February 25, 2022
As a pastor and teacher of the flock, my primary calling is to equip you, the saints, to do the works of ministry that God has gifted you to do (see Ephesians 4:12). Whether your ministry is more word-based or more deed-based, more speaking or more serving (see I Peter 4:11), one thing you need to be equipped with is a knowledge of the manner in which God wants you to minister to others. The Bible gives lots of different answers to this question, but one of the most probing is this: with diligent dependence - or flip it around, with dependent diligence.
Whenever God opens a door for us to use our gifts, we may be tempted on the one hand to be slow to take advantage of the opportunity, to be lazy and passive, to refuse to give ourselves fully to the work to which God has called us. On the other hand, we may be tempted to do the work of ministry in our own strength, to be prideful and self-reliant, to trust in our God-given gifts as if they were self-created and self-sustained and self-successful. The Bible is clear that both of these paths are to be avoided, and that Christian ministry is to be marked by a diligent dependence and a dependent diligence.
We are to minister with diligence. Paul's writings in particular, as he describes his own ministry, make this point so clearly:
II Corinthians 12:15 - "I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls." To minister is to give yourself away for the sake of another, even to the point of being used up and exhausted - to spend yourself, to lay out and to lay down your life for another - and to do it with gladness and joy. Even as Jesus laid down His life for us for the joy set before Him, so we spend ourselves, we are spent [by Him], for His glory and for the good of our neighbors.
Galatians 4:19 - "...my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you!" Paul compares his ministry to a woman's labor unto childbirth, with all the pain and anguish that accompanies it. We are willing to endure much hardship and inconvenience for the goal of seeing in those to whom we minister genuine Christ-formation, true conformity to the image of Jesus in every part of the inner man.
Philippians 2:17 - "Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all." With similar imagery to being "spent" (a financial picture), here Paul uses a sacrificial picture, of being poured out like an Old Testament drink offering upon the altar (see Exodus 29:40-41). We are to pour ourselves out for Christ Jesus and for His people, even unto death (II Timothy 4:6), with joy and gladness.
But our diligence is never to be pridefully self-reliant, as Paul also makes clear in his letters:
I Corinthians 15:10 - "But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me." Paul labored with even more zeal and diligence than all the rest of the apostles - but he knew that his ability to do so wasn't due to his strength and personal tenacity or determination. It was due to the grace of God that had been lavished upon him. He wasn't passive, but he wasn't prideful either.
Colossians 1:29 - "For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me." In order to present every man mature in Christ through his ministry of preaching and teaching and admonishing (Colossians 1:28), Paul agonizes, he wears himself out, he works hard and strives with all his might. But it's actually not his might - it's the mighty power of God that is powerfully at work within him. His strength is granted from without, not manufactured from within. As Peter puts it, "As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ." God is the one who strengthens us for ministry so that He might get the glory in the end rather than us. We are absolutely dependent on Him, for apart from God's grace and power through Jesus Christ, we can do nothing (John 15:5).
I Corinthians 3:5-7 - "What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one. I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth." Paul understood that his ministry was providentially arranged and ordered and parceled out by God. Each person has a particular task in God's garden, but ultimately we're merely instruments in God's hand. He is the one who gives opportunities for usefulness and causes those to whom we minister to grow spiritually. Therefore we are nothing, and He is all in all
Diligently dependent. Dependently diligent. This is the manner in which we must serve the Lord and His flock. I shared these verses with some of our staff this week (and how beautifully do they live these verses out - we are blessed beyond measure with such a wonderful staff!), but I wanted you all to reflect upon them. You might be studying and teaching God's word. You might be assisting in worship with musical gifts. You might be exercising hospitality. You might be serving those in need financially or physically. You might be praying for others. You might be sharing the gospel with the lost. You might be encouraging the downcast. You might be administering behind-the-scenes details so that other ministry can be done seamlessly and without friction. Whatever might be your spiritual gifts, however you might serve, the Lord wants you to spend and be spent - He wants you to serve Him diligently and dependently - He wants you to put to death lazy passivity and self-reliant pride.
In this manner may the Lord enable us to glorify Him in our works of ministry, so that we might bear much fruit, build up the body, and mature together into the likeness of our Savior!