The Influence of Passion & The Promise of Ministry
Have a look at this: "Vocation is the place where our deep gladness meets the world's deep need." - Frederick Buechner. We’ll come back to it.
When I was a very young Christian, just beginning to sort out myself and developing a realistic sense of both my weaknesses, but also developing a very strong desire to serve God with my whole heart,
I was at this worship event at a friends home, and I heard God speak very very clearly, in that time of corporate prayer and worship, that my life was to be spent in missions.
I did not understand what that meant, and there hadn’t been anything about me at that point that would’ve suggested that that this was to be true of me. I was in college studying music, planning to have a career as a Christian musician.
It was so much the case tghat this was all very unlikely, that the friend who hosted that event that I was at, was pretty sure that I had misheard God, or that I was misunderstanding something that God might have been saying to me.
But, not being entirely cynical, and having recently heard about the Yonge Street Mission, in particular Evergreen, he had learned that there was a summer missionary program at Evergreen. This was in 1985.
So he said, “why do you just try out Evergreen, why don’t you get your feet wet, and get a sense of what Mission life is like.
“Evergreen and the Mission as a whole are just as good a place as any to try to get a more refined sense of what God might be calling you to”.
So I interviewed with Rick Tobias, and I got a position as a Summer Missionary, doing outreach in the park, music and drama in front of Evergreen, back when it was on Yonge Street, and spending time mostly in the evening drop in.
My church at the time, Faith Temple, supported me for the entire summer and while I was there, again just beginning to scratch the surface of what it might be like to serve people,
still thinking that I was called to missions overseas, I sat in the drop in at Evergreen and had coffee with someone who I had just met.
That person was a transvestite prostitute, they were an addict, and they had a lot of life challenges and mental health challenges.
We sat across the table from each other, drinking coffee, and we talked. We talked for some time, and the conversation got fairly serious.
And at one point, as they were speaking about their life and their struggle and their addiction,
I looked directly in that person’s eyes and, very unexpectedly, I had this tremendous feeling that I was looking at myself.
It wasn’t really so much “there but for the Grace of God go I“, but it was a pretty deep sense of connection and understanding and, that might’ve been the first moment in my life,
five years into being a Christian, that I had a sense of what we might call Agape love toward this individual.
Now that was not a pleasant experience, really. It was very disorienting for me.
It was not what I expected to experience. I thought my call to missions was a call to go to Africa, to Liberia and the Ivory Coast.
But in that moment, talking with that person, and then in the months afterwards spent reflecting, God refined my sense of call to simply be at the Yonge Street Mission.
Why? I didn’t know at the time. Years earlier, when I was just starting to play the saxophone, I had heard very clearly from God that I was to be faithful in music, and that he would be faithful to me.
I had done that and found that my musical growth accelerated exponentially.
So, having that experience behind me, I learned to trust God when he spoke or made a very strong impression in my spirit, and when others backed that impression up with encouragement to keep going.
Little did I know that I would be here in 38 years talking about this formative event in my life.
But it was a beginning, it was a scratching of the surface. It was, for me, a putting my actions where my mouth was.
It was a small step of obedience, filled with many questions, frankly a great deal of self-doubt at the time, but also this powerful sense of love for God who had redeemed me
Today is the last message on the series we’ve been looking at for all of October.
The whole month we’ve been looking at some of the ideas that are contained in the Network Course that we will be running on Mondays beginning on November 6 at 6 PM.
I hope you will consider trying out the course. If you’re not sure, maybe just come to the first class and see if you like it. It will be held in this space.
And today we’re talking about the influence of passion and the promise of ministry.
I was deeply grateful for our dear sister Marian Nacpil’s message last week on the most important factor to anchor all of our thinking about serving God, serving others; all of our thinking about ministry.
What is that most important factor?
Love. As important as spiritual gifts are, as important as our personal style is, there is nothing more important, more foundational, more essential, than love.
In particular, Agape love. God’s kind of love.
So with that fact established, hopefully, in our hearts, let’s unpack today’s theme by looking more closely at the Scripture passages that were just read.
Phil 2:12-13 Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.
Paul, here in this brief passage, is encouraging the Christians in Philippi to take their salvation and their lives very seriously.
He gives them the benefit of the doubt, as we always should, that they are doing their best in following Jesus. He says “...As you have always obeyed...”
I like that because if we don’t give people the benefit of the doubt, especially when we don’t have precise knowledge of what’s up in their lives, we can begin to, rather than be gracious and give the benefit of the doubt, we can start judging them, in ignorance.
And when we get into judgment mode, we’re pointing fingers, and you know what they say about pointing fingers. We point one at the person, one digit at God, and 3 back at ourselves.
So there’s that little note. Then he encourages the folks back then, and us now, to continue to work out our salvation with fear and trembling.
And then he says why: for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.
