Holding the Mystery of the Faith with a Clear Conscience Part V

Transcript (edited for readability).

How can I be certain that the work that I do as a pastor, as a layperson, as a church worker, or whatever, is pleasing to God?

Now, picture a stained glass window. A stained glass window does two things. It's clear enough to let the light through, so it's transparent — but it is damaged enough to reflect the light, which would otherwise come through purely as the white end of the spectrum, naked light, which human beings can't see unless it's broken up into the spectrum of colors. So a stained glass window needs to do two things: it needs to let the light in, so it shines through, but it also needs to break up the light so that the colors of the spectrum make the light visible — which is rather strange, because the things that make the light visible are, in fact, damaged things. You put impurities into the glass so that the light becomes visible.

Now, that's the way we human beings are, and that's the way we, as pastors, are. We are meant to be stained glass windows. Now, what we would like is to be windows that let the light through completely transparent, completely pure, from a human point of view. But that's not the way God works. God works with our humanity, and with our sins, and with our failures, with all our defects, in such a way that they amplify the light and make the light visible.

Okay — pleasing God. A lot of people imagine that God is like a hard-to-please parent or spouse. Now, I don't know if any of you had a father or mother whom it was impossible to please. You know, you got a 99% grade, and you brought it home, and you were very proud of it, and Dad says — all that Dad would focus on — "why didn't you get 100%?" Wagging the finger. He didn't praise you because you had 99%, but he criticized you because it was not 100%. There's nothing worse than living with a hard-to-please parent. And even worse than that, there's nothing worse than living with an impossible-to-please spouse. No matter what you do, it's never good enough. So you're never praised because you've done something right, but as soon as you do something wrong, you incur displeasure. And that tends to erode one's humanity, one's certainty.

God's not like that. He is not hard to please. In fact, the good news is that he's easy to please, and he's made it easy for us to please him — in ourselves, through our faith in Jesus — but he's also made it easy for us to please him by the work that he does. And he doesn't withhold his approval from us in order to manipulate us. That's what parents do. That's what hard-to-please spouses do.

Yeah, I'll leave out the next part because it's fairly obvious. Well — how can I have a good conscience about my work as a pastor and church worker?

You see, in case you haven't yet discovered it, all of you are called to do what, from a human point of view, is impossible. Look, it's hard enough for me to do the human work. It's hard enough for me to be a good father, a good grandfather, a good citizen. It's hard for me to do my own natural work. But God is not satisfied with that. He wants us to do his work — not just to work for him, but to work with him, to do supernatural work. We are called to do God's work. We are called to serve as a showpiece — a stained glass window, if you like — that shows, demonstrates, God to the world, that does God's work, and shows the face of God in our work to others. And in case you don't realize it, from a human point of view, that is impossible. How can I, as a human being with my resources, do supernatural work?

And because we are called to do such an impossible task, we are plagued with the curse of uncertainty in our vocation as Christians, as church workers, and as pastors. All of you have been bedeviled by this: am I in the right place? Am I doing the right work? And the worst part of all, am I doing enough work? As far as I'm concerned, the most difficult thing about being a pastor is that the more you do, the more you have to do. Work is totalitarian — it can consume you entirely. And if you're conscientious, then it just escalates and gets out of control. The more you do, the more you're called to do.

The worst attacks that I've had, the worst attacks that I've seen fellow pastors have, are not the accusation and condemnation of the evil one about our salvation, but his attack on our vocation — on our work. And that's perfectly logical. I asked you — was it today or yesterday, I forget, I'm in three time zones, that's my excuse, not my senility — I asked you to think diabolically. Put yourself in Satan's shoes. Who represents the greatest threat to his cause? Which human beings threaten his interests most of all? Pastors, church leaders. And so his basic attack — if he can't destroy their faith (in a sense he's prepared to tolerate the fact that their faith is almost impossible to shake) — he will attack their vocation, because ministry is a threat to his cause. And the worst attacks will come on the most conscientious, faithful pastors and members. The more faithful the Christian, the more faithful the pastor, the worse the attack.

So Luther, in his lovely, ironical way of turning things around — how am I sure that I'm doing the right thing as a pastor and as a Christian? His answer is simple: because the devil gives me such a hard time. If I was doing the wrong thing — no threat to him — he would not only leave me alone and not attack me, but he would build me up and make sure that I'm praised and receive great recognition for what I'm doing.

All of you, as pastors, church leaders, faithful Christians, are going to come under attack — not just attack on your faith, but attack on your vocation. Now, that's something that we need to get out into the church, because I don't know a single pastor, at least in Australia, who is not, at the present time, under severe spiritual attack. On another level, too, I don't know any church leaders or faithful parents who are not under spiritual attack in some way.

