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On this episode of The Lead On Podcast, Jeff Iorg, president of the SBC Executive Committee, discusses the profound and often misunderstood concept of sacrifice in ministry leadership. Explore this candid and encouraging conversation about embracing the spirit of sacrifice as an essential part of faithful ministry leadership.
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Ready to hone your leadership skills and unlock your full potential? Tune in to the Lead On Podcast, where Jeff Iorg dives deep into Biblical leadership.
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From effective communication and team building to strategic decision-making and fostering innovation, each episode is packed with valuable lessons and inspiring stories to empower you on your leadership journey.
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Welcome to the Lead On Podcast. This is Jeff Iorg, the president of the executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, talking with you once again about practical issues related to ministry leadership. Thank you for listening to the podcast and thank you especially those of you who come up to me at various meetings and places where I'm out speaking and tell me that you're listeners and talk about it with me. I really enjoy meeting you and I'm grateful to God for the opportunity to speak into your lives about practical issues about how to get the work done that God has assigned us. Well, today, I wanna speak about a significant issue.
Jeff Iorg:I wanna speak a little bit devotionally and I also wanna speak practically about what I call the spirit of sacrifice. Let's talk today about what it means to make a sacrifice to be involved in ministry leadership. Now, before you before you say, oh, you know, we don't really make that many sacrifices. I mean, people around the world are being murdered. People around the world are living in primitive conditions.
Jeff Iorg:People are suffering and struggling. I get all that. And I certainly understand that that could be one perspective on this issue. What I've learned over the years is that sacrifice is not measured by some artificial standard external to our circumstances, but that sacrifice is two things. It's very personal and it's very proportional.
Jeff Iorg:So that what might be a sacrifice for you might not be perceived as a sacrifice by another person at all. And what might proportionately be a significant sacrifice for you might not be a sacrifice for another person at all. Let me see if I can help you understand this. I wanna talk about sacrifice being personal and proportional, and then I wanna show you a passage of scripture in the Bible, and I wanna talk with you about the kinds of sacrifices that you can expect to make if you're going to be meaningfully involved in ministry leadership today. And most importantly perhaps, I want us to get past any negative, feelings about sacrifice or any anger or resentment we might have because we've been asked to sacrifice and move us into a place of understanding that this is part of what it means to be a spiritual leader and a ministry leader today.
Jeff Iorg:Sacrifice
Jeff Iorg:then is personal. Now this came home
Jeff Iorg:to me a number of years ago through an experience that my wife has had and talks about openly. When we were moving from the Midwest to plant our church in Portland, Oregon, many of the women of our church where we were leaving quite frankly thought Anne had lost her mind. My wife had at the time three preschool children. The youngest one was six weeks old and the oldest was just starting kindergarten that following year. So we had these three preschool children.
Jeff Iorg:We were in our twenties. We didn't have significant financial resources. We had a very stable church that was growing where we were. We had been in the process of relocating the church. There was very there were many good things happening in ministry.
Jeff Iorg:We had a capable and adequate, small staff that was serving with us. We had good, loyal, loving deacons that were promoting our work and helping us to get it done. Really, in every way, it seemed like we should just stay there and enjoy the stability and the life that we had. But God convinced us that we were supposed to move to Portland, Oregon and plant a new church. And so when we announced this, again, the women of our church commiserated with my wife and said things like, we can't believe you're making this sacrifice.
Jeff Iorg:We can't believe you're moving to this God forsaken place so far from here. We can't believe you're going out to a place where there's no church to start a church when you have a good church here that cares about you and supports you and wants the best for you. But what they didn't realize was that my wife comes from a very small family, and she had an aunt and uncle that were very committed to Christ, very much involved in ministry leadership, had three children who were her three cousins that she was very close to when she was a a small child. And guess where that family had relocated? Portland, Oregon.
Jeff Iorg:They were there in Portland, involved in ministry, engaged in family, and we were moving to join them. Now, that's not why we went to Portland. We we tried to go a lot of places, and Portland was the door that got open for us to plant the church. But when Anne found out that we might consider Portland, and that this aunt and uncle who meant so much to her were in Portland, and that we were gonna be able to move there, and she was gonna be able to be for the first time close to people in her family while doing mission work and planting a new church, it made her heart sing. In fact, she told me back in the day, I'm having a hard time keeping a straight face when people tell me that they admire my sacrifice or that they're commiserating with me about how difficult this is.
