Feeling Cold and Discouraged? | Theocast

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Hi, this is John. Today on Theogask, Justin and I want to speak to all of us who struggle with discouragement, feeling cold and disconnected from Christ.

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We're going to look to the gospel, look to God's hope and his story and to some very special unique songs that bring encouragement to the weary saint.

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Stay tuned. We're excited to announce we have a brand new podcast available called the Kingsman podcast.

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It's where we are reclaiming biblical manhood by training and equipping men for the work of the kingdom. You can find it anywhere you download a podcast.

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You can also watch it on YouTube. We have new episodes that come out every Monday. Welcome to Theogask, encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ, conversations about the

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Christian life from a reformed confessional and pastoral perspective. Your hosts are

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Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina. I'm John Moffitt. I'm the pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee.

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If you're watching this on YouTube, yes, Justin and I, our eyes are watery, not because we just looked at onions.

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We just are so thankful for God's kindness and grace and just had a very sweet time of prayer before we started the podcast.

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I can't get my eyes from watering. Well, in conversation, man. It segues into our topic for today.

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It does. Man, a couple of announcements for you, and we're just going to get right into this. There's a lot going on with Theocast, and if you want to get involved, you can.

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There's a church finder, and that's growing. We are approaching, I think, 80 or 90 churches that are on there, and we've got a recommended book list that goes out every

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Wednesday. So, if you want to go sign up for that, it's at the bottom of our website. And then

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Justin and I are going to be speaking together. Now that I'm thinking about it, Justin, this will be our first speaking engagement together,

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I think. Together, yeah. Yeah, we've never done that. Yeah. So, the Grace Reformed Network, first, we're going to do a pre -conference on October 3rd and 4th, and that's going to be a

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Tuesday and Wednesday. And all day, we're going to be covering subjects like law, gospel, distinction, covenant theology, confessionalism, things like that.

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Saint -centered reality. Saint -centered reality. And then in the evening, Justin and I are going to have the opportunity to preach. So, everyone is welcome.

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And we're going to sing throughout. That's right. We've got some amazing music that we've selected for that.

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We only have 150 seats, and I didn't think we were going to fill it up, but I'm pretty sure it's going to get filled up.

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So, if you want to come, please register. And we mean for this to be a pretty intimate event. That's right. Yeah, that's right. And then you can continue to pray for us on day three, which is

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Thursday. We are going to be, Lord willing, starting and chartering the network of churches that are going to be like -minded for the sake of unification and also planting churches.

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And I would even say revitalizing churches as well. Yeah, exactly. Planning, revitalization, doctrinal and confessional accountability and support.

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All that good stuff. Amen. Well, Justin, today's topic is, I think it's relevant every week.

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And it's interesting how you and I have to come to conclusions of what we want to record. And today is one that is,

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I think, near and dear to my heart just because I have often felt my, whether it's a

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Thursday night elder meeting or a Wednesday morning time with you where you just feel discouraged.

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You feel dark. Brother, talk to us, man. Talk to us about why this is important and where we're going this morning.

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It's definitely a topic near and dear to my heart. I don't need to talk for a long time about the way that I'm wired, but there is an aspect of me in just the way the

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Lord has made me in my constitution. I'm definitely a feeler. And there's a lot of good in that, but there also are pitfalls in that.

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And the pitfalls are, there are times when you just aren't feeling it.

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And by it, I mean the things of God. You don't feel about Christ the way you want to feel about Christ.

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You don't feel about the Christian life the way that you want to feel about the Christian life. I'm a pastor.

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I'm in vocational ministry, for goodness sakes. And there are days when I wake up and I want nothing to do with anything that's on my calendar.

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It's busy. Life is full. And I'm thinking, man, I feel like I need a break and I don't see one coming.

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I mean, this is my normal experience in seasons of my life sometimes. And so this conversation is not just relevant for pastors.

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I know we're going to talk about pastors maybe for a small portion of today's pod, but I think that more

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Christians are out there than would care to admit this maybe. I think you said it.

