(upbeat music) - A very simple and direct question for you today, Pastor John, over the years, what things have been most apt to steal your joy? - My kids, my marriage, my soul in response to my kids and my marriage. If things are sweet at home, you can stand almost anything in the ministry.

At least that's my experience. The hardest battles for me have been emotional battles within my family. Living by the spirit, trying to minister by the spirit doesn't prevent hard relational things from happening in the ministry. It just gets you through them and gets you through them with hope and in the end with joy in the sustaining grace of God.

Now, here's some implications of that answer. I mean, it's pretty weighty to say the biggest joy stealers in the ministry are not deacons, they're not elders, they're not counseling issues, they're not people who leave the church, they're not notes you get in the mail from a disgruntled parishioner. That's just, those problems are nowhere near as emotionally depleting as conflict in the marriage or kids that are disappointing you or you're disappointing them or there's conflict.

So here's some implications. Number one, investment in a happy Christ-honoring marriage is not separate from ministry. For me, it was part of the power of ministry. And I don't just mean that my ministry is legitimated because elders are supposed to have well-behaved homes. That's not what I mean. I mean the actual motivation for doing ministry rose and fell with authenticity of the church.

Authenticity of Christian living at home. And so it wasn't merely, oh, do I qualify, like some external rule that I had to meet. It's rather, can I survive? Is the burden that I feel at home depleting so much energy I won't have anything for Sunday morning? So to invest in the family was to invest in my survival.

Not just my qualification. Number two, investing in the joy and welfare of the children not just the marriage but in the children was not separate from ministry because it was part of the power. A sense of authenticity rose and fell with them as well. A hypocrisy is not only a great sin, it's a great weakener.

If you feel like you're inauthentic with your kids, like you're one thing in the pulpit and your kids see you as another thing, it's gonna be very hard to keep going. It's a power depleter. It's an underminer of real spiritual authority in the pulpit and power in people's lives.

Third, when struggles inevitably come at home and they will come with wife, with children, don't go underground with them. Entrust yourself to the elders and to close friends. Enlist prayer, get the counsel you need. This is for the sake of ministry, not just for the family. It's all woven together.

Fourth, when the storms come, don't quit. Satan wants you to quit. He's as active as anybody in this thing and he wants you out of the ministry or at least out of fruitfulness. He wants you paralyzed with discouragement. Tell him to go to hell, which is where he belongs, and then bank on the promises of God that he who is greater, he who is in you is greater than he who's in the world.

That promise has been very precious over the years as I've gotten in Satan's face about his temptations. Fifth, when storms come, and they will, don't manipulate your kids or your wife to tell them, "No, if you don't behave, "you're gonna disqualify me from ministry." That's just an absolutely wrong thing to say because that kind of obedience isn't obedience, right?

You don't want kids or your wife thinking about your ministry that way, that you shouldn't ever jerk them around like that or use your role as a kind of lever to try to get their hearts to be right with God. That's just counterproductive. It's not going to work. There are reasons to obey as children and reasons to walk in joyful holiness, and that's not one of them.

There ought to be other reasons. If a kid is just containing his worldliness to keep Daddy's job, that kid's gonna explode someday and do more damage than if he'd been honest, and so Dad shouldn't encourage that kind of hypocrisy in their kids. And the last thing I would say is cry out to the Lord for help.

That's what I did over and over again. He won't let you be tested beyond what you are able, but with the testing, you know, we usually translate that temptation and we almost always think of sex. The word perosmos means testing as well as temptation. He will not let you be tested beyond what you're able, but with the testing in the family will make a way of escape so that you will be able to bear it.

I have seen, Tony, I have seen light at the end of tunnels that seemed impossibly dark. So that's God's answer to that promise in 1 Corinthians 10, 13. He will make an opening at the end of this tunnel. Trust me, hold on, don't doubt me in the dark. I am a God of light and I will be with you.

- Thank you, Pastor John. And thank you for listening to this podcast. 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.

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