Today we are fortunate to be joined once again by Keith and Kristyn Getty and their band. But this time they join us with two guests: Matt Papa and Matt Boswell, two writers on the Getty’s Hymn Writing Team. Kristyn will host an event for children in the morning. Over lunch Keith and the Matts will gather with over eighty area pastors and church muscians. Then, in the evening we will sing our faith with brothers and sisters from throughout the region. If you’re joining us tonight and you’re not from Heritage, welcome!
One of the songs on that album we intend to sing as a church is titled, “All My Boast Is In Jesus.” Matt Boswell tells the backstory to this song:
But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. – Galatians 6:14
We live in an age of boasting. Everyone is expected to have a personal brand. Likes and retweets are our currency.
What does the cross of Jesus have to say about where we find our value, our worth?
The Apostle Paul talked a lot about boasting. He had an impressive résumé. But he considered it all worthless compared with the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ. He explains in his letters how there is no room for boasting when it comes to our works (Eph 2:9), our righteousness (Rom 3:27), or any shining achievement in our past (Phil 3:1-11). Why? Because what room do we have to boast in the presence of the Almighty God? (1 Cor 1:29)
Instead of exalting self, Paul exhorts, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord” (2 Cor. 10:17). Rather than glorying in his accomplishments, Paul counts them as worthless in light of what Christ has done (Phil 3:9-11). In lieu of celebrating his strength, he boasts in his weakness, so Christ’s power gets the spotlight (2 Cor. 11:30) Beating at the heart of all this is an understanding that the greatness of Jesus is greater than anything this world has to offer, and the salvation he has brought to mankind is not earned but received by grace through faith alone. It is “not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Eph 2:8-9).
This new song, “All My Boast is in Jesus,” attempts to help us sing this truth of boasting in Christ and the salvation he accomplished through his life, death, and resurrection. The prayer behind this song is that the Lord might retune our hearts from singing of self—and instead glory in Christ alone.
All my boast is in Jesus
All my hope is his love
And I will glory forever
In what the cross has done.
Editorial Note: These are some reflections on life with my dad and on the end of my dad’s life. My dad’s obituary gives a tidy tour of his life to put some of these reflections in context.
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Some of you don’t have many photos with your dad because he was always taking the pictures. In my case, my dad just didn’t like his picture taken and he was stubborn about it. That’s one thing about him I’ll strangely miss. He loved anchovies on his pizza. That’s another thing. Then there are a thousand ways we were alike. I like a tall glass of milk after mowing the lawn. Kristi says my body just wants the water in the milk. I don’t care. I love it. Like my dad did. Mustard on eggs. Humming. Grunting (sorry!). That’s all dad.
The Honey Badger of Men
There are many ways in which my dad might have died. He landed in the hospital in college with a case of pleurisy from a combination of working, studying, and partying without things like sleep. Hearing this would not surprise anyone who has known my dad at any stage of his life. There were the threats to his life when he had to terminate employees for theft. Dad was a master at finding them and terminating them, one explanation for his incredible control of shrink in his stores. Dad worked most of his life in retail management. 28 years for Woolworth then 15 for Family Dollar in St. Louis. This included nine moves in eleven years and then two more after that. Dad had an encyclopedic mind and probably a photographic memory that helped him make good judgments in people and for people. The word “legend” keeps coming up as I speak with his old friends and colleagues. He was great with numbers, but better with people. “The best boss I ever had” and “one of my best friends” are recurring themes.
There’s another way he should have died. I reached out recently to many of dad’s old buddies. I keep getting stories back about how dad would play and replay the same song on a juke box more than a dozen times. In one instance a man came over and said “is that your bike out there? If you play that song one more time you don’t want to know what I’ll do to you.” So dad played the song one more time. The man walked over. Dad stared him down, waved his hand to the bar, and called, “Waitress, waitress.” She came over. “Call the cops” That threw the man off. “What are you doing!?!” “I’m calling the cops so I don’t have to kill you.” I think in his own mind my dad lived as Dirty Harry. Quiet, in control, and unstoppable. He made the right judgment about this man and called his bluff.
Sometimes you don’t die but you feel like you’re dying inside.
