Ok for those of you who do not come out to our Sunday services, I posed 3 potential questions that could arise in light of the sermon. Last week was the last sermon in our Worship series. The sermon was on honoring God through our worship and service. The main point is that God is honored when we give Him our best and He is not pleased when we give Him our left overs. This post will make more sense to you if you have listened to our podcast. I’m currently setting up a new podcast through a new host, so it will be a few days until the past few sermon’s are up. I will post on the blog as soon as the new podcast is up and running.
The 3 potential questions I posed was:
- If we are to give God our all in ministry what about the popular saying “God first, family second, ministry third”?
- Is only perfect obedience pleasing to God?
- The final question deals with different questions I often hear that are along the line of “what is the bare minimum required to be a follower of Christ”?
I will handle these questions in the order listed above. I will handle the third question in a later post.
First: What about God first, family second, ministry third?
This is a commonly made statement when it comes to Christian ministry. Personally I have made this statement many times and I feel there is some practical value to the statement. But as I have thought about it, I’ve begun to realize that this is not necessarily a true statement. What this statement is trying to convey is the idea that you should not sacrifice your family for ministry. This is very true and biblical. If you look at the qualifications listed in the NT concerning church leadership, the order and strength of one’s family is always within the mix. If you would disregard or cause harm to your family for the sake of other ministry obligations, biblically speaking, you would disqualify yourself for ministry. Also in 1 Timothy 5:8 Paul states this “But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” This is within the context of Paul’s instruction concerning taking care of widow’s and others in need. So to start off, I would say that it is clear that it is not biblical to abandon your family for the sake of ministry to others.
So why do I disagree with this statement you ask? First off I think that it overly simplifies things and it also compartmentalizes things in a way that are not realistic. As modern westerners we love to compartmentalize things (i.e. family, ministry, personal life, personal faith, work, etc.) The biblical perspective born from a Hebraic view of life is more holistic, seeing all of life as intertwined and interrelated. Secondly if you really stop to think about it, what does this even mean? If you have family second, and ministry third, what does the whole God first thing entail? The reality is, as followers of Christ, God is to be everything, and all of life is to be an act of obedient worship for His Glory and Honor. Also one has to ask “Why does family even matter? Not because it is second on some list, but because it matters to God and our service toward our family is to be an act of service to God Himself. Take God out of the equation and (philosophically speaking) family has no intrinsic value and is only as valuable as you decide it to be.
Our life is to be an act of worshipful service to God, our life is a life of ministry geared toward God’s glory and accomplishing His mission. The reality is, as Christians we are all called by God for the sake of His Glory and His mission. Part of that calling is to serve and minister to your family, part of it is to serve and minister to His people, part of it is serving and ministering to those around us, and part of that is to be ministered to, growing in our unity with Christ. Our priority is to obey God in His calling. That calling may at sometimes be to step back on other areas of ministry to focus on ministering to your family, at other times it may be for your family to make a sacrifice for the sake of ministry to those around you. I know this may sound off to some of you. But God cares for your family more than you do, He cares for your church more than you, and He cares for the lost and hurting more than you. If we focus on God’s calling and not an arbitrary list I guarantee that God will not call you to something that will in turn destroy your family.
I often think of Peter in relation to this idea. Peter was married (though some debate this) and a lot of scholars believe he was married before Jesus called him to come follow Him. Now in the gospels we see that at times there were women within the group following Jesus around Israel (which more than likely included Peter’s wife) and at other times it seems that it was just Jesus’ closest disciples (i.e. the Apostles) that were with Him. If this is true then there were times, and even times at great length, that Peter went out on mission with Jesus and had to leave his family behind. Actually through accounts found in early church history we find that Peter’s wife was killed in front of him because of his ministry. So if this is true, was Peter being disobedient by dropping his net and follow Jesus? Was he wrong to step up as the visible spokesman for the Church putting His family at risk? He would only be wrong if he chose to do these things apart from the Lord’s clear calling, but since it was Christ who called him then it is hard to say that Peter was wrong.
Having a strong family is vitally important, but the reality is, focusing on your family will not build up a strong family. Focusing on the Lord and His will is what will in turn build a Godly and strong family. In my life there are and will be times that I need to say no to preaching opportunities, ministry opportunities, or others in need for the sake of getting quality time with my boys and my wife. But as much as quality time with Dad, my boys also need to see a Dad that is so passionate for his Lord that he often makes sacrifices for the sake of obedience to Christ’s call. So to sum it up, there may be times where you need to obey God and stop what you are doing to focus more time on your family, but then again there may also be times when you need to prayerfully tell your family that as a family we need to make a sacrifice for a season because as a family we will seek God’s glory and His Kingdom with all He has called us to.
