Borrowed Light

Two Truths for When You Don’t Feel Like Preaching

April 2, 2018Mike Leake 2 Comments

“A man only preaches a sermon well to others if he has first preached it to himself. If he does not thrive on the ‘food’ he prepares, he will not be skilled at making it appetizing to others. If the Word does not dwell in power in us, it will not pass in power from us.” – John Owen (here)

If Owen is correct, then my sermon a couple of weeks ago must have been a real stinker. I was preaching on 2 Corinthians about not losing heart in the ministry God has given us. And I was preaching while deeply discouraged. As much as I tried to “thrive” on that food I was preparing for others it just wasn’t “working”. I know the problem was with me and my own heart and not the text. But I was in a pit that I couldn’t get out of. It’s been one of those seasons where the darkness feels more pervasive than the light, and I’m just hanging on until morning.

How do I preach in a time like this? How do I preach when I don’t feel like it? And am I being a big ol’ hypocrite to do so?

It’s been my experience that this feeling is what keeps a good many of people away from doing ministry. When our feelings get all busted up and we don’t feel motivated to read Scripture, pray, share the gospel, or engage in ministry we’d rather stop than keep trucking on. We know that such a thing leads to burn out. And we know that this is the land in which hypocrites thrive. It feels so pharisaical to proclaim things to others that you aren’t feeling in your heart. And so, rather than continuing to feel like a hypocrite, we disengage.

Here are a two truths which help when we don’t feel like doing the ministry God has called us to do.

1. It’s true that nobody likes dutiful roses. But it’s better than showing up empty handed.

John Piper has used a helpful illustration concerning what he calls our duty of delight. Nobody likes dutiful roses. If a husband came home and gave his wife roses and coldly explained that he was only doing his duty, then such a thing isn’t going to be received as well.

So what do I do if on a Sunday morning all I have is duty? I don’t have delight. I don’t want to preach. I don’t want to serve. I’m hurt. I’m wounded. I’m battered. I’m beaten up. My discouragement runs deep. How do I ring the door bell and give flowers of delight?

Piper is correct. The ideal would be to “serve the Lord with gladness”. In fact we are commanded to pastor out of joy instead of compulsion. But is it better to show up empty-handed? Is it better to not pastor at all, not serve the Lord at all, if I cannot do it with gladness? Or is the proper response to mourn the fact that in this moment something is broken and I’m not able to show up to the door with joyful flowers? But I still show up with flowers. I still do my duty. I still preach the word regardless of the season. I think that’s the proper response.

I am commanded to faithfully discharge my ministry no matter the season.

2. I am always preaching above my head.

There have been a few times when I’ve felt really confident in the pulpit. Those were some of the worst sermons I preached. We are never in a position to truly master God’s Word. And on this side of glory, I doubt any of us will ever really be mastered by God’s Word either. While I remain a sinner I’m always going to be preaching over my head.

On occasion we’ll feel a bit more adequate. We will feel like the glory of God isn’t so far above our heads or isn’t too far out of our reach. At other times we’ll feel the fact that we are clay pots and nothing more. Proclaiming what we hope to become isn’t hypocritical. You aren’t a hypocrite if you cannot live up to the ideal that you are hoping for. That isn’t hypocrisy, that’s humanity. Hypocrisy is when you are deliberately and deceptively preaching things that you do not believe and do not care to believe.

But preaching above your head, and preaching of that which you have not yet obtained isn’t hypocrisy.

So knowing these truths, and a few more deeper truths about the sovereignty of God and the nature of preaching, I walk up the steps and get behind the pulpit and open my Bible and give it everything I’ve got. Some weeks that’s not much. But it’s all I’ve got. I’m confident that God delights to use a jar of clay in such a way. And on occasion the very act of preaching will spark faith and delight in my own heart. And I’ll leave the pulpit a changed man.

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Read This! 03.29.18

March 29, 2018Mike Leake

13 Signs of High Emotional Intelligence

This is an area that I believe is neglected in much Christian teaching.

When You’ve Broken What You Cannot Fix

Good words.

5 Ways We Get the Great Commission Wrong

Yep.

Pastors Who Build Healthy Relationships Take the Initiative

This is right, but it’s also exhausting for an introvert (who struggles with depression) like myself.

Telling a Better Story than Jordan Peterson

I’ve yet to listen to Jordan Peterson. But I appreciated this reflection.

Did the Simpsons Ruin a Generation?

This is less about The Simpsons and more about a culture of sarcasm.

6 Questions for the Grumpy Pastor

These are helpful questions.

What Counts as a ‘Gospel Issue’?

Is it a gospel issue how many times we use the phrase ‘gospel issue’? I appreciate Tim’s work here. And also would like to see this term used less.

This is a bit older but still hilarious:

A Tip For Reading an Old Testament Quotation

March 28, 2018Mike Leake 2 Comments

“What’s your favorite Old Testament Bible verse?”

Do you realize that’s a question the biblical authors would have never been able to answer? They didn’t have Bible verses. That was something invented only about 500 years ago. They had various methods for drawing attention to which section of the Bible they were discussing. As an example, they would frequently quote part of a Psalm in order to point to the entire thing. This is likely, in part, what Jesus was doing when he quoted Psalm 22 from the Cross.

This is different from the way we typically quote a Bible verse. When we quote verses the whole of our thought is typically encapsulated in what we are quoting. For example, if someone quotes Jeremiah 29:11 at a graduation the only point they are making is that God has a plan for them. It’s not meant to call into mind the entirety of Jeremiah’s argument.

This impacts the way we deal with New Testament quotations. When a New Testament author cites a verse his whole thought isn’t typically contained in that one verse. He is often thinking of the entire context of that one verse. Take for example Paul’s quotation of Psalm 116:10 in 2 Corinthians 4:13.

“I believe, and so I spoke”.

That’s it. That’s all he quotes from Psalm 116. Is he only using that verse to make a point that their belief leads to their speaking? If we read it like we typically read Bible verses we will skip right through that verse. But if we go back and read all of Psalm 116 we see how much the entire Psalm influences what Paul is saying.

The context of Psalm 116 is a thanksgiving to God for delivering from impending death. It’s no accident that Paul spoke of “despairing of life itself” in 1:8 and now says “perplexed, but not driven to despair”. His experience in Asia has done it’s work. Paul sees his suffering in the line of sufferers modeled in Psalm 116. This is the same “spirit of faith” that he is talking about in 2 Corinthians 4:13. Just as the Psalmist was afflicted and yet was delivered so also is Paul. And in the same way that the deliverance is to be shared in the public worship, so also Paul’s suffering and deliverance is for the sake of the Corinthians growth in Christ. Read Psalm 116 and then read 2 Corinthians 4:7-18 again and see how many connections you find.

But we miss all of this if we think the biblical authors quoted verses the way that we do. So here is a little tip for your Bible reading. Whenever you see that a New Testament passage is a quotation of an Old Testament passage, don’t just go back and read that one verse in the OT. Instead go back and read the entire Psalm, or the entire context of that quote. It’ll help you to understand more fully why the biblical author quoted that verse.

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