Some of you know that I’m writing a series of posts on the pastor’s joy challenge.
As surprising as it is to many good people, it’s actually very challenging for many solo or senior pastors to be consistently – or even mostly – joyful.
You might call this a “dirty little secret” of pastoral life. The secret gets “outed” at the pastor’s dinner table and at the restaurant table – the one over in the corner – where the pastor meets with a few of his pastor buddies.
Here’s what I’ve already written. In part one (click here) I wrote about why the pastor’s joy is important. In part two (click here) I listed 14 reasons why joy is a challenge for many pastors.
I’m hoping I didn’t lead anyone from mild discouragement to clinical depression with that second post.
Today I have the happy task of beginning to share solutions.
As someone who has been clawing away at this for a long time, slowly crawling uphill toward joy, I think I have some helpful things to share.
And I’m so happy to share this material, because I long to see every pastor deeply, quietly (in the case of introverts), profoundly, impactfully, joyful.
So we’ll begin at the beginning. Over the next few weeks I’ll have much more to say about pastoral joy (I have a list of 14 suggestions at the moment), but the place to start is to:
- Work at getting good at rejoicing in the Lord.
I’ve chosen my words carefully. I didn’t say “master the art of rejoicing in the Lord,” or even “get good at the practice of rejoicing in the Lord,” I said work at getting good at it, because I don’t think any of us earth-bound mortals ever get this mastered.
Several decades ago, while struggling with my own pastoral joy, I became joyfully obsessed with figuring out what rejoicing in the Lord means.
The phrase is best known to us because of its use by the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Philippians (3:1 & 4:4) but it wasn’t new with Paul; it’s found all over the Bible including many times in Israel’s hymnbook, the Psalms.
After preaching about it, writing about it, and most importantly, working at it, for some time, here’s what I think it means to rejoice in the Lord:
- Rejoicing in the Lord means rejoicing, finding joy in, celebrating, who God is.
I just read this again this morning. Look at Psalm 149:1-3:
“Praise the LORD. Sing to the LORD a new song, his praise in the assembly of the saints. Let Israel rejoice in their maker; let the people of Zion be glad in their King. Let them praise his name with dancing and make music to him with the tambourine and harp.”
This isn’t beyond our understanding. When you’re a kid you break out in an ear-to-ear grin just thinking about the ice cream your family is going out for. When you’re a crazy-in-love teen or twenty-something you think about that gal – even while working at a miserable job – and it puts a smile back on your forlorn face. As a new parent, or the new owner of a new puppy, you remember that little one who’s just come into your life and you laugh out loud thinking about her.
To rejoice in the Lord, most fundamentally, is just to think about, pray about, sing about, talk about, write about or dance about God himself. You think/pray/sing/talk/write or dance about his power, his strength, his knowledge, his wisdom, his goodness, his grace, his mercy, his compassion and his infinite love and it brings joy to your heart.
And aren’t you glad that this is the LORD, with all “caps” in your Old Testament, meaning that we’re not talking about some generic, feckless “lordy, lordy, guess who’s forty” little god? This is Yahweh, the one and only, eternal, triune, all-powerful, saving God who makes and keeps covenants with sinful people.
This is rejoicing in the LORD in its most basic and accessible form. You can do this from anywhere, at any time, in any circumstances. It’s free and no one can stop you from doing it.
- Rejoicing in the Lord means rejoicing, finding joy in, celebrating, who God is to you.
Again, returning to the passage I came upon this morning:
“Praise the LORD. Sing to the LORD a new song, his praise in the assembly of the saints. Let Israel rejoice in their maker; let the people of Zion be glad in their King. Let them praise his name with dancing and make music to him with the tambourine and harp. For the LORD takes delight in his people; he crowns the humble with salvation. Let the saints rejoice in this honor and sing for joy on their beds.” Psalm 149:1-5 (emphasis mine)
After thinking/praying/singing/writing/talking or dancing about who God is, as a blood-bought, adopted, regenerated believer in Jesus Christ, you have the inestimable privilege of thinking/praying/singing/writing/talking or dancing about who he is to you. He’s your savior. He’s your father. He’s your best friend. He’s your teacher/trainer/coach who is transforming you through everything he allows to come your way. He has put you “into” Christ. He has put Christ into you. He will never leave you nor forsake you. He has given you the righteousness of Christ.
