I’d love to be able to live off my work as a presenter of live gospel shows and resources. But as I’ve mentioned in a few recent posts, that ain’t about to happen just yet. So what do you do? Settle for mediocrity?

The mediocre

Some of us are studied experts at mediocrity. Without really thinking about it we are intentionally mediocre in the way we present the good news. We don’t strive too hard, . We do our ministries comfortably well.  One of the reasons for this is to avoid putting too much emphasis on our abilities or a fear that we’ll look ‘showy’ or consumed by ‘worldly’ ways of doing things.  For others its about avoiding looking phoney or over-the- top. Us Aussies aren't allowed to be great at what we do after all.

Relax guys; it’s OK to do things well. We shouldn’t aim for mediocrity rather we should do ‘everything as to the Lord’ (Colossians 4). If you are serving Jesus as your boss in whatever you do, surely that means we’ll do a great job of our plumbing, cleaning, administration, preaching, performing, website designing or whatever. Right?

But doing great work for the Lord, whatever it is doesn’t mean we’ll be successful. Oh, we’ll be successful in loving Jesus with our abilities, but our business, our offertory might not pay the bills.  As I’ve mentioned previously, work is hard. Ever since the fall of man  away from God (Genesis 3), the ground is cursed, our lives are short and our labours in vain. Now when we are sharing the good news of Jesus, our labours are not in vain, because it is these words that offer the promise of eternal life, but we still face the uphill battle of work more generally.  The cursed ground is unavoidable, just like any other job.

The magnificent

Some of us won’t settle for less than 110% for Jesus. Some of us see the glory of the king of kings and expect that we can claim His success for our ministries in this life.  Well, don’t let the naysayers stop you. Think big, think possible, pray hard, and be godly.

But one word of caution I have and it’s all to do with our expectations.

I’ve been reminded of one very powerful thing in my Bible study recently. It comes from the book of Revelation.  You see, in the book of Revelation we see the whole universe, world events, the past, present and future all hinging on Jesus. Jesus is depicted (Revelation 5) simultaneously as both reigning king of kings and surprisingly, appallingly, as slain, bloodied lamb. Now it’s easy to focus on the magnificent one isn’t it? But the magnificent one is also the appalling, rejected one. Jesus is magnificent now, but the world doesn’t see it that way.  And guess what, we as his followers, are still in that same world that slew Him. So that makes us like lots of little sheep, ready for the sword. Hmmm.

See how our expectations of ministry success need to be, not diminished nor discouraged, but refracted through the light of Jesus’ success on the cross? The Christian expectation of life now should not be filled with expectations of success measured by the world’s standards. Jesus has success and glory now, because he suffered then (in our world on the cross). If we follow him, we follow the same trajectory.  If we do our work properly, this will often mean opposition and discouragement now.  The ‘success’ might only come later from the grandstand of heaven.

A case study from the New Testament

The most successful gospel presenter of all, the apostle Paul, who worked at 110% to found the first Christian churches, backed up the credibility of his work by boasting in his weakness, opposition and disappointments. These moments for him, proved he was up there with the best.

“We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body” 2 Corinthians 4:10

So even the magnificent can look mediocre.

What are the things that characterise your lministry for Jesus? What do they say about you and the credibility of your ministry?