(upbeat music) - One young man writes in to ask this, "Pastor John, what do you do in a local church "when the people affirm your leadership, "but the leadership in your church doesn't?" - Yeah, that's a question that comes to me often from youth ministers or assistant pastors who love the Bible and are trying to teach it faithfully.

The kids and their parents are often eating it up, or the small groups are, and the senior pastor's a little bit wary or something like that. So that's the kind of situation I'm thinking when you ask that question, that's what I've heard. So whom you listen to in your ministry is really important.

Do you listen to the people who are loving your work, or do you listen to your senior leadership? If you're not the senior, do you listen to others, like colleagues outside of your church? Do you listen to your spouse, your friends? Who do you listen to? And here's my take.

First, take your cues from the scriptures. Listen to God. Whatever any man says, it cannot compare with what God says. Your conscience must be clear before God that you are teaching and ministering faithfully. Paul said, and it's so sweet, Romans 14, 22, "Blessed is the one who has no reason "to pass judgment on himself for what he approves." Wow, that's so true.

A clear conscience is a powerful thing. You must be true to your own discernment of what God says in his word. And of course, you know you're fallible. You know you should be always open to counsel, that you may be reading the Bible wrongly, but in the end, you gotta have peace that you're one with God's word.

That's the first thing, listen to God. The second thing is listen long and hard to your seniors and your overseers, even the ones who disagree with you, or are critical of you, or not happy with what you're doing. They may seem to be disapproving of what's going on, but listen, don't write them off too quickly.

Test all things, hold fast to what is good. I think a mark of a mature, young pastor, that is a pastor who's maturing quickly, is his humility and his willingness to be rebuked, his willingness to be questioned. He may not agree with everything, but he's not defensive in a knee-jerk kind of way.

But you know that they're fallible too, and so in the end, it's gonna be the word of God, and a wider constituency that are gonna make the final difference here. The third thing is listen to trusted spiritual counselors. Not just yes men, don't surround yourself with just people who think that you're the best thing after whole bread, but the most spiritual people you know, the people who love the word of God, who are deeply prayerful and worshipful, the people who are bold in their witness and risk-taking in their service of Christ, listen to them, the people who obey Jesus, whatever the cost, they're the ones who will tell you like it is, and take them seriously, seek them out, tell them the situation, let them know what's going on, and listen to their heart.

And then the fourth thing, listen to those who have walked through similar circumstances. If you know people who are 20 years ahead of you in ministry, the same thing happened to them, ask them what they learned from it, and grow from that. And then pray earnestly that Christ would illumine all of this listening, 'cause it can be very confusing.

If your leaders will entrust you to God, if your leaders will allow you to teach and lead according to what you see in the word, you may have a fruitful ministry right there in that setting, even if there's not complete agreement. But if your leaders want you to cease from teaching significant things that you see as true and necessary, cease from patterns of ministry that you think are biblical, then you'll probably need to look for another place of service, and I would just plead with God, open a door so that there would be a confirming call to something, not just away from something.

- Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for listening to this podcast. On Monday, we'll be back to look at Psalm 103, verse three, which says, "God heals all of our diseases." So how literally do we take that promise? Until then, please email your questions to us at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org, and visit us online at desiringgod.org to find thousands of books, articles, sermons, and other resources from John Piper, all free of charge.

I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)