I transferred out of that first class that John ever taught at Bethel because I couldn’t believe he was the teacher. He looked so young. And when Walt Wessel came in and said, “The class was too full, we need some people to come and join me,” and Walt looked a lot wiser and older, so I transferred out. And then the next opportunity I had to take John’s class was Ephesians during the interim of that same year. And I debated, “Should I take Ephesians, or should I take Christian spirituality?” And I figured, “Oh, what should I do? And I needed help with my prayer life,” so I took Christian spirituality, and we learned about Jesus beads and we learned about mysticism and all kinds of stuff.

While my good friend Scott Hafemann, who’s now a professor at Gordon-Conwell Seminary, we would meet after class and walk down the hall, and here I was learning about Jesus beads, and he was saying, “I think I was just converted.” After that though, I learned my lesson and I took whatever I could from John and delight in his partnership more than words can say.

Two Important Disclaimers on the Race

I feel like I need to begin with a couple disclaimers. One is to acknowledge that if the Lord gives me a full life, I’m nowhere near finishing my race, and yet on the other hand, who knows, but tomorrow the race might be over for me. Tomorrow we’ll learn that it was over at 29 years of age for David Brainerd, and he ran his race with all his might. But if the Lord gives me a long life, it means I’m still in the early part of my race, and I realize that many of you have run the race a lot longer than I have and would love to hear your insights that you have gleaned over the years.

Another disclaimer is not only have I not completed my race yet, I don’t feel like I’ve run it all that well. My wife Julie has been chuckling to herself these past few weeks as I’ve been thinking about this topic, and it’s been a very intense and crazy time at Bethlehem, which is pretty frequent, and she was real good-naturedly just wondering what I was going to say. And she’s also been pretty chipper because she knows that whenever I think about this topic, good changes happen, and I trust that’ll happen in my own life as well as for you.

So, I don’t claim to be an expert, but I really believe the Lord has met me in these years of ministry, in these ten years of ministry. And I’m delighted to share basically some Scriptures that have excited my heart. I count it a real privilege to give this talk because I just basically went down and found all my favorite verses that have helped me in the ministry, and I’m going to pass those along to you.

I also want to acknowledge that you come from many different spots. And for me, if I came to this conference, various different spots in my life, sometimes I would come victorious, riding the crest of the wave that God had just poured out his spirit in a wonderful way, and good things are being accomplished, and I would hear these things in that context.

Other times I would come to this conference, and I would be devastated, lower than low and wondering if there’s a future and a hope in the ministry. And sometimes I would come here perplexed: “Lord, what do you have for me down the road? And do you have me here forever? Do you have me moving on?” And I know that you come from many different spots today; some of you are riding the crest of the wave, others are discouraged and downtrodden, others are perplexed. And I just pray that in all the things that I’ll share, the Lord will have something for each of you. And I trust that he will because his word will not return to him empty; it’ll accomplish all its good purpose.

Suriving and Thriving by God’s Grace

My aim this morning is to share some biblical and personal reflections about surviving and thriving in the ministry. By God’s grace, I have survived and thrived in the ministry for ten years, and I attribute it to his grace. Survived just barely at times, thrived almost without interruption, even at the darkest points. I’ve loved the ministry; it’s been an amazing gift of God’s mercy to let me be in ministry, and I count it an awesome privilege.

And at the outset, I just want to say that everything else I’m going to say flows out of this first thought that the bedrock of my life is the sovereign, wise, personal love of God for me; that is the bedrock of my life.

That God is all-wise. He knows everything. He knows all the eventualities that could possibly take place from any decision he would make. He knows the end from the beginning. He knows when every hair falls out of your head and every bird drops out of heaven, and he knows how to ordain everything so that it accomplishes his purpose. He is completely, perfectly wise. And he is powerful. He can do anything that his wisdom dictates, absolutely anything.

His sovereignty rules over all. And then to think that he employs his sovereignty and his wisdom in the service of his love for his children, of which I am one, is just an amazing, amazing truth. And Romans 8:28 has been my bedrock, that we know that God causes all things, all things — Romans 8 includes those lists of persecutions and sufferings and all those things — God causes all things to work together for my good. “For those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son” (Romans 8:28–29).

I think that’s what the good is. He works everything together to conform us into the image of his son, I mean everything. And so at every turn of the ministry, we have that to fall back on. And that has been my bedrock again and again.

Another dimension of that is to look beyond myself and to realize that God has an unthwartable purpose in this world to win worshipers to himself from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. And that he is just rolling on accomplishing that purpose. It is an unfordable purpose; it will happen. He has purchased people for God from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. It’s going to happen. His kingdom will be preached to all nations, and then the end will come.

And it’s so stabilizing to me to know that even if in my little piece of the puzzle of redemptive history, if there’s lots of failure in that piece, that yet I am on the winning side and that God is going to work everything together to accomplish that goal of winning worshipers to himself from every tribe and tongue. And so that just forms a foundation for my life that is unshaken and has been tested in difficult times, and I’ll share some of those along the way.