Jeff Iorg:She goes, This is this is like no sacrifice at all for me. Again, sacrifice is personal. What other people saw as a sacrifice and didn't see as one at all. Now fast forward a few years. Now we're at Golden Gate Seminary in the San Francisco Bay Area, and Anne is now serving as the, volunteer children's and preschool ministry coordinator at First Baptist Church of San Francisco.
Jeff Iorg:We're working downtown in that in that inner city church, in the most multicultural church that we've ever been a part of, with a vibrant pastor and leader, and my wife was thriving in this church. I came home one day and said, the seminary needs to move to Southern California. And Anne said, I fully embrace that. I see the need. I believe you're making the right decision.
Jeff Iorg:But quite frankly, it broke her heart to have to leave the First Baptist Church of San Francisco. She once said to me, this is the favorite church that I've ever been a part of in my life. And with a smile, I said, may I remind you that I planted the last church you were a member of before we moved here? She smiled and said, well, yes. Well, you're still my favorite preacher.
Jeff Iorg:Does that count? Well, yeah, it counts a lot. You see, the second time we were moving, the opposite. Everyone around us was saying, oh, this is so exciting. We can't believe you're doing this.
Jeff Iorg:You're doing something that's never been done before. What a wonderful moment it is to see the seminary relocating and you guys leading it and being so involved in it. No one realized that this was a great personal sacrifice for my wife because she was leaving the most important church ministry that she felt she'd ever been a part of, that she had invested herself so so powerfully in leading, and that she had so many relationships that meant so much to her. My wife's experience really illustrates this first point, that is sacrifice is always personal. What other people may think is a sacrifice, moving to Portland, Oregon, my wife didn't think was a sacrifice at all.
Jeff Iorg:What other people were celebrating and ignoring as a sacrifice was when my wife had to leave San Francisco and move to Los Angeles and leave behind the most meaningful church relationship that she'd ever had.
Jeff Iorg:Listen, friends. In ministry leadership, you will be called upon to make sacrifices, and those sacrifices are personal. And that means that no one else can define them for you.
Jeff Iorg:And this is the painful part, no one else may understand them quite like you do. I've lived through this myself in the last year. Moving from the seminary to the executive committee and bypassing retirement, the job itself here, that's really not been that big of a sacrifice. It's it's in my gift mix of what I do. It involves preaching and teaching and problem solving and leadership development and staff management.
Jeff Iorg:That's what I do. That's who I am. That comes to me. But the sacrifice part was giving up my retirement dreams of investing in my children and my grandchildren and, frankly, in my wife and in the life that we envision together. Giving that up, that was the sacrifice.
Jeff Iorg:Many people have thanked me for taking the job and said, I appreciate the sacrifice you're making, but I think they mean I've made a sacrifice to take the job. That's not really been much of a sacrifice. What's been the sacrifice has been the personal dimensions of giving up what we dreamed of doing together in order to do this job instead. All I'm trying to point out is sacrifice is personal. It it it's it's meaningful to you.
Jeff Iorg:Other people may not explain it. Other people may not even realize it. And certainly, others may not appreciate what it means for
Jeff Iorg:you. So stop trying to explain yourself. Stop feeling sorry for yourself if other people don't understand what you're going through, and stop blaming God for what you're feeling. Sacrifice is part of ministry leadership, and it's personal And something that matters a great deal to you, you may have to give it up in order to pursue the ministry responsibility that God has given you. And then secondarily, sacrifice is proportional.
Jeff Iorg:It means that it takes something from you out of the resources that you have that's painful for you to give up. Now, sometimes what another person gives up may not be a sacrifice at all because proportionately, it didn't really cost them anything, but for you, it did. You know, I've watched a number
Jeff Iorg:of people over the years give proportional sacrifices and what it cost them. Sometimes, I've tended to belittle or overlook what they did because I think, well, that really wasn't that great of a gift or that big of a a sacrifice or or that much of a commitment. Why? Because I'm proportionately comparing it to what I have in terms of resources or in terms of energy or in
Jeff Iorg:terms of time, or I'm comparing it to what some other person in my context might have, and I'm forgetting that sacrifice is always proportional to the resources of the person making it. Their their finances, their time, their energy, their relationships, that's what makes it a sacrifice. So with these two ideas in mind, sacrifice is personal and sacrifice is proportional, let me share with you now just a little bit of a devotional thought and then some additional information about the kinds of sacrifices we make in ministry leadership. Jesus is teaching about these themes in Mark chapter 10 when in verse 28 Peter makes this declarative statement. He says, look, Jesus, we have left everything and followed you.
