Dear Pastor, Cherish Christ More Than You Cherish Serving Him

This article is part of the Dear Pastor series.

Two Ways to Compare

There are two kinds of comparisons.

One, you can say how good something is by saying how bad something else is. I have no stake in any debates over sports or the teams that play them. So, rest assured, the following example is purely hypothetical. “Golf? That isn’t even a sport. You drive around in a cart for four hours, occasionally stepping out to whack a tiny ball. I could get more exercise washing the dishes. Now basketball, there’s a real sport.”

Two, you can say how good something is by saying how much better it is than something else that’s already really good. “Okay, imagine the best dish you’ve ever eaten, then multiply that by twenty-five tiny courses, one after the other for three hours, each as good as the last.”

I haven’t the space to say much about the glories of pastoral ministry. But boy is it glorious. As so often, Spurgeon said it better than I could hope to:

I would sooner have my work to do than any other under the sun. Preaching Jesus Christ is sweet work, joyful work, Heavenly work. Whitefield used to call his pulpit his throne, and those who know the bliss of forgetting everything beside the glorious, all-absorbing topic of Christ crucified, will bear witness that the term was aptly used. It is a bath in the waters of Paradise to preach with the Holy Ghost sent down from Heaven. Scarcely is it possible for a man, this side the grave, to be nearer Heaven than is a preacher when his Master’s presence bears him right away from every care and thought, save the one business in hand, and that the greatest that ever occupied a creature’s mind and heart.¹

The Path to Being a Pastor

Bobby Jamieson

Written from personal experience, The Path to Being a Pastor lays the groundwork for aspiring leaders to walk through various stages of ministry preparation, trusting that the Lord will direct their steps on the path to becoming a pastor.

Robert Murray M’Cheyne once realized while preaching, “It came across me in the pulpit, that if spared to be a minister, I might enjoy sweet flashes of communion with God in that situation.”² Have you tasted that bliss? Taken that bath? Enjoyed those sweet flashes of communion with God? If you have, you know that, in addition to hard work and heartache, pastoral ministry serves up rare joys. The pleasures of pastoral ministry can be so rich that you are tempted to want them too much.

So here is my word to you: cherish Christ. As good as pastoral ministry is, Jesus is infinitely better. The risen, exalted, soon-returning Christ proclaims to his waiting, suffering, longing people, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end” (Rev. 22:13). Christ is the beginning and the end of pastoral ministry. He is the beginning and end of your relationship with God. He is the beginning and end of your life. He is the beginning and end of the universe. Cherish him more than you cherish serving him. Cherish him more than you cherish telling others about him. Cherish him more than you cherish leading his people. Cherish Christ. “For to me to live is Christ” (Phil. 1:21).

As good as pastoral ministry is, Jesus is infinitely better.

Few living men whom I have met embody this better than Ray Ortlund Jr., who recently retired from pastoring Immanuel Nashville. Ray is the son of a godly man and the father of godly men. He learned to cherish Christ from his father and has taught his children to cherish Christ. These are the last words that Ray Ortlund Sr. had for his son:

Early on Sunday, July 22, 2007, my dad woke up in his hospital room in Newport Beach. He knew it was finally his day of release from this life. He had the nurse call the family in. My wife, Jani, and I were far away in Ireland for ministry that day. We didn’t know what was happening back home. But the family gathered at dad’s bedside. They read Scripture. They sang hymns. Dad spoke a word of patriarchal blessing and admonition to each one, a message suited to encourage and guide. He pronounced over them all the blessing of Aaron: “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace” (Numbers 6:24–26).

And then, quietly, he fell asleep. Later I asked my sister about dad’s message to me. It was this:

“Tell Bud, ministry isn’t everything. Jesus is.”³

Notes:

C. H. Spurgeon, Autobiography: Volume 1: The Early Years, 1834–1859; a revised edition, originally compiled by Susannah Spurgeon and Joseph Harrald (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1962), 403–4.
Andrew A. Bonar, Memoir and Remains of Robert Murray M’Cheyne (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1966), 33.
Ray Ortlund, “10 Unforgettable Lessons On Fatherhood,” Desiring God, May 16, 2015, https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/10-unforgettable-lessons-on-fatherhood.

This article is adapted from The Path to Being a Pastor: A Guide for the Aspiring by Bobby Jamieson.

Bobby Jamieson (PhD, University of Cambridge) is the senior pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He is the author of several books, including Everything Is Never Enough: Ecclesiastes’ Surprising Path to Resilient Happiness, and coauthor of Biblical Reasoning: Christological and Trinitarian Rules for Exegesis. Jamieson and his wife have four children.

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