What I want to do this morning is just to talk about four or five points, or they’re no alliteration here or anything. But first of all, what I want to do is to make a case for hard work. There’s no way to get around it; the ministry is hard work. The second thing I want to talk about is issues of marriage and family and personal well-being and what to do when commands seem to collide. And then the third thing I want to talk about is the whole idea of finding the pace to finish the race, just to reflect on that and look at some Scripture. And then fourthly, something that has helped me to thrive in ministry is a way of viewing people and of viewing the work that helps me persevere through difficult people and difficult circumstances. And then fifthly is to share my life verse at the end. If you ask me next year what my life verse is, it might be different.

1. The Case for Hard Work

First of all, making a case for hard work. And especially, boy, I want everything to be seen in light of last night’s powerful word and what we’re talking about.

The issue of eternity is so all-encompassing, and if we would just let it settle in upon our hearts, it’ll bring so much light, I think, to our life and it will help us in our decision-making to say no to things that are distractions. And so I just want that to be in light, be at the forefront of our minds, that we are living in an eternal perspective.

Hope you can see this in the back. I checked it out, and my eyes are, I don’t think, quite 20/20, and I could almost read it. I just want to list several texts here. I want to list several texts here that show that ministry is hard work and that Paul intends himself to be an example to us.

Paul as an Example

We know that in 1 Corinthians 11:1 that he says, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.” In that context, he seeks to please all people that he might save them. And later on, we’re going to talk about people pleasing. And there’s a different way to look at it in another text that we’ll use. But he really intends to use his life as an illustration for us. Not that we’re apostles, that we follow him in every way, but yet at least in his zeal and his hard work, I think we are meant to take note.

Here, he’s talking to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20:35. And a great text — Acts 20 — his farewell address to the Ephesian elders, and he says, “In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”

“In everything I showed you that by working hard in this manner, working hard.” Whether it was tent-making or preaching the gospel or whatever Paul did, he was working hard, and he was trying to show people something by that. And then right here, we have the clue. I think one of the reasons or the reason why he was so free to work so hard because we must not only help the weak and the weak will always have with us, but the way we do it is that we remember what Jesus himself said, what Jesus knew for himself, what Jesus himself said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”

And if we believe it is more blessed to give than to receive, hard work will be seen in a very healthy context, and we’ll see that it’s not meant to be a draining thing, though it will be draining, it’s ultimately not draining, it’s ultimately renewing and enlivening to do the work of the ministry, giving.

Grace Drives Work

First Corinthians 15:10, Paul says, “By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.” Paul labored more than all of them. “Yet not I but the grace of God with me.” Grace labors, grace drives work.

I remember early in my Christian life, either I misheard it or the person intended to teach it this way that, they said, anytime you’re striving, you’re in the flesh, you’re not in grace, and that’s just not true. Striving, if it means working hard, exerting energy, expending yourself, it can be grace that can drive it. It can be the flesh, but it can be grace as well.

Grace and hard work go hand in hand. Grace empowers hard work. Of course, this text in 2 Corinthians 11:23–29 shows what I’m saying. I’m making a case for hard work, it’s long hours sometimes, it’s lots of emotional energy and physical energy, and you can see all of this in this text right here.

Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one — I am talking like a madman — with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from [external things — that’s the way that word should be taken, there’s some debate there], there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant?

And that is emotional energy there, and I think being in the ministry, I think we can relate to what Paul’s talking about. Maybe none of us have responsibility for as many churches as he did, but for our own flocks. The daily pressure upon me of concern for all the churches are for the church, all the people of the church. It’s daily, daily pressure. “Who is weak without my being weak?”

All of us could have a litany of people that we could list off that are incredibly weak right now, either because of physical illness or emotional distress or spiritual attack or whatever, that there are people that are weak right now and it weighs on us, we care about it. “Who is led into sin without my intense concern, especially with eternity at stake?” It’s an awesome thing to have a charge, have a flock. Hard work.

Impart the Gospel and Your Life

I love 1 Thessalonians 2. I love 1 Thessalonians. If there’s ever a book in the Bible that talks about a philosophy of ministry and a style of ministry, 1 Thessalonians is worth our serious study. This is Paul bearing his heart before the people. He says,

So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us. For you remember, brothers, our labor and toil: we worked night and day [as a tent maker and preacher and all that], that we might not be a burden to any of you, while we proclaimed to you the gospel of God. (1 Thessalonians 2:8–9)

I love this text because it pulls together that first text of the whole idea of it’s more blessed to give than to receive. Paul was well pleased to impart not only the gospel but his own life. He was an impartation of his life to the people he ministered to.

And the thing that’s so phenomenal about this text is the incredible bonding that took place between Paul and the people he worked with Thessalonica. He wasn’t there all that long, and there was this incredible bonding that took place between Paul and the people, this affection that generated all this concern and all this hard work. So that imparting not only the gospel but his own life was a pleasure to him. He was well pleased and delighted in it. Working hard is not anything that is contradictory to grace.

Labor in Preachng and Teaching

Some more texts on hard work. Now here Paul is talking, I think, to elders here or talking about elders. “We ask you, brothers,” — this is people in the church — “to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you” (1 Thessalonians 5:12).

People in our church should read this one way; we should read it this way, that we are those who diligently labor, diligently labor, charge over you, people and the Lord, and give instruction. First Timothy 5:17: “Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching.”

