Identity Issues for Pastors Part 2
Part 2: Healthy Identity
Before the pandemic, I went in for a medical check-up. It had been years. You know—needles, peeing in a cup, prodding, jabbing—I had better things to do. But it was time. When you start your yearly check-ups at year 49, they upsell you on the Platinum Package—at least in Thailand. “Mr. Matthew, if you were 20 years old, and not a decrepit old geezer, we would recommend the bronze package. But you want the Platinum Package at your age because platinum costs ten times as much as bronze; and don’t you deserve the best?” So, I went with Platinum.
It was all that you dream a check-up to be: needles, peeing in a cup, prodding, jabbing. But the real shocker came after four hours of lab-ratting it, when the doctor reviewed the results with me. “Heart, unremarkable. Kidneys, unremarkable. Lungs, unremarkable.” I started to take offense. I may not be Chris Hemsworth, but I’m not a total pile. Then, I slowly realized that “unremarkable” is a good thing. Unremarkable means “no remark, no comment, because everything is fine.”
By nature, I want to be a remarkable pastor; I want people to remark on what a great specimen I am. But my New Man wants to get to a place where I can be unremarkable and healthy, where I am humbly confident in my identity as God’s beloved child, whether loved or hated by others, a wild success or a miserable failure in the eyes of others.
And two of the keys to this, for me, are honor and delight.
God’s Honor for You
I have spent 10 years living in countries that are predominantly honor/shame cultures. To paraphrase Mr. Miyagi, “In Asia, honor very serious.” For example, the honor of a family often rests heavily on the shoulders of children. From preschool on they must strive to be the best, no matter what it takes. Climb to the top. Make the big bucks. Support your parents, in-laws, and grandparents on both sides – not to mention your wife’s relatives.
Many Asian parents share how their children complete their homework every night around 11pm, only to wake up by 6am the next morning to start all over. And these are grade schoolers. In between school and homework is dance and piano and kung fu and tutoring and English classes. All this because the honor of a family presses heavily on the shoulders of that child. Their identity is shackled to their performance for the family.
So, you can imagine how the beauty of the gospel breaks into the lives of these burdened young men and women. Take Psalm 62:7, for example: “My salvation and my honor depend on God; he is my mighty rock, my refuge.”
Read literally, verse 7 might sound something like this: “Upon God, my salvation and my honor; my mighty rock, my refuge in God.” God at both ends; salvation and honor in the middle. It reminds me of a 747. The fuselage of the plane is my salvation and my honor. Without any means of propulsion, that plane is just an expensive tuna can, a metal coffin, or Charon’s boat on the river Styx. Your salvation and honor are hopelessly grounded without God. But you add an Elohim-jet to each wing (upon God and in God), and that thing is going to soar.
To put it simply: You don’t carry the burden of your salvation; your honor doesn’t depend on your performance; you don’t have to be your own rock; you don’t have to protect yourself. God/Elohim is the one who provides that all, who lifts you up on eagle’s wings.
Something I’ve really started to learn in Asia is that there is an important difference between guilt and shame. Guilt says, “I’ve done something wrong.” Shame says, “There’s something wrong with me.” Guilt is about behavior. Shame is about identity. Pastor Harold Senkbeil says, “shame is the continuous experience of utter remorse over who I am. A person who experiences shame has an abiding sense of failure and self-disgust.”
Having been raised exclusively on diet of Western Systematic theology, I mostly know how to deal with my guilt (the salvation part); I am saved, justified, declared innocent in God’s court through the substitutionary atonement of Jesus. Romans 3 and all that. My salvation depends exclusively on God; I’m a good student of the Reformation after all.
But I’m not very good at dealing with my shame, this nagging feeling that, even though I am forgiven, I am still a worthless piece of crud; a hopeless cause; a failure.
Guilt is addressed with the assurance of forgiveness; Christ faithfully endured my punishment so I could be saved; but my shame needs to be addressed by a restoration of honor.
Remember Psalm 62:7: Your honor doesn’t depend on your performance nor on your likes on Instagram nor on the number of compliments your sermon receives. Your honor depends on Christ who gifted his honor to you as he was dishonored on the cross.