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I said it in our pre -conversation that I think many Christians live here, where you're regularly crashing up against your own feelings and your own frame, and you lament how you feel.

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And you lament your frame. And you're aware of the fact that you're not feeling the way that you should.

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It's discouraging. You feel apathetic. Nothing's moving the needle here.

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I know one of our other elders here. He's on the staff with me.

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He and I talk regularly because he's kind of a feeler too in these ways. We talk often about this stuff, and we'll say things like this.

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Bro, here's a positive part. Brother, man, I am just feeling thankful for Jesus today.

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I am feeling the things of God today. I am feeling like the Word of God is just gripping my heart today, and I'm thankful.

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So we'll say that. That's a good thing. But then we will also acknowledge to one another, I'm just not feeling it, man.

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I'm not moved. I'm not affected. And then we remind each other, and this is where we're going to go.

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We remind each other, I'm trusting that Christ has me. I'm trusting

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Christ, not my feelings about Him today. That's right. I am trusting that the promises of God in Christ to me stand, in spite of the fact that I'm cold and lifeless.

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I quote this often, and then we'll just be off and running, and you and I can just have a personal, pastoral, open conversation that other people are going to listen in on.

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I quote this regularly in my local church context, and I know I've said it on this podcast before, but John Newton said, and John Newton, for those out there who may not be familiar with him, you might know the hymn

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Amazing Grace. You might know him even for what he wrote and how he was involved in even just abolition of slavery, different things.

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But you may or may not know that he was an

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Anglican minister and hymn writer. And he said, as a minister of the gospel, in private,

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I am cold and lifeless as usual, but yet he permits me to speak for him in public.

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And I have felt that so many times in the course of my pastoral ministry over the last eight years, that in my own personal life right now,

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I feel cold and lifeless. I lament how I don't feel it. I lament my frame. And yet the

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Lord permits me to speak for him in public, and it's amazing how he grips my heart and gives me unction when

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I open the book with the saints. And the Lord is faithful, and he uses broken vessels and draws straight lines with crooked sticks, and that's our confidence.

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And so the conversation that we're going to have today is about this, the fact that many of us, far more often than we would want, we feel cold and we feel discouraged.

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So what do we do? What do we have in those moments? Sometimes the way

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I describe it is I feel like a stranger in my own body. I don't feel like I belong in here. What I mean by that is that the way

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I feel is not the way I want to be, and I feel like I'm out of control of it. My spirit within me has hope, but my body doesn't.

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I know that there's something beyond the grave, but I just can't seem to make that the reality of my experience.

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So my hope is in Christ. My faith is in Christ, as weak as it might be, but my mind and my emotions feel like they're in the grave still.

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And it's hard, especially when you've got to care for your wife and care for your children, love on them, be there for them, be there for your brothers and sisters.

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And, you know, Justin, I think there's more unfortunate. It's kind of hard not to do this, but there's more lies told on Sunday than any other day because we show up and people are like, how are you doing?

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Oh, I'm great. And is it really the time to lament and say I'm not well?

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I did that to a congregant. I said, you know, I'm discouraged. They're looking at me like, you're about to preach.

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I'm like, yeah, I know. It's like, you know, one of the things

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I've learned to do in almost every introduction to our service and to my sermons is

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I told you this before we started. We take a sledgehammer up to there and any pedestal you think that elders and the pastors need to be on, we just shatter it.

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We get down onto the ground and say, all right, I breathe and eat and sleep like you, and I struggle with sin and frailty.

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I'm weak. I preach as a struggling sinner to struggling sinners, and you use we language in the pulpit, right?

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Like we. This is not a you. This is a we situation.

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This is a we and us kind of thing where I'm with you in the struggle, and I'm in need of forgiveness and mercy and grace and all of these things just as much as you are, and I am no different.

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Yeah, I may be gifted and set aside to preach God's Word, but I am not a super Christian. I feel the same things you do.

