Narcissism Is Toxic for Pastors. But So Is Lack of Confidence.

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Dan Doriani: Well, hey, it’s good to kinda see you. It’s a little bit blinding up here. But I’m happy to talk about a past topic that’s important in my heart, certainly, and probably to yours as well. And the topic, I’m going to, you know, it’s there on the screen. But let me say it this way, over the last few years, we’ve gone through some permutations of the ways we think about pastoral ministry. And a few years ago, maybe 2000 22,021, the idea was pastors are evil. They’re just bad. And then the next idea was, it’s bad to be a pastor. And the next idea was, I don’t want to be a pastor anymore. seminaries watch their numbers diminish a little bit, pastors retire. What’s, what’s the cause of all that? Well, I’d say it’s caused by critics in the church is caused by controversies about COVID, about masks and about politics.

But it’s also caused by a sort of a loss of the beauty of being a pastor, what I want to say in the broadest possible sense is it’s arduous, but glorious to be a pastor, it’s arduous, but glorious. And in one way we feel the glory when the way that we endure the hardship is by having a proper level of confidence and clarity. Now, I’m gonna say there’s a very strange term that’s out there these days that the term is healthy narcissism has actually been around for about 50 years, I’m going to play with that a little bit, but I’m replacing it with the ideas of confidence and clarity, I’m going to suggest that we can have a godly and proper confidence, because we know we’ve been called by God, the pastoral ministry with a message that Jesus himself earned the right to proclaim, And He then gave it to us. So that’s the big idea. But we’re going to take a journey through what’s happened in the church in recent years. And if you have a Bible with you, whatever form that Bible will be, we’re going to, we’re going to look at not right now and just talk about the issues first. But we’re going to look at First Timothy three and for and also Second Timothy, chapter three, and we’ll hope that that’ll that’ll be helpful for us. So the question that people have been asking me for last few years, and we’re pushing back against it now in various ways is, is is moral failure, chronic among pastors, is that endemic Is it almost to be expected? And, and therefore answers to the question why it seems that so many pastors are fallen, or why people say pastors are fallen or failed? The first answer is there actually is no problem. And the reason why it’s prominent these days is because the media has made itself and you can’t really stop social media from saying things even there’s no proof and the world’s against us. And there’s really no problem. It’s just ordinary people committee, ordinary sins. And it’s been exaggerated. I don’t think that’s a correct answer. The second answer people give is that pastors are flawed because the pastorate and churches attract uniquely attract flawed, even proud, narcissistic people, power hungry people, people who love the stage, which by the way, isn’t all that many. Over the years, I found far more pastors that are reluctant to take the stage and are nervous that taking the stage then people are hungry for the stage. Number three, the church. Their third option is the Church invites moral failure by giving priority to skills and raw talent, putting that ahead of character. I think there’s some truth in that one. And the fourth view is the pastor is often qualified when he first starts, but becomes disqualified. died and loses the capacity to have a lifelong fidelity. And I think there’s a lot of truth in that want to walk through them one by one. So quickly the first idea is it possible that pastors is good and noble and holy as they have ever been, despite numerous reports to the contrary of, of catastrophic failures, I don’t I don’t think that we’ve ever had a truly qualified pastor, the church, attract sinners to its ministry, because that’s all there is to attract. I mean, you have to, you have to stand up and say, I am a sinner to even join the church, let alone to lead the church, you have to say my only hope is in Jesus Christ. And that qualifies you first. Of course, all pastors are fallen, and flawed, is it? Is there? Is there a real problem here? And I think the truth is, there is a real problem, because not only do well known pastors fail, and they could name names, there’s no point in doing that. But sadly, I’m old enough to know that small church and mid sized churches and kind of big churches, all have pastors who fail. The most stark way I can say this is that I know, seven pastors who’ve committed suicide. Six for sure. But one died in such in such suspicious circumstances, that it probably was suicide. That’s, that’s a lot of people. And I’ve been involved in multiple occasions in discipline, and I’m a Presbyterian. So you know, we get involved when our pastor stray, and not having to do with sex or money as much, but pastor should just lied, and lied, and lied, and lied, until they were finally put other church for lying. So it can’t be true that we simply have antipathy from the press, or a culture that wants to gang up on Christians, because the culture is increasingly anti Christian. We can’t say it’s simply a social media fabrication, there’s a real problem here. Now, the next question is, is the problem is the essential problem, actually, one have a desire for power? And I have doubts about