Alistair Begg: "Inadequacy: The Surprising Secret to Being Useful to God" (Interview)

this is the scripture ministry interview series my name is Hans meadow Amy the managing director of the Henry Center for theological understanding and next to me is pastor Steve Farish who is the pastor of Crossroads Church in Grayslake and we're with pastor Alistair Beck who's been with us since yesterday and he gave a scripture ministry lecture on inadequacy and that was a very stimulating talk and a good Q&A I thought I'd maybe thanks for joining us thank you today I thought I'd maybe open up just you've got that great Scottish accent and people a lot of our listeners might be wondering what your background is and how you how you ended up with your ministry here and actually I should mention he's you can also hear him pretty much daily on truth for life on the radio yeah it says fair question isn't it I think some people think that that I came on my own initiative to evangelize America by God and I shall fight I came by the invitation of the church that I serve and in 1981 a man arrived without any introduction literally at the front door of our house in Scotland and announced that he was from a church on the east side of Cleveland and they were looking for a minister and that began a saga which lasted over a period of about 19 months whereby they invited me to come and visit Cleveland Ohio which I had to look for on a map I didn't wear a high or was too might say him let alone Cleveland when I found it I wasn't really excited about it and when I got there I thought they're a lot better places in America if you were ever going to go right but in the Providence of God I accepted what turned out to be their second invitation I declined their initial invitation feeling that I couldn't leave Scotland and and but it came in on the 3rd of August 1983 - to this church and we've been there now for the last 28 years okay that sparks a heart sight yes it was it was called the chapel when I got there okay and we relocated we spent six and a half years in a high school and when we finally dropped down into another area of the geography we were right next to a park and I wanted to have the name Church in our name look I didn't like chapel right for a variety of reasons but and so we simply called ourselves Parkside Church so we've been we've been that for those since 1993 okay and where will you pass we pass from the inner Scotland yeah hi I began as the assistant of Derek crane in a Charlotte Chapel in the centre of Edinburgh was there for two years I was ordained there okay and then I was called to a church on the west side of Scotland police called Hamilton which is about 14 or 15 miles outside of Glasgow which is where I was born okay and I was there then for six years on my own before I came to came to Cleveland was that a Baptist Church it was a Baptist Church yes I have a follow-up question from your lecture yesterday which by the way I thought the Lord gave great grace and I encourage everybody who watches this interview also to watch the and listen to the lecture from yesterday immensely helpful as you talked about inadequacy mainly as Paul frames it in second Corinthians right but I wondered about this question our inadequacy and humility close are they the same thing and then second what are the means of grace that God gives us through which the Holy Spirit promotes if that's the right word develops a sense of a godly and appropriate sense of inadequacy humility in our lives I know in CJ mohini's book on humility he jokes that one of the means that God surely uses his golf raised its I'm gay but what are what would be some of the means of Grayson in your mind well first of all inadequacy and humility are they synonymous I'm not sure that they are because we could be aware of our inadequacy and try and cover it up rather than acknowledge it rather than it allows us to see the end of ourselves and the need for God so I suppose it'd be possible I think we probably can think of instances where instead of saying you know over the wretched man I am who will deliver me from this body of death we try and bolster our egos and and struggle on for a while so I think that needs to be thought out I haven't really thought it happened but means of grace well his word the Word of God which is you know sharper than a two-edged sword and cuts right down to the to the quick of things if we really are if our hearts are are truly open to the scriptures both in our study of them and then in the delivery of them in other words if we if we as pastors think of pastors for a moment are preaching the gospel to ourselves then we are then being transformed by the very word that we're given to proclaim however if we're not if we become some kind of siphon whereby we're just delivering material as a sort of second-hand agent then that that failure will eventually become inevitable for us along along with the Word of God and the normal the normal means of grace that the celebration of the Lord's Supper the gathering of God's people the place of Prayer I think suffering is is actually one of the things that God uses and you have that illustrated in 2 Corinthians 12 that out of the you know the the supernatural encounter of Paul that is described in the opening verses he then immediately says and to keep me from becoming conceited or to keep me from having a preening view of my own esteem there was given me a thorn in the flesh so he actually as the intervention of God in his life to the end that he will be saved from becoming boastful and proud particularly about not just giftedness but about the spiritual encounter which clearly was second to none and so you know how does God do that was sometimes I think physically sometimes I was speaking last night's appearance of middle school children and and I said you know I think that God gives us children to