Jesus Driven Ministry E-Book

Ajith Fernando

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 539

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2007

Beschreibung

Author Ajith Fernando believes that much ministry failure results from neglect of the basics of the faith. Too often today's church is riveted on ministry technique to the neglect of leadership lifestyle. In this book, Fernando identifies the foundational elements that allow you to be both effective and joyful in your service. He shows from Jesus' own ministry that relating to the people you minister to, retreating from busyness to prayer, being affirmed and empowered by God, discipling younger leaders, and gaining strength from God's Word must be at the heart of your ministry. Rich in Scripture and full of stories from Fernando's own years of ministry, this book will help men and women commit themselves afresh to those vital basics of ministry that make for long-term service that is both fruitful and joyful.

Leseprobe

Jesus Driven Ministry

Copyright © 2002 by Ajith Fernando

Published by Crossway Booksa publishing ministry of Good News Publishers1300 Crescent StreetWheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided by USA copyright law.

Royalties from the sales of this book will be assigned to Christian literature and education projects in Sri Lanka.

Cover design: Christopher Gilbert, UDG / DesignWorks, Sisters, Oregon

Cover illustration: Mark Owen / Illustration Works

First printing trade paper edition, 2007

Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise designated, Scripture verses are taken from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version®. Copyright © 2001 by Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture references marked NLT are taken from The Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Ill., 60189. All rights reserved.

Scripture marked NIV is taken from The Holy Bible: New International Version®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

The “NIV” and “New International Version” trademarks are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by International Bible Society. Use of either trademark requires the permission of International Bible Society.

Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible®. Copyright © The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Fernando, Ajith. Jesus driven ministry / Ajith Fernando.p. cm.Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN 13:978-1-58134-851-4ISBN 10: 1-58134-851-71. Pastoral theology. I. Title.BV4011.3 .F47 2002

253—dc21

2002007072

ToMYLVAGANAM BALAKRISHNAN,JITO SENATHIRAJAHCHANDRAN WILLIAMS MARUDU PANDIAN TIMOTHY GODWIN

With deep gratitude

for their immeasurable contribution to my ministry

through their competence in my areas of incompetence

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION

1 IDENTIFYING WITH PEOPLE

The Biblical Evidence

Challenges from the Postmodern Mood

Some Examples of Frustration-Producing Identification

2 EMPOWERED BY THE SPIRIT

Power for Jesus’ Ministry

Baptism with the Holy Spirit

Fullness as a Quality of Life

The Immediacy of the Spirit

The Fullness as Anointing for Service

Prayer and Anointing

3 A FFIRMED BY GOD

God’s Acts of Affirmation

The Witness of the Spirit

What We Can Do

Serving Without the Sense of God’s Acceptance

Servanthood Results from Acceptance

4 RETREATING FROM ACTIVITY

Leaving Busy Activity to Be Alone

Benefits of Retreats

Brief Retreats

Fasting

5 AFFIRMING THE WILL OF GOD

The Value of Testing

God’s Will over Our Rights

God’s Will over Uncrucified Desires

God’s Will over Wrong Paths to Success

6 SATURATED IN THE WORD

The Word as Our Authority for Life and Ministry

Strength and Security from the Word

The Word Qualifies Us for Effective Ministry

The Scriptures as a Source of Delight

Spending Time in the Word

Books That Teach the Scriptures

Helping Our People Lose Their Fear of the Bible

7 FACING WILD ANIMALS

What Are These Wild Animals and Angels Doing?

Extreme Situations and God’s Ministry

God’s Ministry to Our Lives

8 BEARING GOOD NEWS

The Long-Anticipated Gospel

The Compulsion of Truth

Compulsion and the Postmodern Mood

The Gospel of the Kingdom

The Minister’s Authority

9 GROWING IN A TEAM

Team Ministry in the New Testament

When We Do Not Choose Our Team Members

The Value of Team Ministry

No Theology of Groaning

New Testament Teams: Life in the Raw

Accountability for the Christian Worker

10 DISCIPLING YOUNGER LEADERS

Jesus Revealed God

Jesus Was a Steward

Jesus Prayed for His Disciples

Jesus Was Glorified Through Them

11 LAUNCHING DISCIPLES INTO MINISTRY

Jesus Protected the Disciples and Prepared Them to Be Without Him

Jesus Communicated His Joy to Them

Jesus Exposed the Disciples to the Hatred of the World

Jesus Sent the Disciples into the World

Jesus Died to Make the Disciples Holy

12 MINISTERING TO THE SICK AND DEMON-POSSESSED

Casting Out Demons and Ministry in the Miraculous

Healing the Physically Sick

What If You Don’t Have These Gifts?

13 VISITING HOMES

Jesus’ Ministry in Homes

Being Where the Lost Are

Evangelistic Home Visits

Pastoral Home Visits

Visiting as an Expression of Servanthood

Pronouncing Blessing on People

Not a Popular Ministry

14 PRAYING

The Secret Place of Prayer

A Basic Feature of the Ministerial Lifestyle

Prayers at Important Times in Jesus’ Ministry

Prayers on the Run

The Content: Thanksgiving, Supplication, and Intercession

The Disciples Saw Him Praying

Prayer as a Preventative to Burnout

NOTES

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I CHOSE TO DEDICATE this book to five men whose help has been invaluable to my ministry over the years. They have helped me not as preachers but through their practical help that has saved me from several mistakes, compensated for my many weaknesses, and relieved me of much labor that they gladly took on for me. Mylvaganam Balakrishnan, Jito Senathirajah, and Chandran Williams are all qualified accountants or administrators, board members of Youth for Christ (YFC), and invaluable friends, confidants, and advisors. Marudu Pandian and Timothy Godwin have served successively as my assistants in YFC. They both became virtual members of our family, and their willing service to me has helped free me to write, study, and teach from the context of a busy ministry.

