- [Collin] Ray, you kicked off the
conference. It was so encouraging. It was a great passage for you to look
at for a variety of different reasons but in part because of the element related
to the family and talking about Timothy's family.
And so you were able to talk a little bit about that and maybe you can elaborate on
that here in a second but I want to start with Juan there. Now Timothy had Paul
to watch and also his grandmother, Lois and his mom, Eunice.
I was wondering who did you watch in faith? Who did you watch and what did
you learn about following Jesus watching that person? - [Juan] Yeah. So I didn't come to faith
in Christ till I was 17. I heard the gospel for the first time
at 15 and I just totally rejected it. I grew up in a Catholic home and my
parents were nominal Catholics. Ironically, I was very devout and so I
didn't look to my parents. I looked to a priest who discipled me,
so to speak, in the ways of the Catholic Church. But when the
Catholic Church was no longer answering my questions, then I began asking
questions. And the irony was is I actually was looking for people and I couldn't find
people and so I went to people who had written books. And so my first mentor was
J. I. Packer and there was something going on in the church and I didn't understand
it. I mean I was so green and new. I didn't know labels.
And so I just started reading about the charismatic movement and these kinds
of things and I read his book, <i>Keep in Step With the Spirit </i>and he
just hooked me. And so then I read <i>Knowing God</i> and that was my introduction
to Reformed theology. So I remember actually asking people
to mentor me and disciple me and I was the first one to come to faith in Christ in my
family. And so I guess that's part of the story. Someone has to begin the
legacy, I guess. And so by God's grace, there were faithful men who wrote books
and they mentored me from a distance. - Kevin, what about you? - [Kevin] I had one of those boring
testimonies that we're so thankful for and we want our children to have as well so I
don't use it as a pejorative phrase. Grew up with loving parents who,
as I said in the sermon, made us go to church all the time,
Wednesday night and Sunday morning and Sunday evening and was glad church wasn't
open any other time so we would have been there. And just thankful for that and
didn't even realize what that was doing. Parents, and I need to tell
myself this as much as anyone, don't underestimate those habits that
you're passing on to your children. You want to teach them and you want
to shepherd a child's heart and you want to have those great conversations but just
those rhythms that it was fixed in me, we go to church. It's not something we
kind of, "Hmm, what do we do?" That's what we do. And of course you can
do that in a wrong way or in a formalistic way but all of that served me very well
and hope to pass that on. So certainly, my parents and books when I really
started to make my faith my own in college. Real quick,
when I was a freshman in college, I had three people on the floor and one
was a nominal Christian, one was a hedonist and not the good
John Piper kind, the bad kind. He just wanted to live for sex, he said.
And then I had another guy who was into crystals and Ricki Lake for those who
were around in the '90s. - It was a strange time, Kevin. - You have to be in one to be in the
other. They plied me with questions one night. Well, how can God send people
to hell? What about the Buddhist who's never heard? What about all these things?
And I felt like I've been in church my whole life and I'm not sure if I know what
I believe or why I believe it. It wasn't the fault of anyone but me
really. So I got those two little books by IVP, <i>Know What You Believe</i>, <i>Know Why
You Believe It</i>. And then I underlined them and they had pictures and it was just
right what I needed and then I thought, "Maybe I could read something else."
So my dad had a copy of Calvin's <i>Institutes</i>.
It's a little bit of a jump but I just…it was amazing that I thought, you know,
you just have it in your head as a kid like those are old books.
People don't read those books anymore. Those people are long gone.
We read about those books in history. We don't actually read them.
And so to think I could read it and I just made a point to read through it five pages
a day for that year and then I didn't understand a lot of it so I read through
it again five pages a day. And so Calvin was a mentor for me and then
that got me and a whole bunch of other good books and good sermons and lots
of good people in my life. I've been very blessed.
I want to hear about your dad. - [Ray] Okay. Glad to tell you.
I remember one morning when I was maybe 10 or 12 years old, I got up early.
I don't remember why, walked down stairs and there was my dad.
