In this video, Dr. Michael Reeves examines how true pastoral ministry must flow from personal faith and deep engagement with Scripture.
To have a faithful ministry must mean first of all, that the minister has faith. That means that the one seeking to do the ministry is not simply acquainted with orthodox, sound teaching, not simply able to tell people what a Christian life looks like, faithful ministry must be conducted by one who themselves has faith—trusts God adores God.
And to have faith means to trust a God who is greater than I. And therefore, faith involves a perspective that is profoundly shaping the faithful ministry. When I’m faithful, then I realize I am a mere small creature, and I am a wretched sinner. And God is glorious, holy, all sufficient as a Savior, all magnificent as a Creator. And so my perspective is so different when I am faithful. A real question then is, “How can I be more faithful?” Well, faith comes from hearing the Word of God, and therefore a faithful ministry will be richly imbued with steeped in Scripture because it is the Word of God that creates faith.
So a faithful ministry will seek to have Scripture addressing the people, so that if I’m seeking to serve people well, I’m not telling them they ought to be more faithful—“Here’s how you should live your life. . . “. I’m speaking the pure Word of God to them, and it is that Word of God that evokes, that stirs up faith. So a faithful ministry will be steeped in Scripture.
But the other thing about faith is that in Galatians 5, we know that faith works itself out in love. Faith is a transforming thing. And this is what James talks about in James 2, that a true faith will always work itself out in an obedient Christian life. And therefore, a faithful ministry is not only a Scripture, soaked ministry seeking to give people the pure manna of heaven. It will also be a ministry in which the minister himself is transformed to be more Christlike. He will smell more of his Savior. He will have the aroma of Christ about him because when you trust Him looking to Him, you’ll become more like Him. So faithful ministry must be Scripture based and it must look Christlike. And over time it must look increasingly holy, kind, compassionate, separated from sin, and sharing Christ’s own not only loathing of sin, but compassion for the weak, compassion for those who are wayward. And without either of those things, we’ve not really got a truly faithful ministry.