Okay, I'm going to skip ahead because time's running out. Well, what's the foundation for our certainty that our work pleases God? The most important biblical foundation for this is found in 1 John chapter 3, verses 21 to 22. In case you don't know we're doing God-pleasing work — crazy, brittle, crazy glass — John says: "Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God, and whatever we ask, we receive from him." Now comes the surprise: "whatever we ask, we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him." We keep his commandments, and we do what pleases him.

"Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us" — heart here is conscience. If we have a conscience, a clear conscience, a good conscience that doesn't accuse and condemn us, then we have confidence. Now, as I said yesterday, the Greek word for confidence has at its basic core "freedom of speech." I don't know whether you've noticed the connection between confidence and speech. The less confident I am, the harder it is to speak freely — either in public, but also in personal relationships. Confidence and freedom of speech go together.

Okay — the removal of condemnation by faith in Christ, with the assurance of salvation, results in confidence and freedom of speech before God based on his approval. If God approves of me, he wants me to speak. He doesn't just do the speaking — he wants to hear from me, as Hal said, when was it, last night I think. He wants to hear from me, and he wants to hear everything from me, no matter how trivial.

And there are two things that result from the assurance of salvation, the removal of condemnation, and the removal of the fear of condemnation. If we have confidence before God, then whatever we ask, we receive from him. Notice the freedom of speech to ask, to ask freely, with confidence that God's going to give what we ask for. Why? Because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him.

So, what are the two results of the removal of condemnation before God? First of all, we please God by keeping his commandments. Look — if I'm sure that my wife accepts me and approves of me, and she's not critical of me, then I want to speak to her. But if I know she's angry with me, that silences me, because I'm afraid that whatever I'm saying, I'm going to put my foot in it, or my mouth in it. And so the best thing is to say nothing. So I go silent, and I punish her in turn by going silent. But where there is confidence, where there is that freedom, that assurance of acceptance, there you get freedom of speech.

And the second thing that comes from it: if she accepts me and approves of me, then I'll do everything I possibly can to please her. I want to please her — not because I have to do what pleases her, but because I want to do it. She accepts me, loves me, and therefore I do what pleases her, and I want her to tell me what pleases her. You see, I'm a dumb man, and we males, by and large, find it difficult to fathom the opposite sex. And that's the way it's meant to be. Unless you women tell us what you want from us, there's no way that we can possibly work it out for ourselves. So the request — "do this, John" — helps me to do what pleases, not just my wife, but any human being.

So God doesn't leave us in the dark. Luther emphasizes this again — he doesn't leave us in the dark. By his commandments, he teaches us, he tells us: look, if you want to please me, this is what you don't do, and this is what you do. He gives us his commandments. And that's really good. And his commandments limit what I need to do. I don't have to do everything. There are certain things that I am required to do if I want to please God.

It's interesting that John, a bit later in the letter, says that if we love God, we will keep his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome. In fact, they are unburdening commandments. You see, if my wife doesn't tell me what she wants from me, at any level, then that lack of instruction burdens me. But if she tells me what she wants, and what pleases her — she doesn't like this, she likes that — okay, this lifts a heavy burden off my back, and frees me then in my activity with her.

So God gives us his commandments so that we know how to work with him. Every human being works for God, whether they acknowledge God or not. Every human being works with God in the world. At the most basic level, we work with God by having children and grandchildren. Now, that's doing God's work. But most people merely work for God — they don't work with God. As Christians, we are called to cooperate with God, to work with God, to be co-workers with God in the order of creation and the order of redemption in the church. And his commandments show us what God calls us to do, in order to work with him in our station and vocation.

We do what pleases God by enacting his word, by enacting his commandments. So take the example of my wife going back to Australia — she can be sure that God is pleased with her, because she's keeping the Fourth Commandment, which says "honor your mother." God's pleased with her. She's done what God has required, and what was otherwise a heavy burden has been lifted.

So — and this is my basic contention — God-pleasing faith, if I have faith that pleases God so that I am justified and acceptable to God, is the basis, the foundation, that leads to doing God-pleasing work. So if I have God-pleasing faith, I am able to do God-pleasing work. But whereas my faith depends on the gospel, God-pleasing work is guided by God's commandments — and fundamentally that's summed up in the Ten Commandments.

So God gives us certainty. God gives us certainty in our work, in knowing what we need to do to please God, through his commandments. You see, uncertainty in our vocation comes from doing your own thing — doing self-chosen, self-devised service. "Now, this is what I want to do," or "this is what I think God wants me to do" — if I go down that road, I can never be sure that my work is pleasing to God, if I base it on my own inclinations, human traditions, human commandments. But if I base my work on God's commandments, then I can be absolutely certain that what I do is pleasing to God.

