Is Your Life a Ministry?
Introduction: Good morning! As usual, it is a joy to be here with you today. I bring you greetings from Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Webster Groves. We are continuing to enjoy God’s blessing at Cornerstone since you planted us a year and a half ago. In fact, tonight our people will vote on the hiring of our current part-time pastor of student ministries, John Richardson, as full-time Associate Pastor of Community Life. We are very excited about that.
Also, you may have noticed my lack of coat and tie this morning. As a representative of Cornerstone I have come dressed to reflect the Cornerstone culture. My only hope this morning is that Mike Andrus, who is preaching at Cornerstone, dresses in his typical suit and tie, because in 90 degrees and no air conditioning in that gymnasium, he ought to be really comfortable! I’m always in favor of anything that makes Mike sweat!
Our text for today is from Luke chapter 9, beginning in verse 10:
When the apostles returned, they reported to Jesus what they had done. Then he took them with him and they withdrew by themselves to a town called Bethsaida, but the crowds learned about it and followed him. He welcomed them and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who needed healing.
Late in the afternoon the Twelve came to him and said, “Send the crowd away so they can go to the surrounding villages and countryside and find food and lodging, because we are in a remote place here.”
He replied, “You give them something to eat.”
They answered, “We have only five loaves of bread and two fish – unless we go and buy food for all this crowd.” (About five thousand men were there.)
But he said to his disciples, “Have them sit down in groups of about fifty each.” The disciples did so, and everybody sat down. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke them. Then he gave them to the disciples to set before the people. They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over (Luke 9:10-17).
What we have just read is the only miracle account that is recorded in all four gospels. Clearly this was an event that stood out more than other miracles in the minds of the apostles. Why might that be? Is it that this is such a spectacular miracle? I don’t think so. Instantly healing ten lepers seems more dramatic and meaningful to me than making lunch for a crowd that would have been physically none the worse had He not done it. No, I think this miracle stands out because it symbolizes a turning point in Jesus’ ministry and in His development of the disciples.
The event probably takes place when Jesus has been in public ministry for about two years. It is near the time of the Passover and Jesus is one year from the cross. The disciples have just returned from a preaching and healing tour. Jesus had sent them out on their own and given them authority to preach the gospel of the kingdom and power to heal diseases. The tour was successful. Look at verse 6: “They set out and went from village to village preaching the gospel and healing people everywhere.”
Imagine the excitement that they must have carried with them as they returned to Jesus. “Master, everywhere we went we prayed for people in the power of the kingdom and their diseases just left them. We could hardly believe our own eyes!” But their euphoria must have been accompanied with weariness and disappointment as well. They had no regular place to sleep. And surely, like their master, they had received plenty of rejection—Jewish leaders and common people as well who told them they were nuts.
Sending them off on their own for the first time was the beginning of Jesus’ process of teaching them that the ministry which they saw as His up to this point was soon going to be theirs. The point was not that Jesus wanted them all to leave their jobs, to change vocations. Rather, He wanted them to change their perspective, to begin to see their whole life as ministry. Today, from this passage, Jesus challenges each of us in the same way, to resist the common perspective of many Christians that ministry is a compartment of life along with job, marriage, recreation, etc. Jesus would press us to ask ourselves “Is my life a ministry?”
As the disciples return from their trip Jesus wants them to know …
The power for life as ministry: spending time alone with Jesus.
As soon as they give him a report he says, “Let’s get out of here, guys. Let’s go to a place where we can be alone and talk. I want to hear more, and I want to share some thoughts with you.” In fact, Mark records that Jesus said, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.”(Mark 6:31) What we see here is one of the greatest necessities for life as a ministry—time with Jesus to recharge our batteries.
Sooner or later automotive engineers are going to get the electric car to a place where Americans will accept it. Actually, they have made good progress in the last several years and electric cars are near the level of affordability. But the biggest problem, the one they are going to have to solve for our modern culture, is that the batteries will only take the car two hundred miles or so on a charge and then take too long to recharge. We live in a go, go, go culture. Down-time for recharging is often perceived as a waste of time. But like an electric car that doesn’t take time to get its batteries recharged, a Christian who pours himself into ministry but does not take time for energy renewal will soon stop running.
