Godly Motivation for Ministry
The ministry has always been a difficult job. Why anyone would choose to go into the ministry is beyond me. You might be thinking, "You’re a fine one to talk. You’re in the ministry." That’s true. I am in the ministry. Sometimes I even get asked why I chose to go into the ministry. The simple answer is that I did not choose to go into the ministry in the same way someone chooses a career. You see, the ministry is not simply a chosen vocation, it is a calling from God. This applies to so-called "full-time ministers" as well as individual Christians in ministry in their local church. You see, every Christian is called to ministry. Our choice is simply our response to God. Ultimately, he does the choosing.
For those who give themselves to the ministry as a full-time vocation, like pastor or evangelist, extra care should be given to confirm the call of God on their lives. While they do enter into a high in holy calling, they also enter into a life of sacrifice and service that will overwhelm them without a firm assurance of their call. I believe it was C. H. Spurgeon who advised his ministerial students not to attempt to pursue the ministry if they could possibly do anything else. This is what he said to his students.
"Do not enter the ministry if you can help it," was the deeply sage advice of a divine to one who sought his judgment. If any student in this room could be content to be a newspaper editor, or a grocer, or a farmer or a doctor, or a lawyer, or a senator, or a king, in the name of heaven and earth let him go his way; he is not the man in whom dwells the Spirit of God in its fulness, for a man so filled with God would utterly weary of any pursuit but that for which his inmost soul pants. If on the other hand, you can say that for all the wealth of both the Indies you could not and dare not espouse any other calling so as to be put aside from preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, then, depend upon it, if other things be equally satisfactory, you have the signs of this apostleship. We must feel that woe is unto us if we preach not the gospel; the word of God must be unto us as fire in our bones, otherwise, if we undertake the ministry, we shall be unhappy in it, shall be unable to bear the self-denials incident to it, and shall be of little service to those among whom we minister. (Spurgeon: Lectures to My Students, pp. 26-27)
The simple truth is that unless we are called and compelled, we will not survive.
The great apostle Paul was one who had received such a calling. He had been called to be an apostle. His job was not only to preach the gospel but also to establish churches. Our text today begins with his assertion of this high and holy calling. You might say that he declares and defends his ministerial rights.
Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not the result of my work in the Lord? 2 Even though I may not be an apostle to others, surely I am to you! For you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.
Paul asserts his position as an apostle, one called to his work by Jesus Christ. And he let them know, in no uncertain terms, that the evidence of his calling can be seen in the fruit of their lives. His ministry had made an impact upon their lives. Yet not everyone held him in esteem.
3
This is my defense to those who sit in judgment on me. 4 Don’t we have the right to food and drink? 5 Don’t we have the right to take a believing wife along with us, as do the other apostles and the Lord’s brothers and Cephas? 6 Or is it only I and Barnabas who must work for a living?There were obviously some who had decided to set themselves up in judgment of Paul’s ministry. Sadly, that tribe continues to this day. There are always those who think they know best how everyone else should do things. And this is especially true for the ministry. It’s really amazing. If you go to your lawyer, most people assume, because of his training and experience, that he knows what he is doing and how to do it. And that holds true for most professions–– except the ministry. Everybody thinks they know how the pastor should do his job.
You would be amazed at how many criticisms pastors receive from well-meaning people. If they are outgoing, they’re too friendly. If they are introverted, they’re aloof. If their sermons are 40 minutes, they’re too long. If their sermons are 20 minutes, they’re not deep enough. If they study and pray a lot, they’re not spending enough time with people. If they are always out with people, they’re not working!
Paul faced his critics. Some undoubtedly thought that he did not have the right to be supported financially in his ministry to them. It was a right they afforded to others, and it was a right they should have afforded to Paul, as he goes on to tell them.