The picture above is my favorite from the early years. We’re all together. And by “all” I mean, us, incuding dad and Tyler. My older brother, Tyler, was born with severe heart and brain defects. Tyler had a handful of surgeries in his first year and a half of life to address both, with good success. But in the process of brain surgery at a little over a year old Tyler got MRSA in the brain. Meningitis led to severe and permanent brain damage. I grew up with Tyler in the home and then at a nursing home as he entered his teenage years. For Drew and me, Tyler was Tyler. But for mom and dad, Tyler’s story and suffering was their own. But they made it through and so did their marriage.
They also made it through the loss of dad’s company, Woolworth. Another kind of death. Just as dad landed the job of his dreams, in the late nineties, dad was charged with letting go of managers and colleagues. Mom says he had nightmares for years of the faces of these people he loved as they heard the news that they lost their job. At the end of that road dad lost his. He never fully recovered from that loss. He was of a generation that was less transactional in its commitment to the companies they worked for. He and his buddies didn’t work “for” Woolworth. They built Woolworth. They were Woolworth. Woolworth took great care of our family. But it didn’t last. Dad worked for fifteen more years, then for Family Dollar. From all the notes I’m receiving, it’s clear he attacked that job with a great deal of energy and even more care for the success of the managers he built into.
Hearing loss involves many small deaths. A long day of skeet shooting without hearing protection led eventually to a life of isolation from friends and—in ways that became sadly normal—from family as well. Phone calls were difficult, so long distances relationships faded. Being in social settings with more than two people was difficult, so he wasn’t much with us at larger family gatherings. And for obvious reasons, making new friends didn’t come easy. He was something of a recluse in his later years.
But his hearing didn’t close him off where it counted most. He didn’t have his old friends or broader family around. But he had Janell. And he loved Janell!
Janell was my dad’s life. Marriage is a one-flesh union, after all.
It wasn’t always easy to tell. He was not an affectionate person, at least in the typical fashion. Dad often channeled his inner Ralph from The Honeymooners. It was quite a sight and mostly an act, though not always. But if mom left the room, especially these last few months, dad talked about her:
Dad to me: “I’ve got a hell of a wife, don’t I? Snatched her up from all kinds of guys who wanted her. What woman would have moved all over the country trying to live like we did?”
Dad to my brother, Drew: “You probably already know this, but you have the best mom in the world. They don’t come like her.”
They were married 53 years. Death brings the end of a marriage too. I’ll miss their marriage as much as I’ll miss my dad.
Admiration and Ache
I admire my father. I hope you sense that. But I have also ached to know my dad better and for my dad to know the Lord. Not an uncommon longing, at least that first part. Regarding the second part, without knowing much about him other than his name, you have prayed for my dad to know Jesus.
Take heart: I believe the Lord was kind to answer both of my prayers and yours in these past months.
Mid-way through my sabbatical this summer I got the news: my dad’s body was full of cancer.
As you may know, I’ve been darting back and forth from Greenville to St. Louis to be with dad and mom. Dad was undergoing chemo. We had some nice talks on the back deck. He shared some stories from his life with me and a few kind words. We thought we might have months and maybe over a year. But then dad fell in the night and broke his hip. He was stuck in a door holding himself up for hours until mom found him. He swore he’d never ride in an ambulance, but he conceded. Dad wouldn’t return home for two weeks, then only for two days on hospice until he died. Much sooner than we expected. Those weeks in the hospital were difficult and undignifying.
One of you prayed often that the Lord would send Christians to my dad. He did that. One kind nurse prayed for my dad as he struggled, “Lord, help John.” A pastor from my home church here stopped by twice. Dad was sleeping, but he left a note each time. “Keith is a good man,” dad said. He always liked a man that did his job well. Keith has been at that church around the corner for over thirty years—a testament to longevity. Dad’s last doctor was a believer.