Again and again, Luther — particularly in the later part of his career, when he was confronted with the Anabaptists and the gospel reductionists and all the other false teachers — emphasized that God has shown us what to do by the things he's instituted for us to do: his Ten Commandments. That emphasis of his is there right from the beginning, but it comes to the fore in the Large Catechism, a classical text on this. I don't know whether you realize — shock, horror — that half of the Large Catechism, more than half actually, has to do with the Ten Commandments. I don't know any Lutheran pastor these days who, if he were writing a Large Catechism, would begin with the Ten Commandments, let alone devote most of the space to the exposition of the Ten Commandments. Here you have the champion of the gospel writing so much on the Ten Commandments.

You see, Luther understood quite clearly that the Bible teaches us that the Ten Commandments are a resource for doing God-pleasing work. God gives us the Ten Commandments not just to maintain the order that he's established in creation — first use of the law, to uphold that divine order. He doesn't just give us the Ten Commandments to show us how sin leads to repentance, but he gives us the Ten Commandments to show us how to do holy work — his work, work that's pleasing to him.

Just listen to what he says at the conclusion of the Large Catechism, I think it's the conclusion. Here he says: "We have the Ten Commandments, a summary of divine teaching on what we have to do, to make our whole life pleasing to God." Look at that — this is what we have to do to make our whole life — not just our work, but our whole life — pleasing to God. "Apart from these Ten Commandments, no action or life can be good or pleasing to God, no matter how great or precious it may be in the eyes of the world." And then he also says: when we do the work that God's creation has given us to do in the commandments, when we keep his commandments and act on his commandments, even if human beings don't recognize us and rejoice in what we do, the angels in heaven rejoice in the good work that we do.

If you have some time, read the whole of the Large Catechism again, and notice the recurrence of this theme — I've listed there, I think, most of the passages in which Luther, in each commandment, says: what's the purpose of this commandment? It is so that we know what pleases God — not for our salvation, but in the work that we do in our vocation. That's the difference between salvation and vocational certainty.

What Luther emphasizes is that God doesn't just institute the means of grace — word and sacrament — to deliver the Holy Spirit to us, to create faith through the divine service, word and sacrament, Holy Spirit, means of grace — but he also institutes the work that we do in our station and vocation. So God institutes, establishes, gives us mandates, commissions us to do work. And that's important, because we don't have to do everything, but only those things that God calls us to do.

If I'm a mother with a young baby, I don't have to work, get outside employment. I don't have to do it — I can do it if I want to. Or I don't have to run a congregation, or become a lay evangelist. No, God gives me one thing to do: look after this baby. And I can be sure that if I do that, God is as pleased with me as he is with Mother Teresa, or the Apostle Paul, because I'm doing the work that God has instituted, established, for me to do.

Now, what are the reasons why God establishes, institutes, gives us, shows us, commissions us to do certain things, so that we are not in doubt as to what to do? God says, okay, this is what I want you to do.

Number one: by his word, and by his word of command, he gives us a heavenly mandate to do earthly work. He gives us a heavenly mandate to do earthly work. Luther, again and again, emphasized this, because the idea in his day was that you were only doing heavenly work if you became a monk or a priest. So he said a servant girl who is cleaning the stables is doing work as holy as the pope's — and he's not putting the pope down, he's lifting the servant girl up. So we're given a heavenly mandate to do earthly work.

I don't know whether you've ever looked closely at the remarkable passage which comes immediately after one of the classical texts for our Lutheran doctrine — by grace we're saved, not through works, etc. Note that by heart. Then what's the conclusion? "For we are his workmanship" — that's a bit weak and watered down; it's "poiēma," a work of art, a poem. So we are a work of art. We're a poem, a painting, or whatever work of art you could name. We are a work of art. "We've been created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should" — or better translated — "could walk in them." So already, before I'm doing any work that I choose to do, God has chosen my way, the basic outline of my life, and he's prepared the good works for me to do. So I don't have to look for good works, or how to please God, or what to do — he gives it to me beforehand.

Secondly, by his institution of the work that he wants me to do, he makes provision for good order in the world. And that good order is for the reception of his blessing and the distribution of his blessings — the reception of his blessings by us, and the distribution of his blessings to others. Let's take something quite obvious: I'm a married man, I've had four children, nine grandchildren. God has established the order of marriage. It's an order, and by means of that order, he, who is the source of blessing, gets Claire and me to work together with him in having children. And that order, the order of marriage, is not a prison for me and my wife, but is a framework by which he then delivers his blessings — even if I'm not a Christian — his blessings to us, and through us, to our children and grandchildren, out into the world. So he establishes the order by which he delivers blessing to people within the church, but also outside the church.

Thirdly, by means of his commandments, his word, his mandates, he teaches me and shows me the work that is pleasing to him. I've really already spoken about that — how can I be sure that what I do pleases God? Okay, Luther said, you don't have to read a textbook on ethics — just look at the Ten Commandments. You have it all there.

