The Ministry Of ____?
I walked in dad’s office. It had an eerie feel to it. It was like he had just run up the road to make a hospital visit and would be back in a few minutes. There was a Wendy’s cup about half filled with tea with two empty packets of Sweet N Low beside it. His computer was opened. There was an envelop with that familiar hand-writing of some notes of a sermon he was listening to or was working on. A copy of Preachers’ Periodical, the one brother Eddie Miller edited, opened to a sermon by Jim Bill McInteer. As always, it was a cluttered state of a system that only he understood. Various post-it notes with calls to return, visits to be made, and appointments to be kept. Those calls would not be returned, those visits not made, and those appointments had been missed. Dad had been gone for nearly six months. It was as if he had just walked out and would be back in a minute or two. But he wouldn’t. He did not know when he left that day six months before he would never return to that office. He had made a much more appointment.
Someday you’ll leave your office for the last time. What legacy will you leave?
My assignment was addressing about 30 preachers at a breakfast for about 10-15 minutes on Ministry. I went to sleep thinking on it the night before and woke up with it on my heart. Here was my early morning thought.
Have you ever considered that we know more about the ministry of Paul than of Christ himself? Of course, Paul was striving to imitate Jesus, so maybe as he did we see the ministry of Christ lived out in him (1 Corinthians 11:1). Here are six qualities that characterized the ministry of the Apostle Paul.
His focus was on reaching people and saving souls: “For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it not you?” (1 Thessalonians 2:19). If there was any boasting it was over souls won, if he had any joy it was in those he had helped to come to know Christ. He told the Romans “I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh” (Romans 9:3).
He had an “Oh wow, why in the world did Jesus save me and how in the round wide world do I get the privilege to preach about Christ to other people!” “For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:9-10). “For this I was appointed a preacher and an apostle (I am telling the truth, I am not lying), a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth” (1 Timothy 2:7). “ I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service, though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 1:12-14). I hope you hear it in his writings. When we start our ministry we do so with dreams, joy, vigor, hope, and enthusiasm for the opportunity and purpose. But over time things get in the way of that joy. Our focus ends up on money, and poor or unsupportive leaders, and issues that cloud our focus. Things that have nothing to do with anything we got into ministry for. Go back guys and remember how you started. Find that “oh wow, I get to tell people about Jesus and I get paid to do it!”
The Gospel was everything in his preaching and teaching. The word Gospel is used 93 times in the Bible, 64 of those times by Paul. Listen to him, “Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!” (1 Corinthians 9:16). “For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2). “I am under obligation both to Greeks and to the uncultured, both to the wise and to the foolish. So, for my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Romans 1:14-16). Invigorating words, powerful thoughts BUT it was more than just words. Look at how he felt about the Gospel being preached: “Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry,” they “proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice” (Philippians 1:15-18).
“The preacher’s verse” is often consider 2 Timothy 4:2 “Preach the word.” Some preachers double down and say things like: “My job is to preach, not to visit, counsel, comfort, conduct home Bible studies, be involved in the programs of the church.” I would call you to note the preacher’s preacher and that three verses after “the preacher’s verse,” still in the same paragraph he gives this imperative: “do the work of ministry” (2 Timothy 4:5). Preaching is about much more than preaching, it is about the work surrounding preaching that gives your preaching integrity, that calls people to hear your words more clearly because of how you have ministered in their lives. Preaching and ministry in the life of Paul went hand in hand.
Paul’s ministry was characterized by a responsibility to declare the whole of God’s counsel. In Acts 20 he declares: “for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.” Paul was burdened in his ministry to tell each audience about Jesus in a way that that audience needed to hear it. Sadly, I’ve known preachers, only a few, who would hold back on a topic, point, or truth that an audience needed to hear because they feared for their paycheck or job. I’ve also known preachers who don’t understand “a word fitly spoken,” and don’t connect with their audience or invest in them enough to have the influence on them to speak the right word at the right time.
Thank you for what you do. Thank you for YOUR ministry. I know you are striving to build it like Paul, who built it like Jesus. Thank you for the legacy you will leave.