Classic Sermon #6052: Lonely in the Crowd
Dr. Roberto Miranda
(Audio: Spanish)
SUMMARY: In 1 Corinthians 4, the apostle Paul expresses his agony in the midst of a controversy with his congregation, who have been filled with intellectual pride and dazzled by flashy preachers. He reminds them that the true nature of the gospel resides in the Cross of Jesus Christ. The chapter reveals the loneliness and suffering that comes with pastoral ministry, which Henry Nowen describes as that of a wounded healer. Solitude is a perpetual wound that comes with the ministry, and every servant, not just pastors, is alone with the Lord in service. Like Moses, Nehemiah, and Jesus Christ on the Cross, Paul fights for the integrity of his people and feels alone in his struggle. In 2 Corinthians, Paul's desperation in his conflict with his congregation culminates in a cry of despair. As a pastor, the author identifies with Paul's drama in general terms.
In this sermon, Pastor Roberto Miranda discusses the agony of ministry and the struggles that pastors and those who minister face in their relationships with congregants. He draws from the example of Paul in First and Second Corinthians and discusses the loneliness, expectations, and wounds that come with ministry. He also speaks to the importance of separating the sin from the person and avoiding unnecessary grudges. Ultimately, he encourages listeners to understand and appreciate the complexity of the ministry and to approach it with grace and compassion.
In 1 Corinthians 4, Paul discusses the dangers and challenges of the ministry. He explains that the servant of God is judged by the world, and that true servants of God are often used and discarded. They may feel used and unappreciated, but they are part of a long tradition of suffering that Jesus established. Suffering is normal in the Christian life, and those who serve God must arm themselves with the recognition that they will face disappointments, betrayals, and persecution. Fidelity is the essential quality of the ministry, and servants of God must remain faithful to the helm, following instructions without questioning them.
The passage discusses the difficulties and challenges of ministry, including the need to suffer and be faithful, the judgments of others, and the importance of treating those who serve with tolerance and generosity. The mature attitude is to leave the last word to the Lord and postpone all final judgment until Christ comes. Serving the Lord is an exalted and heroic task, but it requires humility and perseverance. Ultimately, each person will receive their praise from God.
In this sermon, Pastor Roberto Miranda discusses the agony of ministry and the struggles that pastors and those who minister face in their relationships with congregants. He draws from the example of Paul in First and Second Corinthians and discusses the loneliness, expectations, and wounds that come with ministry. He also speaks to the importance of separating the sin from the person and avoiding unnecessary grudges. Ultimately, he encourages listeners to understand and appreciate the complexity of the ministry and to approach it with grace and compassion.
In 1 Corinthians 4, Paul discusses the dangers and challenges of the ministry. He explains that the servant of God is judged by the world, and that true servants of God are often used and discarded. They may feel used and unappreciated, but they are part of a long tradition of suffering that Jesus established. Suffering is normal in the Christian life, and those who serve God must arm themselves with the recognition that they will face disappointments, betrayals, and persecution. Fidelity is the essential quality of the ministry, and servants of God must remain faithful to the helm, following instructions without questioning them.
The passage discusses the difficulties and challenges of ministry, including the need to suffer and be faithful, the judgments of others, and the importance of treating those who serve with tolerance and generosity. The mature attitude is to leave the last word to the Lord and postpone all final judgment until Christ comes. Serving the Lord is an exalted and heroic task, but it requires humility and perseverance. Ultimately, each person will receive their praise from God.
Today we are going to see this idea of the Ministry from a very interesting perspective that I think we rarely touch on but that is very beneficial for us to see what the ministry is too, what it can be when it is lived at a deeper level, at a pastoral level.
Let's go to chapter 4 of First Corinthians. The word of the Lord says: "So then..." -and I am going to read the whole chapter because it is a totality and we can see more clearly the subject that we want to deal with- "...men consider us servants of Christ and administrators of the mysteries of God. Now it is required of stewards that each one be found faithful. I have very little in being judged by you or human court; And I don't even judge myself.
“Because although I have a bad conscience about nothing, I am not justified because of this, but the one who judges me is the Lord. So do not judge anything before the time until the Lord comes, who will also clarify the hidden things of darkness and will manifest the intentions of the hearts and then each one will receive his praise from God. But this, brothers, I have presented as an example in myself and in Apollos for love of you so that in us you may learn not to think more than what is written. Lest you be puffed up against one another for the sake of one. Because who distinguishes you? Or what do you have that you have not received? And if you received it, why do you glory as if you had not received it? You are already satisfied, you are already rich, without us you reign and I wish you would reign so that we could also reign together with you.
“Because according to what I think, God has exhibited us apostles as last, as sentenced to death. Well, we have come to make a spectacle to the world, to angels and to men. We are foolish for Christ's sake, but you are prudent in Christ. We weak, plus you strong, you honorable plus us despised until this hour, we suffer hunger, we are thirsty, we are naked, we are buffeted, and we have no fixed abode. We get tired working with our hands, they curse us and we bless. We suffer persecution and we endure it. They slander us and we beg. Until now we have come to be like the dregs of the world, the dregs of all.
“I am not writing this to shame you, but to admonish you as my beloved children, because even if you have 10,000 tutors in Christ, you will not have many parents, because in Christ Jesus I begot you through the Gospel. Therefore, I beg you to imitate me, for this very reason we have invited Timothy who is my beloved and faithful son in the Lord who will remind you of my suffering in Christ in the way that I teach everywhere and in all the churches. But some are puffed up as if I would never come to you. But I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills, and I will know not the words but the power of those who are puffed up. Because the kingdom of God does not consist in words but in power. What do you want? Shall I come to you with a rod or with love and a spirit of meekness?" The Lord bless His word.
As I said when introducing this letter from the Apostle Paul, First Corinthians, it is an eminently practical letter that goes to the heart of what Christian life is. The apostle Paul has written this letter to solve immediate problems that exist in the Corinthian church and today we can study this epistle, not as a historical document but as something that speaks to our time and our need and our condition as a church and as a individuals because the principles established in this letter are valid through all the centuries.
Because the men that Paul spoke to are a lot like us. Because the congregation to which Paul preached is very similar to this congregation and to so many other congregations that today in the city of Boston, United States, and throughout the world come together to meditate on passages like these.
And we saw at the beginning how Paul has been involved in a controversy with his congregation and how throughout this book, in addition to him trying to establish clearly what the true nature of the gospel is - he is trying not only to express universal truths, but to correct a crooked situation in Corinth.
The Corinthians have been filled with intellectual pride, they have been dazzled by preachers who come to the congregation and try to impress with their oratory and with their merely intellectual concepts that have very little of the holy leaven of the spirit and of the gospel. And Paul is saying over and over again: "I want you Corinthians to understand that the true nature of the gospel resides in the Cross of Jesus Christ and not in other flashy things."
And we know that Paul is involved in a struggle with his own people, with his own people, not just with the teachers who try to twist the gospel or with very spiritual men like Apollos who, despite not being directly involved in the controversy, have been winged by the immaturity of some segments of the Corinthian congregation. But Paul is also fighting directly with his congregation, with the sin that is in them and with that tendency that they have to go to the side of pride and intellectual vanity. And so in this chapter 4 I think that those issues that have been over-understood in the previous three chapters at the moment make it much clearer what is in the heart of this man who, in addition to being an apostle and a missionary and a church planter is a pastor writing to his congregation.
Here we are allowed to see a little of the agony that the apostle Paul is going through. And that chapter, as I meditate as I focus on it this morning with you, this afternoon; It led me to meditate on what the ministry is, what the pastorate can be, and what any type of ministry of a pastoral nature can also be.
One of my challenges was how to establish a proper balanced tone that doesn't sound negative. Because actually if you read this chapter, you wonder where is the positive? Where is the uplifting? Where is what can get us out of here stimulated to a better life of the Lord? Also a simple exposure, an expatiation of a negative condition.
However I think there is a lot here. And while I was meditating on this, I remembered a little book that was very well known, especially among ministers and pastors and people who deal in the pastoral dimension, by a Catholic writer named Henry Nowen, a Catholic priest. Man of God, very knowledgeable and very knowledgeable in certain areas of things of the spirit.
This book is titled "The Wounded Healer." It is a small book of a few pages and small in size inclusive, fine, but it contains some great truths. This book has made a lot of impact, not only in the Catholic world but in the evangelical world, not only here in the United States but in much of the world as well.
And in that book, he also has a chapter that is titled precisely like that "The Wounded Healer" where he tries to expose the condition of those who work in the ministry, in the pastorate who are wounded healers. And there is an illustration that he uses, which impressed me a long time ago when I read it. He talks about this illustration that he found in the Talmud, Hebrew scriptures, where it says that a rabbi went one day to a cave where another rabbi lived and there he met the prophet Elijah and asked the prophet where he could find the Messiah. To which he was answered: "You will find the Messiah at the gates of the city."
And then this rabbi asked him 'And how can I recognize which one is the Messiah?' To which he was answered: 'You will find the Messiah among the poor and the wounded at the gate of the city. And you will be able to recognize it because while the other wounded and lepers unravel and bandage their wounds all at the same time, the Messiah removes the bandages and puts them on one by one saying: 'I have to bandage my wounds one by one just in case. They call me and I have to leave quickly'.
Obviously the Messiah, in this image of this illustration, did not want to be unprepared when they came to call him to do some healing intervention somewhere. Rather, he undressed the wounds one by one just in case he had to get out quickly.
This is an illustration taken from a Jewish sensibility that perhaps is not also aware of that aspect of power that is in the Messiah. But it is interesting this fact that the Messiah is among the wounded, among the poor, bearing his own wounds and postponing the satisfaction of his own wounds in order to be ready to minister to others. And that is the image that concerns us on this day about the ministry.