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I think it's good for pastors to talk like that. I think there's a difference too between struggling with sin and temptation.

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That's not necessarily what I think we're talking about today, and that's a real thing. It can be a piece of it, but it can't be a piece of it.

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The fight against temptation is exhausting, and it seems like you think, well,

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I should be. Sometimes here's the lie, Justin. It's kind of a different subject for a different day, but I'll throw it in here because it is slightly relevant.

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Sometimes we think that the weight of temptation can go away over time, but see, temptation is not something necessarily we're in control of.

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It's outside of ourselves, and at times that, because James says it's when you take the temptation and you turn it into a desire, that's when it's sin.

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This is why Paul says, how do you think you're going to stand up against the fiery darts of Satan, which is his temptation against you?

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He goes, you're going to have to stand in the strength of the Lord. I think that at times that can get exhausting, fighting the constant onslaught of temptation and lies and really just watching pain and suffering.

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If you just pay attention to people around you, there's so many people that are suffering and hurting.

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Just this week alone, the last two weeks, I've heard of four different people who have died in their 30s.

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It's just really, really painful to hear about. Justin, one of the things that I think it would be healthy for us to talk about is that Christians need to be better at acknowledging their weakness and I think confessing.

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David and the psalmists wrote public confessions of weakness often, the songs of lament that would be sung.

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If you think about a lot of the songs we sing on a Sunday morning, they don't allow this part of the human experience to be acknowledged.

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It's more upbeat. Yes, we want to sing about the gospel, but even that moment for me, that prayer of confession, there's a moment where I, with my brothers and sisters,

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I'm like, look, we all are in need of this. I was just going to say there's a reason why the psalmist,

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Psalm 147 .3 says that he heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.

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That's because we actually are brokenhearted. We do have wounds. When we're talking about cold and lifeless or cold and distant, that's

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God saying, part of your experience is that I over and over, not once, but over and over again, if not daily, will need to come and bring healing to you.

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Talking about the songs piece, I trust this is true at your church. I think you're right. I'm going to say what's true in many churches, sadly, and what

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I trust is true at GRC and I know is true at CBC. I think in many churches, you're right. There is not a lot of singing of lament and difficulty and weakness.

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It's happy, clappy triumphalism. It's the general tone and tenor of the singing, or it's fluffy, emotional, sentimental stuff.

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That's another issue. I know where we are. We try to sing songs.

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We sing in the minor key. We sing songs of lament and acknowledging our weakness and the difficulty of this life.

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We also sing songs that speak to the faithfulness of God and the fact that He doesn't change and the fact that Christ has us in the midst of all this.

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I quote this all the time. I don't know if I've quoted it a lot on Theocast. I'm sure I have it points.

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But I think in preaching, depending on where I am in the Scriptures, one of my favorite hymns to quote, just kind of off the cuff, is verses 4 and 5 of Horatius Bonner's hymn called

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I Hear the Words of Love. It's applicable for what we're talking about today because verse 4 literally begins,

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My love is oft times low. My joy still ebbs and flows.

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But peace with Him remains the same. No change Jehovah knows.

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Then the next verse, verse 5, I change, He changes not. The Christ can never die.

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His love, not mine, the resting place. His truth, not mine, the tie. What a good word that is, right?

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For people who, like we've acknowledged today, we often feel weak, discouraged, cold, apathetic, lifeless.

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It's like, man, I'm a Christian. I shouldn't feel like this. I'm an heir unto eternal life, and I know the

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Lord, and Jesus is my Savior. I know the hope to which

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I've been called. You were saying all this earlier, but yet I feel like so often my mind and my heart are still in the grave, and I'm earthbound.

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What's the hope we have, and what do we look to? I promise you, dear believer out there, looking to your feelings and looking to how you're doing when you're struggling is not going to help at all.

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The only place to look is to Christ who is gentle, who is lowly, who is compassionate, who sympathizes with our weaknesses, who says tender things to His sheep, who calls us by name.

