Sacrificial Ministry, Part 2

Welcome to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. God's power and glory are often made most evident in our weakness, but we tend to avoid situations that reveal our areas of frailty.

Instead, we seek comfort, safety, and control. Today's passage from 2 Corinthians 11, 22 through 33 gives us a portrait of Paul's dangerous and sacrificial ministry as he attempted to spread the gospel through Gentile regions. Paul counted all his accomplishments as worthless in light of Jesus, and his weakness takes on value because it points most clearly to our great Savior.

Let's listen in. This is part 3 of a message first preached on August 3, 2014 at Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. The title of today's message is Sacrificial Ministry.

In Romans chapter 12, he's encouraging, admonishing the Christians to condescend to people of low estate. Okay, you guys in ministry, you've risen to positions of spiritual authority. Don't get up there on your high horse. Don't settle down in your ivory tower.

Get off that high horse and get down into the messy lives of people in their day to day. Therein is spiritual authority. It is sacrificial ministry. Paul recounted in Philippians chapter 2 the mind of Christ, that others are more important, and the authority of Christ, his spiritual authority, what do we see there, that Christ cared this much to stoop this low for me. Therein we know the depth of his care for us. This is Paul's example and this is his admonition to the church as well in the issue of spiritual authority.

Two conclusions to draw then today. Conclusion number one, the confidence of sacrificial ministry is God. The confidence of sacrificial ministry is God. Paul had a very clear and compelling call.

There was no doubt about it and God had given him full disclosure. Paul, this is what your ministry is going to be about. When the Lord Jesus Christ had appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus and then he was pulling together these other men that would surround Paul and prepare him for the apostolic ministry that God had for him. Here is what he said about his call upon Paul's life in Acts chapter 9 verses 15 and 16. Speaking of Paul, he said, he is a chosen vessel of mine to bear my name before Gentiles, Kings and the children of Israel for I will show him how many things he must suffer for my name's sake.

How would you like that to be your call? Sacrificial ministry. You know because of this, because Paul knew this and he was so confident in the call that God had upon his life that he was able to persevere and press on with abandon.

With abandon. Because his confidence was not in himself but his confidence was in the one who called him. The point of that is this and this is key here. Fulfilling that call was fundamental. Ease and comfort were peripheral. This is the nature of sacrificial ministry. Fulfilling the call is fundamental.

Ease and comfort are peripheral. This became very clear in Paul's life in his ministry. This is what he is recounting to us in this text here today. And it is because his confidence was in God. It wasn't in himself. He wasn't building up himself for the ministry.

He wasn't calling attention to himself. He says it has been God's sustaining grace for his purpose in me. I am but an instrument in the master's hands.

That being said, the second conclusion is this. The accomplishments of sacrificial ministry are God's. Not only is the confidence of sacrificial ministry God's but the accomplishments of sacrificial ministry are God's. See constantly in the news as I am watching for the news and what is going on with the church. And you hear articles about what they call rock star pastors.

It really has nothing to do with the music in the church. It has to do with the dynamic of the personality. You know and how some guys are really quite capable at building up pretty impressive kingdoms pretty quickly.

You know and stuff that goes on in the news and some of the manipulation that will happen for these guys to gain a name. And it all becomes about the personality and people start following the personality and Christ is pushed to the sidelines. The accomplishments of sacrificial ministry are God's. I mean think of it, think of what we read here of all the sacrifices, all the persecution and hardships that Paul endured. Who would endure that? Certainly not one who is in it for himself.

He would have quit long before then. But Paul had probably the same philosophy of ministry as the prophet John did. He must what? Increase and I decrease. The attention isn't mine. I am here but to give your attention, point your attention to Jesus Christ. The accomplishments of sacrificial ministry are God's. And what we can learn from this is that if God has work for me to do, He will sustain me. If God has work for me to do, He will sustain me. Christians listen to me this morning. If you are here this morning, living, breathing, walking on two feet, God has sustained you to this point.

What does that mean? He has work for you. To the point that He sustains you, He has work for you to do. Do you know we pray often for people in hospitals and stuff like that? It is my resolve not just to pray that God will help them feel better, but for God to help them understand that to the degree that He sustains them, they can serve Him.

I invite you to pray the same way. Because life isn't just about feeling good after all, is it? If we are here, we have a purpose. Paul understood that. To the degree that God sustained him, he still had mission.

He still had mission. If you are a Christian here this morning, you have mission. You are a minister. I'm not the only one in this room who is called to ministry.

Or Dwight. We're all ministers. And to the degree that God sustains you, He has work for you to do. If God has work for me to do, He will sustain me. The good news is this.

Verse 31, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who is blessed forever knows that I am not lying. God knows. God knows. What does He know? God is intimately aware and involved in the hardship and sacrifices of serving Him.

He's in it. He's ordained it. Let's consider what God will do through His child who is not concerned with control or comfort or consent of the faithless.

Consider what God will do. Saul and Pilar Cruz launched their ministry by planting a church on the edge of a vast garbage dump in Mexico City. Starting the church had its challenges in particular. The people found it difficult to trust Saul's leadership because Saul was a gifted strategist and thinker and communicator.

But at first he seemed unwilling to plunge into the pain and poverty of his people. That changed one Sunday morning when someone burst into their worship service with alarm. The local sewage system had flooded the streets and the sewage gushed. The street was on the verge of collapse, threatening to sweep away dozens of nearby homes.

City officials wouldn't respond for at least three days. Saul and a local engineer organized the onlookers and church members to stop traffic and make sandbags. After working frantically for nearly 15 hours, by 3 o'clock the next morning they had finally stopped the flow of sewage. It was cold and drizzling and Saul was shivering. Exhausted, covered with mud and sewage, Saul and other church members emerged from the pit and walked back to the church where some women had heated water to wash off the filth. As they gathered, they all held hands and knelt to pray. Saul had earned their trust and become their leader and their friend.

People need to see you're for real, said Saul, that you really care for them, that you're even ready to put your life on the edge for them. As Christians, we celebrate the fact that Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, moved into our world, walking into our suffering. Our God is not aloof.

He descended into the mud and sewage of our world. And as we are His ministers, let's do the same. Let's do the same. If people are going to believe our message, we have to be willing to get messy, as Jesus did for us. Thanks for joining us here at Delight in Grace. You've been listening to Rich Powell, the lead pastor at Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. The Delight in Grace mission is to help you know that God designed you to realize your highest good and your deepest satisfaction in Him, the one who is infinitely good. We hope you'll join us again on weekdays at 10 a.m.