Wear Out Or Rust Out? What If There is a Third Option?

Mike Leake

“You can either wear out or rust out”.

I had a noble, yet obviously exhausted, leader tell me awhile back that he’d rather wear out than rust out. It sounds so spiritual, doesn’t it? Nobody wants to rust out? You rust out because of inactivity. That’s what happened to the Tin Woodsman in the Wizard of Oz. Nobody wants to be that poor sap.

But I also don’t want to be the guy that looks like he hasn’t had a decent night of sleep in about a month. Harried isn’t a fruit of the spirit. I understand that sometimes we have seasons of busyness and sleep eludes us. I understand that sometimes we really are pressed and perplexed and the weight of the world is on our shoulders. But I also know that “wear out or rust out” is a fools choice.

There’s a third option.

Be poured out.

There’s a big difference between this option and the other two. This one means that you’re in the cup of another. The guy who rusts out gets to stand in a field and do nothing while it rains on his metal carcass. The guy who wears out gets to sweat until he passes out on the treadmill. But the guy who is poured out is firmly liquified in a vessel waiting to be put into action by another.

And that seems to be more the biblical idea. Consider Paul who spoke of being “poured out as a drink offering”. We’re servants. That means that on some occasions the Lord will put us into the game and it will require every bit of our being. In these moments we’re called to live it all on the proverbial court. In such a season our being “poured out” is synonymous with being emptied.

But there are some seasons when we’re in the cup. Some seasons you spend years in a cave learning from the Lord himself. Sometimes you stay on the sidelines. Sometimes rust is a bigger threat than exhaustion. But that’s not on you. You’re the liquid. You’re the clay in the potter’s hand. You just do what the master tells you.

This is actually really difficult. It’s tough, especially as a pastor, when the Lord puts us in a season of rest and healing. As Newton so aptly said, “the last idol to go is the often the idol of usefulness”. Suffering and laboring and being poured out in front of others will get you a few accolades. But it’s much more difficult to rest in front of others. A harried people don’t respond well to such a thing.

But I’m convinced our calling is to be poured out. Not worn out. Not rusted out. But fully in the Master’s hand no matter the season.

I couldn’t help but chuckle as I read these words from Dan Allender:

Obviously, many churches and organizations can’t afford to employ a truly bold and paradoxical leader. Such a leader is not bound to the pulse of busyness and, therefore, will, by how he lives, confront and expose the silliness of those who pay his salary. Why would a harried and exhausted congregation, for instance, pay to see its pastor live a focused and paradoxical life? The fact that he has time to read, pray, and weep is more than a driven and overworked parishoner can bear. Off with his head! (Leading With a Limp, 135)

I’m grateful that in this season when the Lord is encouraging my soul and healing my hurts that it seems Calvary (where I pastor) actually does what a leader who gives his time to reading, praying, and weeping. I’ve got deacons who’d be upset with me if I didn’t close my door. They want fed.

I’m a truly blessed pastor. God knew exactly what we needed. But even so, I’m just in the cup of my Master. He decides when seasons of pouring come.

None of this is to say that I’m not substantially spilled out every single time I preach and labor in the Word. It’s absolutely draining and I give it 110%. But I also know that at this particular time God has given me a season where the fires aren’t too hot. And I intend to respond fittingly to whatever season God has me in. I won’t wear myself out just because I think it’s noble. I’m choosing to be poured.

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Photo source: here

Read This! 10.03.19

Mike Leake

Dreaming Dreams and Taking Risks

Step by step guide.

In Defense of Archaisms

One of those nerdy articles I love.

10 Traits of a Humble Leader

I pray that I possess these traits. 

5 Mistakes Church Leaders Make When Attendance Declines

Such a thing can cause us to make panicked decisions.

There Should Be Two of Us

This is the best reflection on the death of Jarrid Wilson that I’ve read.

How Do I Know That God is For Me?

To really know this and believe this changes everything.

How Christians Can Prepare for the 2020 Election

Is hide in a cave an option?

8 Ways to Battle ‘Comfort Idolatry’

I tend to agree that comfort is one of our greatest idols today.

There are some pretty funny videos of people trying the “Toe of Satan:

In Defense of Weekly Observance of the Lord’s Supper

Mike Leake

“It is by the grace of God that a congregation is permitted to gather visibly in this world to share God’s Word and sacrament.” –Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Life Together.

I was thinking about beginning our service next week with these words. And then that little word “sacrament” tripped me up. As a Lutheran, Bonhoeffer is referring to the weekly observance of the Lord’s Supper. For him, it’s a time when grace is imparted to those partaking of the Supper.

We Baptists aren’t sacramentalists—we don’t belief that the sacraments are inherently efficacious. In other words we don’t think that grace is imparted just because you happen to be in the same room in which the bread is broken***. So the word sacrament might trip up a few Baptists.

So I started thinking about how I could still use the quote but explain it a bit for our context. Then I started thinking about how we don’t even observe the Lord’s Supper weekly and so we don’t always gather for “the sacrament”. And then Bonhoeffer’s words hit me.

Why don’t we observe the Lord’s Supper weekly? I’ve heard the arguments—that it becomes just a rote practice and it slowly loses it’s meaning over time. But I wonder if we’d have that same belief if we thought this was going to be our last Lord’s Day to gather together. Would we want to be certain to gather at the table?

