The Humble Pastor

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Ligon Duncan
If we can deliberately make that place the place that we love the most, it’ll actually help in this pride challenge a little. Yes, you know, because you’re, you’re thinking, well, if I get invited to that, that means I’m, I’m making it, I’m, I’m doing something, but it’s, it’s really, you’re working a local church, that’s what that’s what matters. And

Matt Smethurst
when I see prayerlessness in my life, which which is far more common than than I would like to admit, not just as a Christian, but as a pastor, that prayerlessness is nothing less than pride. Oh.

Matt Smethurst
Music. Welcome again to the everyday pastor. A new podcast on the nuts and bolts of ministry from the gospel coalition. My name is Matt smitherst and I’m Luke Duncan, and today we’re going to be talking about the most, arguably the most important characteristic in the life of any pastor, and that’s humility, and the reason we’re going to be talking about it in particular is because we are very humble pastors. I don’t want to speak for you, but I am proud to be humble. We want to set the record straight and say that we are two men who struggle with pride, but are trying, by God’s grace, to pursue humility, so as as we think about cultivating this, this virtue, adorning ourselves with with this, where have you seen pride? Most kind of rear its head and manifest, manifest itself in your ministry in particular, you’re

Ligon Duncan
probably in wanting to get my way on things as a pastor. You know, feeling like this is really important for the church, this is good for the church. I need to, I need to get my way on this and and the Lord has been good to give me really good fellow pastors around me and really good elders to be said no to on that. I mean, I think it’s a wonderful thing to lose a vote. As a pastor,

Matt Smethurst
if you never lose votes, you don’t have an eldership. You have a dictator, right?

Ligon Duncan
You know just to learn what it means to your elders. Are going to lose votes from time to time. As pastors, you need to you need to learn what it is to submit to the brethren. That’s one of the vows in the Presbyterian tradition. We have to vow that we will submit to the brethren. And that is a that’s a good, good thing to do. So that’s probably an area I think any anybody that has any inclination to leadership is going to wrestle with wanting, you know, they’re really convicted that this is the right thing to do and we need to go this way, not getting your way. That’s a that’s a really, really good thing. And I think any, any area of your strength, I think it’s probably a good thing for all of us, sort of do an inventory of our strengths and then say, chances are our pride is going to be tested in that area of our strengths is certainly our weaknesses necessarily. Are you

Matt Smethurst
saying you’re you’re prideful about your voice?

Ligon Duncan
No, because I recognized that I had absolutely nothing to do with my voice. Is my mom’s,

Matt Smethurst
I confess, jealous, jealous of your preaching. And now

Ligon Duncan
I will say this. I told my wife when, when, when we first went to first prayers, I said, Now look, when the when the little old ladies come up to me after church and tell me what a good preacher I am. Understand that what they mean is I could they can hear me, yeah, and it’s because I have a loud voice, and even with their hearing problems or hearing aids, they can actually hear me preach. So I don’t have an accent like Sinclair Ferguson or somebody you know that the Alistair Beggs and the Sinclair Ferguson’s people love to listen the accent. I don’t have one of those, but I do have a loud voice,

Matt Smethurst
but we’re talking about pride. Let’s roll out the resume. You were a radio DJ.

Ligon Duncan
I wasn’t radio DJ. Tell

Matt Smethurst
us what, when, and well,

Ligon Duncan
I mean, in high school, I did. My mom had been a DJ when, when she was a young person, and continued to do radio and television. And so I in high school, I did. I was a I was a disc jockey, and I ran the radio station for the high school, and I was the announcer for the basketball games. And I love doing that. That was so fun. In fact, I would back in the days of cassette tapes. You probably don’t remember those. Matt, I would record myself calling games, and so I would call basketball games on the on cassette tapes, and then remind them back, you know. So, you know, I loved listening to great announcers. You know, there were, there were some just amazing, Vin Scully and Harry Carey and all of these guys. I would listen to them call games. So. Yeah, I’ve been around radio a little bit.

