Fleshly Failures That Damage a Ministry, Part 1

More than 60 years ago, Chuck Swindoll trained for a lifetime of pastoral leadership on the campus of Dallas Theological Seminary. His four years of intense education in the classroom provided a solid foundation for vocational ministry.

But nothing surpassed the wisdom he gleaned from spending six decades as the shepherd among the sheep. Today, on Insight for Living, we have the privilege of hearing another message Chuck presented to the students at his alma mater. This is message number three in a brief six-part series.

He titled his talk, Fleshly Failures That Damage a Ministry. First I want to speak to you from my heart, and then I want to open the Word and speak to you from the Scriptures. I take this appointment seriously. I give a lot of thought to what I believe the Lord would have me say when I am with you. I do my best to think through in a fresh way what I feel needs to be heard by students at the school. I'm talking to you about the years you're here and even more importantly about the years to come as you enter into a lifetime of ministry. However long your life may be and wherever it may be the Lord calls you. I also want you to know that I don't just go back and find a previous sermon in the barrel I have from the years of ministry and then warm it up for the students here. The notes I have were written this past couple of weeks with you in mind because I take this seriously and I want you to do the same.

I believe you will. My interest this year, this academic year, is to go in two different directions along the same vein of thinking about the ministry. First, I'm talking during this fall semester about what is it that makes the ministry so difficult, such a challenge? What has made it difficult for me? What will make it difficult for others?

The things I share are not theoretical and for the most part they're not what I heard while I was a student. Back then things of this nature weren't usually addressed. I don't think I ever heard the word failure once during my four years at the school. It was sort of like the theological F word back then and it never dawned on us.

They would go through that and that's regrettable. I know the faculty didn't believe that but I'm sure they wanted to encourage us with words that would be free of such thoughts. I want to encourage you but I want them to include thoughts about the difficulties. I'm going to cover three areas this semester. The last time I talked about difficult people you will encounter. Today I'm going to talk about our own humanity. We bring that with us to whatever place we minister, in whatever place God calls us.

You bring your own humanity. All of the things you wrestle with at school you will wrestle with in ministry and I'll focus on that. Next time I'm going to talk as we address again for the third time what makes ministry so challenging. Things that happened to us that we didn't see coming. Unexpected things that can cut our legs out from under us and discourage us.

We'll talk about that when I'm back next month. In the spring semester I'll turn to the other side of the coin and look at the things that make ministry so rewarding, so delightful, such a joy. And there are far more of those things than the things I'm addressing this fall. If I could speak to the rest of my life and talk about that I would run out of time before I'd run out of subjects because of the blessings that accompany the ministry. It's easy to lose sight of that when you're in the middle of your studies.

Now let me clarify again from my heart some things that I think would be helpful for you to remember as students. The ministry is not a job that you're hired to do. It's a calling that you're compelled to fulfill. Furthermore, the ministry is not about you.

It's about the one who calls you. It's not about what you can accomplish or the money you can make or the books you can write or the people you can influence. It's about him and what he wants to do through you since he has called you to do this, his ministry to be carried out through you. It's not about making you feel important or impressive.

Those are silly goals for anyone in ministry. It's about our Father bringing him glory for he's the one who has placed us in his work and called us to do it. He wants to use you as his example, warts and all, failures and all, gifts and all. You are the object of his attention and ultimately he wants to show others what he can do through an individual that's marked by humanity, weakness and even the flesh.

And that brings up the rub. Within us is an old sin nature. It'll never change. It'll never go away until we breathe our last.

Thankfully at that point it's gone. It's like the old hymn we no longer sing. The last stanza sounds like a tongue twister. Then we shall be what we would be. Then we shall be what we should be. Things that are not now nor could be soon shall be our own. But not now.

Not while we're on this earth. You will forever wrestle with this old sin nature and it will forever want to take control of what you're doing. It will want you to get the glory, the credit. It lurks and it lingers at every corner of your life, urging you to patronize and publicize and please yourself and gratify your desires, which are usually selfish. You've got that nature.

So do I. We just sang about it. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.

That's true of every one of us, not just that songwriter. No amount of education, no degree you earn, no spiritual gift you possess will ever nullify your flesh. It's there. The secret is learning how to restrain it through the power of the Spirit. How to identify it, how to sense its inaction going on right now and how to stop it from taking control. It's with you every hour of every day and wants to be involved in every ministry you undertake and every decision you wrestle with. You must rely on the power of the Holy Spirit to guide you, to correct you, to use you, to shape you, to break you, to teach you.