I must pay tribute here also to two people who influenced me greatly in my teenage years. My pastor, Irish missionary George Good, and our YFC director, Sam Sherrard, exemplified in different ways the glory of the ministry and surely helped set me along a path that ended in vocational ministry. Everything I write about ministry is what I have learned in partnership with my team members in YFC and also in our church. I acknowledge my debt to them. My seminary teacher and mentor, Robert Coleman, has written two books—The Mind of the Master1 and The Master Plan of Evangelism,2 which greatly influenced my life and also showed me what a potent model for ministry the life of Jesus is. Over the years I have read scores of biographies and autobiographies, and these have really helped shape my approach to ministry. So I regard Christians such as St. Augustine, Billy Bray, F. F. Bruce, Amy Carmichael, Samuel Chadwick, G. K. Chesterton, Raymond Edman, J. O. Fraser, Billy Graham, Pastor Hsi, Stanley Jones, Isobel Kuhn, C. S. Lewis, Henry Martyn, D. L. Moody, Charles Spurgeon, Sadhu Sundar Singh, Hudson Taylor, R. A. Torrey, and John and Charles Wesley as my mentors. I hope that this long list will whet your appetite for biographies—one of God’s surest ways to send blessings to his servants.

I am also grateful to the First Presbyterian Church in Hollywood (especially its senior pastor, Dr. Alan Meenan, and its missions leaders, Dr. Jack and Anna Kerr), and to Loran and Merle Grant, Ed and Kay Goodwin, and Philip and Gloria Brooks, who opened their homes for me to “hide” in and write this book. Again I must thank God for my loving wife, Nelun, and children, Nirmali and Asiri, whose love for the Lord and for his ministry has made my work so pleasant. Nelun, my secretary Mrs. Shehana Barbut, and my colleagues Mayukha and Roshan Perera read through all or part of my manuscript and made many corrections. I am very happy to be working on a book again with Crossway Books, and I am particularly grateful to Lila Bishop for enriching this book with her editorial expertise.

INTRODUCTION

I WAS AT THE SINGAPORE airport to take an AirLanka flight back to Sri Lanka and was dismayed to find that the flight had been overbooked. I did not have a seat. I had an important family function the next day and desperately needed to get home. With a few inquiries, I found out that the station manager of AirLanka in Singapore had studied in a school of which my uncle had been the principal and that he also knew a cousin of mine. I told him my predicament, and he arranged for me to sit in the “jump seat” of the cockpit.

It was a wonderful opportunity to observe what goes into the piloting of an aircraft. When the plane was about to take off, one of the officers read out a list of basic things to be checked. It was a fairly long list, and the captain checked each item and expressed his satisfaction about compliance to the standard required. I thought, Surely they must have read this list a thousand times. Why do they need to read every single item at the start of every flight? The answer, of course, was obvious. Too much is at stake for the flight to take off with even a small thing not functioning properly. Each and every item had to be checked—no matter how basic it was.

I thought of how this applies to the Christian life. There are some basic things in ministry that we will never outgrow and that will never diminish in importance. My Youth for Christ (YFC) counterpart in Germany, Alfons Hilderbrandt, told me of an older Christian who says that the secret of longevity in the ministry is “Sunday-school faith.” He was, of course, referring to the basic things about the Christian life that we learn in Sunday school. When I turned forty, I began to think more about these basics. I had seen some Christian leaders whose lives and ministries seemed to stagnate after they reached forty. So I began a search for secrets of long-term ministry. This book is a major step in recording the results of that search, which will, I think, go on as long as I live.

About ten years ago I was at a retreat with a few other “younger” leaders, led by Dr. Leighton Ford. As part of our personal devotions, we were asked to take a passage that presented Jesus as a leader and jot down what we learned about leadership from that passage. I chose Mark 1, though I do not now remember why. I learned so much that I kept adding material to this study for months to come. The result was a series of Bible studies on “Secrets of Long-Term Ministry” from the life of Christ, which I shared first with the volunteers of YFC and then with numerous groups of Christian leaders and missionaries in different parts of the world. This series has now been developed into this book.

In many biblical books the first chapter often gives a good summary of the major emphases of the whole book. I think this is true of Mark 1. It gives a remarkable description of some of the key features of the life and ministry of Jesus. Having extracted these principles from Mark 1, I have tried to trace them through the rest of the ministry of Jesus and the early church, especially as described in the four Gospels and Acts. It has been exciting for me to see how these themes have been developed and illustrated in Scripture.

You will see that most of the ministry basics discussed here have to do with personal lifestyle. I make no apologies for this. There is a great interest in ministry technique today, and technique is important. In a world that places high value on excellence and quality, our ministries must reflect a professional excellence that will favorably adorn the gospel and commend Christ to this generation. Paul also recommended excellence in ministry to the young minister Timothy (1 Tim. 4:11-15). But I believe the greatest crisis facing Christian leadership today concerns lifestyle—always the burning issue. The well-known evangelist D. L. Moody is reported to have said that he had more trouble with D. L. Moody than with any other person he met!