He did not orchestrate this but you can't live with a man of God for 18 years and
not walk in on some pretty great moments. And my dad was just there at a chair
in the living room kneeling with his face buried in his hands in silent prayer.
And I remember that so vividly to this day. It's hard for me not to be
careful on a Sunday morning before I leave the house to get on my knees at a chair,
bury my face in my hands and pray because my dad did. And he didn't do that to make
an impression on me. He didn't know I was up.
He had a real walk with God. And to this day, I think, "You know,
my dad walked with the Lord. I can walk with the Lord.
The same grace is upon me." And so even right now as I think
about that, I just kind of choke up. - And here in Southern California? - Yeah. - How far away? - Very nearby. Yeah. Very close.
There are Christians in California. - Grateful to be among them. Second Timothy, I was reading through it
preparing again and again and just absolutely struck by the theme
of suffering. It comes up explicitly six times as we look through this book of the
Bible. I'm wondering just…we'll maybe look into some of the specifics of how we
suffer and how we endure in ministry but I'm interested...I'll start with you
on this one, Kevin. I mean, how do you watch your life and bear up in suffering
for the gospel? We know that there's the world, there's the flesh, there's the
devil, our suffering comes in a variety of different forms and a variety
of different places in ministry but it is so explicit, the connection between
suffering for the sake of Christ, for the sake of the gospel.
Jesus told us to expect this. It was not a surprise to Paul. He,
of course, had been on the other side of inflicting that on the followers
of Christ. So what are some of those ways, whether it's practices,
whether it's beliefs that you preach to yourself, whether it's truth that you
hold on to that help you to bear up under that suffering that comes
specifically in ministry that hinders our endurance? - The first thing I would say is I
certainly don't put forward myself as any great hero. I feel like I've probably
suffered less than most 41-year-olds. But ministry has hard seasons for sure and
there are pain and there have been tears. I think of, you know, Hebrews.
We often miss the connection that Jesus was tempted when he suffered.
So the endurance is suffering. It's not just this hurts, this stinks,
this is painful, I want to get through it. There are temptations to you when you
suffer and you need to know your own heart and have the Lord reveal that to you to
understand what your unique temptations may be in the midst of suffering.
I can tell you a couple that I readily face. One, it happens
imperceptibly. It happens over time. No one goes into ministry thinking,
"I hope not. I just want to coast. I just want to get through.
I just want people to like me." You go in because you're passionate,
you want to preach the gospel, you want to help people,
you want to love people. But you get some scars.
You get some hurts and without realizing it, your new ministry
model becomes, "Make it through life without too many people
hurting me, without too many difficulties, and try not to compromise too much."
And I think we'd be surprised how many pastors have just…that's become what they
do. Not rank apostasy but that suffering has tempted them. So I always tell people,
it's not that pastors suffer more but the temptations they face can be cataclysmic
if they give in to that. And then the other temptation I would feel
and probably most of us would is that temptation to feel sorry for ourselves, to
start thinking, "Probably another place, I'd be more appreciated,
probably something I could do that would be better. I don't need to put up with
this and probably somebody who would really, really appreciate this and
what about all the things I did for that person." And again,
the answer is not emotionless stoicism. I just think, has anything ever good come
out of feeling sorry for ourselves? That's not saying we're not honest
about pain, honest about hurt but that inward self-pity. "Where's my tail?"
You know, just anything good. But it feels good. It feels good for a
time which is why we do it and why it's such a temptation. - Were you surprised? Were you surprised,
Kevin, at how difficult ministry was? - Yes. Yes. I mean people told me.
People give you these things and you can hear the stories and until you go on a
long walk feeling like I didn't know that person that I care for so much could hurt
me so badly and you go through all of the scenarios of everything you feel like you
did and you were there and you were helping and they don't,
they forgot and they don't see it. I mean those things hurt deeply.
And there's been many joys for sure but there's real pain. - Ray. - Suffering is bewildering as we're
buffeted by life, by reality in a broken world, by our own confusion and we
lose our bearings. We lose our way. I am so grateful for the realism of the
Bible. It talks about suffering on a literally cosmic scale.
