Humility in Ministry John 7:16-18

We get so prideful in our ministries because we do not rightly understand ministry. This is what Jesus says in these few words of John 7:16-18.

Jesus therefore answered them, and said, "My teaching is not Mine, but His who sent Me. If any man is willing to do His will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it is of God, or whether I speak from vrmon. Our words are not inspired like the scripture, but they are to be inspiring. The word 'inspire' obviously comes from "in" and "Spirit." We are to be so affected by God's message that it becomes His message. Isn't this what Peter says?!

"Whoever speaks, let him speak, as it were, the utterances of God..." (1 Peter 4:11). rch is weak because the ministers give them their own stale bread instead of the heavenly manna. We need to come back to the Lord for help before there is so much of the world in the church that it is no longer the church!

You might wonder, "How can we get a message of God?" At least with this kind of question, we are starting off on the right foot. Many individuals cannot come this far. They are too absorbed with themselves. They cannot rightly love the things of God. Self is too dominant. But even with this question, we need to be careful. Was it not Simon who wanted more of the Spirit of God. In the end, however, we find he had a faulty motivation.

18 Now when Simon saw that the Spirit was bestowed through the laying on of the apostles' hands, he offered them money,
19 saying, "Give this authority to me as well, so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.
20 But Peter said to him, "May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with mone r, for your heart is not right before God.
22 "Therefore repent of this wickedness of yours, and pray the Lord that if possible, the intention of your heart may be forgiven you.
23 "For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bondage of iniquity." (Acts 8:18-23)

We need to go deeper than looking for power. We must want something more than awe-inspiring messages. If we take our cue from our Lord Jesus, and certainly we must, we will find that He did not preach or teach on His own.

He teaches or preaches only when the Lord wanted Him to speak.

He spoke only what the Father taught Him.

He sought to bring glory to the Father by fulfilling His will.

Indeed, we need to remember that Christ is the Lord; we are not. But has not the Lord set us up in a similar situation? We have an anointing from the Spirit. We have the Spirit which enables us to teach. We can be full of the Spirit. Should any Christian teacher think that he needs to independently come up with a good lesson? Should any pastor work hard at devising good teaching materials?

Great preaching is gone because we are not getting our message from the Lord. A message from the Lord doesn't come when we are dependent upon our own wisdom. Without dependence upon the Lord, our messages have their origin in man. Peter and Paul's messages were great because the Lord gave them the messages. Clearly it was God's message. It was God's anointing on them that made such a great difference. The Spirit of God filled them. The church, as a result, was greatly blessed. People came to know the Lord.

Summary

A successful ministry will have its roots in recognizing nothing good can come from ourselves. We greatly need the Lord. In fact, if we should suspect problems when we start believing that we are gifted or doing a great job. We might be, but in fact, we will know without the Lord's abounding grace, we only have our own ugly fleshly selves.

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Biblical Foundations for Freedom


Paul J. Bucknell