Christian leaders are failing in the way they live and are bringing great dishonor to Christ. Perhaps the greatest need in the training of leaders today is to provide guidelines to help them live as biblical men and women. But with the preoccupation of our present generation with pragmatic issues, insufficient emphasis has been given to lifestyle training. This book seeks to remedy this situation in a small way.

Over the years I have regularly read devotionally oriented material based on careful exegesis of Scripture. This reading has been a great source of refreshment, nurture, and spiritual renewal in my life. My hope is that the readers would be similarly blessed through this book. I have chosen to quote a lot of Scripture verbatim. While I have labored to write smoothly, the inclusion of Bible verses does affect the smooth flow of the sentences. Yet I believe this is a price worth paying, as the reader will be refreshed and fed through direct exposure to Scripture. The reader should note that when I mention a Greek word from the New Testament, I usually use the lexical form of the word rather than the inflected form.

The context out of which this book has arisen is my work in Sri Lanka at both the parachurch and local church level. I have been director of YFC in Sri Lanka for the past twenty-six years. Because of my conviction that I have a call from God to teach the Bible and write from the context of grassroots ministry, I have always tried to supervise a grassroots work while leading the work nationally. Presently I oversee our drug rehabilitation ministry. In addition, my primary work in YFC has been the pastoral care and teaching of staff.

In 1979 my wife and I transferred to a Sinhala-speaking Methodist congregation whose attendance had dropped to zero. We were joined by a young couple, new Christians converted through the YFC ministry, who were looking for a church. Serving in this congregation has been my primary work outside YFC for over twenty years. About 80 percent of the members there are from Buddhist and Hindu backgrounds, and now we enjoy the privilege of having our own full-time pastor. However, for a year immediately prior to writing this book, our pastor was abroad on study leave, resulting in my having to take on many more responsibilities in the church. I believe that this was providential, as it gave me a more intimate knowledge of church life, which is the context of ministry of many who will read this book.

Just before I started writing the fifth chapter, my friend Dr. Lane Dennis, president of Crossway Books, gave me a copy of the English Standard Version of the Bible that Crossway had released only the week before. I decided to use that Bible for my devotions and was so thrilled with its style that I have used it as the basic Scripture text for this work. The ESV strikes a happy balance by being a quite literal translation of the original that is also easy to read.

I trust the reader will excuse me for writing a lot about my own experiences. Some writers, like the author of Hebrews, say very little about themselves—so little in the case of Hebrews that we do not even know the author’s identity. Others, like Paul, often illustrate what they teach from their own experiences. I guess I belong to the latter category!

I must say, however, that while writing this book, I became aware over and over again of how much I have fallen short of the principles I am presenting. Stanley Jones used to say that he was a Christian in the making. I suppose I can say that I am a minister in the making. Actually many of the biblical lessons I have learned in ministry have been burned into my life through the mistakes I have made. It would have been much better if I had followed biblical principles without having to learn through experiencing the folly of not doing so. But I thank God that, because of his mercy, I have learned these principles—by whatever means.

My favorite verse in Scripture is 1 Timothy 1:17: “To the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.” This spontaneous outburst of joyous praise came from Paul after lengthy reflection on the fact that God showed him great mercy in giving him a ministry despite his unworthiness (1 Tim. 1:11-16). Elsewhere he said, “Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart” (2 Cor. 4:1). Our greatest qualification for the ministry is the mercy of God. Such reflection on mercy does not cause discouragement; rather it causes great joy. However great our weaknesses may be, the grace of the God who called us to ministry “super-abounds” (lit. for huperpleonazö, 1 Tim. 1:14) so that we can continue to serve him. I have faced much discouragement and pain in ministry, but I can never get over the fact that God in his mercy called me to this amazing work of being an ambassador of the King of kings and the Lord of lords. This work is a source of great, great joy.

I pray that this book will help many men and women to commit themselves afresh to those vital basics of ministry that make for long-term ministry that is both fruitful and joyful.

1: IDENTIFYING WITH PEOPLE

I WAS RELUCTANT TO begin this book with a chapter on the need to identify with the people to whom we minister. It seemed too negative. But that is how the passage we have chosen starts, and we will have to follow that order. Yet as I worked on this chapter, I realized that this is indeed an appropriate place to begin, for it is a basic feature of the Christian ministerial lifestyle. I believe that, though there is some talk of identification and incarnational ministry today, there is still a need for a fresh understanding of its implications if we are to be both effective and joyful in our Lord’s service.

THE BIBLICAL EVIDENCE

John begins his Gospel by presenting the mystery of the Incarnation with a profound theological meditation. Mark also begins by presenting the Incarnation, though he does so in the “vivid and fast-paced”1 style that characterizes his Gospel. He first records the anticipation of John the Baptist, who would prepare the way for the Messiah (1:2-3). Then he describes the ministry of John who “appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (1:4). Mark says, “And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him” (1:5). Jerusalem was the great city of the religious elite. Among those who came, says Matthew, were “many of the Pharisees and Sadducees” (Matt. 3:7).

Then in verse 9 Mark presents a vivid contrast by saying, “In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.” Nazareth in Galilee was the place about which a fellow Galilean, Nathaniel,2 asked, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (John 1:46). Even the natives of Galilee seemed to have looked down on Jesus’ hometown.

