Faithful Ministry
One of my favorite quotes comes from Nikolaus Ludwig, count von Zinzendorf, “Preach the Gospel, die, and be forgotten.” How simple and succinct of a summary of faithful Gospel ministry! Focus on God instead of self, knowledge of the brief time we’ve been given to pastor, and the glory of God above self.
It would be easy for me to use this quote to get on my soapbox about how counter this quote runs to our current fascination with quasi-famous Reformed speakers/authors, but I will digress on that (maybe to a later post!). What I want to focus on is the encouragement this statement and its ethos gives to pastors.
Understanding that the main audience for this blog is pastors, I am going to focus on us pastors specifically - and maybe, in God’s good grace, there are some lessons laymen and women can take from this.
These past 7 months have been tough for pastoral ministry, maybe some of the toughest many of us have faced. If you pastor a church, then, starting in March, you’ve had to do some major restructuring of how you do ministry (no more visitations, no more face to face interactions); move your church to a majorly online position; learning how to livestream your services; learning how to preach to a camera instead of people (and that can be a big struggle); dealing with making these changes while also dealing with all the financial changes that came from not meeting in person; having a family during all this as well! I had a lady confide in me that her husband had a mini-breakdown, because he was struggling how to make decisions at work because of how much everything has changed. I know her husband, and he’s a great leader, yet he struggled mightily in this. I counseled her that we are used to stress that is in front of us - we know what the situation is and why it is stressful, so we deal with it. However, what this pandemic has done is created stress that operates a lot in the background, this sort of white noise that doesn’t go away - and that is incredibly hard to deal with.
Many of us have that white noise of stress in the background constantly, and it can seriously affect the way we do ministry. Brother, let me encourage you that your work is not in vain. As long as you carry the philosophy and ethos of “preach the Gospel, die, and be forgotten”, then God will bless that faithful ministry.
Think with me through some of these passages:
Isaiah 55:11, "11 so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” What wonderful news! Whenever we preach God’s word - faithfully exegeting the Scriptures - God uses that to accomplish His sovereign purpose. When we “preach the Gospel, die, and be forgotten”, our Sovereign God blesses that in accomplishing what He wants. No matter how bad we may think the sermon is, or how many people fall asleep during it, or the amount of people we find counting the cracks in the ceiling while you preach, God is using that ministry! Whenever we preach God’s word - faithfully exegeting the Scriptures - God uses that to accomplish His sovereign purpose.
Matthew 28:18–20, “18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”” Jesus prepared His disciples for ministry post-ascension, and the first thing He tells them is that, by His divine authority, He is sending them out to preach, teach, make disciples, and baptize. The success of the ministry is predicated on the authority of Jesus, not the charismatic personalities of the disciples! Remember, Paul had a man fall asleep and fall to his death during one of his sermons! You talk about thinking that is a sign that maybe you aren’t qualified to be a pastor!! However, at the end of it, ministry success isn’t about my authority, or your authority - it’s about the authority of the 2nd person of the Trinity. When we “preach the Gospel, die, and be forgotten”, then we rely on the authority of Jesus, and that reliance will be blessed multi-fold.
John 17:17, “17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.” In His High Priestly Prayer, Jesus prays for us “the work of God's free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness.” The impetus of this work of God’s free grace is God’s word! Not how persuasive we are, not how eloquent we are, none of that. It is the work of God and of His free grace! When we “preach the Gospel, die, and be forgotten”, God uses that to change His people eternally. He uses that to change His people more and more into His image. He uses that to bring people along to die to their sins and live more unto His righteousness. As long as we are faithful to preach God’s good word, then He uses that in eternally wonderful words.
Brothers, there are many more passages that we could go through, but I trust that you get the gist of what I am saying. If you are carrying the philosophy and ethos of “preach the Gospel, die, and be forgotten”, then your ministry is going far better than you could ever imagine. If every time you step into the pulpit and stay true to bringing folks Jesus from the word, then God is doing far more than we could ever imagine in our ministry.
I’ve been reminded of that over the past several years as I have had the humble privilege of people telling me how a sermon affected them. Recently, I was preaching at a church that was near the church where I started in ministry … and after one sermon, one couple came up to tell me that 15 years ago, their then 5 year old son came to my first church for a weekly summer ministry that this church had been holding for 50+ years. Each Tuesday night during the summer, kids from all over the community would come and play games, have snacks, and then the youth group, volunteers and myself would lead in worship and devotions. This couple told me that the lesson I taught that hot summer night was what the Lord used to convict this little boy of his need for Jesus as his Lord and Savior - and he has been faithfully walking with the Lord ever since. To be honest, there were many times during that summer ministry that I wondered “why in the world are we doing this? It seems like nothing is happening.” 15 years later, and I was reminded of the faithful ethos of “preach the Gospel, die, and be forgotten”.
Brothers, keep on faithfully preaching the Gospel, do it for the glory of God, prepare for your eternal life with the Lord, and focus so much on the Lord that is what everyone remembers. Do this, and the Lord will eternally bless that ministry!