Transcript
Scott Anderson: One of the dangers of the calling to ministry and Christian leadership, as you put it in your book, is the fact that ministry is war and wars are dangerous. It's a war for the gospel and a war for your own heart. Talk a little bit about that metaphor that you use in the book.
We Do Not Live in Peacetime
Paul Tripp: Yes, I just think that it's very, very helpful to understand that we don't live in peacetime. The war still goes on. There will be a day when the final enemy is under the foot of Christ. Praise God, praise God, praise God. And we'll hear, "All things are now ready. Enter into My final kingdom." I can't wait. But the war still goes on and in ministry, it rages in these two areas. Both of these, I think, are issues of the heart. One sounds more theological than the other.
One is a war for the gospel, the purity of the gospel, that we understand that the law is very important. It has the ability to expose sin. It's a wonderful guide, but the law can never deliver me from sin. And there's just thousand ways that the gospel gets sort of deluded and lost and bent and twisted.
Now, why does it happen? Because of my heart, because there lives in my heart, still, self-righteousness. Look, if I think I'm a law-keeper, then there's a great tendency to meet for me to bring the law to law-breakers to turn them in to law-keepers.
I mean, it just makes sense. It's not just that I don't theologically understand the message of the New Testament, it's because I want to think of myself as more righteous than I actually am. The only case study that you need in the New Testament is the Pharisees.
I mean, why did they lay burdens on other people that they themselves couldn't bear? Because they thought they were bearing them. And the reason Jesus says don't parade your righteousness before others is because you don't have any.
The minute you think you got independent righteousness you can parade, you've already lost the ball game. And so, it is the self-righteousness of the pastor that actually begins the process of diluting the gospel and making it something else because if I'm broken by my view into the law as it exposes who I am, I'm going to give grace, tender, passionate, perseverant grace. No one gives the law more perseveringly than a person who thinks they're keeping it, and no one offers grace more tenderly than a person who thinks they desperately need it. So that battle that seems theological is not actually as theological as it seems.
And then, the struggle for me is just that gospel in my own life, the war for the gospel in my own heart, that I revert to other things and I tell myself that my needs are outside of me, that it's just my wife who never seems to get it together or my children or my congregation or all the other things you could point to.
And all those plausible lies for my own righteousness, I'm good at it. And the problem is with this that you do live in a fallen world that doesn't operate the way it's supposed to. You do live around flawed people who don't do everything they're supposed to, so you got plenty of things to point at.
The War for the Now-ism of the Gospel
And so, these wars actually come together because to the degree that I'm not facing the depth of my own present need for the now-ism of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, rescue today -- to that degree, it makes it easier for me to put law on people because I'm looking elsewhere for my hope.
I don't think I mentioned this in the Dangerous Calling[: Confronting the Unique Challenges of Pastoral Ministry] book, but I've committed myself to praying three prayers every morning. The first prayer is, "God, I'm a man in desperate need of help today." I try to pray this before I get out of bed so I don't forget. "I'm a man in desperate need of help today."
Second prayer is, "I pray that in Your grace, you would send your helpers my way. I need help. Please send Your helpers my way. The third prayer is, "And please give me the humility to receive the help when it comes."
Scott: It's good. Well, one of the ways, one of the weapons, one of the tools that you recommend -- and you have a whole section of the book that deals with this to help fight this battle -- is the necessity of reclaiming a sense of awe.
Again, several chapters in which you're really just trumpeting and calling us back, calling leaders back, calling pastors back to remembering the awesome fear of God and how important that is. Why is awe so vital in this whole discussion of Dangerous Calling[: Confronting the Unique Challenges of Pastoral Ministry]?
Paul: See, I would argue that one of the central messages of the word of God is that the deepest, most influential motivation of every human being by God's intention was to be awe of God, that the four most important words of the Bible are the first four: In the beginning, God. That tells him what everything is about -- my identity, my meaning, my calling, my life.
And so, you should be able to come to me and say, "Why do you treat Luella the way you do?" I say, "Because of my awe of God."
"Why do you parent your kids way you do?"
Because of My Awe of God
"Because of my awe of God."
"Why do you spend your money the way you do?"
"Because of my awe of God, that this grand, glorious, jaw-dropping, heart-rattling awe of the glory and presence of God should be the thing that just defines everything about my life.