Henry Nowen continues with his elaboration of the loneliness of the minister and of his suffering that he has to postpone satisfying in order to minister to others, talking about the loneliness that exists in man in all of humanity and how often the loneliness that exists in ourselves and the fact that we are participants in the sufferings of humanity enables us to minister to those who suffer and to those who cry because we can identify with what they are going through.
Certainly this is a good image to suggest what the pastorate is, what the ministry in general is. I would say that solitude is definitely one of the most outstanding qualities of everyone who has ministered in a deep and pastoral way as the apostle Paul does in this passage; How can we see his loneliness?
I would say that this is the quality of the ministry that stands out the most: the solitude of everyone who serves the Lord in a profound way. Loneliness is a perpetual wound, that like the Messiah, in the illustration Henry Nowen uses will always be with us in the ministry, this comes with the ministry in general.
Every servant, and not just pastors, are alone with their Lord in ministry and service. We recently studied the book of Nehemiah and we saw there clearly how the book of Nehemiah begins with a lonely man feeling a great passion for his people and wanting to do something and ends with a lonely man who still has to struggle with that sin that grows over and over again. again in the very heart of the people that he has tried to purify and lead to an attitude of solidarity with the word of God.
Nehemiah begins alone, ends alone. What more solitary image than that of Moses climbing a mountain to stay there with his God, to die there and be buried there? While the people are down there continuing their moral and spiritual corruption.
What lonelier image than that of Jehovah God struggling with the Hebrews in the desert and trying to lead us to the promised land and struggling agonizingly? This almighty God trying to bring his creature to a full knowledge of what he wants to do and his creature always rejecting him to the point that God himself could not enter that first generation into the promised land and had to let them all die in the desert.
And I see God there in the Old Testament fighting in agony with his people, wanting to take them to a greater height and the people resisting and God also feels alone in those images that we also see in the Old Testament.
What more solitary image than that of Jesus Christ on the Cross of Calvary? And what lonelier image than that of Paul in First and Second Corinthians fighting for the integrity of his people in Corinth and in a struggle with themselves as well?
That's what we see in that 4th chapter as well as we also see, if you examine, 2nd Corinthians 10th through 12th chapters. There we see Paul in a lyrical position open his heart and let us see something of the minister's anguish. It is clear that of all the sufferings that Paul had suffered, the one that hurt him the most was seeing himself in conflict with his own congregation, with his own people whom he had engendered in the gospel, with those whom he had spiritually given life.
And his pain reaches a desperate point, we can see, in Second Corinthians, chapter 11, verses 16 to 21. I believe that here Paul, already desperate, almost says: "Again I say that no one think I am crazy or otherwise receive me." like crazy so that I can also glorify myself a little. What I speak I do not speak according to the Lord, but as if in madness, with this confidence of glorifying myself.
“Since many glory according to the flesh, I also will glory. Because you willingly tolerate fools when you are sane. Well, you tolerate if someone enslaves himself, if someone devours, if someone takes what is yours, if someone exalts himself, if someone slaps you to my shame, I say so. For that we were too weak. But in what another has daring, I also have daring”.
Do you see here the desperation of this minister fighting with his people? There comes a point where he doesn't know what to do and like a madman or powerless he slaps his hands in the air and cries out in despair because he doesn't know how to convince his congregation of the veracity and integrity of the ministry he has undertaken.
This process begins to take shape here in the letter of First Corinthians and begins to take shape in chapter 4 and culminates in those verses that we read from Second Corinthians. And I want to tell you, brothers, that as a Pastor I identify a lot with this aspect of Paul's drama in general terms.
I talk to many pastors all the time and I go to pastors' meetings, where sometimes the pastors have the opportunity to speak freely. And I could tell you, brothers, that without exception through the years in the ministry, I can tell you that this loneliness and this sense of alienation is a perpetually open wound within the Ministry.
I have met few pastors who do not speak in one way or another, when they have the ability to do so and ease, of that dimension, of tension and struggle in the ministry. And we would say that it is not only this existential loneliness of man on a universal level that we all suffer from a certain loneliness, but rather that the minister and the person he ministers suffer an even more agonizing loneliness because they know they are separated by an invisible wall from those they love and serve. It is a transparent wall, very thin, but it is there like a film like a layer that prevents a totally direct contact with those to whom it is ministered.
The natural loneliness of man is magnified within the ministry and although the Pastor does not wear a cassock, his title and his profession set him apart from others, inevitably distort his person and generate in others ultimately unattainable, unrealizable expectations.
I would say that one of the most serious pains of the one who ministers is that the ministry leads us to know the human condition in a very profound way because one is in contact with different sores that humanity bears and to know that human condition as it comes to know it. the pastor is a privilege. I wouldn't change it for anything in this world. I thank the Lord for allowing me through years of ministry to get to know myself first, my own fallen nature and my limitations as a man and also to get to know something of the issues that govern our fallen humanity.
But just as it is a privilege, this intimate knowledge of the human condition is also an exquisite agony because the weight of that knowledge on the human psyche is too great. Only God can carry the weight of humanity. Man is a very weak reed that breaks under that weight.
Malaquias Martin, in a book about exorcism, talks about that indelible wound experienced by those who have come into very direct contact with the satanic, with the satanic presence of a very powerful demon in a human soul. When in direct combat with a demon at that level, the exorcist bleeds to death inside and his soul is touched and torn by contact with pure evil, he is never the same psychologically or emotionally even years after those encounters. .
I have always compared and used that illustration before to the pastor or Christian counselor or those who minister at the pastoral level in the church, to the firefighter who climbs a very high branch because there is a scared kitten there who does not know how to get down from that height. And the firefighter knows that when he takes the kitten in his hands, the kitten, because of the fear it feels and because of its anguish, is going to dig its nails into it and it is going to make it bleed.
And it is so many times. When we minister to men and women in need and penetrated by sin, many times the kitten also digs its nails into our soul and our heart and leaves us certain wounds there. That is part of the ministry, that is the privilege of the ministry as well.
And you will wonder why I have jumped from Paul to the level of the pastor – I am not abusing the text – I believe that we see here Paul in his pastoral condition. Here Paul is not the itinerary evangelist who goes and preaches a sermon and then goes to another church and forgets about the previous church he ministered to.
Here Paul is the one who suffers for his congregation, for his health. He has ministered in Corinth, been there a year and a half previously, possibly written other letters to his congregation. He has been in contact with them, he loves them, he has engendered them spiritually. He has the love of a father towards his children, he suffers with them, he teaches them, he disciples them, he deals with them, he agonizes for them, he is locked in a fight for the soul of the Corinthians and for the healing of his gospel.
But he's locked in that fight with the Corinthians themselves. And everyone who works in a pastoral work and many of you are in that condition, not only the pastor, being the scope of this meditation will go through that contradiction and I believe that there ultimately receives the essence of the suffering of everyone who minister.
He who ministers, fights with his own, for the soul of his own. He is in a fight to the death with his own parishioners to whom he wants to minister. I say that it is an agony of mirrors that reflect each other and multiply their image to infinity because it is a contradiction to fight with those we love, for those we love. My biggest challenge in crafting this sermon has been how to set that right, balanced tone and do justice to this passage.
How do we talk about this text and how do we expose the drama of a man like Paul? And how do you extend it to ministry without sounding sorry for yourself? Without offending anyone, without making others feel guilty, without sounding like we're dropping hints, without making people feel uncomfortable dealing with these issues that are part of the Christian life, part of the congregational life and that's why they are in Scripture and that is why we have to meditate on them. Set aside a moment to meditate on these things.
It is not the triumphant tone of Glory to God and Hallelujah and Christ Heals and Christ Saves and Christ has power. We know all of that, and we've discussed it before. But we also have to talk about congregational life, the relationships between pastors and congregation, between those who minister in the congregation and those who are ministered to.
That is why I believe it can be beneficial for us to dedicate a sermon to the agony of the ministry. It is an important aspect of the Christian experience. We will all spend a good part of our Christian life in contact with pastors, with missionaries, with people who minister in the church and we have to know something about their condition. We have to know something of the dialogue that governs our relationship.
This is an area that most people in congregations don't focus on and it certainly isn't addressed from the pulpits because we feel uncomfortable and because it's hard to set the right key without sounding defensive. Without simply sounding like we are giving expression to our inner frustrations. And I want to establish a tone of hope and triumph and glory and joy in the midst of this meditation on the negative of the ministry.
I know many laymen mortally wounded –spiritually speaking- by a bad experience with a pastor or with a missionary. You know them too and maybe in this same church there are some of that size. That is natural, that happens in every congregation, it happens in every ministry. And unless we don't understand that dynamic, that complex dialogue between the minister and the minister, it's like we'll be speaking two different languages and we'll think we're understanding each other, but we're not understanding each other.
This week I read a small article in a newspaper. A man spent two years in a psychiatric hospital, this man was Mexican. Because the psychiatrists thought he was schizophrenic, that he was crazy. He arrived at the hospital due to a sad situation – what happens is that the psychiatrists, still speaking Spanish, interviewed him and he spoke a language and they believed that the man was crazy.
At the age of two, a person who works with Mexican immigrants discovered that this man was an Indian from Mexico who spoke a strange language called Trique and that the poor man, the only language, did not speak Spanish, did not speak English, and so these psychiatrists hearing him speak believed that he was speaking language because he was crazy.
Eventually they found out that no, the poor man was very sane, just unlucky, so to speak, to speak an almost unknown language. When they discovered what he was talking about, understanding came and he was able to go free. But the same thing happens to us many times in the ministry, right? The pastor speaks a language because he is a pastor and speaks the language of a pastor and thinks the images of the pastor and thinks with his heart and feels with the pastor's heart. The layman thinks with the heart of a layman and feels with the heart of a layman.
And then there we believe that we are speaking the same language but they are two different languages and then comes the misunderstanding. And it's good sometimes, to understand those parts, isn't it? And being able to adjust the dialogue and be able to translate when the message arrives to one or the other. And that is why it is good from time to time to stop on what the ministry is.
