The Payoff of Ministry

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I’ve been talking to you for several weeks about ministry and about the call that each of us has in our lives to ministry. If you’re a believer in Jesus Christ, then you are indwelled by the Holy Spirit and He comes into your life with gifts and a calling to equip you to go out and do ministry. It’s just our job then to figure out what exactly that looks like for us and then to go do it.

But if you’re a believer in Jesus Christ, it’s not a question of whether or not you’ve been called to ministry. It’s a question of what that call is, what that looks like, and whether or not you’re going to be obedient to it. But as I’ve been talking to you about ministry so much, it occurs to me I ought to go over why, other than obedience.

I know that’s the Sunday school answer. That’s the easy answer. But in reality, part of our human nature is that we’re looking for the payoff in everything that we do.

It’s part of the way God designed us. I know that sounds negative. well, we should do it just because it’s the right thing to do.

I heard Adrian Rogers say one time, talking about how God puts incentives for obedience, and how some people say, well, no, you should just be obedient because it’s the right thing. And we should, but God also rewards us for obedience, at least long term, and offers punishments for disobedience because God understands the way He’s wired us. We need incentives.

And when we try to get rid of those incentives and say, just do it because it’s right without any thought of the incentives and the payoff. Adrian Rogers said, some people are trying to be more spiritual than God. All right.

God has designed us to look for the payoff. Over the weekend since we’ve been home, some things have showed up at my house, including a peach cobbler and a key lime pie. So clearly I had some decisions to make.

And depending on which one I chose, the payoff was going to be either getting my eating habits back on track a couple days sooner or I get to have dessert. And I decided the payoff I really wanted was dessert. And so I made that choice.

But I evaluated which payoff was really worth it. You know, we do this in all sorts of areas of life. My dad, many of you have seen him or met him.

He’s been here the last few weeks. My dad is a marathon runner. You would not have expected that if you’d known him 15, 20 years ago.

My dad was not health-wise in great shape when he was in his late 40s. Now he’s almost retirement age and running marathons. But he decided he was tired of his weight and his blood pressure, and I remember him walking with a cane at my sister’s high school graduation, and he just decided he was tired of it, and he started going on walks and then started going on jogs, and then he started running, and the weight came off, and the knee got better, and the blood pressure got regulated and all this.

And dad, a few years into this, you know, he’d call me and we’d be talking and he’d say, I ran eight miles this morning. And I’d say, on purpose? You mean with your legs and feet and nothing was chasing you?

Because that’s the, I tried to run a 5k with him one time. One time. You get that one time.

I was the last person to finish that 5k that wasn’t in a wheelchair or stroller. It was a disaster. Okay.

But he’d just go out and run. I ran eight miles today. Oh, I only got five miles in today.

Only five miles. My dad will come down and run up Mount Scott in the morning and then come help me with yard work the rest of the day. Whatever.

Dad, you’ve already taken care of your knee and your weight and your blood pressure. Why are you still pushing yourself? Why are you still running.

And it came down to the payoff because he had said in his mind when he was so unhealthy, he had a goal in mind that he was going to run a marathon. He’s now run at least two. He’s run more half marathons than I could count.

But for him, the payoff was crossing through that finish line. He didn’t care about being first, but to cross through that finish line and get that medal and get the free Chick-fil-A sandwich or the free donut or whatever they give you. I can’t imagine wanting to eat all that junk food after running that far, but they give you that stuff.

For him, that was the payoff to be able to say, I did that. I got from here to here. And in those days when it was hard to run the five miles, the eight miles, to keep going, to get up early and to do all that, it was thinking about the payoff that kept him going.

And it’s the same thing for us in ministry. If we’re going to do ministry, if we’re going to think about why am I going to do this, because it’s not always going to be easy, it’s not always going to be pleasant, we have to understand that there’s a payoff in mind. Now I’m not talking to you about a payoff in the TBN sense, the guy that says, send the Lord your money, but write my name on the check.

You know that guy. I’m not talking about a monetary payoff necessarily. If you’re in ministry for the monetary payoff, you’re doing it wrong.

If you’re going into it saying, I’m going to do this to get rich, you’re doing it wrong. These guys that fly around in private jets and multi-million dollar, Well, they don’t fly around in multi-million dollar homes, but they fly between their multi-million dollar homes and their private jets. Think, how are you getting that much money?