It was the Lord’s mercy that we could all be together at home with dad (on hospice) and holding him when he died. Circumstances could have been quite different (at a hospital alone, one of us across the country or else in town running an errand, or dad unconscious). Dad seemed aware that he was about to die. He was clearly fading. Yet it seemed clear he knew we were there. All very subtle and strained—he cried a few tears, something I had never seen dad do. He called out to Janell. She got to his side with me, along with my brother. Then, moments later, after brief intermittent breathing, dad breathed his last. I haven’t been up close in this way to a loved one. It was at the same time dreadful and precious, a horror and an honor to be there with him. It is not a place I ever wanted to be yet there was no place I would rather have been. We consider those moments a gift from God. We buried dad in Michigan this past Saturday alongside my brother, Tyler.
An older friend recently wrote me, “Grief never dissipates. It accumulates. With each death of a loved one, grief over the deaths of loved ones from years earlier makes another visit.” That sounds right to me, even good. I don’t want to forget my father such that I can’t feel his loss.
The Lord’s Mercy
It was the Lord’s mercy, as well, that dad had an early warning concerning death. That is a bitter gift, but a gift, nonetheless. He had a few other bitter warnings. Dad’s brother died in February and one of his sisters died in July.
I have written and spoken to my father for years about the Lord. In a way that fits my dad’s personality, he seemed to show that the seed of the Word had taken.
Remember that guy at the bar with a stone face who called the waitress over? That’s not the guy mom was talking about in this short exchange a month or two back:
“I bought a walker for dad” “Oh dad won’t like that.” “Well actually, he was glad for it. He is in the mode of knowing he needs help.”
In the last months of dad’s life, several of us had an encounter with dad in which he started off into a little reflection on the eternality of God. “What I don’t understand is how there could be a being that had no beginning. I understand something that has a beginning. But no beginning?”
He wasn’t fighting the thought. He wasn’t mocking the religious. He had at times. In this case, he assumed it was true that God was from forever and for forever, the ground of all existence. And in his own way he was seeing himself in perspective. Smaller and smaller. Created, not the boss of himself or the world. I got this little speech spontaneously while watching some show with dad, probably The Greatest Catch or Blue Bloods. I brought the topic up on another visit and he started into the speech again. Drew got it while sitting on the deck with dad. Drew asked, “what do you think about when you’re out here at night?” “I look through that hole in the trees at that star.” Then he started talking again about God.
Perhaps the Lord was bringing my father low for a purpose:
For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite. —Isaiah 57:15
Multiple times this past year, mom reports that dad told her that he prayed every day. That he thanked God for her, prayed about Tyler, and prayed for the forgiveness of his sins. It’s one thing to speak of forgiveness for sins in the abstract. It’s another thing to speak this way to the spouse against whom many of your sins were committed.
In this, dad acknowledged several truths: that he was in fact a sinner, that his sins were ultimately against God, that we need forgiveness from God, and that God stands ready to forgive.
That report from mom matches a heart that has considered the things he has heard about Jesus many times. Not the man who said once to me, “God could never forgive me. You don’t know what I have done.” Dad would not have had a developed Christology or soteriology. But maybe my dad understood God’s readiness to forgive our sins because of what he heard about how God sent his only Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
Larry, my former pastor here in St. Louis, encouraged me: “His tender heart toward the Lord as you described it is a great sign of working from God when I consider how little faith the thief on the cross expressed to Jesus on the day of his death, I realize that Jesus can save the one who calls upon his name. I have rarely seen someone confessing their sins as your father apparently did in his last hours who was not a believer in Christ. Those are not normally the acts of someone who is lost. He is in the hands of merciful God.” I might have encouraged you similarly at different times. But even pastors need pastors to shine some light into the dark for them. If he’s right, that would explain why my dad sweetened toward my mom this past year, showed forebearance with a difficult person, and said he hopes a nurse forgives him after he spoke too much of his mind recently.
The Lord is merciful, and he knows. We trust him.
There and Back Again
It is difficult to imagine Drew and me caring for and leading our churches as we do apart from dad’s fathering. He cheered on our pursuit of ministry, though I’m sure he didn’t see it coming. But dad saw something coming. He was determined that Drew and I would be reliable, resiliant, and ready to lead.