Matt Smethurst
Yeah. Well, back to our regularly scheduled programming, yeah. So as we think about this, this topic of pride manifesting in ministry, you mentioned how often the point of pride is tethered to where the Lord has gifted us, which, which makes sense. I think for me, I often see pride manifest in my self sufficiency. I’ve only been a lead pastor. It’s been less than three years, but I can already see how it’s possible, very dangerously possible, to just click into auto pilot and to start to functionally lean on gifts more than on grace. And I think that that one, one of the most objective measures that I’m doing that is that I have a pathetic prayer life at times. You know, it’s it, I think you know it’s been said, who you are alone on your knees is who you are, indeed, right? Prayer is the most objective measurement of our dependence on God, because the things we we we pray about, we’re trusting God to handle the things we don’t pray about, we’re trusting that we can handle on our own. And when I see prayerlessness in my life, which, which is far more common than than I would like to admit, not just as a Christian, but as a pastor, that prayerlessness is nothing less than pride, and because I’m thinking that I can be God to these people. Are there any things ligand about our cultural moment in particular that you think make the fight for humility more difficult?

Ligon Duncan
That’s a good that’s a good question. I think that, I think pastors because of the type of relationship that pastors have with their congregation, where, often times, congregation members are coming to you to help them with their problems, that being in that mode regularly, which we have To be if we’re engaged with our congregation, can make us feel like we are sort of the dispenser of wisdom, and we’re we’re at a different level, and we’re maybe not as aware of our need as we need to be. So I’m not sure that’s a cultural thing. I think that’s just an occupational hazard of the ministry now. I think our own, our culture today, because of the way that it plays out in public, encourages a stance and a posture that is not a humble stance and a posture. You know, it’s sort of people banging the table to get their way on things. You see that in social media, but you see it in you see it in public life, in politics and business and other areas where my way or the highway is a standard operating procedure, and you can’t, you can’t operate that way in in ministry. And I will say one thing that has helped me, Matt, is I’ve just had really good godly examples around me. My pastors growing up were great. I mean, they were gifted preachers. They were really good in congregational care. But they were not arrogant men. They were very humble men. And just the example of gifted, godly men that were humble has been a real blessing to me, and I also tell people, God has given me a lot of reasons why I ought to be humble. I’m not ever unaware of a certain set of reasons why I have every, yeah, every right to be humble. And thank God, God hasn’t just splayed me all over the ground in front of the whole world in those areas, but I’m aware of them, right? And that’s good. That’s good for me to get pulled back to those from time to time.

Matt Smethurst
Yeah, if critics could crawl into our hearts, they would only find more material. Yeah. And I think as we think about what might be unique about this cultural moment, obviously, we can’t think about that question apart from the internet and the digital age. And I think one danger, one kind of occupational hazard of pastoral ministry, is the temptation to neglect pastoring your own flock in order to pastor the world from your social media. That’s true, and I understand the temptation, and I’ve succumbed to it. Times because that’s easier. It is that’s a lot easier. And there’s immediate gratification, there’s there’s immediate responsiveness. The word works slowly. I mean, there’s a reason why the prophet Isaiah, in Isaiah 55 compares the working of the word to rain fertilizing the earth, a crop isn’t produced overnight. People aren’t changed overnight. And so I think there’s, there’s something where there’s something dangerous about this idea that every Christian out there that I’m will likely never meet in my life, and for whom I won’t give an account to God needs to hear my opinion on everything. We will give an account to God for our for our flock, not for our followers. I

Ligon Duncan
think, you know, if I can put the most positive construction on that, I do think guys are just dying for what they do to matter somewhere, and sometimes they feel like it doesn’t matter on their home turf, and they’re just looking for some place where they feel like they matter. And you’re right. It is instant gratification. You you tweet something or post something or blog something or podcast something, and you feel like, well, I’m I’m doing something that’s mattering to somebody out there, whereas my local church ministry is a slog, I do think, I think people can be we talked about discouragement. People can be discouraged, and they can look for some quick outlet where that sense of fulfillment can be achieved. And social media is one of the ways that that can play out and it can be a substitute for the slog of local church ministry. On the other hand, I will say, as much as I have enjoyed opportunities to serve the Lord in context like this, a podcast or at a conference, one of things I’ve always loved going back to my church is the by and large unawareness on their part of what I’m doing in those settings. So I am not a big deal to them. I’m just living and I’m just the pastor. I’m not the guy that was did a plenary talk at a conference, or I did a podcast or I wrote an article. I’m just the pastor, and I love that a lot of times they’re just totally unaware of of the things that I’ve done out there. And if we can deliberately make that place the place that we love the most, it’ll actually help in this pride challenge a little. Yes, you know, because you’re, you’re, you’re thinking, well, if I get invited to that. That means I’m, I’m making it. I’m I’m doing something, but it’s, it’s really, you’re working a local church. That’s what that’s what matters. And I like that environment because I’m not the guy from out of town with a briefcase. I’m not the big name coming in to to speak the conference. I’m their pastor. I know them and I live with them. They know me. I know them. I know what’s going on in their lives. I love preaching in that setting. I don’t ever find myself having to check my heart in that setting the way I might have to check my heart if I’m in a conference setting or something like that, right? Because I don’t want to be, oh, I’m a big deal because I’m speaking at this conference. You know, I want to be in the mode of and let me see if I can help pastors, or if I can help church members for other pastors. And let me, let me not mess up those church members that are going to go back to a faithful pastor in his congregation. Let me help him a little bit with with them. That’s where I have to kind of watch myself in my local church. I’ve got some built in protection on that. So I do think you’re right in this day and age with with the opportunities that we have to speak to the entire world, we need to make sure that we’re our real focus is on our little flock. And hey, if we can do occasional help out there, that’s fine, but that’s not the that’s not really what the word supposed to Yeah, but one,

