Marriage Challenges and Christian Ministry
00:00:00.000 | [Music]
00:00:05.000 | Today we again highlight an excerpt from a Q&A Pastor John recently led with the
00:00:09.000 | students at Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia. Here's a question asked by
00:00:12.600 | one of the students. Hey Dr. Piper, I have a two-part question. The first part is
00:00:18.800 | what are some of the most difficult challenges you've faced? And I mean the
00:00:24.160 | whole gamut, life, ministry, everything. And then part two, what has sustained you
00:00:31.200 | through those? I think the biggest challenges you'll face in the ministry
00:00:38.280 | will very likely relate to your family, your marriage, and your children, maybe
00:00:44.000 | the wider family depending what culture you're from. That certainly has been true
00:00:49.120 | for me. I've told my wife Noel that we've been married 45 years. I said, "Look, all I
00:00:57.240 | need in the ministry from you is for you to be happy." Because if mama ain't happy...
00:01:08.400 | And we've gone through really hard times. I mean we've spent one season 33
00:01:19.920 | months in counseling together trying to figure out why do we hurt each other
00:01:24.840 | like this? Why do our mouths do this to each other? Then you get along okay
00:01:32.280 | for ten years and you need to work on it again. We've had pretty battled
00:01:37.640 | relationship. I love her like crazy and she means she's safe. But why? I don't know.
00:01:47.120 | I'm baffled at age 68 as to why we have some of these issues. But here's
00:01:55.040 | the point. When you walk through a church for 33 years and you have
00:02:00.480 | seasons where you get zero growth for four years and 230 people walk away and
00:02:04.960 | you're accused of everything under the sun, the way you did church discipline
00:02:09.480 | and whatnot. If the collapse at home or the stress at home happens at the same
00:02:17.040 | time as the stress at church, you're just about a goner. But if home is making it,
00:02:22.920 | you can handle anything at church. And if church is making it, you might get through
00:02:28.440 | a tough time at home. When they come together, then it'll take a miracle.
00:02:33.960 | It'll take a miracle no matter what. So that's the main thing
00:02:40.280 | I'd say. In the ministry, you will have seasons of great
00:02:45.600 | difficulty in the church and you will have probably seasons of great
00:02:50.000 | difficulty at home. And if you think all's well, you've been married for 20
00:02:54.560 | years and you got a 15 year old, he just may not show up. He may be gone and you
00:03:01.920 | don't know where he is. You going to be able to preach next Sunday? I've been there. So there
00:03:11.520 | just aren't any things harder than to keep pressing on in the ministry when
00:03:16.840 | there are broken pieces in the family. So work on that. I mean, prepare your soul to be a
00:03:23.520 | good husband, wife, so that you learn from Jesus how to do marriage. And it is the
00:03:31.200 | greatest anvil of sanctification in the world. And that is no accident. That is no
00:03:39.920 | accident. Nothing has shown me my sin like marriage and nothing has given
00:03:48.000 | opportunities for grace like marriage. So while it's been for me one of the
00:03:52.840 | hardest things, it's been one of the most glorious things. So I wrote a
00:03:58.640 | book on marriage. I was thinking, I've got to write a book on marriage someday
00:04:03.440 | because I'm a Christian hedonist and I want to relate it to everything and
00:04:06.640 | marriage is a big deal. And I kept saying, but I'm not ready. We got a
00:04:11.840 | phone call one time from Christianity Today. They had a book called
00:04:15.720 | Partnership. I don't think it exists anymore. I mean a magazine. And they always had a
00:04:19.000 | featured of a smiley pastoral couple on the front. And they called me and said,
00:04:24.760 | "We would like to put you and Noel on the front and do a special article on you."
00:04:29.080 | And I said, "You would. Look, we're barely talking right now. So I think you better
00:04:40.640 | come back later." And they never called back.
00:04:48.000 | I had not heard that story before. That was Pastor John recently fielding
00:04:53.240 | questions from students at Westminster Theological Seminary. And related to
00:04:57.360 | this is the Ask Pastor John episode titled, "What Steals Your Joy?" which is
00:05:01.360 | episode number 256 in the archive. It's worth checking out. So what would Pastor
00:05:05.600 | John say to sermon listeners who are overly critical of their pastors and who
00:05:10.280 | tend to dwell on the faults of a sermon? We will talk about that on Monday. Until
00:05:14.480 | then, I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Have a great and worship-filled weekend.
00:05:19.440 | [BLANK_AUDIO]