sanctify us you know that there are no tears shed by a parent more significant tears than the tears that we shared over our children and God may choose to bring into our lives in fright if you think about church history if you think about the history of the church and the people that God has used not a few of them have faced significant challenges either within their own marriage or within their own family life and somehow or another Romans 8:28 has been at work in that that in all these things God is at work for their good to conform them to the image of his son which he can't do or doesn't do apart from you know engendering humility in our lives but now I'm going on so our stone I was wondering them just since you've been in the North America for a few years what are what are some of the similarities and differences between the evangelical church here and perhaps in Scotland and what what what are some lessons that perhaps you could share well you know I'm so enculturated here now lost my professor maybe I co-opted yeah yeah I'm such an American now I don't even know well first of all you know the ties between Britain and the United States are are significant ties between the Scottish people and the American people and and we are the beneficiaries of the largesse of Mary in giving American generosity many of the things that have been that have thrived in the United Kingdom have thrived as a result of the encouragement and oftentimes the financial support of America but growing up in Scotland the you know I I remember I was three years old in 1955 which I think was when Billy Graham was doing one of his big Crusades in the United Kingdom in a football ground in Glasgow and you know so the the era through which I've lived has been an era in which there has been that very close cross fertilization between the evangelical community so you think for example of the passing of John Stott and that and the influence that start has had on American life and on American evangelicalism helping in some measure to save elements of it from a form of fundamentalism that runs the risk of taking what is arguably secondary or peripheral and making it central and and I think that I would try and argue the case that British evangelicalism managed in large measure to steer clear of some of the excesses of legalistic fundamentalism not exclusively but but in large measure so some of the things that would be regarded as being in the very center or the the core of Orthodoxy in the American context would not necessarily have been so so for example something like Martyn lloyd-jones Wendy's writes his little booklet in the 30s or 40s what is an evangelical you know he puts at the back of that book seven things that he will not break fellowship with other believers over have you look at those seven things you know in the American context they largely are the seven things that we will all break fellowship with each other over that's as good as I can do without for the moment you were one of the early participants in the gospel coalition could you say a word about your work with that organization and maybe comment more broadly on the rise of that organization in American evangelicalism and the significance of that well actually I'm not really qualified to do that I I was fairly early on part of what was the Alliance of confessing evangelicals when Jim Boyce was still alive and when that group included David Wells and Michael Horton and RC sprawl and and those folks and so I had the privilege of being there in some of the early days of that that has sort of ameliorated into it's still in existence I'm still on on this council or something but but the gospel coalition I have a very small party and I had the privilege of addressing of this past event but it's a cause of great happiness I think for all the initiative that has been taken by Don Carson and others to seek to galvanize shared convictions around the gospel itself and in large measure has has helped to accomplish some of the things that were referencing visibly stored and so on the the the only caveat that I would give to that and I've been thinking quite a lot about it since I was there and I'm I'm wary of doing it in this context whether I'm committed now so yeah the I'm just eagerly awaiting the arrival of a new book on Charles Simeon that has been written by Derek Brian the man that I was assistant to I pre read the book and the 15th chapter is entitled Simeon on balance and it it chronicles simians thoughts on the dialogue between an Arminian and a Calvinistic perspective on soteriology and I think the only thing that I would say is that this gospel coalition at least ostensibly seems not to not to appeal in the same degree to those who may not have a sort of reformed view of things and so in that respect it still has a ways to go to really be a coalition that is representative of evangelicalism across the board during your I'm not sure if it was during your talk yesterday or during the question and answer but the question of celebrity came up I mean especially in relation to your topic of the topic of inadequacy and you know in some ways evangelicalism is at least in some circles is doing pretty well and and has got large audiences different conferences and and so on I mean we've talked about a gospel coalition but there are other groups and this question of celebrity has come up in different venues and and I just wonder if you have any thoughts about about that just the you know maybe the dangers are celebrity or or you know like evangelicals in the past have been sort of marginalized and on the margins and the shape of the faith looks a certain way but then when you're suddenly in the spotlight there is new challenges and I don't know if we're all that prepared to know even how to grapple with those realities and I'm just wondering if you have any thoughts about well you