God created humans to serve Him. But He also created us to have a relationship with Him. And that relationship is the energy source for service. Psalm 91:1 says “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.” Of the biblical names used for God, the one here translated “Most High,” is el-elyon, the name used of God as the one who is to be worshiped and adored by those who love Him. That time spent in a love relationship with God becomes a shelter that gives us rest and renewal. The result is that we abide under the shadow of the Almighty. This is el-shaddai, the name of God that refers to his great power. The idea is simple – spend time in a daily loving relationship with God and He will empower you for the issues of life and ministry.
The typical scenario of a person who has not yet discovered this truth is that he becomes inspired by the great truths of God’s word, is overwhelmed as he understands what Christ has done for him and feels compelled to live his life for Jesus. Perhaps it is a woman who has just returned from a retreat, or a man just back from Promise Keepers who is now determined to do such an incredible job of living like Jesus that when people look at him they will say, “If Jesus were a dad, he would be just like that!” He starts out well and, in fact, is so busy being like Jesus that he has little time to be with Jesus. Soon the challenges of the daily grind wear him down and he finds himself out of gas – no more power to be like Jesus. Then he just feels guilty.
Jesus calls us to see our whole life as ministry, to be asking ourselves how Jesus would act in all the situations we face daily. But if we try to do that, to serve him in our own human strength, we will fall flat on our faces. Some of you have not yet come to the place of seeing every area of your life as a place of service to Christ. You need to deal with that first. But some of you have a great heart for service. You truly want to live every day in every way following the footsteps of Jesus. But let me just say this. If you don’t take time out, you’re going to burn out.
Simply put, time out to recharge means spending time every day in the presence of Jesus. We do this by daily time in Bible study and prayer. But life is so busy. And there seems to be no relief in sight. Whether of our own doing or by necessity, studies show that the average person has less leisure time today than our parents did at our age. How do we fit extended times of prayer and study of God’s word into our crazy schedules? Here is the issue: Is time with God considered by us a leisure activity or an essential? R. A. Torrey, a great man of prayer, said “I pray two hours every day, unless I’m busy. Then I pray three.” Henri Nouwen challenges us with these words to make prayer an essential even in the busiest of schedules:
We do not take the spiritual life seriously if we do not set aside some time to be with God and listen to him. We may have to write it in black and white in our daily calendar so that nobody else can take away this period of time. Then we will be able to say to our friends, neighbors, students, customers, clients, or patients, “I’m sorry, but I’ve already made an appointment at that time and it can’t be changed.” [i]
Our primary need is a relationship with God. And only the daily nurturing of that relationship can give us the power to serve him in every area of life, to live for him every day. Without that power we will dry up and die. Are you spending time with Jesus every day, allowing him to fill you with what you need to live life as a ministry?
The next thing the disciples came to see is …
The sacrifice of life as ministry: Serving when it’s inconvenient.
No sooner had the disciples gotten away by themselves with Jesus, when there was a knock at the door. The crowd had followed them. And no small crowd either—5,000 men, which may have meant as many as 15,000 men, women and children. Jesus and his small band of fledgling preachers and healers need rest, but in the midst of unwinding, needy people find Jesus.
The disciples are understandably miffed at this disturbance. Later they say to Jesus about the crowd, “Lord, send them away.” Jesus’ response? He welcomes those who had come to disturb his rest. They were needy people and he alone had what they needed. He encourages them with the good news of the kingdom of God and heals their diseases.
Jesus calls us to a life of ministry. That means sacrifice. Ministry is often inconvenient. What a great experience we had at Cornerstone several weeks ago. After a message on Jesus’ power to heal us, at least fifteen people came up after the service to share their needs with our elders and ask for prayers of healing. I was personally filled with joy to be able to pray with some of these. But you know what? That was convenient ministry. All the church leaders were already there and available. And listening to and praying with these people did not keep me from my second hour class or cause me to be late for lunch.
But ministry is not always like that. When you make yourself available to serve others, when you decide to share the love of Christ with those around you, people will begin to come to you with needs and opportunities for ministry. And they will not always come at the time you are most ready to give of yourself.
One of the things that tickles me in life is the change in countenance of first-time parents in the first few weeks after the birth. As the birth nears, they are beaming, (especially the husband since he doesn’t have to carry around an extra 40 pounds!), in eager anticipation of the joy of parenting. A month after baby is born, the husband drags into church looking like the end of final exams week. It seems baby’s sleep schedule has taught mom and dad why sleep deprivation has been used in prisoner of war camps as torture.
