In this sermon, Joel R. Beeke discusses the importance of perseverance in discouraging times, drawing inspiration from Puritan teachings. Beeke elaborates on how the Puritan approach to perseverance can offer valuable lessons for maintaining faith and resilience today.
The following unedited transcript is provided by Beluga AI.
I notice the samples I talked about last night are still up here, so please do help yourself afterward, brother to those. Well, what a joy it’s been to be with you these days. It’s been a wonderful privilege to be ministered to even more than one ministers, and that’s how I feel. I feel like you’ve been better to me than me to you. It’s been a very encouraging time for me. My only regret, of course, is that at conferences you don’t have time to meet everyone and have in-depth conversations with everyone.
But do be assured that I have thoroughly enjoyed my time among you and enjoyed the conversations and getting to know many of you. And I pray God that because of the Founders conference and the Founders Journal and all that the founders movement is doing, may it flourish. It is sorely needed in our day. And may God bless you all and prosper the leaders. Keep them standing, keep them godly, and may your movement go forward in the strength of the Lord our God.
Now, we have been following heavenly the theme of the church’s need for mature ministers. We’ve looked at it from a doctrinal perspective and an experiential perspective. And this morning, I want to conclude by looking at it from a practical perspective, how to persevere in discouraging times by Christ, and to do that in a mature way. And I believe that mature perseverance in the ministry is always perseverance that involves submission. The Puritans were fond of teaching that God will bring every minister into places, positions, and circumstances that demand him to deny himself and take up the cross to follow Him.
One of the Puritans said, the bulk of what religion is all about is letting God be God, submitting unto God. The Shunammite woman is a prime example here. Many examples in scripture. Of course, her only son is dead at home. She goes and visits the prophet. You remember that account in 2 Kings 4. And she comes to the prophet. The prophet sends Gehazi, “Is it well with you? Is it well with your husband? Is it well with the child?” She says, “It is well.” It is well with your only son dead at home. That submission.
Submission, I believe, is four steps. First of all, it is acknowledging God. Whatever happens to you in the ministry or as a believer, the very first thing you need to say when things go against your will, when there are what the Puritans call cross providences that penetrate your lives, is to say, “It’s the Lord, it’s the Lord.” Everything is under his control down to the hairs of your head. So step one, acknowledge the Lord. Step two, justify the Lord, say it is right. You see, no matter what comes your way, you deserve a lot worse.
God is always better to us than we to Him. He is always righteous. He is always faithful. He is always true. You know, John said when He comes again on the clouds, He will have girt on His thigh, the names Faithful and True. He is always just. And so I can always say, no matter if I were to get cancer today or have a heart attack today or if terrible things were to happen in my congregation today, I’d have to say, the Lord is just. He has not rewarded me according to my iniquity.
Step two, justify the Lord. Step three, approve the Lord, approve what he is doing. You see, that’s where the Shunammite came into the depths of submission. Or Job. The Lord hath given and the Lord hath taken away. Lord is just. And there’s a deeper step, isn’t there? Blessed be the name of the Lord.
21 And he said: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, And naked shall I return there. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; Blessed be the name of the Lord .” (Job 1:21, NKJV)
It is well. Not only it is right, but it is well. But then there’s the deepest step. I call that clinging to the Lord. Clinging to the Lord.
Clinging to the Lord as my greatest friend, even when he seems to come against me as my greatest enemy, clinging to the almighty arm of the God of Jacob in the face of Jesus Christ, saying, with Jacob, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. Saying with Job, though he slay me, yet will I trust in him. And going on with the Shunammite woman, after she said it as well, what did she do?
15 Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him. Even so, I will defend my own ways before Him. (Job 13:15, NKJV)
She went to the prophet and she clung to him.
And she said, as the Lord liveth, I will not let thee go. I will not let the guard of the prophet go. That’s what she was saying. You see, true submission doesn’t mean you sit back and say, well, it doesn’t bother me anymore. I’m really submissive now. True submission is feeling the pain, even as I surrender the pain unto the living God and learn to say, it is well, and I will cling to thee in the midst of all my pain. And that is the hallmark of a mature minister.
A mature minister of the gospel learns to cling to Jesus Christ, to hold fast to Jesus Christ in every circumstance, because Jesus Christ is holding fast to us, and so we embrace him with mutual embrace, like Jacob embraced the very angel who was embracing and wrestling with him. And I want to look at that with you this morning from Hebrews 4:14-16, especially the last part of verse 14. But let’s look at it. Let’s read together Hebrews 4:14-16.
14 Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. 15 For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:14-16, NKJV)
Especially these words, let us hold fast our profession. Well, the ministry involves many discouragements.
There are two major pitfalls in ministry. One is animated joy that enlarges our hearts in times of spiritual blessing and prosperity. And the other is profound discouragement which shrinks our hearts when the spirit’s blessing upon our ministry seems to wane and disappear altogether. Both pitfalls are dangerous for us. Perhaps the greatest danger is the pitfall of pride and spiritual prosperity. After all, that’s the pitfall that brought Satan down from heaven.