that. Because the truth of matter is, from my chair, there are actually more pastors who are afraid of power, and more students who don’t want to be lead pastors, and you ask him, What do you want to do with their life and they say, I want to be an associate pastor. And I want to be a youth pastor, I want to be a church administrator and be counted on to come alongside pastors. And I heard that so many times. At one point, I said, you know, somebody helps us to be a pastor, for people to come alongside. So I actually see a different kind of problem, not just the problem of narcissism. Now, look, we should never accept pastoral failure. But we should also recognize that everybody who’s a pastor is flawed. We’re all imperfect. If you go through church history at the church history, sometimes the leaders of the church, Luther, Calvin, Wesley Whitfield, you could walk through them all. They all had serious problems at some point in their life. That doesn’t mean they were just qualified. It means that people in Calvin’s case a man named Martin Bucha, if you want to look it up, in Calvin’s case, a man named Martin boots or invested himself in Calvin’s life, and not the pride and the aggressiveness and the and the tempestuous SNESs of the man out of him by kindness and love and forgiveness and mercy, the grace of Christ and His life, so he became more qualified. So question number one are answered. Number one, is the world full of flawed pastors? The answer is yes. Is is the media against us know, we really do deserve to be criticized. The next question is, does the church uniquely attract flawed men specifically, does it attract narcissistic men in some unusual way? And I think the answer I believe the answer to that question is no, not necessarily. Now there’s, there’s no doubt that when Jesus spoke to the scribes and the Pharisees in chapter 23, of Matthew that He warned about the danger of desiring to be called rabbi which means my teacher, exalted title, or father, man worthy of respect. There’s no question that there are some religious leaders and gee, indeed, Jesus foes are jealous of him, and their titles and and that can happen to others as well. So there’s no doubt that pastors sometimes seek status. Now, I told you, I’d look at some passages from the pastoral epistles, would you try with me, the second Timothy chapter two, and I’m gonna go at it in a little more detail than we sometimes do in what appears to be a topical session. And that this is in case you’re not quite sure. This is one of the vise lists of the Apostle Paul. There’s quite a number of vise lists and this is the last one that Paul wrote. And this is what he says about the last days and Difficulty he says, four People will be lovers of self, lovers of money. proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous without self control, brutal, not loving the good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure, rather than lovers of God. There’s more that he says. But that’s what he says. Now, you’ll notice, of course, that first and last in the series, as I read it, is false love. There are lovers have self lovers of money, they do not love God, they like the appearance of godliness, but they don’t like the power of it. And if you look through the rest of the list, and I invite you to look at, I’m not going to comment everyone. But you can see that the sins that Paul has in mind are actually sins that flow from self love, disordered love. So the Vicey mentions almost first is they’re proud, meaning they think they’re great. It can be translated, they’re braggarts, they talk about themselves, all the time, boasting in themselves as James chapter four would say. They’re also abusive, because if you think well of yourself, you often put other people down, they’re also disobedient because you think if you think well of yourself, you have a hard time respecting other people’s authority. So they don’t want to heed authority, and they are slanderous, because when you have a high opinion of yourself, you sometimes feel better if you put others down, especially if you’re failing to some degree. So there’s no question that there’s such a thing as false love, false self love in the world. And of course, it can also infect Christian leaders. The question and I don’t like to cite a book too much when I’m criticizing it, but I’m, I’m going to say this book has many positive traits. But I believe a significant error. Charles groats book when narcissism comes to church, he says that the church uniquely draws narcissists into its leadership position. And it starts with the idea that we are special. And certainly we’ve probably all met pastors who think they’re special. And therefore my church is also special. If you’re connected to me, you can be special too and they present themselves so to grote says, In glittering passages of confidence, strong leadership, vision, a thick skin, but also charm, skillet manipulation, and, and much more that is, that is worse. He says, ministry is a magnet for such people, people with a narcissistic