The sufferings of this present time. And in that setting, I love Romans 8:26.
It is so helpful and encouraging. "Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our
weakness." Somebody at a TGC council meeting pointed out one time,
it's not plural weaknesses. The Spirit helps us in our weakness.
Weakness is not one more experience alongside all these other experiences.
Weakness is the foundation or platform on which we have all experiences.
We have never known, for one nanosecond in this life, a moment of non-weakness.
So we're not offering the Lord how formidable we are. We're presenting
ourselves to the Lord in realism, in weakness, and the Spirit does not
despise us in our weakness. The Spirit helps us in our weakness
especially in prayer. If we can't pray, if we feel so shut down and shocked by
betrayals and so forth that we're not even connecting with the Lord in any way that
satisfies us, what do we do then? That's terrifying. And it says,
"For we do not know what to pray for as we ought but the Spirit Himself intercedes
for us with groanings too deep for words." J. I. Packer says in his book on prayer,
"The Spirit fixes our prayers on the way up." I am so grateful for that.
When we are bewildered and buffeted and confused and all we can do is groan,
the Holy Spirit within understands the profundity of what we're going through and
takes it and translates it into something that serves the creation of the new
universe. Hey, that's the kind of weakness I can get behind. - Yeah. Juan. - You know, I think it's important
to distinguish, like you said, Christian suffering or maybe it was you earlier.
There's a difference between Christian suffering and just suffering.
Sometimes our suffering in ministry is self-inflicted. You know,
my first pastorate, I went wide-eyed, idealistic, and there are a lot of things
I took for granted and I needed to be humbled and some of that was a mercy of
the Lord, the suffering he did to my life. It was a humbling that was necessary
but some of it was suffering because of faithful ministry.
And what I find fascinating to me is suffering is there throughout the entirety
of Scripture. You know, Psalm 2 says that God places His son
on his throne and the nations rage. Luke picks up that theme and Jesus'
suffering and the suffering of the apostles. He ties that to Psalm 2
and basically says, "The persecution that the apostles were suffering,
it's the nations raging against God's king."
And so what I understand biblically is our Christian suffering is getting caught up
in the nation's rage against the fact that God has placed Jesus on the throne.
And in 2 Timothy 3:10, Paul tells Timothy, you know,
"You followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my persecutions in
Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra." Well, that's Acts 14. And in Acts 14 when Paul
goes back to strengthen the churches, how he strengthens them, he says,
"Continue in the faith and it is necessary to suffer." And you got to ask,
"How is that strengthening? It's necessary to suffer." Well,
when you read Paul, it's necessary to suffer because our suffering paints a
picture for the unbelieving world and for the Church of the sufferings of Christ
on their behalf, right? 2 Corinthians 4, he talks
about, "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." So our Christian suffering serves as a picture of Christ's suffering on our
behalf but and I also think it's necessary for us to suffer because suffering is a
means of our perseverance and it prepares us for heaven. Paul goes on to say
in 2 Corinthians 4, "So we do not lose heart though our outer
self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day
for this light momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight
of glory beyond all comparison." And so I'm just…I'm humbled.
Now I'm understanding a little bit more and more why the apostle saw it as a
privilege to suffer for Christ's sake. - Have there been any biographies or
stories of Christian figures from the past that have helped you in this aspect?
I'm wondering about when you're reading about John Calvin, your reading in his
<i>Institutes</i>. Does it help to know some of his anxieties, his anxieties for the
people that he pastors, his desire to not have been a pastor
in the first place, to not have ever had to be in Geneva, the constant threat
of Catholic armies upon his city, the rivalry that he had with the
government, with the civil authorities there? I'm just wondering.
I mean I think about Edwards. I think about Jonathan Edwards and all
that he endured and to think of all these amazing treatises that he wrote that we
benefit from today on the freedom of the will and on any number of other things
that he wrote from Stockbridge after he'd been fired by his congregation, which I
think is almost impossible to imagine that situation. I'm wondering have any
biographies been especially helpful or any figures in particular as you've learned
about their suffering and seen how…look how the Lord sustained them through this.
