Brothers, We Are Not Professionals: A Plea to Pastors for Radical Ministry

by John Piper

When I look back, my regret is not that I wasn’t more professional but that I wasn’t more prayerful, more passionate for souls, more consistent in personal witness, more emotionally engaged with my children, more tender with my wife, more spontaneously affirming of the good in others. These are my regrets.

The mentality of the professional is not the mentality of the prophet.

The more professional we long to be, the more spiritual death we will leave in our wake. For there is no professional childlikeness (Matt. 18:3); there is no professional tenderheartedness (Eph. 4:32); there is no professional panting after God (Ps. 42:1).

We are fools for Christ’s sake, but professionals are wise. We are weak, but professionals are strong. Professionals are held in honor, we are in disrepute. We do not try to secure a professional lifestyle, but we are ready to hunger and thirst and be ill-clad and homeless.

Brothers, we are not professionals! We are outcasts. We are aliens and exiles in the world (1 Pet. 2:11).

We are most emphatically not part of a social team sharing goals with other professionals. Our goals are an offense; they are foolishness (1 Cor. 1:23).

The world sets the agenda of the professional man; God sets the agenda of the spiritual man. The strong wine of Jesus Christ explodes the wineskins of professionalism. There is an infinite difference between the pastor whose heart is set on being a professional and the pastor whose heart is set on being the aroma of Christ, the fragrance of death to some and eternal life to others (2 Cor. 2:15–16).

God’s first commitment is to His own glory and that this is the basis for ours.

Since those explosive days of discovery in the late sixties, I have labored to understand the implications of God’s passion for His glory.

Why is it important to be stunned by the God-centeredness of God? Because many people are willing to be God-centered as long as they feel that God is man-centered.

God loves His glory more than He loves us and that this is the foundation of His love for us.

God’s ultimate commitment is to Himself and not to us. And therein lies our security. God loves His glory above all. “For my name’s sake I defer my anger, for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you, that I may not cut you off. . . . For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another” (Isa. 48: 9, 11).

That the glory of His grace might be praised (Eph. 1:6, 12, 14). Why did God create a people for Himself? “I created [them] for my glory” (Isa. 43:7).

That His wonders might be multiplied over Pharaoh (Exod. 14:4) and that His name might be declared in all the earth (Exod. 9:16).

“I acted for the sake of my name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations” (Ezek. 20:14).

hour? “For this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name” (John 12:27–28).

“He remains faithful” means “He cannot deny Himself.”

sake? “Act, O Lord, for your name’s sake!” (Jer. 14:7). “Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of your name; deliver us, and atone for our sins, for your name’s sake!” (Ps. 79:9). “For Your name’s sake, O Lord, Pardon my iniquity, for it is great” (Ps. 25:11 NASB).

The foundation, the means, and the goal of God’s agape for sinners is His prior, deeper, and ultimate love for His own glory.

His all-sufficient glory is honored and displayed most by His working for us rather than our working for Him. And this is love.

“knowing where God wants people to be and taking the initiative to get them there by God’s means in reliance on God’s power.”

God loves His glory (see chap. 2) and that He aims to magnify His glory in all He does.

The objection arose at the retreat that this teaching makes God out to be a self-centered egomaniac who seems never to act out of love.

We need to see how God can be for His own glory and be for us too. The best way I know to show this is to explain how God is holy, God is righteous, and God is love, and how these three interrelate.

“Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?” (Exod. 15:11).

God is holy in His absolute uniqueness. Everything else belongs to a class. We are human; Rover is a dog; the oak is a tree; Earth is a planet; the Milky Way is one of a billion galaxies; Gabriel is an angel; Satan is a demon.

But only God is God. And therefore He is holy, utterly different, distinct, unique.

Diamonds are valuable because they are rare and hard to make. God is infinitely valuable because He is the rarest of all beings and cannot be made at all, nor was He ever made.

The holiness of God is the absolutely unique and infinite value of His being and His majesty. To say that our God is holy means that His value is infinitely greater than the sum of the value of all created beings.

For it would not be right for God to esteem anything above the infinite glory of His own name.

all your righteous acts,

For your own sake, O Lord,

For God to be righteous, He must devote Himself 100 percent, with all His heart, soul, and strength, to loving and honoring His own holiness in the display of His glory.

Everything in our salvation is designed by God to magnify the glory of God.

the nature of God’s holiness and righteousness demands that He be a God of love.

And His all-sufficient glory is honored and displayed most by His working for us rather than our working for Him. And this is love.

It is more glorious to give than to receive. Therefore, the righteousness of God demands that He be a giver. Therefore, the holy and righteous One is love.

The Son of Man has not come seeking employees. He has come to employ Himself for our good.

“Now to one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly; his faith is counted as righteousness” (Rom. 4:4–5). This is a warning not to pursue justification by working for God.

“It was not I, but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Cor. 15:10).

God aims to get all the glory in our redemption. Therefore He is adamant that He will work for us and not we for Him.

11), “Whoever serves [let him render it] by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever.”

So God is love, not in spite of His passion to promote His glory but precisely because of it.

God is love because He is infinitely valuable (His holiness) and is committed to displaying that value for our everlasting enjoyment (His righteousness).

I feel a special burden for the millions of nominal Christians who are not born again who believe God loves them and yet are on their way to hell.

In other words, to become a Christian, in this way of seeing things, is to have all the same desires you had as an unregenerate person—only you get them from a new source, Jesus.

Christ loved us, died for us; and the aim was that we might live for Him. He pursues His glory through our salvation.

Why does God remind us over and over that He makes much of us in a way that is designed ultimately to make much of Him?

You are precious to God, and the greatest gift He has for you is not to let your preciousness become your god. God will be your God. God alone forever. And this is infinite love. This is how much He makes of you.

Preaching and living justification by faith alone glorifies Christ,