tendency, and he quote, somebody doesn’t name who it is, but he called somebody with apparent approval, and this person says, Who else who else would want to speak on behalf of God every week? That a narcissistic personality? This is the full quote, ministry is a marked as a magnet for a narcissistic personality, who else would want to speak on behalf of God? Every week? That’s a very bold statement. It’s the kind of statement can I say this humbly, but honestly, it’s the kind of statement that you can make when you’re blindingly ignorant. Now, I don’t mean they’re blindingly ignorant of the world. I mean, they have neglected parts of the word. If you look, what you find in the Word of God, in First Timothy, words of warning to Timothy is that he’s too timid. And if you look at Moses, he was timid. If you look at Isaiah, He resisted the call of God, you look at Amos, these people, Jeremiah resisted the call of God didn’t want the limelight. And I will tell you that, by far in my experience, there are far more pastors that are afraid to lead. lack the confidence to lead well, then there are pastors who have excessive self confidence. Now they’re both problems. I’m not. I’m not advocating a wild level of confidence. But Paul says, there’s a reason why we have confidence. And there’s a reason to be blunt, why somebody can stand up and say the words I speak for God, and that is that God ordains people to do so second, Timothy, sorry, Second Corinthians 520. I’ll talk about it more later, when I read it twice. Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ. God making his appeal through us. The reason why we have confidence why we need clarity, confidence is because God has given us a message it’s not our message where Ambassador speaking his word to the world, he appeals through us. We are his agents in this life. So prophets, preachers, teachers, are there narcissists are their power seeking people. The answer, of course, is yes. But the Bible says over in Ephesians chapter four verses 11 to 16, that God gave the church God gave a gift to the church. He gave Give the church apostles as well as prophets and teachers to equip the saints. This is God’s gift, and we shouldn’t denigrate it or allow others to rob us of proper confidence again, Timothy’s warning was beware of your timidity, not your vanity, preach the word be ready in season and out of season, repute, reprove, rebuke, and exhort. Those take convictions, reprove, rebuke, exhort strong words that call upon us to be strong. Now, in the gross defense 17 pages later, I sure wish she’d put it in the very next sentence, but 17 pages later, and about 125 pages later, he says, Look, we’re all prone to narcissism. And there’s a good kind of narcissism, there’s a healthy narcissism again, thank you for saying it. I wish it said it right away. And he says, healthy narcissism is marked by confidence, empathy, clarity, humility, curiosity, let’s just boil it down to two things, confidence, and clarity. Now I don’t like the term healthy narcissism because it has the word narcissism in it. So let’s just say confidence and clarity. Is there a time to be clear about your skill set? Now my answer is watch a professional athletes sometime. They’re confident. A good, sensible, even godly professional athlete will say, I’m stronger and faster than 99.99% of the people I know. It’s not boastful to say that God has given me we can imagine a Christian athletes and God has given me the gifts, I am faster than almost anyone around, or I’m stronger than almost anyone in my vicinity. And it takes you need to have confidence in that to be a successful professional athlete. The same will be true of someone who’s a lawyer or a politician or a CEO, you need to have confidence in yourself the ability to stand down, opposition, the ability to with to withstand withering criticism, or people simply drag their feet and ignore what you have to say, you need to have the strength of your convictions. One of my friends says, covenant seminary federal process, we need to have a sense of agency and security and adequate self respect to make an implement plans because there will be resistance now people have studied confidence and clarity. And they found that certain occupations require this higher level of confidence. And you won’t be surprised that the list includes things like surgeons who you know, can kill people, or blind them, or cut a nerve. You got to be able to have some confidence. If you’re quivering all the time, you’ll hurt more people, you’ll get anything done. So surgeons, people in the entertainment industry stand up comedians, for example, athletes, media, folk, especially those who stand in front of the bright lights, lawyers, politicians, again, corporate and religious leaders. And I get I’m on two of these lists. Professors also. So I’m a double candidate to be narcissistic, because pastor and a professor, but there are a variety of fields. And one person actually said to even be a good police detective, you have to have the strength of your convictions, I’m going to catch this guy. So there are places where you need convictions. And I do believe that the church is one of those places. So if we say the church is uniquely attractive to people who are narcissistic, maybe it’s better to say something like this, people were confident, are drawn to places where confident is valid, confidence is valuable. And the church is one of those places. And if there’s a danger of being corrupted by the desire to power for power, which there is, then I would say actually, anybody who’s in a position of leadership, a CEO, a politician, a lawyer, surgeon, so forth, any of those people are liable to the temptations that come with having power, clarity, and confidence. The danger of course, is it’ll be it’ll be weaponized or will misuse it. In one way or another. Let me say the same thing is somewhat different way. Pastors are criticized a lot, and everybody in your church is kind of your boss and everyone has