Certain Hope for Uncertain Times
11/11/2001 - Behind the Ministery: The Five Emotions of Ministery
One of the most popular shows on the cable network VH1 is a show called Behind the Music . It's a one-hour documentary of sorts that takes viewers behind the scenes and exposes the personalities and the dynamics that go on among some of the world's most well known rock bands. Over 140 singers and groups have been featured on Behind the Music.
We don't get that cable channel so I've only seen the show a few times, but each time I've been fascinated to see the human side of some these popular public performers. The ones I've seen have featured hardcore, acid rock, heavy metal bands like The Partridge Family and The Osmonds and The Monkees . Anybody here remember The Monkees , those one hit wonders back in the 60's?
The episode on The Partridge Family exposed the prison of popularity that trapped David Cassidy. David Cassidy was the teenage heartthrob that seemed to have the world at his feet. All the girls loved him. But he was miserable inside and felt trapped by the role he was forced to play, never allowed to be anything else put a teen pop idol named Keith Partridge. So eventually he turned to drugs and alcohol to deal with the pain, quickly turned a bulging bank account of $8 million into a mere $40,000, and almost killed himself. That's what life was like behind the music for David Cassidy.
The episode on The Osmonds exposed the jealousy that the older Osmond brothers had towards their pipsqueak little brother, Donny, whose fame and fortune exceeded them all. His smash hit, "Puppy Love," at one point generated 50,000 fan letters a week. But much like David Cassidy, fame and fortune took its toll and by the age of 20 Donny Osmond was burnt out and set adrift for years trying to find himself. That's what life was like behind the music for Donny Osmond.
The Behind the Music episode on The Monkees revealed that they didn't even play the music they were behind. Instead, studio musicians wrote and recorded the sound tracks while The Monkees just strummed along, looked pretty, and acted goofy. Eventually they got tired of doing that and fought a bitter battle with their producers to take more creative control of their act. But in a few short years they were done. That's what life was like behind the music for The Monkees.
This morning we continue our series called Certain Hope for Uncertain Times and I've entitled today's teaching Behind the Ministry , because it's going to take us behind the ministry of the apostle Paul and expose the human side of this great man of God. Often when we think of the apostle Paul, that famous convert to Christ who literally changed the world, we think of a powerful teacher and a persuasive evangelist, the world's first missionary and a courageous church planter. We think of a brilliant writer who authored 13 of the 27 books in our New Testament. That's the person we see on the outside. That's the incredible ministry Paul had. But what went on inside the man? What made him tick? What made Paul happy and what made him sad, what frustrated him and what gave him great joy?
If you have your Bible meet me at 1 Thessalonians 2:17. In the passage we're going to look at today, Paul lifts the curtain and exposes his life behind the ministry. Scholars agree that of all Paul's writings this is perhaps his most revealing and most vulnerable. But it not only gives us a window into Paul's heart, it gives us a window into our own hearts, into the heart of anyone who does ministry.
Do you know that according to the Bible all of us who follow Jesus are ministers? You don't have to be the pastor of a church to be a minister. The word ministry is not a religious word. It simply means "serving." All of us are to be servants of God. Jesus came to serve and to give his life for others and he wants to teach us to do the same.
Many of us are ministers to our family, we're husbands and wives to our spouses, and fathers and mothers to our children, some of us are grandfathers and grandmothers as well. A lot of ministry happens at home, the most important ministry happens at home. Some of us minister to the people we go to school with, or to the ones we work with, to our friends who need us, to the small group we lead or belong to. Some of us are ministers to seekers who don't yet know Christ. All of us who follow Jesus are ministers. And because we're all ministers, we're all going to experience the feelings that Paul expresses in this passage.
Today's passage overlaps a bit with last weeks. And that's because I want us to look at it through the grid of the five emotions of ministry, emotions that Paul reveals in this very intimate section of his letter to the Thessalonians. These are feelings all of us will have who really want to serve the Lord. The first emotion of ministry is an intense longing.
Look at 1 Thessalonians 2:17, But brothers and sisters, when we torn away from you for a short time (in person, not in thought), out of our intense longing we made every effort to see you.
Those who serve the Lord have this intense longing to see God's will done in the world, to see people come to know Jesus Christ and grow in Christ, to see lives changed, to be fruitful, to make a difference with their lives. They're passionate about the things of God.
Last week we talked about how Paul was torn away from these new believers. He left them orphaned and literally ran for his life to escape the persecution in Thessalonica. It wasn't something he wanted to do, but his friends urged him to get away and smuggled him out of the city under the cover of darkness. And now he's 250 miles away in a hotel room in the city of Corinth and has this intense longing to see these brothers and sisters again.