But that is not all. Jesus goes and gets “baptized by John in the Jordan” (Mark 1:9b). Why does the sinless Savior need to submit himself to “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (1:4)? Matthew records that “John would have prevented him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?’” (Matt. 3:14). Jesus’ answer gives us a key to the reason why he submitted to baptism: “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness” (Matt. 3:15). Craig Blomberg explains that the phrase “to fulfill all righteousness” means “to complete everything that forms part of a relationship of obedience to God.”3 Jesus did not personally need to be baptized because he was not sinful. But for all other people this was part of fulfilling all righteousness. As their minister he went through this experience with them. Donald English says, “In baptism he shares the circumstances in which people become aware of their needs precisely in order to meet those needs.”4

In order to identify with those to whom he was going to minister, he became like them, submitting himself to this rite even though it was unnecessary for him to do so. Such identification was a feature of the whole of Jesus’ life on earth. Here it did not entail suffering for Jesus. But much of his life is an illustration of the great price he paid in order to identify with us and be our Savior.

The great American theologian Jonathan Edwards has shown that the sacrifice Christ made actually started at the Incarnation—when he emptied himself and took upon himself the form of a servant—and went on to the point of taking upon himself the sin of the world.5 Edwards’s point is that when the Lord of heaven left his eternal throne in glory and became a helpless babe, an infinite gap was bridged. This is why the sacrifice of this one man can suffice to pay for the sins of the whole world. It was an infinitely great sacrifice.6

Jesus was born in a stable because there was no room in the inn. As a child he had to flee to Egypt as a refugee because it was not safe for him to live in his homeland. After his return he grew up in a somewhat obscure town from which many people did not expect “anything good” to emerge (John 1:46). Though he was Lord of creation, we are told that he was obedient to his parents (Luke 2:51). As a youth he probably had to take on his dead father’s business and thus be deprived of a higher education. This was considered a disqualification for him when he launched into his ministry (John 7:15). Yet all of these deprivations are very common to a large segment of the world’s population.

He took on emotional pain the way all of us do. His parents did not understand him when as a boy he spent time in the Jerusalem temple talking to the leaders there (Luke 2:50). His family initially thought he was insane and did not believe in him (Mark 3:21). Though he was going to raise Lazarus from the dead, he allowed himself to be so moved by the tears of Lazarus’s sister that he himself wept (John 11:35). His closest friends did not understand the heart of his mission. One of these friends stole from their common purse (John 12:6) and later betrayed him. Another friend vehemently denied knowing him. On the night before his death, shortly after he had demonstrated servanthood by washing the feet of these friends, they argued among themselves about who was the greatest (Luke 22:24). Then they forsook him and fled when he was arrested (Matt. 26:56). His opponents constantly accused him falsely, even attributing his acts of kindness to Beelzebul, the prince of demons (Matt. 12:24). Through their false accusations, they finally succeeded in getting him crucified.

Certain incidents during his ministry vividly present the paradox of the self-sufficient Lord of all creation being in need:

The Creator of everything went for forty days without food so that “he was hungry” (Matt. 4:2) and vulnerable to temptation to satisfy his hunger in the wrong way.

The one who owns the whole universe did not even have a place to lay his head (Matt. 8:20).

Later we find him ministering to so many that he had no time to eat. So he told his disciples, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.” But he was unable to have the rest he wanted because the crowds followed him. So, instead of resting, he taught the people. But after a long teaching session, he was able to feed five thousand with five loaves and two fish (Mark 6:31-42). So the Creator of food and time had no time to eat or rest, but he was able to multiply the meal of one person so that it fed five thousand people.

When Jesus found out that his friend Lazarus was ill, he did not simply command the sickness to leave, as he did on another occasion (Luke 7:610). He walked at least twenty miles (some scholars think it was about ninety miles) to Bethany in Judea (John 11). This journey is particularly significant because he had recently left the hostile Judean region after eluding an attempt to capture him, and he had come to a place east of the Jordan where he was having an effective ministry (John 10:39-42). The disciples expressed reservations about this trip: “Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone you, and are you going there again?” (John 11:8).

Then at the Last Supper the Lord of all, whom the disciples called “Master,” stunned them by donning a towel and doing the work of a servant in washing their feet (John 13).

The climax of Jesus’ choice to deprive himself of his rights in order to save humanity comes at his death. His agony in the garden shows that this was a very difficult thing for him to endure. He did not breeze through his death with consummate ease. His attitude contrasted with that of the Christian martyrs throughout history who went to their deaths joyfully. But his death was different, for the spotless Son of God “who knew no sin” was “made . . . to be sin [for us]” (2 Cor. 5:21). The tie of the Trinity, the depth and unity of which our human minds cannot even begin to fathom adequately, was going to be broken to such an extent that Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34). Martin Luther, while meditating on this verse, reportedly got up in despair after a long time and exclaimed, “God forsaken by God! Who can understand it?” Yet twice in the midst of our Lord’s passion, he said that he could call on God’s angels or his servants to prevent those things from happening (Matt. 26:53; John 18:36).

Paul vividly describes the immensity of Christ’s self-emptying in a memorable passage:

Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross (Phil. 2:6-8).

The one who was equal with God has become nothing. The Lord of all creation has become a slave. The Creator of life has died. The King who is sovereign over history has become obedient to death. The sinless one has had to pay the wages of sin (death).

The whole life of Christ was a paradox propelled by the need to redeem sinful humanity. He took on burdens that he did not have to take on, and he gave up things that were his legitimate right. And shortly before he left the world, he told his disciples: “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you” (John 20:21). So his mission becomes our mission. At the Last Supper he told the disciples that they too must give their lives for others as he did (John 15:12-13). Then he went on to say that their willingness to give their lives for others showed that they were his friends (John 15:14).

