The Relational Pain of Ministry
00:00:00.000 | [Music]
00:00:04.000 | On Monday we looked at the topic of making shipwreck of the faith.
00:00:09.000 | What does it look like to make shipwreck of the faith?
00:00:11.000 | What are some personal examples of those whose faith failed?
00:00:15.000 | Why does it happen?
00:00:17.000 | And how do people shipwreck their faith today?
00:00:20.000 | It's a common question.
00:00:22.000 | And we addressed it on Monday in APJ 1849.
00:00:26.000 | But we didn't focus very much on the fallout.
00:00:29.000 | Spiritual failure at this level among those who love the world and thus abandon Christ for it,
00:00:36.000 | that injects tremendous pain into families, into marriages, into friendships,
00:00:42.000 | into local church communities, and into the ministries of people who are left behind.
00:00:47.000 | That pain, that relational pain of ministry, was a theme taken up by Pastor John in a sermon in 2012
00:00:54.000 | as he reflected on the harsh realities Paul faced.
00:00:57.000 | According to what he recounts for us in 2 Timothy 4 verses 9 to 18.
00:01:02.000 | Here's Pastor John to explain.
00:01:05.000 | Christian ministry is relationally hard.
00:01:11.000 | I'm thinking first about Paul and Timothy and vocational ministers.
00:01:18.000 | But I'm thinking of you too because you are all, if you're Christian, you're all ministers
00:01:23.000 | called upon to love other people for their good according to your gifts.
00:01:29.000 | That's what ministry is and that's every believer.
00:01:32.000 | So I think this is for you when I say Christian ministry, that is Christian life, is relationally hard.
00:01:39.000 | And Paul seems to want Timothy to feel that because of how many he dumps on him.
00:01:46.000 | Here's five and there are more.
00:01:48.000 | Verse 10, "Demus, in love with the present world, has deserted me."
00:01:53.000 | He's gone to Thessalonica.
00:01:55.000 | I think Demus was once a faithful partner because over in Colossians chapter 4,
00:02:00.000 | he says, "Luke, the beloved physician, greets you and so does Demus."
00:02:05.000 | Now he's gone and he's forsaken Paul.
00:02:07.000 | That's number one.
00:02:08.000 | Number two, just being alone in the ministry, not just forsaken, but alone in the ministry can be a trial.
00:02:16.000 | So verses 10, middle of the verse, "Crescens has gone to Galatia."
00:02:21.000 | I don't think that means he forsook me.
00:02:23.000 | I just think there's some ministry things that I want him to do.
00:02:26.000 | "Crescens has gone to Galatia. Titus over to Dalmatia. Luke alone is with me."
00:02:31.000 | So once upon a time, there was quite a team here.
00:02:34.000 | And now it's just me and Luke and it gets worse.
00:02:39.000 | Number three, "Alexander the coppersmith," this is verse 14,
00:02:43.000 | "Alexander the coppersmith did me great harm."
00:02:46.000 | Verse 15, middle of the verse, "He strongly opposed our message."
00:02:52.000 | So ministry is relationally hard, not just because there's loneliness and sometimes abandonment on the inside,
00:02:59.000 | but there's opposition, verbal, on the outside.
00:03:03.000 | And nobody likes to be verbally attacked.
00:03:05.000 | It's hard to be verbally assaulted, even by people you expect it from.
00:03:12.000 | Every moment of unexpected silence from a friend and every verbal blow from an enemy wounds the spirit of the Christian.
00:03:25.000 | And it happens a lot.
00:03:28.000 | So ministry is relationally hard.
00:03:30.000 | Number four, verse 16, perhaps the saddest sentence in the paragraph or the book,
00:03:38.000 | "At my first defense, no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me."
00:03:47.000 | I'm going to come back to this, but for now, just feel the force of it.
00:03:53.000 | Luke, where were you?
00:03:58.000 | Number five, verses 20 to 21, "Erastus remained at Corinth.
00:04:05.000 | I left Trophimus, who was ill, at Miletus.
00:04:08.000 | Do your best to come before winter."
00:04:10.000 | So sometimes strategic deployments take away friends.
00:04:16.000 | I left Trophimus.
00:04:18.000 | Sometimes sickness interrupts a planned partnership.
00:04:22.000 | I left him sick.
00:04:24.000 | Sometimes seasonal changes make aloneness all the more difficult.
00:04:28.000 | Please try to get here before winter.
00:04:31.000 | Paul mentions those things surely to cause Timothy to feel ministry is hard relationally.
00:04:40.000 | Friends in the ministry can let you down and never return or care for you again.
00:04:49.000 | Verse 10, "Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica.
00:04:57.000 | Now I admit I do not know if he repented."
00:05:02.000 | There's nothing in the Bible that says he did or didn't.
00:05:07.000 | There's no evidence that he did, but surely all of us, at least those who are older,
00:05:13.000 | know ministers who have forsaken their partners and left the ministry, left the faith,
00:05:23.000 | and as far as we know, never returned.
