What Is Christian Ministry? (Part Two)

Jesus and People 

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

John 10:11

Jesus liked people. Therefore, those who minister in Jesus’ name will like people, too. Seminaries cannot teach you about people: only experience can provide insights into people’s peculiarities, choices, attitudes, and issues. On one hand, people will serve, encourage, and love others with an energy and life that is both surprising and delightful. On the other hand, people can act with the most devious and self-serving of intentions. Their behavior defies all the rules of gracious and loving behavior. These same people who are simultaneously bewildering and benevolent attend our churches and work in various parachurch ministries.

Pastoral wisdom recognizes that Christian people are imperfect and that these people are the people that God uses to advance his kingdom. Pastoral care points people to Jesus, reminding them of his precious promises, and encouraging them to trust the Christ who died and rose again on their behalf.

Pastoral counsel uses Scripture to display God’s great grace and remind his people that Christ is available in power to live his life in and through them (1 John 4:9). Pastoral comfort makes available the sacramental grace (i.e., Eucharist, baptism, confession, etc.) of our Lord to the bewildered and hurting.

Christian ministry is about people, if you do not like people, you will not like Christian ministry. The same manner in which Jesus ministered in the Gospels is the same manner in which he will minister through us. Therefore as difficult as people can be, Jesus will want us to reach out to all.

The same principle holds good if we consider that other very common name for our office-minister, or servant. We are not made ministers in order that the rest of the Church may be excused from serving; we are made ministers in order to help the whole Church to be a serving Church and to lead it in this service. Just so, we are made priests in order that the whole Church may be trained to be a truly priestly body, fulfilling in its whole life the great High Priesthood of Jesus.

If we are called priests, it is not in order to keep the priestly function in our hands and exclude the rest from it; we are called priests in order that the whole body may be holy priesthood, and that every member in it may be trained and equipped and encouraged in every way to play his part in the priestly ministry of Jesus for the whole of mankind. If we are priests, we are such as priests of the priestly people, for the sake of the priesthood of the whole body.

Lesslie Newbigin, The Good Shepherd (Oxford: Mowbray, 1977), 43.

What Is Christian Ministry? (Part One)

 

Ministry is a Relationship with a Person

As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

2 Tim. 4:5

True Christian ministry is the overflow of the Life of God in us. Ministry is not a position, but a relationship with a person, Jesus Christ. We spend time with Christ, Christ reveals himself afresh to us. The overflow of that experience is life, that life encourages and blesses others.

Ministry is communicating “life information” to others: why he loves, what God does, when he speaks, where he works, and how he transforms. Ministry is sharing with others how God has been faithful in our lives and how God will be faithful in theirs. Ministry is encouraging others to trust Christ’s work on the Cross, the Father’s faithful provision, and the Holy Spirit’s consistent guidance.

The message I would bear is Jesus Christ and him crucified and from the consideration of the great things he has done, to recommend and enforce Gospel holiness and Gospel love, and to take as little notice of our fierce contests, controversies and divisions as possible. My desire is to lift up the banner of the Lord, and to draw the sword of the Spirit not against names, parties and opinions, but against the world, the flesh and the devil; and to invite poor perishing sinners not to espouse a system of my own or any man’s, but to fly to the Lord Jesus, the sure and only city of refuge and the ready, compassionate and all sufficient Saviour of those that trust in him.

John Newton, Letter to Harry Crooke of Hunslett, Leeds, cited in Marylynn Rouse, “An Important Turn to My Future Life,” The John Newton Project Prayer Letter (October/November 2008), 1.

Find It! Find It in Christ.

All Our Needs Are Met in Him 

And because of him [God] you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption,

1 Cor. 1:30 ESV

Every emptiness we feel, every struggle we face, every setback we endure: all our needs are met in Christ. All spiritual warfare that we face, all sin that we fight, all the approval for which we yearn: all our burdens are freed at the foot of the Cross. All the victory we desire, all the fulfillment for which we long, all the love we desire to impart: all are released through an intimate love relationship with Jesus.

Apply to yourself all that your Savior is, or has done. Do you wish for all the graces of God’s Spirit? You will find them in His anointing. Do you wish for power against spiritual enemies? You will find it in his sovereignty. Is it redemption you seek? You will find it in His passion. Is it absolution you need? You will find it is His perfect innocence. Freedom from the curse? Find it as His Cross. Satisfaction? See it in His sacrifice. Cleansing from sin? Find it in His blood. Mortification? It is yours in His grave. Newness of Life? Find it in His resurrection. The right to heaven? It is insured for you by His intercession. Do you seek salvation? It is yours because He is seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high. Do you desire all? Then find it in Him Who is “One Lord, one God, and Father of all, Who is above all, through all, and in all.”

Bishop Joseph Hall quoted in His Victorious Indwelling, ed., Nick Harrison (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998), 186.

The Blessedness of the Kingdom

The Kingdom and the Church

Jesus answered, “My Kingdom is not an earthly kingdom. If it were, my followers would fight to keep me from being handed over to the Jewish leaders. But my Kingdom is not of this world.

John 18:35-36

The Kingdom of God is the presence of the future–a foretaste of heaven. It is a foretaste–an advance sample–of what life will be like when dwelling in God’s exquisite presence in heaven. The kingdom is the inbreaking of heaven: the dynamic rule and reign of God has come and presently is touching the earth. All that heaven will be–freedom from sickness, deliverance from oppression, joy in forgiveness, etc.–experienced now in Christ Jesus. The Kingdom has come in Christ and is advancing throughout the world and the Kingdom will be fully established upon the return of Christ.

Presently, the kingdom of God spiritually reigns in the hearts of those who have made Christ Lord of their lives and is manifested in and through them by the Holy Spirit’s presence, preaching of the Gospel, healing of the sick, and release from demonic bondage, etc. (Luke 4:16-20, 43). The Kingdom of God advances by conquering men and women’s hearts through the power of the Cross: the Holy Spirit changes us from self-centered slobs to Christ-centered servants (John 3:3; 2 Cor. 5:14-15).

What is the relationship of the church to the kingdom? On the one hand, the church is a “pilot plant” of the kingdom of God. It is not simply a collection of individuals who are forgiven. It is a “royal nation” (1 Peter 2:9), in other words, a counterculture. The church is to be a new society in which the world can see what family dynamics, business practices, race relations, and all of life can be under the kingship of Jesus Christ. God is out to heal all the effects of sin: psychological, social, and physical.

On the other hand, the church is to be an agent of the kingdom. It is not only to model the healing of God’s rule but it is to spread it. “You are . . . a royal priesthood, a holy nation . . . that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light” (1 Peter 2:9). Christians go into the world as witnesses of the kingdom (Acts 1:6-8). To spread the kingdom of God is more than simply winning people to Christ. It is also working for the healing of persons, families, relationships, and nations; it is doing deeds of mercy and seeking justice. It is ordering lives and relationships and institutions and communities according to God’s authority to bring in the blessedness of the kingdom.

Timothy J. Keller, Ministries of Mercy: The Call of the Jericho Road, 2nd ed. (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R), 54.

HT: Between Two Worlds