Matt Smethurst
there’s a leading partner, yeah, one comes before the other. And we also should say another help in the fight against pride is having a godly wife, because, you know, Megan, I can’t speak highly enough of how much of a support and a help and an encouragement. She is to me, but she’s not enamored with me in my ministry. She she is, is my greatest cheerleader and my greatest critic, and she keeps me grounded in a way that that helps me just remember, I’m Matt, you know, and I no matter how well or poorly a sermon went I’m back to the grind, and I need to trust the spirit, and I can’t lean on coming home and thinking that I’m just, you know the greatest things since life, when,

Ligon Duncan
when I met Mark and Connie dever in Cambridge, the first time in 1987 um. Was a single guy studying at Edinburgh, and I don’t know when it was, in the course of our conversations, but Mark says to me one day, says, LIG, you need to get married. Marriage humbles a man. Yes, you know, and it is true. You know, people will come up and how do you how do you handle the pride? Yeah, well, my wife is part of God’s ministry of

Matt Smethurst
humility exactly

Ligon Duncan
as I am, yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah. I

Matt Smethurst
guess I said earlier who you are alone in your prayer closet is who you are, indeed. Same thing goes for and also

Ligon Duncan
in front of your wife, she knows, and especially when people are complimenting you in front of your wife, you know, in the little bubble above it is, oh, if you only knew, if you knocked me down several pegs. Lord, please don’t let

Matt Smethurst
her roll her eyes. Any other kind of occupational hazards that come to mind for pastors when it comes to fighting pride,

Ligon Duncan
well, one is knowing what to be confident about. You know, a minister, from time to time, has to get up on his hind legs and and say hard truths into a congregation or to a culture and and he’s got to be brave to do that, and it can be easy to transpose that over into other areas where he does not have a thus saith the Lord. And his opinion is is not of equal value. And so keep keeping an eye on, you know, just knowing what areas we speak from our our vocation, and from you know, Thus saith the Lord in Scripture, and then knowing when we’re out of our lane and being able to recognize there can be other people that know more about that here than I do. I need to hear what they have to say. Omni competent,

Matt Smethurst
and that’s a good thing. That’s right. God’s expert on everything. That’s right. And I going back to the cultural moment thing. I think that’s a really timely reminder to pastors that ultimately should liberate them, that should free them to focus on the ministry of the word and prayer. Yeah, I think we would be remiss not to mention the danger, for example, of making oneself the hero in your own sermons. That’s probably something we’ve we’ve all inadvertently done before, but, but I’ve just found as a preacher, it it lands a lot more effectively when you share the story about how you spoke of Christ to that unbelieving friend. And it didn’t go so well than of all the times that it did. People want to be reminded that you are an ordinary person, you’re a sinner, a struggler. Every Christian is a struggling Christian. The pastor is no different. And so I think making being appropriately self deprecating and showing that we are hobbling our way to heaven just like everyone else, is a good thing to model.

Ligon Duncan
It’s one thing I try to bear in mind is we want to share from personal stories. That’s that’s helpful, because we’ve learned some things in personal relationships with other people. We’ve gotten encouragements that we want to pass along. But I want to, if I’m going to mention something that I was involved with, I want to be the pass through. I either want to be pointing directly to Christ or directly to something in Scripture, through the personal story, or I want to be pointing to somebody else. So I do think it’s a dangerous thing when you’re using yourself as the example of how to do it. I want to be pointing through myself to someone else, or pointing to Christ. I don’t want people to get the feel that the sermon is about me. The Sermon needs to be about the Bible. It needs to be about God. It needs to be about Christ. And personal experiences need to be a window to point back away from ourselves, right?

