Hoping in God When Our Heroes Die
00:00:00.000 | In every generation, the Church is gifted with a few influential leaders, dynamic voices
00:00:09.620 | that emerge and leave an indelible mark on countless lives with the Gospel.
00:00:13.440 | Pastor John, this would include you in our current era.
00:00:16.760 | However, as you well know, all such leaders eventually exit the stage.
00:00:21.720 | A harsh reality we faced this spring, and this void left by such leaders can evoke fear
00:00:27.400 | about the Church's future, an anxiety put to words by Natasha from Jacksonville, Florida,
00:00:33.320 | in her email to you.
00:00:34.800 | "Pastor John, your ministry has built my and my husband's faith for the last 20 years,"
00:00:38.920 | she writes.
00:00:39.920 | "We adopted three girls from Liberia inspired to not waste our lives.
00:00:44.040 | I've always felt so much encouragement in my walk knowing I'm part of a larger body
00:00:48.280 | of Christian believers and leaders.
00:00:50.920 | My problem is the fear that I find myself feeling over the state of the modern Church.
00:00:56.080 | Many leaders have fallen to temptation or quit the ministry altogether.
00:00:59.920 | Seems very few last as long as the older generations did.
00:01:03.520 | When Tim Keller passed away earlier this year, I found myself worried over what leaders and
00:01:08.200 | what quality of leaders will take the baton in the future.
00:01:12.160 | I know the Lord wants me to find my hope in Him and Him alone.
00:01:15.120 | However, I find myself thinking negatively and would like some insight into the hope
00:01:19.680 | of the Christian Church when the elder statesmen, like yourself and Tim Keller, are gone."
00:01:27.560 | This question has a special relevance for me because I can remember the very place I
00:01:34.160 | was standing on our back porch in Greenville, South Carolina when I was 14 years old as
00:01:42.080 | the fearful thought entered my mind.
00:01:46.080 | What will we do if Billy Graham dies?
00:01:49.760 | I mean, I can remember that just so clearly.
00:01:53.600 | It was a very powerful moment.
00:01:56.920 | So some of our younger listeners may not even know who Billy Graham is, right?
00:02:01.080 | I was talking to somebody the other day.
00:02:02.880 | They did not know who he was.
00:02:04.360 | I thought, "Oh my goodness."
00:02:07.080 | Billy Graham was the most well-known evangelical Christian in the 20th century.
00:02:14.960 | As an immature provincial 14-year-old Christian, I thought, "The future of Christianity hangs
00:02:24.400 | on the preservation of Billy Graham."
00:02:27.840 | So I have tasted this anxiety expressed in this question.
00:02:32.560 | Is there a healthy, strong future for the Bible-believing evangelical church when influential
00:02:41.640 | leaders are passing off the scene?
00:02:44.680 | Now, I think I could point out some factors among the younger generation today that would
00:02:52.880 | be encouraging.
00:02:54.040 | I think I could do that, but I think it will have more lasting and deeper effect on our
00:03:00.280 | encouragement if I cite instead five scriptures that relate to this issue very definitely.
00:03:08.360 | Number one, when the author of the book of Hebrews said in chapter 13, verse 7, "Remember
00:03:17.720 | your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God.
00:03:23.680 | Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith."
00:03:27.560 | Do you know what the very next words were out of that author's mouth after he said,
00:03:34.600 | "Remember your leaders"?
00:03:36.640 | The next words were, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever."
00:03:44.360 | Now, why did he do that?
00:03:45.800 | Why did he say that?
00:03:47.480 | Why was that the next thing to say after the command to remember the leaders and imitate
00:03:55.800 | their faith?
00:03:57.460 | Why a promise that Jesus is the same from generation to generation?
00:04:03.440 | And surely he did that to counter the fear that if leaders are passing off the scene,
00:04:12.320 | which they were, this is past tense in chapter 13, verse 7, they're passing off the scene,
00:04:19.800 | then we're going to be bereft of the kind of leadership we've been used to and that
00:04:25.720 | we need.
00:04:27.360 | And to remedy that fear, the writer says, actually, Jesus will be there and he will
00:04:35.480 | be the same.