He introduced me to a nurse two weeks ago this way: “That’s my son. He’s a black belt. He got off the bus one day and got beat up. I asked if he fought back. He said no. The next day we put him in karate.” Dad was proud of decisions like that. He made many of them for our good—usually swift, often consequential. Your preacher is the sum of many impressions and the Lord’s grace. But much of that grace was through my father. I knew it already, but he confirmied it on meeting Kristi: “Kristi is a good girl. I can see it in her eyes. You should marry her.” He was a good judge of character. These are the kinds of memories we’ve been sitting on these last days in thankfulness for dad.
We’ve also been giving thanks to God for you.
Thank you for praying for dad, some of you for many years. Based on your reports, my dad’s soul was under spiritual seige. I wrote to encourage you with your part in my dad’s story. But I also wanted you to know something of my dad. Thanks for reading.
I’m in St. Louis now riding out the grief with my mother. Mom is still saying, “We’re selling the car,” or “our house.” She hesitates for a moment after doing so, I can tell. The pronouns will adjust with time. I keep wanting to text dad something. As we get used to dad no longer being here, I have been pondering this thought: I no longer have a dad. I had a dad.
We’re both getting used to new sounds in a quieter house. And we’re both figuring out our way forward with our main character gone from the scene. A partner for mom. A dad for us boys. A grandpa for my kids.
Drew and I are both pastors, five hours and eleven hour drives away respectively. We’re tag-teaming taking care of mom. We have months ahead of us to help her in the way we should. I’ll be back in the pulpit soon and preaching most of that time, as usual. But I might be more touch-and-go than you’re used to.
I’m sure this little account brings up some hard memories for you, or even some memories you wish you had. And perhaps some sweet memories as well.
That’s part of why I wrote. For me, for you, and for us. I’ve walked with many of you though grief. More than that, you’ve walked with one another through grief. Thanks for walking patiently with me through mine.
Questions are normal. In our own family, Kristi and I probably ask one another a dozen questons a day. Our kids ask us more, especially the youngest. When we circle up at night, we’ll read the Bible, pray, talk about the day to come, and typically I’ll take questions to make sure we’re all on the same page.
It’s that way with church as well.
I am greatly encoruaged for your many questions throughout the year about the Scriptures, about a given sermon, and about how to love your church well and love your neighbors in Christ’s name.
Once a year we get to reinforce this culture of question asking and answering in a corporate way through our Elders Q&A, hosted this year on November 10 at 4:30 p.m.
Six Reasons to Join Us
By way of reminder, here’s why we host this evening each year.
To promote a culture of openness and vulnerability.
To model healthy question asking and answering.
To enhance our elders’ unity and insight into the ministry.
To clarify any ambiguities or gaps in our leadership for our members.
To instruct in biblical eldership and increase the visibility for our team.
To update the congregation on any timely projects or studies we’ve been working on.
We’ll plan for an hour and fifteen minutes. We’ll plan for dinner following.
Submit Your Questions by September 30
We’ll take questions in September. Our elders will have a few meetings in October to discuss as needed. Then, we’ll meet in November for our Q&A. If you have a question—think doctrine, church life, plans for our shared mission, etc.—you can get it to us in a variety of ways:
Tell. Communicate your question for the Q&A to an elder in person or through email. They’ll ask you to write it down so that we don’t lose your intent in translation, but you’re welcome to start with a conversation.
We’ll also have some time available in the evening to answer questions from you in a more impromptu style.
As a help in this process, aim to submit your questions by September 30. This lead time helps us notice recurring themes, know how to devote time to particular questions, discuss any topics as a team if needed, and order our time in a way that best serves the congregation. It also gives us time to follow up with you for any clarification and context as needed.
As you’ve come to expect, we won’t be able to answer every question that gets asked. However, if you put your name on a question and we did not answer it at the Q&A, we will reach out to answer that question for you in person or by email. In some cases, we may devote a blog-post to the topic.
Before the Q&A, get acquainted with Heritage’s elders at the About Page. Also, here’s the recap from 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023 for those that couldn’t join us.