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We hear His voice. He tells us we're forgiven. He tells us He's not going to lose us.

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He tells us we're safe. He says He's going to raise us up on the last day. These are the things that comfort our souls when we're not feeling the way that we know we should.

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This is a song we sang on Sunday. I'm going to do my best here to get through this.

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I couldn't sing it every time we started. I just had to sit there and listen. It's probably because all my three children were singing on Sunday, which was also a special moment for me.

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It's called Rest. You've probably heard this song. Someday we'll lay our swords down and no longer fight.

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Someday we'll rest from battles and pray and slumber through the night. Someday you'll wipe away each tear.

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In banished death and pain, with angels round your throne, we'll sing all hail for Jesus' name.

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Until then, we find our rest in you. Amen. That's how

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I feel. Every day I wake up and I'm like, man, it's a good thing I can rest in Him because where else am

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I going to rest? Where else am I going to go? I'm so weak. I'm so frail. What does

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Paul say? When we are weak, then we are strong. It's not okay to be weak.

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It's not okay to be a grown man and cry. We've got to be strong. It's interesting.

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We cry out to our Father because we're weak, because we have not the strength.

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I think Christianity, until it embraces the weakness of the flesh and stops commixing the law into the gospel.

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The gospel is for the weak and the broken. The gospel is for the sinner. The gospel is for those who gave up on themselves completely and said,

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Lord, if you do not save me, I cannot be saved. Amen, brother. For those who are strong and confident and for those who want to use the gospel as an additive, you trample on Christians.

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You destroy them. You kick them. My encouragement to all of us who are feeling this, for those of you that are listening to this, this title resonated with you.

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When you saw it come across your podcast feed, you're like, yeah, I think I need to hear this today. Please hear two broken men who want you to know how weak we truly are.

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The only way we find confidence is that we constantly look at every angle possible and say, is

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Jesus not powerful and strong and mighty to save? Does he not hold us?

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I love that song. He will hold us fast. Amen, dude. He becomes our anchor.

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We float with inside him. He is the one who carries us along. The thing that should be encouraging to you is that as he holds you, if you don't feel his arms around you and you feel distant and cold and as if you have failed one too many times or you just can't seem to get your brain to believe it, you can rest in this fact that he never lets you go.

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He never lets anyone go. Not even your feelings can pluck you out of his hand.

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Though you may not feel it today, you pray and you ask God to give you strength. Man, what does he say?

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With boldness, run into my room, run into my presence and ask me for mercy. Ask me for grace.

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In a time that you don't have wisdom, which is meekness and gentleness and open reason, he says, you can ask me for that.

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One last thing, Justin. This is why Paul says, lay all your burdens upon me.

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You're cold and lifeless. You can put that on me. It's almost like we're ashamed to tell God, God, I'm cold towards you.

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I'm lifeless. He goes, I know. Lay it on me. Come on over here and put it down. I'll carry it for you.

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If you're new to Theocast, we have a free ebook available for you called Faith Versus Faithfulness, A Primer on Rest.

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And if you've struggled with legalism, a lack of assurance, or simply want to know what it means to live by faith alone, we wrote this little book to provide a simple answer from a

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Reformed confessional perspective. You can get your free copy at theocast .org

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slash primer. Yeah, he knows our frame.

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He remembers that we're dust. You know, that's Psalm 103, 14. And he tells us to cast our burdens and our anxieties upon him, 1

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Peter 5, 8, 7, 8. And then, man, it's like thinking about, a couple of things are in my mind.

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Thinking about Jesus. You know, I've mentioned some of the things that he says to us.

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And then think about this. This is kind of like an end of Romans 8 idea. Can anything separate us from the love of Christ?

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No. And that includes our own lack of feeling. Say it again, brother, say it again.

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Can anything separate us from the love of Christ? No. And that includes our lack of feeling.

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That's right. So if Jesus has said to us, I've got you.

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You're mine. And I'm yours. You've heard my voice. Called your name.