an opinion. Everybody can commandeer sermon and to some you’re exalted to some you need to be smacked down and a A lot of pastors labor under the question, Saturday night, Sunday morning, why would anyone want to listen to me? Right? How many Sundays, before you stand up or Saturday nights? Do you stand up and say, this sermon, I’ve said it literally 1000s of times, this servant is so disorganized, so weak, so obvious, so banal, that at last, I will be unmasked, it’s taken all these years. And finally, people will know that not only do I have no idea what to say, I have no idea how to say it. So you have to have an ability just to push through that in the face of critics, some meanwell. And some do not. How do you do that? Well, the the way we do it is by understanding our call from Christ, and that is found in second Corinthians chapter five. So that come back to it like to, I guess, follow the way of Jesus, when something was really important to this remarkable tendency to say it twice. And so I’m gonna say it twice, and I’m gonna hope it’s even newer, put my glasses. There they are. Second Corinthians chapter five, verses 18, through 20, or 21. As soon as I dig my glasses out, read it to you. Here’s what the Apostle Paul says. He says, All this is from God, His ministry of reconciliation, it’s all from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself. That’s point one. God’s reconciling himself on his recognize the saddles himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation, God has done something he’s reconciled the word himself, and he has given us that message. Therefore, we are ambassadors, we’re just re declaring what God has declared. Just two days ago, I heard a friend of mine say that he went to a, what we call in St. Louis floor seven. That’s where the really dangerous criminals are. The murderers.

A very violent people. And he said, I went into this, and went into this building. And I thought, you know, I was naive, I was young and, and I thought, you know, these people have low self esteem, I need to build them up and help them know who they are. And so he gave them a little, a little quiz. And the quiz was rate yourself morally, from one to 10. There are dozens of people in the room, he said, the lowest rating anybody gave him gave himself was a 10. And a number of people volunteer that they were 11 or 12. Again, these are murderers. These are violent criminals is not for one, this is for seven. He said, You know, actually, their problem is not lack of self confidence. What they need to hear is that God is very displeased with them. And if something doesn’t happen, they’re going to get bad news on Judgement Day. Now, how do you say that with any level of confidence, you have to say, Look, folks, I know you don’t want to hear this, but God has commissioned me to tell you that you’re not right with God. And it’s not because God’s failed you. It’s because you failed him. Now. That’s point one. Now, here’s some good news, we have to receive the bad news. It’s hard to say that unless you’re commissioned to do so, right. What you want to do is tell people, they’re fine. So we’re commissioned as ambassadors, and I’m gonna invite you to turn with me a second passes, it also gives us a more enormous confidence drives out fear and cowardice gives us not narcissistic confidence, but proper competence. Matthew chapter 18. Now, when I tell you what I’m going to read, it’s Matthew 18, verse 15. And following, you’re gonna say, Oh, I know where you’re going, I probably you don’t. What I’m gonna do is remind you that in chapter 1815, it says, If anyone is caught in a sin, what you should do, of course, is go to them alone, so they can hear you tell them their fault between you and him alone. If he listens, you’ve gained your brother, I’m not gonna explain that I knew you’ll know that. What he says next is that if someone doesn’t listen, you have to press deeper. Now, if you press deeper, two things can happen that can be solidified in their sin or they can repent. And if they repent, you open the doors of the kingdom, you loose in Jesus terminology, New Testament terminology, to have the doors of the kingdom open as to have the kingdom loosed. You say no matter what you’ve done, you’re in the seventh floor, your murder, the kingdom is open to you. I lose the gates open the gates to the kingdom, but if you don’t repent, I bind. I close the gate. Now here’s what it says. It says when you’re proclaiming you know, when you’re not doing your work and doing the discipline to the church truly sad, verse 18. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. Now I teach Greek. And I’m just going to tell you the verb here is si denomination, which means shall have been bound. The translation is, I’ll say meek, because it would sound so strange in English. It says, Whatever you bind on her shell had been bound, meaning you’re not binding, you’re not telling somebody, I don’t let you in the kingdom. You’re binding what has already been bound. So when you tell someone they’re in trouble with God, you are re declaring with God declared, there’s no room for pride. But there is room for confidence. Second, he says, and whatever you loose meaning whenever you say, no matter what you’ve done, you’re a child of the kingdom Child of God, you’re redeemed, whatever you loose on earth, shall have been loosed in heaven. Meaning you’re just really declaring what God declared. That’s the source of our confidence. That’s what drives out fear, cowardice, and timidity.