One of the most difficult parts of ministry is being torn apart from the ones you love. The hardest thing about pastoring a highly relational church like Valley View is saying goodbye to people that you've grown to love. Every time you feel like part of your heart gets torn out and goes with them. It's hard to be torn away from people who leave the church and move on. This summer we said goodbye to two of our finest leaders who moved to Seattle. That was hard. A few weeks later we said goodbye to another couple who moved to Louisville, Kentucky. That was hard. Over the phone this week I said goodbye to a couple that were leaving Valley View for another church in the area that they thought might be a better fit for them and their needs. That was real hard. And moments like that expose the longings of our heart.
People who serve God want the best for others and one of the hardest things in ministry is to stand by and watch people you love make choices that do damage to themselves and to their marriages and to their families. One of the hardest things for a parent to do is to watch their kids make wrong choices. It tears your heart out and exposes this intense longing that you have for those that you love. There are a lot of times in ministry when you feel totally helpless.
Paul felt helpless in Corinth. He was 250 miles away, at that time a ten-day journey. What could he do? Look at verse 18, For we wanted to come to you-certainly I, Paul, did, again and again-but Satan stopped us. Drop down to 3:1, So when we could stand it no longer, we thought it best to be left by ourselves in Athens. 2 We sent Timothy, who is our brother and God's fellow worker in spreading the gospel of Christ to strengthen and encourage you in your faith. Look at verse 5, For this reason, when I could stand it no longer, I sent to find out about your faith.
Behind the ministry of Paul was a guy at the end of his rope. I can't stand it anymore. Have you ever been there? Is there something going on in your life right now that you just can't stand any longer? Ask God for help and he'll give you the grace to hang in there or he'll give you a solution. For Paul it meant sending Timothy to find out what was going on. So when we could stand it no longer, he says in verse 2, we sent Timothy to find out about your faith.
The second emotion of ministry is fear. Look at the second half of verse 5, I was afraid that in some way the tempter might have tempted you and our efforts might have been useless.
Fear is an emotion of ministry. Whenever we have intense longings and a genuine love for people we can get afraid. The apostle Paul was afraid. What was he afraid of? He was afraid that the tempter, the evil one, Satan, the devil, had tempted these people and caused them to fall away from their faith. Remember, Paul hadn't heard yet what was happening in Thessalonica. When he left, these brand new believers were under attack. And he didn't know if they had survived or caved in.
Talk to any parent whose number one ministry is raising their kids and ask them what makes them afraid. And if they're honest with you they'll tell you that they get afraid that something might happen to their children. That's their worst fear. Parents get afraid that someone might hurt their children, or tempt their children, or take their children from them. They get afraid that their kids might get mixed with the wrong crowd and fall away from the faith and the values of the family.
Some of us have had that frightening experience in the Mall or at a big store like Wal-Mart where one second we're with our kids and the next second we look around and they're gone. And we go down one aisle and then the next aisle and the next aisle yelling, "Avery! Avery! Avery!" Only to find them in the toy section, sitting on the floor, looking at a Barbie coloring book! "Hi Dad. What's the matter? Chill out!"
Paul was afraid that he was going to lose his kids to the tempter who was planting all sorts of seeds of doubt. Whispering things like, "Where's God in all this persecution? He doesn't love you? He doesn't care about you? Where's Paul? Some spiritual father he is? Why did he run away when things got tough and leave you? You can't trust him? You can't trust his message? Give it up."
Paul was afraid for his kids. And he was also afraid for himself. He was afraid that maybe his efforts had been useless. He was afraid he had failed. The fear of failure can keep us from doing a lot of good ministry.
This week I heard someone compare ministering to people to snow skiing. Have you ever gone skiing? The first time you go skiing you're all excited and you put on the gear and strap on the skis and then you stand on the top of the mountain, looking down at the slope. And it looks so steep and so far and the people at the bottom look so little. And there comes a moment when you have to decide, "Do I really want to do this or not? If I go down this hill I might fall. I might get hurt. Maybe I'll just go back to the lodge, sit by the fire, and drink hot chocolate."
That's what ministry can be like. It can really make us afraid. We can be afraid to fall. We can be afraid to get hurt. But do you know what? Let me alleviate your fears. You will fall. And you may get hurt. You're not going to make it down the slope the first time without falling. So count on it. Most of us who do ministry fall into it. But the times that you fall and the times you may get hurt can't compare to the feeling of flying that you have so often when you're serving God. Just like that feeling of flying that you have when you're going down the slopes.
Paul was afraid. He was afraid for others and he was afraid for himself. Paul was also stressed out in ministry. The third emotion of ministry is stress. Look at verses 6-7, But Timothy has just now come to us from you and has brought good news about your faith and love. He has told us that you always have pleasant memories of us and that you long to see us, just as we also long to see you. 7 Therefore, brothers and sisters, in all our distress and persecution we were encouraged about you because of your faith.
