Persevering with the Presence of Christ
Author: Chris Castaldo, PhD
March 23, 2023
Have you ever felt that the Christian life is just too difficult? Have the “results” from your hard work, prayer, and obedience been meager to nonexistent? Have friends and loved ones resisted your every effort to share the hope of the gospel? Do your grinding circumstances of illness or disability sap you of your strength? Are you struggling with spiritual depression?
If you answered yes to any of those questions—and if you didn’t, you probably will—then take a number and get in line. Lots of pastors—yes, pastors—have felt the same way. One who understood was Solomon Stoddard.
Stoddard (1643–1729) was the minister of a church in Northampton, Massachusetts. He enjoyed a fruitful ministry over many years and was used by God in the conversion of many and in reforming the community in line with Christian principles.
Yet Stoddard, who was succeeded in the pulpit by his famous grandson Jonathan Edwards, admitted that he needed encouragement. Why? Many who had professed true religion under his ministry were living contrary to their calling. “We live in a corrupt age,” Stoddard said, “and multitudes of men take a licentious liberty, in their drinking and apparel . . . and unsavory discourses.”1
In this extract from a sermon entitled “The Presence of Christ with the Ministers of the Gospel,” Stoddard encourages pastors that the Lord Jesus Christ is with them through it all.
Faithful ministers ought to take encouragement that they shall have Christ’s presence. Ministers are in danger of being discouraged. Their work is heavy and attended with a great deal of difficulty, and their spirits are ready to faint sometimes under a sense of their own weakness, want of understanding, and grace for their work. Sometimes it is upon experience of unsuccessfulness; they have taken a great deal of pains, and little comes of it. Sins that they reprove are not reformed; sinners are not converted; many remain senseless and hard-hearted, as if no means had been used with them. But their hearts should not sink under their burden. 2 Corinthians 4:1: “Seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not.” Christ Jesus can assist them in their work, and furnish them to do their work acceptably. He can make their work prosperous. He can make their work powerful, though men are very blind and dead, and have strong inclinations to continue in a course of sin. Christ has promised His presence . . . this should encourage them.2
And this word of encouragement is not just for church pastors. We all are called by the Lord to serve faithfully, wherever we have been called, whatever the results and however we feel. The Protestant Reformers pointed out that being a minister is no higher calling than being a businessman. The clergy is no higher in the kingdom than the street sweeper. We all have a role to play.
J. Gresham Machen rightly observed, “Christians are called to God’s service not only in church professions but also in every secular calling. The task of restoring truth to the culture depends largely on our laypeople.”
Because this calling to share the gospel and spread the kingdom is for all God’s people, we all need the encouragement to persevere. And that encouragement comes, first of all, from knowing that Christ goes with us. Always. As the Lord told his disciples, “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20).
Yes, difficult and discouraging times will come. In fact, they are guaranteed. But don’t lose heart. Because Christ goes with us, our work will have a return, and we can persevere.
Notes:
1 Solomon Stoddard, quoted in George M. Marsden, Jonathan Edwards: A Life (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003), 13.
2 Solomon Stoddard, “The Presence of Christ with the Ministers of the Gospel,” in The Nature of Saving Conversion: Together with Several Sermons (1719; repr., Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria, 1999), 153.
Chris Castaldo, PhD, is lead pastor of New Covenant Church in Naperville and author of the forthcoming book, The Upside Down Kingdom, from Crossway.
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