ENDURING WHEN MINISTRY IS DIFFICULT

Scott Peck opens his book, The Road Less Traveled, with this sentence: "Life is difficult." As you read this, some of you are saying, “Isn’t that the truth?” Well, yes, it is the truth – about life and about ministry. Paul deals with the difficulty of ministry in chapter 2 of his final letter to Timothy – 2 Timothy.

Paul calls for Timothy, his son in the faith, to “be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” He needs to be strong so that he can “entrust to reliable men” the things he has heard Paul teach. Carrying out that task would require that Timothy “endure hardship.” Paul had certainly endured hardship in his ministry; now Timothy needed to do the same – and so do we. So what does endurance look like? Paul gives three examples in 2 Timothy 2:3-7:

(1) Endure hardship as a soldier. I have a nephew who is in the army. Along with his unit, he left in May for Afghanistan. They will be there for a year. My nephew will not see his wife or family during that time. If problems arise at home, he may not know about them, and even if he does, he cannot do anything about them. Food and lodging will not be what he is accustomed to at home. Compared to the life of soldiers in the past, things are much easier today because at least there is some email and phone communication today, and tours of duty are not three or four years as they were in World War II. Yet, the life of a soldier requires a lot of endurance. The physical stress may not be as severe in serving the Lord, but there are certainly plenty of times ministry becomes inconvenient for family and the rest of our lives.

(2) Endure hardship as an athlete. I have been both a participant and a fan of athletics all my life. I know the hard work that goes into getting in shape in order to play your best. On top of that, you have to play by the established rules of the game in order to be victorious. Ministry also requires this kind of endurance. I put in several years of study to prepare for ministry, and still have to study and prepare in order to be effective in ministry.

(3) Endure hardship as a farmer. Farmers work hard, often from early in the morning until late at night. They plant and cultivate and make themselves available for harvest, but they do not control the harvest. After they put in all the work, they are dependent on weather conditions and many other variables for whether they harvest a good crop. After bad years, they sometimes have to endure through a whole year before they have another chance to harvest a good crop. So much of our ministry efforts require endurance because we are dependent on the response of other people. We cannot respond to the Gospel for them.

So what will it take to have that kind of endurance? Scripture answers that question in many ways. Among the answers are two insights that Paul gives Timothy:

Remember Jesus Christ. Can you think of anything so essential to endurance for the sake of the Gospel than remembering who Jesus is and what he has done for us? Paul states it in the present tense: “Keep on remembering Jesus Christ.” During World War II Martin Niemoller was Hitler's personal prisoner for years, having preached Christ and opposed Nazism in his Berlin ministry. After the war on an American speaking tour, a secular journalist evaluated Niemoller by saying, "All those years in a Nazi prison, and all he can talk about is Jesus Christ." That should be our response to following Jesus. Jesus endured the ultimate test of the cross in order to bring us salvation. Everything we do in ministry and in the church should spring from remembering him.

Remember God’s Word. When Paul wrote Timothy he was “suffering even to the point of being chained like a criminal. But,” he said, “God’s word is not chained. Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect….” No matter what we have to endure, God’s word is still available to us. We can receive strength from it. We can proclaim it under any circumstances if we have written its message on our hearts.

Life is hard. Ministry is hard. Despite that, Paul endured as have men and women through the long history of the church. You can endure. Remember Jesus Christ. Remember God’s Word is not chained.