Sometimes you just get the impression that the early church was so spontaneous, the presence of the Spirit was so spontaneous that you just get up and wing it, and God zaps everybody as you wing it. But Paul viewed the ministry of preaching and teaching as something you work hard at. You work hard at preaching and teaching.

Toil Is Not in Vain in the Lord

The last verse I’ll mention, there’s so many more, and this is to all Christians, and if it’s to all Christians, it’s to us as well. “Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:58).

The reason we can work hard is because we know, according to this text, not because of the results we’re getting necessarily, we know that our toil is not in vain in the Lord. And this verse has been ringing loudly at Bethlehem in this past couple of weeks because God has sent a messenger to us to encourage us in a way that I don’t know if I’ve ever been encouraged quite like this before.

I’m a mission pastor here at Bethlehem, and so I really want to help our people be encouraged that all the money you invest in missions, all the people you invest in missions, your sons and your daughters, you invest in missions, your grandfathers and grandmothers, and moms and dads, you invest in missions, it’s not in vain even though it seems to be a lot of times. And we had this man come to us, I met him in church. I still remember the sun was shining just right, it was one of those immeasurable moments.

The sun was shining in through one of the stained glass windows. And there’s this man and woman dressed in Burmese dress. I didn’t know it was Burmese at the time, but obviously Asian tribal dress. And they were getting ready to walk out, and my wife Julie saw and said, “Maybe you should go and meet them.” And I went over there and shook his hand, and he said his name is Ken Naw. And he said he wanted to come to Bethlehem to see the church that — and if I cry about this, it’s because it’s so awesome — he wanted to see the church that had sent out a missionary back in 1890 that had been used of the Lord to do a work there that was just amazing, in 1890.

And so he wanted to come back here to find out where the church that sent this man out. And he’s now studying at Trinity and getting a master, a doctor of missiology, and studying missions history. And while he was there, he found out that Ola Hanson was from Bethlehem. And so he wanted to come up here and to tell us what had happened. And back in 1890, Bethlehem Baptist Church had sent Ola Hanson to Burma, and he went out and did Bible translation there and church planning and witnessing.

And he went to a totally unreached people group, the Kachin people of Northern Burma, and started translating the Scriptures there. And it was incredibly difficult language apparently. He said that they were a dirty people and very uncivilized and naked as jaybirds and always chewing this betel juice. So there’s this black junk coming out of their mouths. And Ola Hanson would have to listen to what they’re saying, and he couldn’t tell if the slur was because of the betel juice or what.

So, he’d have to get down and look inside their mouth when they say something and they would say it and spray betel juice all over his face. But then he would detect if it was a glottal or a labial or what it was and write it down. And after 38 years, he returned and died the next year at Midway Hospital. And he left behind him some believers and he left behind him the Scriptures. And since that time there has been a virtual people movement to Christ among the Kachin people.

We didn’t know this at Bethlehem. We should have. Other people had known about it, but we didn’t. But now there’s over a hundred thousand Kachin believers in Northern Burma. And he says virtually every house has a picture of Ola Hanson. And the Scriptures, they still use a Scripture that he translated, and it’s known as one of the best translations, Bible translations.

And so he comes back here, Ken Naw comes to tell us that. And if that doesn’t do a mission pastor’s heart good and a church’s heart’s good, I don’t know what will. And his point was, he says, “I am a living witness to you. I am evidence to you that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.” And you know what a word for us, as we look at, some of the things we wonder is, is it bearing fruit what I’m doing? And we don’t know. And Ola Hanson didn’t know. He knows now, and we will know too, that our labor isn’t in vain.

2. When Biblical Commands Seem to Collide

In light of this hard work, we have the whole issue of what do we do when biblical commands seem to collide upon our lives? Because there are commands for us to be on guard for all the flock and there are commands on us to love our wives, love our children. And what I want to do is to look at some of these commands and just to labor with you for a moment on how to put them together.

The Weighty Commands of Ministry

First of all, commands that are awesome in their weight upon our lives. Acts 20:28 says, Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.” I mean, talking about being entrusted with something that is of incredible value. Not that we’re of incredible value because we cost Jesus his blood, but God is invested in us, the blood of his Son for our salvation.

And we are to be on guard for these people, for all the flock. Boy, how we’ve belabored at that at Bethlehem with a flock of over a thousand people. And one of the words that turns David Livingston’s hair gray is people falling through the cracks. And there are people falling through the cracks at Bethlehem and I’m sure in many of your congregations as well. We are to be on guard for all the flock.

First Thessalonians 5:14: “We urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all.” This is general Christian duty here. But there’s always going to be more unruly that need to be admonished than you have time to do, more fainthearted that need to be encouraged, more weak that need to be helped, and more people that require patience than we’ll ever have time to do.

Second Timothy 4:2: “Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.” Be ready in season and out of season. Those are pretty overwhelming commands that are upon us. Again, all to be seen in the context, if it’s more blessed to give than to receive. All to be seen in the context that it’s grace that labors and yet it is hard work, lots to do. Those are one set of commands, that we must obey by the grace of God.

But there are other sets of commands that have to be obeyed as well. We can’t pick and choose which commands we’re going to obey. And so I want to share some commands that relate to marriage, that relate to children, family, and relate to ourself.