Number four: if I obey his commandments, I can be certain of God's approval for my work. Think once again of my wife going home — she obeyed the Fourth Commandment, so that both she and I can be certain that what we have done together pleases God. And this is remarkably freeing, because God's approval of my work doesn't depend then on my character, or my sanctity, or my motivation, or — and this is a modern thing — my expertise. Now, we don't have to be experts to do God's work. We don't have to have the right motivation. We don't have to reach a certain degree of holiness, because it's given to us in any case. I don't have to be the right kind of person, have a particular character. What empowers me to do God's work is his commandments, and I can be certain, then, of his approval, if I enact his commandments.

And that means, next point, that I can have certainty in my vocation. I can be confident that what I'm doing, where I'm doing it, is the right thing, and I can throw myself into my work. Now, this has always been important for me in my life and my ministry — that if I have God's mandate for what I'm doing, let's say my call to being a pastor… Now, again and again I felt, okay, I'm a mug here, in this place — I'd like something better. If only I could get a call here or there, then I could really thrive and flourish as a pastor, and I could evangelize the whole world, and I could reform the LCA, and I could change world Lutheranism as well. What, brother, are you applauding? Get thee behind me, Satan!

But again and again, what's been important for me is: okay, God has called me here, I'm doing what God commands me to do, therefore this is the right place. No matter how I feel, and no matter how other people feel, I can be confident, and I can throw myself into my work — so that whatever I do, I can do with all my heart. And it's when you give yourself enthusiastically, wholeheartedly, without reservation, in your work, that you begin to enjoy work. I don't know if you're like me — wherever the tasks that I've been reluctant to do, if I throw myself into them without any equivocation, to my surprise, I actually enjoy them. So I hate administration, but I've learned to enjoy it, because I have to do it. I found visitation difficult, but by doing it I've actually come to enjoy it, et cetera.

Just listen to what Luther says again: "Consciences can never be certain without a word — a word of command that declares to us the will of God toward us. However, when the conscience has, in this way, been strengthened through the word, and made sure that God approves a work of the kind that it has initiated at God's command, then it dares anything." So if you can be sure that God has given this, commanded this, instituted this for you to do, then you can commit yourself to, and you can dare to do, anything — dare to do the impossible, against all odds. That's been so important to me in my ministry, because in many cases I've been called to do stuff that, from my human point of view, if I'd had any choice, I would never — I wouldn't have touched it with a fifty-foot pole.

Next, number six — and this comes as a bit of a surprise to me — by means of his commandments, God shows us what we need to ask for, seek, and receive from God in prayer. I don't know if any of you have read Luther's wonderful tract on prayer, written to Master Peter the barber, "A Simple Way to Pray." What's interesting there is that Luther bases his basic way of prayer not just on the Lord's Prayer, but on the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments show us what we may pray for, in all confidence. So, if I can give a very concrete case: if I'm having difficulty with my children, and I'm at my wits' end, and that's beyond me — I don't even know what's going on, let alone what to do — I can confidently pray to God that he will show me, help me, resource me, to deal with my children. I can pass their problems on to him. If I have problems in the congregation — oh God, okay, you've given me this to do, I can't do it, over to you, it's your business, over to you — and if you want me to do anything, give me what I need to have to deal with whatever I face. The Ten Commandments are aids in prayer — prayer in our station and vocation.

Very importantly, in our Pentecostal climate, a lot of Lutherans imagine that it's only the gospel that is inspired by the Holy Spirit. No — the whole of Scripture, law and gospel, is equally inspired by the Holy Spirit. And if it's all inspired by the Holy Spirit, it inspires us with the Holy Spirit. It is the means of the Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit doesn't just come to us and empower us through the gospel, but it also empowers us through his holy law. It empowers us, energizes us, to do the work of God. So we are empowered by the Holy Spirit through his inspiring word, and our faith in him.

Okay, I'm a lousy parent, but I have the Fourth Commandment — okay, so it's God the Father, I'm merely standing in for him. I need all the divine power that I can get. I need the Holy Spirit if I'm going to survive one more day with my children, who are driving me up the wall.

Related to this — and Luther is particularly emphatic on this — is that the word, God's word, is the most holy of all holy things. Everything else is sanctified by the word of God and prayer — that's Scripture, by the way. So our work is sanctified, not just by prayer, but by the word of God and the commandments of God. The commandments — and this is a very strong part of Jewish tradition — are sanctifying commandments; they sanctify us, sanctify the work that we do, so that we don't just do secular work, but we do holy work. And so that everything we do is holy work, God's work. Listen to what Luther said: "God's word is the treasure that makes everything holy. By it, all the saints have themselves been made holy" — that's justification. "Accordingly, I constantly repeat that all our life and work" — not just our life, not just our faith, but our life and work — "must be based on God's word if they are to be God-pleasing or holy."