Paul was in distress. Behind the ministry was a man who was stressed out. His stress was caused by the persecution he faced. Paul literally put his life on the line every time he talked about Jesus. In his second letter to the Corinthian church he catalogs his persecution when he says in
2 Corinthians 11:23-29,
I've worked much harder, been jailed more often, beaten up more times than I can count, and at death's door time after time. I've been flogged five times with the Jews' thirty-nine lashes, beaten by Roman rods three times, pummeled with rocks once. I've been shipwrecked three times, and immersed in the open sea for a night and a day. In hard traveling year in and year out, I've had to ford rivers, fend off robbers, struggle with friends, struggle with foes. I've been at risk in the city, at risk in the country, endangered by desert sun and sea storm, and betrayed by those I thought were my brothers. I've known drudgery and hard labor, many a long and lonely night without sleep, many a missed meal, blasted by the cold, naked to the weather. And that's not the half of it, when you throw in the daily pressures and anxieties of all the churches. When someone gets to the end of his rope, I feel the desperation in my bones. When someone is duped into sin, an angry fire burns in my gut.
Can you relate to any of that? If you serve people for any length of time you'll feel some of that stress, maybe not the shipwrecks and stonings. But the nights without sleep, the missed meals, the struggles with friends and family, the betrayal of brothers and sisters, the drudgery and hard labor, the pressure and anxiety. Stress is a very real emotion of ministry.
And how did Paul deal with it? In two ways, first by expecting it. Remember in verse 3 he said, we're destined for trials. Paul didn't expect everything to be wonderful because he knew Jesus. He knew life would be tough. So the suffering didn't surprise him. And second, he dealt with it by looking for encouragement. And that's the fourth emotion of ministry, the emotion of encouragement.
Look at verses 7-8, Therefore, brothers and sisters, in all our distress and persecution we were encouraged about you because of your faith. 8 For now we really live, since you are standing firm in the Lord.
The emotion of stress and the emotion of encouragement can exist side by side. Often when people ask me, "How's the church going?" I'll tell them that there's enough good things happening to keep me encouraged and there's enough stress to keep me dependent on God. And I suspect that's the way it will always be.
Last weekend was a tremendous time of encouragement for me. It was so exciting to attend the Young Life banquet on Friday night and to hear the stories of teenagers whose lives are being changed by Jesus Christ, the hope, the joy, the peace they're finding in him. And then the next night to have the County Fair and see so many people pitching in and helping and having fun and bringing their friends and introducing them to Valley View. It doesn't get much better than that. That's when we really live! When we're serving God together.
More than one person has said to me, "My friends are still talking about. They couldn't believe how everyone made them and their children feel so special and valued. They've never been to anything like it." That's encouraging. That makes all the stress and the all the fears worth it. I firmly believe that people are going to be in heaven someday because their first encounter with Jesus came at a Valley View County Fair. In the midst of all the stress, don't fail to see what God is doing. His hand is at work in so many lives right now in this church. That's where the encouragement comes from. Paul was encouraged to hear that these believers were standing firm in the Lord.
And finally the fifth emotion of ministry is joy. Look at verses 9-10, How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy we have in the presence of our God because of you? 10 Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you again and supply what is lacking in your faith.
Enjoy the people you're ministering too. Sometimes we can get so task oriented and hyper responsible in ministry that we forget that people are the ministry. Enjoy the people you're serving. Enjoy your spouse. Sometimes Jennifer and I feel like partners in a business. All we do is work together and carpool together and raise kids together. God wants us to enjoy each other. Enjoy your friends. Enjoy your co-workers. Enjoy your children. Sometimes as parents we work so hard at parenting we forget to just enjoy our kids. Enjoy your small group. Take time to celebrate what God is doing in your life and in the lives of others. Don't lose the joy of the journey. It's an emotion of ministry that God wants us all to feel, often.
Remember Paul said in 2:19, For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes? Is it not you? 20 Indeed, you are our glory and joy.
Paul concludes this section by reminding them that he prays for them night and day. Look at verses 11-13, Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus clear the way for us to come to you. 12 May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. 13 May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.
Prayer is such an important part of our ministry to others. Praying for our marriages and our children and our friends and our relationships at work and school and those we're trying to reach for Christ. And notice as we said last week, Paul doesn't pray for the persecution to end in Thessalonica. He doesn't pray for an easy life. Instead he prays that he would see them again and that God would take him back there some day. But until then he prays for their character, that their love would grow, their hearts would be strengthened and their lives would be holy and blameless until Jesus comes.
So once again, another chapter ends with the certain hope of the return of Jesus. Serving people is a wonderful thing. Ministry is an essential part of building a life that lasts. But behind the ministry are all kinds of emotions that God will use to keep us dependent on him.