Ministry is a very common topic among us who are Christians. We talk about it and believe that we are doing ministry for the Lord. Yet, very few people understand the dynamics involved in spiritual ministry.
It is not like doing a job out in the world, although we have somehow made it like that. What qualifies you in the workplace does not qualify you in a place of ministry.
A young person will spend many years in college and university and come out with some very impressive degrees and yet may not find the job they were preparing for.
Perhaps their father was a doctor and so they quite naturally started in that direction for themselves. Or maybe their father was a lawyer or their mother was a lawyer and they set sights in that direction. Nothing wrong with that.
That, however, is not the way spiritual ministry goes. Judging our spiritual ministry by the standards of the world is to completely misunderstand the ministry God has called us to do.
The key element in spiritual ministry, which is often overlooked, is the Holy Spirit. A person can have all the education they can afford. Rack up as many degrees as they humanly can handle and still not be prepared to do the work of the ministry.
Then, some country bumpkin fresh from the cornfields begins a ministry and God blesses that ministry in ways that are inconceivable to the average person.
It is what the apostle Paul says,
“But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to naught things that are: that no flesh should glory in his presence” (1 Corinthians 1:27-29).
Ministry is not to glorify man, rather it is to glorify God. God is never glorified through the flesh and yet we offer the flesh to God for His approval.
As Jesus begins His ministry, we see the involvement of the Holy Spirit in His ministry.
The focus of the Holy Spirit is a ministry that accents the Jesus-Factor in our daily life. Anything that gets in the way of this, the Holy Spirit will rebuke as only He can.
There are three aspects in Jesus ministry that involves the Holy Spirit.
I. The Preparation of His Ministry
It is interesting to see how carefully Jesus is being prepared for His ministry. Not only His public ministry to the people, but also His ministry on the cross. Always remember that in the background is the shadow of the cross. Everything Jesus does focuses on the cross.
The Holy Spirit is faithful in preparing Jesus for a work that He was sent to this world to do.
First, John the Baptist acknowledges Him.
This ties Jesus in with the Old Testament and the prophecies of the Old Testament. John is pointing to Jesus and saying, “This is the man.”
Second, was His baptism.
This is the affirmation from the Father.
“You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased” (Luke 3:22).
This affirms that Jesus is the fulfillment of all Old Testament prophecies concerning the coming Messiah. With God’s approval upon His life and ministry, what more does He need.
Third, was the temptation in the wilderness.
This sets the tone for His ministry and prepares Him for the spiritual challenge that lies before Him. The key phrase is, “And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time” (Luke 4:13).
The threefold temptation found in the wilderness will not only follow Jesus to the cross but is a contention for us today as believers.
In all of this, the Holy Spirit is guiding and directing the life and ministry of Jesus.
The more important the ministry, the more intense the preparation. I am not quite sure we appreciate the intensity of Jesus’ preparation. Suffice it to say, His preparation was in the hands of the Holy Spirit. Jesus is not entering into the ministry on His own, or on His own authority. Behind Him is the absolute authority of the Holy Spirit.
II. The Presentation of His Ministry
“And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and a report about him went out through all the surrounding country. And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all” (Luke 4:14-15).
The presentation of Jesus’ ministry is rather important. He did not begin His ministry on His own initiative. He is not moving forward on His passion.
We talk a lot about passion, and I think it is important that we have passion. But passion will not get us through the tough times. Passion is a human emotion that can fluctuate up or down. The basis of Jesus’ ministry is the power of the Holy Spirit in his life. The power of the Holy Spirit is a constant in the life and ministry of Jesus. It is never at one point stronger than another point nor is it weaker at one point than another point.
Several things about his presentation.
First, notice that the Holy Spirit is leading Him. Luke says, “He returned in the power of the Spirit.” The motivation behind His presentation is the Holy Spirit.
The important thing here is that it was during the preparation that brought Jesus to the place where He is in this verse. He did not jump here. Rather, he is following through the process orchestrated by the Holy Spirit. Because of this, the presentation of Jesus’ ministry is solid. We sometimes fail to understand that ministry is a process. It is not some nice, neat little package we can unwrap at will. Rather it is the outflowing of the Holy Spirit.
