Dear Pastor, in a Celebrity Culture, Your Call Is Contentment

This article is part of the Dear Pastor series.

Whatever You Do, Glorify

The ambition of any sincere servant of God is to glorify God through his or her life and ministry. Paul said, “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31). Our desire is to do well in ministry so that God is glorified. We want our work to be great so that people will see God’s greatness, not to show off our talents or to be greater than others. But today we are hampered in this pursuit by false values, which present other kinds of ambitions.

False Understandings of Success

There is great freedom in being released from bondage to the world’s standards of success. A sinful spirit of competition and envy and the desire to be better than others can deprive us of that freedom. In a media-saturated age with multiple competitions for measuring who is the “greatest” in numerous fields, it is easy to fall into the trap of measuring our significance using unbiblical criteria. We have lists of the greatest athletes, sexiest men and women, most popular or best actors and actresses, and so on. It’s easy for those who don’t make those lists to feel insignificant and inferior. Ours is a celebrity culture that measures significance based on things like fame, affluence, and the scope of our work.

A false understanding of success is a major cause for many people feeling unfulfilled and unhappy as they serve God. I have seen books and heard talks that claim that everyone can be a leader if they follow the right prescription for leadership. If that were true, then those who are not leaders will be disappointed by their failure to achieve the “success” of being a leader. The biblical view is that leadership is a call, and those gifted with leadership ability will receive that call. One might say that only Peter, James, John, and Judas (for the wrong reasons) were famous out of the twelve apostles. But there is nothing in the Bible that says the others were not following God’s will for their lives. Paul takes great pains to say that all Christians are equally significant whether their gifts give them prominence or not (1 Cor. 12:14–25).

Joyful Perseverance

Ajith Fernando

Joyful Perseverance offers practical ways to find joy and energy to serve well despite the inevitable disappointments of ministry—embrace God’s grace, guard one’s integrity, groan with God, adopt a life of thanksgiving, and more.

Envy and a competitive spirit were problems among Jesus’s disciples. Once they were arguing about who was the greatest, and Jesus’s response was, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all” (Mark 9:35). I am convinced the most Christians who say they believe in the full authority of the Bible do not accept the authority of these words in their own lives. If for some reason they become “last,” they get angry. For instance, what if someone else gets a promotion they think they deserve? Some let this anger fester inside of them until it ruins their joy and transforms them into people controlled by bitterness.

The disciples didn’t immediately learn the lesson Jesus was trying to teach them. A little later, James and John asked for seats at the right and the left of Christ in the kingdom—a request that infuriated the other ten disciples (Mark 10:36–41). Again, this display of unbiblical ambition prompted some profound teaching by Jesus. He showed them that the world’s method is to value those who have great authority over others (Mark 10:42). This is a measure of significance and success among Christians today too. We ask, “How many staff do you have working under you?” or “How large is your congregation?” But Jesus said, “It shall not be so among you” (Mark 10:43). Jesus’s words here were similar to his earlier response: “Whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all” (Mark 10:43–44). Then he gives himself as an example as one who “came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).

Even at the end of Jesus’s ministry, the disciples struggled with this wrong understanding of greatness. Jesus demonstrated servant leadership when he washed their feet and asked them to follow his example (John 13:3–17). But a little later we find them again disputing among themselves about who is the greatest (Luke 22:24).

We want our work to be great so that people will see God’s greatness, not to show off our talents or to be greater than others.

I find the above sequence of events comforting. Even the disciples of Jesus found the biblical ideas of greatness and servanthood difficult to accept. We should not be overdiscouraged by our own failures and the failure of those to whom we minister to understand this truth. But like Jesus, we must consistently teach the same message and demonstrate its practical outworking through the example of our own lives.

In my younger years, I served on the organizing teams of national and international conferences. The times of fellowship with Christians of different backgrounds on those teams are some of happiest memories I have in ministry. But some of my unhappy memories involve our discussions of what public roles we should give to prominent people whom we hoped would attend the conference. Things like the following were said: “We’ll have to give him a prominent role, otherwise he’ll be upset. Let’s give him a prayer at the opening ceremony!” The noble work of prayer had become a slave to the egos of insecure leaders.

What a contrast this was to the presence of John Stott at the Lausanne Younger Leaders Conference in Singapore in 1987. He was arguably the most prominent Bible expositor in the world at that time, and he came just to be an encouragement to us younger folk. He did not want to speak. We did have a question and answer session with him, and he graciously spent an hour of his time engaging with me personally.

Freedom from the Passion for Earthly Recognition

Once we are free from the need to showcase our abilities, to climb the ecclesiastical ladder, and to gain power and influence, we are also free to enjoy Jesus and the privilege of serving him. Our fulfillment comes not from our position in our church or organization but from the high privilege of serving our beloved Lord. New Testament scholar T. W. Manson has said, “In the kingdom of God, service is not a steppingstone to nobility. It is nobility, the only nobility which is recognized.”¹ This is our source of contentment and vocational fulfillment.

If we relentlessly pursue earthly recognition, we can receive it by doing things appropriate for achieving that goal. But that does not automatically guarantee recognition by God. Three times in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus says of people who practiced religion for show, “Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward” (Matt. 6:2, 5, 16). The underlying idea behind this statement is that these people were fools for seeking earthly success. They have their reward, and nothing is left for eternity!

Sensitive servants of God learn to fear the trap of doing things for earthly recognition. Henry Clay Morrison (1857–1942), the founder of Asbury Theological Seminary, was a great preacher and a brilliant orator. Once he was preaching at a camp meeting along with a younger preacher. One Sunday the younger preacher preached in the morning and God’s Spirit moved in the audience powerfully, resulting in many sinners seeking the Lord. When Dr. Morrison preached in the evening, the younger preacher was disappointed as he sensed that Dr. Morrison was trying to outdo him by using his great oratorical skills.

Later that night the younger preacher saw someone enter his tent. It was Dr. Morrison. “He stumbled around until he found the foot of his bed. He knelt at the foot of the preacher’s bed, buried his face in the covers over his feet, and began to sob as if his heart would break.” The younger preacher said nothing and let the transaction between Dr. Morrison and God continue. Many years later, that younger preacher told a young theological student, Dennis Kinlaw, “The Holy Spirit quickened [Morrison’s] conscience and convicted him of the sin of it. He could not sleep until he had found his friend and acknowledged his sin.” Kinlaw relates this story in his classic book, The Mind of Christ.²

It is likely that we will all face the trap of seeking recognition or earthly power or authority. We may be full of ourselves but empty of the Holy Spirit. Speaking through the prophet Zechariah regarding the rebuilding of the temple, God told the governor, Zerubbabel, “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts” (Zech. 4:6). When we speak or counsel or sing or lead a meeting, we ought to be desperately praying for God’s help. What we need is not earthly recognition but the fulfillment and guidance of God’s Spirit.

Notes:

T. W. Manson, The Church’s Ministry (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1948), 27.
Related in Dennis F. Kinlaw, The Mind of Christ (Nappanee, IN: Evangel Publishing, 1998), 74.

Ajith Fernando is the author of Joyful Perseverance: Staying Fresh through the Ups and Downs of Ministry.

Ajith Fernando (ThM, Fuller Theological Seminary) is the teaching director of Youth for Christ in Sri Lanka after serving as the ministry's national director for thirty-five years. He and his wife, Nelun, are active in a church ministering primarily to the urban poor, and his ministry includes counseling and mentoring younger staff and pastors. He is the author of twenty-one books published in twenty-four languages. Ajith lives in Colombo, Sri Lanka, with his wife, and they have two adult children and four grandchildren.

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