Paul eminently followed his Master in this practice of incarnation and identification with the people he served. He expresses this well in 1 Corinthians 9 where he mentions several legitimate rights that he foregoes in order to be more effective in his ministry (1 Cor. 9:1-18). Then he says, “For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all [lit. I enslaved myself to all men], that I might win more of them” (1 Cor. 9:19). Next he tells how he became “as a Jew,” “as one under the law,” and “as one outside the law” in order to win the people belonging to those categories (vv. 20-21).

In the next verse he drops the word that the ESV translates “as” (hös; NIV “like”) and says “To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak” (v. 22a). He did not become like ( NIV) a weak person; he actually became weak. I think all of us like to operate in our ministries from a position of strength. It is too much of a blow to our egos to be weak. But that is what servants are: weak. Paul closes the paragraph by saying, “I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some” (1 Cor. 9:22).

The word doulos, which is used in the New Testament to describe our servanthood, is usually translated “servant” in most English translations (ESV often has a footnote indicating that the Greek is “bondservant”). But a more accurate translation would be “slave.”7 Biblical identification and incarnation entail taking on weakness for the sake of others. Of course, we cannot do this without the strength that comes from our identity in Christ, and we will discuss that in chapter 3, “Affirmed by God.”

So our lives are also a paradox. We are children of the King and servants of the people. We pay a price so that we can identify with people and serve them effectively.

CHALLENGES FROM THE POSTMODERN MOOD

The lifestyle of servanthood, where we give up our rights and plans for the sake of something outside ourselves, is getting harder and harder to practice in this postmodern society. Postmodernism, which is said to have come into full flower in the third quarter of the last century, is, among other things, a reaction to the strict rationalism of the modern era. Postmodern thinkers claim that people were depersonalized in the modern era because of its bondage to rational, objective, and scientific principles. They claim that the subjective instincts of our human nature were overpowered by the desire for productivity and the constraints brought about by various dogmas.

In reaction the postmodern approach emphasizes the more subjective aspects of life—“my” feelings, “my” preferences, and “my” instincts. The postmodern generation has been called “an instinctually stimulated generation” where “people prefer to feel than to think.”8 Postmodern people are uncomfortable with principles outside themselves governing their decisions and behavior.

Some welcome results have come from the postmodern emphasis on subjective experience. For example, spirituality has become much more prominent, and people are no longer satisfied with a dry religious orthodoxy devoid of spiritual warmth. But the reluctance to have our lives governed by principles can be hazardous to our spiritual health. Biblical leaders should be so devoted to their people that in order to help them, the leaders abstain from doing some things that they want to do and perform some tasks that they do not like to do. Because of their commitment to a group of people, they will persevere in working with them even though inconvenient and seemingly fruitless. The leaders’ feelings may say, “Drop this work and do something more productive and satisfying. These people do not deserve your commitment.” But because of the leaders’ commitment to these people, they refuse to give up on them.

I was once in the West when I was preparing a talk on the stresses and strains of ministry. Alert to any conversation that related to this topic, I was surprised when a significant number of Christians told me that they or their loved ones had been liberated from bothersome commitments that had been causing them stress and strain. One had given up a difficult assignment, another had left a difficult church, and another had separated from a difficult spouse. They testified that God had freed them from pain. The question I had was whether God was asking them to embrace the pain because of commitment to these people or causes.

While reading the journals of John Wesley during the past two years, I have been surprised at the rather matter-of-fact way he notes some of the frustrations, hardships, and sufferings in his ministry. Things that I would vehemently grumble about and would consider a “big deal” if I were to experience them are reported in a casual way, as if they were not serious problems at all. I realized how much my understanding about fulfillment in ministry is different from Wesley’s. We are not used to experiencing frustration and pain. So when we face such, we tend to shrink from it. But frustration and pain are essential features of incarnational ministry.

So if we are to truly identify with our people, we must expect frustration and pain. If we don’t, we may be taken by surprise when we encounter it and be tempted to leave this work for an easier path or be so disillusioned that we lose the joy of ministry. I think many people are suffering unnecessary pain in ministry today because they did not fully anticipate the suffering that ministry inevitably involves. This pain has caused them to be discontented when actually they should be rejoicing in tribulation.

The path of commitment to principles and causes outside of us is not as costly as it may seem at first. In the Christian understanding of fulfillment, truth is an objective reality that is embraced, and that truth makes people free (John 8:32), opening the door to a truly fulfilling life (John 10:10). Sacrificing for principles yields deeply satisfying consequences. Jesus said, “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it” (Mark 8:35). I have found eighteen passages in the New Testament that link suffering and joy.9 Paul expresses this well when he says, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known” (Col. 1:24-25). He rejoices in the sufferings he endures as a servant of the people. He even thinks that his sufferings are essential for completing his union with the crucified Christ.10

Because of the postmodern challenge today, I believe we need to do much more reflection on the reality expressed in the words of George Matheson’s hymn, “Make me a captive, Lord, and then I shall be free.”

I have a fear that the church in the West will disqualify itself from being a missionary-sending region by portraying to its membership a Christianity that is a nice religion but that lacks a radical edge. In my visits to the West, the most common response I hear to sermons I have preached is something to the effect: “I enjoyed that sermon.” Sermons should disturb, convict, and motivate to radical and costly obedience. I have wondered whether people’s desired result from sermons is to enjoy themselves rather than to be changed into radical disciples who will turn the world upside down. If this is so, the church has assimilated the postmodern mood that considers inner feelings more important than commitment to principles. A minor feature of worship—bringing enjoyment—has become a primary feature. Such a church may grow numerically, but it would not be able to produce the type of missionaries that the world needs—men and women who will pay the price of identification with the people they serve and endure the frustrations that involves.