So the question then is, number one, is your false accusation about the church, all these fallen pastors?

It’s not true. It’s true, we have a real problem. Question number two, do we uniquely attract narcissists? Do we need to knock the narcissism out of people? I think the answer is no. It there’s a proper confidence given to us by the Lord who called us on ordained us for His ministry. So the next question would be something like this. So does the church have failed pastors because it seeks people who are gifted men who are gifted more than men who are godly? And that’s a good question. It’s a very good question. And we’re gonna say, first of all, that the Bible certainly accents the need for godliness. Israel’s called to be a holy nation, or special commands just for kings. So they’ll rule the right way. Deuteronomy chapter 17, which, you know, everybody knows, but there’s also passages like proverbs 31, which tells kings, I gotta find the right page. In my notes, I was looking at my notes and I was distracted. There we are. Proverbs chapter 31, verses 44 And five, it tells kings, it is not for kings, to drink wine or for rulers to take strong drink less they drink and forget what has been decreed and pervert the rights of the afflicted. That’s a good verse for people to think godliness is proven by smoking cigars and drinking whiskey. It is not for kings kings have a higher standard, you can’t enjoy yourself in the way other people do, because it might make you forget what your job is, of course, the Gospels are constantly calling us to be Christ like to be loving and kind and forgiving, as Jesus is, but maybe the most important passage and you can turn with me this to First Timothy, chapter three, one to seven, which I’m going to explain in ways that may be familiar to you. And I forgive me if I am for a minute, but I hope to move on a couple other things. First Timothy, chapter three verses one to seven. has a list of qualifications of of overseers, or elders, which would include teaching elders. And when I’m going to point out that in advance and let you see it for yourself, if you wish, is there a 13 traits, sometimes people number a little bit differently? Let’s say they’re 13 traits, and 11 of them have to do with character only to have to do with skill. So here goes, if anyone aspires to the Office of overseer he desires a noble task and he says task you think, Oh, he’s gonna tell us what to do. But he, it’s a little misdirection. He doesn’t tell us what to do what our task is. He tells us who we are, as if the first task of being a pastor’s to be the man to be a godly man to be Christ like man. So here’s what he says, an overseer must be above reproach that’s moral, husband of one wife, that means a faithful husband, a loving husband, sober mind is self controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, there’s a trait because skill, not a drunkard, not violent, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money, he must manage his own household. Well, that’s the second skill, teaching and managing and with all dignity, keep his children submissive, for someone does not know how to manage his own household. How can you possibly that’s my addition? How can you possibly care for God’s church? So 13 traits 11 are moral or spiritual, and two have to do with skills or aptitudes which tells us that it is really godliness first. Now, if you look at First Timothy three and Second Timothy, two and First Timothy four, and first image you’ve 14 to 25 and Titus, chapter one, you put them all together, what you notice is is that there is a an eerie similarity not verbal, similar, but a similarity emerges as the more you look that shows between the fruit of the Spirit and the traits of a leader. I’m not, I’m not gonna give you all of them, but just a sampling. So Galatians chapter five, you know, it’s love first. And elders care for their families, and therefore they care for the church. So that’s an act of love, love leads to care. And for the spirit is peace. And an elder we just read is not violent, or quarrelsome. They’re peaceable, and patience, and an elder is not quick tempered. Titus one chapter seven says, and a good leader. Second, Timothy 224 25 says teaches patiently, leading people to repentance, kindness, for the spirit, hospitality is a form of kindness of strangers, gentle gentleness, elders are explicitly told to