The Subtle Danger of Idolizing Pastoral Ministry - Jesse Barrington

What are some of the most subtle pitfalls

and attacks from the devil

that you can warn others about?

You know, Paul said we shouldn't

be ignorant of the schemes of the devil.

Jesse: It seems to me there's a summary

that Satan is continually working on.

Now, the means he will go about;

the schemes he will go about

to bring us to this place are innumerable.

But it seems to me it keeps

getting to one point, and that is this:

to get your eyes off of Jesus Christ

and onto yourself.

And so there are many different ways

he goes about this,

whether it's through
different relationships,

whether it's spiritual pride,
whether it's in sin, temptations,

but inevitably, as I talk with people

or look at my own life,

we come to find out

there's been a shift

and I'm no longer looking to abiding

in Jesus Christ.

And if he can get you to stop

abiding in Jesus Christ,

and get your eyes off of Him

and onto yourself,

then what John 15 says is true -

without Him you can do nothing.

It will just unravel very quickly.

So the subtlety of Satan

in so many different ways

to just slowly get your eyes

off of Jesus Christ.

I confess last year in the conference,

he did it with me in the area of ministry,

where I was finding identity in ministry

rather than the identity of a
resurrected Savior in Jesus Christ.

And things began to unravel.

And as I would look at my life,

I would say what's wrong?

I'm reading. I'm studying. I'm preaching.

I'm evangelizing. I'm praying.

What's going on here?

Well, what had subtly happened is

is I no longer found my identity

as a person under Jesus Christ

or in Christ.

It was: I'm a pastor.

So it's very subtle, but usually,

you'll find that, oh, I've
taken my eyes off of Christ.

Question: As you look back,

how did that subtly happen to you?

Jesse: Well, I began to see that I was

asking of pastoral ministry

what it could never give me.

I was asking it to be
my functional savior.

And so you begin to put demands on things.

And you can do this with your marriage.

You can do it with friends, your job,

your workplace.

The moment you ask something to be

what only Christ can be for you,

then you put demands upon that thing.

And it will eventually begin to expose

and show, hey, you've done
something wrong here.

And so, I was asking of
ministry to be my joy.

I was asking of ministry
to be my identity.

And I was so looking for it in ministry,

that I was willing to begin to neglect

other areas of my life
that God's called me to,

namely, my marriage, my children.

Because I'm so wanting to find joy

and identity in ministry,

not in Jesus Christ.

Paul Washer - this has been 14 years ago.

Probably the first time I
met him or second time.

He looked me in the eye

and he said, "Jesse, the will of
God for your life is perfect."

I said, "What do you mean by that?"

He said, "God will never ask you

to forsake one area of stewardship

to fulfill another."

And you apply that to
where I was at last year.

I don't have to forsake my wife

to fulfill my call in ministry.

There are always going to be strains.

There's always a constant reforming -

semper reformanda -
we're always reforming.

We're always looking and examining.

But you never have to forsake the one

to fulfill the other.

And that's a sign that we're off.

Question: And I guess this kind of deals

with the one question.

Have you ever struggled
with being burned out

as a pastor? If so, why?

And what helped you to
get out of that season?

And what did you learn?

Jesse: In 1 Thessalonians 5, Paul says,

we ask you, brothers, to respect those

who toil, who labor among you.

And he asks them to respect them

because of the work that they do.

And so I take from that

that the role of the pastor

is going to be one that is a toiling

and an exhausting role.

And that's different though

than being burned out.

So when we're fulfilling
our role pastorally,

we should be exhausted.

And that's not wrong.

The difference is being burned out.

And what I came to see is

I was beginning to be burned out

because I was relying on my own strength,

my own power,

and again, I was looking to ministry

to be my functional savior.

And it's a very subtle change.

It happens gradually over time.

You know, one of the evidences

you can see in this is

you'll fill your schedule
with so much busyness,

that one of the things that
will begin to slip away

is prayer.

And prayer always reveals pride.

In other words, the more I'm praying,

probably the less proud I am

and the less I'm praying,
the more proud I am.

So, your prayer life is
revealing your pride life.

Your dependency upon Jesus is seen

in your prayer life.

And so as I began to see

prayer begin to take a back seat,

and as I began to look to ministry

what it could never be

and ask of ministry to be
what it never should be,

which is my functional savior.

And I began to be
willing to give up things

to get from ministry
what I was looking for

which can only be found in Christ.

And so, pastoral ministry
in the true sense

has always been energizing

and exciting for me.

But when you see yourself beginning

to be burned out,

then you are looking to ministry
for what it shouldn't be,

you're relying upon your own strength

instead of the power of the Holy Spirit.

Or, you've given ministry the priority

it should not have in your life.

Meaning, you're willing to
neglect other things,

like your wife and your children.

And when you do any of those things,

you're going to burn out.

Because now you're in it alone.

And praise God that He
brings you to that place.

Our church was very gracious with me.

My co-pastor who
pastors me and I pastor him

came to me and said,

brother, you just need to take some time.

And so I stepped away.

I went and got with the Lord.

Question: How long?

Jesse: It ended up being three months.

That was the best and the
hardest time of my life.

Because I woke up every morning, James,

with nothing to put before the Lord

for His approval -

in the sense of ministry.

Like, look at the sermon I preached.

Look at these people.
Look at the counseling.

Look at the souls.

I had nothing.

I woke up in desperate need

of a resurrected Savior every day,

and found my identity and acceptance

before God in Christ alone.

And it was healing.

I repented to my wife.

Repented to my kids.
Repented to the church.

And God has graciously
restored me in that.

And the church was so
gracious and kind with me.

And I think one of the great challenges

with pastoral ministry

is that when you begin to give it

a wrong priority - meaning,
you neglect things

in your life that you shouldn't -

and I'm not accusing anyone
in our church of this -

but it's almost accepted,

because you're doing kingdom work.

Where if someone was giving up their wife

for the stock market,

we would say, oh, look
how impure this man is.

Look how ill-motive and
wrongly prioritized he is.

But a man can do it in ministry

and people will almost applaud him.

And brother, it's wrong.

It's wrong.

So, yeah, by God's grace - three months.

And we stepped away from the church.

Because I knew if I was in the church,

I would pastor.

So we went to Mack's church quite often.

We went to a few other brother's churches.

We traveled some.

And it was a very restoring time

for the church

and a very restoring time for me.

So, praise the Lord.