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Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its grapes? Who tends a flock and does not drink of the milk? 8 Do I say this merely from a human point of view? Doesn’t the Law say the same thing? 9 For it is written in the Law of Moses: "Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain." Is it about oxen that God is concerned? 10 Surely he says this for us, doesn’t he? Yes, this was written for us, because when the plowman plows and the thresher threshes, they ought to do so in the hope of sharing in the harvest. 11 If we have sown spiritual seed among you, is it too much if we reap a material harvest from you? 12 If others have this right of support from you, shouldn’t we have it all the more?Soldiers, farmers, and shepherds are all cared for. Soldiers are paid. Farmers eat the grapes from their vineyard. Shepherds partake of the milk from their flock. Even a dumb old ox is allowed to eat the very grain he is treading. God wrote it in the Bible. The case that Paul makes is that those who gave their time and energy to sowing spiritual seed––something of eternal significance––should be even more entitled to be supported materially or financially.
But we did not use this right. On the contrary, we put up with anything rather than hinder the gospel of Christ. 13 Don’t you know that those who work in the temple get their food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share in what is offered on the altar? 14 In the same way, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel.
But Paul had to put up with their pettiness for the sake of the gospel of Christ. While these were Gentile Christians, they were all aware of the Jewish tradition. There the priests and temple workers received part of the offering from the altar. Indeed, it was a commandment from the Lord "that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel." That was their ministerial right.
The real problem they faced was a misunderstanding of the high calling of the ministry. While ministers are servants, they are servants of God, not slaves of the people. And I believe that where there are individuals or churches that fail to esteem those in the ministry, they will simply not be blessed.
But look at Paul’s heart. While he fully asserted his ministerial rights, he did not demand these rights. He asserted them in order to instruct his critics. But he was not petty like they were. His heartbeat was for God and his work. Paul was not in it for the money. Few ministers are. Except for a few greedy health and wealth televangelists, the overwhelming majority of ministers are hard-working, humble, and underpaid. They don’t do it for the money. They do it because they love God and are called by him. Look at Paul’s ministerial restraint.
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But I have not used any of these rights. And I am not writing this in the hope that you will do such things for me. I would rather die than have anyone deprive me of this boast. 16 Yet when I preach the gospel, I cannot boast, for I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! 17 If I preach voluntarily, I have a reward; if not voluntarily, I am simply discharging the trust committed to me. 18 What then is my reward? Just this: that in preaching the gospel I may offer it free of charge, and so not make use of my rights in preaching it.Even though Paul had a right to be supported by those who could afford to do so, he did not demand those rights. He showed great restraint. He had a calling from God that gave him rights. But he also had a concern for the people, that gave him restraint.
We seem to live in a culture that is all about demanding our rights. I get so tired of hearing people demand this and demand that. Where are the people that are concerned about others? Where are the people that are more willing to give than receive? Well, you should be able to find them in the ministry and in the church. If we are to have the mind of Christ, according to Philippians 2, we will esteem others as better than ourselves. When Christ left the throne of his father’s glory, he laid aside his divine rights and humbled himself. Indeed, he suffered the ultimate humiliation of the Cross, for our sake.
Paul was willing to lay aside his right to support for the sake of those he was trying to reach and to disciple. He had a heart for God and a concern for God’s people. Additionally, he had a burning desire to fulfill his calling. He had a sense of ministerial responsibility that drove him. Look at what he said in verse 16.
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Yet when I preach the gospel, I cannot boast, for I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!He had a burning fire within his bones to preach the gospel. It was a divine compulsion. He could do nothing else. He was the man that Spurgeon had in mind. He can never be satisfied doing anything other than giving his life to this mission, to this ministry. He had been given a divine responsibility to be the apostle to the Gentiles, and no obstacle whether satanic or human was going to keep him from fulfilling his responsibility before God. This was his passion. And this was what made him great.
