The Pastor’s Ambition

“You yourselves know how I lived among you . . . serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials . . .how I did not shrink back . . .” (Acts 20:18-19)

What does a pastor want? A local people, a local place (among you), and a way of life (you yourselves know how I lived).This way of life directly resists those routines that are typical among our people and in our place. We learn slowly by grace to determine our daily rhythms, not from our desires or moods and not from the expectations and moods of our neighbors, but from our prior allegiance to the living Jesus. (serving the Lord)

This Jesus-oriented way of life resists arrogance and instead pursues what is considered lowly or common in the world, it gives us a skill-set for learning the happiness of being overlooked and underestimated like our savior. (with all humility) We begin to consider great those who serve among the least. Our way of measuring greatness therefore begins to seem completely out of step with most of those around us. An unknown widow and her coin increasingly delights our attention more than the money, the celebrity and the networking.

This way of life frees us to cry among those we serve. Our own personal trials among our critics daily weigh upon us. (with tears and with trials) Keeping up an appearance and preserving a reputation begin to fade in our motives and daily energy. If someone leaves the church because we are too human in our tears, we let them go.  This way of life empowers us neither to quit nor to pretend that ours is a tearless and trial-less ministry. (how I did not shrink back) Grace perserveres us.Unknown, overlooked, underestimated, exposed and wrongly treated, we do not fight to set the record straight or enhance our image. We get on with the grace given us.  After all, His beauty, not what others think of us is the reason we live anyway. Through His Word when in public and in private no matter the tears in our eyes or the criticisms sitting in our email, we exalt Him. (from declaring . . .in public and from house to house, vs. 20)

This way of life beckons us to give up trying to say just the right thing to keep people liking us and to preserve a grand future in the eyes of our neighbors. The Lord’s calling for our life may not entail notoriety or ease, at least in terms of what the world says we should demand. (imprisonment and afflictions await me, vs. 23) So, as far as gaining our “piece of the pie” or “our seat at the table,” this way of life apprentices us to let such ambitions go. (I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, vs. 24) We no longer desire to be the talk of the town. We no longer worry about those who are. We no longer consider ourselves to be indispensible or rare or worthy of unusual honor among people in our generation. Jesus does not need us to possess such impressiveness in the eyes of others in order to fulfill His calling upon our lives. He is impressed by different things than these.

Therefore, Jesus, the pastoral  way of life reorients us toward an ambition of a different kind. (If only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, vs. 24) Our great ambition is to do the will of the Gracious One. In communion and surrender to Him we aspire only to carry out what He has given us. His command is enough. His fellowship is our delight. Completing His will for us is our sole aim. Ambitious for humility we give our lives away. He lifts us up again and again. Loved by Him we feel no loss. Elliot was right. “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

Advertisement