And I see that there is legitimacy in speaking about these things from the pulpit because I see that in Scripture, men like Paul were not afraid to speak of their agony and their anguish and their struggles in the biblical text. And we can't be more sanitary than them. We can also touch these themes and benefit from them.
And here is what is truly important –again I repeat- this dynamic is for everyone, all of us who serve; everyone who is involved in spreading the kingdom of God, everyone who strives to lead others to the fullness of life in Christ is going to have that struggle.
One moment he will be a minister, another moment he will be a layman. Everyone who deals with other human beings in ministry will experience some variation—however slight—of this agony. And I speak to the leaders of the congregation and others who are thinking of going into leadership. Every minister will suffer this type of suffering when trying to restore sinners, we will be in struggle with the sin that is within them. The war against sin is a guerrilla war, it is not a war of very well organized armies, each with their squads going to the battlefront. It is a guerrilla war.
Hello God bless you. This is Pastor Roberto Miranda speaking to you. Thank you for listening to our messages and it gives us great joy to know that this program is being a blessing to your life. I want to leave you with the blessing words of Moses to the people of Israel: “Jehovah bless you and keep you. Jehovah make his face shine upon you and have mercy on you. The LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace." It is a privilege for me to be part of your life. I hope you stay tuned to our program "An appointment with Christ." I bless you in the name of Jesus.
The enemy is not out on a well-delineated battlefield, separated from civilian areas. The enemy is in the hearts of those we serve and those to whom we minister. Think about that for a moment. And like all guerrilla warfare, the war waged by the servant of God, the servant of God, is a dirty war. It is a war full of moral dilemmas and ambiguities. A very easy war to criticize. And it always leaves a certain bitterness and a certain guilt even within the victory.
That was discovered by America in the Vietnam War. That powerful American giant when he entered to fight an enemy who was not on a separate battlefield but in the villages of Vietnam and who came with the face of the villager and the woman carrying a basket with a baby inside, who also had a grenade, discovered that he too was handcuffed by the complexity of this new war.
That, I believe, is the root of the agony of those who serve to bring others to a full knowledge of God. On many occasions, brothers, the enemy we are fighting and the victim we are trying to rescue will have the same face. And that will be a source of agony for us.
And I believe that there we find the first positive lesson of this meditation: when we suffer at the hands of those we have tried to serve, let us know how to separate; let us make a Herculean effort to separate the person from the sin that dwells within the person. This will help us avoid unnecessary grudges; It will allow us to heal more quickly. We have to separate the sin that dwells in every man – including the one who speaks to you – from his humanity.
But sin is in all of us, many times the pastor makes the mistake, many times the layman makes the mistake or the devil manipulates concupiscence as Santiago says that it is in us and tempts us and makes us trip up each other. And it is good that from time to time we heal ourselves by separating the sin and the evil that dwells in the men and women to whom we minister and in ourselves from the person himself. I see here in this passage a catalog of the sufferings of the servant of God.
I'm going to make a list of the ones I see here. In verses 3-5 we see that the servant of God is judged by the whole world. That is why Paul says: “I have very little to be judged by you or by a human court and I don't even judge myself. But although I have a bad conscience about nothing, I am not justified for that. But the one who judges me is the Lord."
He who serves the Lord will always be judged. He is in a glass house and everyone is watching him and everyone is judging what he does and that is a source of agony. Secondly, those who serve the Lord are often underestimated by some who, at the same time, overestimate themselves. Verses 6 and 7: “For this, brothers, I have presented him as an example in myself and in Apollos so that in us you may learn not to think more than what is written. Lest you be puffed up against one another because of some. Why who distinguishes you? Or what do you have that you have not received? And if you received it, why do you glorify yourself as if you had not received it?
The Corinthians are judging Paul as they already have authority and power and prerogatives to judge this man. They have already arrived spiritually, they are fully realized: they can judge, they can underestimate. And Paul says: “What do you have that you have not received? And what do we who serve have that we have not received? What gives you the right to be judging and underestimating the value of Paul versus Apollos, etc.?
Third, the one who serves the Lord is often used and then discarded for something better, fresher. Sometimes those who serve the Lord could be compared to those little boxes that we put in -not a very elegant image- the bathrooms so that they absorb bad odors and when they are saturated, then we throw them away and take fresh ones to continue accumulating.
It happens many times in the ministry, it happens many times that those who have served the Lord know that it is so and they feel used. Paul says in verse 8: “You are already full, you are already rich. You reign without us and I wish you would reign so that we might also reign together with you. I think Pablo's despair leads him to sarcasm as well.
You are already satisfied, you have arrived, you already think you know, then well then, move aside. Now you reign without us. And I think that, if Pablo had been honest, I think that his stylistic elegance prevents him from saying 'you already reign without me', but he doesn't want to be so personal and well, he avoids the center a bit and says 'without us' but in I actually think Paul is saying "without me." But that sounds a bit inelegant and that's why I think that Pablo uses the us stylistically.
But also here we see Paul and by extension everyone who serves the Lord, many times there is something interesting and that is that God is going to use him -and we will talk about that later- God uses the ministers of the Lord as continuators of the sufferings of Christ. The minister comes to be, many times, a strange being, a spectacle, a wounded being that goes around limping, bleeding. Some have said that the life of a serf is like a wounded rabbit that walks around leaving drops of blood on the white snow.
And Paul says in verses 9 to 13: "As I think, God has exhibited us apostles as last, as those sentenced to death, for we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to men."
Again, it's very deep, where Paul compares ministers. There are two possible comparisons: they were the ones that were thrown into the Roman theater with the lions at the end of the show to be torn to pieces by the lions and they were the last in the show's order. Or also to those hostages that were brought from ancient wars to be exhibited at the end of the line by the Roman generals who returned triumphant from distant lands from where they had fought.
But the fact is that Paul speculates that perhaps God has chosen those who serve the Lord, to make of them as a spectacle to humanity and to be the object of observation of angels and he puts it in a great way to the world, to angels and men. In addition, the one who serves the Lord, the one who serves the Lord at that pastoral level and I mean again in the human relationship with others to bring them to a greater height in Jesus Christ; many times he loves as a father without being reciprocated many times.
Verse 14 and 15: “I am not writing this to shame you but to admonish you as my beloved children. Because even if you have 10 thousand tutors in Christ, you will not have many parents.
In other words, even though many come around to preach and then leave, you have only one father. I have begotten you in the gospel. I have suffered for you, I have prayed for you. This is what Paul says here. And now you are casting me aside for something you hold dearest.
And finally, many times, those of us who serve the Lord are in frequent conflict with his law. There it is in verses 18 to 21: "But some are puffed up as if I would never come to you." There's a law of threat there disguised in that, isn't there? implied. "But I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills, and I will know not the words but the power of those who are puffed up."
Verse 21: “What do you want? Shall I come to you with a rod or with love and a spirit of meekness?" There is a struggle too, there is a struggle, a fight. These are aspects of the ministry and I see here in this chapter 4 an exposition of those dangers of the ministry. And actually, I think that what Paul is doing in this passage, he is continuing that theology of the cross, which he has established from the very beginning.
No power –according to men's understanding- no elegance –according to men's rational understanding- it is the cross of Jesus Christ that prevails, the one that ultimately defeats sin and overcomes evil. And now Paul applies that theology of the cross to the ministry itself. And Paul is suggesting here that the true minister, the person who serves the Lord as God wants to be served, is not a "celebrity" as we know them in movies and movie magazines.
The one who serves the Lord is not a movie star, not a person who walks around in a $700 suit and alligator shoes and mink stoles. He doesn't get out of a Rolls-Royce. He is a wounded servant, an animal that – if he is faithful to the example set by his Lord – bleeds while he ministers to others because that is the theology of the cross that our Lord has established for us.
And over and over again, Paul establishes that fact: suffering as part of the true Christian life, the genuine Christian life. Romans 8:17: “And if we are children, we are also heirs. Heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if we suffer together with Him, so that we may be glorified together with Him."
Philippians chapter 3 verse 10, Paul prays that: “to be found in Him not to have my own righteousness which is from the law but is through faith in Christ. The righteousness that is from God by faith in order to know Jesus Christ and the power of his Resurrection and the participation of his sufferings, becoming similar to Him in his death.
Over and over again, and we could quote many verses, we don't have time to do it. But again and again, true service to the Lord, the person who serves the Lord with genuine character is a person who is going to experience the sufferings that Christ experienced. He is going to have cotonia, he is going to have rapport and harmony and affinity with the sufferings of Jesus Christ. With his loneliness, with his suffering. Brethren, here is the central truth of all this: suffering is normal in the life of Christian service.
Christ set the pattern. Christ established it in an archetypal way and what we do is simply enter into that pattern that Christ has established. Isaiah 53 has said it in insurmountable ways: “Certainly He bore our diseases and suffered our pains and we had him for scourged and wounded by God and dejected. More He was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our sins. The punishment of our peace was upon Him and by His wounds we were healed. We all stray like sheep. Each one turned to his own way, but the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all."
The suffering servant par excellence is Jesus Christ. And the servants with that small letter who imitate their Lord and who are faithful to the calling of their Lord will also be long-suffering servants. They will also be wounded healers. With one hand they will be healing their wounds and with the other hand they will be healing the wound of the one to whom they are ministering. At one moment they will give a cry of pain for their own pain and at another moment a word of comfort for the one who cries. That is the ministry and Paul is an excellent example of this and this chapter invites us to meditate on that fact.
I leave you with some conclusions and then you examine this passage at your leisure and take what the Lord tells you; because after all they are positive conclusions. What lessons do we draw from all this? What specific lessons?