Children are not convenient. They don’t go to sleep or wake up when they’re supposed to. They cry and complain. They spill red Kool-Aid, or like my two-year-old did last week, draw with mom’s red lipstick, on the carpet, and by the time the third one is two or three, you no longer own anything of value that is breakable. But in spite of all the sacrifice, children bring something into our lives that nothing else can bring, and we would never give it up.
If we don’t see life as ministry, if we relegate ministry to some job we do at church, then we are in little danger of any unexpected, and unwelcome interruptions in our lives begging us to serve. But if we see life as ministry, people will need us to share God’s love with them when we don’t feel like being needed. My brother is a great guy—generous and basically caring. But my brother is also shy, and he has a very difficult time talking about emotional subjects or people’s personal problems. As a result, when he is on an airplane alone, he is the classic businessman who buries himself in some publication to make it very clear he is not interested in building a long-term relationship with the person sitting next to him.
So imagine his horror when, returning from a business trip, he could see out of the corner of his eye that the woman next to him, who did not look happy, was staring at him. He tried to bury his face even further in the magazine, but to no avail. Suddenly she asked, “Can I talk to you?” For the next two hours this woman poured out the details of her shattered life with my brother. Not only was this torture for my brother, but because he does not know Christ, he did not have an answer for her pain.
But we do have the answer to every person’s need. The question is, are we willing to share with people the only answer to their needs when it means that to do so we will be inconvenienced and torn away from our own agendas? If we are not, then life cannot be ministry.
Now we get to what can be the most exciting part of both this story and its meaning for life. Jesus calls his disciples, and us, to …
The faith for life as ministry: Trusting God to use us beyond the measure of our own resources.
Jesus has been ministering to the crowd all day, preaching and healing. It’s gone on longer than anyone expected, and people are beginning to get hungry. In John’s version of this event, it is right here that Jesus does something great. Apparently he is standing next to Philip, and he says, “Hey Phil, look at all these people. There must be 15,000. And they have to be getting hungry. Philip, where should we buy bread for all these people?” Philip, apparently having some knowledge of how much money the disciples have between them, quickly does the math and says, “Buy bread! Are you kidding? Even if we had eight month’s wages and bought everything at Aldi, we still couldn’t buy enough to give everyone even a bite!”
About this time the other disciples come running up and tell Jesus, “Master, you’ve got to get rid of this crowd. Tell them to go find food and lodging or we’re going to have a real problem here.” The next words out of Jesus’ mouth must have been met with complete astonishment. “O.K. You feed them then.” What in the world could he be talking about? They didn’t have enough money and, in fact, the disciples hadn’t even brought their own lunches. The only food they knew about belonged to a little boy whose mother had been smart enough to send him off with his David and Goliath lunch pail.
The more I read about the disciples, the more amazed I am both at their occasional courage, dedication, and insight, and other times at their density. Hadn’t they just returned from a trip Jesus had sent them on and seen God do miracles of healing through their own hands? Jesus had told them to go preach and heal and then given them the power to do it. Doesn’t it make sense that if he commands them to feed the multitude that he would also give them the power to do that? But for some reason, they do not make that connection.
Here we are at the most critical point of this story in terms of what Jesus is trying to teach the disciples and us—it is when he says, “You do it.” He is telling them that his ministry must become their ministry; that their primary focus as they encounter the sea of people before them, not only here but in daily life, must be to share the power and good news of the kingdom of God with them. They must see their life as ministry.
Further, in telling them to feed the crowd, he gives them a task that is totally beyond their resources. The one good thing about the disciples here is that they recognize their inability to carry out God’s will in their own strength. There is a significant movement in our culture today which tells us we have to think about everything positively, to teach our children that if they just believe hard enough they can do anything. And while there is some value in that, such thinking carries the danger of denying reality. There are certain things we just can’t do in our own strength and not recognizing that will only lead to frustration and cynicism. I’m thinking of writing a book called The Power of Negative Thinking. The power of recognizing our own inadequacy is that it drives us to dependency on God. The disciples are smart enough to recognize this here and simply say to Christ, “There is no way we can do this, Lord.”
This is good, but there is still a problem. Jesus has told them to feed the crowd. So what are they to do? In the midst of their confusion, Jesus shows them the answer. He takes the little boy’s lunch, and in his hands it becomes more than enough for all. And look! Does Jesus feed the crowd himself? No. Look at verse 16. “Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke them. Then he gave them to the disciples to set before the people.” The disciples were the ones to do the job, they just did it in the power of Jesus. Here is the point: God has called all of us to see our lives as ministry. And when he calls us to serve him in a certain area of life, he will give us what we need to do it. More than that, Jesus challenges us never to limit our vision for serving him to the capabilities of our own human resources.
