June 1, 1986, I preached my first sermon at Grace Baptist Church in Cape Coral, Florida as their pastor.
My text was 1 Corinthians 2:2, “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” The church was organized three years prior out of a split from another church in town. In its brief existence, it had experienced three significant splits of its own. Before extending a call to me, the church had been turned down by at least 10 other candidates.
The founding pastor, my predecessor, had been fired eight or nine months before I arrived. I knew that he had been fired. What I didn’t know was that his termination happened during a raucous members’ meeting while he was away on vacation (it is no surprise that it took a long time before I was willing to take a vacation with my family). The man who was primarily responsible for his termination (who had initially been his biggest supporter) held several key leadership positions in the church as well as an $80,000 note that he could (and did) call to be paid in full eleven months after my arrival.
After the church called me but before I started the trip from Texas to Florida, the man who led the charge against the founding pastor (let’s call him “Carl”), decided that the church had made a mistake and I should not be their pastor. He planned to meet me upon my arrival with a notice that they had rescinded my call, but he could not get enough signatures on the petition to obtain his objective. That did not stop him from working vigorously for the next eight months to get me fired.
Fortunately (a word that I can unironically use with the perspective that forty years gives), God had prepared me for the trials of being the new pastor of a dysfunctional church. Four months before accepting the call, I had resigned from my responsibilities as an assistant pastor in church in a Dallas over ethical issues and disagreements with the leadership. That marked, at the time, the lowest point of my ministry. In fact, I was convinced that I was washed up as a pastor.
In short, I was a pastor nobody wanted, and Grace was a church nobody wanted. It was a match made in heaven.
God intervened in specific and powerful ways to thwart Carl’s efforts to get rid of me, and over the next seven years, the church slowly moved down pathways toward a healthier life of devotion to the lordship of Jesus Christ. The foundation laid in those early years prepared the church to survive and, in many respectts, to thrive the next thirty-three years.
As is true in the life of any church (or person, relationship, or institution), there have been many ups and downs in Grace Baptist Church over the last four decades. In so many ways, the life of my family is completely intertwined in the life of the church. Donna and I arrived with a two-year-old & an infant. Today we have six children (all but one of whom is married) and twenty-three grandchildren. By God’s amazing grace, they are all actively involved in the life of the church.
So, I have much for which to be thankful as I reflect on the last forty years. Each of those years is filled with testimonies of God’s love, patience, mercy, and power. While there is no way to calculate God’s blessings over that time and the many lessons I have learned, I have reflected on many of them. I want to note them and to remember them as clear markers of the mercy and faithfulness of Jesus Christ to a hell-deserving sinner whom He made a trophy of His grace.
Here, in no particular order, are forty brief thoughts, lessons, and reflections that have come to mind over the last few weeks.
1. What the late James Boice said is absolutely true: we tend to overestimate what God will do in two years and underestimate what He will do in twenty. That is even more true when you stretch the horizon to forty.
2. God often does His deepest work of sanctification in His people through trials that seem unbearable.
3. Though I have often mixed up my priorities, having them clearly articulated (Christ, Donna, family, church, Founders, other ministries) has been a great help when I have needed course corrections.
4. A faithful, godly wife is an invaluable gift from the Lord. Marriage to Donna has been a constant reminder of God’s love and grace to me. Her wisdom and strength have been sources of immeasurable encouragement to me through the years.
5. The most difficult challenge I have faced as a pastor has never changed—dealing with my own heart. Proverb 4:23 is true: “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.”
6. Having children who love Christ and His church is one of the greatest gifts God can give to parents. It is a testimony to God’s sovereign grace when any parent sees his children walking in truth. It is also true that there is no greater joy for a parent than to experience such a blessing (3 John 4).
7. Strong, godly elders and deacons are gifts from God and inevitably help a church grow in strength and godliness. I have been blessed to serve with some of the best men I have ever known and to help shepherd a church that is filled with many strong, godly men.
8. Charles Spurgeon was right when he told his students that learning to say “no” is more valuable to a pastor than learning Latin. Every time I say “yes” to something, I am necessarily saying “no” to other things. Learning intentionally to decline worthwhile opportunities has been a hard, invaluable lesson that I wish I had learned earlier.