be gentle. Self control, elders are explicitly told to manifest self control and of course, faithfulness. And we know that elders hold firmly to the Word of God has taught. So what I’m saying then is this, the emphasis on godliness is absolutely necessary. And the first qualification of being a Christian leader is to manifest the fruit of the Spirit externally in the world. So people can see that you’re actually walking with God by His grace, because you’re united to him, experience the spirit and express it as fruit. And by the way, Paul published this so the whole world can hold us to account, which is frightening, but helpful. Now, character shapes the way we use our skills, because we’re apt to teach we’re also teaching gently, we correct our opponents with gentleness. And we lead but we lead, managing and taking care. And just for fun, the word for taking care of peers only two times in your testament, the other one is in the Good Samaritan, taking care of the man who’s beaten up and left for debt. So that’s intense care, it’s like changing diapers kind of care, and helping clean people clean up their vomit kind of care, clean up blood kind of care, not theoretical. So, the list combines leadership and service or love. And just for fun, it says that when we look at the children of a, an overseer, they should obey with dignity or respect. Your you love your children, they know they’re loved, and therefore they don’t just obey you. They listen with respect, because you’ve treated them well. And they know that correction comes in love. So do pastors uniquely falter? Do they uniquely falter? My answer is, I don’t think they uniquely falter. I think they falter. But I don’t think they’re any worse than anybody else. And do we need to look to character first, we absolutely need to look to character first, and those who criticize the church, including people like de grote who criticized the church for looking at glittering skill sets. Is there a validity to the charge that we look for skill sets too much there is there’s no question we look for franchise players on a football team. We look for franchise pastors to lead our mega church but but if you look a little bit more over the first Timothy chapter four, what you notice is that the interest in skills aren’t just character is now 5050 The second time so the first time we have 11 character traits and two skills. But the second time Paul addresses the matter. It says this first Timothy chapter four verses 12 to 16. I know you know this verse, but I just want to ask you to notice that there are three skills listed. Speech exhortation, which probably means preaching, and teaching speech in general exhortation, and teaching. And there are three virtues listed, which are love, faith, and purity. I told you what to look for. Now, let’s see if it’s there. Let no one Paul says to Timothy, despise you for your youth, but set the believers in example, in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. So it’s mostly about character, although it does mention speech. And then it says until I come devote yourself to the public reading of the word now. We’re reading in the New Testament usually means reading with understanding, which means you’re gonna read the word in such a way that people understand what you’re saying. So in order to study in order to teach well, so devote yourself to public reading to exhortation keep a close watch on your character and your teaching. They’re just balanced again, character and teaching. So we need Both not one or the other. Paul does say, Let no one despise you take care of your character. But it also says, Get to work. So you can teach well, it’s a public role. Now the next question we want to ask is, then, perhaps it’s the case that the church attracts people to start off godly and holy and wanted to be holy. And then for some reason, maybe it’s a flaw in the past, or maybe it’s a flaw in the church, they start to decline. Their goal, our goal of lifelong fidelity does not come to pass. And unfortunately, we know too many people like that. Have a friend, he’s an elder, but he wants to be such a good elder, he went to seminary, and he’s, it was my former student, a friend and he said this, I’m going to quote it for you. This is elder Joe. Pastors are like politicians, they start with a sincere desire to reform the system, and end up compromised and corrupted by it.