Last: if I do my work according to my own will, or according to human tradition or human commandments — the commandments of my parents, the commandments of my society, the commandments of my wife, the commandments of my children — then I am open to spiritual attack by the evil one, who wants to undermine the work that I do. But if I base my work on the word of God — not just gospel, but on the law of God — then I'm protected from spiritual attack. Listen to Father Luther once again: "However, when we walk along fortified by the command" — notice, the command and promise of God — "then the devil exerts himself in vain, for God strengthens and fortifies him with his command."

Now, an aside, just on this. I've been involved in the Lutheran Church of Australia in a bruising controversy over the ordination of women. And one of the arguments that I've used is: there's no mandate, there's no commandment to ordain women. So if the church ordains women, spiritually, what is it doing to these poor women who are being put into the office? Uncertainty. Absolutely. Just talk to some women who've been ordained pastors — not just Lutheran, but around the place — uncertainty. And most of all, you open them to spiritual attack. Why? Because they have no clear mandate, they have no clear commandment, they have an uncertain basis for their work. Therefore, they're vulnerable and liable to spiritual attack. So, through the commandments of God, we have certainty for work within our station and vocation.

Here I come to another classical aspect of Lutheran teaching, which is based on 1 Corinthians chapter 7, where St. Paul says: "Only let each person walk in the way that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him — for neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision" (that comes as a surprise, I'd expect, in the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ) "but what counts is keeping the commandments of God. Let each one remain in the calling in which he was called." So, brothers and sisters, wherever each was called, let him remain there — with God. Now, just underline "with God." Whichever station, whichever vocation God has called him to, there, stay with God.

Remember, in the first session, I spoke about the importance of location — this picks up on that, the stress on location. Each one of us, as part of God's creation of us, our creatureliness, has been assigned a particular location within the world. Each of us, through our baptism, has been assigned a particular location within a particular church.

And there are two pictures that Paul uses in this passage. On the one hand, our life is like a journey — we walk in this journey together with our Lord Jesus. We're not by ourselves, but we travel with Jesus — wherever we are, Jesus is there. So the first picture is life as a journey. The second picture is that what Christ has assigned us is not continual travel, which dislocates us, but he has located a place for us — or rather, a series of places for us. So the station that I had when I was five is not the station that I had when I was going to high school, or seminary, or my first call, or my second call, or at the seminary, or now in my retirement. So I travel from location to location to location. So I have a life cycle. I don't choose it — it's given to me. I didn't choose to be born, I won't choose to die — God gives that to me. And within that life cycle, he gives me particular locations, and within these locations he gives me particular responsibilities, tasks to do.

This is the foundation for Luther's teaching on our station and vocation in the three divinely instituted orders — an immense practical treasure that we Lutherans have all too readily forgotten in the last fifty years.

God's commandments, then, if you like, are his vocational guidance for us. Okay — he gives us our station, he gives us our vocation, and through his commandments he guides us as to what he wants us to do in our station and vocation. He guides us to show us what pleases him in our station and vocation.

Now, I don't know whether you realize that when Paul uses the word "vocation," which is exactly the same as "calling," he uses it in three different senses. First — we'll just take this passage, not in theological order, but as it appears here — first of all, my vocation, my calling, is the location that God has given me to do my work. It's my assigned workplace — the place that God has given me to do my work. So I do my work as a husband, not in other people's marriages, but only in my own marriage — which is just as well, for me at least.

Secondly, within that assigned location, he gives me assigned duties, assigned tasks to do in that location. So whereas my wife and I have the same location within the same marriage, each of us has a different vocation. She's a woman, I'm a man; I'm a husband, she's a wife; I'm a father, she's a mother — different tasks, different duties. We don't have to do everything. There's a division of labor. And that makes it easy.

Thirdly, God's calling of us, our vocation, refers to the assigned work that God gives to every single Christian as a member of his holy priesthood. So all of us have different locations and different tasks to do in that location, but all of us have a general calling to serve within God's holy priesthood, within the church. And that is not terribly difficult, according to the Small Catechism, number nine — it's basically to love your neighbor and to pray for people. So as a priest, I have access to God — I can bring God's blessing to people around me, but also I can approach God on behalf of the people around me. Now, that is not the call for some people — that's the call for all of us as Christians. We all occupy that position before God. So we have the same position before God, but here on earth, we have different positions and different tasks to do.

