{"id":1744,"date":"2022-10-16T19:36:48","date_gmt":"2022-10-16T18:36:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/blog\/?p=1744"},"modified":"2022-10-16T19:36:49","modified_gmt":"2022-10-16T18:36:49","slug":"10a-ministry-is-becoming-a-servant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/blog\/?p=1744","title":{"rendered":"10A Ministry is becoming a servant"},"content":{"rendered":"

What is Christian ministry? I had learned one of the most important things I know about what it means to be a minister long before I went to London Bible College to train. It is summed up in a simple sentence I heard from a missionary back from Africa on Home Assignment, a truth so simple and yet so vital it has stuck with me all these years. \u201cMinistry is not rendering a service but becoming a servant.\u201d
\nIn John 13:1-17 we find Jesus, about to break bread and pass round the cup by which we still remember Him today. His disciples were so busy jostling for position, trying to get the best place next to Jesus, that they had forgotten one simple preliminary \u2013 something which was not only polite but necessary. They all still had dirty feet. Nobody had done the slave\u2019s job, physically unpleasant and socially demeaning. Nobody had attended to washing their feet. So we see Jesus Christ, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, in the Upper Room on the night before He was crucified, doing the job of a slave, washing His disciples feet.
\nJesus said, \u201c\u2018You call Me \u201cTeacher\u201d and \u201cLord\u201d, and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another\u2019s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them\u2019\u201d (John 13:13-17).
\nMinistry is not rendering a service but becoming a servant. This message is not just for ministers and missionaries but for every Christian as we seek to serve Jesus Christ in the church or in the world. But especially for ministers and missionaries and church leaders, ministry is not just doing a job. It is becoming a servant, becoming a slave. God even describes some of the most important heroes of faith as \u201cMy servant Abraham\u201d, \u201cMy servant Moses\u201d, \u201cMy servant David\u201d. Peter in Acts preached about \u201cGod\u2019s servant, Jesus\u201d (Acts 3:13).
\nJesus said, \u201cYou know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many\u201d (Mark 10:42-45).
\nNot to be served, but to serve. There are two important questions for ministers to consider. How do we serve? And why do we serve?
\nHow do we serve?
\nThere are so many obvious things to say. Of course, from Jesus\u2019s example in John 13, we must always serve with humility. We are all servants of the Servant King. Over the years I have been privileged to meet a number of exceptional Christians. Twenty years ago having tea with Bishop, later Archbishop, of Uganda Henry Orombi was one such special occasion. But perhaps even more memorable was a meeting while I was a student 45 years ago with John Stott. He was certainly a great Christian teacher and leader, but more than that, John Stott was perhaps the most humble and Christ-like man I have ever met. God was able to use his ministry mightily because John Stott was humble. We must always serve with humility. There is always a temptation for ministers and missionaries and church leaders to become proud of their service. \u201cAren\u2019t you glad you\u2019ve got me in Your church God. Aren\u2019t you pleased you put me to serve you in this place for such a time as this. Aren\u2019t I useful to you.\u201d If ever any of us begin to think that way, we should remember what Jesus said to His disciples. \u201cSo you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, \u2018We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty\u2019\u201d (Luke 17:10).
\nThe preacher and pastor F.B. Meyer once said, \u201cI used to think that God\u2019s gifts were on shelves one above the other and that the taller we grew in Christian character the more easily we could reach them. I now find that God\u2019s gifts are on shelves one beneath the other, and that it is not a question of growing taller but of stooping lower.\u201d
\nSo we must serve with humility. But in asking \u201chow do we serve?\u201d I also want to ask, \u201cwhat form will our service take?\u201d Our service takes the form of meeting people where they are, with the needs they bring. I heard a story of a young missionary visiting an older experienced missionary at his work. Through the day, because this was Africa, there was a constant stream of visitors, wanting this, selling that, asking the other. At the end of the day the younger missionary asked, \u201cHow on earth do you ever get any work done, with all these interruptions?\u201d The answer was beautifully simple. \u201cThe interruptions are the work.\u201d
\nWe do not serve through any particular pieces of work, sermons or articles we write or administrative tasks we complete. Ministers and missionaries, and indeed all Christians, serve by the relationships we build with the people who get to know us and who by God\u2019s grace see something of Christ in our weak humanity. In his inspiring book The friendship gap Tim Stafford points out that in our busy Western lives we put work before relationships. In contrast, the African way is to put relationships before work. Family and friendships matter more than \u201cgetting the job done\u201d. Wherever God is at work, the people matter more than the particular tasks or pieces of service. Our projects and reports and emails will not last into eternity \u2013 our relationships with people will. So we serve by focussing not so much on results as on relationships
\nWhy do we serve?
\nWhat is our motivation for serving? What motivations could we possibly have which would lead anyone to give up a secure comfortable life to serve God as a minister or a missionary. What motivations will keep a minister serving God when the going gets really tough, as it inevitably will? Let me suggest six good biblical motives why ministers become ministers and missionaries become missionaries. I want to suggest they are of increasing importance. The later motives will be of the greatest value when being a minister or a missionary stops being glamorous and exciting and becomes hell on earth.
