Chaplain’s
Corner
– November 16, 2011
Rev. Rich
Hines
Jesus
Our Powerful Sustainer
This
message is primarily for those who call on the name of Jesus Christ as their
own Lord and Savior from sin, and serve as a Chaplain or a gospel minister in a
jail, prison or a follow-up ministry such as a rescue mission – in the
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Scripture quotes are usually taken from the New King James Version (NKJV) of
the Bible, copyright 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. When quoting a text, any
deviation from the NKJV text is placed within parenthesis signs (). These usually occur as direct translations
from the original languages, or as notes from the
original setting to help apply the text to today’s culture.
ALL CAPITAL LETTERS are sometimes used to emphasize words in
a text, or to make a comment about a biblical text, or emphasize a statement.
The message I
want to give this month is primarily FOR YOU as a minister of the glorious
gospel of Jesus Christ. Secondarily,
there are things in it you could and should share with your inmate disciples of
our Lord.
This month we
celebrate Thanksgiving. As biblical
Christians it is always time to be thankful to our God and Father for His many
gracious provisions. When we look at the
ministry to which our Lord has called and directed us, a wonderful truth to
ponder and be THANKFUL FOR is the fact that in this ministry - Jesus is our
Powerful Sustainer.
From Scripture
we know that Jesus has all power, and He upholds and sustains all things.
Hebrews 1:1-3a
says,
1 God, who at
various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the
prophets,
2 has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, THROUGH WHOM ALSO HE MADE THE WORLDS;
3 who being
the brightness of His glory and the
express image of His person, and UPHOLDING
ALL THINGS BY THE WORD OF HIS POWER, ...
Speaking of
Jesus, the Son, Colossians 1:16b-17 adds these potent
words:
16 … All
things were created through Him and for Him.
17 And He is
before all things, and in Him ALL THINGS
CONSIST (literally, “hold together”).
Nuclear
scientists who either do not know Him or are ignorant
and unbelieving of what this Scripture says, have discovered something they
cannot explain. They have found out that
in the nucleus of an atom (and atoms are what God created as the building
blocks of all matter) there are two things: protons and neutrons. These are also
surrounded by electrons.
Now, there’s
more. You see they have discovered that
a proton has a POSITIVE electrical charge, the neutron has no charge BUT the
electron has a NEGATIVE charge. That
being the case, by the normal laws of physics, they should repel each
other. The scientists cannot explain and
do not know what power holds each atom together, so they call it, NUCLEAR GLUE.
Jesus is the nuclear glue that holds all the atoms together! That’s power.
And His power is available to each one of you that are indwelt with His
Spirit. It is His power to be
strengthened and sustained, in the ministry He has given you.
Are you
relying on His power to sustain you in your ministry? I want to urge you to do that. I ask you to make sure you do rely on His
sustaining power because as a believer, even one sent by the Lord to do gospel
ministry, it is possible to NOT be operating or ministering by His power. Many in ministry rely on their own flesh and
their own wisdom or copy the way unbelievers go about doing their jobs in
society.
Jesus knew
about the temptation to be this way in ministry for His name – so He taught His
Apostles in John 15:5 an important, basic lesson. There He said to them,
5 “I am the
vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me,
and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.”
In the context
here, Jesus was talking about ministry they would be attempting to do. He called the results of their ministry
“fruit.” In verse 8, Jesus added these
words to His disciples, and they apply to us believers today also.
8 By this My
Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.
He wants you
to “bear much fruit” in ministry BUT WE CANNOT DO IT WITHOUT HIS POWER. Jesus taught the key to the power available
for fruit in ministry is ABIDING in Him, just like a branch abides in a
vine. It is a great illustration. The power to produce fruit flows through the
main vine and out into the branches where the ripened fruit eventually
appears. If somehow, a branch is
disconnected or partially blocked from receiving the strength of the vine to
produce fruit, it will be fruitless.
And so it is
in your ministry in the jail, prison or discipleship program in a rescue
mission. If you are not actively
connected to Jesus, your Power Source and Sustainer in ministry, what flows out
of your ministry will not be genuine, spiritual fruit that glorifies God the
Father.
So I ask you
again, are you CURRENTLY abiding in Jesus and relying on His power to sustain
you in the ministry? Or, are you just going
through the motions and showing up with an independence from Him? I pray that your honest answer can be a
“Yes” to the first question and a “NO” to the second. If it’s the other way around, then my dear
brother or sister, you need to REPENT.
Here is what
your ministry should be and look like, if you are rightly trusting in Jesus as
your Sustainer in gospel ministry:
Colossians
1:28-29
28 Him
(Christ) we (constantly) preach, (constantly) warning every man and
(constantly) teaching every man in all wisdom, (in order) that WE MAY PRESENT
EVERY MAN PERFECT IN Christ Jesus.
