What is your driving force?

Introduction

What drives your life? What drives your ministry? What is behind all that you do? Within the text of our devotional, I believe we see two driving forces behind the life, work, and ministry of the Apostle Paul. These two forces should drive our ministry as individuals, as churches, and corporately as an association.

Devotional Passage

2 Corinthians 5:11–15 NKJV

11 Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are well known to God, and I also trust are well known in your consciences. 12 For we do not commend ourselves again to you, but give you opportunity to boast on our behalf, that you may have an answer for those who boast in appearance and not in heart. 13 For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; or if we are of sound mind, it is for you. 14 For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; 15 and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.

Outline

1) Our knowing of the judgment to come should drive us to tell others, so that they might be ready for the judgment to come - ‘Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men...’

Paul’s knowing of the fact that he and everyone else would have to stand before the judgment seat of Christ, Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord...

2 Corinthians 5:10 NKJV

10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.

was a driving force behind his ministry. It pushed him to be faithful to tell others, we persuade men.

This same truth should push us to fulfill our call to share the gospel faithfully.

Not only should our knowledge of the future judgment to come drive our ministry, but our ministry should also be drive by the Love of Christ.

2) The love of Christ should drive us share the Gospel with a lost and dying world - ‘For the love of Christ compels us...’

Most Bible scholars believe that Paul’s phrase, the love of Christ, could be seen as both subjectively and objectively.

It could be seen as subjectively in meaning that Paul’s ministry was driven by Christ’s love for Him.

It could be seen as objectively in meaning that Paul’s ministry was driven by his love for Christ.

I would submit to you that it is both. Paul’s ministry was drive by the love of Christ for him and his love for Christ.

Our ministries should be drive by both. At the forefront of all that we do as individuals, as individual churches, and corporately as an association, should be done in the view of love, Christ’s love for us and our love for others.

A story of St. Francis of Assisi is stated...

Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations 3200 Francis of Assisi Kissed the Leper

Francis of Assisi was terrified of leprosy. And one day, full in the narrow path that he was traveling, he saw, horribly white in the sunshine, a leper! Instinctively his heart shrank back, recoiling shudderingly from the contamination of that loathsome disease. But then he rallied; and ashamed of himself, ran and cast his arms about the sufferer’s neck and kissed him and passed on. A moment later he looked back, and there was no one there, only the empty road in the hot sunlight. All his days thereafter he was sure it was no leper, but Christ Himself whom he had met.

—G. K. Chesterton

Many of us look on a lost and dying world (the member of the LGBTQ+ community, the drunkard, the druggy, the gambler, the gluten, etc.) as St. Francis of Assisi looked on lepers. We just can’t be caught in the same room as them or we cringe. However, for us to truly ministry, we are going to have to learn to embrace the sinner in love, not the sin, but the sinner and reach people where they are. How do we do this? We do this by allowing the love of Christ that was shown at Calvary, that if One died for all, meaning Christ was a our substitutionary sacrifice for our sins, then all died, we should in response love others enough to tell them of Christ’s sacrifice whether or not they look like us, act like us, identify like us, etc., etc. We should be compelled by the knowledge of God’s coming judgement and the love of Christ to go wherever, whenever, and share the Gospel to whomever God sends us.

It is my fear that we have become so comfortable in our porcelain church houses that we have forgotten what true ministry is. It is not about appearances. It is not about comfort. It is not about staying clean. It is about getting dirty and meeting people right where they are to minister to them right where they are.

This was the ministry plan of Christ. It was ministry plan of Paul. It should be the ministry plan of the church today.

Remember, we no longer live for ourselves, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but we live for Christ Jesus, the one who died, was buried, risen from the dead, ascended to the Father praying in intercession for us today, and is coming again, but for Him who died for them and rose again.

As Paul wrote to the churches of Galatia...

Galatians 2:20 (NKJV) 20 I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

May we remember this truth. We no longer live, but it is Christ who lives in us.

Conclusion

Dyer Baptist Association…Let us be drive by two forces as we ministry to the Dyer Baptist Association, Tennessee, North America and beyond...

Let us know that one day every one of us will give an account before God Himself as to how we lived this life and whether we accepted or rejected Jesus Christ.

Romans 14:12 (NKJV) 12 So then each of us shall give account of himself to God.

2 Corinthians 5:10–11a(NKJV) 10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. 11 Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men...

Let us be driven by the love of Christ…Christ’s love for us and our love for Christ

2 Corinthians 5:14 (NKJV) 14 For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died;