In missionary training today there is a welcome emphasis on cultural anthropology and contextualization. This can be a real aid to missionary identification. But this training will be useless if the willingness and ability to pay the price of commitment do not accompany it. And the key to paying that price is the ability to identify and persevere with a group to which one is committed even when it is frustrating to do so.

When young Westerners tell me that they are sensing a call to missions and ask me what they should do to prepare, usually the first thing I tell them is to stick to the group to which they belong. That will give them a good training in incarnational identification, which is a key to effective missionary service. Today Christians are often too quick to abandon their church, organization, small group, friend, or spouse when the going gets tough. People would rather split than go through the frustrations of working through the problems. This tendency results in shallow relationships, which in turn result in minimal depth to the fruit of their labors. In fact, learning to pay the price of commitment is a key to developing deep fruit in ministry anywhere in the world.

SOME EXAMPLES OF FRUSTRATION-PRODUCING IDENTIFICATION

Let me give some examples from the various spheres of life where I have had to practice identification. I asked my wife for some examples from home-life, which is perhaps our most important arena for identification. She gave me two. When I am working on a book or involved in a big program or problem, it is easy for me to be so preoccupied that I do not participate fully in the conversation at mealtime. I would be physically there but not there emotionally. If I am to be a good husband and father, I need to discipline myself to fully concentrate on my family when we’re together, even though many urgent issues may occupy my mind.

My wife also told me about the need for me to help her with the dishes at night when she is tired (we do not have a dishwasher). Sri Lankans usually have their evening meal after 8:00 P.M. I come alive at night and usually do much of my writing after dinner. I am often raring to go to my desk and get to work, but I have to control my enthusiasm in order to identify with my wife’s needs.

Some years ago I was leaving for home from one of our Youth for Christ centers when a staff worker asked me to convey a message to a home in a village I was to pass by. When I went to the home, the family asked me to stay on to have a cup of tea. I told them that I was rushing to be on time for a meeting, and I left immediately. But in our villages it is impolite to leave like that without giving our hosts an opportunity to show us hospitality. The word went out that the YFC director had come to the village but was too proud to stay and have a cup of tea. I later realized that if I was not willing to stay for a cup of tea, I should not have gone there at all.

When I was doing postgraduate studies in the United States, I became part of a church that had a young adult group. The leader of this group was a theologically untrained first-year seminary student whose teaching and programming left much to be desired. This was a source of frustration to me. But this was the young adult group of “my church.” So, though I often did not feel like going to the group, my theology of the body informed me that absenting myself was not an option. Participation was part of my commitment to the local church to which I belonged. With time I developed some wonderful friendships in that church, and my involvement in that group is one of the happiest memories I have of my young adult days.

Over the past twenty years or so we have had a civil war in Sri Lanka over issues involving two ethnic groups. I belong to the majority Sinhala­speaking ethnic group. Some from the Tamil-speaking ethnic group are asking to separate from Sri Lanka and have an independent country in the north and east. As part of their strategy militants often come to the south where I live and plant bombs in strategic places. Because of this, young people from the Tamil ethnic group living in the south are often arrested as terrorist suspects—that is, as those belonging to the group called the Tamil Tigers, which is fighting the government. As I am an older person from the majority group, I am often able to go to the police station the moment they are arrested, guarantee that they are not members of the Tigers, and get them released. If this is not done within about thirty-six hours, they are usually kept in custody for a long time. One of my colleagues was in prison for fifteen months (and the Lord gave him a glorious ministry in the prison!). So the moment I hear that someone I can fully vouch for has been arrested, I go to the police station. I may be very busy at the time, and I may have to spend as much as six hours on this project.

So these interruptions are quite costly. But they are part of identifying with the pain of our people. A famous Christian leader is reported to have said that he used to complain to God about the interruptions he had from his work when God reminded him that these interruptions were his work! Dennis Kinlaw has some wise advice here: “All of us have been irritated by occurrences that seem to be demonically designed to disturb our peace of mind and upset our program of life. But we must remember that God is sovereign; nothing happens in our lives without his consent. Therefore we should look carefully at annoyances to see if we can discern God’s hand at work.”11 John Wesley was walking with one of his preachers when they encountered two women quarreling. The preacher suggested that they walk on, but Wesley checked him: “Stay, Sammy, stay, and learn to preach!”12 Certainly a quarrel tells one much about human nature.

Frustration is a daily experience for us who live in a land submerged in the crises of war, corruption, and a crumbling economy. I sense this acutely when I return to Sri Lanka from a trip to the West. It takes so long to get things done. Sometimes because we don’t pay a bribe, things never get done! Programs we plan are suddenly cancelled because a curfew is clamped down to cover the time of the program. Last month I spent about forty hours preparing a talk to be given at a conference in England, but I could not get to England in time for the talk because our airport was attacked. Yet I have to keep reminding myself that these experiences of frustration are part of identifying with my people for whom disappointment is a daily experience. I have to believe that these frustrations will help me minister more effectively to these people. Anyone who works with people will face frustration. How much of this Jesus faced with his disciples! We preachers should not try to avoid frustration by handing over unpleasant things to others so that we can concentrate on our preaching ministry. Facing frustration is part of our preparation for penetrative preaching.

