"[God] is the Boss, while we are busily engaged (and often exhausted) in his work. We lose sight of the liberating truth that he is also lover, friend, encourager, comforter. This Master calls us to know him, and to share not just the work of the gospel but also the rest and the fellowship the gospel opens to us. What could be more tragic in the preacher’s life but that he would wear himself away to skin and bone, starving himself of the very grace he seeks to proclaim to others?
Love only the work, and the work will crush us. Of course it will; the needs of a struggling church and a broken world are completely overwhelming. And while we effectively forget who God is in his gospel love, we will think that he achieves some satisfaction (some glory, even) in our being overworked and beaten down. But our fretful Saturdays, overwhelming Sundays, and washed-out Mondays might be less a symptom of zealous gospel faith and labor, and more a sign that we are anxiously slaving for God and man with little confidence and pleasure in God’s sheer goodness. We are wrong, dangerously wrong. He is not that sort of God. Ministry is not that sort of work. Preaching is the declaration of the God we know. Preaching is one broken sinner saying to others with exactly the same struggles, “This is the grace I’m discovering, which I long for you to know with me.” And if the preacher and his preaching are captivated by this grace, then the life of the preacher will be one of humble, praise-filled joy."
Lewis Allen, The Preacher's Catechism
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