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I'll never cast you out. Your sins are forgiven. I'm going to raise you up on the last day. I've gone to prepare a place for you.

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And I'm going to come again to take you to be with me where I am. And I'm the good shepherd.

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You're my sheep. I'm going to watch over you. I'm going to protect you. Don't be afraid. Like if he said all that to us, right?

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Think about this. If he said all that, and if he is who he says he is, how could we ever be lost from him, right?

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We, imperfectly but really, we have fled to him. We have taken refuge in him.

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We have put all of our hope and trust in him. That's what it is to be a Christian, by the way. To be a

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Christian is to acknowledge, like you said, I am weak. I'm a miserable wretch. I'm a lawbreaker.

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I've got nothing to offer. I'm coming with an open hand to receive. And I'm coming with no confidence whatsoever in myself.

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I am coming to cast myself completely upon Jesus and what he's done for me. And if he's not enough,

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I'm done. And so we've put all of our hope and all of our trust in him. And the Scripture says that we, by faith, are united to him, and we are now a part of his body.

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He is our head. We are a part of his body. How in the world, if all of that's true, do we think that he would ever let us go, right?

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That's the stuff that you remind yourself of when you're struggling and when you feel weak and when you feel apathetic and you feel discouraged.

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There's an anecdote. Many preachers have said these things before, but I think Alistair Begg puts it about as well as anybody.

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He's talking about the emphasis on feeling so often and the feelings thing that is the tone and the tenor of so much that goes on in church services these days.

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And he kind of does this bit. It's really good, where he talks about visiting a church.

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He's funny too. I mean, he's a winsome, funny communicator, but he effectively paints the picture. We've all been there. He says, walk in, and it feels like we're getting ready for a concert, and there's the big countdown on the screen.

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It's five minutes, and then we finally get down to 10, 9, 8, 7, 6. And he said, I didn't know what was going to happen when it hit zero.

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I mean, basically, because it's just such a hype train. And then right on cue, with a grandiose gesture, the worship leader grabs the mic.

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How are we doing this morning? How do you all feel? And then he goes, what kind of a

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New Testament question is that? How do you feel? And then he starts to paint the picture of what his morning was like, that we've all been there.

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He said, I spilled my coffee. I kicked the dog. I feel like an absolutely miserable wretch.

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I fought with my wife on the way to church. I feel rotten. That's how I feel. What do you have for me?

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And then he goes on to say, do not ask me how

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I feel. Ask me what I know. Ask me what I know to be true of Christ.

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And give me verities. Give me truths that can deal with my soul.

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Let's sing songs about how we've been ransomed and restored and forgiven. Because that will actually do something to deal with my miserable wretchedness.

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It's a good reminder for us all. I was having a conversation with a

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Theocast listener yesterday on the phone. It was a very encouraging conversation with a brother. We were just talking about how good

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God is and the things that he's taught us from his word. In particular, we were talking pointedly about the distinction between the law and the gospel and how that's so good and life -giving and encouraging.

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As you start to have these categories and you read the Scriptures, things just hit different than they used to.

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He was talking about studying Psalm 15 to teach it, to preach it, in his own local church context.

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That Psalm is excellent from a law and gospel perspective, by the way, because it begins with, effectively, who is going to ascend the hill of the

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Lord and who's going to dwell in his holy tent, all this kind of stuff. It basically goes on to say that the person who is without sin, the person who's never done

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A, B, C, D, E, such a person can do that and dwell with the

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Lord. This brother is talking about reading. He said, Bro, the first time I read that passage, after having these categories of law and gospel, he said,

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I cried because I was reading it. I thought, who can ascend the hill of the Lord? Who's going to dwell with him? Not me.

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I said, you're exactly right. There's one. He said, amen, there's one. If his righteousness isn't enough,

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I'm done. It's a good reminder that when you feel weak and discouraged, your hope is not in yourself.