And I realize that not everyone in here is married and that some of you might become married and some of you might not. And according to 1 Corinthians 7, Paul counts singleness as a great asset in ministry. And you don’t have to obey this command to love your wives because you don’t have a wife and therefore you are freed up in many ways to pour yourself out for other commands to obey. But many of us in here are married and many of us have children and we need to look at some considerations.

Lessons from Personal Pilgrimage

And I think what I want to do at this point is to, before I share these verses, maybe to share a little bit about my own pilgrimage and how I’ve learned some of these issues through an extended dark night of the soul in our family.

Almost three years ago today, to this day almost, three years ago, my wife Julie crashed into a depression and it took us off guard. Not that she wasn’t working on things before and that we knew that we had to be careful before, but the ferociousness of it that came upon her was just so startling to us, it took us off guard. And I still remember the day that I knew this happened.

And we just immediately got out of our house and moved to my parents’ house in Excelsior, 20 miles from here. My parents were in Florida. So just to get away from everything and to go and to pray and to work on these things. And Julie was so depressed she couldn’t go to church for 12 weeks, not even darken the door of the church for 12 weeks. And she was put on medications for — I don’t know how long it lasted — well over a year. And during that time we wondered, “What does this mean? Why is this happening? How did this happen? What’s the future hold?”

And it was a time in my life where I was forced to come to my senses and to really look at the situation and to evaluate my life and my pace. And I seriously wondered, “Would we need to leave the ministry?” Which on the one hand I couldn’t even fathom doing but on the other hand, by the grace of God when I made vows to Julie and she made vows to me, we knew what it meant. And so we had to wrestle with those kinds of things.

And the Lord has taught us so much through that. I delight to say that now three years later, Julie is stronger, more godly, more powerful in the ministry, a better mom, a better wife than she’s ever been before in her life. And that God brought her so wonderfully through this dark night of the soul. And so any of you out there that have crashed yourselves or know people who have or are on the brink of it or are you in the middle of it right now, God can teach us so much through that dark night of the soul.

And we’re still learning from it and we will for a long time. And God forbid it could happen again. We want to take precautions not to have it happen again, but it could. And I can say that God is faithful even in the darkest of the dark night. At the time it happened, Julie for a few years had been working on issues that were related to being brought up in an alcoholic family and working on things. And I was a little bit involved with her on that and things seemed like we were progressing ahead. But I was going a million miles an hour, thriving in the ministry. I was thriving in the ministry, going a million miles an hour and gone just about every night of the week, oftentimes with her.

One of the things that we’ve learned in our life, just to give you a little background here, is that we got married in 1977 and had a great first year of marriage with a lot of ministry demands. Went out to California, and that’s where we fell in love with ministry was out in California working with some college students out there and my good friend Steve Fuller. And out there we learned the delight it was to pour ourselves into the lives of other people.

And that was the gracious work of God to exhilarate us in that way. But we went into it with reckless abandon and it was wonderful. It was good for us, good for our marriage, it was a purpose, and we loved it. But I think in the process of it, we became unbalanced and failed to obey some other commands and developed some habits and patterns of communication that weren’t devastating at the time but ended up really contributing to a lot of the problems down the road.

Then we come back to Minnesota, and again we’re in love with the ministry now, both of us, and so we poured ourselves in a hundred percent. And it’s hard for me to look back and interpret that because I don’t want to discount anything that God had us do. And it’s hard to interpret, but yet it’s just the way it happened. And for two years, I was working here part-time and teaching Greek at the college and finishing my seminary degree, and Julie was pouring her life into ministry here at the church and working as a secretary.

And then we were working with the students, and God just blessed the student ministry at Bethlehem in these early days. And the group grew from 35 to 250 people before we divided into other classes. And so it was very exhilarating and demanding and exciting, and so we were pouring ourselves in.

Along comes child number one, and Julie stops working here at the church, and yet her ministry commitments continued right on. And we weren’t aware of what it means to have a child in terms of the demands that are brought. And so for a while, finally, Julie realized that she couldn’t keep doing all the ministry things she was doing and be a good mom. And so she cut back a little bit and was being a great mom. And then as time went on, she was becoming a better and better mom, and I was becoming a more and more active pastor.

And you can see at the outset how this parallel existence or this coexistence can begin in a home. Where we were going down two tracks, and Julie was fulfilled and exhilarated as a mother, and I was fulfilled and exhilarated as a father, but also as a pastor that demanded so much. And so we were going down parallel tracks. And I think the Lord used the depression to stop us in those tracks and to ask us to open our eyes and see what was happening, and so the Lord did that, graciously.

When Julie crashed, I just had to step back, look at my schedule, look at the choices I was making, look at the commands of Scripture I was neglecting in my sincere desire to obey other commands of Scripture. And to realize I had to bring my life, by the grace of God, into greater balance, and I did. I failed to see that my wife was not surviving in these times.

And it wasn’t because I was intentionally failing, it’s just that I was so busy, and Julie didn’t feel the freedom to say how hard it was all the time because who was she to stand in the way of the ministry? She is so supportive, and who is she to make demands on me? And so it was hard for her to talk about what she needed. I was so busy, it was hard for me to see what she needed, and therefore there were problems, and the depression happened.

Well anyway, after three years, these are the things I learned in this painful process of Julie’s recovery and my recovery as well.

