"Ministry is hard."

 

This is how I began the previous article.

 

We spent some time looking at the ministry of the prophet Isaiah and life under the sun as we pursue ministry in a fallen world. This often takes a toll on everyone "in ministry"—whether you’re a volunteer, bi-vocational, or staff at a church—Isaiah gave us encouraging insights in order to continue on in ministry with great joy.

 

Firstly, because our sin and guilt have been taken away, we no longer stand condemned before God. Next, we saw that gospel ministry is a noble and beautiful task that we should not take lightly, but that should give us joy. We get to proclaim to sinners that there is peace with God through Jesus Christ. Lastly, we saw that our response to these things is to sing and shout for joy out of the overflow of our affections for Christ because He has comforted and redeemed us (Isa.52:8-9). And now we focus our eyes on the ministry of Jesus, as He shows us the joy that was set before Him as He endured the cross. He is our perfect example for the Christian life, typically referred to as Christus Exemplar. He is our foundation, the perfector, and the finisher of our faith. And if we are joyless, we should be able to look at our lives and assess where we’ve stopped looking to Jesus and acknowledge the reality of living life in a sinful, fallen world. Our joy will not be perfected until the day Christ returns in glory to renew all things, which is why we must daily recalibrate our hearts to find our joy in Him.

 

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Jesus’ Joy that Fuels Our Joy

Let’s look at Hebrews 12:1-2 and get some help to do so:

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"Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God."

 

This is where we see our encouragement.

 

In this picture given to us, Jesus went to the cross and endured—or went up against the pain and the shame of the cross—with joy before Him. Not because the cross was a fun idea. It wasn’t. The Romans perfected the art of torture and created a word out of how good they were at it: excruciate, which is a Latin word where we get the term "excruciating"—meaning "as painful as the cross." Think about that next time you say your back pain is excruciating!

 

No, Jesus didn’t go to the cross with a smile on His face, but with joy in His heart, knowing that through His work, you, I, and anyone who believes in that finished work would be restored to God. We would be able to live how we were always meant to live: at peace with God. Now, that is a great reason to have joy! Jesus is, even more, the fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore, as Psalm 16:11 states:

 

"You make known to me the path of life;

in Your presence, there is fullness of joy;

at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore."

 

And this fullness of joy will be experienced when he returns.

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But what about life now?

 

 

Running

What good news! Hebrews also tells us that we can lay aside our sin to which we so desperately cling to satisfy our fleshy desires. The sin to which we cling to feel alive at points when our life feels dry, we can lay it aside because the same joy that was before Christ is now ours in Him. We can also lay aside every burden that is weighing us down and zapping our joy out of us. As the author of Hebrews says,

 

"Let us lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely…"

 

And what is this for?

 

"Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us…"

 

Life!

 

The very life Christ gives us by His finished work on the cross is described to us as a "race." That means it won’t necessarily be easy on the front end. I’ve never run an official race before, but I’ve seen my fair share of athletic movies where the underdog has to get into shape for a big race or competition to beat the bully. Even actors make it look difficult. But the encouragement is not that we have to train all of our life to finish this race; rather, it is that we can look to Jesus, who will supply us with our every need as we run and will see us through until the very end—all of grace.

 

So, what does that all have to do with joy or my lack thereof? If we are joyless, there are two options we can look at:

         

1.) Assess: We must assess our lives and see at what point during the race we stopped looking to Jesus and continued carrying our burdens and our sins with us along the way.

 

2.) Acknowledge: Recognize that even as we look to Jesus, this race is hard, and there will    be parts of life and ministry that will catch us off guard and unprepared.

 

Let’s look at those.

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Assess (Inward Reflection)

Assessment is a good thing. Sometimes, we can think it is scary or bad, but when done in honest humility, it tells us the health of our hearts and minds. Paul tells the Ephesian elders to "Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which He obtained with His own blood." (Acts 20:28). First, Paul gives the imperative to self-reflection, then he gives it to the flock. Our joy may have been taken from us because we’ve allowed sin to fester in our hearts. "Just this one time" turns into "just this week," and then becomes a habit that drains us of life and joy. The English pastor Richard Baxter commented on this passage and used it to rebuke and encourage the churches in Worcestershire to reform and follow God. He states,

 

"To bear with the vices of the ministry is to promote the ruin of the Church; for what speedier way is there for the depraving and undoing of the people, than the depravity of their guides."