Jeff Iorg:And Jesus replied, truly I tell you. Our other translations say, I assure you, I know. And then Jesus said, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for my sake and for the sake of the gospel who will
Jeff Iorg:not receive a hundred times more now at this time, houses brothers, sisters, mothers, and children,
Jeff Iorg:and fields with persecutions, and eternal life in the age to come. In this passage, Peter erupts with this statement, Lord, we've left everything to follow you. And notice how Jesus responds. No rebuke. In fact, instead, he gives assurance.
Jeff Iorg:He says, I know.
Jeff Iorg:Or in my translation, truly,
Jeff Iorg:I tell you, or in other translations, I assure you. And then Jesus gives some very specific assurances, and I
Jeff Iorg:can group these into three categories. He said there is no one who has left house,
Jeff Iorg:and then no one who's left relationships, brothers, sisters, mother, father, children. And then finally, no one who's left fields for my sake. So Jesus says, sometimes you have
Jeff Iorg:to leave your house, your relationships, or your field. Now, what are the modern applications of these things? Well, I think leaving your house means that you leave the security and stability of a permanent residence
Jeff Iorg:or a home or a home base. And then Jesus said, sometimes you have to
Jeff Iorg:give up relationships. And he lists these, brothers, sisters, mother, father, children, all family relationships. So Jesus said sacrifice means giving up house, security, stability of a permanent residence of a home base. It means giving up relationships, particularly family relationships, even the closest ones to you like siblings and children and parents. And then he said, and you have to give up your fields.
Jeff Iorg:Now remember in this agricultural context, Jesus is saying you give up that which provides your vocation and provides your sustenance and even provides your financial security. Vocation, sustenance, financial security. Jesus here describes three common areas of sacrifice for ministry leaders.
Jeff Iorg:First of all, sometimes we're called upon to give up our houses, our permanent residences,
Jeff Iorg:our home base, if you will.
Jeff Iorg:We were called upon to do this when we left the South and then the Midwest and moved to the West Coast. We moved to the West and planted our lives there. It became home, but
Jeff Iorg:it certainly wasn't home when we got there. It's interesting now though, people ask us, are you going to move back to Texas or move back to the Midwest? And in retirement, our answer is no. No. We we're gonna stay here in the West where we can continue the mission that God has given us in this part of the world.
Jeff Iorg:But when we moved there in the beginning, we were giving up home and home base and a sense of permanence and residence and belonging. I have a friend who's a missionary. She served along with her husband their entire careers internationally. They're home now, retired and involved in ministry here in The States. She told me once, she said, I lived in 32 houses, apartments, condominiums.
Jeff Iorg:32 during my missionary career. Not a one of them did we ever own. Not a one of them was ours. When they came to The States, able to retire for the first time in their lives, they they bought a house. And, because of the circumstances and the location and some other factors, they were able to buy a brand new constructed home.
Jeff Iorg:And I saw them a few months later, and this was her phrase. She said, I love this house because it's the first time in my life I've gotten to make my own dirt. What she meant was it was the first time she'd ever moved into a place that didn't have someone else's dirt left behind. Now that doesn't mean people weren't kind and cleaned up after themselves. You know what I'm trying to say.
Jeff Iorg:She was saying, for thirty plus years, I always lived in somebody else's place.
Jeff Iorg:Now finally, I kinda have my own.
Jeff Iorg:God asked us to make these kinds of sacrifices, to give up a sense of residence, of permanence, of home, to go, and sometimes even to the extreme of living in somebody else's places for our entire lives, And then give up relationships, to give up these meaningful family relationships in order to sacrifice to provide the leadership that we're supposed to be giving. You know, I I've experienced this in a different kind of way. My children all live in The United States, but they live scattered across the entire country. I have a child in Portland, Oregon, 1 in Casper, Wyoming, and one in Washington DC. Each one found and followed God's will for their lives, and so have we.
