T H E O P H I L U S

Coming Home: Where I need to be heading and hoping for as a Preacher

“For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”- Hebrews 4:12

It is indeed easy for young preachers to feel lost in the midst of a sea of mature, and very well seasoned preachers at the Gospel Coalition National Conference. I had at one point held onto a false sense that what I was doing in ministry was so insignificant just merely due to the magnitude of what some of the people you spoke to were doing with their ministries. One can easily think, why am I here? what does it mean to be called to ministry, and why is everyone seeing so much fruit come from their ministry than I am? Does God really want me to be here? That may be an extremely cynical and negative way to think, but as someone who is still fairly early on in their walk of ministry in comparison to those who those who have been at it for decades us might make one tempted to feel a bit discouraged and even anxious. But…. here is the “but” part…

But once you break the façade of what seems to be fact versus what is actually the truth, is that everyone in that room is struggling day in and day out. It is truly, a spiritual battle we face each time we prepare a sermon. At some point John Piper may have even felt a tad bit down in his early days of pastoral ministry. Even the great Charles Spurgeon at one point almost quit! The real heart of the matter is, that heart is not what true calling for preaching ministry really is about. It has nothing to do with earthly accomplishments nor academic worthiness. The real truth is that not everyone will be nor is a scholar and to demand that of any pastor is both unbiblical and heretical in massive contradiction. Of course this is not to say there is anything wrong with high caliber academia and scholarly cachet and we ought to invest our time and effort to the best of our ability into learning well all that we can, but scholarship and academia may not be everyone’s knack. We read the word, dig deeper into it, exegete it, extrapolate it, and seek so deeply to externalize what is so internally mysterious with the gospel because that is exactly what it does to our own lives. We hunger for the Word and the transformational power of it. It exegetes us, it extrapolates and externalizes all of our sins and brokenness to the point it causes the holy spirit to flip everything that we assume of ourselves, inside out and fill it with the Grace of Christ. It not only preaches on a New Heaven and New Earth, but it forms even more the essence of them both in our hearts and minds, and the way we look at the world today.

Voddie Baucham in his contribution to this year’s panel discussion stated that experience isn’t everything. (listen here). It is dangerous for any preacher to lose one’s boldness of preaching because of what experience tells us that we do not have. The true reality of our ministry and call to the ministry of Word and Sacrament was exactly that, the Word and to the Sacrament – both of which are gifts and authority from our Lord. Our calling is not to be God himself, who has an unlimited and immeasurable feat of experience – but rather that we should hold close to Him whose words are everlasting.

“11 Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. 12 It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, “Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” 13 Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, “Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?”14 No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.”

– Deuteronomy 30:11-14

We are often so concerned about whether I have lived the life of the calling in the past and spend most of our energy and time digging up strength in ourselves rather than in what God is already doing in us today; what God is commanding us in His Word at this very moment, right now as I read it and make meaning of it; that today, tomorrow and the days until I get to heaven God will in his mercy enable us to live according to his goodness. In Tim Keller’s sermon on Deuteronomy 30 (listen here), three particular points were brought up in the exposition of that passage that made me begin to think of my frustrations and particular struggles with being a pastor preaching week to week and always wondering why people don’t respond the way I’d like my congregation to.

The first major point of Moses’ message to the Israelites in Deuteronomy 30: We will all fail to live as we ought to. Tim Keller states: “The fact is that even if we know everything there is in the bible on how to live as good people, we are unable to do it and we will inevitably fail.” Our state of brokenness is much more deeply entrenched in us than we could imagine, and that for a preacher to assume it will change over night requires utmost faith that not even Moses himself had. It is not a matter of whether people know what is right and how to live as good people, we are just too broken to live that way.

The second is that God will fix our hearts. This means that it is only God who can change and transform us from our broken state. There are so many times that I myself as a preacher try so vigorously to preach good news hoping that it would fix people and change them. But without the works of the Holy Spirit, the same message preached twice could yield a completely different fruit depending on whether one was preached by Him or by myself. The gospel touches on the matter of submission and repentance, which first must start from myself. If I am not repenting nor being reborn of my sinfulness each day then how would I myself expect it out of anyone else? The Gospel was meant to be preached, yes, but it was also meant to be personal when we preach it. Not a tool, but a personal point of conviction for me everyday.

This implies lastly then, the message of the gospel will go out. The spirit of God is alive, and even if I do not stick around long enough to see the fruits bear off of the branches of the tree, God is having his way. The Holy Spirit is constantly at work with the saving Grace of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And it is exactly that by which I have been called to the ministry of Word and Sacrament – because of His saving Grace, even in my brokenness and fleshly desires for earthy accomplishment and self-importance.

Final Convictions

After much reflection on the entire conference as a whole, I have learned so much of myself and what it means to be called as a preacher. And as simple as it sounds and cliché in the “wordology” of Christian preachers, it really is not about me. It is not my eloquence of speech, nor my academic or scholarly ferociousness that will accomplish the gospel, but how the Gospel first has placed a death to my sins and destruction to my broken ways so that my lips may be formed for the sake of His name and His Word to become life inward and outward of my identity. It is about what Jesus has already done for me.