He can do likewise with me. - Let me give you an obvious example
that's not a biography. It's a living example.
And just because I'm thinking about it, yesterday, you know, we had asked
Joni Eareckson Tada if she would speak at this event,
who better to speak, and she's from California. And she said,
"I'm going to be in Charlotte at that time." I said,
"Over here at that time." But we overlapped one day and so she had
her 69th birthday yesterday and she had the accident over 50 years ago and they
thought, "Maybe you'll live 25 more years." That someone said the average
life expectancy for those born in 1949 was at that time 65 years, which she's
exceeded. So I was there and there's 50 other people there and she was having a
birthday party and people shared and just, you know, you can't help but see her
and know something of her and lots of you would have read her books or been to
something. And I thought, her ministry is Christlikeness. And there's things she
teaches and things she writes but her ministry is Christlikeness that is through
constantly the lens and the chair of suffering. And so I didn't get a chance to
say this to her yesterday because I had to leave the house at 4 this morning.
But I wanted to say, when I listen to someone like that, first I think,
"Am I a Christian?" But the second, I think, "Lord, I want to know Jesus.
I want to know Jesus more and I want to know even if it is the fellowship
of sharing in his sufferings, to somehow attain to the resurrection of the dead."
So there are living biographies out there and it's not the way that the world would
just…I mean the world, it's easy for people in the world to say
somebody's suffering, we feel sorry for you. I mean that's <i>Undercover Boss</i>,
your life is that bad, we'll give you something. <i>American Ninja Warrior</i>,
backstory. We love the story of somebody suffering.
So it's not just, "Oh, you're suffering." I mean it is triumphant, I want to sing
songs to Jesus and get to heaven in Christlikeness. And so it's a word of
encouragement and an admonition to me and to all of us, no matter what you're doing
in ministry, what you think you're not doing, not accomplishing,
you can have the ministry of Christlikeness to others. - Philippians 3 refers to the fellowship
of his sufferings. How could it be otherwise we are blood bought.
There have been books that have meant a lot to me like <i>The Shadow of the
Almighty</i> about Jim Elliot's life, The life of Francis Schaeffer and Edith,
<i>The Tapestry</i>, which she wrote, is very meaningful to me. I mean, what Christians
do we read about who don't have significant suffering in their story?
What Christian have you ever met who doesn't have significant suffering?
We are living in the fellowship of His sufferings and I really appreciate what
you just said. There comes a point in the foreword to the… - <i>12 Faithful Men</i>? - <i>12 Faithful Men</i>.
I think we reason this out in two stages. The first initial thought is, "I don't
deserve this." And that's true. When you get hammered for being faithful
to Jesus, you really don't deserve it. But the Lord is calling you to accept it,
deeply, deeply accept it. And eventually, you have a second thought when you realize
I'm actually following Jesus. This is ultimately from him.
This is taking me to a deeper place with him than I've ever gone before.
This is taking me to a deeper place with him than I've ever dreamed of going.
And the second thought we have is, "I really don't deserve this.
This is amazing. This is of grace." - Juan. - I would just recommend John Piper's <i>The
Swan's Are Not Silent</i> series if someone is looking for a place to begin thinking about and
there was one on the afflictions. And like Ray said, you think of Spurgeon,
you think of person after person after person and you see how God worked
through them in their weakness and it's encouraging to see. - Yeah. I think Piper's series was part
of what inspired us with the <i>12</i> <i>Faithful Men</i> book that Ray wrote the
foreword for which, again, you can pick up today on the bookstore.
Part of what we wanted to do with that book is just to help ministers of the
gospel in whatever formal position you have to realize that this is nothing
strange. Just like you said, Ray, there isn't a single historical figure
that you can think of who was powerfully used by God in ways that continue
to encourage you today, who did not endure tremendous difficulty.
And the amazing thing about these 12 figures that we looked at is it was
different in every case. It might have been a health problem,
it might have been opposition from others, it might have been depression,
it might have been opposition from their own congregation, it might have been
from unbelievers, it might have been from civil authorities.