Now, a good conscience in work comes from the fact that I'm not called to do everything, but have limited responsibilities. One of the things that has bothered me most of all, particularly in the latter part of my work — first as a lecturer at the seminary, then as a person in positions of leadership within the Lutheran Church of Australia, and then as a member of a congregation in which I was a pastor — is that I see what needs to be done, and I get frustrated because nobody's doing it. So there are some problems in the congregation, and I feel I should intervene, of course, to help the pastor out. But no — I'm not the pastor in that congregation, I'm merely a member of that congregation. My station, my vocation, in the congregation, is not primarily as a pastor, but as a member. And I act in the same way as every other member does. And as a person at the seminary, I see all the problems in the church — it's not my task to take over from the president. My vocation is to teach students at the seminary, not to become a church politician and try to save both the church and the whole nation politically. So that's not my business. It's not that I wash my hands of it — I pray for the things that are going wrong, but I don't have to fix them up. I have limited responsibility, and that means that my responsibilities are doable. They're not infinite.

Okay, here's my own little checklist of my station and vocation, in terms of my own priorities. Number one, what has God called me to do — my first responsibility, at the present time of my life, is to care for my spouse, my wife. My second responsibility is to care for my children and grandchildren. My third responsibility is to care for my mother-in-law, since all our other parents are dead — she's the only one alive of the parental generation, and because she's the only one, she requires special care from me and my wife. Because of my — even though I'm in retirement — my continuing vocation is to care for those who were, and in some cases still are, my students, because I was supervising some postgraduate students, including the one here with his doctorate. My responsibility is toward the students that I have taught and have been teaching, off and on. Thirdly — I mean, lastly — is my care for the people in my congregation. And then I could go out more broadly than that.

But can you see how helpful this is, because it lets you prioritize? If there's a conflict of interest — and there's going to be conflicts of interest — you need to know what things are most important, not what's most urgent, but what's most important. You see, one of the problems that all of us have as church workers and pastors is that we sacrifice our marriage and our family in order to do what we think is far more important work — church work. You won't do the work of the Lord if you neglect your wife, if you neglect your children. They take priority over the congregation — not at all times; if there's a crisis, if somebody's dying, you drop everything and take care of that person, no matter what your wife thinks or what your kids think. When you've got to take a service, you've got to take a service. That takes priority.

Next: God doesn't just give us the work that we need to do in our station and vocation, but — and this is most wonderful of all — within our station and vocation, he allots to us our portion of joy and enjoyment. He gives us a foretaste of heaven here on earth, through the things we are given to enjoy — the food and drink and meals we share, our sexual relationships — but also he gives us joy in the work that we do, working together with him. If you are going to receive joy, you'll only receive God-given joy if you stay within the limits of your station and vocation. If I won't find joy there, I won't find joy anywhere here on earth. I might have it up in heaven, but not here on earth. God gives me my wife, my children — not as a burden, but to enjoy. God gives me my work, not just to enjoy the work, but to share his joy with me. That's, by the way, the most important theme of — not the letter, but the Book of Ecclesiastes.

How am I going? Okay, so let me get very practical. How does Christ make provision for me to serve as a pastor with a good conscience? How does Jesus help me, so that I can, as a pastor or church worker, be sure that he's pleased with what I do?

First of all, he doesn't just say, "okay, you go there and do your thing with this group of people." No — he's instituted the pastoral office. And that pastoral office doesn't require you and me to do everything, but just some things. And, well, they're really quite simple, even though they're very difficult to do. They're not very obscure. Number one, he calls me to preach and teach God's word. Number two, he calls me to catechize and baptize disciples. Number three, he calls me to administer the Lord's Supper. Number four, he calls me to listen to people's confessions and to absolve sinners. Lastly, he calls me to care for the sick and people who are spiritually oppressed. Anything beyond that is an optional extra. There's much more involved in ministry than that, but that's the core — the divinely instituted core.

So, even if I feel that I'm a failure, because the congregation's declining, the finances are in a mess, and people are critical of me — if I hear a confession and give an absolution, I know that I'm doing God's work, et cetera. But he doesn't just give us the office of the ministry, or the office of elder within the church, or any of the officers within the church — you can adapt that. I've only just taken that one example; I could map that out for other responsibilities.

But he doesn't only give us these tasks — the better thing is that, since we are to do his work, supernatural work, he gives us supernatural resources to do his work — supernatural power. What does he give us? He gives us his word; through his word he gives us his Holy Spirit, and all the heavenly gifts, all the charisma that we need to do our work.

Pentecostals, or people influenced by the Pentecostal movement, get it back to front. They say, discover your gift, and you discover your vocation, your task — you know, what's your ministry, look at your giftedness. By the way, there's a whole industry within the church on that. No — that's not scriptural, that's not Lutheran. The Lutheran emphasis is: discover your vocation, and then you can pray for whatever gifts you need to perform it. So if I'm called to be a pastor, Jesus is not so cruel that he throws me into the office without giving me the resources that I need to fulfill that office. I mightn't have them — I might be lousy at speaking — but if I'm called, then what can I pray for? The ability to be a good speaker, or a good teacher, or a good administrator, or whatever else I need to do — I can pray for the charisma that I need in my particular station and vocation. The vocation comes first; the giftedness comes on the tail of that. But most importantly, he gives me the gift of prayer to God the Father in the name of Jesus. Whatever I lack, I can pray for, and I'm commanded to pray for.

