Spiritual Life of the Leader - Lesson 15

Dr. Stephen Martyn
Spiritual Life of a Leader
sf502-15
Crisis is an Opportunity For Spiritual Growth (Part 1/2)
Lesson Transcript

[00:00:00] Okay. Welcome back. And let's let's take a look now at why in the world with people like and talk in terms of, oh, blessed crises, you know, that's so countercultural to anything we've ever thought of. Blessed crisis. Give me a break. We don't see anything blessed about a crisis. You know, you can look at. And I think it would be very good for us to look at biblical illustrations of crisis. And what I what I'd like to do is, is start out in the Old Testament, go to the Psalms, if if you wouldn't mind, and go to what's called a messianic psalm. And that is talking about our Lord and what he went through. But go to some 16. Psalm 16 is one of the great songs in it. It begins with this word Protect Me, O God. For In You I take refuge. Now you start unpacking this word. Protect me. It's just going to open up a whole world of meaning. Your translations could start out. Preserve me. Oh, God, I don't. So as that's what. Okay, So, yeah, could be preserve me. Oh, God. Well, what if you're preserving something? You're holding it together. You're keeping it from. From just flying apart, literally. Think about in Colossians 117, where Paul was writing in him, all things hold together. So if you back up from this Psalm 16, part of what's happening here is there is a major crisis unfolding in the song Masslive, which was, of course, I think prefiguring in some way what was what Jesus went through. Just think about Maundy Thursday, the the night of the Last Supper, and Jesus is in the garden praying and and the stress of his life was so great that the minor capillaries ruptured in his body and great sweat drops of blood come out.

[00:02:53] I mean, there is some fairly serious stress when the minor capillaries rupture and blood oozes out because of stress. So David saying, hold me together, Lord, live life threatens to tear me apart. So is that not a good place to begin in terms of understanding crises will put it in plural, because most of us not only have a crisis which is singular, but we will have crises, plural. And we're fairly assured that for those in ministry, you are truly blessed with quite a number of crises. Teresa of Avila was pondering about all of this stuff and all of the hardships she had to go through as a leader. And she, Teresa of Avila, I think, is kind of seeing a kindred spirit with Martha. But anyway, Teresa of Avila is complaining to God, to God, since you treat your beloved like this, it's no wonder you have so few friends. So. So we we love that kind of frank and forthright thought. So crises, crises threaten to tear us apart. They are real. Now, sometimes I think actually I should qualify that by saying there are many imagined crises where we allow our own insecurities to run uncontrollably and our own fears and was not a real crisis at all. But let's let's look at what are real crises and. Gives some definition to them. So think about in your own life. Think about a recent crisis. And so you'll be able to put it in the category here. And I'm assured I'm not going to be able to get all of the categories. But let's talk about the types of crises that are called forced detachment crises. Now, what in the world is a forced detachment crises? Well, it's something like this when death comes along and there is not a thing you can do about it.

[00:06:06] So that's the worst of four detachment crises. So someone dies. There is death, which really points out the the greater issue of finitude, meaning that I am a finite creature, at least in this phase of our lives in Christ, we have beginning and we will have an ending. Now we affirm in Christ that the ending is just the beginning. That's when the when the great eternal story truly begins to unfold. We find ourselves with physical limits. Now, what I mean by physical limits? I know that I have for decades. I mean, for decades I would I would jog, run, sometimes jog, jogged. Who knows how many thousands of miles. But I got to a point in my life where to keep on jogging would mean I'd have to do knee replacement. And I just made the decision. No, I just had to stop jogging. I can walk and thank you, Jesus, that I can still walk. So we're going to walk. And but that's a physical limitation that set in. Then there's all sorts of relational. Conflicts and meltdowns. I mean, let's just shorten his relational meltdowns. Right now in the United States, there's a television commercial where a young woman is throwing all the stuff of her either husband or boyfriend. Who knows it's not a Christian commercial. Throw them out the window and they're crashing on the concrete below. Well, it would be safe to say that was a relational meltdown. So these things are very real and they're very real in the church, too. I know that one of the things that that was a deep, deep pain into my life is when I would serve people and love people and be gracious to them, in fact, and in some instances and actually be sacrificial in my service to them.

