Scripture quotations marked (ESV) are from the ESV Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version), copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
What
is the heart of our message when we lead people to Christ? What is
our ultimate goal for them?
What is our ultimate goal in ministry in general?
Why lead people to Christ? Why disciple them?
When I prayer walk around the local university campus for two hours without being able to talk to anyone about Jesus that day because the campus layout is horrible for meeting strangers…when my disciple spins in circles and keeps repeating the same sinful, immature behaviors…when my disciple grows steadily, but much slower than I would like…when I am struggling to finish an important point about the Bible because people keep interrupting me…when I struggle with loneliness because I am living in a new country with a different culture, very few people that I feel deep friendship with, and very few young Christians…when I spend hours every week learning the local language but still can’t even have a basic conversation in it…
…when we get tired, worn out, discouraged, and even depressed or anxious from laboring for Christ, what will sustain and encourage us? When we see great immediate results as we labor for Christ, what will keep us grounded?
In Colossians 1:25-27, Paul says that God made him a servant to preach this gloriously rich mystery to the nations: “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Christ’s indwelling presence is Paul’s message both in evangelism and discipleship, so that Paul “may present every man mature in Christ” (v. 28). It is only in intimate communion in Christ that any person may call themselves “mature in Christ.” And even as Paul himself “labors” and “strives” to “proclaim,” “teach,” and “counsel,” he says that all of this is “according to His working which works in me in power” (v. 28-29). It is Christ’s indwelling presence and power that enables Paul to give thanks (v. 3), pray without ceasing (v. 3, 9), serve (v. 23), rejoice in suffering (v. 24), and perform all the activity in verses 28-29.
Evangelism, discipleship, and ministry cannot be impersonal to-do lists rooted in the ambition for personal accomplishment and glory. This is like getting a trophy wife with little affection for her or intimacy with her but simply as a means to support a greater personal self-centered desire. Both are situations that sound like they would only produce anxiety, depression, a lack of endurance, exhaustion, emptiness, instability, and dissatisfaction.
Paul's goal is that people would be “in Christ” and that Christ would be “in them.” The goal is relationship, fellowship, intimacy, and abiding. Evangelism is a necessary and precious part of the goal, because our initial moment of faith is our introduction that places us in Christ and He in us (Rom 5:2). Yet because the goal is one fundamentally based in relationship, our initial moment of faith is like a wedding is to a marriage: our union preciously begins there, but there is so much more waiting for us as we abide in Him day by day. Paul says that his goal is not simly to convert people, but that it is to “present every man mature in Christ” (Col 1:29, ESV).1
It would be easy to then say “okay, so the ultimate goal is not evangelism, it’s maturity. Instead of setting the goal to lead X amount of people to Christ, we’ll set the goal to disciple X amount of people. Or, I’ll set a specific goal that I want my disciple to be at X spot spiritually by X time.”
But this misses the point entirely. In Colossians 1:29 Paul doesn’t say that his goal is maturity. He says that his goal is “maturity in Christ.” We must always reminder that qualifier. Without “in Christ,” nothing else matters. Without “in Christ” we are still dead in our sins because our Lord has not been resurrected and our faith is futile (1 Cor 15:17-23). Without “in Christ,” no one is a “new creation” (2 Cor 5:17). Without Christ everything becomes, impersonal, foolish, loveless, lifeless, powerless, without warmth, and without light because He is the creator and source of all of these things (Col 1:16; 2:3; 1 John 4:7). All the fullness of God dwells in Christ (Col 1:19), Christ dwells in us (Col 1:27), and we are in Him (Col 1:2). And this is all fitting because God purposely planned “to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens, and the things on the earth, in him” (Eph 1:10, WEB). I believe that the main thesis of the book of Colossians is: “in Him all things were created...all things have been created through Him and to Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together” (Col 1:16a, 17). All things are “to Christ.”