In some of the spheres of ministry that I am involved in, we have people whose weaknesses bring much pain to my life. They misunderstand what we do and express their anger about our actions to others. It usually takes several hours to explain the facts to these people. And we are always struggling with time. There are two temptations we face when working with such people. The first is to ignore their problems and go ahead with our work as if nothing happened. This would save us some time and also the unpleasantness and pain that would come from talking with an angry person. But Jesus said that if we find that someone has something against us, we must immediately go and meet that person. This is so urgent that we are to leave the gift we brought at the altar and go to the person concerned (Matt. 5:23-24). Jesus did not say that the anger of weak people is exempt from this directive. We must go, and we must endure the pain and frustration of the conversation. To identify with a community is to identify with its weak and with its strong.

The second temptation we have is to give these incessant complainers a signal that they are not welcome in the church. Often today Christian leaders give some of their members the message: “If you do not agree with the direction we are taking, perhaps you should find another group.” But we cannot do that if we are the family we claim to be. Can you tell family members that they are not welcome because they regularly get upset with what is happening in the family? I suppose this happens today, but that is not the Christian understanding of family. Despite our claims that our organizations and churches are families, most of them are run like corporations.

We stick to such people and willingly take on the frustration of talking with them because we believe that we will not ultimately lose through such costly commitment. It will be necessary for our theology to override our feelings on this. We must believe that we will be blessed if we pursue the implications of the biblical understanding of the body of Christ. To do this, of course, we must develop an approach to life where our theology is more important than our natural inclinations and instincts—a difficult task in this postmodern era!

Some reject the approach advocated here, stating that it takes too much time and distracts from the mission they are called to. Our pragmatic generation finds the frustration of identification a waste of time and energy. But on the long run this approach results in a deeper ministry with more lasting fruit. Once after our Central Bank (the equivalent of the Federal Reserve in United States) was bombed, two of our volunteers were arrested on suspicion of being terrorists. I was able to vouch for them and secure their release. But I spent about six hours in the police station.

I was preparing some studies on Galatians at the time, so I took some paper and a commentary on Galatians. I studied and wrote notes, sometimes standing in a line and sometimes seated. At one point there was a person next to me with blood all over his clothes. He had been in the building that was bombed and had come to report the loss of his identity card. Also next to me was a woman who was bruised by assaults by her husband. I realized that this might be a better place to prepare my Bible lessons than my study at home, for here before me were some of the problems that the gospel addresses. It was a great context for theologizing.

Frustration and identification also produce people who, seeing our commitment to them, will reciprocate with a deeper commitment on their part to the church or organization that we lead. We will discuss that in chapter 11.

When one is committed enough to pay the price of identifying with people, he or she is adopting a pragmatic approach to ministry. Commitment does pay, for it begets commitment in others and makes our ministry more effective!

2: EMPOWERED BY THE SPIRIT

THE FIRST ACT OF Jesus’ ministry recorded by Mark shows him identifying with the people. The second shows him receiving an anointing by the Spirit for his work. Incarnation and anointing are both vital aspects of Christian service. One shows how we must be committed to people, while the other shows how we must derive our strength from God. Sometimes people recognized as “Spirit-filled” are insensitive to culture and to human need, and their ministries suffer as a result. But a more serious problem is when people who wisely identify with people and adopt the right methods are nevertheless not spiritually powerful because they rely more on their methods than on the Spirit’s power.

POWER FOR JESUS’MINISTRY

Mark says that after Jesus’ baptism, “when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens opening and the Spirit descending on him like a dove” (Mark 1:10). The verb translated “opening” (schizö) means to “split, tear, separate or divide.”1 Mark may have been alluding here to Isaiah 64:1: “Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down.” That chapter in Isaiah is an urgent plea to God to save Israel. If Mark has this passage in mind, then he would be implying that God is acting to save his people by sending the Messiah. Now God is anointing this Messiah by the descent of the Holy Spirit.

The Spirit is said to descend “like a dove.” We cannot be sure whether Mark is thinking about the shape of the descending Spirit or the manner in which the Spirit descended. Neither can we be sure of what Mark intends to convey by the dove metaphor, though many proposals are made today. There is some evidence, however, that the dove was associated with the Spirit of God in first-century Judaism.2

This incident also reminds us of Isaiah 61:1: “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.” This is the passage that Jesus quotes a few days later as he inaugurates his ministry in Nazareth (Luke 4:18-19). After quoting a longer portion of this text, Jesus commented, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21).

Shortly after recording the descent of the Spirit, Luke is careful to point out twice that Jesus was proceeding in the Spirit’s anointing. Luke writes that soon after his baptism “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness” (Luke 4:1). Then after describing the temptation, he records that “Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee” (Luke 4:14). Matthew also uses a passage from Isaiah to make a connection between the ministry of Jesus and anointing by the Spirit: “I will put my Spirit upon [my servant], and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles” (Matt. 12:18, quoting Isa. 42:1). And Matthew records Jesus saying, “ . . . it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons” (Matt. 12:28). Clearly then the Gospels present this anointing by the Spirit as the key to Christ’s life and ministry.

BAPTISM WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT

Luke extends this principle of filling with the Spirit, which stood at the heart of Christ’s ministry, to our ministries also. He records Jesus saying that the power of the Spirit is an indispensable requirement for ministry. In Luke’s Gospel, just after giving the Great Commission, Jesus says, “And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high” (Luke 24:49). A parallel statement in Acts indicates that the power spoken of here comes from the Spirit: “And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, ‘you heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now’” (Acts 1:4-5). A little later Jesus says that the coming of the Spirit results in power for witness: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses . . .” (Acts 1:8).

