Article
Hard Work and God’s Grace
Gospel ministry is hard work, at least if we are doing it right.
How many times have you been asked some version of the question, “So, what do you do between Sundays?” The impression many people have is that pastors roll into church on Sundays, preach a sermon, pray with some folks, and head home. Some folks acknowledge that preparing a sermon takes a fair amount of effort. Others recognize that we likely meet with people throughout the week to talk about … stuff. But often, the impression people have is that pastoring is light on what they consider “work.”
Gospel ministry is hard work, at least if we are doing it right. Church planting is hard work. Pastoring a church of any size is hard work in different ways. I don’t just mean it is challenging. I mean, it demands serious effort. We work hard.
The Bible gives us a category for this, and it gives us a caveat. We see both in 1 Corinthians 15:10:
“But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.”
The Category for Hard Work
Paul says very clearly, “I worked harder than any of them.” “Them” refers to the other apostles. He is saying, without qualification, that he busted his tail. Acts 18 tells us that Paul worked as a tentmaker when needed in order to earn a living, even as “he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath” (v. 4). He sought not to be a burden to the church (2 Corinthians 11:9). We know that Paul ran the race (2 Timothy 4:7). He strained for what was ahead (Philippians 3:13). He bore the anxiety for all the churches he planted and loved (2 Corinthians 11:28).
God gave us the call and the category of hard work. Paul showed us the example of pouring effort into preaching, soul care, shepherding, leading, correcting, teaching, admonishing, building up, and encouraging the church. He gave us the example of in-person ministry and using the written word. Very simply, we have a clear mandate and a clear roadmap for the work of pastoral ministry. No matter what misunderstandings people may have, we work hard as God intended.
The Caveat for Hard Work
This verse includes another phrase we desperately need in ministry.
We are so prone to self-reliance, to working in our own strength, and when we do, we reach the end of ourselves and the end of our fruitfulness. Not only that, but we also become prideful and competitive in our work. So we should take both warning and encouragement when Paul says, “yet not I, but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10). In a single breath, Paul said that he was the hardest worker and that he did nothing. How could this be? He understood who he was before Christ. Just one verse earlier, in 1 Corinthians 15:9, he wrote, “For I am the least of the apostles, not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.” This truth, the miracle of his salvation and ministerial call, made Paul low before the Lord in humility and driven to give Christ all he had.
How can you or I be any different? Our salvation and call are no less evidences of grace. Our fruitfulness is not our own. Even our energy to work hard is a grace from God through the Holy Spirit. So we too proclaim, with every ministerial effort, “it is not I, but the grace of God in me.”
In his wonderful essay, “The Lord’s Work in the Lord’s Way,” (one that every planter and pastor should read annually), Francis Schaeffer says this: “There is no source of power for God’s people—for preaching or teaching or anything else—except Christ Himself. Apart from Christ, anything which seems to be spiritual power is actually the power of the flesh.” A bit later, he adds, “Let us not think that waiting on the Lord will mean getting less done. The truth is that by doing the Lord’s work in the Lord’s way we will accomplish more, not less. You need not fear that if you wait for God’s Spirit you will not get as much done as if you charge ahead in the flesh. After all, who can do the most, you or the God of Heaven and earth?”
Our job is not to burn ourselves out, to grind ourselves to emotional and physical dust with our effort. Our job is to receive grace and work from it and in it. We are conduits of God’s grace to the people in our churches, not generators of it. Our confidence is not in the fruit of our labors, but in the fruit that only God can grow. Augustine once said (although it has been credited to many), “Without God, we cannot and without us God will not.” We are dependent. And we are workers. Yet we are workers in the hands of a mighty God, working on the mission of a mighty God with the strength of a mighty God. So we work harder than any of them, yet not us, but God who works in us.