I will close with a powerful example I heard years back. I heard an interview with Ruth Graham and Franklin Graham (Billy Graham’s wife and one son). They were asked if they regretted the fact that Billy was often gone 150 -200 days of the year preaching the Gospel. Their response was that even though it was hard, it made them stronger, because Billy made it clear that as a family they were going to be about seeing the Gospel spread. Then Ruth said that even though some years they only had Billy for 150 days out of the year, they had his full love and focus for those 150 days which many families never get even when their dad or husband is home 365 days of the year. They also said that they felt their family was as strong as it is because of Billy’s willingness to obey Christ, even though that meant he was away much of the year.
Second: Is only perfect obedience pleasing to God.
I will make this one quick. The answer is no. Throughout the scriptures we see that God’s anger is shown not because of lack of execution or performance but instead is shown when God is no longer the people’s greatest pursuit. We are all fallen and imperfect, that is one of the reasons we need the cross. If God is only pleased with a perfect sacrifice from us, then we are all screwed. But Christ gave the perfect sacrifice so that in our imperfection God is still pleased and will make us to become perfect as Christ is perfect.
I love the example we get from Paul in his very candid teaching found in Romans 7. In this passage Paul reveals the battle waging within himself. He wrestles with how he often does what he does not want to do and often does not do what he wishes he did do. Paul is revealing that his hearts desire is to please God, to become like Christ, yet he has not reached that point in everything he does. At the end of this passage he states “but thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” In essence what he is saying is that through Christ his desires have been changed, he now desires God’s desires, but he is not yet fully sanctified so he still keeps failing. But thanks be to God, that there is grace and mercy found in Christ, that though he fails he is still being transformed and is still accepted by our perfect God. The problem does not lie in the fact that our obedience is not perfect. The problem starts when we no longer care that our obedience is not perfect. See if their is no tension going on within you, if you do not desire to be transformed and perfected, if you don’t care that you fail, then there is a deep rooted issue within your worship and service. It doesn’t matter how much or how well you serve God, because if you decide that “this is good enough”, if you have no desire to grow more in your walk and bring even greater glory to God, then your worship is no longer Honoring to God. But on the flip side, even when we keep messing up and we have a lot of growing to do in our abilities, if our desire is to continually be transformed by the work of God’s Spirit, and we continually repent and strive to Honor Him as our greatest pursuit, God is pleased and honored by your worship.
I want to close this with an analogy that I find sheds light on this issue. Often I think how much better and smoother things would be if God fulfilled His mission without enlisting us to “mess things up.” But we have to remember our Heavenly Father is our Father. As I have thought about this I’m drawn to my relationship with Judah. Just the other day I was going outside to work in the garden. When Judah found out I was going to do some gardening he ran to get his shoes and told me we needed to get “Judah’s tools.” I will be honest with you, if Judah wasn’t helping I would have been able to get things done a lot quicker and better. Judah is only 2 1/2 so his “quality” of work is not the best. But the thing is even though I could have done it quicker and better on my own, I preferred having my little buddy there helping out because first and foremost I desire a relationship with my boy, not great production. In that time I was so pleased with Judah because he so badly wanted to help his daddy. He stopped playing with his beloved trucks and dropped everything because Judah wanted to serve me. In a small sense Judah showed me honor because, in whatever little way he could, he wanted to help me and more importantly he wanted to be with me. Sure I hope as Judah grows he will also get better at certain things and his “quality” of work will improve. But what was pleasing to me is that with what little bit he could do, he did so, desiring to help his daddy he loves. Guys I hope you see that this is the picture of our service to our heavenly Father. We are all like little children, sure we all need to mature and grow in our abilities, but what is most important is that no matter what our abilities are, we want to drop what we are doing to go be with our Abba Father, to serve Him and Glorify Him.
For the final question I will address it in my next post. This is already long enough and the final question deals more with a general understanding of salvation and is not specific to the sermon from last week. So in my next blog post I will address the common question of “if I keep doing … and …. or if I don’t do …. and …. am I still a Christian.” In other words the person is asking “what is the bare minimum to be considered a Christian and go to heaven. To just let you know where I’m going with this, I believe that these debates and questions are borne out of a false soteriology (view of salvation) and reveals that the person has not yet grasped the nature of the Gospel and the Majesty of our Lord. It may not mean that they are not saved, but biblically they should not have any security in thinking they have been truly saved.
So on that note I’m done.