It is unfortunate that there has been so much controversy over these passages. Is the baptism with the Spirit something that happens at conversion, thus initiatory, or is it a second experience of filling that takes place subse­ quent to conversion? The verb baptizö can take both meanings, depending on the context. A popular lexicon says that in Greek literature the word generally has the idea of “to put or go under water” in a variety of senses. Figuratively it could also carry the idea of soaking.3 Baptizö could take the idea of cleansing as in washing and thus refer to what accompanies repentance. Thus this word could be used for the initiation that followed repentance and purifying. The word could also take the meaning of immersion as in a flood, which gives it the idea of fullness. Here the word could be used for an experience of fullness subsequent to initiation. The context helps us decide on the meaning in the particular text in which it is used. Unfortunately the context in the places where the baptism with the Spirit occurs does not enable us to be fully sure which of the two options is meant. The passages from Luke and Acts that we looked at seem to suggest that a subsequent filling is intended because the apostles have already repented and trusted in Christ. The ways the baptism is described suggests that the focus is on filling rather than initiation. Luke 24:49 and Acts 1:8 talk of power. John the Baptist says of Jesus, “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire” (Luke 3:16). All these verses suggest that an experience of filling is intended. The events recorded in Acts 2 on the day of Pentecost when the baptism first took place bear this out.

Are the instances in Acts examples of a second experience subsequent to conversion? If so, are they normative for all believers? Should all who are baptized with the Spirit speak in tongues? Some say these things are normative, and others say that these instances in Acts were special events in the history of salvation and thus should not be regarded as normative. Today many Christians testify to new power as a result of infilling subsequent to conversion, and they identify these experiences with the baptism with the Holy Spirit. However 1 Corinthians 12:13 says, “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.” Here the context shows that the whole church is intended. Then the baptism here is initiatory, taking place when believers were initiated into the church. As we look at the evidence presented above, we should not be surprised that there is controversy on this topic!

My personal opinion is that this issue does not need to be a huge problem. Whether the baptism is initiatory or subsequent, it is clear that the way the figure of baptism is used implies fullness. For a Christian filling is the norm. It is commanded of us in Ephesians 5:18 where Paul says, “Be filled with the Spirit.” If the baptism is initiatory, then filling is implied in that baptism, and the door is opened to pursue that filling through entrance into God’s salvation. What is clear is that God intends all Christians to be filled with the Holy Spirit. So without battling over the time and way in which this happens, I believe our focus should be on ensuring that we are filled. Our lives must be lived and our service accomplished by the power of the Spirit.

Robert Coleman says:

The promise [of the fullness of the Spirit] is not a dogma to be argued, but a reality to be experienced. Nor is it a fringe benefit of a few Christian zealots, or the peculiar teaching of some evangelical churches. True, it may be called by different names and variously interpreted according to one’s doctrinal viewpoint, but the reality of the all-encompassing, Christ-possessing holiness of the Spirit is basic New Testament Christianity.4

FULLNESS AS A QUALITY OF LIFE

The filling with the Holy Spirit has two aspects in the book of Acts. One is a quality of life that should characterize all Christians. The other is an anointing for special challenges.

First, then, the fullness of the Spirit is a quality that characterizes people. When the church in Jerusalem looked for people to take over some of the administrative tasks of the church, the requirement was that they should be “men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom” (Acts 6:3). Both Stephen and Barnabas are described as filled with the Spirit (Acts 6:5; 11:24). That this is something required of all Christians is evidenced by Paul’s command to “be filled with the Spirit” (Eph. 5:18). But the fullness of the Spirit appears in Acts as a requirement for appointment to service or as a description of people. This shows that some in the church may not have been filled. These are anomalous Christians.

So this first reference to the fullness of the Spirit reminds us that this is something we must seek in our lives and expect from all Christians. This qualification must be taken into account especially when we appoint people to offices in the church. In the first church fullness of the Spirit was a requirement not only for people who preach and teach but also for those doing administrative tasks.

While the book of Acts does not have many references to the fullness of the Spirit as a condition, this subject is a major aspect of Paul’s teaching about the Spirit. Paul lays great stress on the Spirit’s work in the formation of Christian character. The most familiar passage is the one listing the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23). The wording relating to fullness is not found, but there it is clearly implied. Fullness is specially implied two verses later when Paul says, “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit” (Gal. 5:25 NIV). These are different ways of describing a condition of being filled with the Spirit. His discussion on the gifts of the Spirit in 1 Corinthians is abruptly interrupted so that he could insert a piece on the primacy of love (1 Cor. 13). He uses fullness language when he says, “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Rom. 5:5). The word translated “poured” here (ekcheö) has the idea of extravagance and abundance.

In a statistical study of the occurrence of certain themes in Paul’s Epistles, I was able to find fifty-nine references covering eighty-one verses that connect the ministry of the Holy Spirit with the fruit of the Spirit and other holinessrelated issues in the lives of believers.5 Romans 8 is the classic statement of the Spirit’s ability to help us live holy lives according to the Spirit rather than according to the flesh.

We conclude then that when the Bible speaks of the fullness of the Spirit as a condition, it is speaking of a state where the Spirit governs people’s lives so that his work is evident in both their behavior and ministry. There is an urgent need to recover this emphasis today. The aspect of the Spirit giving power for service has become very prominent in the church, and the display of this power has been effective in attracting outsiders to the church. This is good and to be desired. But, perhaps because of the current marketing orientation of the church, this feature that attracts outsiders has been emphasized almost to the exclusion of the other role of the Spirit as the one who helps form character.