What I would like to share this afternoon is some thoughts upon "A framework for ministry," as found in Isaiah chapter 35. This
won't be an all-embracing framework as it is focusing upon only one book from one great prophet.
I’d also like to throw
in another verse into the mix, not from Isaiah, but from Hebrews 12:24, which in the Good News Bible simply reads: "You
have come to Jesus." All who have come to Jesus have a ministry: The pastor…
The Elders... The Choir... The Sunday School... The whole congregation. We need a framework for that ministry.
I have three pointers to
offer.
Firstly - the context of our ministry.
Secondly - the content of our ministry.
Thirdly - the character of our ministry.
1.
The context of our ministry
The context of our ministry is people.
Simply that. People.
Some who have come to Jesus.
Some who are coming to Jesus.
Some who have come to Jesus
and gone away again.
Many who have never, and
may never, come to Him.
Ministry is primarily about
people. Does that sound like stating the obvious?
Well, actions speak louder than words. You could get the impression that
ministry is about all sorts of things. Some act as though local church ministry was primarily about maintenance. I heard one lady in a church threatened with closure speak in defiance saying, "I swore to my father that
whilst I lived on this earth the doors of this church would never close." She died. The church closed.
Ministry can so easily become
maintenance; keep the old thing ticking over as long as we can. We must keep
in sight that people are more important than traditions or buildings or denominations or many other things we associate with
the word church. We have come to Jesus.
He came to be a Savior, not to be a caretaker. Ministry is not about maintenance
or buildings or programs or traditions or worship styles or meetings or organizations.
It’s about people who live in the real world all around us.
What sort of world is that? Isaiah 35 offers us some pictures.
A wilderness, a desert, a
place of burning sand inhabited by those who cannot see, cannot hear, nor walk, cannot even sing; a place of sorrow and sighing,
an abandoned wilderness, an unclean, unredeemed, fearful environment. The context
of our ministry is a world of people that need salvation and healing and wholeness and shalom. We have come to Jesus, who
came to save.
How do we feel about that?
There are indications of
how we can feel in the face of such a world. In verses 3 and 4 of Isaiah 35,
we find words such as a "weak, feeble, and fearful." Whatever it may be that
God wishes to do in the world, the disturbing thing is that God endeavors to work through people like ourselves, you and me,
to overturn that wilderness situation.
I suggest that the context
of our ministry is simply this:
People… living in a
wilderness world… people that need the salvation Christ came to bring.
2.
The content of our ministry
Borrowing from Isaiah 35... to the world in general, we are to bring rejoicing,
abundant joy, blossoming, singing, gladness, springs of life giving water, and streams through deserts – offer to them
a holy way that reveals the glory of the love and majesty of our God.
We are to open blind eyes,
unstop deaf ears, get the lame leaping and the dumb singing, and guide people (including ourselves) along the road to Zion. We are to walk firmly, take strength in God’s
salvation and not be afraid. We are to encourage one another, rejoicing in the
fact that God is a mighty God and able to save, a God of justice who will not been mocked, and a Lord who sets the captive
free and leads His people to His kingdom. We have come to Jesus.
The content of ministry is
"good news." The good news is that God has not abandoned this wilderness world.
Christ has been in it and is in it, has died to save it, and is resurrected to reign over it.
The Good news is that the
Holy Spirit can invade our lives, opening to us God’s Word, sharpening our consciences to the mind of Christ, giving
us the compassion and love to minister to people, and bringing to us a new heart that wants to sing and rejoice and praise
God.
Without the work of the Holy
Spirit we remain fearful and powerless. Without the work of the Holy Spirit the
Word of God remains closed to us. We cannot hear or understand it. But in the strength of Christ everything is overturned. New things are revealed.
We minister to others, to
the extent that we allow Jesus to minister to us. We help others, to the extent
that we help ourselves to a living relationship with Christ. Jesus said of Himself that He could only work within the boundaries
set by His Father. John 5: 15: "Truly,
truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of His own accord, but only what He sees the Father doing." Again, John 5:30: "I can do nothing on my own authority.”
The context of our ministry
is people living in a wilderness world who need the salvation Christ came to bring.
The content of our ministry
is the inside-out, over-turning, good news, kingdom life we find together in Jesus, discovered through worship, in service,
and in the power of God's Holy Spirit as witnessed to in Scripture.
3.
The character of our ministry
The testing question of the
Pharisaic lawyer in Matthew 22 is plain enough. “Which commandment is the greatest?”
The answer Jesus gives is equally clear and can be easily framed in one simple word – love. The character of our ministry is to be the character of love. Love
is not God, but God is love. “And God so loved the world that He gave His only
begotten Son so that whomsoever believes in Him should not die but have everlasting life.”
And what is love? 2 John 1:6 gives us this response “And this is love, that we walk according to His commandments; this is the commandment
just as you have heard it from the beginning-- you must walk in it.” And so the argument turns full circle. What
is the greatest commandment? To love. And what is love? Obeying the greatest commandment!
Paul
in his awesome hymn to love in 1 Corinthians 13 offers us the ultimate picture of Christ-like, ‘agapé’, sacramental,
baptismal water, bread and wine, love as he
tells us: “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or
arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing,
but rejoices in the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
We have come to Jesus. The
character of our ministry is the character of Jesus. We are to love as we have been loved. We heard in our epistle reading
Paul describing his compassion towards the Thessalonian Church. 1 Thessalonians
2:8 “So deeply
do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you
have become very dear to us.” For the gospel to reach people other
than ourselves, it must travel though the vessel of our selves.
In
summary…
The
context of our ministry is people who dwell in a wilderness-like world – some
who have come to Jesus, some who are coming to Jesus, some who have come to Jesus and gone away again, and many who have never,
and may never, come to Him.
The content of our ministry is the inside-out, over-turning, good news,
kingdom life we find together in Jesus, discovered through worship and in service and in the power of God's Holy Spirit as
witnessed to in Scripture.
The character of our ministry is the character of our Savior, whose life
was overwhelmingly characterized by ‘agapé’, sacramental
love. We have come to Jesus. To His name
be all honor, power, and glory. Amen.