I would say, first of all, and I emphasize again: by suffering disappointments, disappointments, betrayals, criticism, physical, emotional or spiritual persecution in the ministry, we are entering, brothers, in a long and illustrious tradition established by Jesus Christ in a sublime way.
We are, as Paul suggests, completing, in that interesting image, completing the sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ. Having cottony, having intimate, deep, inexplicable communion with Him.
People will see you bleeding and feeling rejected and sad; but at that moment you will be at a level of communion with Jesus Christ that you yourself will not be able to understand in a mystical way. That is the deep truth.
Look how he establishes it, not Paul but Peter, who also understood what the ministry is at that level and who then had the ability to minister to others. Here's the thing: if we don't feel that pain, if we don't identify with the agony of humanity, we can't truly comfort and minister to others who are going through that need.
And Peter says in First Peter chapter 4: “Beloved you who serve in the ministry, do not be surprised at the fiery trial that has come upon you as if something strange were happening to you. But rejoice because you are participants - that is the word because you have fellowship - of the sufferings of Christ so that also in the revelation of his glory you may rejoice with great joy ".
There is an intimate relation in the mind, both of Peter and of Paul, of that fact of participating in the sufferings of Christ and also participating in his coming glory and in his present glory. "If you are reproached for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the glorious spirit of God rests upon you" and finally verse 19 says: "So that those who suffer according to the will of God, commend their souls to the faithful Creator and do good."
Don't get tired of doing good. When disappointments, setbacks, failures, and ministry failures come, keep doing good because you serve something higher: you serve an ideal, you serve a Lord who suffered all these things and more than you can imagine. . And he went ahead.
That is, by suffering all these things, let us know that we are entering into that long tradition of the Moses and the Pauls and the Jesus and the Peters and others like that.
If we are going to be effective long-term servants, we have to preemptively arm ourselves with that recognition. That is the second thing. If you are going to serve the Lord, don't just understand that truth on a merely intellectual and general level, actively arm yourself with that recognition and then go into Christian service as a soldier goes into the front lines with bullets traveling overhead. Arm yourself with that thought: I am going to fight, I am going to war, I am going to suffer. The sufferings of the ministry will take many forms, thousands and thousands of forms, according to the faces of men, so will the different sufferings of the ministry.
As are the multiplicity of human circumstances, so can be the sufferings of the ministry. But they are all an integral part of the service that God honors. Whoever wants to be celebrated, whoever wants to be honored, whoever wants to be recognized as having done something universally good, is not a true servant of God and is more than preparing himself for the disappointment and disillusionment that will inevitably come.
One has to arm oneself with that thought: I am going to war, I am going to fight for the soul of my brothers with the sin that is in my brothers. And by arming yourself in that way, you are then ready and not so easily open to deception, to deception to victimhood. Because we are not victims, we are warriors who have callused backs because they have received so much whipping but we continue to grow and the muscles get stronger.
And we attack the enemy more effectively and we understand him better in his sick thoughts and we can be more effective in the fight because we know what we are going for. We are clear, we are not going to a picnic, we are going to a war and God has given us the power to win and the wisdom to win. But let us know that we cannot underestimate the complexity of that war or the power of that enemy.
Let's arm preemptively. First let's recognize what the ministry is, second let's arm ourselves preemptively: mentally, psychologically and spiritually upon entering. Thirdly, we could say, according to Paul, here he also establishes the essential quality of the ministry. Do you know what it is in light of those considerations? The Fidelity. Be faithful.
Holding on to the helm there, even though he no longer has the strength to stand still, but you hold on to the helm following the instructions given without asking too many questions about why things are the way they are, or whether whoever wrote the instructions knew what they meant. he was doing when he wrote them. You're still there glued to the helm.
That is why I have always said that the animal that could best represent the effective Christian is not the steed full of muscles and striking in its physical appearance, it is not the well-attractive and well-groomed horse, it is the ox: meek, which is there with his yoke on his neck, plowing and looking just straight ahead. And take a step in front of the other. The ox represents the faithfulness of the meek ox, what the Christian truly is before the instructions of his Lord.
Be faithful, be faithful until death. I will give you the crown of life. When you are in suffering, in struggle, when the bullets roar around you, follow the instructions manual: be faithful and the Lord will take care of everything else.
So fourth, I would say that people are always going to be making judgments about what we do. And that's another nice acknowledgment. Remember that, if you are going to enter the ministry, you are always going to be judged, you are always going to be tasted as wine by different people.
And that is why I believe that Paul says: "Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it as unto the Lord." Let's not worry so much about what others think, let's worry more about what our Lord thinks of us and what we do. Let's move on by making sure we stay true to that received instruction manual. Let's not worry about the judgments of others. serve you What has the Lord called you to? Serve it to that extent.
That's why Paul says in verse 3: "I think very little to be judged by you." I would question that a bit. Again here is the man Paul giving himself strength and that is what we have to do. But evidently being judged by the Corinthians is a cause of agony for him.
“I very little –perhaps intellectually- have to be judged by you or by a human court. And what's more, I don't even judge myself because although I have a bad conscience about nothing, that's not why I'm justified. But the one who judges me is the Lord." listen to that. Go ahead, when judgments fly over your head, go ahead, follow the operations manual.
And you, do you know what happens when you are faithful and stop paying too much attention to the judgments of others? I think that here is the wonderful thing about that type of behavior: it is that although for the moment it seems that we are as if in defeat and confused and winged by different opinions and different suggestions and that we are defeated. In the long run, the instruction manual that God has given us is the one that triumphs. And if we follow the instruction manual, we succeed with the instruction manual.
Ask yourself who is being talked about today as the founder of theology at the human level, speaking of the theology of the church. Who are we discussing today, praising and exalting, as an example of Christian service? Is it to those teachers itineraries? To the great intellectuals that the Corinthians let themselves be dazzled by? Even poor Apollo, who I think was simply winged in this controversy. Apollos is a footnote, Paul.
Paul, two thirds of the New Testament we have preserved, his writings. Pablo is the example that today we want to follow as a minister. Although at that time, he himself did not understand the projections of what he was writing and of his own ministry.
But Paul remained faithful to that theology of the cross, Paul remained faithful to that simple but at the same time honorable conception of the ministry of service to Jesus Christ, and Paul won 2000 years later. And we too can win if we stick to the manual that God has left us in his word.
If we serve the Lord with humility, with simplicity, with few pretensions, looking at our Master who is the example par excellence, who at the end of his ministry looked at Jerusalem from a mountain and said: "Jerusalem, Jerusalem as I would have wanted to cover you like the hen covers her chicks and you did not want to”. Just completely.
And we serve the Lord, we serve the principles of the Gospel. And if glory comes and hugs and applause come, Glory to God, we receive them but we don't let them penetrate us too much either. Just as we don't let negative judgments penetrate us either. We follow the pattern established by the Lord. The word of the Lord.
Let's forget about it, because the crowds will be changeable. One day they will tell us: "Oh, heal, oh, heal the one who comes in the name of the Lord!" and another day they will say: "Crucify him, crucify him!" If you join your emotional state to the man's frustrations, you are lost. You are going to be like a comet that goes up and down in circles. You have to stick to the sap that comes out of the word of God. And to God's promise: “If you are with me, if you suffer with me, you will reign with me too. You will win with me as I have won."
In addition to all this, brothers, understand what the ministry that is suffering is, arm ourselves with that thought actively, be faithful in our service, expect that there will be a trial but we will remain faithful to what the word of the Lord says.
Fifthly, knowing all that, now I say to those who don't serve as much; not those who are useless, in the sense of those who are useless, but those who do not work as much as those who work, those who are more at the level of services rather at other levels. To those people, all of us in some sense, someone is going to be ministering to us, remember this brothers: every person who serves the Lord, every sincere servant and who is following the example of his Lord, is a fragile being, easy to hurt, generally unsure of its effectiveness.
You will always have some doubts as to whether you are doing the right thing or not. The vast majority of those who serve the Lord, I would say, deserve the benefit of the doubt. As they say in English: the benefit of the doubt. They are doing the best they can with what little they have on hand. They are wanting to feed a crowd with five loaves and two fish. They are called to commit great, sublime, heroic things with a fallen humanity.
They are expected to carry the precious, limpid, pure water of the gospel in clay vessels. And when you are in doubt about how to interpret the performance of someone serving the Lord, I suggest: choose to be generous and tolerant rather than risk adding more burden than you already have with your own humanity and with his own anguish that he carries inside as a consequence of serving the Lord at that level.
Let us treat them delicately, with love, with tolerance, knowing that they are in an impossible situation for humans. Leaving the ministry elegantly, brothers, is very difficult, remember that. Not to say impossible. The one who serves the Lord enters a situation that is inherently going to carry a sense of failure.
Do you not see what Jesus Christ says?: "When you have done everything that was asked of you, you are useless servants." That was not just a pretty, poetic image, no, that was a reality.
Every day that I finish Pastoring, I know that I am a failure in a sense –although I believe that the glory and triumph comes from the Lord- still, I know that I have not done everything that I could have done. And I know that I have given bad advice and I know that I have not called all the people that I should have called and that I have not visited all the people that I could visit. We are useless servants and the fact that we will not achieve what our Lord deserves will make us feel inadequate.
So those who are served owe not only to the Pastor but to others who serve and work in different ministries in the church. They must be given the benefit of the doubt, they must be treated with a certain generosity, a certain tolerance because they are designed to do a job, there, with great difficulty with their humanity. This is part of the positive attitude. In this way we can have happy leaders who can continue to grow and who feel happy to minister to the Lord.
And finally we say that the mature, spiritual, profound attitude will always be one, listen: to leave the last word to the Lord and to postpone all final judgment until Christ comes. I think that passage teaches us that too. The mature attitude will always be one of leaving the last word to the Lord and postponing judgments until Christ comes. I believe that being free to criticize and comment on the ministry of others in the church is not from the Lord.