And why aren’t you putting it to some better use? And then I realize a lot of people are being told what they want to hear, and they’ll pay to hear it. When I say the payoff, I’m talking about something different.

And this morning, we’re going to look at what the Apostle Paul said about his payoff, and I believe is our payoff in ministry. And if you haven’t been with us through this series, I want to make sure we all understand when I’m talking about ministry, some people have the idea that it means being up here preaching a sermon or leading music or teaching Sunday school. Those things all fall under the heading of ministry.

But ministry is really any effort we make that’s designed to point people to Jesus Christ. People that came out to work the community lunch yesterday, that was ministry. When I told you the story early on in this series about the lady showing up needing a bulb changed in her headlight, and it was irritating to have to go work on these cars. These people just kept showing up at the church.

And our youth pastor telling me, this is ministry. Anything we do for somebody else in the name of Jesus Christ is ministry. So yes, you have a ministry and there is a payoff.

Turn with me, if you would please, to 1 Thessalonians 3. 1 Thessalonians 3. If you don’t have your Bible or don’t know where to find 1 Thessalonians, it’ll be on the screen for you.

If you have access to our bulletin on your phone, you can also click on the little link there and it’ll take you right to 1 Thessalonians 3. Once you turn there, if you would stand with me as we read together from God’s Word. 1 Thessalonians 3, starting in verse 6, says, But now that Timothy has come to us from you and brought us good news of your faith and love, and that you always have good remembrance of us, greatly desiring to see us as we also to see you, Therefore, brethren, in all our affliction and distress, we were comforted concerning you by your faith.

For now we live if you stand fast in the Lord. For what thanks can we render to God for you, for all the joy with which we rejoice for your sake before God, night and day praying exceedingly, that we may see your face and perfect what is lacking in your faith. And you may be seated.

Now if you read beyond this little section of the text, in 1 Thessalonians, one of the things that you’ll encounter is the fact that Paul at this time was, he was in a time of suffering. Now, Paul was usually in a time of suffering in his service of the Lord once he came to Christ. But sometimes were more difficult than others. Sometimes his suffering was just opposition and people didn’t like him.

Other times his suffering was that people were trying to run him out of town, trying to kill him, or trying to throw him in prison. This is during one of those times. And Paul was suffering, but in the midst of his suffering, he received a report from Timothy about the people, about the Christians at Thessalonica and about their spiritual condition that God had used him to help contribute to.

God had used Paul to help raise up and encourage and grow the people at Thessalonica. And now Paul gets a report back about how they were doing. And it was this report that encouraged him and made him joyful even in a time when he was suffering.

And Paul’s example shows us that the greatest payoff in ministry is seeing people grow closer to Jesus. I told you there’s a payoff in ministry as there is in anything that we’re going to put our hearts into. There’s got to be a payoff for us to stick with it even when it’s difficult.

And it’s not a monetary payoff. Some guys make lots of money doing it, but that’s really not what ministry is about. Ministry is about seeing people grow closer to Jesus.

It’s not about the finances. It’s not about the encouragement, although it’s nice when somebody comes along and says, hey, great sermon today. It’s even nicer when somebody says, hey, let me tell you what God showed me from the sermon today.

Somebody’s listening. That’s amazing. It’s not about somebody saying, hey, thank you for what you did.

Thank you for all your work in the closed closet. Thank you for all your work with community feed. hey, thank you for always teaching us in children’s church.

It’s not about the recognition. It’s about seeing the result that comes of our ministry because our goal is to help people grow closer to Jesus. And the payoff is actually seeing that happen.

And when we serve and when we serve faithfully and when we serve faithfully long enough, we will eventually, I believe, see that. We don’t always get to see the fruits of our labors every day. I know some of you have questioned why I enjoy yard work so much.

It’s because I can see what I’ve accomplished. You can work in ministry for years and years and years and wonder, is anybody listening? Do they get it?

Am I doing any good here? I spend time in my yard, I can see what I’ve mowed. I can see what trees I’ve cut down.

I can see the results. In ministry, you’re not going to see. That’s not just a pastor thing.

In ministry, as you’re serving and you’re trying to point other people to Jesus with your efforts, you’re not going to see tangible results every day. But keep serving long enough and you’ll see some results. And the result, the payoff we’re working for, is that joy of seeing somebody grow closer to Jesus.

Watching people grow closer to Jesus, Paul said, made all of his struggles worth it. Look at verse 7, he says, Therefore, brethren, in all our affliction and distress, we were comforted concerning you by your faith. Paul’s not wallowing in the affliction and distress.

