September 20, 2026September 22, 2026 Peter Witkowski Discipleship

Hope For the Sideline Christian

Buried deep inside the 70-verse list of returned exiles in Ezra 2 resides the story of a clerical error any reader who has spent the day at the DMV can readily identify with and benefit from.

Desiring be a part of God’s supernatural work, the sons of Barzillai travel to Jerusalem to serve as priests in the new temple. But before they can pass go, the Jewish state presses pause on their application because of an administrative error. Ezra 2:62 reports, “These sought their registration among those enrolled in the genealogies, but they were not found there, and so they were excluded from the priesthood as unclean.” Though this providential clerical error undoubtedly discouraged the sons of Barillai, it also conveys a beautiful truth that promises to encourage all Christians: namely, that Christians can glorify God irrespective of where and how they serve in God’s kingdom.

When God Redirects

While the passage unquestionably speaks to a congregation’s need to guard the offices of the church from being corrupted by unqualified men as 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 affirm, it also speaks to those members who can no longer serve prominently in their local church. Though they desire to oversee a Sunday school class, disciple new mom, or serve as the deacon over facilities, they awake one day only to discover that God’s divine providence has put an end to their service. For some, old age and failing health rob them of the strength needed to keep teaching. For others, the arrival of their first child redirects their discipleship time to diapers and sleep schedules. For others, caring for a loved one battling cancer consumes all the energy that would have gone toward changing the shut-in’s air filters and light bulbs. Like the sons of Barzillai, Christians can find themselves barred from ministry. They have not openly violated God’s law and offered unholy sacrifices as the faithless priests had done in Leviticus 10. Rather, God’s providence which surpass human understanding had prevented their service.

Always for Glory

When God directs Christians out of public ministry, they can be tempted to complain about and disparage their new setting. Like the saints in Ezra 3:13 who mourned the construction of the second temple because they feared it would not be as physically glorious as the first temple, today’s sidelined Christians can be tempted to fear that their new season of less or different activity will bring God less glory than previous years of service.

Thankfully, the opposite is true. The believer’s ability to glorify God is not tied to his or her station in church but to being part of God’s people. The Lord stirred and directed the sons of Barzillai just as much as he stirred Jeshua and Zerubbabel who played a prominent part in the temple’s reconstruction. God called all of them to Jerusalem and assigned all of them to the place that he providentially knew would be best for them and his kingdom. What brought God glory was not the size or prominence of an exile’s post but his faithfulness in that post. God is just as glorified in the faithful prayers of the dear saint in her nursing home bed as he is by the prayers of elder standing behind the pulpit.

Consequently, when God directs men and women out of more prominent ministry roles, he is not sidelining them or putting them out to pasture. He is repurposing them. P.B. Powers rightfully offered the following encouragement to the chronically ill: “Sick man, you have a place of usefulness for God, not the old place, but his place – the place which is best in the eyes of the all-wise one (39).” For some, that service may take the form of prayer. For others, that may take the form of writing encouraging notes and emails. For others, that may take the form of listening to and glorifying God through reading, listening to sermons, and singing hymns.

Lloyd-Jones Agrees

At the end of his life, the famed twentieth-century preacher Martyn Lloyd-Jones found himself sidelined from the pulpit because of his ongoing battle with cancer. Though many of his contemporaries assumed that Lloyd-Jones would be distraught over this change, Lloyd-Jones’ friend Ian Murray reported the opposite to be true. Lloyd-Jones told Murray, “Now I can pray for you men…People say to me it must be very trying for you not to be able to preach – No! Not at all! I was not living upon preaching.” In other words, Lloyd-Jones had no reason to be discouraged for God was just as glorified by Lloyd-Jones’ public preaching to thousands as he was in Lloyd-Jones’ private praying for tens and hundreds. In this sense, no believer can be truly sidelined from ministry for the Lord has designed every act of worship in every setting to glorify him. As Paul notes in Philippians 1:21, “To live is Christ.”

Final Thoughts

In short, all stations in life and the corresponding ministry are designed to glorify God. The eight-year-old bouncing through kids ministry by faith, the forty-year-old preaching to jam-packed auditoriums by faith, and as an eighty-year-old shuffling between chairs by faith can and do glorify God. To quote Paul in 1 Corinthians 10:31, “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”

Moreover, God will always direct us to the place that is best for our soul and that will most glorify him even if he must move us about through a clerical error or cancer. Even in those moments, Christians can rest assured that God is working all things together for their good.

Dear believer, if you feel sidelined, take heart. You have not been sidelined but redeployed for the glory of God.

August 20, 2023August 25, 2023 Peter Witkowski Pain & Suffering

Tabernacles, Grief, & My Greatest Hope

One of the most striking aspects of the Transfiguration narrative found in Matthew 17:1-8 is that the disciples who had friends and family below did not want to come down off the mountain. While we know Jesus, Moses and Elijah appeared to the disciples on the mountain, our language struggles to capture the true joy, goodness, and glory that three disciples experienced while in the presence of the glorified Jesus. Matthew 17:1 says that Jesus’s face “shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as light.” Mark 9:3 says, “his clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them.” Luke says of Jesus “the appearance of his face was altered, and his clothing became dazzling white (Lk 9:29).” Despite the limitations of our language, we can affirm that the disciples got a taste of the heavenly glory of Christ. It proved so delightful that they never wanted it to end. Thus, Peter tossed out the idea of building everybody a little house or tabernacle up there so that they would never have to leave.