18 And he said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. (Luke 10:18, ESV)
And you remember the context in which Jesus said that?
He said that when the disciples came back from a preaching itinerary and they said, “Lord, even the devils are subject to us through thy name.” And Jesus said, “Woe, disciples. Remember, Satan fell as lightning from heaven.
20 Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.” (Luke 10:20, NKJV)
You see, bear in mind, no amount of ministerial success will bring you or me into heaven. We must be saved as poor sinners, like every man and woman and boy and girl sitting in the pews before us.
Our ministerial license is no license for glory. There is only one passport into heaven: that’s the blood of Jesus Christ. Have you ever gone into a country where you didn’t have your passport, and you’re by the border? They won’t let you in. And you tried to. You tried everything. You tried to tell them you were a minister. You tried to tell them what you were going to do. You tried to. You thought you could persuade him, but the man just kept looking at you and he said, no passport, no entrance.
My friend, if you’re not washed in the blood of Christ, there’s no entrance into glory for you. We need to remember that as ministers, we need to remember always that we are saved by free sovereign grace, that we are at very, very best unworthy and unprofitable servants.
But secondly, a more common pitfall today, in our day of small things, is pastoral discouragement. Discouragement in the ministry knows no denominational boundaries. It affects seasoned pastors and fresh seminarians alike, so many of us today feel we are plowing largely upon rock.
We live truly in discouraging, difficult, and challenging times. There are discouragements that come from outside of us, aren’t there? Some of us are working in situations or among colleagues where standards of doctrine are very low, and we ourselves feel pressured into situations in which we have to decide where and when to take a stand. Well, the answer of our text this morning is, hold fast your profession. Some of you are facing perhaps heavy persecution.
Perhaps you’re the only minister in your locale that embraces the doctrines of grace, and you’re persecuted for it, and you’re labeled for it, and you wonder how you’re going to bear up under it. Our text says this morning, hold fast to your profession. Some of you are confronted with difficulties within your congregation, trite customs, banal practices, temptations to modern church worship. These things bear down upon you as your people, and even church leaders around you clamor for change, or else on the other side, perhaps cling to stagnation and to dead orthodoxy.
And you wonder how you’re going to continue to breathe in the oxygen of God’s grace in the midst of such an atmosphere. Well, our text says to you this morning, hold fast your profession. Some of you are situated in rather depressed areas. There’s little potential for congregational growth. You see little growth qualitatively. You see little growth quantitatively. You see rather an intense lack of godly piety among your people. Sometimes you fear that the religion of the vast bulk of your parishioners may not well rise above a superficial level.
The godly grow cold, the hopeful turn aside, sinners wax bold in iniquity, worldliness and unbelief, apathy, ignorance, spiritual deadness, man centeredness, prayerlessness, a lack of family worship, a lack of holy expectation in God. These things afflict your people and your churches, and you wonder how you can carry on.
In our Dutch circles, there’s an expression that ministers often say to their people: you, pray me full and I’ll preach you full. But you, I’m discouraged sometimes, and you’re wondering, are the people really wrestling for me in the inner chamber?
Is there really spiritual vibrancy in the congregation? How can I carry on in the midst of such deadness? And God says to you this morning, hold on, pass your profession. Then there is, of course, the moral climate of our nation that is disheartening for all of us. We consider the scriptural teaching and what this nation ought to be and what this nation once was. We pray to God to turn back the great current of iniquity in our land, and He doesn’t seem to hear us. Isn’t that discouraging?
When God’s kingdom does not come as we would? When our master’s name is not hallowed as we desire, when his will is openly despised without shame, when our report is not believed and God’s arm is not revealed, should we not weep with Jeremiah and have our eyes be rivers of water and be discouraged? Our text says this morning, hold fast your profession. But then there are those terrible discouragements from within. From within. Some of us are burdened with overwork. We’re under constant care and labor and watchfulness.
Our spiritual warfare and labor seems to end in spiritual weariness and exhaustion, and that reaps discouragement. Our eye has waxed dim. Our natural and spiritual forces are abated under the strains of continually exporting of ourselves and receiving little import. On Saturday evenings, we’re anxious about Sunday. We feel unprepared. Sunday evening, we’re drained and disappointed with our preaching. They feel like overstuffed glove compartments filled with all kinds of things. And on top of it, there’s all this administration and personal counseling and correspondence. And meanwhile, we’re lacking family time. We’re lacking private time. We agonize in soul travail as we yearn to see flawed human beings brought into the image of Christ. We cry out with Paul,
19 My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you, (Galatians 4:19, NKJV)
Our heart and our flesh begin to fail. The joy of preaching and teaching becomes a burden too heavy to bear. The routines of daily ministry seem to overwhelm us. We wonder if we’re being used by God at all. Perhaps our very visions of pastoral ministry are badly shaken, splintered, and shattered, and lie in ruins about our feet, and in exhaustion.