know I think I think evangelicalism within the country is is still really marginalized if you take for example the celebrations for the remembrances for 2004 9/11 and the the hue and cry that emerged from the evangelical camp about being unrepresented in the National Cathedral yes my reaction to that was why are we even asking the question you know did you think that the Apostle Paul would be represented you know at the Forum in Rome and that he would be invited to give an address that Christianity was entirely countercultural that it was and and the real questions of you know when you know Constantine is converted did we advance or did we regress in terms of the development of the church so I'm sort of I'm happy with with the offscouring status of of Christianity I think there's more of a chance for us from that perspective than in being potentially seduced and absorbed by our desire to be mainstream when you come within the framework of evangelicalism itself then a lot of us have a lot to answer for in respect to the fact that probably the biggest danger to the church is its Mane centeredness and that it's impossible for us even to address it without having to face ourselves and any contribution that we make to the predicament but it is a peculiar snare there is a riff that there are fundamental dangers in it because all of us are happy to be affirmed and to be you know told how significant we are and no one is happier to champion that cause than the evil one himself so that the the call to from Paul to Timothy in a context of antagonism and and false teachers and so on into Timothy for the very first thing he system is but you Timothy keep your head in the King James Version be sober-minded and then he says endure hardship so the the I think that two millennia on we do well to pay attention to that exhortation to keep our heads because it would seem that the evil one is there is happy to neutralize us either by squeezing our heads down to nothing by telling us we are so so pathetically useless or alternatively depending on and how we respond to his insinuations to inflate our egos but either either way he neutralizes us and you know the publishing companies have a part to play in this you know do we really need to walk underneath banners do we and and what does it feel like do you know what it feels like we know what it feels like to go to the conference's I remember the first time that I went to conference in Seattle or somewhere with RC sprawl and Mikel Horton and some others probably David Wells and they announced to my great chagrin that when the evening session finish we would be going through to the the hall and in the hall all the tables would be set up with the individual speakers and their books would be on the table for signing any book so all I had was a table with a sign so I I started I said excuse me in the absence of any of my own books I will sign any books and I will sign them with anyone's name I will sign them Spurgeon Charles Wesley Jonathan Edwards anything you're like well it became a great figure of fun and people bring in all kinds of books to me to sign them so I had fun with it but along with that goes the sort of standard evangelical hype which is you know the big picture for the you know the big guy the middle picture the tiny picture the magnifying glass picture of the no picture yes we've got it upside down so and maybe getting a bit personal I mean for someone like you I mean you've truthful I've No you can we can see you online we can hear on the radio and you know you're the pastor of a very significant church in Cleveland what I mean what are some personal ways that you have kind of obviously you'd have to wrestle with some of these how have you tried to deal with with those challenges over the years well I've tried not to cultivate the notion if you know in my own in my own mind mhm you know I said that that Regan quote from your study you see here can take the office seriously without taking yourself too seriously a good group of men around you over a long period of time who who know that good the bad and the ugly about you it's a tremendous asset people who will speak into your lives so encounters like I'm in an elders meeting probably fifteen years ago maybe longer and I have an interchange with one of my fellow elders in which I believe him to be in the wrong and myself to be in the right and I let him know just how badly and the wrong he is in front of all the other elders following morning at a telephone call from one of the other elders who had been a Navy pilot in Vietnam and a Texan and he said last night what you said was true but how you said it was wrong and the context in which he said it was unhelpful what I want you to do he said to me his phone the man concerned and apologized to them and then for me back and tell me when you've done it now that was it that was a pivotal moment in in that whole plurality of leadership for me was I now going to say put the phone down say who does he think he is doesn't he realize or was I gonna take it as a wound from a friend and was I gonna do what was necessary to do in the goodness of God I was unable to do what I ought to do and because of that I'm able to mention that the danger is that I mentioned it with a feeling of pride in it and then lose the blessing but by that men like that are vital a wife who loves you but is not enamored by you and children who respect you dearly and are thankful for you but don't puff your ego if for example my son who is 32 said to me some time ago dad why don't you write a book that someone wants to read now there's a there's an encouraging idea right but he loves me with a passion and he's a funny kid you know but the point was well made those things and more but and I think my I think the people who are my mentors helped me in this derek prime Eric Alexander dick Lucas Alec Mattia