 

It is also possible that we have grown stale in our communion with the Lord. We’ve stopped bringing our burdens to Him, which means that the load of ministry is going to get heavier and heavier, and we won’t be able to lift our heads up to see the goodness of Christ because our necks are weighed down with such a heavy yoke. It will take the supernatural grace of Christ to lift that head back up. He may even gently or sternly rebuke us like a smack on the hand of a child who has gotten too close to the electric outlet with a fork again. But it will be worth it because we will be able to look to Christ again, see His grace, and be supplied with the joy that He is so plentiful to give out.

 

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Acknowledge (Outward Acceptance)

Understanding—or acknowledging—how life works in a broken, sin-infested, fallen world is also a good thing. We don’t want to be caught off-guard or unprepared, though. We want to prepare well so that we can run the race set before us well. The apostle Peter tells us that we should expect suffering in this life because we have a Savior who also suffered (1 Pet. 4:1). We get surprised that we are sinful, other people are sinful, the world has been broken by the fall, and that creation is groaning for the restoration of all things. But again, Peter encourages us as Christians in this fallen world: "Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you" (1 Pet. 4:12). The apostle says, "Yes, this life will be hard as a Christian, but we shouldn’t let that surprise us." You should expect that hardship, which will make it easier to get through when it comes, because Christ will prepare you for trials of various kinds. We will be caught unprepared if we don’t anticipate the bad things. If we assume that they won’t happen to us, we will not know what to do when they eventually do happen to us. James tells us that we should "count it all joy" when we face those trials because it demonstrates the steadfastness of our faith (James 1:2-4). Both Spirit-inspired writers’ reasoning for facing the hardship of life head-on, preparing for the worst, and hoping for the best is rooted in joy in Christ.

 

As Christians, we know that this world is not acting according to God’s good design because of the Fall. And we look forward to the day Christ will return and restore all things to how they were always meant to be. The fullness of our joy is not to be expected now, but when His glory is revealed. But we can still have joy now as we anticipate when Christ will return. Nothing will compare to that day when all wrongs will be made right. As the song "Come Behold the Wondrous Mystery" states,

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"What a foretaste of deliverance,

How unwavering our hope;

Christ in power resurrected,

As we will be when He comes."

 

This life—this race—is only a glimpse of what it will be like. The joy we experience now is nothing compared to what it will be on that day. The next time you have a bad meeting, a frustrating day of parenting, you’ve fallen short of God’s holy standard, or you’ve been sinned against, you can rejoice, knowing that it is only temporary. Though it may hurt now, it is only momentary. So, we acknowledge how things are and anticipate how things will be when Christ returns. And what a glorious vision!

 

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Bring it all Full-Circle

We’ve talked about how ministry is hard and how often it might feel joyless. Isaiah has helped us see that we can reflect on our unworthiness to be recipients of grace, yet Christ gives it abundantly and gives us the beautiful task of being messengers of His rule and reign. In addition, the author of Hebrews has showed us that joy was the motivator that fueled Christ’s enduring the curse of the cross.

 

So, to bring it all together:

 

With Christ as the foundation of our faith, joy can be the steel that is poured into our backbones as we face the troubles of ministry. We must always look to Christ, who supplies our joy and sustains it as we run the race set before us. We must look to Christ and not worldly things as the source of our joy. We must not be surprised when life hits us hard by our sinfulness, others’ sinfulness, a sinful world, and a broken creation.

 

Remember Dr. Piper’s definition of joy from the previous article: "Christian joy is a good feeling in the soul, produced by the Holy Spirit, as He causes us to see the beauty of Christ in the Word and in the world."

 

We must refocus our attention on Christ to see His beauty in this world and His word.

 

The Holy Spirit will do the work of fueling our joy.

 

And while ministry may not be all sunshine and rainbows, through the lens of Christ-glorifying glasses, there is much joy to be had—even in the hardest circumstances.

 

Aren’t you tired of being joyless?

Look to Him, and again be restored to the joy of your salvation!