So, in practical terms, my call document — my letter of call to the Holy Ministry, from the church, and my call to a particular place in the church — is God's provision for me to do God-pleasing work. So I won't do God-pleasing work if I interfere in another parish, except mine. I won't do God-pleasing work if I'm at the seminary, called to be a teacher, and I spend all my time in church politics, basically trying to run the church. Okay — my call, in practical terms, is my most important aid to show me what I need to do in order to please God. And in terms of reference, if you're in doubt about it, just look at your ordination service and your letter of call. And I'd advise you to do that — say, once a year — when you do a ministerial stocktake. And that goes for church workers too: just look at your letter of call, and see that as God's guidance to you, through the church, of what he wants you to do here, in this particular location.

There's a wonderful bit of advice in 1 Clement — that's one of the apocryphal books related to the New Testament — where he says: let each of you (and he's not talking about pastors, but about all people — laypeople, pastors, men and women) — let each of you, brothers and sisters, please God in his own position, with a good conscience, without going beyond his prescribed sphere of ministry — and it means not only ministry within the divine service, but as a priest within the world. So each of you, within God's family, don't go beyond your position — stay, with a good conscience, within the location that God has given you. That's where you'll find fulfillment. That's where you'll find joy. That's where God will make provision for you, no matter what. And that's where God will protect you from attacks by the evil one.

I will omit the next section — just the last point. The faithful enactment of God's word is the basis for a good conscience in the office of the ministry. And God's word is not only gospel, but also his law — so the enactment of his word, law and gospel, is the basis for doing God-pleasing work.

Three final things in conclusion, and then we'll have a few minutes for further discussion. Paul says to Timothy: "Pay close attention to yourself, and to what is taught." Now, this is the reverse of what I'd expect — I would have expected Paul to say, pay attention first to doctrine, and then to your life. But he says, first of all, pay close attention to yourself, and then to your teaching. "Persevere in them, because if you do so, you will save yourself and your hearers."

So, to sum up everything I've said over these two days: I urge you to learn from your own conscience how to minister to the consciences of your people. There's no textbook that can really help you to be a pastor and a Christian. There's no method, there's no program which ensures that you will be successful in your ministry. It's the word of God in your conscience, the Spirit of God in your conscience, that gives you a clear conscience, a good conscience, that enables you then to minister to the consciences of other people. There's no shortcut to that. I've added, for your delectation, a wonderful poem from George Herbert — since time's running out, you can enjoy that for yourself.

How about that — I've got in. We've still got ten minutes. Okay, your call. Here. Okay, questions, remarks — okay, can somebody take the mic here? Can you take — okay. Oh, Bev, yeah — not just for today, for anything these two days. Yes.

Are all my questions down? Sure, just read.

Yes, good — you spoke of the assurance of God's pleasure with our works within our vocation, by our keeping of the commandments, but how would you connect all of that with the fruits of the Spirit, of which Paul says in Galatians, "against such things there is no law"?

Okay, it's very simple, because the fruits of the Spirit don't tell us what to do, but they tell us how to do what we do. So take something like gentleness, which is one of the fruits of the Spirit — whatever I'm called to do in my station and vocation, I need to do it gently, or lovingly, or peacefully, or joyfully. Now, none of the fruits of the Spirit are natural gifts. But since they are fruits of the Spirit, say I'm a bit rough in dealing with people — what can I do? I can pray for gentleness, or compassion, or whatever the case may be. So the fruits of the Spirit don't show us what to do — that's commandments — but they are empowerments, so that we do it in a God-pleasing way.

If one moves outside his location, is there an effect on other people, and can that be seen?

Yes — in short, it's not only that if you move outside of your location you damage yourself, but you also damage other people. You damage communities, you damage marriages, congregations, and so on, and you open yourself to attack from the evil one. So Luther would say again and again: stay within your vocation, your location, and until God has called you somewhere else, you stay there. Because even if you do the right thing — if you do the right thing in the wrong place, where you're not called to do it — you do great damage. And it's so obvious. Say I'm a man — my station, sexually, is my marriage. If I perform what God has given me to do — the whole sexual side, that's God's gift, that's a commandment to me — if I do that within another marriage, you know what happens. I don't just damage my marriage, my family — I damage that other marriage, that family, that community. That's a bit of an extreme example, but it applies right across the board.

Yes — I was in, I think, Pittsburgh some months ago, and John made an interesting observation. He said that young people today are so sexually saturated by the culture — so sexually active and promiscuous — that it often causes our own young people to have a conscience issue about going to church, et cetera, and he felt that was one issue, maybe, driving people away.