That's Janani Luwum's case from Uganda, a 20th-century martyr, or
Wang Ming-Doa, the restoration after betrayal of his faith,
the kind of "father of the house churches" in China, to Edwards as I mentioned
earlier being fired. It seems a little counterintuitive to be
so encouraged by what others have endured and yet, it seems to be what Paul is doing
here to encourage Timothy as Paul himself understood what Christ had gone through
himself on our behalf there. So go ahead. - Let me just encourage people as I need
this encouragement myself. It may not be gospel suffering per se
but sometimes we hear suffering and even, you know, I gave the illustration of
Joni. Some of us can hear that and then we think, "I mean, I don't really have
anything. I don't really…" and it's fine to say yes, there's lesser than and
greater than but let's not shortchange ourselves of the grace that God has and he
calls us to cast all our cares on him. That if you're here and you're like,
"Well, nobody has died recently and I don't know how bad things…" Look,
kids are sick, you're not getting enough sleep, kids won't...because I
have kids, you know, in the bed all the time, you got grumpy elders,
you haven't seen the church grow in 10 years. There's innumerable ways
and God means for us to bring all of those burdens to Him, not just the ones that
might make it in missionary biographies. - Let's talk about particularly the role
of shame and betrayal. You've alluded to that a couple
of different times there. I think this is one of the parts in
ministry you talked there Kevin about all the different forms of difficulties that
we face that hinder us. But when I talk to veteran pastors,
the incidents they usually come back to are that case of division,
that case of betrayal, that case of discipline,
something like that. 2 Timothy 4:16-17,
we see the apostles say, "At my first defense,
no one came to stand by me but all deserted me. May it not be charged
against them but the Lord stood by me and strengthened me so that through me,
the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it so I was
rescued from the lion's mouth." So I just wanted to know,
hear from you guys, in those kind of, especially those moments that make you,
perhaps tempt you to want to throw in the towel there, of how the Lord met you
in that place and equipped you to be able to endure. - So like Kevin said,
it's innumerable kinds of things as a pastor that weigh on you. In our case,
it was just a huge financial debt and it just kind of weighed on me.
And then you begin to doubt yourself, you begin to question yourself,
and people begin to ask questions. But I think the greatest hurt is those
that you most invested in and then they appear to turn on you or you invest months
or maybe years and then they end up going to the church down the road or whatever it
might be. And the verse that you quoted, I think it's so helpful because Paul says,
"The fact that at my first defense no one came to stand by me," you know,
we're all there at some point, perhaps tempted to wallow in self-pity but I don't
know that many of us get to, "May it not be charged against them."
And I know this is not original to me because it's so good but what I remember
is understanding the reality of we need thick skins and soft hearts.
And it's something that I have to preach to myself often, you know,
thick skin and soft heart, thick skin and soft heart.
However people respond to me, I need to have a soft heart to be able
to respond to them. And ultimately, they're not my sheep,
they're Christ's sheep. And if I invest in them and they go down
the road and they serve that church, then praise be to God. - Sometimes that can be especially hard
for church planters. I mean, you've seen this from a variety
of different perspectives but specifically when it comes to those challenges of shame
and betrayal though which it seems I mean…you know, Paul boasts in all of these
many physical hardships but it seems that what got him much more were those who had
betrayed him and abandoned the faith. - Betrayal and shame are…we need to talk
about those together more than we do. Those are very real and very significant. - And again grouped by Paul.
That's why I brought them together. - That's right. - They're grouped together by him. - Yes. To be misrepresented and
mischaracterized, for a narrative to be developed about you that is not true and
not fair and from those whom you loved, is so bewildering, even shocking.
And this passage that you refer to, Collin is really striking and relevant.
"And Alexander, the coppersmith, did me great harm." He didn't just hurt
Paul's feelings, he harmed him. "The Lord will repay him according to his
deeds." Collin, I've never seen someone come out against and harm a faithful
minister of the gospel and then go on and live a life I would want to live.
