cry out with the Apostle, "Who is sufficient for these things?"

But what would our service be if it were not faithful or trustworthy? What would be the value of all our preaching and exhorting if we were not faithful to the Word of God? What kind of stewards would we be of the people of God were we not worthy of their trust in prayer? If we slept rather than watched over their souls, of what benefit would it be to the blood-bought children of God? Should we be pleased with ourselves if we only demonstrated fidelity to the commandments of Christ in 50% or 75% or 90% of the time?

I'm not advocating perfectionism here. I'm not here addressing our frailty and inability and corruption, as though we could escape those in this life. I'm interested in how 1 Cor. 4:2 addresses the pastor's heart, his motives, and how those motives work themselves out in his public and private life. In other words, is faithfulness or trustworthiness a defining or consuming part of how we approach the pastoral task as stewards?

Paul wished to be regarded as nothing more than a steward and servant of Christ Jesus. And in that role, he wanted to meet the one requirement of faithfulness. And boy, didn't he seem to give himself wholeheartedly to being faithful? It didn't matter whether the impending outcome was the conversion of hundreds or being stoned and left for dead, Paul sought to be loyal to His Lord and trustworthy in his ministry.

What about me? Am I wholehearted in my pursuit? Am I discharging the ministry entrusted to me?

One thing I'm certain of amidst all my failures and ambitions... trustworthiness isn't acquired by osmosis. It doesn't just ooze into the pastor's heart while he sleeps. The world, the flesh, and the devil conspire for a different result. So, faithfulness requires purpose, intention, reflection and deliberation.

I'm not always faithful. A few things break my heart more than realizing in some situation or decision or plan that I've been less than faithful. I rely on the Lord's grace and the pruning work of His Spirit in those times. And I've learned to ask myself some questions, to inspect my heart and mind, depending on the Spirit to show me my heart and to enlighten me by God's Word. A few that I ask:

1. To what extent is trustworthiness/faithfulness to Jesus Christ, the Head of the church, motivating or informing my ministry?
2. How might a faithful/trustworthy steward respond to this question or need?
3. What practices of my ministry (or the church) need strengthening or reformed in order to trustworthily handle the mysteries of God?
4. Who can I trust and depend on to encourage me in faithfulness to the Lord?
5. Where am I tempted to compromise with God's Word and the Gospel and why?
6. When is my claim to "faithfulness" really/likely a mask for inflexibility and impatience?
7. Have I properly (that is, in light of Scripture, the Lord's requirements, and pastoral practice) considered the implications/consequences of faithfulness or unfaithfulness in various situations? What toll is likely to be paid by this sheep or the church or my family if I'm not trustworthily stewarding the gospel of Christ in any particular situation? What is the likely result, good or bad, for faithfulness?

On that day, I greatly desire to meet my Savior, and for the people of my charge to meet our Savior, and hear Him say those lovely words: "Well done, my good and faithful servant."