Yes, I thought that was interesting, and, in fact, a recent survey in America showed, a year and a half ago, that fully one in three people under the age of thirty are completely unaffiliated with any religion. That's a worry, a category of people to be concerned about.

Okay, I agree with Jonathan's remark. What I've noticed, within my narrow sphere, where I can see things happen, is that most Christian young people who fall away from the church do so for sexual reasons. That's the reality. That's what we face — that's the world we live in. And they stay away from church, quite obviously, because they've got a bad conscience. They come to church, and all that they receive is a bad conscience — even worse. So they stay away in order to keep the bad conscience under control.

Now, if there's one thing that I've thought a lot about, it's this issue: what can we do here? And I'd urge a two-pronged attack. First — a little while ago, I read Robert Putnam's "American Grace," which is a survey — he did that famous work on "Bowling Alone" — he did a sociological, religious survey, say over the last ten or twenty years, I forget. And he noted a very strange phenomenon. He says, whereas young people in the '80s and '90s basically came into the church because of its stand on sexuality and life issues, they left the church not because of life issues — more and more young people remain anti-abortion and pro-life — but because of what they saw as the church's negative attitude towards sexuality. All they heard from the church was: the church disapproves of homosexuality, the church disapproves of promiscuity, et cetera — you know, the basic thing.

And I thought, now this is a profound observation. So I've basically been asking around, and it seems to me that basically what we've done is fail to give a positive vision of marriage and sexuality. We focus so much on the negatives that we've failed to teach the full doctrine of marriage. The only person who's done that dramatically in recent times — and it's made more converts than any other single document — is the previous Pope's writing on sexuality. There have been thousands of converts, young people, to Catholicism because of the previous Pope's teaching on sexuality. What we need to do is give a positive teaching on the beauty of marriage, the goodness of marriage, the positive nature of sexuality. Now, how we do that — okay, that's a big task.

But the second thing is that we have a window of opportunity. Most of these — at least Christian people who drift away from the church, are promiscuous for a while, and then settle down into a de facto relationship — eventually come to the church in order to be married. There's our opportunity, provided that we don't tackle it legalistically, but evangelically. And the best resource for that — I don't have time to explain it fully — is Walter Trobisch's book, "I Married You." If you pastors don't know it, if you don't have it, get hold of it — and not just one copy. I used to have, before I went to seminary, a dozen copies of that. It was very cheap. Walter Trobisch, T-R-O-B-I-S-C-H, "I Married You." Google it and you'll find it.

So I'd give it to young people, and I'd take his approach. In sum, his approach starts from Genesis 2, and he says that marriage is like a triangle, or a chair with three legs — for marriage to work, three things need to happen: leaving, cleaving, one-fleshing. Now, what many young people are doing is entering into the state of marriage from the wrong end — which is the one-fleshing, and then cleaving, and then leaving. Now, that's not God's order. The greatest blessing comes from leaving first, cleaving second — commitment — and then one-fleshing. So they've got it partly right, because they are in a de facto relationship, but what you've got to do is round it off. So I use that as teaching — a positive view of marriage — and instead of condemning them, saying, okay, you got it partly right, but to fit in with God's order you need to round it off. Otherwise, in practical terms, you're going to run into trouble. So that's the approach.

And then also, at the same time, offer them — tell them, because most of them don't know about confession and absolution — I offer them confession and absolution. And the way I put it, I say: look, I know from you, and most kids, young people these days are quite open about it — they've been living together. And I say, look, the offer that I make is: look, you've been living together, you know that that's against God's law, they know that, they don't need me to wag my finger. What I would advise is that you, before you get married, confess this to somebody and receive absolution. Why? Because if you run into trouble later on in life, midlife, if the marriage breaks down, you don't want to open yourself to attack from the evil one — I'm going down this road on one side — saying, "God's punishing me because we shacked up before we got married." So that's a pastoral approach, an opportunity.

But if you do anything within your synod, in practical terms — this is one huge priority — it's to retrieve the institution of marriage, not legalistically, but evangelically. Oh, look, I'm sorry, that was more than I was going to say.

Everywhere that's needed, in every parish, is… one more question.

Yes, John?

We want more, more, more…

No — you may have noticed that I've never used the word "motivation" at all, and quite deliberately not — either gospel motivation or law motivation. That's not biblical. Get rid of it — as soon as you go there, you go into dangerous territory. The law doesn't motivate us to do good — it shows us what is good. It's holy, it's just, it's perfect — it shows us what is good, but it doesn't empower us to do good. It doesn't even, in the stricter sense, motivate us to do good, except in a vague psychological sense.

Ron, does that answer the question? Was there something else?

Okay, that's very important. Would you join me in thanking him?