[00:08:48] And then they just leave. They just walk away and leave that that local fellowship where you feel that you feel at any time where you've been in a loving friendship, ministry, relationship with someone working relationship, and then it just goes it just flies apart. It's it's it's gone. You see these types of detachment crises when you're having to deal with addictions. You see it in the midst of disasters. I've been in India behind a major typhoon, right behind a typhoon and seen devastation such as I've never even imagined could take place. And of course, when these natural disasters roll in, people's lives are completely disrupted. You see it in all sorts of family trauma. Certainly you see it when there is a political breakdown and you see it in the midst of wars and fighting. Goodness gracious. So any time there is any time of political unrest or even political meltdown, where there's there's a disruption, it just simply goes through an entire nation right now. And our globe is in the midst, even as this session is is is being filmed. A lot of political dynamics shifting and not for the best for for Christians at all. Not for not for the best at all. So political unrest. National and international conflicts. Literally, we see what I would call today societal. Undoing or meltdowns. We wonder about the foundations Shaky. What do we do? Oh, Lord, when the foundations shake. And what do we hear in reply? The Lord laughs. The Lord laughs. Now, these are forced. These are things that one individual really. You either flow with these things or you get rolled by them and we'll we'll talk about that. Now, there are also transcendent crises or transcendence now. Now, please understand my language here.

[00:12:13] My language is a crisis of of yearning for the more than in life. Now, did not the Lord create us with that yearning and hunger against and cried out Our hearts are restless. So Lord in his books, in his autobiography, Confessions. Our hearts are restless. What? Until they rest in you. So there's this transcendent longing, a deep longing. For the more than. And this longing will will work itself out actually through most of our lives. So we're longing over issues of who am I? Hal For us as Christians, where we're longing, you know, where do I fit in? Where am I called to? Where do I serve? Who do I serve with? These are transcendent issues for us. Ultimately, you know, in a crisis, we're going to come down in this transcendent business and we're going to we're going to ask some fairly serious questions When crisis hit, is life meaningful? It's a huge issue. And the deeper one underneath it, the truly deeper one underneath it is this is. God. Good. And of course, the inference there is, can I trust my life to the goodness of God? Can I abandon my life to God or have I been abandoned by God? That's what these crises are bringing up. All of these things, whether it's a forced attachment or a transcendent crisis. Now, I also think this keep rolling it. I think just from covering the the deadly sins that we've been covering. I mean, if you were to boil all of this down to a single phrase, any of those deadly sins are going to lead to what of what I think we could call an idolatry crisis. So what's in idolatry? What's in idolatry crisis? Well, you just run after any passion, namely the deadly sins, any of those deadly sins or any any sin listed in the word.

[00:15:29] And what we're doing is we're bowing down before something other than the Lord God. And he loves us enough, Remember, He loves us enough to bring about what Augustine called to intervene with this severe mercy. All right. Now, there are also I think there are ministry crises. You're you're a leader and you're out there on the front lines. And have any of you who are in Christian ministry now not been through some type of crisis? I mean, name it. Send me a send me a letter. And I would say if you do, send me a letter saying you hadn't been through a crisis yet, I would say, My dear son, my dear daughter, buckle thy seatbelt. Thy crisis is on its way. So there's all sorts of ministry issues. I mean, ministries all over the world are are stressed financially. How am I going to have the resources? So, you know, these things will really come down to resources. Resources. And then you can probably follow this out really quick. You already have what's the next great crisis in any kind of ministry? First, he starts with in our resource crises, relational crisis. You know, see how they love one another? Oh, wait a minute. See how they go for each other's throats at times. Just like fighting siblings. So resources and relational. Now, even beyond that, I do think there are also times when when the Lord simply allows ministries. They may have flowed forth and goodness for a while and seen a lot of blessings, but then they ebb and, you know, we rejoice when when the seashore brings in all sorts of good things on the beach. And we can be thankful for that. But, you know, some sometimes they ebb back.

[00:18:26] There's just a been in flowing in the United States right now. For instance, there are a number of locales where you see huge growth in terms of of of the gospel being effective and people regularly coming together, being in small groups, really finding their way in Christ, in committed community. And we rejoice in this. But also in the United States right now we see in a number of cities a huge retreat where you can go into geographic areas where I'm telling you, it's a rare thing to find a solid congregation. The same thing in Europe. In England, there are some amazing congregations in Europe and England. I've been in some of them. But all in all, Christianity is not moving forward so much, at least numerically in Europe and in and in Asia right now. So there are times and it takes a great deal of discernment to figure out where we are, but simply a time when ministry ebbs and we're wondering, okay, Lord, what are you doing? Because, you know, we've got equations. Equations mean I'm faithful equals things grow. Well, that's a little bit tricky because life, the life of the gospel always brings growth in Christ. However, it's back to that dashboard issue that we talked about earlier in this teaching, and that is what dashboards in my use. What are the metrics? What are the statistics here? I'm faithful. Listen, sometimes fidelity to the gospel may mean that the actual number of people you're dealing with will decrease. There was a time, for instance, in Jesus ministry, you know, he looks around at his disciples after the hard teachings, and he said, Well, we'll you guys to leave me. So we've got to be really, really, really careful with our equations for success.

