The Cost and Worth of Preaching: A Conversation with John Piper

in the last paragraph of your book expository exultation you write this as I look back over four Decades of preaching I bear witness that it has been worth every effort and every cost talk to us about the effort and cost of preaching and tell us why a lifetime of preaching was worth it both of us could fit Philip an hour that the cost and and the worth of of a life of preaching and I wouldn't change anything in that paragraph that you just read um the cost is that my Saturdays didn't look like other people's Saturdays um the pastor has the freedom to take afternoons off during the week and his weekends look different than other people's so I attended every soccer game but they were on Thursdays at three o'clock when most guys are working hard and they can't go I'm often the only Pastor there so there are benefits from having a flexible schedule but your weekends beautiful day outside price playing and I'm I'm struggling with getting a word from God for my people tomorrow morning and that was hard and trying to understand texts that you don't understand and knowing that the um the devil hates what you do and he's going to physically emotionally and and verbally try to wreck your life so that the price was really quite High emotionally High time wise it was high family it was high and I'd do it all again and do it pretty much the same way the benefits are you can think of the benefits in terms of the pleasures of doing what you're made to do and the fruit that you've seen and the pleasures are that like Eric little said I feel God's pleasure when I run I feel God's pleasure when I preach I really do I I feel like I'm in my element as no other time sometimes people have asked me are you a writer who preaches or a preacher who writes and I say what do you think and I think everybody I've ever asked that says you're a preacher who writes and I said I think that's probably right which which gives you pause about stopping at 67 right and because the complexity of the church was was so was so big um so that's one and then the fruit I mean people wonder why do you bother lining up and letting those people take pictures with you down there and the answer is because they tell me stories they tell me stories with tears in their eyes you know I want to write home to people who don't like my Ministry I want to say would you stand with me once would you please stand with me once this guy right here is taking pictures of all this with tears and their eyes they're telling me how their lives were changed or almost every time somebody tells me I got saved I met a guy walk up to me and take my hand a couple of those days ago in Washington D.C and he said John 6 37 19 whatever in my dorm room instantaneously saved listen to your preaching now that that's God's work and I would just say as I have seen people get saved through the word of God and I have seen moms born with disabled children who will never leave their lives the same again because they will never be independent kept this is their language kept from going insane because of what you Pastor have taught us in your preaching about the sovereignty of God that's worth a lifetime I mean that's worth as many weekends as you can as you can think of and and those two have been huge for me people walking out of Darkness into light so that you know they have everlasting joy and people who've been sustained in the worst kinds of of providences

Channel: The Master's Seminary

Views: 6,187

Keywords: The Master's Seminary, John MacArthur, Expository Preaching, Inerrancy, Biblical Teaching, TMS, Bible, Truth, Scripture, Pastor, Chapel

Id: zMmECsacoh8

Length: 4min 30sec (270 seconds)

Published: Wed May 10 2023