Just what do you think we could accomplish if we were fully devoted to God? Only God knows what a tremendous and powerful spiritual force his church could be if each individual were fully devoted to him. But we are called to be fully devoted to him. This is the essence of discipleship. Discipleship is simply our desiring and intending to be like Jesus. And if we desire and intend to be like Jesus, we will systematically and progressively rearrange our affairs to that end.
This kind of life is not for the super Christian, it is for every Christian. Watchman Nee called it the normal Christian life. It is to our shame that a large segment of the church fails to make full devotion to Christ the standard for church membership.
The fact that Paul was fully devoted to Christ serves as an example to us to follow Christ in that same way. God did not use Paul as mightily as he did because of Paul’s intelligence, education, giftedness, or human genius. The reason we’re talking about Paul today is because Paul was determined to follow Jesus. God used Paul to change the world because Paul surrendered his life to be used. And God will use people like that today.
What is your passion? What drives you? How do you want to be remembered? How do you want to invest your life? Do you know your purpose in life and are you resolved to do whatever it takes to fulfill God’s plan for you?
The final area I would like to touch on today is Paul’s ministerial resolve. We have seen how he saw his responsibility to preach the gospel, now we turn to the compassion he felt for the lost souls of humanity that caused him to resolve to do everything in his power to win them to Christ.
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Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. 20 To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. 21 To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. 23 I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.The passion of Paul’s heart was to see lives transformed by the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. For him this was no casual endeavor. He could not sit idly by while people went to hell. What is it about us, I have to wonder, that allows us to do be so casual about the fact that our friends, neighbors, coworkers, and family are not moving any closer to becoming Christians? Sometimes I wonder if we really believe what the Bible teaches about eternal damnation. Do we really think that God will allow them to go to hell? Have we been lulled to sleep by the philosophy of the world that says that a loving God would never send anybody to hell? If we have, we have been seriously deceived. The truth is that God doesn’t send anybody to hell, they send themselves. It is not God’s fault that we choose to sin. It is not God’s fault that we reject the sacrifice of his dear son on the Cross–– the very way of forgiveness that God provided. No, God has done everything possible to provide deliverance for those condemned by sin. He not only provided a substitute to suffer the consequences, he became that substitute himself. He suffered. That’s right. God’s suffered incredible pain for you and me. If we choose to reject that, and we have if we have not come to Christ, then we have no one to blame but ourselves.
The reality of this world is that there are millions of people who do not know Christ and are on their way to eternal condemnation. There is an appointment on everyone’s calendar. It is put there at birth. The Bible teaches that it is appointed unto man once to die, and after that the judgment. That is the appointment on every person's calendar. Your calendar may be full. You may be too busy for God. But this is one appointment that you will keep. Everyone you know will keep this appointment.
If we really saw this truth, and if we really cared about those people, we should feel some sense of urgency concerning their date with eternal destiny. Paul certainly did. That is why he was committed to use every means at his disposal. He was willing to make whatever adjustments he needed to make to communicate the truth in ways they could understand. And so should we. In other words, we should try to find common ground with the lost people in order to lead them to Christ. We need to take time to get to know them–– their hurts, fears, frustrations, problems, challenges. And then we need to do what we can to help them in these practical areas of life. We need to communicate to them that we really do care. People matter to God and they should matter to us.
This is what Paul was saying was his strategy. And it should be our strategy as well. But we must remember something very important. What we're talking about here is not a method. Too often the church wants to reduce it to that. We think that if we simply introduce a new style of worship, or more contemporary music, or the latest thing that's working in some other church that people will respond to the method. Not so. What we're talking about is not a method but rather a passion. We will never reach people until we have a passion to reach them. We will never communicate we really care for them until we really care for them. Until our heart is burdened for their spiritual welfare, all else will be mere mechanics.
Why is it that the uneducated, unsophisticated, backwoods rube can be blessed with winning many souls to Christ when the educated, seminary trained, polished professional is not? It is because he loves both Jesus and people and his heart breaks at the thought that someone he knows might go to hell.
May God give us a heart like that.
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