He’s not focused on that. He’s not waiting for a day when the affliction and distress disappeared. He’s saying in the midst of this trouble we were having, in the midst of these bad days, in the midst of all this suffering, we still found joy, we still found comfort because we got the report of what was going on in your life, in your heart.

We saw the faith growing. We heard that you were growing closer to Jesus and that made it all worth it. We were comforted even in the midst of our affliction and distress.

It is easy to be encouraged in good circumstances. You ever had those times when all the bills are paid and your children are behaving and there’s still some money left in the bank and nobody’s hassling you, things are going well at work? Have you ever had a day like that?

I remember it was a Tuesday for me. It’s easy to be encouraged in days like that. It’s easy to feel hopeful in days like that.

But the real test is to be encouraged in afflictions and distress as Paul was. When you’re serving and ministry’s going well, you’re seeing good things happen and there’s always enough volunteers in what you’re doing and there’s always enough funding and there’s always enough supplies. It’s easy to feel encouraged in times like that.

But it’s the realization that what we do is having the desired result. It’s seeing people come closer to Jesus Christ. It’s that that’s going to get us through the more difficult times. So why was Paul so encouraged that they were doing well?

It wasn’t some of the things that we think of as success in ministry. That, oh, everybody’s behaving themselves. Listen, you can have a lot of people behave themselves all the way to hell.

I love the show MASH. I watch it a lot, the reruns. And I love the character of Father Mulcahy, the priest, the chaplain there at the MASH.

but they’re always talking about how it’s his fault that everybody’s not behaving. And sometimes people will come in to evaluate him, and they’ll see the gambling and the diseases that run rampant in the camp, and they’ll say, why aren’t you on this? And sometimes they’ll say he’s doing a good job because everybody’s behaving.

Listen, he didn’t present the gospel one time in that show. They were gauging his success on whether or not everybody was behaving, but that didn’t mean he’d moved anybody closer to Jesus Christ. As a matter of fact, I don’t know that the name of Jesus was ever mentioned on the show. sometimes we can look at it and say well everybody in my church is behaving they’re being moral people there are going to be a lot of moral people at least from a human standpoint moral people in hell because they don’t know jesus christ morality is important but it’s not the goal morality will come as a result of people knowing jesus christ he wasn’t encouraged because they’re suddenly behaving like good citizens he wasn’t encouraged because of their morality because of their education Well, my people are getting smarter.

That’s good too. We want you to know more about the Bible so you can apply it. But all of that’s meaningless if you don’t know Jesus Christ. Listen, Satan knows the Bible.

Satan knows the Bible well enough to try to twist it. He thought he was smart enough to trick Jesus. I don’t know how he thought that was going to work, but education is good.

But that’s not what encouraged Paul. I heard you know lots of Bible facts. He wasn’t encouraged by their prosperity.

Sometimes we gauge the success of a ministry or of a church on how many people are there, how much money’s in the plate, how many fancy cars are in the parking lot, or how many big facilities we can build. Listen, that’s not what encouraged Paul. It was their faith.

It was them growing closer to Jesus that encouraged him in the midst of his struggling. To the point where in verse 8 he says, For now we live, even though we’re in this situation where we’ve been left for dead in prison, we live because of your faith if you stand fast in the Lord.

that’s what Paul wanted he wanted to see the people he served grow so close to Jesus Christ that they too would stand fast in the Lord in their times of difficulty and so his joy was not in earthly measures of success but it was in the privilege of of telling people about Jesus and seeing them grow in their faith that is so important for us to understand because if we look at this from the world’s standpoint where where we gauge the success of our ministry whether it’s our ministry collectively as a church or your ministry that you do within the church or your that you do outside the walls of the church, if we gauge our ministry and its success by the things the world looks at, our morality, our education, our prosperity, any of these things, then we’re going to get discouraged or we’re going to focus on the wrong things. It’s about seeing people grow closer to Jesus.

And that’s what encouraged Paul. And there are churches right now in closed countries. There are churches right now in communist countries.

There are churches meeting in shacks where they sit on dirt floors with no air conditioning for hours on end. And we would look at that and we would probably pity them, but they are incredibly successful because people are coming to know Jesus Christ and they’re doing something with it. They’re going out and they in turn are serving because they’re growing in Him.