For a few years I was part of a Christian “tribe” in which we believed that as believers in Jesus we were loved, but we weren’t necessarily liked. God was going to bring us home to heaven, but he didn’t find any delight in us, for he mostly experienced a lot of disappointment in most of us most of the time. In our daily existence, we weren’t much happier than the pagan I described above, always looking over his shoulder for the heavy hand of a fickle god.
That was all so wrong and it’s so unfortunate that many are still “stuck” in such a mentality today, including many pastors. Brethren, we just read (Psalm 149:4) that the LORD takes delight in his people. Of course he doesn’t delight in our sins, but, just like you do with your beloved wife or children (or maybe even that puppy I mentioned), God takes delight in you. He smiles – and maybe even laughs – when he thinks about you.
- Rejoicing in the Lord means enjoying God’s presence.
I’m not naïve about how our temperaments and spiritual gifts affect our approaches to worshipping and fellowshipping with, the God who loves us.
And I’m not going to scold you for not being as “mystical” as I am. From the day I was regenerated, I’ve always hungrily sought the face of God in the Word of God. As a new Christian, A.W. Tozer’s “The Pursuit of God” had a profound influence on my life. Tozer’s recommended life of seeking God was not a form of mysticism divorced from the Scriptures, it was the cultivating of an ever-deeper relationship of love with the Triune God by way of the Scriptures.
After 54 years of feeding on it, the best part of my day is still sitting with a good coffee in a good chair with the good Book. I could sit there for a long time, schedule permitting. I concur with the Bible college president who used to say: “I don’t want to look into the face of man until I’ve looked into the face of God.” And if I can follow that time in the Word with a prayer-walk – preferably in a forest without too many insects – I’m just about in heaven on earth.
But I’m married to a servant/mercy shower/giver who loves our heavenly Father, but has never shared my contemplative, mystical bent. She would rather hear a good sermon and then go out and help somebody in a hands-on way, preferably, not in the woods.
I’d love to give you all my favorite verses – mostly, again, from the Psalms – about enjoying, feeding on, God’s presence1but I won’t.
Here’s my point. Rejoicing in the Lord certainly involves enjoying your private, precious, time alone with him like you would with any human you love. However you fellowship with him, however you seek his face and enjoy his presence, make it THE fountain of your joy which springs up into a life of ministry.
“My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.” Jeremiah 2:13
Seeking and finding God is vital to your joy. John Piper “nailed it” years ago when he claimed that “God is most glorified us in when we are most satisfied in him.”
- Finally, rejoicing in the Lord means rejoicing in every good thing he gives you.
This is simple, easy to do and easy to forget to do. If God gives you a good night’s sleep, rejoice in the Lord by thanking Him for it. If he gives you a good breakfast, rejoice in the Lord by thanking him for it. If he sends some long-awaited sunshine, rejoice in the Lord by thanking him for it. If he sends some long-awaited rain,2 rejoice in the Lord by thanking him for it.
At the risk of sounding like Pollyanna with her “glad game,” rejoicing in the Lord by rejoicing in every good thing he gives you, just plain works. It’s good for your soul.3
And your soul – especially if you are the pastor of a flock – needs all the help it can get.
……………………………….
If you’d like to dig deeper into any of this, let me know – churchwhisperer@gmail.com. We can talk and pray and I might be able to point you to some helpful resources.
1Consider Psalm 73:23-28, Psalm 42:2, Psalm 43:4, Psalm 84 and Philippians 3:8-11.
2The late, great Wisconsin historian, Jerry Apps, said that his farmer-father often said, “Never curse the rain, son.”
3This spirit seems to “bubble out” of the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Philippians. House arrest (or prison) is not preventing him from rejoicing in many good gifts of God.