[00:21:13] Anyway, You won't be in any kind of ministry long way where there won't be a major crisis. I served in a beautiful location in Albuquerque. My wife and I served together in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and a wonderful church, St Stephen's church. And I walked in one morning, early one morning into that beautiful church up in the northeast heights of New Mexico. And the city sewer system backed up into that beautiful, beautiful church. Now, friends does have to be careful on tape what one says here at this point. But it was not a pretty picture at all. And talk about a crisis. Any time you have to have a hazmat crew come in in suits, too, and start stripping out all the furniture, all the wallboard. Oh, my heavens. There will be crises that you'll have to go through in ministry. They'll be forced. They will. They'll come through our own longing for the more than they'll come if I enter into idolatry. The Lord loves me too much. They'll come through ministry. Now, guess what? You know, all this time I've kind of been. My influence has been. Well, these would be the type of crises that we as leaders will go through. Well, gosh, that's just the small part of what's the deal with ministry. You're dealing with a whole flock of sheep and they're going through all of these. So it's like you've got your crises that the Lord allows to unfold in our lives. But now multiply that times. So how many people are you shepherding at this point? And then that you get to you get to you get a realization then of the huge load that he and he kind of pastor carries. Listen, on a normal day in pastoral ministry and this would be so important for you elder boards listening to this for any kind of supervisory board, listening to this on a normal day in pastoral ministry, it's not uncommon for four, five, six different people.

[00:23:58] Not uncommon at all to come in with devastating issues in their lives. I mean, devastating crises. And my heavens, they're seeking God's Word through the man of God, through the woman of God. And I'm telling you, that's why the Lord places the woman of God in the man of God there. But no one can bear up under this type of load. Day in and day out, week in and week out. Year in and year out. It will collapse the best of human beings. Only Christ himself had the capacity to take all of that and absorb it on the cross where it was. Now only Christ has it. We are under shepherds, we are under rowers. We're rolling down on the bottom of the deck. You know, we're we're we're servants in that way. But we don't have we don't have that. You know, I remember being profoundly fatigued in ministry. Now, pastors, I need you all to pay real close attention here. You talk about a major red flag when you get that profound fatigue stuff going. Then what happens is you see people come in with problems and you just want to run the other way. It's like, I can't handle somebody else's issue here. You know, it's just too much. Now, all of that, of course, in the pastor's life points to the major need for rhythms, healthy rhythms of life, including daily Sabbath. What I mean by daily Sabbath, you've got to pull away daily to get refreshed. Daily to be with our Lord, daily to to have appropriate rest, exercise, nutrition, weekly, Sabbath. If God said he works in, if he worked six days and then took the the seventh off, then who am I to supersede the Lord God? No way.

[00:26:28] So I'm taking we're called to take that Sabbath. There needs to be regular regular built in times away so that so that as a leader you can get perspective, so you can have batteries recharged, then most certainly vacations. In working with pastors, one of the things I do is say, and you gave your cell phone number to every member of your church while you're going on vacation. Are you crazy? Can you not trust the Lord God to cover you while you are gone? So no pastors, look, when you're gone, you're gone. You don't want your little kids coming back like my little kids did. So, yeah, every time we go on a vacation, Dad had to end up doing this first or that. Thank God. You know, a lot of my ministry was before any of us had a cell phone, and you couldn't be omni available. But what I need you all to hear on the availability. Is not healthy. And I need those of you who are congregants who are listening to this, to church members, say, you want your pastor omni available. Are you kidding? The Lord God Almighty is omni available to you, not your pastor. Get get a grip here. Be realistic. So omni availability is a sign of sickness. And don't ask a pastor to to give his cell phone number out whenever he or she's on vacation. Know that that's not going to. That's not going to work. And in real world pastors, you need to you need to hang that phone up sometimes on the availability. You lay it down. You turn it off. You let Lazarus die. Sometimes I know that can sound cruel. Now, pastors, you will get in a crisis if you do not understand the true nature of crisis.

