What Steals Your Joy?
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - A very simple and direct question for you today,
00:00:07.820 | Pastor John, over the years,
00:00:09.540 | what things have been most apt to steal your joy?
00:00:12.600 | - My kids, my marriage,
00:00:17.280 | my soul in response to my kids and my marriage.
00:00:21.980 | If things are sweet at home,
00:00:29.440 | you can stand almost anything in the ministry.
00:00:32.800 | At least that's my experience.
00:00:35.160 | The hardest battles for me
00:00:36.920 | have been emotional battles within my family.
00:00:43.280 | Living by the spirit,
00:00:47.520 | trying to minister by the spirit
00:00:50.980 | doesn't prevent hard relational things
00:00:54.740 | from happening in the ministry.
00:00:56.480 | It just gets you through them
00:00:58.920 | and gets you through them with hope
00:01:01.400 | and in the end with joy in the sustaining grace of God.
00:01:06.400 | Now, here's some implications of that answer.
00:01:09.840 | I mean, it's pretty weighty to say
00:01:12.880 | the biggest joy stealers in the ministry are not deacons,
00:01:17.880 | they're not elders, they're not counseling issues,
00:01:21.560 | they're not people who leave the church,
00:01:23.200 | they're not notes you get in the mail
00:01:25.400 | from a disgruntled parishioner.
00:01:27.160 | That's just, those problems are nowhere near
00:01:31.520 | as emotionally depleting as conflict in the marriage
00:01:35.720 | or kids that are disappointing you
00:01:39.840 | or you're disappointing them or there's conflict.
00:01:43.760 | So here's some implications.
00:01:45.160 | Number one, investment in a happy Christ-honoring marriage
00:01:50.160 | is not separate from ministry.
00:01:53.340 | For me, it was part of the power of ministry.
00:01:57.780 | And I don't just mean that my ministry is legitimated
00:02:02.780 | because elders are supposed to have well-behaved homes.
00:02:09.340 | That's not what I mean.
00:02:12.100 | I mean the actual motivation for doing ministry
00:02:17.100 | rose and fell with authenticity of the church.
00:02:22.180 | Authenticity of Christian living at home.
00:02:26.420 | And so it wasn't merely, oh, do I qualify,
00:02:29.820 | like some external rule that I had to meet.
00:02:33.280 | It's rather, can I survive?
00:02:35.980 | Is the burden that I feel at home depleting so much energy
00:02:42.940 | I won't have anything for Sunday morning?
00:02:46.580 | So to invest in the family was to invest in my survival.
00:02:52.300 | Not just my qualification.
00:02:54.420 | Number two, investing in the joy and welfare of the children
00:02:59.420 | not just the marriage but in the children
00:03:03.980 | was not separate from ministry
00:03:06.340 | because it was part of the power.
00:03:08.640 | A sense of authenticity rose and fell with them as well.
00:03:13.640 | A hypocrisy is not only a great sin, it's a great weakener.
00:03:20.380 | If you feel like you're inauthentic with your kids,
00:03:24.960 | like you're one thing in the pulpit
00:03:27.740 | and your kids see you as another thing,
00:03:31.180 | it's gonna be very hard to keep going.
00:03:33.580 | It's a power depleter.
00:03:36.100 | It's an underminer of real spiritual authority
00:03:40.820 | in the pulpit and power in people's lives.
00:03:44.500 | Third, when struggles inevitably come at home
00:03:50.140 | and they will come with wife, with children,
00:03:53.660 | don't go underground with them.
00:03:55.860 | Entrust yourself to the elders and to close friends.
00:03:58.820 | Enlist prayer, get the counsel you need.
00:04:01.500 | This is for the sake of ministry, not just for the family.
00:04:05.300 | It's all woven together.
00:04:07.020 | Fourth, when the storms come, don't quit.
00:04:11.180 | Satan wants you to quit.
00:04:12.820 | He's as active as anybody in this thing
00:04:17.580 | and he wants you out of the ministry
00:04:19.900 | or at least out of fruitfulness.
00:04:21.700 | He wants you paralyzed with discouragement.
00:04:24.620 | Tell him to go to hell, which is where he belongs,
00:04:27.620 | and then bank on the promises of God
00:04:31.080 | that he who is greater, he who is in you
00:04:34.540 | is greater than he who's in the world.
00:04:37.580 | That promise has been very precious over the years
00:04:40.500 | as I've gotten in Satan's face about his temptations.
00:04:44.580 | Fifth, when storms come, and they will,
00:04:48.180 | don't manipulate your kids or your wife
00:04:52.180 | to tell them, "No, if you don't behave,
00:04:56.340 | "you're gonna disqualify me from ministry."
00:04:58.340 | That's just an absolutely wrong thing to say
00:05:01.860 | because that kind of obedience isn't obedience, right?
00:05:06.060 | You don't want kids or your wife
00:05:08.660 | thinking about your ministry that way,
00:05:10.340 | that you shouldn't ever jerk them around like that
00:05:13.700 | or use your role as a kind of lever
00:05:18.060 | to try to get their hearts to be right with God.
00:05:21.180 | That's just counterproductive.
00:05:23.780 | It's not going to work.
00:05:25.420 | There are reasons to obey as children
00:05:27.620 | and reasons to walk in joyful holiness,
00:05:29.720 | and that's not one of them.
00:05:32.040 | There ought to be other reasons.
00:05:33.980 | If a kid is just containing his worldliness
00:05:36.940 | to keep Daddy's job, that kid's gonna explode someday
00:05:41.080 | and do more damage than if he'd been honest,
00:05:43.840 | and so Dad shouldn't encourage that kind of hypocrisy
00:05:47.880 | in their kids.
00:05:49.780 | And the last thing I would say is
00:05:51.780 | cry out to the Lord for help.
00:05:53.500 | That's what I did over and over again.
00:05:56.740 | He won't let you be tested beyond what you are able,
00:06:01.740 | but with the testing, you know,
00:06:03.980 | we usually translate that temptation
00:06:05.900 | and we almost always think of sex.
00:06:07.800 | The word perosmos means testing as well as temptation.
00:06:11.180 | He will not let you be tested beyond what you're able,
00:06:14.360 | but with the testing in the family
00:06:17.020 | will make a way of escape so that you will be able
00:06:19.080 | to bear it.
00:06:20.920 | I have seen, Tony, I have seen light at the end of tunnels
00:06:25.920 | that seemed impossibly dark.
00:06:30.120 | So that's God's answer to that promise
00:06:33.760 | in 1 Corinthians 10, 13.
00:06:35.680 | He will make an opening at the end of this tunnel.
00:06:39.760 | Trust me, hold on, don't doubt me in the dark.
00:06:42.400 | I am a God of light and I will be with you.
00:06:46.240 | - Thank you, Pastor John.
00:06:47.600 | And thank you for listening to this podcast.
00:06:49.180 | Please email your questions to us
00:06:50.600 | at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org
00:06:53.240 | and visit us online at desiringgod.org
00:06:55.200 | to find thousands of books, articles, sermons,
00:06:56.920 | and other resources from John Piper, all free of charge.
00:06:59.880 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:07:00.960 | Thanks for listening.
00:07:02.000 | (upbeat music)
00:07:04.580 | (upbeat music)
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