Busy Pastors and Biblical Encounters, Part Two

00:00:00.000 | In the last Ask Pastor John episode, in episode 218, you said you believe the pressures of

00:00:09.280 | pastoral life, the need to prepare sermons and devotions and talks and lessons and homilies

00:00:14.280 | for all kinds of occasions, that these pressures were God's means of giving you more insight

00:00:19.520 | into scripture for the sake of your people, probably giving you more insights from God

00:00:23.720 | than you might have had if you had been given more leisurely time for study in the academic

00:00:28.400 | life.

00:00:29.520 | Is this just based on your experience, or are there passages from the Bible that help

00:00:33.000 | explain this dynamic?

00:00:34.280 | Right.

00:00:35.280 | What I said was a real fear.

00:00:38.140 | When I left Bethel after teaching for six years, and God seemed to be driving me into

00:00:42.480 | the pastoral ministry where I knew there'd be a lot more pressured preparation than leisure

00:00:48.360 | for study, what I said was I didn't find it to be the case.

00:00:53.440 | I found that God seems to love his people in such a way that when a pastor is pressured

00:01:00.640 | to have to get a message ready for them, he makes up for any deficiency in time by just

00:01:08.560 | opening him in ways that he wouldn't open him to the text in any other way.

00:01:14.440 | And yes, there have been texts that have really made a difference in my thinking about that,

00:01:19.320 | and I'll mention just a few here.

00:01:22.840 | For example, I love the text where Jesus says to Peter, "Simon, son of John, do you love

00:01:30.960 | me?"

00:01:31.960 | And Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, "Do you love me?"

00:01:36.360 | And he said to him, "Lord, you know everything.

00:01:38.240 | You know I love you."

00:01:39.700 | And Jesus said, "Feed my sheep."

00:01:43.200 | I can't tell you how often, Tony, I have read that with a personal word from the Lord.

00:01:49.280 | Like the Lord is saying to John Piper, "Feed my sheep."

00:01:53.920 | And it never felt like a burden to me.

00:01:55.800 | It always felt like, "If you command this, Lord, you'll surely bless my effort to find

00:02:01.280 | the food, right?

00:02:02.280 | Won't you?

00:02:03.280 | You just said, 'Feed my sheep.'

00:02:04.680 | Would you leave me over this text without insight for the feeding of the sheep that

00:02:10.600 | you just told me to feed?"

00:02:12.720 | So that text has just made a huge impact.

00:02:15.480 | I felt in all my preparations, God was smiling.

00:02:20.680 | He was saying, "Good.

00:02:22.800 | You're preparing to obey tomorrow or Sunday.

00:02:27.200 | You're preparing to obey me, so go at it.

00:02:30.200 | I'll help you."

00:02:31.680 | And here's another one.

00:02:32.680 | Luke 12, 42 is a picture of the second coming.

00:02:35.480 | It goes like this.

00:02:36.800 | "And the Lord said, 'Who then is the faithful and wise manager or steward, whom his master

00:02:45.520 | will set over his household to give them their portion of food at the proper time?

00:02:52.440 | Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes.'"

00:02:58.360 | And that text has always comforted me when I thought about the urgency of so many causes

00:03:05.360 | in the world that I could be spending time on when I'm studying to get ready for a message.

00:03:12.720 | I always wondered, "Am I doing the right thing here?

00:03:15.760 | Should I be involved more with the poor, more with missions, more with the homeless, more

00:03:20.440 | with pro-life efforts, more with American Indian ministries right down the street in

00:03:25.560 | my own city, more with the Somalis across the highway, more with the business community,

00:03:31.760 | more with students, more with the elderly?"

00:03:33.360 | I mean, pastors, we deal with so many possibilities of ministry that if we're wired a certain

00:03:40.120 | way, like me, we're always wondering, "Have I got this?

00:03:44.680 | Have I got my priorities figured out right here?"

00:03:47.800 | And this text steadied my hand so many times.

00:03:53.120 | It said to me this, "If Jesus comes back today, he would find me at my steward post, at my

00:04:01.840 | manager post, having listened to the command, 'Give them their portion of food at the proper

00:04:08.960 | time.'"

00:04:09.960 | That was my job, and I was the household steward at Bethlehem.

00:04:13.520 | God expected his household to be fed.

00:04:16.200 | And it seemed to me that if I did that well, if I was obedient in obeying that command,

00:04:22.160 | God would see to it that these well-nourished household members would pursue all those causes,

00:04:29.320 | many of which I wasn't doing nearly as much as I could be.

00:04:32.640 | So that text in Luke 12 has been huge for me.

00:04:36.840 | And another one is Matthew 10, 19, where Jesus says, "When they deliver you over to courts,

00:04:42.160 | don't be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will

00:04:49.320 | be given you in that hour."

00:04:51.160 | Now, I know that that's a text designed for Christians under great duress, but the application

00:05:00.720 | seemed to me to be this.

00:05:02.560 | If God promises to give us what we need in a crisis moment when we have no means of preparing,

00:05:10.640 | would he not do the same in the steady-state, daily, weekly feeding of his flock?

00:05:17.500 | Is God saying here, "I'm only interested in the moment of urgency"?

00:05:22.240 | Or is he saying, "I love my flock.

00:05:25.720 | I love when truth is spoken to people outside the church and people in the church.

00:05:30.680 | And so where you are set to obey, to speak what I want spoken, I'll give you what you

00:05:38.060 | need, even if it's three days before the talk happens."

00:05:43.160 | And oh, goodness, there's so many more.

00:05:45.160 | Let me just mention maybe one more.

00:05:49.280 | The feeding of the 5,000.

00:05:50.960 | I have felt like this little boy so many times.

00:05:53.720 | I mean, Jesus says to the disciples, "You give them something to eat."

00:05:58.600 | All right?

00:05:59.600 | So he's saying to John Piper, "You give them something to eat."

00:06:02.360 | Lord, there's going to be 5,000 people there or five people there?

00:06:06.280 | And sometimes those messages with five are just as hard as the ones with 5,000.

00:06:10.440 | You give them something to eat.

00:06:11.820 | And I say back to him, "I feel like a little boy who's got a sack lunch.

00:06:17.480 | And you're telling me to feed this people with my sack lunch?"

00:06:24.400 | And the boy gave it to him, and he fed them.

00:06:27.500 | He fed them.

00:06:29.280 | And so it has seemed to me that whenever Jesus says to a pastor, "You give them something

00:06:37.640 | to eat," he won't let us down.

00:06:40.240 | He will come through and take our little five loaves and two fish of ability and weakness

00:06:45.720 | and turn it into a feast for our people.

00:06:48.520 | So my answer to the question, Tony, is yes.

00:06:52.520 | The Bible has had a lot to say to me as I've thought about the pressured life of the pastor

00:07:00.160 | trying to come up with food for his people without all the leisure that he'd like to

00:07:05.240 | have to think through.

00:07:06.960 | God is just totally committed to help us in this.

00:07:10.160 | Yes, he is.

00:07:11.160 | Thank you, Pastor John.

00:07:12.160 | And thank you for listening to this podcast.

00:07:14.680 | Email your questions to us at AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org.

00:07:17.840 | You can visit us online at DesiringGod.org to find thousands of books, articles, sermons,

00:07:21.640 | and other resources from John Piper, all free of charge.

00:07:24.720 | I'm your host, Tony Ranke.

00:07:25.720 | Thanks for listening.

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Busy Pastors and Biblical Encounters, Part Two

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