Ministry is Mercy

Pre Intro:

If you haven’t yet, open up your Bibles to the Gospel of John, we will be in chapter 3 this evening, verses 22-36.

For me personally, studying for this message and analyzing this text has been a huge comfort for me...

In ministry, in service, it is easy to get discouraged, lobsided even in your approach or motivation. I fear often times, when our priorities for ministry deviate from what the purpose of ministry actually is; which is to elevate the name of Christ; it will express itself in our attitude of ministry and towards ministry.

When our ministry becomes so people oriented that we forget about pleasing Christ; we become discouraged, anxious, our ministries become performative.

When our ministry becomes a means to status; we become possessive, jealous, we begin to do ministry for the approval or appraisal of others.

When our ministry becomes an obligation; we become lazy, apathetic, discontent and we began to do half hearted routine service for the God who loves us.

And when the focus of our ministry becomes ourselves, we may fall into all of these traps or we may neglect our ministry all together because ministry seems to have no personal benefit to ourselves and be not confused....... every Christian is called to ministry in some sort or fashion. Every Christian falls under the expectation to win souls as placed on us in Matthew 28, and every Christian has a role to play in the Church, see that in 1 Corinthians 12.

Have I described you?

If you claim to be a Christian in this room yet you neglect your calling to ministry than I have described you.

And if you are here and are being faithful in doing ministry, whats the motivation? Regardless of the outwards fruit of your ministry, whats the inward fruit look like, are you possessive? are you constantly anxious? discouraged? always looking for who might be watching?

It is because your heart in ministry is not aligned with pure intentions, with the intentions of elevating Christ and ultimately it stems from a lack of understanding what ministry and service truly is.

Intro:

And so when we come to this passage here in the middle of this sermon series “conversations that count” we see a conversation not involving our Lord Jesus, but his servant John the Baptist, and we get a very powerful insight into the heart of one who is truly servant hearted.

As we examine this dialogue between John and his disciples we see his disciples coming to him with concerns, very selfish concerns stemming from misaligned priorities in ministry and we see John the Baptist respond beautifully.

Follow with me in your Bibles we will start in verse 22 and go until verse 26

John 3:22–26 “After this, Jesus and his disciples went to the Judean countryside, where he spent time with them and baptized. John also was baptizing in Aenon near Salim, because there was plenty of water there. People were coming and being baptized, since John had not yet been thrown into prison. Then a dispute arose between John’s disciples and a Jew about purification. So they came to John and told him, “Rabbi, the one you testified about, and who was with you across the Jordan, is baptizing—and everyone is going to him.””

Our story here picks up near the end of John the Baptists ministry, and this marks sort of the point where Johns ministry fades away and the ministry of Jesus fades in...

If you know anything about John the Baptist, you know that this is what his whole life was destined to be, the entire point of his ministry, every prophecy concerning him led to this point, where he has sufficiently prepared the way for Christ in his ministry begins to take over...

John definitely recognized this, and so would his disciples. Yet we see in these verses, Johns disciples getting possessive of the ministry they have.

Verse 22 and 23 shows us that both Jesus and his disciples as well as John and his disciples were both baptizing people

Now this isn’t a baptism in which we would understand, this is a baptism that merely symbolized repentance. And at this point in the story we have two different “ministry teams” with two different leaders (JTB and Jesus) baptizing in two separate cities in which this is the first time John the Baptists ministry really had any competition.

So this discussion arises with John the Baptists disciples and a jew over “purification” which simply refers to baptism. Considering the context of the text, what this discussion looked like was talk of Jesus ministry gaining ground was reaching the ear of John the baptist and his disciples

And as you can tell in verse 26, his disciples become Jealous of Jesus’ ministry and possessive of their own and so they complain to John “Everyone is going to him! What do we do?”

Imagine that, your entire life, your entire ministry in order to set up the ministry of someone far greater than you, someone prophesied to rescue you and your people from sin, someone foretold to be God himself in the human form and when his ministry gains greater grounds than yours which it rightfully should, you get upset, mind you these guys knew who this was who was getting more attention look at verse 26 it says “the one you testified about”

And in response we see John give a beautiful answer to their concerns that it is filled with conviction and passion for Christ and his lifes purpose accordingly.

And while those of us familiar with this passage would assume the key verse in this text to be verse 30, “He must increase and I must decrease”, the key verse is really verse 27 because Johns understanding of his life as expressed in this verse, acts as a catalyst for everything following he will say

John 3:27 “John responded, “No one can receive anything unless it has been given to him from heaven.”

The crucial point that John understood that gave him such contentment and joy in his ministry and what gave him such a Christ centered approach is that ministry is not a favor we give God, and instead a favor God gives us as a distinct privilege and honor

And so our main idea for tonights text, and if you don’t get anything else from the message tonight, understand this point.… That Ministry is Mercy.

Main Idea: Ministry is Mercy

Now what do I mean by this? I mean that our ministry and our ability to serve is a complete act of God’s mercy on us and nothing else.

There is no merit that we bring to the table adds to Gods repertoire, there is no Charisma that can elevate his kingdom in any way, no intellectual threshold we can reach that primes us to be better fit for Gods service.

The ministry that we have and the ability that we have to serve God and advance his kingdom is a complete and utter gift.

That if hypothetically God is using me to lead Max to salvation, He in no way is relying on me or any of my qualities to fulfill this work, instead he allows me to partake in the work He has already accomplished. That in the snap of a finger he could convert max like that(Snap) with no human assistance.

That in a snap of a finger he could convert every unbelieving soul and sanctify every believer to the point of sinless perfection so that our need for evangelism, disciplship, teaching, etc. would be absolutely pointless but instead He doesn’t WHY? because He wants lowly individuals like you and like me to be able to partake in this ministry with Him.

That’s absolutely beautiful, it’s a little boy asking his dad for 20 bucks so he can go buy his dad a gift, and his dad will take immense pleasure in it.

Transition Sentence:

And you think to yourself “Seth why do you harping on this point, we understand, ministry is mercy” but I don’t want you to understand this on an intellectual level, but also on a soul level. I want you to wrestle with this understanding until you truly grasp it on a soul level because when you do, your entire ministry will change, and for the far better.

This understanding that Ministry is Mercy influenced Johns Ministry in two ways we see in this text and that is that it pushed him to...

Exalt Christ (27-30)

Reveal Christ (31-36)

Firstly lets look at how this understanding pushed him to exalt Christ in his ministry…

D1: Understanding that Ministry is mercy pushes you to Exalt Christ

We pick back up to the point in this passage where John addresses his disciples “concerns”...

He says...

John 3:27–30 “John responded, “No one can receive anything unless it has been given to him from heaven. You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Messiah, but I’ve been sent ahead of him.’ He who has the bride is the groom. But the groom’s friend, who stands by and listens for him, rejoices greatly at the groom’s voice. So this joy of mine is complete. He must increase, but I must decrease.””