And the flesh wants none of that. Now, having said those things from my heart, and I mean every word, I want to speak to you from the first seven verses of 2 Corinthians 4. If you brought your Bible, I'd love to have you turn. What I have to say about the passage is not important. What's important is what God says through his word to each one of us. And I don't say that to be pious.

I really mean it. The word itself has power and whoever teaches it or preaches it needs to stay out of the way so that the word can have full impact. You know that this passage is a continuation of other things that were said before because it begins with therefore. Therefore, since we have this ministry, then he goes on to describe it. One of my cherished mentors was Ray Stedman from Peninsula Bible Church in Palo Alto, California.

I had the privilege of knowing Ray and learning from him during the summer of 1961 when he asked me to be a part of his first internship team of young men. Ray writes this about 2 Corinthians. I quote, the most succinct statement of a new covenant ministry is 2 Corinthians 2.14 through 6.10.

You may want to write that down. 2 Corinthians 2.14 to 6.10. This will help you sustain a ministry that remains effective, grace oriented, and you must become familiar with these 71 verses. At the core of everything in this section, continuing with Ray's words, at the core of everything in this section are some of Paul's most candid comments about the nature of a truly meaningful ministry. When I heard that and I wrote it down while an intern and I've carried it with me, I even pasted it on a card in my Bible.

When I get near this section, I remember those words. So, since it's so valuable, we're not surprised that these first seven verses within the nucleus of those 71 verses play a very important role. I want to unpack these verses for you and hopefully with you as we work our way through them. Look closely at what Paul has written. I want to make three general observations about these verses. First, with every ministry, special mercy is needed.

Now, why would I say that? Look at the first verse. Since we have this ministry, as we received mercy, we do not lose heart. With every ministry, special mercy is needed, or you'll lose heart. Paul loved this word, enkekeo, it's translated for us, lose heart. He uses it in Galatians 6, 9, where he writes, let us not lose heart in doing good. Again, he uses it in Ephesians 3, 13, I ask you not to lose heart. And in 2 Thessalonians 3, 13, do not grow weary of doing good. Growing weary, losing heart. One of the common reactions of the flesh is losing heart.

The spirit never loses heart, but the flesh often does. Some students begin strong at the seminary. They get underway in their first year, it's all excitement. They get the syllabus, that's sort of a downer when they realize everything gets in front of them. They get the list of books that they're expected to read and they realize this isn't just a challenge, this is impossible.

And the more they go through the list of things and realize what's in front, the more tendency there is to lose heart, to lose excitement, not to be as encouraged as just before the first day of class began. You need mercy, and there's plenty of it available. The song says there's a wideness in God's mercy, like the wideness of the sea.

You'll need a draw on it. You'll need to ask the Lord to provide you the reminder of it. With every ministry, special mercy is needed. If you go into youth work, there's special mercy needed to work with the youth. If you go into research work, as a good friend of mine has done since earning his PhD, and in the research work, special mercy is needed as you dig into those difficult parts of your work. If you're in evangelism, special mercy is needed in all the travel, all the involvement with people, all the responsibility of remaining financially accountable, and on and on we could go. With every ministry, special mercy is needed.

You see why? So we do not lose heart. So you don't quit. Let me go back to our first year student. The tendency is to quit before you graduate, to get just enough to where you think you're ready, and then to hit the road running. You get through your second year and you think, well, that should be enough. Maybe I'll take on part of the third year. Then I'm on my way. You're not ready.

You're not finished. It's called a course of study, not half a course. Remember that when you come to this school.

Brighter minds than ours planned it out very carefully. At the beginning, it's like a pile of puzzle pieces, and it isn't long before all that excitement turns to a sense of confusion. As you take this course and that course, and then you're led into this course, and then you've got the details of that course, and so much of it is brand new for you, and it's a nomenclature or language in terms you're not familiar with.

You don't come from a background that has emphasized that. You're in a new world, and you can lose heart in it, same as in a ministry. Everybody's all excited when they candidate, and if you're not careful, you'll preach your best sermon, and they'll expect that from then on, and you've given them your best. Hold back a little. Wait, wait before you dump the full truck on them. Just preach a reasonably good sermon. If they'll call you with that, they'll probably put up with you later on when you're spending time there, and stay.

Stay, because it'll be tough, and you'll be tempted to leave. You'll lose heart. See how practical the simple first verse is?