Admittedly, Peter’s comment about tabernacles arose from the depths of idiocy (Mt 17:4). He failed to account for the promise of Jesus’s coming resurrection which made a way for Peter, James, and John to stand on that mountain without being consumed by God’s perfect judgement. Thus, the Father told Peter to be quiet and to listen to Jesus. But while Peter’s statement arose from a lack of theological awareness, I believe it also arose from the experiential goodness of that moment. Whatever Peter encountered on that mountain was enough to make him forget about the world beneath him.

This Sad World Below

When my dear April died, more than one friend asked me if I found solace in the fact that her death had brought an end to her suffering. In one sense, yes: I’m glad that she is no longer shivering in pain and rejoice that she is with Christ for he is a far better husband than I ever was. Even in death, God is faithful. (For a fuller discussion on the gracious nature of death click here)

But in another sense, “no.” By itself, such knowledge has often proved an inadequate antidote to the daily struggles of grief that have swirled about. Neither April nor I was longing for her release from this world but rather for her renewed health.

While April has been perfected, I still inhabit a world defined by the ethos of those confused disciples and arrogant pharisees who choose to argue the finer points of theology at the base of the mount of transfiguration and to ignore the demon-possessed child who was convulsing at their feet. In other April’s exaltation to the mountain above has not improved my status down below. I still wrestle with insecurities, failures, and limitations. And where once I could lean into my helpmate for comfort and support, I must now (in one sense) walk alone, managing laundry, meal schedules, band aide dispensing, sermon prep, and all the other things that come with being a single parent and a pastor. In short, her deliverance from trials has brought about the most trying season of my life. As J.C. Ryle noted, “We should not weep from them, but for ourselves…better are the dead in Christ than the living!”

Hope for All of us

Admittedly, my experiences are not unique to me or to widowhood. All who follow Christ will experience hardships of one kind or another. A quick survey of NT analogies reveals that God had connected the Christian life to professions such as soldiering, farming, and running – occupations that require fortitude and that offer no holidays. Similarly, Jesus’s parables talk not about ‘if’ but rather about ‘when’ the storms of life will come. In other words, to follow Christ is to embrace the sufferings of Christ and the storms of this world. While God is faithful and those who follow Christ receive all kinds of good gifts as they wait at the base of the mountain, the end goal is not a better below but heaven above. Until Christ returns, the world beneath will forever and always be marred by brokenness, sorrow, and death.

Borrowing the metaphor of sailing, the Puritan John Flavel restated the idea this way,

You are yet rolling and tossing upon a tempestuous sea, but your friend is gone into the quiet harbor; desire to be there than he were at sea with you again.

Friends, the destination, the final hope for the believer is heaven…the mountain where we tabernacle with God forever. Our hope is not so much that someone has left this world (though praise God for the hope of their salvation) but rather that we too one day will get to sail into that harbor upon the winds of grace.

In Conclusion

So back to the earlier question. I would answer, “Yes, but there is an even greater hope.” For you see, I find little comfort in reflecting upon the end of April’s suffering as I scrub fingerpaint off the couch and figure out how to parent the devious and yet very cute little culprit. In those moments, I find hope in the truth that whatever Peter, James, and John saw in-part on that mountain, I will one day live in full. Come Lord Jesus!

April 29, 2021April 30, 2021 Peter Witkowski Memos

Memo: A Critical Few Days – April 2021

Yesterday, April entered a critical phase in her breast cancer battle. As many of you know, she began her new treatment plan this past Tuesday, April 27. But before the first pills had time to dissolve, April began to develop a discomfort on her right side. Over the last 72 hours, that pain has gone from the level of a muscle ache to a life-altering level of anguish. After spending a few hours talking with April’s medical teams, we know that the cancer tumors in her liver are producing this intense pain as well the nausea and the general sense of unwellness that has slowed her a halt. Thankfully, April’s liver has not yet reached the point of failure. That line is still a some week’s walk away. The plan today calls for April to keep taking her new potent regimen of the new clinical LY drug and the Everolimus. If the medicine works, the cancer should begin to shrink over the next few days and her liver function should increase, resulting in a far better quality of life. As we wait for that day, April will have to continue to manage her pain and nausea with prescription painkillers and nausea pills. On Tuesday, her blood tests will provide some indication of the effectiveness of the new drug. We pray that that day will bring good news.

If this plan fails, April can still fall back upon a chemotherapy treatment plan which promises to quickly shrink the tumors in her liver and elsewhere. But the move towards Chemotherapy while expedient would also exhaust most of her treatment options, shifting April’s breast cancer trajectory into a less favorable position. With a heart full of fortitude, April is pressing forward on the dark path of pain and anguish, hoping today’s suffering will produce health tomorrow.

Please pray for God to reduce the tumors in her liver. Pray for God to sustain her body as she suffers. Pray for God to comfort her soul as her body remains at war with itself. Pray for our kids to know the comfort of Christ during this time. Pray for April and me to have wisdom as we parent our children through this time. And pray that these critical days will conclude with good news.

Thank you for all of your love, support, and your messages. However, we may be slow in responding to them due to April’s health at this time. As always, we will continue to post updates here.