That’s all too often true. He loves pastors, you just describing the phenomenon that we see. So why does that happen? Well, of course, there are a variety of reasons why happens it happens in part because the capacitor difficult. And when you’re pushed enough times, people mistreat you enough, eventually you start to get harsh lash out, various things begin to go wrong. Certainly in recent years, we’ve had clashes over politics and masks and, and vaccines, and it made church ministry harder. One pastor whom I will not name, extremely well known, wrote many books. Also, target of relentless criticism in United States told his staff, we need to build a wall between me and the church, because I can’t endure in this ministry any longer if I keep spending time with my people. Now, did he stick with that? No. Was it true for a couple of years? Yes, it was. So he was beaten down by his own people. But we can’t blame the church only. Paul Tripp named many of you know, said, you know, being a pastor and desire to be holy, it’s kind of like being a middle aged man and hoping to stay in shape. We want to stay fit, but somehow we gained five pounds every year. Not quite sure how it happens. In planar prose, he said, the gap between our stated and actual values is both manifest and injurious. So the church hurts us and we also hurt ourselves. TRIPP went on to say that he experienced a period of such a such intense personal attacks. He was so discouraged, I’m quoting now and beaten down that nothing seemed more attractive than laying his ministry position down. I just want to quit. That’s what happens. Sometimes a lot of pastors that quit the ministry last few years, but others push back and push back hard. The church allows a tendency toward anger or feistiness damage and kind of feistiness to emerge that might not have emerged otherwise. The other thing that we have to label is the fact that churches do fall in love with their pastors, and they see problems and they don’t want to address them, because they’re, they have bought into the idea that passion is great and glorious, and I’m his friend. So a number of years ago, I won’t say how long and I won’t say what state it was in. But I arrived to speak at a conference. Just hours, by which I mean less than 100 hours, just hours after the organizer of the conference, was kicked out of the conference for having an affair with a woman who was on the conference leadership team that had gone on for seven years. What was interesting was the leadership team that I was talking to, by the way, I’m changing enough details. If you try to guess it, you won’t get it right have changed a couple of things here and there. You know, it was actually a 41 year affair, not seven years, for example, or three weeks, I don’t know whatever. It wasn’t, when I say seven years, you know one thing it wasn’t seven years. But it really happened. And the people on the leadership team said we’re so upset with ourselves. We saw it. But we loved our leader so much. We told ourselves that can’t be true. What we see happening between this man or this woman cannot be happening because our leaders so godly and he invited us to be on his leadership team. And we couldn’t let ourselves see it. We blame ourselves. So of course as we know we need them As you know, is honest reviews that’s easier in connectional churches, right? Where, you know, we have a habit. Presbyterians have had to do anything decently in order. And so we have annual reviews and 360s and things like that. And, and sometimes we actually do it and do it. Well, we have to make it stick down elder said, The Church needs prophets who are willing to shout the emperor that is to say the towel, the leader has no clothes, you have to shout it because people don’t want to hear it. Now, I’m going to tell you that it’s easier to correct somebody with low status and high status. I’m gonna tell you the most embarrassing story I can tell you about my pastoral career. I think, although there’s a little element of I guess there might be a tiny shred of pride in it as well. So I used to be six foot one, and I used to be able to jump really well. And as a result, the first church I was in 2829 years old, very small church, but very useful church and kind of an athletic church. And so although we only had you know, like 94 people, we were able to feel the reasonably good basketball team. And I tended to guard the tallest man in the team. Because some days I can block shots. And one day, I blocked five shots by the opposing center. They were all clean. And I was whistled for a foul every time because the referee was that indolence sort who can’t really pay attention all that much. And you said that guy six for that guy, six, one, that guy’s white, that can’t have been clean. And so he blew the whistle. Now the other guy was apologizing goes, I’m sorry, I know is a clean block, but I am gonna go take the foul shots. And when my fifth fall was whistled, ice tramped off the court, I have to say one of the things I did foul people to other times, but they missed those. So the ref was over seven. I was fouled out of the game, close game. And I said the following words as I left the court, and they’re a little louder than I intended. What I got to find the exact words, you know, it would be nice if you would try watching the game from time to time to see what actually happens instead of taking guesses and tooting your whistle at random. I think everybody in the gym heard it, there were only maybe 100 people, but they all heard it. And after the game, a deacon in my church came over and said, Dan, you can’t shout at the ref like that. And I said that ref is awful. Every block was clean. He said, We