Matt Smethurst
But this isn’t to say that sermons should become or the personal illustration should only become kind of a blooper reel of our lives. It

Ligon Duncan
can exactly take, that can be, that can end up, you know, making, I’m Mr. Repentance, you know, because I repent all the time. You in that kind

Matt Smethurst
of celebratory failure is right, like, look how right, broken and right much of a failure I am that’s taken and that

Ligon Duncan
can still, you don’t want to leave people focused on you. You want them to be focused on Christ. You want them to be be focused on God. You want them. You want them to see whatever you have used illustratively or personally is pointing them to something much bigger than you, something, right? Yes, so

Matt Smethurst
you’re saying scientific sanctification is moving for. From wanting people to think much of me to maybe wanting people to think little of me to wanting people to think much of Christ. It doesn’t stop with just people thinking less of me. Here’s kind of a practical question, because I know you’ve experienced a lot of people thanking you, commending you, encouraging you. How should a pastor respond to encouragement? You’re standing at the door after the service and someone says, great sermon. Is it prideful to say thank you? How should a pastor yeah,

Ligon Duncan
that’s, I’m, I’m, you know, that is something I’ve actually wrestled with, because I have not experienced a deficit of encouragement in my ministry, I buy in, you know, a lot of guys are pouring their house their hearts out for God. They’re faithfully ministering, and they’re in a place where they’re not appreciated. And I And when, when I’m with friends like that, I want to encourage them, because their faithfulness, keep on plotting on means a lot to me in those settings. And oftentimes I think I just, I would love to really wrap those folks over the knuckles good, because they’ve got a faithful brother that they’re not encouraging. I have, I have always had encouraging people, so what I have struggled with is just the awkward reply, how do I do how do I do that? Because I already feel encouraged. I’m so thankful to be able to minister the word. I’m so thankful my people listen to me. It the older I get, Matt, the more amazed I am that anybody would walk across the street to hear me preach a sermon and and to pay attention to the Bible being preached. And so I’m enormously encouraged and edified by that. And so when, when people say, you know, that was such a good message, you were speaking exactly to an issue that was going on in my life. I’m I don’t know exactly what to say. I don’t want to come across unappreciative of their encouragement. But I’m awkward in that area, I probably could use some, some wise soul, to speak into my life about the best things to say, somebody like Sam Crabtree or somebody like that, you know, who understands these sorts of of situations. I want to be appreciative of people’s expression of, hey, the Lord, used your ministry in my life, but I’m not just hoping to get that at the door. You know, I love just getting to see the people of God and thankful that they’re there, because I don’t feel underappreciated and I don’t feel under encouraged. I’m sure there are a lot of guys that could, they could use a word of encouragement out there, but I the Lord’s just not put me in those situations. Every church I’ve ever been in, the people have loved the word. They’ve listened to the preachers well and and I feel blessed to be in that kind of a setting. So I’ve I struggle more with awkwardness. How about how about you? When, when people say Matt is the best sermon I’ve ever heard? Or how did you know that I was struggling with that? What? What’s, what’s your typical way of applying? No,

Matt Smethurst
my experience is the exact opposite. No, no, I do get criticism. So I have, we have a wonderfully encouraging conversation. We have a wonderfully encouraging congregation that love God’s word. I don’t think you have to every time say when someone thanks you, praise God, Glory to God, though, of course, that’s true. Sometimes I think that can seem a bit trite or sound a bit canned. I think it’s okay to look them in the eye and say thank you. And sometimes what I what I say, is, isn’t it an amazing passage? Sure, so I’ll draw attention not to my preaching performance, as it were, that’s good, but I’ll say, what an edifying text. Thank you for your encouragement. That’s good. And I think that another way that we cultivate humility as pastors is by not just tolerating good faith critique, but inviting it. This has been one of the most helpful things for me so far in ministry, every Tuesday we have two back to back meetings, service review and sermon preview. And at this stage in the life of our church, it’s open to all members, so there are brothers sisters there. It’s not filled with just staff folks. And in service review, we swing around the table and people give feedback on every element of the Sunday service. And what we’re trying to do there, which I learned and saw modeled by Mark dever is we’re trying, I’m trying to cultivate. I’m trying to foster a culture where we do four things. Well, we give and receive godly encouragement and critique. That’s four things. Different people will find it easier or harder to give encouragement, to receive encouragement, to give critique, to. Receive critique. I want it to feel like a safe thing for people to critique my sermons now, surely there are listeners who are thinking, Well, that sounds like a recipe for disaster. You’re just young and naive. And I want to confess maybe I am, but I also think that maybe one of the reasons that people begin to operate in bad faith and kind of come at you with the bazooka is because you haven’t provided any natural formal channels for them to come to you with good faith critique. So I try to show that I welcome people speaking into the ministry of the word and helping me grow as a pastor.