The greatest payoff for us in ministry is seeing people come to know Jesus Christ. And if you’re sitting there this morning and thinking, well, that’s not all that exciting, that’s not much of an incentive, then you’ve never experienced it. You’ve never seen what that looks like. Because let me tell you, it’s addictive.

That payoff will make us hungry for more. When you see it, it’ll make you hungry for more. Paul even said he found joy in seeing God at work, and it made him want to see more.

That’s why in verse 9, he talks about, what thanks can we render to God for you, for all the joy which we now rejoice for your sake before our God. He’s praying and he’s rejoicing. He’s giving thanks for what God has already done.

But he also wants to see more, because he goes on in verse 10 to say, and day praying exceedingly that we may see your face and perfect or complete what is lacking in your faith. He said, we are so excited about the growth we’ve already seen in you, but the growth we see makes us realize how much further there is to go. By the way, the same is true in our own lives, not just in the people we’re ministering to.

But they saw what God was doing among the Thessalonians and it made them hungry for more. It made them want to see God’s power more. It made them want to see God’s sovereignty more.

It made them want to see the Spirit of God moving more. I’ve seen this in my own life in ministry. I remember the most dramatic story I can remember.

Several years back, there was a man who showed up at church from kind of a rough background, I later found out. He’s a nice enough guy, but he had a past. He had a very recent past. He showed up at church and he was there for a few weeks and one of the men invited him to a Bible study group we had that was meeting at my house at that time. And I thought, okay, the guy has this kind of record and I noticed you didn’t invite him to your house.

You invited him to mine. Thanks for that. But he showed up, he came to the Bible study because he was invited.

He got involved. One of the men in our group ended up leading him to Christ. I had the privilege of baptizing him. Next thing I know, he’s sitting on the front row at church, and as I’m preaching, he’s scribbling down notes.

I mean, he would end up with more notes at the end than I took into the pulpit in the beginning. It was incredible. He was just hungry to learn, and he was writing down questions through the week, and coming and bringing them to me, and asking me, and just hungry to learn.

He’s like, could we do Bible study an extra night a week? I want to know more. He’s coming to me saying, can you help me learn how to share my faith?

tell others about Jesus and what he’s done. Watching this transformation in this man to the point that he later came to me and said, you know what, if I’m going to follow Christ, I’ve got some warrants I need to go take care of. Went to go turn himself in.

God did something amazing in that man. And as I watched his growth, not only did I want to see and encourage more of it from him, I thought, this is what I want to see in everybody that’s out there. This is what I want to see in me.

This power of God at work. It affected me as I was preaching. It affected me as I was preparing.

It affected me as I was trying to decide what to do ministry-wise through the week, how we were engaging things. It was incredible to watch. It’s not always that dramatic, though.

But anytime you see God at work in somebody’s life, when you’re in ministry, you’re going to want to see it more. As people come to me and say, hey, I’m dealing with this issue. The Lord’s dealing with me about this issue and I’ve got this question from Scripture.

That’s encouraging because it tells me that people are reading and learning and growing, and they’re wanting to become more like Jesus Christ. They’re wanting to know Him and follow Him. And it gets me excited every time. And it makes me a little bit greedy to want to see more.

But I think that’s the way it’s supposed to work. Because Paul himself, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit here, said, I see what God’s doing, and I can’t wait to see what He’s going to do next. We can’t wait to complete what’s lacking in your faith, to help you grow in some of these areas where you’re still lacking.

So if you’re sitting there saying, okay, we do ministry, we see people come closer to Jesus. Listen, if we can say it that nonchalantly, if we can take it or leave it, we’ve never taken it. But I can guarantee you, you get involved in serving, you get involved in doing ministry, and you see people start growing closer to Jesus Christ, you’re going to want more.

You’re going to want more. And you’re going to want more for yourself. It’s going to light a fire under you to grow closer to Him as well.

And we need to remember in all this, that as important as this payoff is, we can’t afford to quit if the payoff doesn’t come immediately. I’ve already kind of hit on this a little bit, that you’re not necessarily going to see the results every day. And you’re not necessarily going to see them right away.

Paul was obedient in ministry, even though success wasn’t guaranteed. When he started out, he didn’t know what was going to happen. We see this from verse 6, where he says, now that Timothy has come to us from you and brought us good news of your faith and love, and that you always have good remembrance of us, greatly desiring to see us as we also to see you.

Paul had spent a long time faithfully serving in Thessalonica. That’s why he says here in verse 6 they had good remembrance of him. He had been there, he had been working, he had served, he had done all the things that he was supposed to, and they remembered him fondly because of it.

