One of the most monumental days of my life was when a council of elders laid hands on me and commissioned me to proclaim the gospel through pastoral ministry. In the six years since that day, I have experienced several significant moments of joy in serving as a pastor. It goes without saying there have been significant losses and sorrows as well. Yet, in all the sorrows it is good for pastors to consistently recall the joys of their work. I want to recount a few of these joys here.
Satisfying the Hunger for Good News
In India, news of political turmoil and partisanship bombards us. It exacerbates the human need for justice, righteousness, and rest. In other words, Indians are generally well aware of the need for rescue but also sceptical that such rescue could come in such an evil world.
The Christian story provides a convincing diagnosis of the depraved condition of human nature, including our own. However, in a place well acquainted with brokenness, the gospel proclaims a spectacular solution. In the marvellous historical story of the Bible, God comes down to earth, in Christ, in the flesh. He comes to rescue us from our sin-bent nature and promises to make all things new when he returns.
Properly understood, who could not want such good news? In pastoral ministry, I see people disillusioned by the bad news of our world and longing for a better one. It is a joy to see them enter Christ’s kingdom and enjoy all his promises for this life and the world to come.
Gaining Relief from Guilt and Shame
Good news takes you on a painful journey to discover that our hearts are the problem.
Vishwa has struggled with and engaged in sexual immorality throughout his life. He sits across from me, back weighed down, head hung low, and face forlorn with the wreckage of guilt over his sexual brokenness, shamed by identifying with nothing but his sin.
Good news takes you on a painful journey to discover that our hearts are the problem.
Over the next hour, I hear him sob his sins out to me and then to God. Then, like Christian in John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, Vishwa unburdened himself at the cross. He confessed Christ to be the only able substitute for his sin and all of its guilt and shame. It was my privilege to witness him experience the joy of God imputing the righteousness of Christ to him. What a front-row seat to such a tender and divine moment in a brother’s life!
Who of us living in a sexually broken world—whether in Bangalore or Bhubaneshwar—is not sexually broken? Who is not in need of the relief from sin, guilt, and shame that Vishwa experienced? One of my greatest joys in pastoral ministry is to see isolated, guilt-ridden sinners join a Christ-shaped community and help one another enjoy true relief in the ointment of the gospel.
Meeting the Desire for True Community
India is a community-oriented culture. Bangalore, where I live, is “India’s Coffee Capital” and the “Original Pub Capital of India.” Many Indians leave their communities and move into big cities. In this new environment, they experience loneliness, stress, isolation, and emptiness. So it is natural for them to try to overcome these feelings by kicking back at the end of the week with friends or family.
In Bangalore, pubs and coffee shops serve as contact points for people who are lonely. But the displays of affection, laughter, and conversations in such places can remain superficial and far from the deepest pains of our souls. So it often leaves people feeling emptier than they initially felt.
Superficial relationships cannot satisfy the longing for connection. A connected relationship is the sum of deep affection and deep knowledge. But a superficial or fractured relationship is without one or the other. At its worst, it has neither. Due to a deep longing for true community in cities like mine, a church that showcases Christ-like relationships with true connection is very appealing.
A church insists on loving difficult people, returning good for evil, and granting forgiveness to those who have hurt us. It displays the enduring power of our identity in Christ over anything else.
In pastoral ministry, one of my deepest joys has been to see the eagerness of my people to practice and display such a community to those who are starving for real relationships. Though our community will never be perfect, it is also my joy to see the members of our church acknowledge this and point even more ardently to the Saviour who fully knows and fully loves those who are his, and to see them offer this love to others.
Jesus is King
These joys in pastoral ministry are possible because of the simple but history-shaping truth that Jesus is king. We can say that he is king in two senses.
Firstly, as the second person of the Trinity, Jesus is the universal king over all his creation just as the Father is king and the Holy Spirit is king (John 1:1-3). Secondly, as the incarnate Son of God, who emptied himself for the salvation of a redeemed humanity—the church, he is the spiritual king of the church (Col. 1:18). Therefore, the glorious truth is that Christ, the king of the church, is steering all human history for his bride to come to enjoy his redemption.
A church insists on loving difficult people, returning good for evil, and granting forgiveness to those who have hurt us.
The apostle Paul makes this evident in 1 Corinthians 15:22-24: “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power.”
So, brother-pastors, take heart! You may be in a season of spiritual slump in your ministry with no remarkable stories to share. But take heart in the confidence that Jesus, our king, is still steering your life, your church’s life, your city’s life, and our country’s life so that his elect in India will come to enjoy his full and final redemption.
His kingdom cannot fail,
He rules o’er earth and heav’n;
The keys of death and hell
Are to our Jesus giv’n:
Lift up your heart,
Lift up your voice!
Rejoice, again I say, rejoice!
(From Rejoice, the Lord is King by Charles Wesley, 1744)
