Fighting for Joy in Pastoral Ministry
00:00:00.000 | Here's a question from a pastor.
00:00:06.800 | "Pastor John, how did you maintain your personal awe of God throughout your three decades of
00:00:10.600 | ministry?
00:00:11.600 | Have you ever burned out?
00:00:12.600 | Have you ever gone through dry seasons?
00:00:14.160 | And if so, how did you get out of it?"
00:00:16.320 | I have gone through very dark and cold seasons, and I want to make sure that when I say that,
00:00:25.240 | people realize we're not talking about a simple two-phase Christianity, like there's really
00:00:34.880 | red-hot, devoted, vital Christianity, and then there's cold, dead, dark Christianity.
00:00:44.200 | The fact is, there are infinite gradations in between those two extremes, and so I would
00:00:51.360 | say I'm in and out of those daily.
00:00:55.880 | It's not like, "Oh, back in '78 there was a season."
00:01:00.080 | It's like I get up needing to become alive, and my strategy has been the same pretty much
00:01:09.920 | all the way along in trying to fight this fight for joy, and that is to pray earnestly
00:01:19.840 | while I look at the Bible.
00:01:21.800 | So those two things, my faith is set towards God's Word, because it says in 1 Samuel 3:21,
00:01:29.400 | "He revealed himself to Samuel through the Word of the Lord."
00:01:34.680 | And I want to see Jesus.
00:01:35.960 | I need Jesus.
00:01:36.960 | I don't need merely propositions.
00:01:40.800 | I need an encounter with the living Christ, and I believe it comes through the Word, and
00:01:45.280 | yet I'm staring at the Word and it's not happening, right?
00:01:48.640 | So I'm staring at the Word.
00:01:49.640 | I don't say, "Okay, the Word doesn't work.
00:01:51.200 | I'll go somewhere else."
00:01:52.200 | I keep staring at the Word and praying my favorite acrostic, "I O U S."
00:01:59.040 | Incline my heart to your testimonies, O God.
00:02:03.120 | Open my eyes to see wonderful things.
00:02:06.120 | Unite my heart to fear your name.
00:02:10.080 | Satisfy me in the morning with your steadfast love.
00:02:12.760 | I O U S.
00:02:13.760 | That's my prayer virtually every day over the Word of God.
00:02:20.160 | And the paradigm in the Psalms for helping me cope with seasons of downness is Psalm
00:02:31.160 | 40, which says, "I waited patiently for the Lord.
00:02:38.280 | He heard my cry.
00:02:40.120 | He lifted me up out of the desolate pit, out of the miry bog.
00:02:44.720 | He put my feet upon a rock and made my step secure.
00:02:49.240 | He put a new song in my mouth.
00:02:51.040 | Many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord."
00:02:53.720 | Now, he was in the pit.
00:02:56.680 | It was a miry bog, and it says he was waiting.
00:03:01.120 | And how long was he waiting?
00:03:02.560 | I'm so glad it didn't say two days or a week.
00:03:06.560 | It left it open because you may be in that miry bog for months, but the key there is
00:03:14.160 | I waited patiently for the Lord.
00:03:18.680 | And I think while he waited, he was crying out.
00:03:22.560 | All those I O U S, all those came from the Psalms.
00:03:26.400 | So I get help by looking at David in the pit, and I get help from all the prayers that the
00:03:33.360 | Psalms made, and I get mainly help from keeping my face in the book and pleading with God
00:03:39.680 | to reveal himself to me over and over.
00:03:42.560 | And I know you don't ask these questions, Tony, in order to get me to advertise books,
00:03:48.760 | but I just got to say, C.J. Mahaney told me his favorite Piper book is "When I Don't Desire
00:03:56.960 | God," and I think that's because C.J. loves application.
00:04:01.360 | He loves nitty-gritty, down-to-earth, in-your-face, helpful counsel.
00:04:07.040 | And that's my most practical book out of all the dozens of books I've done.
00:04:12.240 | If somebody's asking, "I don't desire God, and I've been in a season of not desiring
00:04:16.520 | God for months.
00:04:17.520 | What can I do?"
00:04:18.520 | Well, there's five minutes worth, but if you want ten hours worth, I did my dead-devil
00:04:25.880 | best to get down real in that book and say it.
00:04:31.320 | And I noticed, too, that there are three messages that Desiring God calls "How to Fight for
00:04:37.360 | Joy," these conference messages.
00:04:38.680 | I don't even know where I gave them, but if you typed in "How to Fight for Joy," they're
00:04:43.040 | there.
00:04:44.040 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:04:45.040 | You can find those 2005 regional conference messages by searching for "How to Fight for
00:04:48.480 | Joy," sessions one, two, and three, and you will also find a questions and answers session.
00:04:54.120 | Those and thousands of other free resources from John Piper can be found online at DesiringGod.org.
00:04:58.400 | I'm your host, Tony Arenke.
00:04:59.400 | Thanks for listening.
00:05:00.200 | [END]
00:05:01.700 | Desiring God for Joy
00:05:04.700 | www.desiringgod.org
00:05:06.700 | [BLANK_AUDIO]