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How Preachers Grow Graceless · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Welcome back to the podcast. Well coming up soon, I believe on Wednesday
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  of next week, as we read the Bibles together and we read the first
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  section of Matthew twenty three where Jesus confronts the religious rulers of his day,
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  and to anticipate that text, which is itself loaded with a full day's worth
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  of reflection, we have a cluster of thoughts and questions from a listener named
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  Jim who lives just outside of Nashville. Pastor John, Hello to you.
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  I'm a bivocational I there and sometime preacher at my little church. Jim writes,
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  I've always been drawn to Jesus's words about the Pharisees in Matthew twenty three,
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  Verses one to five. The text is instructive to me about preaching and
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  personal holiness. It seems to suggest at least four things. One hypocrites can
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  preach truth. Jesus says of these Pharisees that they are truth tellers. Therefore,
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  observe whatever they tell you verse three. That line startling. There's an
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  obligation to obey the truth of what they get right, even though they the
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  Pharisees are hypocrites. Does that hold true today. Irrespective of whether we know
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  a preacher is truly obedient and private, we receive the truth of their preached
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  words. It also seems to apply to men who are later disqualified for sin,
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  and people are left wondering about all the truth that they learn from that
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  preacher over the years. So one number two it seems to speak to a
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  preacher's assurance. It suggests that preachers who preach truth well do not find in
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  that homilytical skill the grounds of their personal assurance. If their private life does
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  not measure up? Is that true? Number three it speaks to the calling
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  of pastors to preach holiness. In verse four, it seems the calling of
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  others into personal holiness and living out personal holiness go together for the preacher.
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  Would this make a preacher hesitant to each holiness because his life doesn't measure up
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  in private? How far does his life need to measure up until he is
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  a hypocrite? Do I repent for myself every time I call for holiness from
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  the pulpit? These questions haunt me, a preacher with remaining sin within me.
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  And number four it speaks to all of our service. If we serve
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  only so others see us serving that service is rendered vain. Many thoughts and
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  questions intertwined for me over this text. What do I get right and what
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  do I get wrong? On Matthew twenty three, Verses one to five.
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  Well, first of all, I just I just commend this this person for
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  reflecting so profoundly on this text. So let me give quick short answers to
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  those four questions, especially the last one I think was more of a comment.
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  And then step back and see how that text of Jesus, those words
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  of Jesus, are so relevant for all of us. So here's the world
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  words from Jesus. Jesus said, This is Matthew twenty three. At the
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  beginning, Jesus said to the crowds, to his disciples, the scribes and
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  Pharisees sit on Moses seat, So do and observe. Do and observe whatever
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  they tell you, but not the works that they do. For they preach
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  but do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens to bear, hard to
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  bear, and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing
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  to move them with their finger. They do all their deeds to be seen
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  by others. So first question, Jim asks is what we should do with
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  true teaching of hypocrites preachers who preach true things and live a double life,
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  denying by their private lives what they preach in public. Their three responses to
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  that number one, when duplicity is discovered in a pastor, the pastor should
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  be removed from his service, according to the qualifications given for the elders in
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  Fir Timothy, Iree, and Titus. One. Second, truth is truth,
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  even if a donkey or a heretic or the devil himself speaks it.
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  Just as when the demons called out to Jesus, we know who you are,
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  the Holy One of God. Then Jesus wouldn't let them talk, it
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  says in Mark one point thirty four, because they knew him. So they
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  got part of the truth right, but they hated it. So we must
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  not make a preacher's sins the only measuring rod of all that he teaches.
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  He may say true things and hate them, and we should believe the true
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  things and not hate them. That doesn't mean by the way that Jesus words
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  about you will know them by their fruits. You'll recognize them by the fruits
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  of their lives. That doesn't mean that that text Matthew seven twenty is wrong,
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  because there is always plenty about a false teacher that is false and misleading
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  and needs to be recognized, even if many of his doctrinal sentences are true.
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  Third response to that first question, No, you do not have to
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  assume that when a pastor is discovered to be guilty of ministry disqualifying sin,
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  you need to reject all the truth that he's taught you over the years.
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  You don't have to go back and say, well, I guess everything he
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  taught me for all those years was false. You don't have to do that.
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  However, it will always be good to reassess that tea in retrospect and
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  see if there were omissions or imbalances in it true as it was that we
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  can see in retrospect were owing to his hidden sin, Like he skipped things,
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  he didn't say certain things, and he rode this hobby horse all the
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  time. And you see now in retrospect why he was skipping them, why
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  was riding his hobby horse. So that's my response to his first question.
