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“I issue a decree that in every part of my kingdom people must fear and reverence the God of Daniel. For he is the living God and he endures forever; his kingdom will not be destroyed, his dominion will never end.” Daniel 6:26 (NIV)Pastor, it’s hard to stand firm when your convictions cost you something.Sometimes the pressure is obvious. Other times it’s just a tense email or a quiet look across the room, and the worry that someone will misunderstand your motives. Ministry gives you plenty of moments when sitting down feels easier than standing up.But when you stand, people notice. You don’t have to impress anyone. Steady faith points past you to God.Courage is contagious. You never know who may be strengthened when you take the next faithful step.That’s what happened in Daniel’s life. Daniel kept praying to the true God even though the law told him to stop. He would not give his worship to King Darius. Because of that, he was thrown into a den of hungry lions.But God rescued him.And Darius noticed.The Bible says, “Then King Darius wrote to all the nations and peoples of every language in all the earth: ‘May you prosper greatly! I issue a decree that in every part of my kingdom people must fear and reverence the God of Daniel. For he is the living God and he endures forever; his kingdom will not be destroyed, his dominion will never end. He rescues and he saves; he performs signs and wonders in the heavens and on the earth. He has rescued Daniel from the power of the lions.’ So Daniel prospered during the reign of Darius and the reign of Cyrus the Persian” (Daniel 6:25-28 NIV).Pagan kings don’t usually talk like that. Daniel’s courage gave Darius a reason to publicly honor the living God.The same can be true in your ministry. Your courage may help you personally, the way it helped Daniel. But God can also use it for the good of the people watching you.When you stand for God in your church, your family, your community, and the private choices no one applauds, people take notice. Some will criticize or misunderstand you. But others will find strength to obey God because they saw you trust God first.Pastor, your people do not need you to be fearless. They need to see you trust God when obedience costs something.

Pastor, every time you step up to preach, you make a quiet decision: Will you work to impress people, or to influence them?You can impress people from a distance. But you can only influence people up close. And when people get close, they see the warts. That scares a lot of pastors, but it shouldn't. That's where ministry actually happens.One of the problems in ministry is that we take ourselves way too seriously and don't take God seriously enough. We get impressed with ourselves instead of being impressed with God. That's backwards. You don't stand up to preach so people walk away impressed with you. You preach so they walk away in awe of God.Humor and humility belong together.Humor and humility go together. When you can laugh at yourself, you remind people you're human, and the distance between the pulpit and the pew gets smaller. People quit wondering whether you're performing and start actually listening.During my years pastoring Saddleback, other pastors and I had fun with each other in front of the congregation. We teased each other. We laughed. We never acted like ministry meant pretending to be holier than the people in the seats.Pastors who can't laugh at themselves will have a hard time building a warm church. And people who are stiff in the hallway are usually stiff in the pulpit too. Tightness follows them right up to preach. If everything about you tells people to stay impressed, they'll keep their distance. But if you come across like a real person, they'll lean in.Be approachable and real.If you want to create a climate where people want to join, your church has to be authentic. An authentic church always starts with authentic leaders. You personally have to be approachable and real, because whatever you are, your people will become.There's no one right personality for building a healthy church; God uses every kind. But all the effective leaders I know are working to make the most of what God gave them.A lot of pastors, just by their demeanor, guarantee visitors won't come back. I've said for years that some churches would grow if the pastor would simply start smiling. Sometimes I get the feeling that pastors love crowds but hate people. If you want to know the temperature of your church, put the thermometer in your own mouth. Your people take their cues from you. A cold leader makes a cold church. And people feel that same warmth, or that same chill, the second you open your mouth to preach.Talk like a normal person.Another way to stop focusing on impressing people is to quit using inflated language. A lot of church follow-up messages to visitors read like this: "We would like to extend a cordial invitation for you to be with us on the next Lord's Day." Instead, just say, "It was good to have you. I hope you'll come back." Write it the way you talk.The same thing happens in the pulpit. Some pastors preach in a voice they'd never use in a living room or a hospital room, and the sermon comes out formal and stiff. It sounds religious. It doesn't help anybody. Jesus spoke so ordinary people could understand him. He told stories. He used pictures from everyday life. He didn't bury the truth under a pile of religious words. You're not up there to sound impressive; you're up there to be understood.Preach for life change, not approval.Getting close to people isn't just about being warm. You get close so your preaching can actually change how they live, and that only happens when you stop preaching to be admired. The goal of preaching is not to impress other pastors, or professors, or critics. The goal of preaching is life change. God's aim is to make people like Christ, so that has to be your aim too. If your preaching isn't producing Christlike convictions, character, and conduct, it's missing the point, no matter how polished it sounds.A sermon can be accurate and still leave people exactly where they were. It can be full of information and never once call anyone to obey. The problem in most churches isn't that people know too little; it’s that they already know far more than they're doing. Jesus said, "Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them" (John 13:17 NIV). The blessing shows up when they do it, not just when they hear it.Some pastors are scared to be practical because they think it sounds simplistic. They won't even say "how to" in a sermon for fear another pastor will look down on them. So settle it now: Are you preaching to see changed lives, or to please the professors you had in seminary and the pastors down the street?Influence happens up close.Challenge your people to obey. But do it as a fellow sinner saved by grace, not as a bully or a know-it-all. Preach with confidence in God's Word and honesty about yourself, and people will trust the message and the person delivering it.Before you preach this weekend, ask who you're really trying to reach. You can impress people from a distance. You can only influence them up close, close enough to see you're real and close enough that your preaching actually moves them to obey God. So quit preaching for image. Get near the people God has put in front of you, tell them the truth in plain words, and preach for the kind of changed lives that impressing people will never produce.