True maturity implies an attitude of sobriety and discretion, of healthy humility that says: "By the grace of God I don't make the same mistake" and that waits for the Lord to have the last word. It is that attitude that admires those who dare to get into the heat of the fight, to serve, it is the one that respects those who have the audacity to get involved in such exalted things with their fallen humanity.
And instead of criticizing him when he's wrong, he helps him get up. It is the attitude that is promised not to be a stumbling block for those who enter, with good attitudes and good will and good intentions to serve in this incarnated struggle that is the ministry.
So brothers, I leave you with those positive conclusions. In all this I see the sublime character of the gospel, I don't see that easy and superficial gospel that so many despise with that little silver star from Hollywood, no. I see something serious for heroic men and women, for spiritual giants who enter the fight knowing what they are going for and that for me is what makes me truly be in the ministry. If it were a picnic, if it were a Rotary or Knights of Columbus club, I would not be serving in the pastorate. There is nothing more exalted than serving the Lord and you who are sitting there and are considering serving the Lord, when I tell you this, do not let this frighten you, but rather the opposite: that I call you to a life of service, lucid .
That you know well what you are going for and that you know that when you are fighting and they are hitting you from behind and the swords are hitting you and the bullets roar around you, Christ is there with you with all his power, telling you: “You are going to win, but keep your eyes on me.” And at that time, no one will be greater than you. No one will have the glory of God resting on him or her with greater power than you.
When you are weak, then you will be eminently strong. There is nothing negative about that, there is nothing defeatist pessimistic about it. Quite the contrary, it attracts us to a lucid and clear struggle.
I will leave you with verse 5 of this passage that seems totally striking to me: “So, brothers, do not judge anything before the time, until the Lord comes. Which will also clarify the hidden of darkness and manifest the intentions of the hearts "and look what a beautiful hope:" And then each one will receive his praise from God ". The Lord bless His word.
Let's go to chapter 4 of First Corinthians. The word of the Lord says: "So then..." -and I am going to read the whole chapter because it is a totality and we can see more clearly the subject that we want to deal with- "...men consider us servants of Christ and administrators of the mysteries of God. Now it is required of stewards that each one be found faithful. I have very little in being judged by you or human court; And I don't even judge myself.
“Because although I have a bad conscience about nothing, I am not justified because of this, but the one who judges me is the Lord. So do not judge anything before the time until the Lord comes, who will also clarify the hidden things of darkness and will manifest the intentions of the hearts and then each one will receive his praise from God. But this, brothers, I have presented as an example in myself and in Apollos for love of you so that in us you may learn not to think more than what is written. Lest you be puffed up against one another for the sake of one. Because who distinguishes you? Or what do you have that you have not received? And if you received it, why do you glory as if you had not received it? You are already satisfied, you are already rich, without us you reign and I wish you would reign so that we could also reign together with you.
“Because according to what I think, God has exhibited us apostles as last, as sentenced to death. Well, we have come to make a spectacle to the world, to angels and to men. We are foolish for Christ's sake, but you are prudent in Christ. We weak, plus you strong, you honorable plus us despised until this hour, we suffer hunger, we are thirsty, we are naked, we are buffeted, and we have no fixed abode. We get tired working with our hands, they curse us and we bless. We suffer persecution and we endure it. They slander us and we beg. Until now we have come to be like the dregs of the world, the dregs of all.
“I am not writing this to shame you, but to admonish you as my beloved children, because even if you have 10,000 tutors in Christ, you will not have many parents, because in Christ Jesus I begot you through the Gospel. Therefore, I beg you to imitate me, for this very reason we have invited Timothy who is my beloved and faithful son in the Lord who will remind you of my suffering in Christ in the way that I teach everywhere and in all the churches. But some are puffed up as if I would never come to you. But I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills, and I will know not the words but the power of those who are puffed up. Because the kingdom of God does not consist in words but in power. What do you want? Shall I come to you with a rod or with love and a spirit of meekness?" The Lord bless His word.
As I said when introducing this letter from the Apostle Paul, First Corinthians, it is an eminently practical letter that goes to the heart of what Christian life is. The apostle Paul has written this letter to solve immediate problems that exist in the Corinthian church and today we can study this epistle, not as a historical document but as something that speaks to our time and our need and our condition as a church and as a individuals because the principles established in this letter are valid through all the centuries.
Because the men that Paul spoke to are a lot like us. Because the congregation to which Paul preached is very similar to this congregation and to so many other congregations that today in the city of Boston, United States, and throughout the world come together to meditate on passages like these.
And we saw at the beginning how Paul has been involved in a controversy with his congregation and how throughout this book, in addition to him trying to establish clearly what the true nature of the gospel is - he is trying not only to express universal truths, but to correct a crooked situation in Corinth.
The Corinthians have been filled with intellectual pride, they have been dazzled by preachers who come to the congregation and try to impress with their oratory and with their merely intellectual concepts that have very little of the holy leaven of the spirit and of the gospel. And Paul is saying over and over again: "I want you Corinthians to understand that the true nature of the gospel resides in the Cross of Jesus Christ and not in other flashy things."
And we know that Paul is involved in a struggle with his own people, with his own people, not just with the teachers who try to twist the gospel or with very spiritual men like Apollos who, despite not being directly involved in the controversy, have been winged by the immaturity of some segments of the Corinthian congregation. But Paul is also fighting directly with his congregation, with the sin that is in them and with that tendency that they have to go to the side of pride and intellectual vanity. And so in this chapter 4 I think that those issues that have been over-understood in the previous three chapters at the moment make it much clearer what is in the heart of this man who, in addition to being an apostle and a missionary and a church planter is a pastor writing to his congregation.
Here we are allowed to see a little of the agony that the apostle Paul is going through. And that chapter, as I meditate as I focus on it this morning with you, this afternoon; It led me to meditate on what the ministry is, what the pastorate can be, and what any type of ministry of a pastoral nature can also be.
One of my challenges was how to establish a proper balanced tone that doesn't sound negative. Because actually if you read this chapter, you wonder where is the positive? Where is the uplifting? Where is what can get us out of here stimulated to a better life of the Lord? Also a simple exposure, an expatiation of a negative condition.
However I think there is a lot here. And while I was meditating on this, I remembered a little book that was very well known, especially among ministers and pastors and people who deal in the pastoral dimension, by a Catholic writer named Henry Nowen, a Catholic priest. Man of God, very knowledgeable and very knowledgeable in certain areas of things of the spirit.
This book is titled "The Wounded Healer." It is a small book of a few pages and small in size inclusive, fine, but it contains some great truths. This book has made a lot of impact, not only in the Catholic world but in the evangelical world, not only here in the United States but in much of the world as well.
And in that book, he also has a chapter that is titled precisely like that "The Wounded Healer" where he tries to expose the condition of those who work in the ministry, in the pastorate who are wounded healers. And there is an illustration that he uses, which impressed me a long time ago when I read it. He talks about this illustration that he found in the Talmud, Hebrew scriptures, where it says that a rabbi went one day to a cave where another rabbi lived and there he met the prophet Elijah and asked the prophet where he could find the Messiah. To which he was answered: "You will find the Messiah at the gates of the city."
And then this rabbi asked him 'And how can I recognize which one is the Messiah?' To which he was answered: 'You will find the Messiah among the poor and the wounded at the gate of the city. And you will be able to recognize it because while the other wounded and lepers unravel and bandage their wounds all at the same time, the Messiah removes the bandages and puts them on one by one saying: 'I have to bandage my wounds one by one just in case. They call me and I have to leave quickly'.
Obviously the Messiah, in this image of this illustration, did not want to be unprepared when they came to call him to do some healing intervention somewhere. Rather, he undressed the wounds one by one just in case he had to get out quickly.
This is an illustration taken from a Jewish sensibility that perhaps is not also aware of that aspect of power that is in the Messiah. But it is interesting this fact that the Messiah is among the wounded, among the poor, bearing his own wounds and postponing the satisfaction of his own wounds in order to be ready to minister to others. And that is the image that concerns us on this day about the ministry.
Henry Nowen continues with his elaboration of the loneliness of the minister and of his suffering that he has to postpone satisfying in order to minister to others, talking about the loneliness that exists in man in all of humanity and how often the loneliness that exists in ourselves and the fact that we are participants in the sufferings of humanity enables us to minister to those who suffer and to those who cry because we can identify with what they are going through.
Certainly this is a good image to suggest what the pastorate is, what the ministry in general is. I would say that solitude is definitely one of the most outstanding qualities of everyone who has ministered in a deep and pastoral way as the apostle Paul does in this passage; How can we see his loneliness?
I would say that this is the quality of the ministry that stands out the most: the solitude of everyone who serves the Lord in a profound way. Loneliness is a perpetual wound, that like the Messiah, in the illustration Henry Nowen uses will always be with us in the ministry, this comes with the ministry in general.
Every servant, and not just pastors, are alone with their Lord in ministry and service. We recently studied the book of Nehemiah and we saw there clearly how the book of Nehemiah begins with a lonely man feeling a great passion for his people and wanting to do something and ends with a lonely man who still has to struggle with that sin that grows over and over again. again in the very heart of the people that he has tried to purify and lead to an attitude of solidarity with the word of God.
Nehemiah begins alone, ends alone. What more solitary image than that of Moses climbing a mountain to stay there with his God, to die there and be buried there? While the people are down there continuing their moral and spiritual corruption.
What lonelier image than that of Jehovah God struggling with the Hebrews in the desert and trying to lead us to the promised land and struggling agonizingly? This almighty God trying to bring his creature to a full knowledge of what he wants to do and his creature always rejecting him to the point that God himself could not enter that first generation into the promised land and had to let them all die in the desert.
And I see God there in the Old Testament fighting in agony with his people, wanting to take them to a greater height and the people resisting and God also feels alone in those images that we also see in the Old Testament.