1. Be Ready to Slash Your Schedule

Our schedule had to be slashed, at least for the first several months, and I became the primary care parent of now two children. And that was good for me because I could see myself getting out of touch with my kids as well. Not that I wanted to, but I was not aware of how important it was for me to be present for my family. And now I was painfully aware, joyfully aware of how much I needed to pour into my family. So I became the primary care parent for several months. I was forced to look at how I contributed to Julie’s depression. It wasn’t just her problem, it wasn’t her personality disorder or anything like that, it was a complex thing that made it happen. And one of the things I learned was that Julie has never begrudged the crises of ministry.

We are to be ready in season. Now when a crisis happens, we need to be there or help make sure someone is there. And Julia has never begrudged that. The thing that was hard for her was when I just day in and day out made choices of filling my schedule with good things and not giving her the place and my family the place that they needed at that time. And I had to look at that and realize that I need to be careful, that I didn’t need to be at everything I thought I needed to be at, so I had to look at that. Other thing I had to look at is when I did come home, I was often so exhausted, and this continues to be the case sometimes. You come home so tired, and all you want to do is sit down and rest.

And sometimes I come home — and it’s wonderful, I don’t regret this at all — I open the door, and Hannah and Ruthie start screaming, “Daddy’s home, daddy’s home,” and running down the stairs, Ruthie with a book in her hand, and Hannah was something else. And my dog, Josiah, comes up with the ball in the mouth, and they all just converge on me at the door. And sometimes I’m just so tired, and that’s okay to be so tired. But I think the thing that we need to do in finding the pace to finish the race is to pace ourselves in such a way that we reserve energy for our families, for our wives, for our children. Good energy and not just leftover energy.

That we strategize how to preserve good energy for our family. Because I know it happens to me when I’m tired, I come home, and I become passive when I’m tired. And Julie, that does not cause Julie to thrive when I’m passive. She wants me to be a servant leader like Jesus. She wants me to take initiative; she wants me to dream for our family, set visions for our family. And when I come home totally exhausted, I’m not very good at that. So in order to obey all the commands of Scripture, we need to preserve primetime for our wife and our children.

2. View Your Lives in Chapters

We’ve come to see how our life needs to be viewed in chapters. And it was hard for us to make transitions from one chapter into another. From the chapter of early marriage when everything’s fresh and new and all kinds of energy. No children, there’s freedom, and you set a ministry pace. They just assume you’ll carry on to the end of your life. But when children come, that’s a chapter. Little children, infants and toddlers. And then when those children grow up to elementary school and junior high and high school, those are other chapters that I haven’t dealt with yet. And I’ve heard Pastor John say that what you’re in right now is a piece of cake. And we’re going to enter another chapter in two months when we have our third child. We’ve had without for the last four and a half years. We haven’t had a baby for four and a half years now. And so now going to be awakened all over again.

But anyway, to view our lives in chapters. And some of you are in chapters beyond that, that I can’t relate to personally, but I’ve seen. The whole thing of in your forties and fifties just reevaluating everything. And this is it, I’m in the prime right now, what am I making in my life? And beginning to feel my body not getting rejuvenated all the time, it’s getting older and all those things and reevaluation. When you enter into retirement, another chapter. And all these chapters have their unique bearing upon our lives, and we need to be aware of that and learn from others, learn from each other who’ve been through these chapters.

By the grace of God, during the first year of Julie’s recovery, when it was the most intense and where she was hurting the most, and then after she began to recover, all of a sudden I realized how much I was hurting. And how hard it was for me personally and how awful I felt that I felt resentful towards her, that she wasn’t there for me in these months as much as in my fantasy I would want. And how do you deal with that resentment and that anger.

But during this first year of recovery, by God’s grace, he had me do twelve weddings, and I was so thankful for these twelve weddings. Well, in one way it exacerbated the problem because I saw all these couples, wonderful, sharp couples who were so full of life and energy and excitement about their relationship and their marriage, and that was just so romantic and everything.

And it brought back memories that were idealized over the years. Nothing was ever perfect, but somehow you idealize those times. But anyway, that made it hard. I just said, boy, I want to keep the fire in my marriage so bad. But on the other hand, every sermon I preached on marriage brought me to look straight in the eye of what it means to have a covenant and that we have made a covenant to each other.

Not that I ever thought of getting out, but I can see how that happens. But we have made a covenant, and we are involved in something. Marriage is a mystery. It’s a profound mystery according to Paul. It talks about something that’s greater than itself. And as pastors and ministers, we are called on to be exemplary in our marriages and to let the purpose of marriage be fleshed out in our life. And that is to model the love relationship between Christ and his people: the servant leadership, the joyful responsiveness, the mutuality, the love, and the commitment.

And that’s an awesome calling on our lives and important commands of Scripture that we need to obey. And by preaching those twelve sermons, that just kept me anchored in that covenant and anchored in the mystery of marriage. And began to see the mystery of marriage because just the commitment that it took for both of us to put up with each other’s failures and to think of Jesus’s commitment to us that is unshakable. And so many lessons were learned. And the beauty of patience and endurance, the beauty of restored relationships, all those reflect the relationship between Christ and his church. So that was an important thing to learn during that time.