But it was only now, sometime later, that Paul was beginning to see the results of his labors. It was only after he left Thessalonica that he saw the results of his labors. When Timothy brought word of this tremendous spiritual growth.

He didn’t even get to see it firsthand. Now, he was still as excited as he could be to hear about it. But what if Paul had been there on day one or week one or month one and had said, you just don’t seem to be getting it.

I’m out of here. Would he have ever gotten to the payoff? Would he have ever seen what God intended to use him for?

Now, that’s important, again, because of the way we’re wired. We don’t like to put off gratification. I was talking with somebody last week about part of the reason I never really went out for sports is because I don’t like to do things that I’m not great at right off the bat.

Not to say that I’m great at everything I do, but I don’t like to. . .

If I am embarrassingly lacking in skill at something, I may do that one time. And so there are a lot of things that in my life I’ve said, you know what, I’m just not going to invest much time into that. And you’re probably the same way.

Now there are some things that are still so important to us that we say, I’m not great at that, but I’m going to keep going because it’s important enough that I get good at it. But our natural inclination for a lot of us is to say, I’m no good at this, or I’m not seeing the payoff, and so we quit, or we walk away to go do something else. Listen, when you find out what God has called you to do, when you realize what He has equipped you to do, and gifted you to do, and put you here to do, and you start doing it, Don’t think just because you don’t see people flocking to Jesus Christ immediately on day one that your efforts are wasted or that you’re in the wrong spot or nobody’s listening.

Our job is to be obedient and keep doing what he’s told us to do until he tells us to do something else. And trust the payoff to him. Trust that in his time we’ll see the result.

We may not see some of the results until we get to heaven. We’re not going to see it every day and may not see it immediately. But there will come a payoff.

And this means that Paul simply did ministry because it’s what he was supposed to do, not knowing when or if he would see the results of his labors, not knowing what those would look like. He simply obeyed God and left the results to him, which is something I’ve heard Charles Stanley say a lot of times. Obey God and leave the results to him.

It’s simple and it’s profound, and yet it’s hard to do. Find out what it is that God has put you here to do, and then do it with all your heart, knowing that there’s going to be a payoff even if you don’t see it immediately. Because our goal is to help people come to know Jesus Christ, to trust Jesus Christ, to be more like Jesus Christ, and that requires time.

Hasn’t it required time for you? I became a Christian 30 years ago. Let me tell you, I’ve still got a long way to go, but I can look back and see that I’m not where I was.

It has taken God a long time to get me to this point. Sometimes spiritual growth takes a while. Sometimes God moves at a pace that is not according to our timetable.

And if He does that with us, we’ve got to realize that He does that with other people as well. The goal we’re working toward is a long-term goal of seeing people become more like Jesus Christ. So don’t give up, don’t get discouraged just because you don’t see the results while you’re in Thessalonica. We’ve got to understand that our goal in ministry is to see people grow closer to Jesus Christ. That is what success actually looks like, is pointing others to Him.

And our job is to pursue that and to be amazed by what God does in us and through us along the way. Trust Him to work out the results as we’re being obedient. And never stop trying to point others to Jesus Christ. Never stop trying to tell people that Jesus Christ loved them enough to die for them so that they could be forgiven, so that they could have a relationship with the Father, so that God could transform them into what He designed them to be.

Because each of us have sinned, each of us have disobeyed God, and our sin separates us from God. And you and I could never do enough good to undo the wrong that we’ve done. So the only option to end that separation and bring us back to God was for God to deal with our sin himself.

And he sent his son, Jesus Christ, to take full responsibility for my sin and for yours. And he was nailed to the cross where he shed his blood and he died to pay for that sin and take all the punishment that we deserved. And because he was that perfect sacrifice, our slate is wiped clean.

And God offers us forgiveness. He offers us eternal life and a relationship with Him and spiritual transformation. If we will simply believe that Jesus died in our place and rose again three days later to prove it and ask for the forgiveness that He offers.

You have not the assurance of the preacher or the church, but you have the promise of God’s Word that if you believe in Christ as your one and only Savior and ask God’s forgiveness, you will have it. I’m going to ask our musicians to come forward. That’s the message we have to tell people.

That’s the message that some of you today need to hear. That Jesus Christ died to pay for your sins so you could be reconciled to God. And so God could make you more like Jesus.