What more solitary image than that of Jesus Christ on the Cross of Calvary? And what lonelier image than that of Paul in First and Second Corinthians fighting for the integrity of his people in Corinth and in a struggle with themselves as well?
That's what we see in that 4th chapter as well as we also see, if you examine, 2nd Corinthians 10th through 12th chapters. There we see Paul in a lyrical position open his heart and let us see something of the minister's anguish. It is clear that of all the sufferings that Paul had suffered, the one that hurt him the most was seeing himself in conflict with his own congregation, with his own people whom he had engendered in the gospel, with those whom he had spiritually given life.
And his pain reaches a desperate point, we can see, in Second Corinthians, chapter 11, verses 16 to 21. I believe that here Paul, already desperate, almost says: "Again I say that no one think I am crazy or otherwise receive me." like crazy so that I can also glorify myself a little. What I speak I do not speak according to the Lord, but as if in madness, with this confidence of glorifying myself.
“Since many glory according to the flesh, I also will glory. Because you willingly tolerate fools when you are sane. Well, you tolerate if someone enslaves himself, if someone devours, if someone takes what is yours, if someone exalts himself, if someone slaps you to my shame, I say so. For that we were too weak. But in what another has daring, I also have daring”.
Do you see here the desperation of this minister fighting with his people? There comes a point where he doesn't know what to do and like a madman or powerless he slaps his hands in the air and cries out in despair because he doesn't know how to convince his congregation of the veracity and integrity of the ministry he has undertaken.
This process begins to take shape here in the letter of First Corinthians and begins to take shape in chapter 4 and culminates in those verses that we read from Second Corinthians. And I want to tell you, brothers, that as a Pastor I identify a lot with this aspect of Paul's drama in general terms.
I talk to many pastors all the time and I go to pastors' meetings, where sometimes the pastors have the opportunity to speak freely. And I could tell you, brothers, that without exception through the years in the ministry, I can tell you that this loneliness and this sense of alienation is a perpetually open wound within the Ministry.
I have met few pastors who do not speak in one way or another, when they have the ability to do so and ease, of that dimension, of tension and struggle in the ministry. And we would say that it is not only this existential loneliness of man on a universal level that we all suffer from a certain loneliness, but rather that the minister and the person he ministers suffer an even more agonizing loneliness because they know they are separated by an invisible wall from those they love and serve. It is a transparent wall, very thin, but it is there like a film like a layer that prevents a totally direct contact with those to whom it is ministered.
The natural loneliness of man is magnified within the ministry and although the Pastor does not wear a cassock, his title and his profession set him apart from others, inevitably distort his person and generate in others ultimately unattainable, unrealizable expectations.
I would say that one of the most serious pains of the one who ministers is that the ministry leads us to know the human condition in a very profound way because one is in contact with different sores that humanity bears and to know that human condition as it comes to know it. the pastor is a privilege. I wouldn't change it for anything in this world. I thank the Lord for allowing me through years of ministry to get to know myself first, my own fallen nature and my limitations as a man and also to get to know something of the issues that govern our fallen humanity.
But just as it is a privilege, this intimate knowledge of the human condition is also an exquisite agony because the weight of that knowledge on the human psyche is too great. Only God can carry the weight of humanity. Man is a very weak reed that breaks under that weight.
Malaquias Martin, in a book about exorcism, talks about that indelible wound experienced by those who have come into very direct contact with the satanic, with the satanic presence of a very powerful demon in a human soul. When in direct combat with a demon at that level, the exorcist bleeds to death inside and his soul is touched and torn by contact with pure evil, he is never the same psychologically or emotionally even years after those encounters. .
I have always compared and used that illustration before to the pastor or Christian counselor or those who minister at the pastoral level in the church, to the firefighter who climbs a very high branch because there is a scared kitten there who does not know how to get down from that height. And the firefighter knows that when he takes the kitten in his hands, the kitten, because of the fear it feels and because of its anguish, is going to dig its nails into it and it is going to make it bleed.
And it is so many times. When we minister to men and women in need and penetrated by sin, many times the kitten also digs its nails into our soul and our heart and leaves us certain wounds there. That is part of the ministry, that is the privilege of the ministry as well.
And you will wonder why I have jumped from Paul to the level of the pastor – I am not abusing the text – I believe that we see here Paul in his pastoral condition. Here Paul is not the itinerary evangelist who goes and preaches a sermon and then goes to another church and forgets about the previous church he ministered to.
Here Paul is the one who suffers for his congregation, for his health. He has ministered in Corinth, been there a year and a half previously, possibly written other letters to his congregation. He has been in contact with them, he loves them, he has engendered them spiritually. He has the love of a father towards his children, he suffers with them, he teaches them, he disciples them, he deals with them, he agonizes for them, he is locked in a fight for the soul of the Corinthians and for the healing of his gospel.
But he's locked in that fight with the Corinthians themselves. And everyone who works in a pastoral work and many of you are in that condition, not only the pastor, being the scope of this meditation will go through that contradiction and I believe that there ultimately receives the essence of the suffering of everyone who minister.
He who ministers, fights with his own, for the soul of his own. He is in a fight to the death with his own parishioners to whom he wants to minister. I say that it is an agony of mirrors that reflect each other and multiply their image to infinity because it is a contradiction to fight with those we love, for those we love. My biggest challenge in crafting this sermon has been how to set that right, balanced tone and do justice to this passage.
How do we talk about this text and how do we expose the drama of a man like Paul? And how do you extend it to ministry without sounding sorry for yourself? Without offending anyone, without making others feel guilty, without sounding like we're dropping hints, without making people feel uncomfortable dealing with these issues that are part of the Christian life, part of the congregational life and that's why they are in Scripture and that is why we have to meditate on them. Set aside a moment to meditate on these things.
It is not the triumphant tone of Glory to God and Hallelujah and Christ Heals and Christ Saves and Christ has power. We know all of that, and we've discussed it before. But we also have to talk about congregational life, the relationships between pastors and congregation, between those who minister in the congregation and those who are ministered to.
That is why I believe it can be beneficial for us to dedicate a sermon to the agony of the ministry. It is an important aspect of the Christian experience. We will all spend a good part of our Christian life in contact with pastors, with missionaries, with people who minister in the church and we have to know something about their condition. We have to know something of the dialogue that governs our relationship.
This is an area that most people in congregations don't focus on and it certainly isn't addressed from the pulpits because we feel uncomfortable and because it's hard to set the right key without sounding defensive. Without simply sounding like we are giving expression to our inner frustrations. And I want to establish a tone of hope and triumph and glory and joy in the midst of this meditation on the negative of the ministry.
I know many laymen mortally wounded –spiritually speaking- by a bad experience with a pastor or with a missionary. You know them too and maybe in this same church there are some of that size. That is natural, that happens in every congregation, it happens in every ministry. And unless we don't understand that dynamic, that complex dialogue between the minister and the minister, it's like we'll be speaking two different languages and we'll think we're understanding each other, but we're not understanding each other.
This week I read a small article in a newspaper. A man spent two years in a psychiatric hospital, this man was Mexican. Because the psychiatrists thought he was schizophrenic, that he was crazy. He arrived at the hospital due to a sad situation – what happens is that the psychiatrists, still speaking Spanish, interviewed him and he spoke a language and they believed that the man was crazy.
At the age of two, a person who works with Mexican immigrants discovered that this man was an Indian from Mexico who spoke a strange language called Trique and that the poor man, the only language, did not speak Spanish, did not speak English, and so these psychiatrists hearing him speak believed that he was speaking language because he was crazy.
Eventually they found out that no, the poor man was very sane, just unlucky, so to speak, to speak an almost unknown language. When they discovered what he was talking about, understanding came and he was able to go free. But the same thing happens to us many times in the ministry, right? The pastor speaks a language because he is a pastor and speaks the language of a pastor and thinks the images of the pastor and thinks with his heart and feels with the pastor's heart. The layman thinks with the heart of a layman and feels with the heart of a layman.
And then there we believe that we are speaking the same language but they are two different languages and then comes the misunderstanding. And it's good sometimes, to understand those parts, isn't it? And being able to adjust the dialogue and be able to translate when the message arrives to one or the other. And that is why it is good from time to time to stop on what the ministry is.
And I see that there is legitimacy in speaking about these things from the pulpit because I see that in Scripture, men like Paul were not afraid to speak of their agony and their anguish and their struggles in the biblical text. And we can't be more sanitary than them. We can also touch these themes and benefit from them.
And here is what is truly important –again I repeat- this dynamic is for everyone, all of us who serve; everyone who is involved in spreading the kingdom of God, everyone who strives to lead others to the fullness of life in Christ is going to have that struggle.
One moment he will be a minister, another moment he will be a layman. Everyone who deals with other human beings in ministry will experience some variation—however slight—of this agony. And I speak to the leaders of the congregation and others who are thinking of going into leadership. Every minister will suffer this type of suffering when trying to restore sinners, we will be in struggle with the sin that is within them. The war against sin is a guerrilla war, it is not a war of very well organized armies, each with their squads going to the battlefront. It is a guerrilla war.
Hello God bless you. This is Pastor Roberto Miranda speaking to you. Thank you for listening to our messages and it gives us great joy to know that this program is being a blessing to your life. I want to leave you with the blessing words of Moses to the people of Israel: “Jehovah bless you and keep you. Jehovah make his face shine upon you and have mercy on you. The LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace." It is a privilege for me to be part of your life. I hope you stay tuned to our program "An appointment with Christ." I bless you in the name of Jesus.
The enemy is not out on a well-delineated battlefield, separated from civilian areas. The enemy is in the hearts of those we serve and those to whom we minister. Think about that for a moment. And like all guerrilla warfare, the war waged by the servant of God, the servant of God, is a dirty war. It is a war full of moral dilemmas and ambiguities. A very easy war to criticize. And it always leaves a certain bitterness and a certain guilt even within the victory.
