Favorites.
We all have them. Maybe it’s your favorite drink at Starbucks, your favorite sports team or your favorite vacation spot. And yes, even your favorite pastor. You know, that one guy whose podcast you try to catch or whose service you watch on television when you can. The preacher whose book you buy whenever a new one comes out.
Guys like David Platt, T.D. Jakes, Joel Osteen, John Piper and Mark Driscoll all have successful ministries. They speak at highly sought-after engagements, write best-selling books and seem like they have reached the pinnacle of ministry success. In all of that, many people in the church respect them deeply.
Many pastors look up to these guys and desire to get to that level, where people outside of your church respect you and your ministry. Some pastors even want to be exactly like them.
When Admiration Becomes Hero Worship
Yet, what happens when a quick click of a mouse gives us access to any preacher’s books and teaching? How does it affect us when we hear God’s Word apart from a corporate body of believers? And why do we choose a conference based not on what someone will teach, but who will teach it?
What happens is hero worship.
Now hear me out. There is nothing wrong with having a pastor, preacher or teacher that you are drawn to, challenged by and encouraged by. God chooses men and women as vessels of His grace so that they may proclaim the gospel and build up the church. Scripture even encourages us to follow and imitate the example of those who have gone before us.
Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.
1 Corinthians 11:1
God has put people in place that we should imitate as we press forward in our faith. The problem begins when we value the preacher above what they are preaching about. We become such a fan of the mouthpiece that we neglect our own following after Christ.
We feast on the words of man so much that we no longer crave the very Word of God. Consuming the words of man can only fill our hunger for a time. They were never meant to sustain us. The words of the Author of life were meant to be our daily bread and ever-flowing water.
Feast on His Words
Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation — if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.
As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
1 Peter 2:2-5
Feast on His words, not the words of a man talking about Him. Let God use these incredibly gifted and called men of God like Platt and Piper to point you to Him.
Take what man says and go to the Scripture. Make sure that what you’ve heard truly lines up with what God has said.
Otherwise, depending on someone else’s words as your source of spiritual food is like having a relationship with someone you haven’t met. You only hear about that person through their friends. No true relationship exists when there is no personal investment and worship.
Be built up in Him, not in His servants.