It’s important to understand the context in which the apostle Paul is encouraging us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling.
That context is that God is working in us and through us so that we desire to do his well, and that we act, or live our lives, structure our lives, in such a way that we are able to fulfill his good purpose for us.
So that is our responsibility, to keep in mind that we are here in large parts for the purpose of fulfilling God’s purpose.
I’ve mentioned a few times that when we’re talking about ministry passions, or things that are of particular interest to us, that may not be of interest to another person; things like:
caring for seniors, caring for children, human trafficking, local politics, the problem with drugs and violence in the city, encouraging the body of Christ, leading worship, participating in the leading of worship…
Whatever it may be, and there are literally hundreds if not thousands of things that could be a particular interest to us, as believers, we need to understand that those have been put there by God because he wants us to have an impact for good in those areas.
Some folks might be inclined to read verse 13 in a vacuum, out of context, and it can raise confusing questions.
“Hang on, I am supposed to work out my own salvation… To make it happen or something?“ Of course our salvation has been one for us by Jesus Christ.
It is only to his death and resurrection and ascension to glory that we have access to the faith that we possess, this faith in the beloved son of God.
And we receive the gift of salvation because of gods grace, through faith in what God has done for us in Christ Jesus.
So this has nothing to do with somehow trying to affect our own salvation.
It’s really all about sorting through what the impact of our salvation is going to be on the world around us.
Am I going to keep my faith to myself?
Am I going to do that very Canadian thing of never risking offending anyone by believing that Faith is supposed to be entirely personal, it’s all personal choice, and I don’t need to find any way to express my faith.
Well, here’s the thing: we could do that. We could bury our treasure in the ground, we could hide our lamps so that no one can see.
We do have that choice. And lots of people make that choice. But when I consider the challenge to work out my faith with fear and trembling.
That is a call to taking my faith very seriously, and it is a call in the context of the scripture, to understand, again, that God wants to work in and through me to bring about his purposes on earth.
That is true of us as individual Christians. That is true of us collectively as the church of Jesus Christ.
So, Phil 2:12-13 Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence— continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.
The next passage is from John 15:
John 15:”4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. 5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
This is the voice of Jesus. And then this chapter of the book of John, Jesus gives a lot of encouragement to his disciples, along with a lot of very sobering insight as to what his disciples can expect in their future.
Jesus encourages us to continually remain in him, as he remains in us. Jesus Christ is within us by the Holy Spirit, and we are the temple of the Holy Spirit, both individually and collectively. Jesus is in us for the long-haul, for what will be the entirety of our lives.
He is completely and utterly committed and will never leave us or forsake us.
And he says remain in me, as I also remain in you. So, this is a call to deep discipleship, it is a call to making sure that we always walk closely with Jesus.
But we keep short accounts when and if we sin, so we go to God immediately Asking for forgiveness.
It’s a call to understanding ourselves and our lives as “being in Him“. What does that mean?
Well, at the very least, it means that there is no part of us, there is no aspect of our lives that Jesus is not Present in.
And Jesus gives a reason for us to remain in conscious contact with him at all times, to the best of our ability.
He says “No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me“.
[Show a branch]. Say this is a branch from a tree that grows acorns? What do you think the odds are of yes, having broken off the tree, being able to produce a single acorn? There is no chance. Why is there no chance?
There is no chance because the branch does not have within itself the Capacity, the life, the stuff to produce the acorn.
The only way it can do that is by remaining connected to the tree. In fact, once the branch is torn from the tree, what happens to it?
Instantly, it’s life begins to fade. And then it actually dies.
so Jesus wants us to recognize that we are not self-sufficient. That can be a very hard pill for the human ego to swallow.
I know folks, including relatives, who live with the illusion of being, or thinking that they are self-sufficient.
And, they say, because they are entirely self-sufficient, they need no one else.
And for sure in their own minds they don’t need God.
A line from a poem written by one of my relatives goes “I am not so weak that I need God”. That kind of sums up the human attitude of pride to work God.
That’s just the way people think sometimes. But we do need to recognize that we are not islands unto ourselves.
In particular, if we want our lives to be more than just being about surviving, if we want our lives to be fruitful, if we want to leave this planet in someway better than when we arrived, we must remain connected to the vine.
And what is that vine? Who is that vine? Jesus doesn’t leave us hanging 5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
Jesus Christ himself is that vine, he is that rich source of life and power and energy and encouragement and inspiration and ability for us to produce fruit.
For us to produce good things from our lives. And then of course Jesus gives the Sobering reminder again that apart from him we can’t do anything.
A few verses later, Jesus says this:
7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
So, as we remain in Jesus, as his words, his teachings found in the holy Bible remain in us, active and alive in us, then we will be deeply oriented toward Jesus,
we will be deeply focussed on the kingdom of God, we will be in tune with the God who loves us more than we could ever imagine.