That was discovered by America in the Vietnam War. That powerful American giant when he entered to fight an enemy who was not on a separate battlefield but in the villages of Vietnam and who came with the face of the villager and the woman carrying a basket with a baby inside, who also had a grenade, discovered that he too was handcuffed by the complexity of this new war.
That, I believe, is the root of the agony of those who serve to bring others to a full knowledge of God. On many occasions, brothers, the enemy we are fighting and the victim we are trying to rescue will have the same face. And that will be a source of agony for us.
And I believe that there we find the first positive lesson of this meditation: when we suffer at the hands of those we have tried to serve, let us know how to separate; let us make a Herculean effort to separate the person from the sin that dwells within the person. This will help us avoid unnecessary grudges; It will allow us to heal more quickly. We have to separate the sin that dwells in every man – including the one who speaks to you – from his humanity.
But sin is in all of us, many times the pastor makes the mistake, many times the layman makes the mistake or the devil manipulates concupiscence as Santiago says that it is in us and tempts us and makes us trip up each other. And it is good that from time to time we heal ourselves by separating the sin and the evil that dwells in the men and women to whom we minister and in ourselves from the person himself. I see here in this passage a catalog of the sufferings of the servant of God.
I'm going to make a list of the ones I see here. In verses 3-5 we see that the servant of God is judged by the whole world. That is why Paul says: “I have very little to be judged by you or by a human court and I don't even judge myself. But although I have a bad conscience about nothing, I am not justified for that. But the one who judges me is the Lord."
He who serves the Lord will always be judged. He is in a glass house and everyone is watching him and everyone is judging what he does and that is a source of agony. Secondly, those who serve the Lord are often underestimated by some who, at the same time, overestimate themselves. Verses 6 and 7: “For this, brothers, I have presented him as an example in myself and in Apollos so that in us you may learn not to think more than what is written. Lest you be puffed up against one another because of some. Why who distinguishes you? Or what do you have that you have not received? And if you received it, why do you glorify yourself as if you had not received it?
The Corinthians are judging Paul as they already have authority and power and prerogatives to judge this man. They have already arrived spiritually, they are fully realized: they can judge, they can underestimate. And Paul says: “What do you have that you have not received? And what do we who serve have that we have not received? What gives you the right to be judging and underestimating the value of Paul versus Apollos, etc.?
Third, the one who serves the Lord is often used and then discarded for something better, fresher. Sometimes those who serve the Lord could be compared to those little boxes that we put in -not a very elegant image- the bathrooms so that they absorb bad odors and when they are saturated, then we throw them away and take fresh ones to continue accumulating.
It happens many times in the ministry, it happens many times that those who have served the Lord know that it is so and they feel used. Paul says in verse 8: “You are already full, you are already rich. You reign without us and I wish you would reign so that we might also reign together with you. I think Pablo's despair leads him to sarcasm as well.
You are already satisfied, you have arrived, you already think you know, then well then, move aside. Now you reign without us. And I think that, if Pablo had been honest, I think that his stylistic elegance prevents him from saying 'you already reign without me', but he doesn't want to be so personal and well, he avoids the center a bit and says 'without us' but in I actually think Paul is saying "without me." But that sounds a bit inelegant and that's why I think that Pablo uses the us stylistically.
But also here we see Paul and by extension everyone who serves the Lord, many times there is something interesting and that is that God is going to use him -and we will talk about that later- God uses the ministers of the Lord as continuators of the sufferings of Christ. The minister comes to be, many times, a strange being, a spectacle, a wounded being that goes around limping, bleeding. Some have said that the life of a serf is like a wounded rabbit that walks around leaving drops of blood on the white snow.
And Paul says in verses 9 to 13: "As I think, God has exhibited us apostles as last, as those sentenced to death, for we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to men."
Again, it's very deep, where Paul compares ministers. There are two possible comparisons: they were the ones that were thrown into the Roman theater with the lions at the end of the show to be torn to pieces by the lions and they were the last in the show's order. Or also to those hostages that were brought from ancient wars to be exhibited at the end of the line by the Roman generals who returned triumphant from distant lands from where they had fought.
But the fact is that Paul speculates that perhaps God has chosen those who serve the Lord, to make of them as a spectacle to humanity and to be the object of observation of angels and he puts it in a great way to the world, to angels and men. In addition, the one who serves the Lord, the one who serves the Lord at that pastoral level and I mean again in the human relationship with others to bring them to a greater height in Jesus Christ; many times he loves as a father without being reciprocated many times.
Verse 14 and 15: “I am not writing this to shame you but to admonish you as my beloved children. Because even if you have 10 thousand tutors in Christ, you will not have many parents.
In other words, even though many come around to preach and then leave, you have only one father. I have begotten you in the gospel. I have suffered for you, I have prayed for you. This is what Paul says here. And now you are casting me aside for something you hold dearest.
And finally, many times, those of us who serve the Lord are in frequent conflict with his law. There it is in verses 18 to 21: "But some are puffed up as if I would never come to you." There's a law of threat there disguised in that, isn't there? implied. "But I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills, and I will know not the words but the power of those who are puffed up."
Verse 21: “What do you want? Shall I come to you with a rod or with love and a spirit of meekness?" There is a struggle too, there is a struggle, a fight. These are aspects of the ministry and I see here in this chapter 4 an exposition of those dangers of the ministry. And actually, I think that what Paul is doing in this passage, he is continuing that theology of the cross, which he has established from the very beginning.
No power –according to men's understanding- no elegance –according to men's rational understanding- it is the cross of Jesus Christ that prevails, the one that ultimately defeats sin and overcomes evil. And now Paul applies that theology of the cross to the ministry itself. And Paul is suggesting here that the true minister, the person who serves the Lord as God wants to be served, is not a "celebrity" as we know them in movies and movie magazines.
The one who serves the Lord is not a movie star, not a person who walks around in a $700 suit and alligator shoes and mink stoles. He doesn't get out of a Rolls-Royce. He is a wounded servant, an animal that – if he is faithful to the example set by his Lord – bleeds while he ministers to others because that is the theology of the cross that our Lord has established for us.
And over and over again, Paul establishes that fact: suffering as part of the true Christian life, the genuine Christian life. Romans 8:17: “And if we are children, we are also heirs. Heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if we suffer together with Him, so that we may be glorified together with Him."
Philippians chapter 3 verse 10, Paul prays that: “to be found in Him not to have my own righteousness which is from the law but is through faith in Christ. The righteousness that is from God by faith in order to know Jesus Christ and the power of his Resurrection and the participation of his sufferings, becoming similar to Him in his death.
Over and over again, and we could quote many verses, we don't have time to do it. But again and again, true service to the Lord, the person who serves the Lord with genuine character is a person who is going to experience the sufferings that Christ experienced. He is going to have cotonia, he is going to have rapport and harmony and affinity with the sufferings of Jesus Christ. With his loneliness, with his suffering. Brethren, here is the central truth of all this: suffering is normal in the life of Christian service.
Christ set the pattern. Christ established it in an archetypal way and what we do is simply enter into that pattern that Christ has established. Isaiah 53 has said it in insurmountable ways: “Certainly He bore our diseases and suffered our pains and we had him for scourged and wounded by God and dejected. More He was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our sins. The punishment of our peace was upon Him and by His wounds we were healed. We all stray like sheep. Each one turned to his own way, but the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all."
The suffering servant par excellence is Jesus Christ. And the servants with that small letter who imitate their Lord and who are faithful to the calling of their Lord will also be long-suffering servants. They will also be wounded healers. With one hand they will be healing their wounds and with the other hand they will be healing the wound of the one to whom they are ministering. At one moment they will give a cry of pain for their own pain and at another moment a word of comfort for the one who cries. That is the ministry and Paul is an excellent example of this and this chapter invites us to meditate on that fact.
I leave you with some conclusions and then you examine this passage at your leisure and take what the Lord tells you; because after all they are positive conclusions. What lessons do we draw from all this? What specific lessons?
I would say, first of all, and I emphasize again: by suffering disappointments, disappointments, betrayals, criticism, physical, emotional or spiritual persecution in the ministry, we are entering, brothers, in a long and illustrious tradition established by Jesus Christ in a sublime way.
We are, as Paul suggests, completing, in that interesting image, completing the sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ. Having cottony, having intimate, deep, inexplicable communion with Him.
People will see you bleeding and feeling rejected and sad; but at that moment you will be at a level of communion with Jesus Christ that you yourself will not be able to understand in a mystical way. That is the deep truth.
Look how he establishes it, not Paul but Peter, who also understood what the ministry is at that level and who then had the ability to minister to others. Here's the thing: if we don't feel that pain, if we don't identify with the agony of humanity, we can't truly comfort and minister to others who are going through that need.
And Peter says in First Peter chapter 4: “Beloved you who serve in the ministry, do not be surprised at the fiery trial that has come upon you as if something strange were happening to you. But rejoice because you are participants - that is the word because you have fellowship - of the sufferings of Christ so that also in the revelation of his glory you may rejoice with great joy ".
There is an intimate relation in the mind, both of Peter and of Paul, of that fact of participating in the sufferings of Christ and also participating in his coming glory and in his present glory. "If you are reproached for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the glorious spirit of God rests upon you" and finally verse 19 says: "So that those who suffer according to the will of God, commend their souls to the faithful Creator and do good."
Don't get tired of doing good. When disappointments, setbacks, failures, and ministry failures come, keep doing good because you serve something higher: you serve an ideal, you serve a Lord who suffered all these things and more than you can imagine. . And he went ahead.
That is, by suffering all these things, let us know that we are entering into that long tradition of the Moses and the Pauls and the Jesus and the Peters and others like that.