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Your hope is not in your feelings. Your hope is not in your zeal. I'm reminded of Rock of Ages, one of the verses we love to sing.

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It's like, when it's not the labors of my hands can fulfill thy laws demands.

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Could my zeal no respite know? If my passion for God and the things of God never ceased, could my tears forever flow?

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If I was absolutely heartbroken and wrecked over sin at every moment the way that I should be, and I was just so contrite all the time.

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All of that, all for sin could not atone. Thou must save, and thou alone. I know we've said this stuff from day one,

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John, and we're just going to keep saying it, that we're always looking outside of ourselves to save what's wrong in us. We're looking outside of ourselves to Christ and what he has done that's finished.

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This is part of what it means, man, to be a Reformed confessional Christian. It's a good place to be.

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I'm mindful of the GRN meeting in a number of weeks now. We're going to be talking about all this stuff. It's just balm for the soul, man.

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A lot of anecdotal pastoral unfortunate counsel to Christians who feel this way.

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It's two answers. One is either just stop it. Okay, great, I'll just stop it.

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Or read your Bible more. Go read your Bible more. What's interesting about this morning,

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Justin, just for you and I to be vulnerable with those, our brothers and sisters who are listening, we're not special because we can sit behind a microphone and hit record.

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There's nothing unique about us, right? But there was a moment. So you and I started talking about an hour and a half or an hour or so before we recorded.

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And there was just kind of getting caught up and talking about life and some business stuff. And then we started just talking about how we're doing and then what do we want to record.

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And then that moment right before we were about to record, I could, there's something supernatural about two believers who have the

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Holy Spirit in them. And when they start confessing their sin and their frailties to each other and they start, and Justin, I didn't rebuke you.

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You didn't rebuke me. It wasn't like you need to go. It was just, you were sympathetic to me. I was sympathetic to you.

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We were there for, we loved on each other. We, I just,

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I became overwhelmed over the fact that God is so kind to allow believers that times just to be with each other, even on the phone.

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And that's enough to give you enough strength to go, okay, I can make it through today. I can make it through today.

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I have another encouragement for us. Just one other thought, Justin, I was teaching a baptism class last night.

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I've been thinking about this a lot lately and Justin and I are going to do some work on baptism here in the future. But I just want to throw this at you.

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You know what Jesus says, you know, it's a sacred command, a sacrament. I just love that word. It's a beautiful word, sacred command.

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And he says, go into all the world, make disciples and baptize them. And then how it's phrased, it's you're baptizing them with a title presented over them in the name of.

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Now, we don't really understand at times what he says in the name of. Like when we pray in the name of Jesus, right?

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We're praying on the behalf of and the approval of, the approval of Jesus.

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So Jesus says, when you go and baptize these people, you do so in the approval of the

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Trinity and you say it over them. As you baptize them, say, spirit, son and father approve.

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It's like, whoa, wait, what? When I'm receiving the sign of baptism, the father, spirit and son say approved.

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And that's how, when we're discouraged, these are means to remember your baptism. God approves of me because I'm in the name of Jesus.

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I'm in his work. The way that our confession says it under baptism is that you are in Christ, right?

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You are in the person of Christ. And so there are times that we say this phrase that I haven't said in a while, but to remember your baptism is to remember that God approves of me.

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It's like, I know I don't approve of myself right now, but Jesus, spirit and father say approved, son, approve.

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We approve you. It's like, okay, I think I needed to hear that this morning that I don't approve of myself because I know who

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I am, but you approve of me and that gives me the strength to go, okay, I can make it through today even though I don't feel like I can.

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You were talking about the ways that the Lord ministered to you and me, even as we just talked as brothers in Christ, I agree wholeheartedly.

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And I also can't help but think about the fact that we cannot do this alone and we desperately need other believers with whom we can lock arms.

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And when the culture of a local church is established by the preaching of Christ, there is a sense in which compassion, charity, patience, gentleness, those things are instilled.