[00:28:47] Now, of course, when a parishioner has a genuine crisis and you're there, then you need to be responsive to that. But the truth of the matter is, genuine crises that need our immediate response are not quite as common. This is as what we would like. Yes, I know. I'm sounding like I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth here. These are real. These happen. These these do need to be addressed. So one of the issues here to avoid a huge crisis is that I encourage pastors to have times of study on a daily basis where you do not answer the phone. You ask your congregation, you tell them, say, look, I really for me to be God's representative for you, I've got to have times away way. I've got to have Times Square where I can truly be in the study of God's word. Now, if it's a true emergency, I'll lay that down. But if not, can you wait? Here's the deal. Here's what I say. Ask your congregation. Congregation. If you give me the morning's. I'll give you the I'll give you the rest of the time we need. If you give me the mornings, I'll give you the rest of the time. Now, at the same time that I say that, I also need to say any pastor who's out six and seven nights a week is going to end up in one of these major crises, you know, six and seven nights a week. Are you kidding me? So, you know, there's a lot of issues here we've got to address. Don't make your pastor be at every committee meeting. That's not good stewardship of the woman of God or the man of God. The people of God can run committees.

[00:30:53] That's another reason why I love Eugene Peterson's work. He turned a lot of the stewardship, a lot of the management of congregation over to the people of God. You got to figure out a vocation. Otherwise, what is true? What's my big rock here? Otherwise, you're going to end up in one of these in one of these messes. Now it's personal. Just a little bit longer before we before we take a break. So Psalm 16, it feels like it's going to tear us apart. Now, I think there's a there's a word here and it's it's it's a word I love and it's a word I owe to Susan Muto. And it's is it's the word crucifying epiphany, crucified epiphany. Now what in the world am I talking about with a crucifying epiphany? Well, let's define terms. Crucifying. Something. What? Something. Die. Something dies. Epiphany. Epiphany. What is epiphany? Well, it's a biblical term. It's a New Testament term. You can look it up in the song of Zachariah. Epiphany is the light of God. Is the light of Christ. It's the showing of Christ that is made known in the dawning of the day. The epiphany is the goodness of God that comes to us. So I would you to get a hold of these. It seems like, well, how can something die and then goodness come from it? Well, that's kind of going to be the whole point of these crises. You hear what I'm saying? Normally, when these things unfold, the Lord is seeking to bring about a purification in our own lives, something we're holding on to. Now, let's qualify first, let's let's be let's make a qualification. Any pastor who's through long enough has had to go out in major work with major tragedies.

[00:33:35] So in the first congregation I served, I had a precious, precious little elementary girl who absolutely was an adorable child, would always give me a hug and and blessed me and blessed everyone around her. One night I get a frantic call around 10:00 at night. And of all things. That little child who lived out in the country had run across to a firecracker, stand run across a highway. And then on her way back, running back, she did not see a car. She was hit and killed, broke our hearts. And there I go out into the country, there's this child laying on the highway covered in a sheet, and there's her mother down there by her. Now, at that point, a pastor says nothing. All I could do was help gather the mother and with other people, walk with her up the hill to her house. So I am not from a theological tradition that would say that that that type of death was the perfect will of God. Nor am I from a theological tradition, nor do I believe that's a part of classic classical, historic Christianity that would say that God was punishing that family. This child was this child was a blessed, sweet little girl who loved Jesus. So it was a tragedy. And God took her home. I mean, God God allowed the accident happened, but was God the cause of it? Absolutely not. I do not believe God is the cause of evil. So in this kind of in this kind of a thing, the child is what died. And it's going to take a long, long time to see the light of Christ come even in that setting, even in that situation. And all I can do at that point is to walk with the family, reflecting to them the firm confidence that in the Kingdom all will be well and that child's life was not lost and they will be reunited and it will be soon.