I need to point out that Jesus’ ministry was in the “power of the Spirit” and not in His own power. I am not sure I can explain this because I am not quite sure I fully comprehend this truth.
Jesus certainly was God, but when he came to earth to “seek and to save the lost” he laid aside the vestments of His deity and put on the cloak of humanity in order to take our place on the cross.
Certainly, God could not hang on the cross.
Certainly, God could not be physically abused by men.
However, Jesus laid aside the vestments of His deity and cloaked Himself in the garments of humanity in order to save us. He allowed Himself to become vulnerable in the hands of the man He had created. This shows the extent of His love for the world.
In that position, Jesus put Himself completely under the authority of the Holy Spirit. Now what He does, He does in the power of the Spirit.
The second thing has to do with the Word.
I think it would have been great to be in the audience as Jesus is teaching. Imagine, the Living Word teaching the Written Word.
Jesus begins His ministry in the Word.
Jesus reads from Isaiah 61:1-2.
“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that morn.”
This is the biblical foundation for the ministry of Jesus Christ. Keep this verse in mind as we go through the gospel of Luke and see how the ministry of Jesus unfolds in complete harmony with this prophecy.
One key factor is simply, all of the Old Testament is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. You cannot have a New Testament without the Old Testament. To ignore one is to undermine the whole. It takes all of the Word of God to make it the Word of God.
After Jesus read those words He sat down and said, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21).
Jesus presents Himself and His ministry as the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. The things these people have been reading about for centuries now stands before them epitomized in Jesus Christ.
III. The Preservation of His Ministry
Here is the testimony of Jesus at this time.
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18-19).
The ministry of Jesus was a fulfillment of God’s grand plan and therefore not vulnerable to man’s judgment. Man could accept or reject but he cannot ignore the judgment of God.
Jesus did not craft a message to suit His audience. Rather, he told them the truth. His message was rooted in the Word and linked to Old Testament prophecy. These people should have been well-versed in what the Scriptures taught.
The message of Jesus persevered through the hostility of the people toward Him. The old attitude, hate the message, kill the messenger.
Jesus begins His ministry in a venue that you would think would be hospitable toward Him. But it was otherwise.
Jesus summed it up this way, “Truly, I say unto you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown” (Luke 4:24).
It is really hard to understand the anger of the people towards Jesus at this point. He has done nothing to hurt them and was criticizing no one. Later on, He would criticize the Pharisees quite severely. Now He was just beginning and they had hostility toward Him. The only thing we can gather is that behind this hostility was the Adversary trying to attack Jesus as best he could.
He was bringing them “good news.”
The ministry of Jesus did not rest upon the acceptance of the people, but the approval of the Father.
The ministry of Jesus did not conclude on the cross but rather the ministry of Jesus flows through His Church, which is through us. We are the church.
If this is true, and it is, in order for us to understand our ministry today we need to understand the ministry of Jesus in His day. Nothing has changed. The message does not originate with us and therefore we do not have the liberty to change or upgrade the message.
Many today are trying to harmonize the message of Jesus with the culture around us. It does not work that way.
There is a movement today towards Chrislam. That is the harmony of Christian and Muslim religions. Good men trying to find common ground between these two “religions.”
I will grant you there are similarities and common ground between religions. Christianity is not a religion. It is as someone said, a relationship.
There is nothing more intolerable than Christianity.
Nobody was more intolerable than Jesus was. Study the Gospels. See what Jesus said to the Pharisees. Just see how intolerable Jesus was toward falsehood and those who would lead the people astray.
Here is a key element. The more I get to know God the more I understand myself because I was created in the image of God. And, the more I get to understand the ministry of Jesus as presented in the Gospels, the more I begin to understand what my personal ministry is to be in my day.
The key to my ministry is the Holy Spirit. I need to understand the objective and priority of the Holy Spirit in my life. In order to do that I need to understand the objective and priority of the Holy Spirit in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. What He did in and through Jesus is what the Holy Spirit wants to do in and through us today.
I like to refer to this as the Jesus-Factor.
By that I mean, that in my life, the Holy Spirit has absolute control to bring me into conformity with Jesus in his life and ministry.
Every day of my life, I need to look for that Jesus-Factor. The great joy of my daily life is discovering that very thing. It is the great joy of the Holy Spirit to bring to my attention this thing called the Jesus-Factor.