If we are going to be effective long-term servants, we have to preemptively arm ourselves with that recognition. That is the second thing. If you are going to serve the Lord, don't just understand that truth on a merely intellectual and general level, actively arm yourself with that recognition and then go into Christian service as a soldier goes into the front lines with bullets traveling overhead. Arm yourself with that thought: I am going to fight, I am going to war, I am going to suffer. The sufferings of the ministry will take many forms, thousands and thousands of forms, according to the faces of men, so will the different sufferings of the ministry.
As are the multiplicity of human circumstances, so can be the sufferings of the ministry. But they are all an integral part of the service that God honors. Whoever wants to be celebrated, whoever wants to be honored, whoever wants to be recognized as having done something universally good, is not a true servant of God and is more than preparing himself for the disappointment and disillusionment that will inevitably come.
One has to arm oneself with that thought: I am going to war, I am going to fight for the soul of my brothers with the sin that is in my brothers. And by arming yourself in that way, you are then ready and not so easily open to deception, to deception to victimhood. Because we are not victims, we are warriors who have callused backs because they have received so much whipping but we continue to grow and the muscles get stronger.
And we attack the enemy more effectively and we understand him better in his sick thoughts and we can be more effective in the fight because we know what we are going for. We are clear, we are not going to a picnic, we are going to a war and God has given us the power to win and the wisdom to win. But let us know that we cannot underestimate the complexity of that war or the power of that enemy.
Let's arm preemptively. First let's recognize what the ministry is, second let's arm ourselves preemptively: mentally, psychologically and spiritually upon entering. Thirdly, we could say, according to Paul, here he also establishes the essential quality of the ministry. Do you know what it is in light of those considerations? The Fidelity. Be faithful.
Holding on to the helm there, even though he no longer has the strength to stand still, but you hold on to the helm following the instructions given without asking too many questions about why things are the way they are, or whether whoever wrote the instructions knew what they meant. he was doing when he wrote them. You're still there glued to the helm.
That is why I have always said that the animal that could best represent the effective Christian is not the steed full of muscles and striking in its physical appearance, it is not the well-attractive and well-groomed horse, it is the ox: meek, which is there with his yoke on his neck, plowing and looking just straight ahead. And take a step in front of the other. The ox represents the faithfulness of the meek ox, what the Christian truly is before the instructions of his Lord.
Be faithful, be faithful until death. I will give you the crown of life. When you are in suffering, in struggle, when the bullets roar around you, follow the instructions manual: be faithful and the Lord will take care of everything else.
So fourth, I would say that people are always going to be making judgments about what we do. And that's another nice acknowledgment. Remember that, if you are going to enter the ministry, you are always going to be judged, you are always going to be tasted as wine by different people.
And that is why I believe that Paul says: "Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it as unto the Lord." Let's not worry so much about what others think, let's worry more about what our Lord thinks of us and what we do. Let's move on by making sure we stay true to that received instruction manual. Let's not worry about the judgments of others. serve you What has the Lord called you to? Serve it to that extent.
That's why Paul says in verse 3: "I think very little to be judged by you." I would question that a bit. Again here is the man Paul giving himself strength and that is what we have to do. But evidently being judged by the Corinthians is a cause of agony for him.
“I very little –perhaps intellectually- have to be judged by you or by a human court. And what's more, I don't even judge myself because although I have a bad conscience about nothing, that's not why I'm justified. But the one who judges me is the Lord." listen to that. Go ahead, when judgments fly over your head, go ahead, follow the operations manual.
And you, do you know what happens when you are faithful and stop paying too much attention to the judgments of others? I think that here is the wonderful thing about that type of behavior: it is that although for the moment it seems that we are as if in defeat and confused and winged by different opinions and different suggestions and that we are defeated. In the long run, the instruction manual that God has given us is the one that triumphs. And if we follow the instruction manual, we succeed with the instruction manual.
Ask yourself who is being talked about today as the founder of theology at the human level, speaking of the theology of the church. Who are we discussing today, praising and exalting, as an example of Christian service? Is it to those teachers itineraries? To the great intellectuals that the Corinthians let themselves be dazzled by? Even poor Apollo, who I think was simply winged in this controversy. Apollos is a footnote, Paul.
Paul, two thirds of the New Testament we have preserved, his writings. Pablo is the example that today we want to follow as a minister. Although at that time, he himself did not understand the projections of what he was writing and of his own ministry.
But Paul remained faithful to that theology of the cross, Paul remained faithful to that simple but at the same time honorable conception of the ministry of service to Jesus Christ, and Paul won 2000 years later. And we too can win if we stick to the manual that God has left us in his word.
If we serve the Lord with humility, with simplicity, with few pretensions, looking at our Master who is the example par excellence, who at the end of his ministry looked at Jerusalem from a mountain and said: "Jerusalem, Jerusalem as I would have wanted to cover you like the hen covers her chicks and you did not want to”. Just completely.
And we serve the Lord, we serve the principles of the Gospel. And if glory comes and hugs and applause come, Glory to God, we receive them but we don't let them penetrate us too much either. Just as we don't let negative judgments penetrate us either. We follow the pattern established by the Lord. The word of the Lord.
Let's forget about it, because the crowds will be changeable. One day they will tell us: "Oh, heal, oh, heal the one who comes in the name of the Lord!" and another day they will say: "Crucify him, crucify him!" If you join your emotional state to the man's frustrations, you are lost. You are going to be like a comet that goes up and down in circles. You have to stick to the sap that comes out of the word of God. And to God's promise: “If you are with me, if you suffer with me, you will reign with me too. You will win with me as I have won."
In addition to all this, brothers, understand what the ministry that is suffering is, arm ourselves with that thought actively, be faithful in our service, expect that there will be a trial but we will remain faithful to what the word of the Lord says.
Fifthly, knowing all that, now I say to those who don't serve as much; not those who are useless, in the sense of those who are useless, but those who do not work as much as those who work, those who are more at the level of services rather at other levels. To those people, all of us in some sense, someone is going to be ministering to us, remember this brothers: every person who serves the Lord, every sincere servant and who is following the example of his Lord, is a fragile being, easy to hurt, generally unsure of its effectiveness.
You will always have some doubts as to whether you are doing the right thing or not. The vast majority of those who serve the Lord, I would say, deserve the benefit of the doubt. As they say in English: the benefit of the doubt. They are doing the best they can with what little they have on hand. They are wanting to feed a crowd with five loaves and two fish. They are called to commit great, sublime, heroic things with a fallen humanity.
They are expected to carry the precious, limpid, pure water of the gospel in clay vessels. And when you are in doubt about how to interpret the performance of someone serving the Lord, I suggest: choose to be generous and tolerant rather than risk adding more burden than you already have with your own humanity and with his own anguish that he carries inside as a consequence of serving the Lord at that level.
Let us treat them delicately, with love, with tolerance, knowing that they are in an impossible situation for humans. Leaving the ministry elegantly, brothers, is very difficult, remember that. Not to say impossible. The one who serves the Lord enters a situation that is inherently going to carry a sense of failure.
Do you not see what Jesus Christ says?: "When you have done everything that was asked of you, you are useless servants." That was not just a pretty, poetic image, no, that was a reality.
Every day that I finish Pastoring, I know that I am a failure in a sense –although I believe that the glory and triumph comes from the Lord- still, I know that I have not done everything that I could have done. And I know that I have given bad advice and I know that I have not called all the people that I should have called and that I have not visited all the people that I could visit. We are useless servants and the fact that we will not achieve what our Lord deserves will make us feel inadequate.
So those who are served owe not only to the Pastor but to others who serve and work in different ministries in the church. They must be given the benefit of the doubt, they must be treated with a certain generosity, a certain tolerance because they are designed to do a job, there, with great difficulty with their humanity. This is part of the positive attitude. In this way we can have happy leaders who can continue to grow and who feel happy to minister to the Lord.
And finally we say that the mature, spiritual, profound attitude will always be one, listen: to leave the last word to the Lord and to postpone all final judgment until Christ comes. I think that passage teaches us that too. The mature attitude will always be one of leaving the last word to the Lord and postponing judgments until Christ comes. I believe that being free to criticize and comment on the ministry of others in the church is not from the Lord.
True maturity implies an attitude of sobriety and discretion, of healthy humility that says: "By the grace of God I don't make the same mistake" and that waits for the Lord to have the last word. It is that attitude that admires those who dare to get into the heat of the fight, to serve, it is the one that respects those who have the audacity to get involved in such exalted things with their fallen humanity.
And instead of criticizing him when he's wrong, he helps him get up. It is the attitude that is promised not to be a stumbling block for those who enter, with good attitudes and good will and good intentions to serve in this incarnated struggle that is the ministry.
So brothers, I leave you with those positive conclusions. In all this I see the sublime character of the gospel, I don't see that easy and superficial gospel that so many despise with that little silver star from Hollywood, no. I see something serious for heroic men and women, for spiritual giants who enter the fight knowing what they are going for and that for me is what makes me truly be in the ministry. If it were a picnic, if it were a Rotary or Knights of Columbus club, I would not be serving in the pastorate. There is nothing more exalted than serving the Lord and you who are sitting there and are considering serving the Lord, when I tell you this, do not let this frighten you, but rather the opposite: that I call you to a life of service, lucid .
That you know well what you are going for and that you know that when you are fighting and they are hitting you from behind and the swords are hitting you and the bullets roar around you, Christ is there with you with all his power, telling you: “You are going to win, but keep your eyes on me.” And at that time, no one will be greater than you. No one will have the glory of God resting on him or her with greater power than you.
When you are weak, then you will be eminently strong. There is nothing negative about that, there is nothing defeatist pessimistic about it. Quite the contrary, it attracts us to a lucid and clear struggle.
I will leave you with verse 5 of this passage that seems totally striking to me: “So, brothers, do not judge anything before the time, until the Lord comes. Which will also clarify the hidden of darkness and manifest the intentions of the hearts "and look what a beautiful hope:" And then each one will receive his praise from God ". The Lord bless His word.