"Run from all these evil things."  1 Timothy 6:11 (NLT)Pastor, do you have an escape plan for the moment you're tempted? Do you have anything in place to keep you away from your biggest temptations before they ever reach you? If you don't have those things, you need them now.You carry more than most people ever see. And that weight is part of what makes certain temptations so appealing: the shortcut, the secret, the compromise you're sure no one would catch.First, when you find yourself tempted, you need a panic button. An emergency plan. The Bible is clear about what that plan is: You run.Paul tells Timothy, a young pastor, "Run from all these evil things" (1 Timothy 6:11 NLT).Move quickly out of any situation that tempts you. Never argue with a temptation. You'll always lose. Emotions take over, and emotions aren't always logical.It doesn't matter what the temptation is. It could be the pull to cut a corner with money or shade the numbers you report. It could be a sexual temptation. Whatever it is, your response should be the same: Get out.But better than running from temptation is preventing it in the first place. Another way to say it is this: If you don't want to get stung, stay away from the bees.Don't wait until you're alone, exhausted, and discouraged to decide you'll stay faithful. You have to make that decision ahead of time, and then keep yourself out of the situation, because when you're empty, the pull is stronger than your willpower.The same principle runs all through ministry.If you know you get short with your family on Sunday nights when you're spent, build a strategy for it now. Guard a slower evening. Protect some quiet before the hardest stretch of your week.Don't wait until a questionable decision is sitting in front of you to decide your ministry will be above reproach. Build accountability into how you lead, with people who can ask you anything, so you're not standing in that moment by yourself.Take time today to put a few of those preventative strategies in place. And when they don't hold, keep your emergency plan ready: Don't resist temptation; run from it. That's the simplest and surest way out.

Pastor, here in the United States this is the week we celebrate our freedom, and many of you will work a line about it into Sunday's sermon. If you minister in another country, stay with me. The freedom I most want for you was never about a flag anyway. So here is the harder question: Are you actually free?A lot of us preach freedom in Christ on Sunday and then live all week as if everything depends on us. We can't stop working. We feel guilty when we rest. We lie awake running tomorrow's list.We have a name for that today: workaholism. The Bible doesn't use the word, but it has plenty to say about it. And "dedicated" isn't it.“Don’t wear yourself out trying to get rich. Be wise enough to know when to quit" (Proverbs 23:4 NLT). God honors hard work, but he calls wearing yourself out foolishness. Ecclesiastes says it even more bluntly: "Only someone too stupid to find his way home would wear himself out with work" (Ecclesiastes 10:15 GNT).So why do we do it? Why do we run ourselves into the ground for a church that belongs to Jesus anyway? It usually comes down to what is driving us underneath.Notice what's really driving youFor most of us, the engine is insecurity. There is a voice that whispers, "You're a nobody. Prove yourself." So you keep working to prove your worth. And that voice is never satisfied. You finish something good, and the voice says, "That's fine, but it's not enough." So you work more.For others, it is worry. "I am worn out by my worries," the psalmist said (Psalm 55:2 GNT). You can't afford a day off, because the fear of dropping the ball keeps you going.And sometimes, if you’re honest, it’s comparison. You look at the church down the road or the pastor with the bigger platform, and you tell yourself you just need to do a little more.None of those chains come from God. They come from inside you. And Jesus wants to set you free from every one of them.Realize your worthThe first step toward freedom is settling the question your insecurity keeps asking."See how much the Father has loved us! His love is so great that we are called God's children—and so, in fact, we are" (1 John 3:1 GNT). God says you are precious in his sight (Isaiah 43:4).When that truth finally sinks past your head and into your heart, a load lifts off your back. You stop having to prove yourself. God already loves you. He already approves of you. You don't have to earn it in the pulpit on Sunday.So ask yourself the freedom question: What am I trying to prove, and to whom?Enjoy what God has already givenFreedom also means contentment."All of us should eat and drink and enjoy what we have worked for. It is God's gift" (Ecclesiastes 3:13 GNT). For most of us, the pull isn't money. It's more. A bigger crowd. A stronger program. More influence. We get so fixated on the church we wish we had that we miss the one God actually gave us.But the people in your pews this Sunday are a gift. This season of ministry, limits and all, is a gift. Contentment is learning to receive what God has given instead of resenting what he hasn't.So enjoy the people he has actually entrusted to you and the work he has actually called you to. Ask yourself: How much would finally be enough?Limit your labor on purposeHere is where freedom gets practical. Limiting your work is a decision, not a feeling."You have six days in which to do your work, but the seventh day is a day of rest dedicated to me" (Exodus 20:9-10 GNT). God built rest into the week. When you refuse to take it, you are not being more faithful. You are arguing with the way he made you.So put it on paper. Decide how many hours you’ll work, how many evenings you’ll be at home, which day you’ll take off. If you need to, ask someone to hold you to it.The freedom you preach is yours to liveThis week, while the fireworks go off and you remind your people that Christ has set their spirits free, hear it for yourself. You don't have to prove anything. You don't have to try to carry what only God really can carry.The church is his. Your worth is settled. So work hard this week. Then stop. Rest in the freedom you keep preaching to everyone else.