Serving in the Lord’s Strength
August 15, 2024 | by: Alex Keimach | 0 Comments
Posted in: Guest Writers
Many of us, whether we’ve been following Jesus for four years or forty, have experienced periods in our Christian life of stagnation, weariness, apathy, or even burnout. Sometimes the busyness and burdens of life make it challenging to serve our brothers and sisters in the church as actively or eagerly as we’d like. Sometimes we lack the motivation to spend time in fellowship or even in corporate worship. This may not be the norm, but it is normal. It may not feel good, but it can still bring God glory, especially when it brings us to realize the limitations of our own strength and energy. We’re only human after all.
Paul, perhaps the busiest and most active servant of the Lord in the first century church, recognized this. There’s no way he could have accomplished all that he did in his own strength, apart from God’s energizing and sustaining grace. In his words,
“Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.” (Colossians 1:28-29).
This paradox provides some insight into how we should be leading the Christian life and serving in our church community. Paul is indeed working hard – the words toil and struggle tell us that he's the one sweating in his gospel-proclaiming, disciple-making ministry – and yet he's not working in his own strength, but with the energy that God works within him. There's no faster way to get burned out on Christianity than by trying to "do enough" in your own strength. So how do we serve in the Lord's strength and not our own? Practically, what does that look like, and how do we discern if we're doing it? I want to suggest two ways to examine ourselves to be sure we're serving in the Lord's strength: faithfulness and fruitfulness.
Serving in the Lord's strength means humbly pursuing faithfulness in the ministry to which he has called you, motivated by gratitude and by the promises of Christ.
In 1 Timothy 1:13-14, Paul says "I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service, though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus."
When you're serving, do you remember that your ministry is a gift of grace? You're appointed to serve not because God judges you capable or worthy, but because he judges you faithful and he desires to bless you. Whether you are an elder or deacon, a musician or greeter, working the soundboard or mowing the grass, if you bring food to a picnic or even if you just show up - as you bless others, he uses your faithfulness to help you grow in Christlikeness.
So how can you know the ways in which you’re called to love and serve others? Start by keeping an eye out for the words “one another” when you read your bible. At least forty times in the New Testament, believers are instructed how we should encourage one another and treat one another with love, humility, and respect. Next, consider your own internal desires, motivations, and capabilities, shaped through prayer as you grow in wisdom and holiness. Finally, be attentive to external needs and opportunities, whether through church, other ministries, or personal relationships.
Faithfulness may look different at different times in our lives. Maybe you have the ability and passion to help out with church events or to go on short-term mission trips. Maybe you don’t. Maybe it fills you with energy and joy to teach a lesson, make some crafts, and play some games with a bunch of covenant kids in Promiseland. Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe you can open your home for fellowship with a life group, or make time in your schedule for discipleship over coffee. Maybe you can’t. It’s OK to take a break. It’s OK to say no. If you’re afraid of letting others down, you’re already forgiven. The Lord will take care of his church. He invites you to participate, and offers to strengthen and bless you as you do.
Serving in the Lord's strength results in fruitfulness, produced not by human effort but by the abiding work of the Holy Spirit.
In Ephesians 4:16-19, Paul prays for the church "that according to the riches of his glory [God] may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith – that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God."
Notice his prayer is not that they would have strength to work harder and to devote more time and energy to ministry, but strength to understand the unfathomable love of Jesus. This is where fruitfulness begins.
Maybe you’ve heard the illustration before - an apple tree doesn’t grimace and groan, flexing its branches in the effort to make apples and thinking to itself “just do it, just make the apples, come on make the apples!” When it is well-rooted and watered and tended by the gardener, the apples come naturally. The root produces the fruit. When we're rooted and grounded in the love of Christ, the Spirit bears fruit in our lives and in our ministries that no human effort could produce.
So, if we want to serve in the Lord's strength, we must first remember the gospel, the good news that Jesus Christ, the ever-faithful Son, came to redeem sinners for communion with the Father and for fellowship with one another, and to bear witness to his kingdom through the work of the Holy Spirit. He has already done all the work needed to accomplish this. We are blessed to participate in this work by faithfully putting our hands to the plow, planting and watering as we love and serve one another, and trusting that God will give the growth, producing fruit through our labors.
-Alex Keimach