The Lord deals with that. And then, so here's a strong enemy,
a strong adversary. And then he was faced with weak friends. "At my first defense,
no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me." So everything was on the
line. There he was, standing before Caesar on a certain day and on that particular
day, all of his friends who he thought would be there, they just found they had
other things they had to do that day. - As had happened with Jesus. - Yeah. Their to-do list was so full.
Paul, we love you, we're all for you, I really wish I could be there,
I'll send a text, whatever. And the Lord says, "May it not be charged
against them." Strong enemy, the Lord will deal with him. Weak friends,
may the Lord be merciful to them. And then a strong friend.
"But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me." I love that.
There's Caesar on his throne, 15 feet away maybe, with officials and courtiers here
and so forth and here's the Apostle Paul standing there in his presence.
He's in chains. He has to give an account of himself to the Caesar. And suddenly,
he realizes, he feels this invisible arm coming around his shoulders.
He realized he's not standing alone. "The Lord stood by me."
Like he may have been thinking, to my immediate right at this moment,
someone is here. And he feels this affirmation, this presence,
this strength. His soul, it becomes suddenly aware, "Hey,
you're doing really well. You go boy." "The Lord stood by me and strengthened
me." The Lord wasn't too busy that day. - Can I ask Ray a question? - Yeah. - So you're in the midst of this battle,
betrayal, shame, misrepresentation. And I think the temptation for a young guy
is to defend himself. And so one of the lessons I learned
in that situation was that the Lord is my defender. Maybe I was right,
maybe I was wrong but I think entrusting ourselves to the just judge is helpful
but how would you counsel younger guys? They find themselves in that place and the
temptation is to fight back, to make their case. - Well, there are a lot of related issues
like is this happening actually among the session? Is this happening
within a body that's legitimately formally constituted as authoritative within the
church? Is there a forum that's established as biblical, that is perceived
by everyone involved as authoritative where things can be adjudicated,
where the leaders can get to the bottom of it and find out what's going on?
So if that's the case, then you not only can but you must give an
account to your brothers and they owe it to you to ask you, "Help us understand,
what is going on?" So they better ask that question and you better give an honest
answer and that isn't self-defense. But when in less formal situations,
when you're just being humiliated, I think that's when we keep our mouths
shut and we let the Lord defend us and he will stand by us and strengthen us.
The Lord has…He is so faithful to straighten things out if we'll give Him
time. We're usually five minutes... we panic and give in to our own
impatience, five minutes before the Lord was going to step in. We
just need to wait longer. - And I'm often struck by how much less
concerned Jesus seems with being misunderstood than I am.
Hate to be misunderstood. It's one thing, you do mess up and you see it but people
either ignorantly or willfully misunderstand you. It can be at a
distance, internet, social media, it can be people close to you. But Jesus,
I mean he tells parables to sometimes…he says to keep people in the dark. - Yeah, from Isaiah. - You know, when you were talking, Ray,
I was just thinking of Peter says and Jesus when reviled did not return…did not
revile in return, how did he do that? Because he entrusted himself to the one
who judges justly. We just have to be okay. All the things you said about
defending yourself at those proper moments is true but we just have to be okay that
some people are going to get to the end of their life and some people are going to
be there in heaven and they have totally misread you. They misjudged you and they
maybe had a reason to, maybe they didn't. And if you make it your life goal that you
will not be misunderstood if it's the last thing you do. We all have seen people like
that, we get emails from them often, whose life goal is to make sure that my
name is defended above all else or that person's name is besmirched no matter what
and it is a cancer. It is enthralled to bitterness for yourself or for others.
And we have to allow that some people will get to the end of their days and even now
they're thinking, "You know what the problem is? That Kevin DeYoung."
And some of them will be right and some of them will be wrong and there's such a
temptation in ministry to then become jaded and cynical. I think this was from
the Lord but I decided early in ministry or the Lord decided for me,
I would much rather go through life being a little bit naive than a lot bit cynical
and rather get to the end of my life and somehow find out wow,
those people had it out for you the whole time. I didn't even know.