I think part of the reason we only observe occasionally is because we assume we get to come back next week. There’s no need to break bread together today because we’ll have another opportunity later. If we do this weekly then it’ll become a habit and a meaningless ritual, we argue. But that’s only true if we we’ve somewhere stopped believe that this is our last meal together with our beloved family.

I know it’s difficult to hold the tension of joyful anticipation and somber reflection week after week. But I believe it’s the pattern of the New Testament. In my mind, occasional observance of the Lord’s Supper is the fruit of a comfortable Christianity that no longer has a war-time mentality.

My mind was moved this way by Bonhoeffer’s words. “Not all Christians receive this blessing. The imprisoned, the sick, the scattered lonely, the proclaimers of the Gospel in heathen lands stand alone.” We are taking for granted this blessing of gathering weekly. And it’d do us well to assume that each weekly gathering could be our last. And what better way to symbolize this than to proclaim the Lord’s death through bread and cup until he returns?

I’d be remiss to not also mention that this doesn’t mean our service needs to be somber every single week. In fact I don’t think the observance ought to be incredibly somber. We are to do this in remembrance of Jesus and what He has accomplished on our behalf. This does not evoke mere sorrow but a deep and abiding joy. When we remember Jesus hopefully it isn’t regret and pain and sadness which comes to our mind but rather the exuberance of a living hope. I don’t see why we wouldn’t want to engage in this weekly.

The Lord’s Supper isn’t boring. I am. That’s why I need it weekly.

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Photo source: here

***We have, in my opinion, over-emphasized this point so far that we’ve almost made the Supper meaningless. We believe that the preaching of the Word carries with it power and grace and that God’s Word never returns void. I don’t think it’s wrong to say that the proclamation of the Lord’s death through the symbolic Supper is really much different.

Doubt and Unbelief Aren’t Synonyms. But Neither is Faith and Doubt.

Mike Leake

27.

That’s how old John Calvin was when he published his first edition of The Institutes of the Christian Religion.

I remember when I was 27. I, like Calvin, had been a devoted follower of Jesus for about 8 years. I think I felt more bold at 27 than I do at 38. I also had far more stuff figured out. I had little room for doubt. I was far more rigid in my beliefs and my fellowship.

If you would have asked me for a definition of faith when I was 27 mine probably would have sounded a bit like this:

Nothing else than a firm conviction of mind whereby we determine with ourselves that God’s truth is so certain that it is incapable of not accomplishing what it has pledged to do by his holy Word.

That’s what Calvin said about the definition of faith. You may also note that it was mostly intellectual. Calvin would a couple years later add a statement about how it is God’s truth revealed to our minds and sealed upon our hearts.

But what I find most interesting is what Calvin adds in 1541. There is now attached to his definition of faith a discussion on doubt as well:

When we teach that faith ought to be certain and assured, we imagine neither a certainty untouched by doubt, nor a security assailed by no worry; but rather on the contrary we say that the faithful have a continual battle against their own lack of confidence.

Keep in mind that within this five year period he would become a newlywed (a glorious event but one which certainly humbles and tempers us), he would be banished from his community and pulpit (though later restored), and have a few bouts of declining health.

Calvin appears to be somewhat tempered and more reasonable in his assessment of faith. And far more helpful. I’m sharing this little tidbit today because I think far too often we live with Calvin’s 1536 definition of faith and don’t have that 1541 nuance in there. And when we struggle with doubt it floors us. And it floors us because we think that doubt is the polar opposite of faith. We’ve made doubt synonymous with unbelief, and that’s simply not true.

But it’s also not true that doubt is synonymous with faith. As I’ve said before, “we’ve assumed that because the Bible invites us to an authentic expression of doubt that being in a state of doubt is in itself an attractive virtue.” That’s most assuredly not the way the New Testament deals with the issue of doubt. It takes doubt seriously.

Though I appreciate the Calvin of 1541 and find his words to be pastorally necessary, I also believe 1536 Calvin isn’t totally wrong. Faith is a decided thing. That doesn’t mean that we don’t have doubts battling and waging war at the same time we are grabbing hold of Christ. But there is a battle there. Os Guinness is correct:

Find out how seriously a believer takes his doubts and you have the index of how seriously he takes his faith. For the Christian, doubt is not the same as unbelief, but neither is it divorced from it. Continued bout loosens the believer’s hold on the resources and privileges of faith and can be the prelude to the disasters of unbelief. So doubt is never treated as trivial. (Guinness, 31)

And that’s what I’ve had to learn. My journey has been similar to that of Calvin; where the things I’ve seen, the battles I’ve fought within myself, the heartbreaks I’ve experienced, etc. have all tempered me. I can’t give a definition of faith at this point without giving a pastoral nuance. I’ve seen too many souls ravaged and experienced bitter darkness in my own mind and heart to even hint that faith is an easy thing. But I’ve also seen the deadly poison of treating doubt as a trivial thing that doesn’t need mortified.

Chemotherapy can kill cancer and lead to greater health and endurance amongst its patients but it’s a deadly cocktail if not administered correctly and in the proper dose. It’s not a trivial thing to be played with or celebrated or glorified. So also is doubt. God can and will use it to strengthen our faith and deepen our joy in Christ. But it’s not to be celebrated or treated as normal. It’s a painful tool, practically necessary, this side of Eden.

But someday our faith will be sight.

—

Photo source: here

Is it necessary to say that I don’t agree with the picture? That should say Unbelief/Faith. Doubt is the guy standing and looking at both options.