Jeff Iorg:And one of the challenges for us has been that, especially in their adult lives, we've never been able to live near our children or our grandchildren. Now I've always been able to manage that because quite frankly, I always had in my mind this retirement dream that I would someday retire and move and live near one of my children and even near my grandchildren, more importantly. And I even had devised some ways to split time living in a couple of locations so that we could spend even more time with these grandchildren. That was one of the real sacrifices we had to come to grips with when we took on this role at the executive committee, that we were giving up those relationships. Now I have to be honest.
Jeff Iorg:Over the years when I've been a seminary president and I've counseled with and sent dozens, if not hundreds, of people off into ministry, and I would hear these stories from parents who would lament losing their children to mission field service or to church planting somewhere in The United States or to being far away from home. And these parents would lament that, and I would sometimes, frankly, with a little bit of a judgmental attitude think, well, what's wrong with these people? You know, they just have to be willing to give up their kids, and they have to do what's right, and they
Jeff Iorg:have to support their children as they fall find and follow God's will. And then it happened to me.
Jeff Iorg:And while I had been willing to put up with that for some years, while I was waiting for my dream, if you will, to come true that I would be able to spend that time with family that I always longed for, I didn't get that. It was a sacrifice. It was a it was a personal and proportional moment, if
Jeff Iorg:you will, where I had to come to grips with that reality. But we were able to do that and recognize that it's a season of sacrifice that we need to be willing to make. And then the third one was giving up fields, our vocational and financial support, our security. You know, one
Jeff Iorg:of the most interesting conversations I had was I went to high school with a guy. We were best friends. We graduated from high school together, went off to college. He went off and got two or three degrees, got us started into a very lucrative career and made a lot of money. He was making money in the financial area and was very astute at that.
Jeff Iorg:So when I was a young man, he offered to do my taxes for me. And this was after we'd been out of, you know, college for five to seven, ten years, something like that. He was well established in his career and doing well, and and I was pastoring a church. And, he did my taxes, and I was griping about how much income tax I had to pay. And he just casually dropped this nugget.
Jeff Iorg:He said, oh, Jeff, I
Jeff Iorg:wouldn't worry about that. I paid more income tax than you had salary last year. And that was really one of the first times I realized how much more money people made in secular jobs than I was making in the ministry. Here was my high school best friend, a good Christian guy who went off and got into a career,
Jeff Iorg:made significant progress in it, was very successful, and was paying more income tax than I was making income. I've never forgotten that conversation because it set me back and I
Jeff Iorg:had to frankly go to the
Jeff Iorg:Lord in prayer and say, Lord, I gotta come to grips with this. That really makes me angry. That makes me a bit resentful. I I I don't know why he gets that and
Jeff Iorg:I don't. Then I remembered, I answered God's call to ministry, and I had to give up fields. I had to say, Lord, if it's vocational and financial security that I
Jeff Iorg:have to give up, I'll give it up because I'm going to serve you.
Jeff Iorg:Jesus, in response to Peter's, statement, Lord, we've given everything to follow you. Jesus said, I I know and and truly you need to know and I assure you that you're going to have to give up some things to follow me. You're gonna have to give up house, residence, permanence, a sense of being home. You're gonna have to give up relationships, even those that mean the most to you, and you're gonna have to give up financial or vocational advancement and security because you're gonna serve me. Now Jesus outlines these three areas of sacrifice, and then in the same phrasing, he tells why this is worth it.
Jeff Iorg:He said, there's no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mothers or father or children or fields for my sake and for the sake of the gospel. Brothers and sisters, let me remind you why we're willing to sacrifice. It's for Jesus and for the gospel. That's why we sacrifice. It's for Jesus and for the gospel.
Jeff Iorg:We are willing to experience personal and proportional sacrifice of our homes, our relationships, and our vocations, or our financial securities. We're willing to sacrifice those things, not for some institutional advancement, not not for some reputational gain.
Jeff Iorg:We're we're not willing to sacrifice those things for anything less than Jesus and the gospel. Let me remind you, Jesus and the gospel are worth it. They are worth it.
Jeff Iorg:They are worth giving yourself for.