know that. But you’re our pastor. You can’t shout like that. And I said is the dumbest thing I’ve ever said, when I’m on the basketball court. I’m a basketball player, not a pastor. I hadn’t come down yet. And the deacons said, You are a basketball player on the basketball court. But you’re always our pastor. And I had to say, took me a couple hours. But I had to say I could not have been more wrong. And you cannot have been more right. But can I ask you to play a thought experiment with me thought experiments is imagine I stayed in that church for 10 more years, which I did. And I went off to be a professor. Imagine I stayed there 10 more years and the church grew from 74 people to seven or 40 people. And imagine that I’m 3839 years old, I’m still blocking shots, and the ref is still calling files and I’m still feeling what would the people say if I were 38 years old and a pastor of a church and seven or 50 people? They would say look at our pastor, he’s still so athletic, and he cares so much. And doesn’t that referee know who he is? Right? And I would get away with murder and the deacon would think about rebuking me and might or might not. And maybe nobody tells me what a jerk I was. Right? So we need to be careful to hear rebuke to cultivate a culture in which people are able to rebuke us and correct us annual reviews 360 staff gets to speak about if you have a staff, I know you don’t know how to staff, if you have a staff people is people are able to say what they see. And you can address a little sin like the pastor quoted somebody at length and didn’t give credit that we call that plagiarism. Maybe maybe it’s a little bit out of line, but plagiarism is also a consequence of not working hard enough or maybe misusing your efforts or, or getting exhausted and let’s see why it is that you quoted somebody for a page and didn’t quote them before it becomes a major problem. one word, one more, I’ll say story, and then an account. This is all stuff that something happened to me. I’m not as much of a jerk and this one. So I was speaking in a church, I was a long term interim. And you know, about two months in, let’s have a meeting, we’ll talk about the vision for the church for the next year. And I spoke twice in the morning, a lot of people and people wanted to talk to me after the service, and we’re gonna have a town hall meeting and talking about things. And there was, there were far more people than we expected. And, you know, we thought maybe 100 People come or 250 people in line. And I gotten the line, I was dead last, of course, and, you know, ate breakfast at 630 and then spoke twice. And then, you know, I’m gonna speak again, I’m gonna, I’m not gonna get any lunch. And I’m just looking at the line. And somebody said to me, Oh, damn, just take my spot in line. And I said, okay, because I was getting very hungry. And a woman right behind me in line, this is exactly what happened. A woman right behind me in line said, Oh, I thought pastors are supposed to be sacrificial.

And some people laughed. But we looked at her and she was mad. She thought she was calling me out. I was saying, I’d rather not go nine hours between meals. And the woman noticed, the woman who let me take her place noticed. And then what happened was, the next time there was a meal, they brought me food separately. And that’s nice and have to worry about that scenario. And then they did that a few times. And then I began to expect it. And one time, it didn’t show up and I was a little bit irritated. I’m a jerk again. And that’s how something very very harmless and innocent can go to your head. And so it’s a watch ourselves that we don’t let these little privileges and small signs of respect become egotistical. Dallas, Willard, you know, the the book spirit of the disciplines, said, it’s very important for Christian leaders to pursue the discipline of service by which he means washing feet literally. In his tradition, we would say washing dishes are taking a turn in the nursery, when it’s your study, leave week. Watch the babies change some diapers. Be like everybody else, humble yourself. Now, of course, the most basic thing I have to tell you is we need to stick to the gospel. kind of hit that in the middle. I want to make sure we said again. Are there narcissists in the church, you better believe it, or they’re cowards in the church. Absolutely. Every kind of flaw exists, because you can’t even get into the church without saying, I am a sinner saved by the grace of God. That’s my first qualification. Then I go to seminary, get other training, then I pursue godliness. But the first qualification is always saying, I’m a sinner, my only hope is in Christ, and His mercy. And then we can grow by the gift of Holy Spirit. And by having mentors and friends around us, who help us to find that spot. Where we have confidence, and clarity, strength of our convictions, confidence that we’ve been called by God, equipped by God, we have a message from God and clarity, strength of our convictions, and the humility remember what sinners and fools we are. Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, I pray for these men. And also certainly some women here in positions of leadership, some, some probably do have too much confidence, and some don’t have enough. And Lord, I pray that as we spend our time with you and with with the gospel, and with the idea that we’re ambassadors, we’d have the right confidence and as we spend time in the Gospel, and the calls to repentance, and to recognize our constant constant need of mercy to confess that we’re sinners. But by putting these together, we can have that space where we’re both confident and humble. I pray in Jesus name. Amen.