Transcript
Ben Fallon: “When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom,” Proverbs 11:2. “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall,” Proverbs 16:18. “One's pride will bring him low, but he who is lowly in spirit will obtain honor. Proverbs 29:23.
Sadly, Paul, we live in an age where, it seems like all around us, nearly everyday, pastors and Christian ministry leaders are failing and destroying their ministry and reputation. Today's episode includes a variety of questions that we've received pertaining to pride in ministry and specifically pastors. So here is the first question from a congregant:
What are the warning signs that a pastor or an elder or ministry leader is consumed with pride? When should my family decide to leave the church? I know that you say that every pastor is in the midst of his own sanctification, but when is enough enough? What are the inexcusable red flags which signify it's time for us to go?
Paul Tripp: Well, I want to start by saying, “Self-glory is the mortal enemy of a healthy and fruitful ministry life.” Because if it's driven by self-glory, then there are two things happening: your Lord isn't getting the glory that is his due; and people are now followers of you, your fans, rather than followers of Christ. What a pastor or spiritual leader is meant to be is not the painting that people look at in awe; but you're supposed to be a frame that is a window to the glory of Christ, so that people look through you and they see their Lord in all his glory, and they want to surrender their lives to him. That's what's supposed to happen. So, self-glory is absolutely the mortal enemy of what ministry is to be, and what the church is to be, and what should happen in the lives of people in the congregation.
So I'm going to make a bunch of statements here that are my best attempt to answer this question:
1. A pastor must never consistently put himself in the middle of the story as if the grand story is about him.
2. A pastor must never proudly take credit for what he could never do, produce, or accomplish on his own.
3. A pastor must never look at his church he serves with a spirit of ownership–he's not the owner; he's a steward of what God owns.
4. A pastor must never look at his present ministry position as a steppingstone to greater and bigger things.
5. A pastor must never see himself as greater, better, or more worthy than the people to whom he ministers.
6. A pastor must never think it is safe for him to live up above or outside of the essential sanctifying fellowship of the body of Christ.
7. A pastor is a member of the body of Christ with a particular calling and a particular God-ordained office. If Christ is the head of his body, and he is, everything else is just body.
8. A pastor must never view his staff and treat his staff as servants to his success.
9. A pastor must never resist being pastored.
10. A pastor must never dominate and control, but rather serve and give.
11. A pastor should never run roughshod over people who God has sent to impart wisdom and warning to him.
12. A pastor's preaching should never be marked by subtle bragging, but rather by humble confession.
13. A pastor must never preach down to his congregation but rather be a man who clearly sits under his own ministry.
14. A pastor must humbly and willingly surround himself with a loving, honest, gospel community, who constantly works to guard and encourage his spiritual health. If he resists that, then there is a problem.
So all these things that I've said, in a “must-not” way, are indications of pride in the life of a pastor that will get in the way of healthy and fruitful pastoral life and ministry.
BF: The second question now comes from an elder as they are observing some concerning signs with one of their pastors, “When should they intervene? What should they say? And how should they handle church discipline, even removal from leadership?” I know it's a very broad question, and there is a lot of context behind it, but Paul, if you could provide those within a local church, who are in a position of authority and have leadership responsibility, with just some general gospel principles about how to deal with a proud pastor or ministry leader who is a danger to himself and to the congregation.
PT: Well, whenever there is a continued pattern of sin, whether it's pride or whatever, that's the first thing, when there's a continued pattern of sin and the pastor is resistant to exhortation and warning, and therefore unrepentant, the leadership community has to step in. Let me say that again because there are some elements here. First, when there's a continued pattern of sin; second, and coupled with the fact that the pastor is resistant to exhortation and warning and; therefore, there's a third thing, unrepentant. We're looking for those things, continued pattern, resistance, and a lack of repentance, the leadership community must step in. And what ‘step in’ means, ‘You ask the pastor to step down for a period of time for the purpose of self-examination, counsel, repentance, and restoration.'
Now here's the ticket. How he responds to this will tell you whether or not he is disqualified and needs to be removed. I want to say this, “I think this question is so important, I've just got done writing an entire book about it, it's called Restore, and it's on the way out. I don't know when it's going to come out, but I think it's very, very important.”
We should not be surprised that pastors sin. Pastors are people in the middle of their own sanctification. Pastors still have remaining sin in their hearts, and so we have to have conditions in place, plans in place, processes agreed upon, for what we will do when that pattern becomes consistent, and the pastor seems resistant to change.
BF: And then lastly, Paul, to conclude this episode, this question was submitted from a pastor who is very concerned about the sin of pride in his own life, but he's also very aware that sin blinds, and if that's the case, “How can I begin to see the rotten fruit or the red flags of pride in my life and ministry?”
PT: Here's what's important for every Christian to understand, but it's even more critically important for anybody who's in spiritual leadership. Personal spiritual insight is the result of community. Now, the reason is because Scripture tells us that sin deceives, sin blinds. And guess who it blinds first? I don't have a problem seeing the sin of my wife and children and neighbors and anybody else, but I can be regularly blind to my own sin. And so I need instruments of seeing in my life, people who have been welcomed in to help me see myself as I actually am. No one, no one in ministry, no one in the church at all can say this, “No one knows me better than I know myself.” That's not true because your view of yourself will be marked by places of blindness. It's like looking at yourself in a carnival mirror–you see yourself; but you see yourself with distortion. That's why says this, “Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”
You see; spiritual blindness can cause me to not see sin in my life; to not believe it's a problem. That leads to further falling away and ultimately a hardened heart. That's exactly what the passage says. And the only thing that protects me from that process of falling away and hardness is spiritual sightedness, that ministry of sightedness and conviction. “You can't grieve what you don't see; you can't confess what you haven't grieved; and you can't repent of what you haven't confessed.” “You can't grieve what you don't see; you can't confess what you don't grieve; and you can't repent of what you haven't confessed.” And so we all need the Holy Spirit to send those voices of sightedness and conviction into our lives.
And that sightedness and conviction is not condemnation; it's God drawing us near and returning us to what He meant for us to be. So the answer is, “You can't do this by yourself. You are consistently fooled by you. You and I consistently deceive ourselves. We naturally argue for our righteousness when we should be confessing our sin. And we need those instruments of seeing in our lives. I think it's one of the beautiful blessings of marriage, if you're humble enough to give your spouse the ability to speak into your life, to be an instrument of seeing in your life, it can be a beautiful thing!
BF: Well, the two resources we would recommend here would be Paul's book, Dangerous Calling, written for pastors, and then Lead, written to the leadership community of the local church. Those are available at paultripp.com/dangerouscalling and paultripp.com/lead.
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