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They're inculcated in a church. And what that means is you have brothers and sisters who can walk with you and be like,

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I get it. I'm with you in the struggle. That's huge. But I'm thinking about as well, you just mentioned baptism.

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I'm thinking about the Lord's supper. What do we need for our weakness and our discouragement and our apathy and our coldness and all that?

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Man, thank God He gave us one day in seven where we gather together to be reminded of what's true so that I can be told anew who

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I am in the Lord Jesus Christ. I can be told anew of the truth of what Jesus has done for me.

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I can confess sin corporately with the saints and be reminded that I've been absolved and forgiven. And all of these things occur weekly in our gatherings.

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And then when we come to the table, we're reminded that this sacrament, this ordinance is not for the perfect but for the weak so that we might be given everything that our faith and love might lack.

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And what are we doing when we come to the table? Remember what Jesus said when He instituted the supper.

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His blood literally ratified the new covenant. The new covenant is established upon Christ's blood,

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His body broken, His blood shed. And what does that mean? It means that every time we come and we receive these elements in faith, we take the bread and we take the cup and we eat and drink these things.

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As surely as we do, Christ died for us and we have a stake in the new covenant, which means that we have a claim to the new heavens and the new earth in Him.

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And this is what we do week over week over week. We come and receive Christ in the Word.

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We receive Christ in the table. We confess our sins. We sing. We pray.

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We ask for grace and mercy, and the Lord is faithful to give it. If I can, John, I know we're running out of time, but maybe we could just spend a couple of minutes commenting to the pastors out there.

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Before we do, can I make one more comment? Yeah, please. Just one other thought. The symbolism in the sacraments is so wonderful.

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For instance, baptism is something you receive once. It's not an ongoing... It's a symbol of our death and resurrection with Christ.

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We're going to die once, we're going to be raised once, and we're unified with Him once. There's not an ongoing union.

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But with communion, when we're taking the Lord's Supper, it's a symbol of sustainability, meaning that we...

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We're being sustained. That's right. We are sustained on Christ, and so we're reminded every week, be sustained by Christ, not your strength.

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But not just Christ, okay? His gospel. His righteous death on our behalf.

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That's the reminder of all of us who are cold and disheartened. Remember your baptism, and then go to church.

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Be amongst other spirit -indwelled people, and then come to the table and say, if I don't depend upon Christ, I have nothing.

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My faith will be weak. Lord, make my faith strong. Amen. That's what John 6 is all about.

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We need Christ. He is our nourishment. He is our sustenance. Just like the

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Israelites were sustained by bread from heaven as they sojourned in the wilderness, we are sustained by the heavenly bread, who is

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Christ Himself, as we are pilgrims and sojourners in this life. Amen. That's the point of everything that you just said.

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We feed on Christ by faith and are nourished and sustained by Him. Just briefly to pastors out there, and also, if you're not a pastor, don't tune this out, because if you're not a pastor, you're a member of a church somewhere.

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You have a pastor or you have pastors. I'm saying that intentionally.

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That was a gentle rebuke. That was a gentle, like, you should be in a church. If you're a pastor out there, my encouragement to you, and John, I know you agree, is establish a culture in your church through the preaching of Christ and through your discerning yet honest and transparent communication that you are a weak and needy sinner, just like everyone else, and that you struggle, just like everyone else, and that the only thing unique about you is that the

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Lord has seen fit for some reason to set you apart to preach the Scriptures. I think that does a lot of good in helping set realistic expectations in a church, but then in addition, and congregants, remember this about your pastors, that your pastor is not a super Christian.

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He is not impervious to temptation. He is not impervious to weakness, but he is a sinner and a struggler and a pilgrim and an exile, just like you.

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So pray for him accordingly. But then, pastors out there, if you are blessed to be in a context where you have multiple pastors, you have multiple elders in your church, which is how we understand the

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Scriptures to lay it out. There should be elders, plural, and churches, singular, and there's a lot of good in that.