9. All my counsel boils down to this: Be a real Christian and act like it. That is the only string I have on my banjo and I have learned to play it no matter what the song.
10. The gospel really is the power of God to save all who believe it. It is also what God uses to empower His people to persevere and grow in grace.
11. You can’t make old friends, and if you live long enough, you will be left with fewer of them. But God does at times give life-giving friendships in the latter years. Those should be cherished.
12. Ministry has pivotal moments and they are rarely seen as such until sometime later.
13. Unseen realities are more important than those we can see. Learning to access them and live on the basis of them is essential to joyful perseverance in difficult duties.
14. Growing in the fear of the Lord liberates you from fearing people or craving their approval.
15. The Lord is a wise and good shepherd. He always provides what we need. Sometimes He very pointedly (and painfully) “makes me lie down.”
16. If a Christian does not intentionally seek to grow through the ordinary means of grace that God provides in the church, then he is unlikely to be helped much by extraordinary means.
17. Leading a church to embrace, maintain, and practice corrective discipline is difficult, vital work. It is heartbreaking when a member refuses to repent and must be excommunicated, and a joy like no other when such a person repents and is restored to communion with the church, sometimes after years.
18. God’s Spirit has proven Himself more personal, patient, and powerful than I could have imagined when I began serving as a pastor.
19. Seeing multi-generational faithfulness in church families is a great blessing. Baptizing parents, their children, and their grandchildren is an incredible privilege.
20. Raising children is humbling, sanctifying, and perspective-adjusting.
21. Children are wonderful teachers of faith, joy, simplicity, and wonder.
22. Beauty should not be neglected in the pursuit of truth and goodness.
23. Pilgrim’s Progress is a much better psychology book than any textbook on the subject I have ever read.
24. Fasting is a discipline that catalyzes prayer and facilitates focus and fervency.
25. It is sanctifying to remember what God has saved us from. I shudder to think what evil I would have perpetrated on this world had He not arrested me by sovereign grace.
26. Great blessings are often accompanied by great problems, and when working those problems, it is good to remember why you have them.
27. Sometimes there is no easy way forward and you must resolve as quickly as you can to find and execute the best hard way.
28. Having fellow elders who know how and are willing to both encourage and correct you is an incalculable blessing.
29. Receiving and giving criticism helpfully are skills worth learning and will serve you and others well.
30. It is a testimony to the power of God’s grace in her life that Donna intimately knows my faults and frailties and yet continues humbly to receive God’s Word through my preaching.
31. Watching saints grow in their devotion to Christ as their bodies slow down has been a great means of strengthening my faith and hope.
32. Burying godly church members has made me hate death more and long more deeply for the resurrection.
33. Watching those who profess Christ reject godly counsel and head down paths that inevitably lead to destruction is one of the most painful experiences a pastor faces.
34. Watching those who have shipwrecked their lives repent and live humbly in faith and obedience is one of the greatest joys a pastor can experience.
35. Grandchildren are a great blessing—a crown to the aged (Proverbs 17:9)—and provide great joy and motivation to finish my race without stumbling.
36. Sometimes trials and opposition are reasons to stay put and keep preaching the gospel rather than leaving or looking for an easier assignment (1 Corinthians 16:9). Do not leave a church in the middle of a controversy. See it through with resolve to honor Scripture and leave the consequences with God.
37. The cross sets me free from being undone by what negative things people may think or say about me because it declares to the whole world that Tom Ascol is such a vile scoundrel that it took the death of God’s only begotten Son to save me.
38. No matter how wicked you think you are, you are always worse than you know, but no matter how great you think Jesus is, He is always far greater than your best thoughts.
39. Being a pastor is the greatest calling in the world. I am stunned that God called me to be a minister of His Word and sacraments and that God’s people have sacrificially given their hard-earned money to allow me to give myself to this calling.
40. If God were to give me the opportunity, I would gladly give another forty years to serving the grace-filled people of Grace Baptist Church.