The issue with the first approach is not one of content but of mindset. It’s not that you need to change what you are looking at; rather, you need to change your glasses. The ultimate goal is not quantitative (numbers, measurable outcomes) at all; it’s qualitative. What quality?: “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col 1:27). Love, intimacy, abiding in Christ in all His glory, and the future promise that we will one day see in all His fullness what we presently only see in a mirror dimly (1 Cor 13:12). So do we still set goals in evangelism and discipleship? Absolutely. But these quantitative goals serve the ultimate qualitative goal: God’s loving presence. His love for me, his love for the individual I’m seeking to present mature in Christ, and the fact that he is sweet and good and worthy of all praise and glory. Remember that there is great joy in heaven over even only one mere sinner who repents (Luke 15:7). God’s primary goal should always be our primary goal because it’s “His kingdom and His righteousness” that we seek first (Matt 6:33).
The beauty of living “to Him” (Col 1:17) is that we get to live in the joy and peace of “in Him, through Him” (Col 1:16-17) and “from Him” (Rom 11:36). As Hudson Taylor often said: “God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supply.” And when we live our whole lives in a posture of receiving “from Him, in Him, and through Him” it naturally only leads us to a joyful “to Him” of worship and thanksgiving.
Evangelism, discipleship, and ministry must be “from Him, in Him, through Him, and to Him.” We must take greater joy in the fact “that our names have been written in heaven” rather than that we have “authority to trample on snakes and scorpions, and on all the power of the enemy” (Luke 10:20). This doesn't mean that we create a silly false dichotomy where we choose to rejoice in intimacy with God rather than serving others in ministry since we reason that the formeris more important.2 Rather it means that rejoicing in intimacy with God is our life-blood, strength, and ultimate joy while we serve others in ministry. Jesus Himself said that we cannot effectively serve others in ministry without rejoicing in intimacy with Him (John 15:5). Jesus’ prayers in the gospel of John are rooted in abiding in the Father, reveling in intimacy with Him, and desiring for Him to be glorified (John 17); these concepts are all inseparably connected. Hudson Taylor understood all of this well when he said: “If I had a thousand pounds China should have it—if I had a thousand lives, China should have them. No! Not China, but Christ. Can we do too much for Him? Can we do enough for such a precious Savior?”
What is the heart of our message when we lead people to Christ? What is our ultimate goal for them?
What is our ultimate goal in ministry in general?
Why lead people to Christ? Why disciple them?
When we get tired, worn out, and even depressed or anxious from laboring for Christ, what will sustain and encourage us? When we see great immediate results as we labor for Christ, what will keep us grounded?
Although these questions are all different, the answer to them all is the same: “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
Ministry is not an impersonal to-do list rooted in the ambition of personal accomplishment and glory. Think of Abraham’s journey from Genesis 12-25. Think of Paul’s lifelong ministry. Ministry is a long slow personal intimate journey with the Lover and Savior of our soul, a journey characterized by intimacy, prayer, disappointment, thanksgiving, servanthood, joy, rest, exhaustion, peace, hope, suffering, patience, endurance and moment-by-moment trust. And all of it brings us closer to Jesus, even as we have been striving to bring others closer to Jesus. Because all of our personal journey brings us closer to Jesus (as well as bringing those around us closer to Jesus, remember that they’re connected and cannot be separated) none of it is wasted and all of it works “together for good for those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose” (Rom 8:28, WEB). Of course we still think about strategy, but we abide in Christ when this strategy succeeds or fails.
When we start to view our entire lives this way, we realize that this mindset is applicable to everything that we do and are, because “whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do everything to the glory of God” (1 Cor 10:31). This doesn’t just apply to people who are in vocational ministry. In a sense, life is ministry when it is lived for Christ.
To go deeper into this topic, meditate on: every verse I quoted in this article, all of Colossians and Ephesians, Jesus’ words in the gospel of John (chapters 15 and 17 would be a good start), 1 Cor 13, Rom 14:8, 1 Thess 5:10, 1 Cor 3:21-23 and any language in Paul’s letters related to being “in Christ” (which shows up over 100x in his letters). Also read The Whole Christ by Sinclair Ferguson. And read my forthcoming part 2 of this blog post where I tease out some practical applications, questions, and tensions related to this topic.
1 Although we must balance this with the fact that “there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance” (Luke 15:7, ESV). There is something uniquely precious about that introduction by faith!
2 Yes, Mary did choose the better thing (Luke 10:42), but I would also argue that there is also a certain time and place where sitting with Jesus and receiving His teaching instead of serving Him is not only inappropriate, it is even sinful. Stay tuned and read the forthcoming part 2 of this blog post for more on this tension.