3. Learn to Be Ministered

The third thing that we had to learn during this time was that we had to learn to be ministered to. It’s so easy for us as pastors and caregivers to be in the role of always giving, giving, giving. And we, Julie and I had to learn to be ministered to. And people ministered to us so beautifully. Two friends across the street brought meals over, I think two or three meals every week or a meal every week.

I can’t remember how many she was, but just consistently something that we could count on. And my colleagues on the staff were so supportive. Dave and Sally Michael brought our kids over there time and time again and would call up and say we need help. And they just came through again and again. The deacons came in alongside and helped us financially so that at least that first year when we hadn’t budgeted for any counseling expenses, helped us financially to get the counseling that we needed and just the whole staff.

And I learned the value of Christian counselors, good Christian counselors. I think there’s probably mixed experiences out there with Christian counselors, but we had a good Christian counselor that really modeled for us the love and compassion of God. And I learned the difference between pastoral encouragement and admonition and therapy. The rebuilding of patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving that are built up over years that sometimes you need to have someone come in alongside of you and help you unravel some of those patterns. And God used that a lot.

4. Wait on God

And fourth, we learned to wait on God, and God came through and is coming through. God was faithful from the start and there was never a time that we felt abandoned by him. Though it seemed like he was abandoned. It was good to have the Psalms where David says, “Why are you far off?” (Psalm 10:1)

God seemed far off, but the sovereignty of God was our strength. Let me just read these texts as we draw things to a close pretty soon. “Husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself” (Ephesians 5:28). Again, the Christian Hedonism is all over the place. “For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church” (Ephesians 5:29). Nourish and cherish your wife. That takes time, it takes energy, it takes commitment. Nourish her and cherish her.

If we don’t nourish and cherish our wife, we will not model that part of the relationship between Christ and his church. We’ll be failing to live up to biblical commands. “Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered” (1 Peter 3:7).

So you’re not choosing between ministry or family, everything’s ministry. Question is where does God want you to minister today? And how much of your time does you want you to minister in this direction? How much in that direction? So the question isn’t kingdom work versus family work, it’s ministry. God has entrusted us with families. Those of us who are married, they are people that we are to disciple and to nurture and love in the faith, and that’s kingdom work. And if we don’t do it, our prayers will be hindered.

Our ministries will be less than what they’re supposed to be. Stop depriving one another sexually. Except by agreement for a time that you may devote yourselves to prayer and come together again lest Satan tempt you because of your lack of self-control. A healthy marriage for those who are married is essential. It’s part of spiritual warfare, and we must keep it alive and strong. And it takes time for a good sexual relationship to happen, it doesn’t just happen. In fact, if you’re gone 12 hours a day, you come home and you want to have a sexual relationship with your wife, it’s not very attractive to them. It takes time to cultivate that intimacy and that depth of relationship. So that’s with spouses.

An overseer must be one who “manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church?” (1 Timothy 3:4–5). And boy, did that text come home to me when Julie was in the depth of the depression.

And realizing that I had helped bring that about. And it was a complex thing, a lot of factors, but I had helped bring that about. And I had biblical mandate to get my house in order, and we have a biblical mandate to keep our houses in order, and it’s a heavy charge and yet a wonderful one. It’s not like it’s something we do begrudgingly. What greater joy is there to have your family walking in the truth. As John says, he has no greater joy than to hear of his children walking in the truth (3 John 1:4). Spiritual children there, but also physical children.

“Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4). Are we, by our schedules, by our ministry choices, provoking our children to anger? Are we provoking our children to anger by when we’re home we’re not really there for them because our minds are in a million other places and we’re tired. Let me just rest. Are we provoking our children to anger? It must not be so.

I’ve talked to enough PK’s and MK’s now, missionary kids and preachers’ kids, that I know the struggles that they’ve had. And I vow, Lord, may it not be so in my family. And yet see every pressure to make it that way, that where they’re provoked.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. (Deuteronomy 6:5–7)

It takes time to cultivate an atmosphere where your home is a discipleship base where that happens. If we’re gone all the time, it’s harder for that to happen.

Okay, let me look at a couple of other texts here. This is just personally. Watch over your heart. This is on a personal level now. Whether you’re married or not, this applies: “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life” (Proverbs 14:23). Watch over your heart. Don’t get out of touch with your heart. And there are times when I’ve gotten out of touch with my heart, where I didn’t even know what I needed. I didn’t even know I was hurting.

And by the grace of God, the Lord has sent people into my life that have held me accountable and that I just talk to one-on-one, this is how it’s going, and this is how it’s going at home. This is how it’s going at church. And all of us need accountability partners, whether it’s in the church, fellow pastor, fellow pastor in the ministerium that you’re involved in, trusted deacon, or whatever, we need people to talk to.

And God showed me that because there was a time where I wasn’t talking to anybody about my needs. I was talking to everybody about their needs and being exhilarated by ministering to their needs, and that was masking some of my own needs. So got to watch over your own heart.

Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock. Be on guard for yourselves. “Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers. Pay close attention to yourself” (1 Timothy 4:16). Are you right with God? Are you quiet before him? Are you in touch with what’s going on in the deepest parts of your life?

Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:38–42)

Are we in communion with the Lord? Are we sitting at his feet both in a disciplined way, reading the word, prayer, disciplined prayer, but in a spontaneous way as well? Where we’re just talking to him throughout the day and experiencing communion with him and a sense of intimacy with him.