In the midst of detachment, insomnia, disillusionment, and self-doubt, pessimism and cynicism can overwhelm us. Our text says to us this morning, hold fast your profession. Some of you are disheartened, perhaps by a foreboding sense of loneliness. You know, in 1980, 913 years ago, and I remembered vividly, US News and World Report did a study on loneliness in 100 occupations. The ministry was included in the study. What number out of 100 occupations in terms of loneliness, do you think ministers came in at? Number two out of 100, surrounded by people but lonely within.
Aren’t you going to ask me what number one was? A night watchman. You see, the problem with the ministry is that you can’t always confide confidentially in that brother elder or brother deacon. Some of you can’t even confide in your wives because your wives can’t keep secrets. What a burden that is. Thank God for a confidential wife. But some of you are lonely. you’re lonely in your geographical area. What a problem that is. What a discouraging thing that is. Puritans face loneliness too, by the way.
Their answer for it was, keep a journal, a spiritual diary, a run on communication with God. That’s one great help. But still, it’s discouraging to be so alone in convictions. Some of you are downcast on account of strife and disunity within your flock. What can be more discouraging to a minister than to see the flock of sheep, which are to be one in Christ, harping and conniving at one another, God’s people? Divisive? Oh, that’s discouraging. But also, when you become the brunt of the criticism, how discouraging that is.
You know, our group of critics is invariably small, but their impact is usually disproportionately large. Errol Holst was talking, I believe, about the homosexual movement and being 1% of the people in England, yet the amount of noise they make is as if they’re 25% of the population. Well, that’s the way it is in the church with critics. And when you hear all these complaints, you think, 30% of the people are against me.
And just remember, when you get a criticism, if you’ve got a church of 900 people, the criticism you heard that morning means that 899 people didn’t criticize you. But you see, it’s still lonely, it’s still debilitating, it’s still discouraging. That’s why 85% of ministers in James Sparks book, whom he surveyed, his book is titled Taking Pot shots at the Preacher. 85% of ministers say, the most difficult thing in my ministry is coping with criticism. It can be lonely coping with criticism. You can’t answer in time. You can’t render evil for evil. Hold fast your profession.
Some of us are discouraged at special seasons in our ministry. There can be special seasons when a minister feels the withdrawing sense and presence of God, when suddenly, for some unexplained reason, he loses the unction of the Spirit in preaching and he feels it and he doesn’t know how to recover it. What a discouragement that is. Sometimes many ministers go in cycles. That’s why books of homiletics say, don’t ever make a decision on Monday morning if you’re a minister. Because after the mountaintop of the Sabbath, you can be very discouraged.
Or you can be discouraged just before you face the mountaintop. When you’re in the valley before the mountain or after the mountain, discouragement can press whole. Or one providential affliction after another can enter into your life and into your ministry and into your family. And here you’ve got to be the minister to stand up on Sunday morning. You can’t say, brothers, I don’t feel like preaching today. I’ll try it on Tuesdays. That’s discouraging to have to preach in times when you don’t feel like it.
And you know deep down and what guilt it brings upon you. You know deep down that it’s the most awesome privilege in all the world. And here you are grumbling and murmuring like the Israelites in the wilderness, and you’re a minister of the gospel. Hold fast your profession. But most of all, and last of all, we can be discouraged by our own weak spiritual condition. Horatius Bonar said, my greatest discouragement is that I live from myself, for myself and to myself. I’m too unacquainted with myself, and I’m too estranged from God.
How discouraging when we drink too much from human cisterns rather than divine. When nearness to God and fellowship with God, and waiting upon God and resting in God, so little mark our private and ministerial lives. When we leave our first love, when we backslide in heart, when we grieve the Spirit with our prayerless prayers and our cold devotions, and we lose the joy of our salvation. And God walks contrary to us because we walk contrary to him. Oh, how discouraging such times can be.
We find ourselves speaking of unbelief more as an affliction to be pitied than as a crime to be condemned at such times. And then we bow in the dust in guilt, and we discover to our shame that we are our own greatest obstacles. Hold fast your profession. Or perhaps you are saying by now, “Well, that’s well and good that you tell us after every point to hold fast your profession. But how do we do it?” Well, that’s what our text tells us. We hold fast our profession by holding fast to Christ, who holds fast to us.
These three verses, Hebrews 4:14-16, are the apex of the entire book of Hebrews. You see, the Hebrew Christians were very discouraged. They were feeling lonely. They were down all around them. There were their fellow Jews who were not Christians.
And their fellow Jews said to them, “What kind of a religion do you have anyway? All you’ve got is this plain sanctuary to worship in. you’ve got no fanciful high priest. Where’s your high priest? We’ve got fanciful high priests with all their clothing and all their rituals, and you’ve got nothing.” And you see, the Jews began to persecute their brethren, their Christian brethren. The two men applied for a job. One was a Jewish man who was not a Christian, and one was a Christian. They gave it to the one who wasn’t a Christian.