Here’s an interesting insight into Jesus’ humanity from Mark’s gospel:
The apostles returned to Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught. And he said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a desolate place by themselves. — Mark 6:30–32
Jesus needed to get away from the everyday work of ministry and so do everyday pastors like me. Our elders have established a thoughtful plan for periodic extended breaks for both non-staff and staff pastors. This summer, they have kindly granted me a twelve week sabbatical. Sabbaticals can take different shapes, but the primary purpose is rest, to let the ground of my mind and heart lay fallow in preparation for more faithful ministry. I won’t be engaging email or texts and won’t be reading in ways that are a direct preparation for ministry output. This is a season for refreshment and input. No man is immune from being worn down from the work. Read Charles Spurgeon’s famous, “The Minister’s Fainting Fits.” It’s humbling, but I should admit, yes, I have my own limitations.
That said, thankfully at Heritage, our sabbatical plan is not designed to respond to fatigue but to get ahead of it. And that’s what this is. Think of a sabbatical with this skiing metaphor. If normal ministry life is working on the front side of the mountain under the sun with a measure of risk and lots of eyes on you, then a sabbatical is moving to the back side of the mountain where it is slower and where the man can work on himself. In addition to rest, I have a writing project that I will give myself to for two weeks alone out of town.
Sabbatical You Later!
In summary, I’m headed out from May 6–August 3 to sit on a rock with the Lord and think about my life, to sit in a chair to read and write, and to sit around the table with my family and laugh a little. As I asked of you this morning, pray I would find my inner-middle schooler. I’ve been wound a little too tight at home lately. How’s that for a way of using non-biblical language to confess that one needs to grow in gentleness and warmth.
Pray for me in three ways.
First, pray that I would not work. If you know me, you’ll know that there is a constant queue of long-term and short-term projects for our church, and a handful of books to work through with you in mind. I need to turn all of that off for now.
Second, pray that I would not worry about you. I think about you all the time and that’s a good sign. You are not here at Heritage for me. We are here for one another and I am here for you. But for a time it will be good for all of us if I give my attention to the Lord and to my family in a more undivided fashion.
Third, pray that our family would walk together with the Lord. Just this morning we learned about Zechariah and Elizabeth, “both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord” (1:6). I would like for that to describe my family. My wife and children give their husband and father to the church in some unique ways. There are meals and events that I am not at because I am with you. This is a time for me to give myself to them.
Fourth, pray that I would be successful in my writing endeavor, a short study for Crossway on Isaiah’s Servant Songs in their Knowing the Bible Series.
Planning and Praying for The Pulpit
I’ll be back in church on August 4 and back in the pulpit on August 18. I am going to do something for you at the risk of mismanaging expectations. I typically do not map out the series like this. There are advantages and I may in years ahead. But because I love you that much, here’s the plan through August. I’m including the text and the preacher so you can pray for the preacher that week.
May 12, Luke 1:39–56, Jason Read
May 19, Luke 1:57–80, Jim Knauss
May 26, Luke 2:1–21, Jim Knauss
June 2, Psalm 77, Jonathan Farmer
June 9, Luke 2:22–38, Jason Read
June 16, Luke 2:39–52, Matt Jackson
June 23, Luke 3:1–20, Matt Jackson
June 30, Luke 3:21–38, Jason Read
July 7, Luke 4:1–13, Jim Knauss
July 14, Galatians, Part 1, Dan Cruver
July 21, Galatians, Part 2, Dan Cruver
July 28, Galatians, Part 3, Dan Cruver
August 4, Galatians, Part 4, Dan Cruver
August 11, Luke 4:14–30, Jason Read
August 18, Luke 4:31–44, Yours Truly
August 25, Luke 5:1–11, Yours Truly
I’m at once eager to get away and eager to get back. Thank you for loving one another so well and for receiving the Word with joy.
Preachers need help. We need help from God, for the work of preaching is a work that depends on the invisible work of God’s Spirit in both the preacher and the people. Preaching is more than content and craftsmanship. But we also need help from one another, which includes help to think rightly about preaching encouragement to stay in it. Timothy received both from the Apostle Paul: “Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress” (1Tim 4:15).
Help. That’s what we hope our annual preaching workshop offers to preachers in our region in partnership with The Charles Simeon Trust. From January 24–26 we were joined by 60 area preachers from 35 churches, including 30 lead pastors. Many names you would recognize, including Brad Baugham from Emmauel Bible Church and Abe Stratton from Bethany Baptist Church. Several preachers from churches in the neighborhood joined as well, including Marty Martin from Fellowship Presbyterian Church, Jim Wetterlund from Suber Road Baptist Church, and Mark Hatfield from Grace Baptist Church, Taylors.