00:04:37.480 | He will do what needs to be done.
00:04:40.480 | Number two, when Elijah was despairing over the condition of Israel in his own day, he
00:04:48.520 | said, "I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, for the people of
00:04:54.880 | Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, killed your prophets with
00:05:01.000 | the sword, and I, even I only, am left and they seek my life to take it away."
00:05:09.560 | That's 1 Kings 19.
00:05:11.200 | Now, the apostle Paul picks up on Elijah's despairing words and asks in Romans 11, if
00:05:22.360 | in his own day God had rejected his people the way Elijah feels like his hope for Israel.
00:05:31.920 | And he quotes Elijah's words, but then he writes, "But what does God reply to Elijah?"
00:05:40.440 | God's reply is, "I have kept for myself 7,000 men who have not bowed the knee to Baal,"
00:05:51.320 | from which Paul concludes, "So too at the present time there is a remnant chosen by
00:05:59.240 | grace," Romans 11, 2-5.
00:06:03.160 | And the key words are, "I have kept for myself."
00:06:07.560 | So God never leaves the fate of his people to mere chance or to the vagaries of human
00:06:16.800 | history and the rise and fall of leaders, even Christian leaders.
00:06:21.600 | He does the keeping of his people.
00:06:26.440 | Third, the existence of godly leaders in Christ's church are Christ's gift to the church.
00:06:39.000 | Christ's gift to the church.
00:06:40.200 | Not history's gift.
00:06:41.360 | Not the church's gift.
00:06:42.880 | Not fate's gift.
00:06:44.920 | Christ gives leaders.
00:06:47.640 | They don't just happen.
00:06:49.400 | They are Christ's appointment, not the mere work of man.
00:06:53.120 | So Ephesians 4-11, "Christ gave shepherds and teachers to the church to equip the saints."
00:07:01.560 | Acts 20-28, "Elders, pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which
00:07:09.960 | the Holy Spirit set you," ethetō in Greek, tithēme, "set you, put you as overseers."
00:07:18.800 | The Spirit did that.
00:07:20.360 | Man didn't do that.
00:07:21.360 | Colossians 4-17, "Say to Archippus, 'See that you fulfill the ministry that you received
00:07:28.960 | from the Lord.'"
00:07:31.520 | The Lord gives the ministry.
00:07:33.280 | Luke 12-42, "The Lord said, 'Who then is the faithful and wise manager whom his master
00:07:40.200 | will set over his household to give them their food at the proper time?'"
00:07:46.440 | The Lord sets managers over his household.
00:07:50.880 | This is not a mere human thing.
00:07:53.680 | It's not a mere matter of the ebb and flow of history.
00:07:57.360 | The Lord of history appoints leaders.
00:08:00.960 | So our role is Matthew 9-38.
00:08:05.320 | The harvest is plentiful.
00:08:07.160 | The laborers are few.
00:08:09.440 | Pray the Lord of the harvest.
00:08:12.080 | Pray earnestly to the Lord of the church, the Lord of the harvest, the Lord of the mission,
00:08:18.440 | the Lord of the world.
00:08:20.480 | Send out laborers into your harvest.
00:08:23.440 | That's what we should be praying.
00:08:24.920 | We usually just restrict that text to missionaries.
00:08:27.500 | It means anywhere there's some initiative needed to harvest and to grow the church,
00:08:37.200 | pray it down.
00:08:38.200 | Number four, Jesus said in Matthew 16-18, "I will build my church and the gates of
00:08:46.320 | hell shall not prevail against it."
00:08:50.120 | So ultimately, the perseverance and the strength of the church is owing to the will of the
00:08:56.960 | sovereign Christ, not to his leaders, but to Christ himself, who uses leaders and raises
00:09:03.760 | them up.
00:09:04.760 | We must always look finally to him.
00:09:08.800 | And then fifth, when we read the history of the kings of Israel, one of the things that
00:09:18.000 | stands out is the quality, the faithfulness of the kings and how it does not depend on
00:09:27.600 | who their father was.
00:09:30.960 | In other words, a very bad king may have a good son.