They began to ostracize them. Some of them were even imprisoned. And the Hebrew Christians were such a remnant anyway, such a small remnant. They began to feel very discouraged. And the whole book of the Epistle of the Hebrews is written to encourage them in the midst of all their discouragement. There are 96 verses in the book of Hebrews that say to the Hebrew Christians, don’t give up, but persevere. Hang on, hold fast, cling to, rest on, believe, 96 verses. And really, we need to hear that as ministers, don’t we?
Also, as we leave a conference, go back into the warp and woof of the reality of our ministry and all the challenges, all the problems that you left behind are all going to be there when you get back. How are you going to face them? By holding fast to Jesus Christ. No other way, brothers, but this way is sufficient. You see, what the apostle says is when you cling to Jesus Christ, you have everything you could possibly need, because everything is in him.
And he sets that before us in these few verses in a wonderful way. He says, first, Jesus is the Son of God. He’s almighty. He’s in the heavens. He’s an almighty God that you and I need. He’s powerful, he’s almighty to do anything that needs to be done in your ministry, and he’s able to give you the strength to do it. Without me, ye can do nothing. But Paul said, in Christ Jesus, I can do all things through Him that strengtheneth me.
13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me. (Philippians 4:13, ESV)
That’s what you say.
He’s in heaven, and he seems so far away, sometimes, exalted in the heavens. Does he understand me in my lowly ministry? Does he understand me in my problems and my needs and circumstances? Well, the apostle anticipates that, doesn’t he? So he goes on in verse 15, and he says, for we have not a high priest which cannot. Double negative means strong positive. We absolutely have a high priest which is touched with the feeling of our infirmities, not touched by, touched with. In the Greek instruction, that means he enters into it.
When someone dies, you go visit the funeral home, you say to the person, “I’m touched by your sorrow.” And when you go back home that evening, you have a short prayer for the person, and your life goes on. you’re touched by it. You enter into it for a moment. But Jesus Christ is touched with. I can’t explain to you how, but he is touched with the afflictions and the infirmities of his people and peculiarly his servants.
And therefore, he says in Isaiah 54:17,
17 No weapon formed against you shall prosper, And every tongue which rises against you in judgment You shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord , And their righteousness is from Me,” Says the Lord . (Isaiah 54:17, NKJV)
And in all their affliction, he says ten chapters later, I am afflicted. Jesus Christ, you see, he is not only the almighty son of God, but he is the intimate, understanding son of man. He was tempted in all points. The text goes on to say, like as we are. And you know what all points means? All points means, all points.
It means that you will never face anything in your ministry that Jesus Christ didn’t encounter, experience, and defeat as the perfect God-man. He faced all points that you will ever face, without sin. Oh, thank God for those last three words: yet without sin. I’ve never been through one trial in my ministry where I didn’t sin somewhere along the way. I deserve that every one of those trials turn out wrong.
But by clinging to Jesus Christ and surrendering them to him and following him, you see, God looks upon my trials, upon your trials in Christ, in his perfect obedience. And he brings us into them, he brings us through them, he brings us out of them, clinging to Christ. And we learn lessons, and we learn the grace of perseverance through all these things so that we may honor and glorify him. So what do you have in Christianity? You have in Christianity what you have in no other religion in all the world.
You have an immanent, transcendent savior. What do you have in Islam? You have a transcendent God, utterly, radically sovereign. He can damn you today, he could save you tomorrow, he could damn you the next day. You just do your best, and you hope what you have in almost all the other religions of the world and all the forms of hedonism, God is an object. God is imminent. But he’s not transcendent. He’s a cow in the field. He’s a tree. He’s a star in the heavens.
But in Christianity, our savior is our judge, and our savior is our God, and our savior is bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. Our savior is ultimately understanding, and you can pour out your heart to him. Mary Winslow, in that wonderful book, Life and Jesus, said to her ministerial son, Octavius, “Son, in discouragements of the ministry, come to the Lord and pour out your bosom before him as if he knew nothing about you, yet with the comfort that he knows everything about you. Tell him everything.”
He is the intimate and the almighty high priest. He has everything you need. He’s the great high priest. Great because of what he sacrificed himself, great because of when he sacrificed it: Gethsemane, Gabbatha, Golgotha, and the fullness of time. Great because of to whom he sacrificed it, to God as holy judge, and great for whom he sacrificed it: unworthy people, sinners, even ministers like you and me. John Kershaw, a 19th-century Baptist minister, said God saves all kinds of people, even ministers. You see, Jesus Christ knows our infirmities.
He knows how quickly we are prone to take up holy things and make them banal, how we are prone to take his word for granted, how we are prone to lose the fresh cutting edge of our ministry. And still, he saves us. Still, he deals with us. Still, he has patience with us because he understands our human frailty. He was tempted, like as we are, every temptation of ministry you ever face. He’s been there. He’s gone through it, and he did it without sin.