I thought they liked me. Let's assume unless you tell me otherwise
that you like me than to go through it and say, "I bet they don't," and have that
constant, squinty eye of suspicion. It's not a way to live. - Let me ask one that is...it's close to
home and it's one that I hear about often. What if those people who misjudge you,
getting into life, are counted among your own household?
What if it's your own kids or some of your own kids? And this is something that you
hear a lot about from pastors. It wears on your endurance. - Yeah. And I'm not at that age yet but
you and I both know that they're the most exquisite pain I've heard detailed are
those stories. If you want to get anyone in your church on their knees or in
tears in a heartbeat, ask them about all their kids and
grandkids because almost everybody has got something, somebody wayward,
somebody…and then it's compounded if it's not just wayward but it is and it's your
fault, dad. It's a burden none of us want to bear and by ourselves,
none of us can bear. - No. It's interesting to me that as I've
talked with pastors about how this weighs on them, it tends that...well,
I've talked with Tim Keller about this. Everybody wants him to write a parenting
book. Everybody looks at his children and says, "Look at how they turned out.
They're all in your church. They're serving faithfully.
They have wonderful families." And he says, "I know so many other parents
who I walked closely with, whose children are not doing that, who were much better,
being honest, much better parents than I was. I don't know how to write a
parenting book in that atmosphere there because there are things that we know to
do and things that we know not to do and yet, none of it necessarily guarantees
that outcome and yet the Lord remains faithful." - Which is why Collin and I tweeted out a
few weeks ago that when I write my parenting book, it's going to be entitled,
"Gospel-Centered Yelling." Subtitled, "The Inmates are Running the
Asylum," also. - I want to...this will probably be the
last part that we look at here and maybe one of the more lively.
So I wonder if we actually realize these passages in the Bible.
Like it's an actual thing that God inspired by his apostle.
2 Timothy 2:24, 25, 26. "And the Lord's servant must not be
quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach patiently enduring evil,
correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance
leading to a knowledge of the truth and they may come to their senses and escape
from the snare of the devil after being captured by him to do his will."
I mean I can't think of…I think technology gives us many more opportunities now to be
ensnared in ignorant controversies that breed quarrels. So what might it look like
for us to be able to take this passage seriously as one of those character
requirements of a minister of the gospel? - By the way, the mute function on Twitter
is just really great. - It does help. - I have learned how helpful that is.
There are some conversations I don't want to even be aware of.
They do not edify me at all. I'm looking…it seems to me that the
non-touchy gentleness of the servant of the Lord is related to the possibility
of people coming to their senses and escaping the snare of the devil.
- Yeah. That's interesting. - They're not going to get hammered into
freedom or argued into seeing things in a new way. Who does respond well to them?
But they might respond to gentleness. I read my son's, my son, Dane's
wonderful book, Jonathan <i>Edwards On</i> <i>the Christian Life</i> and I was really
struck. I've never been opposed to gentleness but it wasn't as big on my
radar as after I read that book because as Dane read the Edwards corpus,
he was forced by the evidences to devote an entire chapter in Jonathan <i>Edwards On
the Christian Life</i>, an entire chapter to the one topic of gentleness.
A dove-like, lamb-like spirit. The longer I live, the more I respect and
value gentleness and the less I respect swagger and beating people up.
Beating people up, embarrassing them, humiliating them, holding them
up to public scorn does not help anyone. First Corinthians, 14 says,
"Let all things be done for edification." Everything coming out of our mouths and in
our ministry should be constructive. All things. Gentleness is
wonderfully constructive. - I just preached on this passage over the
weekend so I won't give you that sermon but I'll just retell one line from
Spurgeon which has always stuck with me and is even more apropos in our social media
age. He says, "If you should be drawn into controversy, be sure to use very hard
arguments and very soft words." What is so much of the internet if not the
opposite of that? Very soft arguments and very hard words. - I just want to highlight what Ray was
getting at. These are the folks that God may grant repentance leading to a
knowledge of the truth and yet, Paul tells Timothy to deal very
differently with the folks in chapter 3 who were always learning and never able
to arrive at a knowledge of the truth. So that's an important distinction.