Thank you for being a church that invests in these men and their congregations.
Let me introduce you to one brother in particular.
Trevor Hoffman is the Teaching Pastor at Ridgewood Greer. Trevor and I have a friendship going back six years now. He joined us last year for the first time and came back this year. He’s a gentle brother who leads his flock with tenacity about the church’s mission and patient endurance in its pursuit. Trevor was a small group apprentice leader for this year’s workshop. I’ve asked him to share about himself, his church, and the workshop we just hosted.
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1. Trevor, thanks for joining us at the workshop this year. You are preaching and pastoring at Ridgewood Church in Greer. That’s a new name for your church in a new location. Tell us the story of your Ridgewood, a church on the move. Oh, and why did you say I pastor in “Fake Greer”?
That’s right! I planted The Church at Greer Station back in 2014. We’ve met in every nook or cranny we could find. It’s been difficult at times, but we’ve been sustained by an immovable God. In his kindness, he gave us a “fixer-upper” facility in 2020. We renovated, put down roots, and changed our name to Ridgewood Church in September of 2022.
I like to call people in your area—that no-man’s land at the nexus of Greer, Taylors, and Greenville—”fake Greer.” I know the post office gives you a Greer address, but you’re not in the beating heart of the Greer like I am!
2. This was your second workshop. Why did you come back and what was different this second time around?
I came back, frankly, because of how humbled I was by the first workshop. It can be a challenge to get good feedback on your preaching. My church was generally encouraged by my teaching, I wasn’t getting negative emails (all that often, at least), and the church was growing. I had found a rhythm and maybe allowed a little pride to take root.
But when you’re forced to present material to sharp, Bible-loving brother pastors, weaknesses in preparation and presentation are exposed. Last year’s workshop was humbling for me. It showed that I had not arrived; that there’s always room for progress.
3. We shared six instructional sessions together, some on convictions required for biblical exposition and others on tools we need to go about the work. Which instruction was your favorite and how do you believe it will help your preaching?
My favorite instructional section was on structure. It helped me to see that I move too quickly through texts. Instead of pausing to see how the structure of the text clues us into the author’s emphasis, my tendency is to isolate a few insights from the text, then jump quickly into crafting the sermon. Instead, this section reminded me that the text itself tells you how it’s to be preached by careful attention to the details of its structure.
4. You spent six hours in a small group of men working on texts together. Tell us about one particularly “aha” moment you had together. I know this might take some work to recall and walk us through, but our church loves hearing of these moments.
The men in my group had a great time encouraging one another under the guidance of Abe Stratton, our group leader.
I was assigned Revelation 2:1-7, the Lord Jesus’ warning to the church at Ephesus. There Jesus commands the church to repent and return to “the love they had at first.” My sermon emphasized the promise at the end of the passage; the “conqueror” would “eat of the tree of life in the paradise of God.” What my group helped me to see was, though gloriously true, this promise is the not the primary word Jesus had for Ephesus. Jesus’ primary exhortation was, “repent!” My work came from the passage, but the main point of the sermon was not in complete alignment with the emphasis of the passage. This was such a helpful “aha” moment. There’s a main sermon point derived from a passage, and then there’s a main sermon point consistent with the main point of a passage. This distinction, though seemingly slight, is the difference between preaching that’s just informed by the Bible versus preaching truly rooted in the Bible. I’m thankful for the men who helped me to see this.
5. Our goal at these workshops isn’t perfection but progress. How did this year’s workshop help you make progress in your Word work?
It reminded me of my need to slow down in study. I can be presumptuous with familiar passages, assuming I already know what the author is saying and how I will preach it. Rather than slowing down to give careful, sustained attention to the text, I fly through my exegesis to get into crafting the sermon. This is a guaranteed path into biblically-informed, not biblically-rooted teaching.
6. How can we pray for you and your church?
We want to be like Heritage when we grow up! Heritage has a long legacy of sending plants, pastors, and sharing resources all while remaining faithful; we want that culture here!