Jeff Iorg:Jesus is your savior and your Lord, the one who made your life possible and meaningful. The gospel is the means of salvation, The capacity to deliver a message that gives people hope for now and eternity. Sacrifice is worth it because we sacrifice for Jesus and for the gospel. Now brothers and sisters, that keeps me focused. That keeps me going.
Jeff Iorg:When I have been asked to make personal and proportional sacrifices of home and relationship and finances, when I have been asked to make these sacrifices, when I feel resentful or angry or disappointed or discouraged, I have to center myself back on why am I doing this. I'm willing to make these sacrifices because of Jesus and because of the gospel, and those two things are worth it. Then Jesus says, when you make these sacrifices, he says, you're going to get something, and that is eternal life in the age to come. But not only that, he promises rewards even in the present life. He says, you who will receive a hundred times more than these things even in this life.
Jeff Iorg:So Jesus promises that when you make personal and proportional sacrifices of your homes and relationships and vocations or finances, Jesus
Jeff Iorg:says, I'm going to reward you. When you do that for my sake and for the gospel, I'm gonna reward you with a hundred times more blessing in this life than you had from the sacrifice and eternal life, eternal rewards with me forever. You know, I've thought a lot about that hundredfold reward that we're receiving.
Jeff Iorg:What does that look like? Well, you know, I've given up home and a sense of belonging where I grew up, but
Jeff Iorg:I found my people when I moved to Portland, Oregon, and then up and down the West Coast. I found a sense of home and belonging and and connectivity that I never had. After we had been in Oregon for three weeks, we left our house one day, went down the short street we lived on to the stop sign, and we stopped. Before I turned, I looked over to Anne and said, I know we've only been here a little while, but I feel like I've been here all my life. For the first time ever, I feel like I'm home.
Jeff Iorg:Anne said, I feel the same way. I know it's hard to explain to those of you who live in other places, but when we are on the West Coast, we are home. We feel it, and we know that God has rewarded us a hundred times over by giving us that sense of belonging that we really never had until we got there. And then what about relationships? Surely, we've given up some relationship sacrifice along the way, but God has enriched our lives with so many dozens, if not hundreds of people who've become like family to us and who strengthened us, stood with us, been a part of our lives in so many meaningful ways.
Jeff Iorg:And so while, yes, I would say there have been relational sacrifices that we've had to make, God has poured relationships into our lives to make up for those losses over the years, and we're grateful for that. And then he says that he gives us not only those things, then what about the financial security part or the vocational security part? Know, one time my old now that I'm an adult and I'm out here, you know, in the real world so to speak, I don't know
Jeff Iorg:how you did it. I said, what do you mean?
Jeff Iorg:He goes, I honestly don't know how you planted a church, raised a family, sent three kids to college, and took care of all our needs on a pastor's salary and made it this far in your life. I just smiled and said, I don't know how I did it either, but all I can tell you is God came through. He said, Yep. I see it, there's no other explanation. You know, I I don't really have any explanation for how I've made it financially in my life except for God coming through.
Jeff Iorg:Now here in these latter years when the kids are all gone and I've got a pretty good job here at the executive committee, yeah, I can see that I've been blessed financially, but I'm not talking about those years. I'm talking about the first twenty years when I was a church planter and a pastor and struggling to raise a family and make it on what we were able to live on back in those days. I don't know how he did it, but somehow because we were willing to say we'll put it all on the line, God stepped in and said that I'm gonna take care of thing and he always did. A spirit of sacrifice, it's essential for ministry leadership. Never forget though, sacrifice is personal and proportional.
Jeff Iorg:No one else can ever tell you what a sacrifice is for you, but you'll know it when you're asked to make one. You may be asked to sacrifice in these areas, residence or home, relationships or family, finances or vocation. Jesus described that when he talked to Peter about what he was asking of him to sacrifice. But then Jesus assures us, he will reward us a hundred times over in this life. In these areas we've sacrificed, you can expect God to come through and bless you in those areas and then ultimately, be leadership.
Jeff Iorg:Because sacrifice is personal and proportional, every ministry leader will experience something of what I'm describing today. And while other people may look at you and not even think of it as a sacrifice, that is not the point. You'll know because you know what it's costing you to be obedient, to pursue God's plan for your life, and to fulfill the ministry leadership he's given you. Sacrifice is a part of ministry leadership. Embrace it as you lead on.