Through most of the last century, George Muller ran an orphanage for poor children in England. After being a pastor for several years, Muller sensed God’s call on his life to care for the children of the streets. Muller’s work became very successful, often housing as many as 2,000 children at a time. Obviously, such a large work demanded large resources, none of which Muller himself possessed. Muller’s main means of acquiring money, food, and other needs for the children was not a mass marketing campaign or fundraising banquets, but simply prayer. Muller believed that if God had truly called him to do this task, he would provide the needs.
Through the years, God had provided so often in unexpected ways, that Muller came to expect the unexpected. One morning, when there was no food for breakfast, nor money to buy it, Muller gathered the children together at the empty table and led them in a prayer of thanksgiving for what God would give them to eat that day. After the prayer, a knock came at the door. It was the local baker who said, “I couldn’t sleep last night. Somehow I felt you didn’t have bread for breakfast, and the Lord wanted me to send you some. So I got up at two o’clock and baked fresh bread for you.” Following the baker was a second knock. It was the milkman who said that his wagon had broken down and he needed to get the milk off of it and wondered if the children needed some fresh milk. Muller’s life was filled with similar stories of God’s provision far beyond Muller’s own resources.
Such was the case with the disciples. Jesus had given them a task to do. And because it was his task, he would provide all the resources they needed and more. After the meal, there were twelve baskets left over, one for each of the apostles to drive home the point personally.
Conclusion: So how does all of this make a practical difference in our lives? I want you to ask yourself three questions as you leave here today. First, do you think of your life as ministry? That is, do you look at every significant area of your life as an opportunity to share the good news of Jesus and to serve others out of love for Christ? When you think of your job or your neighborhood, do you think of coworkers and neighbors who need to know Jesus? When you think about your marriage, do you think about your spouse as a God given invitation to meet someone’s needs through the love of Jesus? Do we think of our children as area of ministry, recognizing that God calls us not to make them successful, but to teach them to follow Christ?
Seeing our lives as ministry is about wanting to make a difference in this life that matters for eternity. It’s about wanting to leave behind us not a trail of success, good times, or even socially well-adjusted children. It’s about wanting to leave a legacy of people who have been touched by the truth and love of Jesus Christ, truth and love that comes through us.
Second, will you trust God to do ministry through you far in excess of your own resources? Maybe you look at your coworkers and think that their value systems are so distant from your own, their perception of God so twisted that there is no way they would be interested in such a culturally outdated message as Christianity offers. Maybe you look at your unbelieving neighbors and think that they seem to have it all together while your life is filled with struggles. How could they possibly see Christ in your life? Or maybe we look at First Evangelical Free Church and wonder how this crowd can make any real impact for Christ in our community of millions. That’s great! We need to understand that we are personally inadequate to do anything of real value for Christ in our own strength.
But the fact is that Jesus has called us to make an impact in all these areas—job, family, neighborhood, community. So if he has called us, then we have to believe he will give us the means to make a difference, means that go far beyond our own abilities. Let me tell you something. While I am absolutely convinced that God called me to the ministry of Cornerstone Church, I often wonder why he did. I am so painfully aware of my weaknesses that I have prayed, almost daily since Cornerstone began, “Lord, you have called me here. So don’t allow my weaknesses to penalize these people. Protect them from my faults and feed them through the power of Jesus, who is the only one who can meet their needs.” When we really know how inadequate and sinful we are, we have to believe that God is able to go far beyond our resources to use us for ministry. Only then will we see him work through us with real power.
Finally, will you take time to be with Jesus, to be recharged for ministry so you can serve him in his power rather than your own? If Sundays are the only place in your life for God’s word and prayer, you are nearly powerless for ministry. Even if you have an optimistic personality and tell everyone you see about Jesus, if the power is all your own, it will have little real effect. The apostle Paul wrote, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20, NASB). What people in this world need to see is not us, but Christ in us. But only if we are regularly allowing him to fill our lives with his truth and the power of his presence will they have the chance to get beyond us and catch a glimpse of him and his power to give them exactly what they need for everlasting life.
Tags:
Ministry
Sacrifice
Faith
[i]. Henri Nouwen, Making All Things New, quoted in Foster, Devotional Classics, 96.