I have their photographs around me and when I when I feel my head expanding I look across and I see this man whose sandals I am unworthy to untie and I say apart from Jesus being disappointed in me I would hate for them to be and so and so for me the the the the the issue for me is always to be on the receiving end of the initiative not to be in the initiator my my personality is I suppose entrepreneurial and what I'm thinking of things to do I'm trying over time to think about things that are about the church and about Park site and about that kind of thing and not about the the exultation of my own profile in that so for example the radio program was not started by me but actually was generated by a boy who was a teenager in Park sight when I got there who was at broadcasting school and then was working at Moody and he took the initiative and annoyed everybody at Moody to say you know could you don't don't you think that our pastor could get a shot on the radio and when they came to us with the proposal we said we said no we think that we should stay away from this for all kinds of reasons so we were in the end reluctant participants in it and then once we're in it the you know the responsibility is when you go to these events where lots of people come to see the funny face with the funny voice that you that you are you know just gut-wrenchingly honest about about all these things it's a snare yeah just snare but but part of the battle is being up being alert to it and over time I've had people come to me and say how do you start this and how do you do that and how do you get a radio program right and I always said will you start by not wanting to get one and then then they don't know what to do from there because that's a completely different profile that's helpful Thanks is that right sort of like Jesus is parable about being asked where you gonna sit at the foot of the table it's hard though isn't it sorry you go to the wedding receptions and you look at those numbers and you know how eager testico we are whether you started you know table 27 able 4 and the pastor things is you know what we should be somewhere at least in the top 5 you know say we know pastor that it's good for you to be let me ask a question about longevity because you've been pastor at Parkside now for for 28 years that it occurs to me when we often see people when they age they reached the age in a hundred years interviewed on television and the interviewer asks what's the secret of living to be a hundred years what's the what's the secret to surviving as a pastor of a church for 28 years well you know I joke tear layer about Cleveland but you know from a from a human perspective there's no earthly reason to go to Cleveland when you can go to San Francisco Art in New York or to you know a place or to Austin Tech but there's no ideal place to serve God except the place he set you down and so the first thing I think is that deep-seated conviction about the rightness of being where you're supposed to be sometimes that is not fixed in the heart or mind of an individual and so the temptation then is to be constantly looking for the next best option so okay well we got our foot in the door we're in Cleveland we could get out of Ohio maybe we can get into Illinois after all Chicago you know or wherever we could go and over 28 years there have been occasions when they appeal to me to leave Cleveland has been a very strong pool I have to say sadly that a lot of it very sort of earthly in its in its invitation you know when you I know you like to play golf when you like to be able to play golf all year-round we know you like this and wouldn't you like that we could do this how about that how big is your thing you know do you do is it like a larger thing you know do we have a you that can if they have for the phone now who are these people who are these people do they even understand ministry I don't know so you know the first thing is being in the place of God's appointing and along with that a deepening sense of the rightness of that so that God didn't just call me to America he called me to Cleveland Ohio to the best of my understanding he has never released me from that call in the Providence of God he has chosen to give me and a ministry that takes me beyond the bones of Cleveland Ohio without ever having to leave it but a ministry that only exists because I am committed to Cleveland Ohio because the thing that keeps me honest and grounded is the fighters Sundays coming you know here we are and it's thirsty but Sunday's coming I have to go home this afternoon I already preached four times on Sunday and that is my primary calling that is my duty that's my responsibility and I rejoice in that I love that my happiest times are my Sunday evening communion services when I finally sit at the end of the day usually on the steps I look out on the congregation I say to myself this is why I exist this is this is why I exist I don't get that feeling by privileges like this I enjoy this but didn't float my boat it doesn't get me up in the morning you could take all of this away and I would miss it but it wouldn't rub my identity of anything you take my ministry in the routine pastoral responsibilities of week by week ministry and I have no res on d'être Who am I I am only this and so that then and the toleration and the patience of the people that they're prepared to put up with you that you reach points where they realize that you're not all that they hope for you to be but they still love you and they'll tolerate you and you realize that they are not a congregation that you thought they wear or that they're going to be and you realize they're the people that God has given you and that you're not constantly looking over your shoulder for you know or out over the horizon looking for the next best opportunity that I think is for me but having said all