However, to raise point, that doesn't mean that we're gentle
with the former and not with the latter. I'm always impressed with the fact that
even in Matthew 18:15-20, those who sin against us,
I'm always impressed by the fact that Jesus wants to maintain the dignity of the
unrepentant sinner and to involve as few people as possible and only add people
as necessary that they may come to repentance. And when they don't come
to repentance, then you involve the whole church and then you exclude them
and deliver them over to Satan but it has nothing to do with tone or lack of
gentleness. It's just the idea some people may repent, may be granted repentance,
and others are always learning never, able to come to a knowledge of the truth. - I'm so glad, Ray, that you mentioned
Edwards in there. One of the things I'll talk about in my workshop tomorrow is it's
hard for me to imagine that many people would regard Edwards to be gentle.
I mean in terms of how we perceive gentleness to be from a worldly
perspective. A different matter from a Godly perspective. One of the things that
strikes me about his biography is that he's fired from his congregation
for standing on principle, a principle that we could debate today but
I'll just say for the sake of argument, I think that he was right on.
A principle that in which he was going against his grandfather's policy there,
a difficult environment. His grandfather was pastor of that church
for like 60 years. I can't remember what it was before him. And one of the dynamic
elements there is he preaches a farewell sermon. It's one of his most
famous and he is firm, does not back down. To me, it's very Christ-like,
it's very Pauline because Paul's not going to ever be considered...I mean,
we talked about him earlier as kind of a bulldozer-type in some ways there.
Edwards is firm. He doesn't back off there. The thing that's so fascinating
there is that they don't have a replacement for him set up.
There's nobody to come in to take over. A small town in western Massachusetts.
So what does he do? He stays and continues to serve them after his last time there.
It's amazing. And so you don't think from a worldly perspective that this man,
famous for some of the hardest words ever spoke as we think of in our American canon
of literature and yet truly was characterized by a Christ-like gentleness
there in his congregation. And I think that helps to illumine what we
see here from the ministry of Christ, not a man who minced words or compromised,
of course, in his perfection, in his Godhood but then also likewise with Paul.
Somebody who spoke appropriately difficult words that we know very much so and I have
to think about that a lot. I mean, I'm working on a book review right
now, published on The Gospel Coalition that's going to be extremely critical and
I think it's absolutely warranted because it gets at the very heart of the identity
and the character of God and we must deal with it according to the nature of this
threat and yet at the same time, it's still…
- It's not my book, Collin. - It's not your book. - It's not my book… - It's not your book on the 10
commandments. - Because you mentioned you were
doing a review of it. - No. I think you'll be seeing it soon. - I'm sure you'll be gentle. - But there is a way to do it in a way
that is not necessarily understood by the world but is in keeping with these
passages there. And I'm just reminded of how we have no...been repeating this
wherever I've gone recently but talk is so cheap now in this era.
It's so incredibly cheap and yet still a word spoken fitly for that season because
it is seasoned with the grace and the gentleness that we see here is still
powerfully used by God. And I think perhaps more able than ever
before because of the abundance of words in those soft arguments and those hard
words to be able to cut through and to show a different way even if it seems
to be such in contrast with the way other Christians are behaving and including
with how other Christians are behaving toward us in response to them.
I had a friend of mine recently talked to me about a difficult situation
in ministry. I think it's even with those people that we know and love and have
worked closely with for a long time, it can be very difficult.
But he just counseled me to not defend myself, to be willing to admit and
to confess my own sin and to leave that to the Lord. And he was like,
"You'll see how this works. It'll be totally counterintuitive and it's
going to defuse the situation." And as I engaged in that,
the situation escalated for a time but then totally changed.
And it was just…it was a powerful antidote I felt like too. I mean I'm somebody who
wants to use my words and I want to defend myself and that's potentially
disqualifying for ministry, I think, according to Paul here if we take that
seriously and I believe we must. We'll wrap that up. I want to give…well,
let's thank the panelists.
