Last night I listened to John Piper's
Sermon: Charles Spurgeon:
Preaching Through Adversity[1] from the 1995 Bethlehem Conference for
Pastors. Folks who are not pastors
sometimes don't understand this. An
emotion came over me to hear these words.
It's like the feeling you get when you are certain someone understands
you. Here's what he said in the
introduction to the message:
". . . Everyone faces adversity and must
find ways to persevere through the oppressing moments of life. Everyone must
get up and make breakfast, and wash clothes, and go to work, and pay bills, and
discipline children and generally keep life going when the heart is breaking.
But it's different with
pastors—not totally different, but different. The
heart is the instrument of our vocation. Spurgeon said, "Ours is more than
mental work—it is heart work, the labour of our inmost soul." So when our
heart is breaking we must labor with a broken instrument. Preaching is our main
work. And preaching is heart work, not just mental work. So the question for us
is not just How you keep on living when
the marriage is blank, and a child has run away, and the finances don't reach,
and pews are bare and friends have forsaken you; the question for us is more
than, How do you keep on living? It's, How do you keep on preaching. It's one thing to survive adversity; it is
something very different to keep on preaching, Sunday after Sunday, month after
month when the heart is overwhelmed."1 [Emphasis Mine]
You see a welder can go to work, weld metal
– just after he had an argument with his wife.
It's not fun. It hurts. It's hard.
But he can work. A pastor
can't. Many of us pastors always feel
woefully inadequate and unqualified because it is indeed "heart
work". Our hearts constantly
condemn us because our standard is the Word and the Word of God is unrelenting
in its pursuit of holiness. Preaching
through painful heart issues like conflict at home or the church family; like
fear of financial security; like struggles with personal, indwelling sin, are
of Himalayan magnitude.
Thankfully Spurgeon gave some encouraging
help to pastors. But in summary the
answer is really just one word: Gospel. “But
we have this treasure in jars of clay, to
show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are
afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair;
persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying
in the body the death of Jesus, so
that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.” (2
Corinthians 4:7–10, ESV) [Emphasis Mine]
If you are reading this and you are a
pastor: be encouraged. 1 John
3:19-22.
If you are reading this and you are a
member of the church: pray for your
pastor; encourage him. 1 Thessalonians 5:12-13.
To God be the glory!
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