of that I don't know whether I should be commended for sticking at it or criticized for a horrible lack of initiative utopia it's noise it I can't believe you've been there twenty eight years of it the don't you have any ideas I mean have you never been anywhere so you know I don't know but I I don't I'm not a prophet but I think this is my life's ministry in Cleveland I I I think I will see things out partially there unless something that I don't anticipate comes across the horizon that you mentioned just the importance of rootedness and being connected with the local church there there's been some conversation amongst some evangelical pastors about multi-site churches which I'm sure you're familiar with just curious what your thoughts are on that the good bad you know how to strike a balance and in that conversation yeah well first of all I should tell you where we are as far as Park size concerned at the present time we have us we have a second campus which in my to fit my mo came to us we didn't create it but this is a church that was dying about 40 miles away from us in the Akron Canton area okay that came to us and said will you adopt us and will you take us over because we're on our last legs and so we have actually adopted a church family there they are no more they are now us so part situs exists here and it exists there because of the nature of the church because there were only two young fellows good fellows but that was all that was left we decided pretend that the best thing we could do to build credibility for that site was actually to act to identify it directly as Park Lane Church so if you drive down there the sign that is there is the same sign that is present in our in our other campus and the Sunday morning preaching is taken from our 830 service by video to that campus and I am on the screen there in the morning okay in the evening the young men are responsible for the teaching in the evening service that hybrid allows me to accomplish both things at the moment to try and give them the support that is represented in the credibility that is ours Church wise but also it remains it allows me to remain committed to what I'm really committed to and that is the development of young men for pastoral ministry this is a short-term strategy on our part as soon as the leadership lay leadership has established in that congregation then they will call a pastor they may choose to call one from our pastoral team I don't know but they will call a pastor the screen will be dismantled bago go away and the church will be established right the the the newest church planting thing that we're doing is embryonic at the moment but it's with one of our own young men a Trinity grad who is now in Lake County working with a small group of people to plant a church there but we're not using the same the same model right and we may use that same model again if there was a reason to do so but philosophically I am leery of the multi-site thing I understand the pragmatic benefits of it it frees up more pulpits therefore the idea that we really are giving more people a chance to preach is accomplished that seems to me to be a reaction to churches where the fellows who are on the pastoral team never really get a chance to preach anyway which isn't true of Park sight all of my guys preach and then the Sunday's that I'm gone they preach so they're there having that opportunity my pulpit is not exclusive to me it's shared so we don't need to find another mechanism to make sure that they have an opportunity to preach what scares me most again is the issue of celebrity is the idea that my my the what God has chosen to do in and through me is of such significance that it should take precedence over the others who are on my pastoral team having the joy and privilege of doing what I do with a group of people in a community and I don't have any reason to you know criticize or or or say anything untoward about my brothers who are doing something apparently very effectively in that regard but for myself I don't I don't I can't imagine a situation where we have you know 10 or 12 fellows on the pastoral team and then I tell them all say by the way you know whatever you're gonna do don't ever think about learning how to preach or teach or pastor because there's this going to be 10 of us in the end in America they're going to control the entire place and everybody's just going to be watching on their iPhone in any case and the whole church thing will have been dismantled and people will be meeting together in the back of Starbucks and the notions of community and so on will have been devolved and that devolution again is a significant aspect that I'm not sure has been completely thought out it's too soon to determine whether this model is actually a good model for the church I think in the short term a I understand right did I play both sides Parkside zone right parents you spoken that last answer and you also talked a little bit yesterday in fact you mentioned about working yourself out of a job right about this passion you have for being used by the Lord to raise up the next generation of pastors could you speak to how Parkside does that practically you did a little bit yesterday well we really programmatically I've got nothing to say you know we have no we're very I am very poor on this sort of strategic plan stuff you know I mean I could I could probably you know it service there's my strategic and so we're really this sort of the the conviction that underpins it is understood so there there is an ethos if you like whereby young people young men in particular are beginning to gravitate towards Parkside because the word is out that they'll help you there figure out some of the basics of pastoral ministry and they may be able to you know launch you on your way and encourage you at the moment nice enough for us to go on over 28 years