Why No Pastor Lives Up to What He Preaches
00:00:00.000 | [Music]
00:00:06.000 | No pastor lives up to what he preaches. If he does, he's preaching too low. You
00:00:10.840 | wrote that on Twitter a few years back, Pastor John. How does a pastor think
00:00:13.760 | through this? Talk to the pastor who is preaching high and feels overwhelmed and
00:00:18.280 | burdened because of it. Is this a healthy tension for him to feel?
00:00:22.000 | Well I sure don't want to solve the problem of the gap between the heights of
00:00:28.280 | our message and the depths of our failure by lowering heights. I'm not
00:00:37.640 | going to solve the problem that way. We are called to preach the Word, 2nd
00:00:42.360 | Timothy 2.4. Preach the whole counsel of God. Preach the glory of God as
00:00:48.200 | the goal of all things. And so preach a great salvation and the unsearchable
00:00:55.320 | riches of Christ and the pathway to pleasures forevermore and rejoicing
00:01:02.520 | always. And the aim of our charge is love from a pure heart. And we have peace. And
00:01:11.840 | don't be anxious for anything. And don't grumble. And love your wives like Christ
00:01:17.240 | loved the church. And love your enemies. And be perfect for I am perfect. It's
00:01:21.520 | overwhelming, right? That's the message. I mean the message is as high as it can
00:01:27.600 | possibly be with a focus on God and the gospel and our salvation, our eternal
00:01:33.120 | hope and the glories of knowing Jesus and all the radical ethical call that
00:01:41.280 | Jesus gives us. And so the effect that has if we're faithfully lifting this up,
00:01:48.520 | we're not going to be like the lawyers in the Gospel of Luke. I think it's
00:01:54.640 | chapter 11 where Jesus says, "You load men with burdens hard to bear and
00:01:59.720 | you don't lift a finger to help them." So that's not what I'm calling for. Like
00:02:06.120 | dump the burden of "be perfect" on your people then go home and watch basketball
00:02:11.560 | games. That's not going to be helpful. We are preaching the gospel. And at this
00:02:18.960 | point in this question I think we're modeling the gospel. That is, we are
00:02:24.400 | praying like crazy that God would have mercy upon us sinful pastors and work
00:02:30.360 | work these things into us. We are putting them to death by the power of the Spirit.
00:02:37.080 | Romans 8 13, we're pummeling our bodies lest we be a castaway and be found
00:02:43.800 | unworthy. 1st Corinthians 9, we're striving to enter by the narrow gate and
00:02:51.520 | we're doing all that by trusting the gospel. And we are therefore ever
00:02:59.120 | repenting. Now right here may be the key thing to say. I've had, last Sunday, I'm
00:03:08.720 | almost done here at Bethlehem as we make this recording as the pastor and a man
00:03:12.960 | man come up to me last Sunday and he said, "Pastor, you know what's what's been
00:03:17.200 | especially meaningful to me in your ministry is how vulnerable you've been
00:03:21.880 | in the pulpit. How vulnerable you've been with your own sins and your own marriage
00:03:27.320 | and your own parenting and your own sense of failure about things." He said,
00:03:31.400 | "I just want you to know how encouraging that's been." So I would say to pastors,
00:03:36.440 | don't be afraid every time you preach on something to draw attention to the fact
00:03:42.600 | that you don't get it right usually. You don't measure up to it. Model for
00:03:49.000 | your people how to constantly confess your sins to the people that you love
00:03:56.360 | and aim high, fall short, hold tight to Jesus. Those are my three, that's the way
00:04:06.000 | I'd kind of sum it up. Go ahead and aim high in your preachings knowing that in
00:04:11.200 | this age while sin indwells you're going to fall short and teach the people
00:04:16.880 | what gutsy guilt is. That is, we go ahead and we assert the truth and we get in
00:04:25.320 | the devil's face and we say we're not going to let go of Jesus because he is
00:04:30.000 | our vindication, he is our righteousness, not our pastoral accomplishments and not
00:04:35.000 | our husbanding and our parenting, but Christ is our all. And then if you model
00:04:39.800 | that for your people, I think it both rescues you from despair as you preach
00:04:44.280 | high, but it shows them how to stretch and go for broke without being
00:04:49.840 | undone by their failures. Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for listening
00:04:54.240 | to this podcast. Pastors, email your questions to us at
00:04:57.360 | AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org. You can find thousands of other free resources
00:05:01.080 | online from John Piper at DesiringGod.org. I'm your host Tony
00:05:04.520 | Rehnke, thanks for listening.
00:05:07.600 | [BLANK_AUDIO]