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 yeah 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 and in ministry it rages in these two areas both of these I think are issues of the heart one sounds more theological the other one is a war for the gospel the purity of the gospel that we understand that the law is very important it's as an ability to expose sin it's a wonderful guide but the law can never deliver me from sin and there's a there's just a thousand ways that the gospel gets
sort of diluted and lost and bent and twisted now why does it happen because of my heart because their lives in my heart still self-righteousness look if if I think I'm a law keeper then it's a great tendency to me for me to bring the law to lawbreakers to turn them in to law keepers I mean 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 it actually am the only case study you need the New Testament
Pharisees I mean why why did they lay burden 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 righteousness independent righteous you can parade you've already lost the ballgame and so it is 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 if I'm broken by my view into the law as it exposes Who I
am I'm gonna give grace tender passionate perseverant grace no one gives the law more perseveringly and 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 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 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 doesn't operate the way it's supposed to you do live along around flawed people who don't do everything's supposed to so you got plenty of things to point at and so there's these these 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 form I hope I don't think I mentioned this in the dangerous calling book but I've committed myself to praying three prayers every morning the first Prairie is God I'm a man a desperate need of help today I try to pray this before I get I bet so don't forget I'm a man that desperate need of help sad
a second prayer is I pray that she was in your grace she would send my help your helpers my way I need help please send your helpers my way the third prayers and please give me the humility to receive the help when it comes 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 all 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 also vital in this whole discussion of dangerous calling see I would argue that one of the central messages of the Word of God is that the the deepest most influential motivation of every human being by God's intention was to be of God that the four most important words of the Bible of the first floor in the beginning god that tells me 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 a little of the way you do I said because my aunt God what do your parents wait - because my off god why do you spend your money the way you did because of my law of God that that this grand glorious jaw-dropping heart rattling ball of the glory and present of God should be the thing that just defines everything about my life now if if that's true of life for everybody and it 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 givin people back their all because what happens is all of God migrates to all of creation in fact you could argue that it migrates even more deeply than that when all God is absent is quickly replaced by all 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 is preached should be designed to rescue people from all the other ahhs that have gripped their heart and to reclaim them once again for the all God so it we want all of creation to rise and clamp its hands as the glory of this one that's life and so the danger for me is the danger of familiarity because the the more familiar things get the less they command my awe it's just
the way it is mmm couple examples the artist talked about this dynamic of visual energy it means that the first time you see thing is something that gets your attention the 15th 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 desk because the traffic is in your way and you'll even notice of the 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 all 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 I can remember sitting in the front row listening to the the Chicago Symphony play a song that the title was to the all of
God and that org astre just swelled more and more and more and I began to weep I thought this is this is not even close to what the glory of God is but my body shaking I want that I don't 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 Hummel editions who long since have lost their all I'm not surprised that people fall asleep I'm surprised more don't because the AHS gone God's left the
building no wonder that husband doesn't say oh my goodness has 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 all in front of them in ways that the Spirit of God can empower to reclaim the hearts of people that's very helpful you talk in the book about the fruit of all 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 who maybe has just heard you talk about this or who reads about this in the book who recognizes I have lost my all I have become so familiar back to our earlier question I've so kind of objectified its head knowledge but it's not touching my heart anymore where does that Pastor go to reclaim that deep sense of of reverential awe for God 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 got to get down on your knees and say God help me help me help me rescue me rescue me or asking how could it be that I could look at you and not be blown away what's happened to my heart and God like I don't want this to be in my life please meet me by your grace open 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 too 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 the second thing I would say is grab ahold of things that are written by people who have a 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 he can't and so I think those two things together I do that with with discipline third thing I would say is confessed to the people near you confess that you've lost your all confess that you're cranking it out confess that you're not inspired by your own sermons confess that the move the gospel in the kingdom of God doesn't excite you anymore and have them intercede for you have them seek to encourage you haven't have them watch out for you and just continue to
do those things