16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:16, ESV)
The apostle concludes, and isn’t that exactly what we need? Mercy and grace. Grace, forgiveness for the guilty. We’re guilty ministers, mercy, compassion for the miserable. Those are our needs as ministers. Lord, I need mercy and grace. Where do you get it? I get it from son of God, son of man. I get it from the transcendent, immanent savior. I get it by holding fast to him.
Well, how do I do that? How do I hold fast to him? Well, let me suggest in the remainder of our time this morning four ways in which we are to hold fast to Christ because he is holding fast to us. The first way is, let us hold fast to our ministerial calling by considering that Christ is holding us fast in our calling. We saw last night that he holds the stars in his right hand. The stars are his ministers. Christ holds us in our calling.
He calls us, he thrusts us forth into his vineyard, and he holds us in that calling. And so we. We are to hold that calling before ourselves for Christ’s sake. And I know of nothing stronger. This is the bedrock of our ministry. In times of discouragement and trial, and times when we’re ready to surrender, we are to remember I am a calm man. The church is not in my hands. Ultimately, my own calling is not in my own hands. It’s in the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Hold fast your profession by holding fast to your calling through Christ, who holds fast to that calling for you. I think one of the most wonderful ways this was lived out, practically, was by Martin Luther. You know, Luther had the whole reformation on his shoulders for some time. Like Paul. Paul said, “the care of all the churches is upon me.” Luther could say that, too. But you know what Luther learned? He learned that it wasn’t his church. He learned it was the Lord’s church, and it was the Lord’s calling.
And so, this is what he would habitually do when he went to bed at night. He’d say this: Lord, I leave the church with thee tonight, who doth never sleep and doth never slumber. I have carried the church all day long, and I’m tired, and I’m now ready to rest. And so, I roll over the cares unto thee. I give thee the burdens tonight. Wilt thou not take them up? Is it not thy church? And, Lord, I will take them up again in the morning.
For what better hands could I lead the church in than thine? You see, that’s what we do with the church. That’s what we do with our calling. That’s what we do with everything about ministry. We carry. We shoulder the burdens, but we also roll those burdens onto the Lord. And we understand that he’s in control also of the magnificent and awesome call he has set before us. Brother, if you’re a minister, you’re called to the most lofty occupation in all the world, and you have an almighty savior to keep you in that occupation.
Vocation, as the Puritans would say. My dad used to say to me when I was a boy, I told him of my call to the ministry. He’d say, “Son, if the Lord realizes that call in you, remember, your occupation will be more important than being in the White House. Nothing so important as being a minister of the gospel.” So remember, when you get complaints, when you get discouragements, don’t let them overwhelm you. Take them to Christ. Let the love of Christ drink deeply of the love of Christ. you’re going to hear about next year.
And by the way, do come next year. Jeff Thomas says, wonderful proclaimer of the love of Christ. Let the love of Christ drink it in deeply. And when you drink it in deeply, you will be able to cope with discouragements and afflictions and disappointments and defections, because you are called and you cannot leave your post. The hireling, the immature minister, leaves his post. The mature man, the real shepherd, lays down his life for the sheep. So hold fast to the bedrock of your calling, and never minimize being a minister of the gospel.
You know God had only one son, and he called him to the ministry. You have an honorable profession. You are living for the very sheep for whom Christ died, and the Holy Spirit, whose very God of very God, has signaled you out and ordained you to be an ambassador of the king of kings. Don’t let some few criticisms, some few disappointments make you relinquish hold of this great and awesome holding fast to the calling where God has called you.
Secondly, let us hold fast to our ministerial calling to prayer by considering that Christ is holding us fast in his intercessory petitions. We saw the latter part last night: he ever lives to make intercession for us. But what that means practically now for us in the warp and woof of our daily ministry, is that we are to hold fast in interceding for others. My wife and I try every night. We don’t always succeed, to our shame, but we take our church membership directory and we take one page. My wife knows the people very well.
She grew up in the church, so it’s a great boon for me. One night I pray for one page worth; the next night she prays for the next page, word family by family. Maybe just three sentences per family, family by family, according to their particular needs. I owe that to my people. One half of my calling is to be prayer. Why are there deacons in the church? So that we ministers could give ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word. But our problem today, wow, we’re so busy.
We’ve got so many things to do, so our prayer time shrinks. But that’s not the way the Puritans or the reformers saw it. They said, prayer is not an appendix to our work; prayer is our work. And because prayer is our work, the more I have to do, the more I have to pray. Martin Luther said to Philip Melanchthon one day, “Philip,” he said, “instead of my ordinary 2 hours of prayer tomorrow, I’ve got so much to do.”
He said I’ve got to devote an extra hour to prayer, so they had to pray their way through it. Now, again, I’m not suggesting the number of hours you need to pray. But what I am suggesting is that five minutes a day is not fulfilling our ministerial calling. You can’t lay the knees of your people and your own soul and your ministry and the missions around the world before the living God with wrestling and agony and taking hold of God. Five minutes a day. Brother, you are called to give yourself to prayer.