Now, if that's true of life for everybody -- and could I say this, that's not about being spiritual, that's about being human; that's how all human beings were meant to live -- if that's God's plan for humanity, how much more for ministry because what ministry is about is giving people back their awe.
Because what happens is awe of God migrates to awe of creation. In fact, you could argue that it migrates even more deeply than that. When all of God is absent, it's quickly replaced by awe of me because the biggest idol of all idols is the idol of self. The kingdom that competes with the kingdom of God is the kingdom of self.
And so, every worship song, every Sunday school class, every meeting, men's group, women's group, youth ministry, every time the word is taught, every sermon that's preached should be designed to rescue people from all the other awes that have gripped their heart and to reclaim them once again for the awe of God. So we want all of creation to rise and clap its hands at the glory of this One that's life. And so, the danger for me is the danger of familiarity because the more familiar things get, the less they command my awe. It's just the way it is.
Couple of examples. Artists talk about this dynamic of visual lethargy. It means that the first time you see things, something that gets your attention. The fifteenth time you see it, you don't even notice it. So you're driving to work, the first time you ever drive to your place of work and you're just thankful that you're driving down this beautiful tree-lined road. You just are so thankful. Six weeks in, you're pounding your dash because the traffic is in your way and you don't even notice that there're trees.
So familiarity is a huge blessing of God, that I would be chosen to stand up next to the things of God, let alone God himself, is a glorious blessing, but it's a grave danger because they can become so familiar to me that I don't even notice them anymore. They don't they don't grab my awe anymore. They don't make my jaw slack anymore. They don't make my heart pump anymore. They don't bring me to tears anymore.
Weeping at the Chicago Symphony
I can remember sitting in the front row listening to the Chicago Symphony play a song that the title was "To the Awe of God," and that orchestra just swelled more and more and more, and I began to weep. I thought this is not even close to what the glory of God is, but my body's shaking.
I want that. I don't want to lose that because I know it's very hard in ministry for me to give away what I don't have. I'm tired. I'm sick of listening to boring theological lectures by uninspired homileticians who long since have lost their awe. I'm not surprised that people fall asleep. I'm surprised more don't because the awe is gone. God's left the building.
No wonder that husband doesn't say, "Oh, my goodness, it's been all about me. No wonder I'm impatient with my wife. No wonder that teenager doesn't say, 'Forget what the world offers me. This is what I want,' because we're not putting this awe in front of them in ways that the Spirit of God can empower to reclaim the hearts of people.
Scott: That's very helpful. You talk in the book about the fruit of awe and you have a whole list of things. You know, humility is one of the fruits you mentioned and tenderness, confidence is one of them, passion, discipline, rest.
What do you say to that pastor who maybe has just heard you talk about this or who reads about this in the book, who recognizes, "I have lost my awe. I have become so familiar"? Back to our earlier question, I have so, kind of, objectified it's head knowledge, but it's not touching my heart anymore. Where does that pastor go to reclaim that deep sense of reverential awe for God?
Paul: I think the first thing is to his knees. I mean to his knees. I think the posture is important. I think if you're there as a pastor, you ought to get down on your knees and say, "God, help me, help me, help me. Rescue me, rescue me, rescue me. How could it be that I could look at You and not be blown away? What's happened to my heart? And God, I don't want this to be in my life. Please meet me by Your grace. Open my eyes again. May I see Your glory in ways I haven't? I haven't seen it for a long time. Please help me." And stay there. Stay there 'til there's evidence of heart change. Start every morning that way, a half hour just pleading for a new sightedness to the glory of God.
Second thing I would say is grab a hold of things that are written by people who have as part of their mission to show you the glory of God. Stand up close to it. Stand up next to it again. It's like you tell an uninspired artist, what do you tell him to do? You don't tell him to study art theory. You tell him to go to a good museum. Stand in front of a Rembrandt. Stand in front of a Monet. Take it in. Remember what that glory is about again. And so, I think those two things together. I do that with discipline.
Third thing I would say is confess to the people near you. Confess that you've lost your awe. Confess that you're cranking it out. Confess that you're not inspired by your own sermons. Confess that the move of the gospel and the kingdom of God doesn't excite you anymore, and have them intercede for you. Have them seek to encourage you. Have them watch out for you and just continue to do those things.