00:09:37.160 | A good king may have a bad son.
00:09:41.880 | So godliness in the line of Judas Kings may skip a generation or two.
00:09:50.520 | You might feel this is pessimistic because I am suggesting that can happen in the evangelical
00:09:56.000 | church.
00:09:57.320 | But the fact that God is in control of that and it has happened many times before means
00:10:02.320 | there's always a future.
00:10:04.480 | For example, Jotham was a good king, not a perfect king, but 2 Kings 15-34 says he did
00:10:11.800 | what was right in the eyes of the Lord.
00:10:15.160 | But his son Ahaz was a wicked king, but his son Hezekiah was a faithful king, but his
00:10:22.800 | son and grandson were wicked kings, Manasseh and Ammon.
00:10:28.120 | But Ammon's son Josiah was a good king.
00:10:31.600 | What this implies is that the godliness of leadership in one generation is no guarantee
00:10:41.160 | of the godliness of the next generation.
00:10:45.240 | But more hopeful is the other implication.
00:10:48.960 | The ungodliness of leadership in one generation is no guarantee that the next generation will
00:10:57.520 | be ungodly.
00:10:58.520 | I've seen this.
00:10:59.520 | I've seen this in the church today.
00:11:02.760 | Just when you think that the sources of faithful leadership have all gone astray, faithful
00:11:11.640 | leaders come out of nowhere.
00:11:14.080 | This is what God loves to do.
00:11:16.540 | In fact, this is precisely why he chose to make Abraham and Sarah the parents of all
00:11:22.360 | future godly leadership, because it was humanly impossible.
00:11:26.440 | Abraham was too old.
00:11:27.760 | Sarah was barren.
00:11:29.080 | All hope of godly leadership coming out of their loins was futile.
00:11:33.120 | It wasn't going to happen.
00:11:36.040 | But Paul makes it crystal clear what God was doing, and he knew what he was doing.
00:11:41.520 | God, he says, made the promise to Abraham.
00:11:47.280 | He gives life to the dead and calls into existence things that do not exist.
00:11:55.840 | There it is.
00:11:57.080 | So maybe the word to close on, on this issue of leadership, if you look around and you
00:12:03.600 | wonder, will there be faithful pastors and leaders to come, and you don't see what you
00:12:10.200 | want to see, remember, God calls into existence things that do not exist.
00:12:19.040 | Yeah.
00:12:20.040 | Amen.
00:12:21.040 | God sovereignly reigns generation by generation.
00:12:24.200 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:12:25.200 | And your Billy Graham mentioned here reminds me of the story you told about when you first
00:12:29.600 | met him.
00:12:30.600 | You reminisced on the encounter and his life, his impact on you, and your fears for the
00:12:35.120 | future of the church when Graham would be gone.
00:12:37.080 | All of that you shared, ironically, on the day Billy Graham passed away in 2018.
00:12:43.240 | We titled that episode "On the Day Billy Graham Died."
00:12:46.920 | You can find it in the archive at askpastorjohn.com.
00:12:50.480 | Well, speaking of life after loss, next time, Andrea, a broken woman who recently lost her
00:12:59.280 | husband to pancreatic cancer, seeks guidance from Pastor John on how to navigate the long
00:13:04.240 | process of returning back to a normal life.
00:13:08.040 | Despite holding on to the Word of God and receiving support from friends, she's struggling
00:13:11.940 | to move on.
00:13:13.320 | How do we return to normal life after tragedy?
00:13:16.040 | That's up next.
00:13:17.400 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:13:19.640 | We'll see you Thursday.
00:13:20.640 | [END]
00:13:21.640 | 1
00:13:21.640 | Andrea Graham, Jr.
00:13:22.640 | "I'm not going to tell you about the story of Billy Graham.
00:13:23.640 | It's a story I've heard a lot of times.
00:13:24.640 | It's a story I've always heard.
00:13:25.640 | It's a story I've heard a lot of times.
00:13:26.640 | It's a story I've heard a lot of times.
00:13:27.640 | It's a story I've heard a lot of times.
00:13:28.640 | It's a story I've heard a lot of times.