You are to be a man of prayer. How can you do it? By holding fast to Christ. Converse with God through Christ by the Spirit is the number one antidote that wards off every spiritual discouragement. There is nothing like prayer to give you courage to persevere in the ministry. Thomas Brooks, a puritan, put it this way: He said, there are many times when I came to God in prayer that I was cold and hard, but as I was praying, I was warmed.
And as I became warm by the time I said amen, he was kissing me with the kisses of his mouth. And when I said amen, all my problems were still there. But I had an entirely different attitude to them, an attitude of submission, an attitude of perseverance, an attitude of going on in the strength of the Lord our God, making mention of his righteousness, even of his only in Jesus Christ. So I pray, and I pray through my praying high priest who prays for me. You see, there’s a beautiful thing about prayer.
It begins from all eternity in God’s ordained decree in the heart of the Father. It is merited by the Son, and then it is groaned out within my soul, groanings that are unutterable by the Spirit and sent back up to the Son, who salts it with the salt of his sufferings. And he presents it back to the father, acceptable for the merits of his blood. So prayer is this golden chain, the Puritan said.
It originates in the heart of the Father and runs through the heart of the believer and the servant of God and ends up back in the heart of the Father. And the father receives back the prayer that he decrees with the same joy that an earthly father receives a gift from a child. You see, I give money to my wife, who gives money to my child to go out and give me a birthday present.
And when I get that birthday present from my child, I receive it with the greatest of joy that my child went on and got that birthday present. But I gave the resources. That makes no difference. I love it. I love receiving from my child. Meanwhile, God loves hearing the cries of his servants. His ear, the ear of the great high priest in heaven, is tuned to the faintest, most desperate, agonizing whisper and lisping of the most discouraged servant of God on the face of this earth. He will hear the cry of the needy.
Keep praying, brother, keep praying. He will not let you go. There is a sweetness in prayer that we can never measure. When I was nine years old, my dad set me down on his bed, and he often had many stains, especially since he died, that I remembered. But this is one of them. The first time he said it to me, I was nine years old, and he actually put his hand on my shoulder and he said, son, remember, there’s a difference between a child of God and an unconverted person.
A child of God always has a place to go. Don’t ever forget that. And you’ve got double reason to go to the throne of grace, because it’s your calling as a minister, but it’s also your privilege as a believer. Make use of it. There’s nothing so valuable as the open throne of grace, nothing so precious as the name of God. Oh, hold fast your profession by holding fast to prayer. You know that good Baptist story of Spurgeon, had his bricklayer in front of his house. He was swearing and cursing, using God’s name in vain.
Spurgeon, of course, dealt with people often in uncharacteristic ways, and he said to him, “I forget the amount. Something like 50 pounds. I’ll give you 50 pounds if you never use the name of God again in your life.” Man said, “Oh, that’s great.” Pockets the money. But that evening, he became impatient with his daughter and struck her, and she became very sick. And he wanted to pray, but he couldn’t pray, so I can’t use that name of God. A couple days later, he took the money, threw it at Spurgeon’s feet.
He said you can have your 50 pounds back. I’ve got to use the name of God. Friends, the name of God is worth more than a million dollars every single day. Let us therefore come boldly. Boldly means freely, unreservedly pouring out our souls to the throne of grace. Grace. Defying grace to health and mercy in time of need. You see, when our prayer life is boarded shut, everything is closed. It’s like the great Zurich Cathedral in Switzerland.
I was so excited the first time because I have my doctorate in reformation studies, and I love Zwingli and the reformers, and I like to go to their sites in Europe. I was so excited to go to Zwingli’s church. See this great cathedral? I go all the way there, all the way from America, closed for repairs. All this scaffolding, everything shut down. So I had an opportunity four years later going by in the vicinity. I said, well, now I get to go. Still closed, right? Still closed. And you see, that’s in prayer life.
We can talk about it, we can preach it, but it’s got to change. And the only way it can change is if we live out of our praying. High priest Thomas Brooks said, a family without prayer is like a house without a roof, open and exposed to all the storms of heaven. And I would say a pastor who doesn’t truly pray in his prayers is like a church without a roof, open and exposed to all the storms of heaven, earth, and hell. Give yourself to prayer.
Thirdly, let us hold fast to our ministerial call to sanctification in the midst of discouragements, by considering that Christ suffered in order both to be sanctified and to sanctify his servants.
Hebrews 2:9-11:
9 But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone. 10 For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. 11 For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren, (Hebrews 2:9-11, NKJV)
Brethren, do you hear that your savior makes you one with him, that you may suffer with him, and through suffering with him, clinging to him in those sufferings, you may be sanctified with him; you may be made a partaker of his holiness. Hebrews 12 says, by suffering in and with and for the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s the whole gist of the theology of affliction, the theology of suffering in Hebrews 12. So consider just a few things. Consider the afflictions of Christ.