In baptism, God declares to you, “This is my Son, whom I love!” “For as many of you who have been baptized with Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ” (Galatians 3:27). Remember the tearful, beaming Father of the Prodigal Son, “Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.” The best robe was the Father’s robe; the ring was the Father’s ring; even the sandals were his. The filthy wastrel was the honored son again.
In baptism, Christ’s life became yours; Christ’s death became yours; Christ’s glorious resurrection became your glory and resurrection. You are eternally honored because Christ clothes you with his honor!
When you feel like no one understands you, appreciates you, cherishes you; when you are dishonored by your coworkers and the people you serve; when you are burdened with shame because of what you did or what was done to you; remember that you are honored in God’s sight because he gifted his honor to you in baptism. You are the son he loves. Despise your shame and embrace Christ’s honor.
God Delights in You
But there’s more. At the baptism of Christ, the Father said, “This is my son whom I love; with him I am well-pleased.” Okay, I can believe God loves me and gives me his honor; but “well-pleased with me?” Not likely. And yet, it’s all over the Scriptures.
Psalm 18:19 “[the Lord] brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me.”
Isaiah 43:4 (NIV) Since you are precious and honored in my sight, and because I love you, I will give people in exchange for you, nations in exchange for your life.
Zephaniah 3:17 (NIV) The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.”
Luke 12:32 “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.
Luke 15:22–24 (NIV) Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.
Ephesians 1:4–8a (NIV) For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us.
The same is true for you: As God views you through the lens of Christ, your honor is so great that he actually delights in you, as Charles Spurgeon wrote:
…for the holiness, glory, and perfection of his Church are his own glorious garments on the back of his own well-beloved spouse. She is not simply pure, or well-proportioned; she is positively lovely and fair! She has actual merit! Her deformities of sin are removed; but more, she has through her Lord obtained a meritorious righteousness by which an actual beauty is conferred upon her. Believers have a positive righteousness given to them when they become “accepted in the beloved” (Eph. 1:6). Nor is the Church barely lovely, she is superlatively so.
Don’t live as if you are God’s grubby stepchild who only gets hand-me-down clothes and a seat at the table because he’s begrudgingly kind. You are the child in whom he delights now and forever.
Wrap up
So, where to from here? Just a few thoughts:
What can you do weekly and daily to rest your identity more in Christ and less in the approval of others or a sense of accomplishment?
I have really found the Crosstrain Meditation Model to be extremely useful for this: visualization, thankfulness, repentance, and scripture. All four steps, especially done together, take the focus off me and put it on Christ who establishes and restores my identity. (Contact me if you would like a copy.)
Find a coach, peer coach, and/or a mentor to remind you regularly of God’s delight. “You are God’s beloved son in whom he is well-pleased!!!” “You are a joy to me and to our living God!” “I am proud of what God is doing in you and through you!” Combat nobody feelings by reminding each other how precious we are to the only Somebody who truly matters in the end.
Do small things for God. In “God Loves Nobodies,” I reference the song “Dream Small” by Josh Wilson. Instead of getting hung up on the great things you want to do for God, focus on the small things you do in your everyday vocations and keep the attention on him.
What more can you do to despise your shame and embrace Christ’s honor?
When you confess your sin, include your shame. For example, “Father, I am sorry that I lusted today, and I am ashamed that the lady whose figure caught my attention noticed me leering and was probably embarrassed. Please forgive me and restore the honor I have in Christ so that I view myself and other people through your eyes.”
If you are a research learner, read “The 3D Gospel” by Jayson Georges or “The Care of Souls” by Harold Senkbeil.
Discussion Questions
Share one or two ways you are tempted to prove that you are a Somebody in your public gospel ministry vocation.
Share one or two Bible passages or song lyrics that speak to that struggle in your own life. Or speak a Bible passage or song lyric over a brother who shared his own struggle in the previous discussion question.
Create one or two memorable phrases that peer coaches, coaches, and/or mentors could use regularly to remind each other of our identity in Christ. For example, one of my former coaches often reminds coachees to live for an "Audience of One."
Share your favorite account of a supposed “nobody” in the Bible and why it is meaningful to you.