I've had the opportunity of having all kinds of fellas on the pastoral team who today are in different places as I drove in the car last night with a young man who's who's a student here really what they encounter in the car was about was it I felt like I was now a back in time I was the driver and I was sitting next to one of the men that means so much to me I don't mean that in a sense of self aggrandizement that I'm very significant but but the roles were reversed I remember exactly what that was like I want I know I've got 30 minutes in the car I need to ask every question that I've ever thought of you know and that was what was happening last night I may never have an ongoing encounter with that young man but I hope in the Providence of God that I that I encouraged him in relationship to the questions that he has in relationship the pastoral ministry and that's what I'm seeking to do with the men on my pastoral team and that comes out in different ways with with depending on who the individuals are but I'm not very good on the formalized aspects of it I do have people around me who who think that out I'm more I'm pretty as subjective and emotional and in those things you know people are gonna catch it from me rather than you know I give it to them in six six points maybe we have time for one more question you know the Henry Center one of the main sort of interests is helping to bridge the gap between the church in the Academy and just feeling that there's a lot of good things happening in the academic setting with theologians and professors working at thinking Christianly about all kinds of things and then in the church there's of God is doing great things through the church but sometimes there's a disconnect between those two worlds and so you know the scripture in ministry series for instance is one of the ways we're trying to help bridge that gap do you have any thoughts on that that that tension between the church and the Academy and ways that in which we can help help bridge that gap in your experience from your experience well you notice we you know it's well said that it's Carl Henry who you know embodied sanctified scholarship for us didn't he and was such a tremendous help both in his speaking and his writing and he he is now represented by a by a large company of individuals who are who ever feel like taken up the cause and are following his example I'm not so sure that I have much to say about the tension between them as to say how important you know to to follow on from where say how important it is that the the Academy if you like keeps keeps in mind that the the best of their stuff needs needs somehow or another to be able to be understood by those of us who are in the trenches you know I'm not sure that we really need any more technical commentaries I may be wrong I'm not sure if we need any more I mean does anybody need to do John now after Carson I don't know maybe but I I don't need it I I I'm so but the materials that are we doing we're we're the people in the Academy are able to take on the battle in the front lines for example at the present time the questions over the Genesis narratives you know how much of this can we can we actually ground in you know historical verities as a pastor you know going through Genesis I neither have the capacity nor the time to do the kind of research that is necessary and therefore the folks who are here at Trinity or whoever else is can be a phenomenal asset to me by the papers they write by the books they produce but thinking not so much of adding to the to the genre of you know academic literature as saying the reason we're writing this is because the fellows that are on the front line with this neither need it fed to them at a level that can then be communicated to their people and and so one of the other ways of course is when an institution such as Trinity does what it does and that is opens its doors to the surrounding churches laity by giving them the opportunity to to be instructed in theology or in biblical hermeneutics by the faculty here in a way that once again shows to the to the to the folks that attend the synergy that exists between between the pulpit and the and the professor's chair mm-hm so in other words not not to let just narrowly academic concerns completely characterize what happens in sayin evangelical academic setting but that the church and the concerns of the church are are in some ways just informing and motivating motivating the kind of scholarship that happens yeah that's yeah and and you know that's that's a lesson that has to be learned by the students who come because we come out as students and we've been having to write all these papers and and reading these hard books and then if we're not careful we're gonna start giving that to our to our congregation right and it usually takes a little while to just suddenly realize oh they're not this is not this is not where they are so that you've got the distillation or the filtration process right that comes within the context of day to day pastoral ministry because ultimately people are our books and you know the doctrine of Providence has to has to settle in some way when you're sitting at the bedside of a young mother who has just lost twins five and a half months into her pregnancy yeah all right now she seen our remotely interested in the seven views on the doctrine of Providence but those seven views or the view or whatever has is vital right right so right right thanks thank you so much passivate for my privilege thank you thank you listen

Channel: Henry Center

Views: 13,401

Rating: 4.884058 out of 5

Keywords: Alistair Begg, Parkside Church, Henry Center, Inadequacy, begg, hctu, will, god, humility, scripture ministry, interview, dialogue, interview begg

Id: 4iKsIgx73vw

Length: 44min 36sec (2676 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 27 2011