If he suffered so much as we heard in that first talk, and he did it innocently, not as a sinner, if he suffered so much on behalf of his people, ought not I be willing to suffer, I who am always at least partly guilty, to follow in his footsteps? And if he faced all points that I am ever tempted with, is he not the breaker that goes before me in every affliction I suffer? He has borne that there is no temptation.
Brother, no matter what is happening in your ministry or in your personal life, no temptation has taken you but such as is common to man.
13 No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. (1 Corinthians 10:13, ESV)
God will bring you through as you cling to Him who clings to you. There’s one text in the Bible that has meant more to me than any other for years in which I encountered affliction.
I think I said that text probably 20 or 50 times a day, over and over again, 365 days a year. Every day I would bring it to the Lord. That’s Proverbs 23:18.
18 Surely there is a future, and your hope will not be cut off. (Proverbs 23:18, ESV)
You see what’s really the heartbeat of affliction. The heartbeat of affliction is we don’t know when the affliction will end. If you knew that two weeks from now your afflictions would be over, you’d say, I could bear it for two more weeks. But you don’t know the end.
But God knows the end, and God promises there is an end, if not in this life, in the life to come. And this life is only a ten-day trial. So plead his promise. Take some promise like that. They’re surely coming in by expectations, are they not? Be cut off and lay that before God and cling to his promises. In Christ, he was sanctified. He persevered to the end. Jesus, having loved his own, loved him to the end. Do you ever think of what a wonderful verse that is?
He loved unlovable you, and he loved unlovable me to the end, through Gethsemane and through Gabbatha and through Golgotha and through. Through six long hours of blood and sorrow and agony, he didn’t short circuit the process, even when they said, if thou be the Christ, come down from the cross, and he could have come down in a moment and killed them all, but he said, no, I’m going to persevere to the end for that minister and for that child of God, for every one of my people.
I’m going to persevere to the end for you, brother. For you, sister. Will you not then persevere for me to the end? To enter into glory with me, to be with me where I am, and then to consider how Jesus sanctifies you in all kinds of ways through your afflictions. Where would you be without affliction in the ministry? You would be a spoiled bride, and so would I. But through affliction, God matures us. Through affliction, we learn lessons we can never learn in prosperity. John Bunyan said it this way: God’s servants are like bells.
The harder they are hit, the better they sound. Is that mean? Is that mean of God to do? No, because this is not the end all and the be all this life; we’re just renters here. God’s preparing us, also us ministers, for glory. So, this is just our training ground. So, God treats us like bells. In his mercy, he hits us broadside, unexpected, to form and to mold us, to wean us from this world. The Puritans taught that that’s one great reason God afflicts his people: to wean them from the world.
Thomas Watson said God wants the world like a loose tooth hanging in our mouths, which easily being twitched away doth not much bother us. But you see, when we put our tent stakes in too deeply into this earth’s soil, it’s the mercy of God when he yanks them loose through affliction. Otherwise, we settle here. We become secular and world centered rather than God centered. And God says in his word, Hosea 5, that when they are afflicted, they will seek me early. Isn’t that true? In our own personal lives as well as the ministry?
When we are afflicted, are we closer or further from the Lord or closer? Almost inevitably. And whatever brings us closer to the Lord is worth the price. You heard of that story of that little seven-year-old girl last century who was dying? She was a child of God. Her dad was an unbeliever. And her dad said, my dear girl, wouldn’t you like to stay with us a while? She said, no, daddy, I want to go. And he said, but why do you want to die?
Well, daddy, she said, do you want to know the truth? He said, yes. She said, I noticed, daddy, that ever since I’ve been sick, you’ve been starting to pray, and you’ve been reading your Bible. And daddy, whatever it takes to get you closer to the Lord, even if it means my death, is worth the price. Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings, thou hast ordained strength. You see, whatever God takes, whatever God uses to bring you close to him, is worth the price.
And then God says in Deuteronomy 8, I will afflict you to humble you. As ministers, we need constant humbling. God says in Zephaniah 1:12, I will afflict you to teach you what sin is. When do we learn what sin is? Usually, we learn most about it during affliction. You see, affliction vacuums away the fuel that feeds our pride so that we learn more under the rod that strikes us than the staff that comforts us. One Puritan put it this way.
Affliction rubs the rust off of our locked hearts and opens the gates of our soul afresh to our king’s presence chamber. Robert Leighton said affliction is like the diamond dust with which God polishes his jewels. Let us not be so afraid of affliction. Let us see it as a whole part of the process of our sanctification, whereby God answers us to fill us with himself. Spurgeon has put it this way: He said, prepare yourselves, my brethren, to become weaker and weaker. Prepare yourselves for sinking lower and lower in self-esteem.
Prepare yourselves for self-annihilation, and pray God to expedite the process. Amazing. How often have you prayed that way? This is great grace. This is a mature minister praying, isn’t it? How did Spurgeon learn that? He learned that through the constant affliction of gout. The pain of gout and the pain of disappointment in the ministry that drove him to the Lord made him weaker and weaker, not a weakness he experienced. Thou hast made thy strength perfect in my weakness. What are the best sermons you ever preached?