And so, remaining in Jesus, focussed on his glory, those things that we wish for, those things that we press into God for, those things and people that we intercede for, Jesus will,
in his time and in his way, respond to those petitions, those prayers, those intersessions.
And verse eight makes it very clear that this is all about the glory of God. And God is glorified when we bare fruit; when our lives produce good things for his kingdom.
We know that heaven rejoices when one sinner repents. We know that God loves justice.
We know that every good gift is from God. We know that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
These things really matter to God. And when we do bear fruit That is good and pleasing to God, that demonstrates to the whole world that we are followers of Jesus, we are students of Jesus, we are disciples of Jesus.
Sadly, there are too many examples in Christian history and today were people who south identify as Christians do not produce fruit that glorifies God.
And of course that does, as it should, raise questions as to whether or not people who identify as Christians, who do evil, who perpetuate evil, if they are, really, even followers of Jesus.
But we do not need to be counted among those Whose walks raise questions about the Christian faith, whose walks make people scratch their heads, wondering how it is that we can call ourselves people who love God and who follow Jesus.
We can make the choice to remain connected to God through corporate worship, through prayer and intercession, through reading His Word on the regular; hrough giving and caring for others.
And remaining connected to God, He gives us the power to live consistently in a way that brings glory and honour to God. That will never mean that we even approach perfection.
But it will mean that our lives will produce good fruit. And that is the promise of ministry. Ministry is service.
When we serve people out of love, with hearts that are all wrapped up in Jesus heart, our lives have purpose, our lives feel purposeful and meaningful.
So the promise of ministry is the promise of this joy of knowing and experiencing and being conduits of the love of God to the people around us..
In the last passage we are going to look at today gives us a line of sight to God‘s understanding of and vision for our lives.
Eph 2:8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
First of all, this passage confirms that we are saved by grace and grace alone.
We access that grace through trusting in Jesus sacrifice for us. Trusting that Jesus death and resurrection was for us. We take it very personally.
And in the same breath, we affirm that Our salvation is not caused by, or generated by, or even sustained by us. Our salvation is not from ourselves.
It comes from outside of ourselves, it is from the gracious hand of God who has given us gift of salvation to us. That in another itself is a remarkable thing.
Two people can hear the gospel explained as well as possible. One person will say it sounds like so much buzzing in their ear.
It does not resonate, it does not mean anything, they might even say it raises more questions than answers.
The other person will hear the gospel, will grasp the implications of the love of God expressed in the willing sacrifice of Jesus Christ upon the cross,
Their hearts will be moved, they will be changed. They then become followers of Jesus. They then become individuals through whom God works to bring about his purposes on earth.
May we never take for granted the gift of faith that God has given us. The hope and encouragement and joy it brings us now. The hope, the deep and profound hope that we have for eternity.
So our salvation is not by works, not by our works. So we have nothing to boast about.
10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
But then we have this extraordinary encouragement: we… You and me and Paul and Shirley and Jonathan and Breda and mention many names…
We are God's handiwork. Other translations say we are God's masterwork. God’s workmanship. Masterpiece. Do you get the gist of this? We are what God has made us, and what God delights in.
First of all, that is because when God looks at us, he looks at us through the blood of Jesus Christ.
He sees us cleansed, purified, he sees us as effectively sinless and pure because of Christ. 1 Cor 5:21 says “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God”.
And as God's workmanship, as his masterwork, as his handiwork, we were created for a reason. It is an eternal reason.
It is actually an ancient purpose. We were created for the purpose of doing good works. Good things. Good actions. Good deeds. Good actions. Good deeds. Good things.
Before we were here, God had a reason for us to be here. God has good that he intends to be accomplished through your life.
Of course he intends good for your life. He wants you fully liberated.
“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free end John 10:10?
He wants you free, free of striving on your own to do this thing called life, free of trying desperately to earn our salvation, free of everything that holds us back, that holds us down, that keeps us bound.
He wants us, as his handiwork, as his masterpieces, to do those good works, to engage actively in that ministry, that he prepared for us a very long time ago, to do.
Of course this means that you were part of God‘s plan long before you were born.
Eph 1:4 He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.
I encourage you to meditate on all these Scriptures, and to allow the Word of God in. Let it permeate your whole being.
Let it rewrite all of your understanding about yourself, about the world around you, and about your relationship with the world around you.
We started here: The late Pastor Frederick Buchner said that God calls us at the place where our deep gladness meets the world's deep need.
So where is God calling you? Where and how does He want you to bring glory to himself while at the same time finding your deep joy and gladness.
How do you respond to the encouragement of the Scripture passages we’ve spent some time looking at today?
May we consider all these things as we follow Jesus, as we seek God’s Kingdom, as we imagine a new and better future for our lives.
And I do encourage you to join our course starting on Monday, November 6 at 6 PM, right here in this place. Let’s pray.