Verse 28
reflects THE PROPER AIM IN YOUR MINISTRY.
Yes, you must like the Apostle Paul and his fellow workers aim to
introduce people to Christ and do all you can with the spiritual resources you
have (the Bible and prayer) to help them repent from sin and commit themselves
in faith to Christ. BUT seeing people
get a spiritual birth from above IS NOT THE END of gospel ministry. It’s only THE BEGINNING. Your job as a minister of the gospel is to
present every convert as a maturing believer to your Lord, Christ Jesus. That’s what you should WANT TO DO, that then is your aim in ministry.
But how are
you to accomplish that? How are you to
hit the target that you are aiming at?
Verse 29 gives the answer as it speaks of the only aide in ministry.
29 To this end I also labor, (constantly) striving
ACCORDING TO HIS WORKING (that
is, Christ Jesus’ working energy) WHICH
WORKS IN ME MIGHTILY.
The NASB
translation reads: “… I labor, striving according
to His power, which mightily works in me.”
The word for working or power in this verse really means “power in
action.” It’s the basis for our English
word, “energy.” Isn’t it good to know
Jesus’ working power to sustain and help you in ministry is available? Again, the key to tapping into that power is
being absorbed with the word of God and prayer.
Those two things help you to continue to ABIDE in Jesus Christ.
Another
passage I briefly want to draw your attention to is 2 Timothy 4:16-17. Here the Apostle said:
16 At my first
defense no one stood with me, but all forsook me. May it not be charged against them.
17 BUT THE
LORD STOOD WITH ME AND STRENGTHENED ME, SO THAT THE MESSAGE MIGHT BE PREACHED
FULLY THROUGH ME, AND THAT ALL THE GENTILES
MIGHT HEAR.
When he wrote
this, he was in dire straits. He was
literally in a large hole in the ground in
He was cold
and was experiencing a lot of physical suffering. BUT HE FOUND STRENGTH form His Lord, Jesus
Christ. The strength that enabled him at
specific points of time to continue on in powerful gospel ministry!
That same
sustaining strength for ministry is yours in Christ. Thank Him constantly for His strength and
might made available to you in ministry for His name. Thank God that Jesus and not you yourself, IS
YOUR SUSTAINER!
Now I want to
give you something on Jesus’ sustaining power for the inmate believers.
The same power
that sustains any believer in gospel ministry is available to every Christian
to help them in their daily walk. He is
there for His followers to help them do good works and to live holy lives.
In Ephesians
3:14 -19, The Apostle prayed for Christians.
Starting in v. 16 he said he prayed for them:
16 (in order)
that He (God the Father) would grant you, according to the riches of His glory,
TO BE STRENGTHENED WITH MIGHT through His Spirit (also Christ’s Spirit) IN THE
INNER MAN,
...
19
… (in order that) you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
For the sake
of time I left out most verses 17-19.
They give the ever increasing results of what that strengthening in the
inner man will be. These
results stair-step upwards, to the end of verse 19.
The ending
words of verse 19 are the ultimate outcome - in order that “you may be filled
with all the fullness of God.” That
means living the Christian life to the VERY FULLEST!
Now, to close
this month's message, let's look at Colossians 1:10-11. This, like the passage in Ephesians 3, is
also is part of one of Paul's prison prayers for other Christians. He prayed for believers:
10 (in
order)... that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work
and increasing in the knowledge of God;
11 STRENGTHENED (literally, 'being perpetually strengthened’) WITH ALL MIGHT, ACCORDING TO HIS (the
Lord, Jesus’) GLORIOUS POWER, for
all patience and longsuffering with joy;
He would not
have been Holy Spirit led and have been writing under His direction, UNLESS
THAT WERE ACTUALLY POSSIBLE. So again,
from Jesus the believing inmate's Powerful Sustainer, there is always strength
to live in this world with a overwhelming joy and
endurance for God's glory.
Here in Col.
1:11, the words "patience" and "longsuffering" mean the
ability to remain under pressure and to not explode in wrath against those who
will oppose any believer's faith in action.
That speaks volumes about the situation most truly Christian, even new
Christian inmates, find themselves in.
So explain to
them from God’s word in these passages from Ephesians and Colossians that
Jesus, their Powerful Sustainer, is there with them, even within them by His
Spirit, to give them the working energy to do good to
those around them. By so doing those
good works, they will glorify God.
After all,
that’s what every Christian should WANT TO DO as part of their true gratitude
and thanks to Him for His great Gift, which according to 2 Cor. 9:15, is beyond
our verbal ability to fully express!
“Thanks be to God for His
indescribable gift!”
Rich Hines,
Minister to
Chaplains - Chaplain Help Ministry