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It's another conversation for another time. But also work to establish a culture and an ethos amongst your elders where you can be raw and honest and vulnerable with each other.

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I know for us, in every elders' meeting, we pastor each other as a portion of our prayer time for the first half of our meeting.

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Each guy, we set a three -minute shot clock, and we go around, and every elder for three minutes basically talks about how he's doing.

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Here's how I'm doing. Everybody knows we're not talking about surface -level stuff. We went to Dollywood over the weekend, and it was great or whatever.

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It's like, how's your soul, man? How are you doing? Then we pray for each other. That has been so good to be a part of a group of elders where I know that I'm safe, and I know that I can tell them the things that are going on in my soul, and there's no shame.

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There's no judgment. It's like, brother, we're with you. We're in the foxhole with you. We're praying for you. Christ has us.

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That's a good thing. It's needed. I don't know how to survive in ministry without it. My encouragement to the congregant, so he spoke to the pastor.

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I'm going to speak to the congregant for the sake of the pastor. Your pastor's job, if you let him, is to go and really mine the text to bring you

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Jesus. That's his job. At times, the pastor, what he receives is criticism.

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He receives distraction. He often is questioned, like, where do you spend your time? They're often looked upon as lazy.

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We don't really cherish the fact that they need to protect the one who's responsible for feeding them, for taking care of them, for overlooking.

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Hebrews says that they look after your soul. Literally, they shepherd your soul. They protect your soul.

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As a congregant, my encouragement to you, pray for the protection of your pastor's heart and mind that he would not give into temptation like you do, like we do.

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Everyone does, right? Protect them, Lord. Give them the strength to study hard. Give them the boldness to stand up and proclaim

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Christ. Be a good friend to them. Encourage them. Give them grace.

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Give them mercy. It's exhausting. Justin and I have been in ministry for quite a while now.

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I had no gray hair when I went into ministry and feel like all I have is gray hair now. Look, ministry is hard, but it's worth it because it's for the

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King. We're proclaiming the beauty of Jesus and his kingdom.

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I really can't think of anything else I would want to do. Even if I wasn't a pastor, I'd want to be a part of the kingdom.

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I want to be a part of its mission. I want to be a part of who Jesus is. My encouragement to those, we need more and more faithful pastors.

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I was talking with someone this week, and they're a part of a certain denomination, a conservative good denomination.

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They said there are 2 ,000 churches that they don't have without pastors. It's hard. We're not replacing these men.

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As a podcast and as brothers and sisters, I just want to encourage all of us that there's a lot of work to be done.

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Let's first begin by being meek and gentle with each other, open to reason. Let's care for each other.

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Let's make sure that we're focusing on Christ. I pray and hope that this is an encouragement to you.

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If it was, if this week was an encouragement to you, send it to somebody you think might need it, that they too might find some rest and encouragement in Christ.

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Send them our book on rest. If you need some copies of that, we'll try and get those to you as well.

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Amen. You're taking this out. I guess I'm taking it out. Sorry. I think someone just came through my front door, so I'm nervous.

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I don't know what's going on there, so I have to go check that out here in a second. Well, guys, thank you for listening.

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We have an announcement. I can't quite make it this week, but I'll make it next week. We're going to tell our second podcast we do, which is

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Simple Referendum. We're going to bring you in on the news of what's happening. It's pretty exciting, but there's some changes coming to the ministry.

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How you can get involved, you're going to have a greater way of getting involved. Everyone, every listener will have an opportunity to get involved.

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I'm looking forward to that. Right now, if you'd like to support what we're doing, if you're for us, not us, but if you're for the gospel ministry and you want to see more people encouraged by this message, you can do that by going to our website through donating and becoming a part of our membership, which is called

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Simple Referenda. We'll do our best to encourage you in that way.

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For those of you that are part of Simple Referenda, if you haven't listened to it in a while, you're going to want to listen to this episode because it's going to be an important one.

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That's all I can say, but stay tuned for next week. We'll bring some more news to you. That's it, Justin. Word.