I wager a guess that they were usually when you felt neediest, the weakest, and the most dependent upon God. You see, we hold fast to our sanctification when Christ holds us fast by his, and we become one with him in sanctification, in holiness. Finally, let us hold fast by persevering in our father’s business, knowing that Christ’s perseverance extends not only to his sufferings but also to his holiness, fast at the right hand of his father. Brothers, through the perseverance of Christ, we shall persevere.
Whatever you’re going through, remember, times may be discouraging, but they’ve been discouraging before. And discouraging times have often been followed by times of revival. God is not done with his church, and he’s not done with you as his servant. He has more to teach you, and he has more to teach his people. You see, when we predict the church’s ruin, God is preparing for the church’s renewal. The church will survive the world and be in bliss when the ungodly will be in ruins. So gird up the loins of your mind and stand fast.
Hold fast to a persevering savior, whoever lives to make intercession for you, and live out of that blessed redeemer. your Lord is greater both than Apollyon and then your discouraging times. You have a great high priest; he’s pierced the heavens. He sat down at the right hand of God. The church is already objectively, organically in his loins. It is finished. God is but bringing you, training you, molding you to the finishing time when you may actually enter in and enjoy the church triumphant forever.
How many people in church history have predicted the end of ministers and the end of churches and the end of Christianity and haven’t realized that Christianity is the only institution on the face of the earth that has existed for 2000 years? The church, every secular company has come and gone. Every world power has come and gone. But Jesus said to a handful of motley disciples, “On this rock, the confession of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against them.”
18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (Matthew 16:18, ESV)
And it’s still true today.
Persevere, because He will hold you fast in your perseverance. John Fabel said, bury not the church before she be dead. Did you know that one of Doctor Peter Masters’ predecessors at Spurgeon’s Metropolitan Tabernacle accepted a call in the early 1970s to come to meet twenty people with the goal of giving a smooth transition to let the church die?
And out of those 20 people, God built up a Sunday school program and through neighborhood evangelism, and revived the church of today, the 700 worshipful people that gather every Sunday morning, Sunday evening. God can move his candlestick from one place to another, but God has not done with his church. Endure hardness, therefore, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. John Trapp, the puritan, put it this way: He that rides to be crowned ought not fear a few rainy days. That’s my advice to you in the ministry. Expect some rainy days.
In Dutch, we have an expression: Whoever stands in the front will get kicked in the rear. How can you be a leader in the ministry and guide people coming from all directions and not expect opposition? It’s impossible. You can’t be a servant of Christ and not partake of a servant’s suffering. But persevere. your reward is before you. And one day you will hear the master say, well done. Oh, to hear that good and faithful servant. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. What music that will be. Oh, may God keep us.
May he preserve us. May our lives speak even louder than our sermons, and may our lives be at the core of our ministry. O, persevere, persevere. Looking unto your master, heed what the poets said: Light after darkness, gain after loss, strength after weakness, crown after cross, sweet after bitter, hope after fears, home after wandering, praise after tears, sheaves after sowing, sun after rain, sight after mystery, peace after pain, joy after sorrow, calm after blast, rest after weariness, sweet rest at last. Don’t give up. Winston Churchill was asked to give a commencement address.
It’s the most famous address he ever gave. He was asked to speak for 25 minutes, and he spoke only five words. He stood up, said five words, and sat down. And those words were never, never, never give up. We can say never, never, never give up. In Christ, you have the best of generals in that fight. Jesus Christ, you have the best of advocates, the Holy Spirit. You have the best of assurances, the promises of God. You are the best of promised results. All things shall work together for good to those that love God.
28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. (Romans 8:28, NKJV)
So take heart, brother. Take heart. The Jesus who never failed you in yesterday’s afflictions is still present to give you today’s strength. And like waves that are cut down to melodious whimpers that shore’s reality, He will break down all your waves of tomorrow’s impossibilities as they break in upon the beachheads of your life. So wait on him. He will not let you down. He is the same. Yet hold fast your profession by holding fast to Christ. Hold fast to your calling, to prayers, to sanctification, to perseverance in Christ, because he is holding fast to you.
Amen.
Free eBook by Tim Keller: ‘The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness’
Imagine a life where you don’t feel inadequate, easily offended, desperate to prove yourself, or endlessly preoccupied with how you look to others. Imagine relishing, not resenting, the success of others. Living this way isn’t far-fetched. It’s actually guaranteed to believers, as they learn to receive God’s approval, rather than striving to earn it.
In Tim Keller’s short ebook, The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness: The Path To True Christian Joy, he explains how to overcome the toxic tendencies of our age一not by diluting biblical truth or denying our differences一but by rooting our identity in Christ.
TGC is offering this Keller resource for free, so you can discover the “blessed rest” that only self-forgetfulness brings.