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  Second question, he asks how the preaching gifts the skills of a pastor relate
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  to his assurance. Now part of the answer is that no public rhetorical skills
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  can atone for private reprehensible sins. It is possible to be a great orator
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  and a lost sinner. The blood of Jesus and its effect in our holiness
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  is the source of our assurance, not our rhetorical skills, which means yes,
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  that true, godly, humble christ exalting preaching will be part of that
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  holiness and thus in that sense, part of a pastor's assurance. Third question
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  Jim asks is how holy do you have to be to preach holiness? That's
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  a good question. The way I would answer would be not perfect and not
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  careless, or to say it another way, humbly penitent for remaining failings,
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  but vigilant to gouge out your eye rather than sin and bring the Gospel in
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  your church into disrepute your people. According to one Timothy four fifteen, your
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  people need to see you passionate in your pursuit of holiness. And the fourth
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  question Jim suggests that if we serve to get the praise of man, is
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  our service ruined before God? And the answers yes, our service is ruined
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  if we live for the praise of men, So those are my brief answers
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  to the questions. But let's step back and see how these words of Jesus
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  relate to all of us. I think it's always helpful to when you see
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  a text like this, break it down into pieces and then see how the
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  pieces relate to each other. So there are three steps that I see in
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  jesus exposure of the scribes and Pharisees. One, they use the truth to
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  cover for sin their own sin. It says the scribes and Pharisees sit on
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  Moses seat. That is, they teach what the truth of the Law of
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  God says. So do and observe what they tell you, but not the
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  works they do, because they preach and do not practice. So they cover
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  their nonpractice with teaching Moses law. They use truth to cover sin. Number
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  Two, they do not accompany that teaching with any God dependent doctrine of enabling
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  grace. They don't teach people how to avail themselves of God's grace to help
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  them obey. They just leave people with burdens, heavy, wady, crushing
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  burdens of God's commands to do with no help at all. They won't lift
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  a finger to help people obey Verse four, They tie up heavy burdens hard
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  to bear, lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing
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  to move them with their finger. There's no doctrine of sanctifying, enabling,
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  empowering grace. And the third step in exposing these rascals is they love the
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  praise of Man more than God or his truth. That's the deep, deep
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  desire, pleasure treasure of their lives. It's the governing principle of their lives.
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  Verse five. They do all their deeds to be seen by others.
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  Now here's the key question. How do those three indictments relate to each other?
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  And here's what I would suggest, And this is how they become so
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  relevant for all of us. I'm gonna go backward and show how they build.
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  Number one, Jesus has put his finger on the deep desire of their
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  lives, the deep love of their lives. What do they love? What
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  do they desire? What's the passion and the treasure of their lives that's driving
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  their decisions behaviors. And the answer is the praise of man they taste.
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  How delicious is the pleasure of self exaltation that comes through other people's praise that's
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  number one. Number two. Now we move backward or forward towards the next
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  effect of that. What is the effect of loving the praise of man on
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  the doctrine of grace in living a godly life? And the answer is it
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  cancels grace. Grace that enables a person to obey God's law means we don't
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  get the praise God does grace does. Grace is a breaking gift, it's
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  a humbling gift. They cannot embrace god exalting grace because it contradicts their self
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  exalting love of human praise. So they load men with burdens of duty and
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  tell them innocence, be self sufficient like us, implying you'll get some praise
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  for your moral achievement like we get praise for our moral achievement. And then,
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  finally, if they love the praise of man and that keeps them from
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  embracing God's enabling grace for obedience, what do they do with truth, the
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  truth of Moses' law when they sit on Moses's seat And the answer is,
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  they don't love the truth. They use the truth Bible words become a cloak
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  for hidden sin. They turn Moses's seat into a place where they get human
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  praise. And that is a warning to all of us, not just pastors.
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  Let us, all of us put to death immediately every temptation to love
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  the praise of man, and instead, let us love the Christ, exalting
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  self humbling grace of God through Jesus Christ to help us do what we need
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  to do. And then let us use truth to stoke the fires of love
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  for God and love for people. Yeah. I thank you Pastor John for
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  looking at the content of this text and for modeling for us how you approach
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  a Bible text like this, breaking it down into its various pieces and then
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  looking at how each piece relates to the other. This is going to come
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  in handy for all of our Bible reading, but especially in the section coming
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  up for us on Wednesday, as we read the Bible together. Advice for
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  better Bible reading is a major theme on this podcast. We have dozens of
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  episodes covering many very practical tips on overcoming the challenges of studying the Bible for
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  ourselves. And I took all of those episodes on Bible reading and Bible study
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  and Bible memorization and even the struggle with Bible neglect. I took all of
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  those many episodes and put them together into one fifty page digest just to show
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  you all the ground that we've covered here in my brand new book do out
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  soon titled Ask Pastor John seven hundred and fifty Bible Answers to life's most important
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  questions. Watch out for that new book, and if you're interested in this
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  topic, see that first chapter of those first fifty pages. I'm your host,
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  Tony Rank. You will see on Monday