00:05:27.000 | We know people like that.
00:05:31.000 | I think Paul wants Timothy here to feel not only a preparation for this sorrow in ministry.
00:05:40.000 | This happens, Timothy.
00:05:41.000 | I'm telling you it happened to me so that you'll be ready when it happens to you.
00:05:45.000 | I think he also wants to hear the cause so that he can avoid that and doesn't ever do it.
00:05:52.000 | In other words, not ever is abandoned and doesn't ever abandon because he's seen the cause here.
00:06:00.000 | "Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me."
00:06:06.000 | There is a love for the world that makes ministry impossible.
00:06:14.000 | There is a love for the world that produces either the abandonment of ministry or the making of ministry so worldly it's useless.
00:06:27.000 | That happens as often.
00:06:30.000 | So if a minister starts to become worldly, he's got two choices.
00:06:35.000 | Leave the ministry or make the ministry worldly.
00:06:39.000 | Then he can survive.
00:06:41.000 | Demas couldn't.
00:06:42.000 | Why?
00:06:43.000 | Because of Paul.
00:06:48.000 | It wasn't going to happen on Paul's team.
00:06:52.000 | So here's a caution to young and I say old, but I think especially young, culture-embracing evangelical Christians.
00:07:07.000 | You need to ponder Demas a long time.
00:07:15.000 | "In love with this present world," he found ministry with Paul impossible.
00:07:25.000 | And he left it.
00:07:27.000 | There is a love for the world.
00:07:29.000 | There is a love for this present age, this God-ignoring, God-denying, God-demeaning, Christ-distorting products of culture that is mutually exclusive with real deep love for Jesus.
00:07:49.000 | There is a love for this world that is irreconcilable with ministry to the world.
00:07:57.000 | The ministry of exposing the world, the ministry of witnessing to the world, the ministry of rescuing people from the world.
00:08:04.000 | None of that's going to happen very well if you just love it so much.
00:08:08.000 | And they think you're just one of them.
00:08:12.000 | So, young Timothy and young Bethlehem, remember, more people leave Christ and more people leave church and more people leave ministry out of love for the world than anything else.
00:08:34.000 | I've wondered, what was in Thessalonica?
00:08:40.000 | "In love with this world," this present world, "Demas has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica."
00:08:49.000 | Was it a woman?
00:08:52.000 | Was it home?
00:08:53.000 | Maybe he grew up there and he was just nostalgic and was tired of this missionary life and living with the Apostle Paul and just wanted to go home.
00:09:05.000 | Was it a business offer?
00:09:08.000 | "I got gifts for goodness sakes.
00:09:12.000 | I can make some money."
00:09:16.000 | Or was it just a comfortably safe distance away from this maniac Paul?
00:09:26.000 | We don't know.
00:09:29.000 | Here's what we know, Demas didn't leave out of love for Jesus, but out of love for the
00:09:37.660 | world.
00:09:40.160 | That's why everybody leaves.
00:09:42.040 | He didn't leave to follow Jesus.
00:09:44.940 | He left Jesus to embrace the world, the pleasures of the world, the entertainments of the world,
00:09:50.320 | the kickback of the world, the praise of the world, the friends of the world.
00:09:56.160 | So some of your partners in ministry will do that.
00:10:00.280 | Very very sobering to ponder Demas' life decisions and the pain that he caused in Paul's life
00:10:05.960 | as well.
00:10:07.300 | This clip was taken from John Piper's sermon, "He Stood by Me and Strengthened Me for the
00:10:11.840 | Sake of the Gospel," preached on August 26, 2012.
00:10:16.880 | The entire message is online at DesiringGod.org.
00:10:21.960 | So speaking of the ministry, how much speculation should we bring into the pulpit in our sermons?
00:10:27.840 | In every text we're going to face unanswered questions.
00:10:30.840 | So what do we do with the uncertainties in our Bible text?
00:10:34.080 | Do we embellish?
00:10:35.920 | Do we guess?
00:10:37.240 | Do we speculate?
00:10:38.880 | Or do we just tell people what we don't know?
00:10:41.340 | It's a great and practical question about a common dilemma all preachers and teachers
00:10:45.600 | face.
00:10:46.600 | That's up on Friday.
00:10:47.960 | I'm your host Tony Reinke, and we'll see you then.
00:10:50.440 | [END]
00:10:50.940 | 1.
00:10:51.940 | John Piper's sermon "He Stood by Me and Strengthened Me for the
00:10:52.940 | Sake of the Gospel" is available as a free download at the DesiringGod.org website.
00:10:52.940 | 2.
00:10:53.940 | John Piper's sermon "He Stood by Me and Strengthened Me for the
00:10:54.940 | Sake of the Gospel" is available as a free download at the DesiringGod.org website.
00:10:54.940 | 3.
00:10:55.940 | John Piper's sermon "He Stood by Me and Strengthened Me for the
00:10:56.940 | Sake of the Gospel" is available as a free download at the DesiringGod.org website.
00:10:56.940 | [BLANK_AUDIO]