\nBecause of the needs of the people
\nThe needs of ordinary people in Britain are growing in size and variety and complexity year on year: material needs, with poverty and debt and unemployment; medical needs and needs for care; emotional needs, with all kinds of stress and anxiety and fear; problems due to family breakdown and substance abuse and immorality. And of course there are also spiritual needs \u2013 the need to hear the saving gospel of Jesus Christ. People should not become ministers or a missionaries just because they have seen the needs of the people and think they could make a difference. That is a weak motive because however hard you work, however much of yourself you give, you will never ever make a visible dent in the colossal mountains of needs. Yes, ministers serve sacrificially to meet the needs of our congregations and of the communities we live in and of all those people who are lost without Christ. But keeping your eyes on the needs and looking all the time to see what difference you personally are making is a recipe for disappointment and disillusion and depression. Times will come when all the overwhelming needs of the people will not be a motive for you to stay but will become the very reason why you need to run away and hide from those needs and those people.
\nWhen ministers end up feeling discouraged about the lack of progress we are making, as inevitably we will, we should remember the parable Jesus told about the seed growing secretly (Mark 4:26-29). We must not rely for our motivation on seeing results. We can never measure our success or failure in God\u2019s work. The nature of the Kingdom of God is that we don\u2019t see the signs of growth until the harvest. In this life we will never know what needs God has met through us. Seeing the needs of a lost world is not by itself sufficient motivation for serving.
\nBecause we care about the people
\nIt is right and good that we care for the people God calls us to serve. The lesson we learn from the bad example of the Pharisees is it is always preferable to serve out of love than out of duty. But loving people is scarcely enough. Because at time people can be very hard to love. When we are serving God, the devil loves to attack that work by bringing division and distrust and disagreement within the church between even the closest of friends. It is good to start off loving the people but that won\u2019t always be enough.
\nBecause God loves the people
\nThe task of ministry is not to love people in our own strength. Our task is to take God\u2019s love to people. Our service for God has to be deeply rooted in the fact that God\u2019s love for people is infinitely greater than our love for those people. God\u2019s love for them is greater than we can possibly imagine. When our patience with them is strained, God\u2019s patience is never strained. When our love for the people we are serving and ministering to runs out, God\u2019s love for them will never run out. When we want to give up, God\u2019s love never gives up. But John 13 gives us even better reasons for serving God.
\nBecause Jesus Christ gives us an example
\nSlavery is not glamorous, not exciting, not even pleasant. It is hard work and long hours with no reward. Just like being a minister or a missionary. We do it because Christ has set us an example which we should follow. Of course, not just ministers and missionaries, but all Christians should follow the example which is summed up in a prayer incorrectly ascribed to Ignatius of Loyola:
\nLord give us the grace to serve You as You deserve:
\nTo give and not to count the cost;
\nTo toil and not to seek for rest;
\nTo fight and not to heed the wounds;
\nTo labour and not to ask for any reward
\nExcept that of knowing that we are doing Your will.
\nThat is what it costs when we stop just rendering a service and really become a servant.
\nBecause God has called us and commanded us to go
\nA minister does not become a minister because they want to. Just as a missionary does not become a missionary because they want to. Ministers are become ministers and missionaries become missionaries because they have a clear conviction that God has called them and God is sending them. That is what the word mission means \u2013 being sent. Ministers serve because we know God has called us to serve and commanded us to serve and sent us to serve. The church has endorsed that call by granting us the privilege of serving them as their minister.
\nBut I know from 36 years in ministry that the hardest part of being a minister or a missionary is not hearing the call of God and leaving a comfortable job to work twice the hours for half the money. The hardest part is staying where God has put you when the time comes that the temptation is so strong just to give it all up; when the going has got so tough that the tough have long since packed their bags and gone home. How wonderful it would be to go back to a normal life and a proper job, at those times when everything seems to be going wrong, and nothing seems to be working, and you aren\u2019t seeing any results and it seems the whole world and everybody in the church and even God seems to have given up on you. When that time comes, being there even \u201cbecause God commanded you to go\u201d won\u2019t seem to be enough of a reason to stay. So here is the most important reason why we serve.
\nBecause God loves you
\nMore than any other reason \u2013 this is the reason to cling on to. God loves you. Ministers and missionaries, and every Christian in our service for the church, must never, ever forget this glorious truth. God loves you so much He gave His only Son to die for your sins so He could make you His child. God loves you so much He has come to live within you by His Holy Spirit. God loves you, and nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing, can separate you from the love God has for you. That is why we serve God: because He loves us. \u201cWe love because God first loved us\u201d (1 John 4:19). The love which we have received inspires and sustains us. We go out into the world as ambassadors for Christ because Christ\u2019s love inspires and compels us (2 Cor 5:14). It is not our love for Christ but it is Christ\u2019s love for us which constrains and urges us on to serve God. \u201cThe very spring of our actions is the love of Christ\u201d (J.B. Phillips\u2019 translation). \u201cChrist\u2019s love has moved me to such extremes. His love has the first and last word in everything we do\u201d (The Message). Only our own personal experience of just how much God loves us will be sufficient to keep any of us firm serving God through the years.
\nMinistry is not rendering a service but becoming a servant \u2013 and that will never be easy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What is Christian ministry? I had learned one of the most important things I know about what it means to be a minister long…<\/span><\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[103],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1744"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1744"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1745,"href":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1744\/revisions\/1745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}