We have mercy so that we won't lose heart. When you read your Bible, don't get in a hurry. Marinate these words. Turn them over in your mind.

Meditate on them. Don't lose heart in doing good. Just because the ministry gets tough doesn't mean you're on your way to another ministry.

One man writes it very well, the grass on the other side of the fence is not only not greener, it's not even edible, and you often think, if I go to another place, it'll be a lot better than here. Don't count on it. You'll have stuff there that'll cause you to lose heart there as well. You need mercy to stay at it. It'll keep you from growing weary.

Professional mercy is needed so you don't jump ship. You don't leave too soon. There will be a time when you should leave. You'll know when that is.

Hopefully you'll know it before everybody else knows it. And you'll sense it. You'll become restless.

Opportunities will open. You'll be directed, and then you won't be moving in the energy of the flesh. The Spirit of God has used you here for that period of time in some places in my life. It was four years. In another place, it was 23 years. Another place, it was two years. Boy, I was glad that was over. Man, that was a tough spot. And I realized in the middle of it, and I'll get back to this later, I didn't fit that place. And I said yes too quickly.

Easy to do. So we start where we just began, and now we go to the second observation. In every ministry, the same things must be rejected. That's in verse 2. Look at the second verse. But we have renounced the things hidden because of shame, not walking in craftiness or adulterating the Word of God.

We'll pause there in the middle of the verse. He names three things to be renounced. Look at that word. The Greek term means forbidden, rejected. The same three things must be rejected in whatever ministry you're a part of. What are they?

They're right here in front of us. First, things hidden because of shame. I call it hiding shameful things. The term means disgraceful. It's pretty hard to beat the word shameful.

That's what it is. The flesh loves the shameful things. But it will also help you hide it. Hide them. Things that are base, things that have no business going on.

That's why you hide them. Do nothing in ministry you have to hide because they are wrong or shameful. That's the first thing we have to reject in whatever ministry.

Second, please notice doing deceitful things. Not walking in craftiness. We don't use that word much.

Patergia. It's a little hard to translate it. It's the outworking of insincerity or the absence of integrity. The flesh urges you to develop deception. Not to come up front. Not to be wholly truthful. The flesh urges you to do this.

Even with people who trust you. This passage says it has no business being a part of your ministry. As you look back on wherever God used you, may you never have to think, I hid that shameful thing.

Or, I did a number of deceitful things. Here's the third, right here in the verse. I call it corrupting sacred things. It's rendered in the New American Standard, walking in craftiness or adulterating the word of God. That's the sacred part.

This is his sacred word. When you attend the seminary here, you will learn all about it. Old and New Testament, you will learn. Those who wrote it, you will learn. Those they used, you will even learn in certain courses.

The original language from that era and in that time, you may become proficient in Greek and or Hebrew or both. You will dig into the word of God. May it never become just a textbook. It's sacred.

It's holy. We're midway through a practical series that Chuck Swindoll delivered to pastoral students in training at the seminary he attended more than 60 years ago. He titled the series, The Pros and Cons of Ministry. You can hear from pastors and church leaders who've come to rely on Insight for Living as their daily source of spiritual nourishment. It makes us smile.

And the reason is simple. When we encourage a pastor, we're actually helping a congregation as well. Would you be praying with us that God will use this six-part series to inspire leaders within the church?

Also that God would raise up new leaders for today's generation. And then as God prompts you, please give generously to support the ministry of Insight for Living. A gift large or small will help advance the cause of the church. Did you know, for instance, that a portion of your donation helps us send field pastors to help build God's church all over the world?

To give a donation right now, go online to insight.org. And if you're looking for a helpful book on today's topic, let me point you to Chuck Swindoll's Living Insights commentary on 1 and 2 Timothy, including Titus as well. In order to truly understand these New Testament letters, it's essential to comprehend the context of the times. Chuck explains in a manner that's easy to grasp the cultural issues that face the early church leaders. And he shows us the parallels with our churches today. To purchase Chuck Swindoll's Living Insights commentary, call us. If you're listening in the United States, call 800-772-8888 or go online to insight.org slash store.

I'm Bill Meyer. Join us again next time when Chuck Swindoll continues to describe the pros and cons of ministry right here on Insight for Living. The preceding message, Fleshly Failures That Damage a Ministry, was copyrighted in 2021 and 2023, and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2023 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide. The publication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.