If you read in Jesus’s ministry, John 5, he did this great miracle at the pool of Bethesda. Jesus is talking about how he just flowed out of his relationship with the Father. He does what he sees the Father doing. He doesn’t do anything except for what he sees the Father doing. And there’s this intimacy of a relationship with the Father. And that’s what I yearn for in my ministry, is an intimate relationship with the Father and the Son and the Spirit so that I have more and more of a sense of what he wants me to be doing. And that flows not out of practical how-to so much, it flows out of intimacy and relationship with the Lord.

3. Finding the Pace to Finish the Race

The last main point I want to make, and we still have some time for questions, is just the whole idea of finding the pace to finish the race is finding my pace to finish my race is that God has given all of us a general doctor’s prescription. All the commands of Scripture should be seen as a doctor’s prescription. Things that he does that it might be well with us. Things that he commands for us to do that it might be well with us.

And yet I think he’s got an individualized doctor’s prescription for each of us as well. Paul thought that. One of my favorite verses is,

And now, behold, I am going to Jerusalem, constrained by the Spirit, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me. But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. (Acts 20:22–24)

And it says in Acts 13, it talks about how John the Baptist, while finishing his course and so forth. John the Baptist had his course, Paul had his course, you have your course. You don’t have someone else’s course, you have your course. A course that is determined by how God has wired you up. By your gifts and your inclinations and what he’s working in you, “both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13).

And it’s very unique and we need to realize that. There are varieties of ministries in the same Lord. The foot should say, because I’m not a hand, I’m not a part of the body. It’s not for this reason any less a part of the body.

And “the eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you’” (1 Corinthians 12:21). On the contrary, it is much truer. The members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary. Every part of the body is crucial. Every pastor is crucial in the larger body of Christ. What has God called you to be? And I have no simple formula to tell you how to determine that. I think it’s a combination of gifts and abilities. But God is working in your heart to desire to do the counsel of brothers and sisters and the Lord, promptings of his Spirit, dreams, visions, all those have been used by God to indicate the course of life.

“We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10). We are God’s work of art. Each one of us unique originals, we are his work of art created in Christ Jesus for good works that we are to always abound in, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. And what we need to find is what are the good works God wants me to walk in today? What ones doesn’t he want me to walk in? You can’t do everything. Which good works has God prepared before and for you to walk in this day? And all that can be determined by prayer and it means saturated with Scripture, wisdom, prompting of the Spirit.

We need to find the pace to finish the race. We need to play to the audience of One. If slaves are to be obedient to masters, we are to be obedient to our Father.

Bondservants, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ, not by the way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. (Ephesians 6:5–6)

Not by way of eye-service, not having your life determined by some person you idolize. Though they should influence you, but they shouldn’t determine your life totally. Not by a board, not by trying to please people. In this sense, it’s plain to the audience of one.

4. Viewing People and Work for Perseverance

Finally, what I want to do is to show you trajectory, and I want to leave time for questions, is some texts about how do you view people?

Because I think sometimes what puts us under is people, people put us under. Sometimes there’s irrationality, sometimes there’s chronic problems, sometimes there’s direct discounting of the things you advise. And I want to see people the way the apostles did and the way Jesus did.

Since we were torn away from you, brothers, for a short time, in person not in heart, we endeavored the more eagerly and with great desire to see you face to face, 18 because we wanted to come to you—I, Paul, again and again—but Satan hindered us. 19 For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it not you? 20 For you are our glory and joy. (1 Thessalonians 2:17–20)

The greatest joy for Paul was the concept, I think, of worshiping Jesus, being in Jesus’s presence, had us coming, rubbing shoulders with people that he had influenced toward Jesus, and that gave him such power for ministry. So when he saw someone, he didn’t see someone as a chronic problem, he saw them as a fellow worshiper of Jesus, beautified by the grace and glory of God.

And so he was able to project into the future and to see what he was pushing towards and ministering towards, and it gave him an incredible patience and heart for people. And we need to do that to keep what’s ahead of us in mind. And the thought of worshiping Jesus, for us, the thought of worshiping Jesus with these Kachin believers and to feel that this church has had a part in that. Although I had nothing to do with it myself, it was after the fact, but yet there is a solidarity there. But there’s people in our ministries, to think that this person is going to be worshiping Jesus and God has given me a part in that, that fires my heart.

The other ways to look at people is to realize that our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but Paul was constantly struggling against flesh and blood. There was constant opposition and people in the church, people outside of the church, robbers, all these things. Countrymen, Gentiles, Jews, he struggled against flesh and blood, but he saw beyond that. It’s against the rulers, against the powers, against the world, forces of this darkness, against the principalities, the spiritual force of wickedness in the heavenly places.

“The Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome” (2 Timothy 2:24). If you’re aware of this, the spiritual warfare, the spiritual reality that’s going on, that Satan is attacking, seeking to kill and steal and destroy. We’ll have a different response towards people. We won’t just see them as sinners, though we’ll always see them as responsible sinners that must repent. We won’t just see them as sinners, but also as victims of sin and victims of Satan’s attack, and when you see people through those lenses, compassion flows more easily.

