Works And Wonders: The Balancing Act

By Stephen van Rhyn

Cape Town, South Africa

I love watching people getting baptised and I’m privileged to be a part of a local church where this is a fairly regular occurrence. It’s especially a joy to hear remarkable stories of God’s transforming grace in individuals’ lives before they are immersed.

I’m also often struck how our labour for God bears fruit. As people are telling their stories, they will often mention a specific service or evangelistic endeavour that we put on that proved to be significant for them in hearing and responding to the gospel. Despite the fact that our salvation is all of God, He is often pleased to use our acts of faith to accomplish His purposes.

Leadership in this respect can seem like a balancing act. As leaders we are meant to work diligently but also live with the expectation that God is going to act supernaturally apart from our contribution.

Leaders live with this paradox. Take preaching, for example. One of the early church fathers taught young preachers to prepare their sermons as if everything depended on them but to pray as if everything depended on God. As Christian leaders we live in a world where we have an important part to play and work to do but, if anything of eternal value is to happen, its source will be God alone.

It’s a paradox that requires careful navigation on our part, and it’s all too easy to err on one side of this balancing act or the other. Some reading this article will know the pain and frustration of trying to do everything in your own strength only to be left burnt-out and disappointed, while for others work is a four-letter word to be avoided! God, however, wants us to avoid both of these extremes by renewing our minds as they relate to work and to God.

Work

It is vital that we have a correct theology of work. Work is God’s idea and part of His original purpose (Ps. 104:19-24). Adam is instructed prior to the Fall to work and take care of the Garden of Eden (Gen. 2:15). Although the Fall has altered our experience of work, and it is now characterised by toil and sweat (Gen. 3:17-19), work in and of itself isn’t a curse but a blessing. In fact, it would seem that our experience of eternity is going to involve work (Matt. 25:23, Rev. 22:3).

Jesus Himself modelled the value of work by working as a carpenter (Mark 6:3) and declared in John 4:34, ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.’ Throughout Scripture a general sowing and reaping theme can be observed, with hard work encouraged and idleness corrected. Be inspired and challenged by these verses.

• Proverbs 21:25 ‘The sluggard's craving will be the death of him, because his hands refuse to work.’

• Proverbs 22:29 ‘Do you see a man skilled in his work? He will serve before kings; he will not serve before obscure men.’

• Colossians 3:23 ‘Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men.’

• 1 Corinthians 15:58 ‘Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labour in the Lord is not in vain.’

Work, rightly understood, is a means of grace and part of God’s intention for our life, to achieve our maturity and His glory. If this is generally true for the Christian life, it is particularly true for the Christian leader.

It is clear from even a superficial reading of the epistles that Paul placed a high value on work for those with leadership responsibility. In 2 Thessalonians 3:6-15, Paul not only confronts idleness in the believing community but reminds the church of the model of hard work he and his apostolic band provided in order that it might be emulated. Paul worked hard and did more than was required in order to provide an example for the believers. As a wise master builder, Paul knew that modelling precedes instruction and was, therefore, very intentional about his work ethic. He was also unashamed in reminding local churches of his hard work! (1 Thess. 2:9, 1 Cor. 15:10).

Leaders must work hard!

For Paul, true Christian leadership is to be characterised by hard work. This emphasis can be clearly seen by Paul’s instruction in 1 Thessalonians 5:12-13, ‘Now we ask you, brothers, to respect those who work hard among you, who are over you in the Lord and who admonish you. Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work.’

Commentator Gene Green summarises these two verses by saying, ‘In the Thessalonian church, those who were distinguished by their labours for the church, their leadership and provision, and their moral influence over others were those who should be recognized as the true leaders in the church. Neither status nor their title but rather their service among the believers is what separated them for ministry. True Christian leadership is not show but substance, not self-serving but self-sacrificial.'

Spurgeon

Charles Spurgeon was a great model of a hard-working leader. John Piper notes that in the year Spurgeon turned 40 he delivered a message to his pastors' conference with the one-word title, ‘Forward!’ In it he said,

‘In every minister's life there should be traces of stern labour. Brethren, do something; do something; DO SOMETHING. While Committees waste their time over resolutions, do something. While Societies and Unions are making constitutions, let us win souls. Too often we discuss, and discuss, and discuss, while Satan only laughs in his sleeve… Get to work and quit yourselves like men.’

Spurgeon certainly practiced what he preached because ten years later at his 50th birthday a list of 66 organisations was read that he founded and conducted. Lord Shaftesbury, a social activist himself, commented, ‘This list of associations, instituted by his genius, and superintended by his care, were more than enough to occupy the minds and hearts of fifty ordinary men.’

Now before you collapse under a heap of condemnation remember, we are seeking to maintain balance. If we are to lead in the way God intends, it requires a proper understanding of both work and of God and the role He plays in kingdom work. Let’s turn our attention to this second key area – God.

God

Although Paul was someone who called for and modelled hard work, he was also someone who knew that God doesn’t need our help at all! In reaching out to the people of Athens in Acts 17:24-25 Paul proclaims, ‘The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.’

God is sovereign and totally self-sufficient. He doesn’t need our help to build the church. He has called us into ministry not because He is deficient within Himself or because He needs our help, but rather as an expression of His grace. Not only does God not need our help, but any kingdom success we may achieve has its source solely in God. In 1 Corinthians 3:6-7, Paul reminds the church, ‘I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.’ Jesus Himself said in John 15:5, ‘I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.’

Look up, not down

I believe God’s primary purpose in these verses isn’t that we would feel our smallness and our nothingness, but rather that we would lift our eyes from our weakness, deficiencies and vulnerabilities and focus on the greatness of God. Once we realise that we have no resources in and of ourselves to do the work that God has called us to, we are forced to focus on God and God alone.

By lifting our gaze to God we will make the wonderful discovery that God has infinite resources to build His church and glorify His name. He is eager to empower us to do His work. 2 Chronicles 16:9 states, ‘For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.’ We are called to serve, not in our own strength, but with the strength God provides. Paul, himself, was able to say in Colossians 1:28, 29, ‘We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. To this end I labour, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me.’

Audacious acts of faith

By being in vital relationship with God we discover divine energy to accomplish that to which He has called us. The reality of God’s active, personal empowering ought to raise our expectations for supernatural results. We may be ordinary people but we serve an extraordinary God, and therefore His resources and not our own ought to set our expectations.

The fact of God’s active involvement in the work to which He has called us ought to produce audacious acts of faith on our behalf. The God factor shouldn’t produce passivity or lower our expectations, quite the opposite. As a result of being connected to God, the Christian leader has the joy and adventure of regularly stepping out of the boat and walking on water! Our leadership journey with the Lord is often about trusting Him to bring about things that only He can produce.

I close with a prayer Paul prayed in 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12 in which the balancing act of our action and God’s power are married for God’s glory. May this prayer be our shared experience.

‘With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that our God may count you worthy of his calling, and that by his power he may fulfill every good purpose of yours and every act prompted by your faith. We pray this so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.’