[00:36:23] With most of these things, though, that are forced detach or with many of these things that are forced attachment crises, particularly the ones that are brought on by myself, where I had some kind of action in it or some kind of involvement in it. Then the crisis itself, we'll have directives coming out of it, major, major directives so that it can turn into a crucifying epiphany. Now, what I mean by directives, directives are how the. Holy Spirit is actually involved in this thing, trying to redeem, trying to restore, trying to bring repentance, trying to get people back in alignment with his will directly. So what would be the directive? Well, one thing is idolatry. Has to die. That's the directive. If I have gotten myself into the crisis, if I've contributed to it through sinful activity in my own life, then it's got to die. So you can run out their whole stream of things so that to the light of Christ then can replace idolatry with what we want the US to be on. We talked about the true worship. We want worship of God to be what leads and directs our lives as we are grounded then and bought back in to a complete reliance on the living word and the love of the written word to where it's becoming who we are. Now, if there is a if there is a force detachment crisis where, hey, my, my idolatry didn't have anything to do with this at all, like an act of war or any kind of physical, finite, limited limits or a natural disaster, then there's still directives coming out of this. And the directives are you've got to have discernment and ask, okay, Lord, what are you doing here? What? What? What's happening? Are you showing me, for instance, that my physical possessions.

[00:39:19] Are not ultimate. Are not ultimate. In other words, if I've lost. House, home, clothing, all of that. I mean, there's real grief in that, but. But am I going to take any of those things to heaven anyway? So are you showing me things that I have been taught? Here's the word inordinate attachment in order, not attachment or attachment. Have I been holding on to anything too tightly? My own status in a local church, for instance. So you get down here in these ministry crises and the thing starts to ebb. And lo and behold, I start thinking poorly of myself, and I start making equations. Well, if I was a good leader, this wouldn't happen. So these inordinate attachments say I am pudding and I can either be putting kind of ultimate meaning in people, events or things. You see what I mean? See what I'm saying? An inordinate attachment is putting too much meaning. In other words, I define myself by what I drive or I define myself by the clothes I wear. Lord, God save us from that kind of nonsense, or I define myself by the size of ministry that I lead. And if I'm inordinately attached to these kinds of things, if I'm inordinately attached to the position I hold. Well, for heaven's sakes, what's going to happen when when those positions change or when. When the whole sort of forces beyond what I can control sociological movements, you know, change all of those dynamics. Does that mean I'm less a diminished person? So the crisis is saying, wake up, wake up. I am not defined by the size of my congregation or my ministry. Now, for for for you listening, I want to repeat that again, because the culture, both secular culture and many Christian cultures will tell you the exact opposite.

[00:42:06] Let's say again, I am not defined by the size of the ministry I lead. Does that mean God's against large ministry dealing with thousands of people? Heavens no. God loves people. But not everyone's going to be in that kind of a ministry. And besides, as we've talked about before, a large ministry has great pitfalls in it for the leader. I'm not defined by the programs. I'm not defined by numbers. So any kind of a crisis that comes in, says Ora Jesus, once again, you're reminding me my ultimate value is found in what you have done for me on the cross, in who the father says I am as one made in his image and in your image. Paul talked about the image of Christ within us, and my ultimate meaning is the fact that I am a part of your body. Jesus, Literally, you're the head. I'm literally a part of it in me. When you look at the end, what's coming at the end? Whew! It's a big wedding and the whole church gets placed in the feminine side. We are the what? The bride? Yeah. And the bride is meant to be presented and will be presented. How? Pure and spontaneous to the bride. Groom. Now, listen. That's the ultimate value. And nothing can strip that away from us. And so God allows these crucified epiphanies in our lives sometimes that we think with Psalm 16 one is just going to destroy us. There's going to be no value in life. There's going to be no meaning. I mean, why go on after that? Crucifying the epiphany. What does a crucifying epiphany ask for? What does a crucified epiphany call forth? Well, actually, I think at this point. I need to have you take a break so that you can start processing this issue about Christ.

[00:44:48] Is that how you you've looked at him in the past, how you've hated him, how you tried to run away from him, how you've tried to insulate yourself from them, how you fought against them. How did how did you handle the last crisis? And some of you really actually are possibly young enough to where you haven't gone through a major life crisis. And by no means do I want to scare you off from the faith. God doesn't take everybody through a terrible, awful wringer. You know that. That doesn't have to happen at all. But there will be crises. That's to be a human being, is to enter into crises and to be in the body of Christ is to, uh, to carry some of that same suffering that Christ himself carried. So as you break process out with your group process, what? What's this? What have I looked at this and what is this business of crucifying epiphany and how is it speaking into my life? Now be courageous here. Don't back off of of looking into these types of issues. May the Lord bless you as you contemplate it means you move in union with Christ and try and get the mind of Christ. What Paul said is the mind of Christ about these things. A man.