And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness [not blasting them]. 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. (2 Timothy 2:24–26)

Satan is the true enemy; people aren’t our enemy. Satan is the true enemy. He is capturing people. He is demonizing people. He is afflicting people. He is harassing people and throwing them down like sheep. And this is what Jesus saw in them. He saw the multitudes, compassion welled up in his heart because these people were harassed, thrown down like sheep without a shepherd.

And so Jesus therefore praised that shepherds will be thrust out into the harvest. People who will pick up these bruised and battered sheep who have been harassed and thrown down and minister the healing power, the delivering power of Jesus Christ to them. And that we need to see people that way and compassion will flow.

5. My Life Verse

The last verse — my life verse — that helps me thrive in the ministry is to realize that all my yearnings for perfection — and I want to be excellent in ministry, I want to be excellent in what I do, but I never will be. It doesn’t mean I give up, but I learned to live with my imperfections and realize that it’s part of the design.

Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses’ face because of its glory. . . . But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. (2 Corinthians 3:5–7; 4:7)

There are guaranteed imperfections until glory in God’s work of art right here, and he’s designed it in such a way that all the power, all the surpassing greatness of the power may be of God and not from ourselves. God is going to use blunders again and again, which we all are. Tomorrow you’re going to hear about David Brainerd who didn’t do everything right. The way God used him was just awesome.

And that’s a great encouragement to me. That makes me thrive in the ministry, is to know that God is going to use me even though there is earth and vesselsness all over this person. Our adequacy isn’t from ourselves, it is from God.

That’s a lot I threw at you. And I’d like to take these last 15 minutes maybe just to interact and see if you have any questions you want to make or perhaps ideas or insights that you have? I think each one of you could have come up here and taught this lesson and given us things that the rest of us would’ve benefited from. Any questions or comments? Anything you want to bring up at this point, David?

How do you learn to balance the strong drive toward laziness against the strong drive to do all of these things as well as you can? I find myself swinging back and forth like a pendulum it seems between that. And I find myself swinging back and forth like a pendulum, it seems, between that. I need to take it easy but I’ve got to get these things done.

First of all, I wouldn’t interpret the desire to take it easy once in a while as laziness. I think sometimes we interpret it that way and therefore none of us can’t rest because when we’re resting, look at all the things that aren’t being done. “I’m just being lazy.” Somehow we need to work the principle of the Sabbath into our life that it’s appropriate to rest in the presence of God and in the gifts that he’s made to enjoy. Do you want to say something about that?

And the only other thing that that’s helped me with that is in terms of a tendency to be lazy — because I have it too, I like to veg out — but Dr. Fuller from Fuller Seminary, said something really helpful. He says, “You don’t enjoy a root beer float as much after a day long of just goofing around and being a couch potato. You enjoy a root beer float after a day’s of hard work.” And it was his way of saying that that leisure is pleasurable when it comes after hard work and to replenish you for more hard work, and so just to see it in that context. Steve, do you want to say something?

Would you comment on the interplay, maybe biblically and personally, between which is going to backfire in the end and you end up losing your life?

I don’t see any conflict between. I think part of being on guard for yourself, that’s what you’re doing so that you can lay down your life for the gospel over the long haul. And so to me, there’s not a conflict there. Even the command to lay down your life for the gospel’s sake, being on guard for yourself is going to cause you to want to lay down your life for the gospel’s sake.

Because if you don’t lay down your life for the gospel’s sake, you’re going to be your own worst enemy because you’re going to lose your life. And so I don’t see any conflict. I think there are times where God calls us to say no to family, calls us to say no to health, calls us to say no maybe even to our very life. And that’s not in contradiction I think to be in guard for yourself.

Paul was free to lay down his life and so he says, “I’m being poured out on the altar of your faith right now.” And so in one sense he wasn’t being on guard for himself, I suppose. He wasn’t pacing himself to finish the race. And thinking in terms of living a long life. But I’m rambling here. Go ahead, Greg, do you have some things to say there?

Well, I think the question of keeping our soul with our spiritual peers and pouring our lives into people that are pouring back into us, where is the balance there? Where is it for you?

It’s a good question. My problem isn’t too much accountability, I have a good amount of it. I don’t know how to answer that question of how much is too much. Because I think I really believe that we have these individualized doctor’s prescriptions that God has given us. And whereas you might look at another person and say, that person’s just spending too much time and getting all that counsel. Or that person’s in counseling and spending so much money counseling. He should be spending that money for missions.

And boy, as a mission’s pastor, I felt those tensions. And yet I think we just all have to get on our faces before God and say, Lord, what is my course in this regard? How much accountability do I need? And for sure we need some because there’s a revealed will of God that we need accountability and really personal and intense accountability. Tom?

How free are you in terms of your schedule? Are you free not to come in to work both in the morning and the afternoon? Are you able to spend time with your family during certain times?

Well, maybe Julie wants to answer that. Yeah, I think so. I’m definitely free from expectations point of view. And there’s all kinds of support at Bethlehem. There’s so much sensitivity at Bethlehem to help us do what we need to do to thrive in the ministry. There’s so much intensity at Bethlehem that drives us all crazy and we are just going a million miles an hour, so we just feed on each other’s intensity. But there is a very definite and clear encouragement to do what you need to do. And if you need to take an afternoon off, well by all means do it. And I think I’m learning to do that better.