Ligon Duncan
That’s good. Early on, when I was at first pres, I received a critical letter from actually a fellow professor of mine at the seminary who had put my name in at the church to be the pastor. And it was really, it was really hard to read. Was really hurtful. I had to put it away for a long time, going back and looking at that letter 10 years later, everything he said was right. But it took, it took it a long time. It was so personal. It was, you know, it was so sensitive. It was really hard for me to take in all the things that was wounds of a friend. I mean, he’s really a father in the faith. He’s much older than me, much more experienced. And the things that he said, There were all things I was doing as a young, inexperienced minister. And he was, he was right about everything he said. But part of it is the Lord just getting your heart in a place where you can take those kinds of things. And the Lord has been kind to give me people in my life that can put those sorts of things out there and then just let them sit as long as they need to sit, and I can then respond to them. I had a situation many years ago where my youth staff had done some things that they shouldn’t have done, and I fired off an email to them, and that’s never a good thing. That’s never going to go well. And it didn’t sleep on it and run by others. It hurt. It hurt their feelings unnecessarily. It didn’t accomplish what I wanted it to accomplish. And the elder that was in charge of the youth ministry calls me up in the afternoon. He says, Hey, can I, can I pop by and see you, Luke? I knew exactly why he was coming by, and so my my attitude was like this. I was, I was real defensive. He came by, you know, really low key wise, you know, Luke. I think maybe there was a better way to handle that. I was still kind of in this mode. He walked out of the inn, and he didn’t demand that I do something about it right then. He didn’t demand that I changed my mind. He didn’t demand. He just let me he just let it sit. And he walked out of the office, and by the time he had stepped out the door, I knew he was right, but I wasn’t ready to admit it yet, and I did sleep on it that night, and the next morning, I woke up and I realized he was exactly right about everything he said, and I went to the youth staff meeting that day and just had to eat crow because I blew it. I was I was right about my concern with what they had done. I was wrong about the way I delivered it, and that elder loved me well enough to come and tell me before that thing festered for several days or weeks, and then I had a real problem on my hand, and because he did that, I was able to go down and and say, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done it that way. I was concerned about this. Can we do this differently next time this is about treating other people well? We were able to process that together, and it didn’t become some big thing between me and other people on the church staff, that it’s because that elder was willing to come and say, you blew it, Luke.

Matt Smethurst
And that’s a key point. You have to have people around you who feel safe critiquing you and calling out your sin, if you don’t have anyone around you who feels like they can do it and get away with it and survive it, then, despite what you profess, you do not have a plurality. You have your own little kingdom. And so that’s something we all need to be reminded of, and we need to deliberately put people around us and And deputize them to feel like they can have that kind of hunting license to come after us and speak into our lives, just to kind of land the plane on this episode, I think it’s appropriate to to read the words of Hebrews 13 when I think about pastoral ministry. This is one of the first verses that comes to mind Hebrews 1317, obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you. Now, the reason I read this at the end of an episode on humility is. Is not because what you may think, Oh, he’s a leader. He loves the beginning of that verse, obey your leaders and submit to them. No, it’s actually the gravity and the weight of what comes after, for they are keeping watch over your souls as those who will have to give an account we talked earlier about how we will answer to the living God for the sheep he has entrusted to our care. And there’s, there’s this great quote from a 19th century Scottish pastor, John Brown, who was writing to one of his you’re nodding, you know what I’m going to say. He was writing to one of his newly ordained pupils, who was discouraged and struggling with the small size of his church. And here is what the older Minister wrote, I know the vanity of your heart and that you will feel mortified that your congregation is very small in comparison with those of your brethren around you, but assure yourself, on the word of an old man, that when you come to give an account of them to the Lord Christ at His judgment seat, you will think you had enough you will think you had enough sheep to give account for. So may the Lord help us in our roles, but also listeners, may he help you to grow and cultivate humility, because it is, it is a virtue that beautifully adorns the work of ministry. Listeners, we hope this episode of the everyday pastor has been an encouragement to you. Thanks for joining us. If you’re able, please go ahead and take a moment to like and subscribe and tell a friend about this podcast so that we can help serve other pastors. Thanks for tuning in.