I love what God has called me to do.  I am anxious to get to Sunday.  Tomorrow is Sunday.  What a privilege to offer up the energy of my life to pastoral ministry.  Early in my forty-one years of pastoral ministry, and back when I was an associate, the senior pastor would be gone some Sundays and I would preach.  I would be so eager for the coming opportunity that I would find it difficult to sleep on Saturday.  I can sleep better now on Saturdays, but that fire for Sunday morning that God embeds is still present.  What a glory to spend one’s life in such an endeavor.

But we are all called to ministry.  Ministry is not just for the clergy while the laity watch, we are in this together.  We all have a part.  We have all been given gifts, all different kinds of gifts to use.  The encouraging reality is that the Lord can use us-all of us, because it is the Lord’s mercies that make ministry impact possible.

As I anticipate the July 1^st onboarding of our “Senior Pastor in Waiting” at Calvary, I have been reading through the pastoral epistles and listening for how Paul was next to Timothy in such extraordinary ways.  I have the privilege of eight months with our coming leader before he gets underway as Senior Pastor.  One foundational truth reached out this morning and grabbed my heart.  I was reading from the New Living Translation.

The apostle Paul puts twelve words together that are golden, “God had mercy on me so that Christ Jesus could use me…”  Now mercy is what we get that we do not deserve.  Alas, we are all servants, unworthy of Christ.  But, enter His mercy, and thereafter, our usefulness. 

Ministry progress does not run on the rails of personal charisma, cute outlines, HD upper tier graphics, our personalities, buff bodies and 75 horse Evinrude smoke machines.  Ministry runs…on God’s mercy.  It is through His mercy that we have been redeemed.  It is by His mercy that the servant offers his or her gifts.  In the end, if anything is accomplished; if anything will last…into eternity, it is a footnote on great mercy striking yet again. 

“God had mercy on me so that Christ Jesus could use me…”.   Sure, Paul goes on to explain that God’s mercy shown to him became the test case for God’s grace being greater than our sin, even for the worst of sinners.  But in these twelve words, the affirmation that Christ could use us makes our heart sing.  The confusion about how that could ever be is explained by this provision of great mercy that enables it to be. 

Ministry effort is a glorious investment of our time, our talents, and our treasure.  All of us are called in to seek to make a difference.  For reasons that please the Lord, and often unknown completely to us, God blesses some of our efforts and real enduring and substantial change breaks out in people’s hearts.  All faithfulness matters to Christ, but faithfulness is not a guarantee that in the moment we are going to realize the eternal impact that our ministry efforts are going to have.  But, some vistas of realization are seen.  They ravage our heart with thankfulness and bewilderment. 

The answer to the fitting question of “How did that ever happen if my tired and prone-to-sin heart was involved in this ministry effort?” is clear.  It is to be blamed on God’s mercy.  Because God is most merciful in Christ, there is hope for all of us that what may look to us like a small, weak, and insignificant investment in ministry can become robust inroads into the hearts and minds of those folks we are seeking to reach and impact. 

These twelve words also keep us humble.  It is not us!  The results of our efforts are expressions of mercy; mercy drops all around our attempts to make a different for Christ in the few days we have to live.  Let’s celebrate His mercy and dig in and invest in ministry.  The Lord’s mercy makes God’s blessing possible, and makes ministry investments thrilling to our hearts.  In God’s rich character there are infinite reservoirs of mercy that keep our motivation high and our shoulder to the plow to sustain the effort, because we know all along that His available mercy enables our ministry to make a difference for Christ and the kingdom, and to make a difference in other people’s lives.  Plead for sustained showers of mercy and keep investing in ministry!