Small Sacrifice

When I was asked by the editor of a local Christian magazine to write something about my own personal sacrifices in obeying God’s call to full-time ministry, there was a hesitation on my end whether I can write such an article. I will be entering my 25^th year of work as a career pastor. I have now the advantage of hindsight wisdom and perspective, which would be dramatically different from the earlier years. I hesitated because I have to ask myself, having experienced what I had in the last 24 years, were there any “real” sacrifices that I had made? Our church DUMC's tagline to “Love God, Serve People and Make Disciples” reminds us that loving and serving, whether towards God or people, is synonymous. Sacrifices on our part is presumed.

Maybe these are the thoughts of a man entering the senior years. Just unravelling life lessons from Song of Songs, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, tells you of a man who had seasoned through the ups and downs of life to conclude that at the end of the day, nothing on earth will ever satisfy except to find our purpose and significance in God. The journey of Solomon, vacillating from wisdom, vanity and satisfaction, reminds us how unpredictable our hearts are. No wonder Jeremiah lamented in Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” He goes on to say in verse 10 “I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward each person according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve.” Hence my struggle with saying with a straight face sacrifices that I had made in serving Him because He knows my heart.

The Call

The call to serve Him was a call to obedience in my university years in Melbourne during a mission conference in the local church I was attending. I committed myself to be willing to obey whatever He was calling me to, whether to serve in my professional calling in the corporate world or to full-time Christian ministry. Interestingly, my future wife also responded to the same altar call although at that time we were not in a relationship yet. I was trained as an engineer and for nine years after graduation and the eventual marriage, my wife and I lived a lifestyle in such a way that if God should call me, our financial commitment would allow us to do that.

In 1994, when I joined DUMC, I was 34 then, with a 4-year-old son. My wife and I had a desire to have maybe two or three more children (we have 3 sons eventually) and our dreams for a family were no different from anyone else. Primarily to be able to provide adequately for our children in terms of their education and some of life’s little luxuries. In discussing my employment financial package with the elders, the church then with a small congregation of 200, could only pay us the amount that was the bare minimum that would allow us to pay our bills and expenses each month that our combined salaries could afford, without any savings at the end of the month. I needed to take a 70% pay cut from what I was getting as an engineer. But I was glad I could take a 70% pay cut, suggesting a lifestyle we had adopted in preparation. Some Christians had lived beyond their means of a pay cut when the calling came. This would be my advice to those contemplating a call from God to full-time Christian work.

So, it was a step of faith with questions that bothers me as a father and husband. What about the future of our children? Their education? Will they end up disappointed with our financial position of not being able to live and enjoy the privileges like their peers? Thank God for a wife who too understand the calling of God and we both plunged into this uncertain yet exciting journey of faith and ministry. My wife continued to work in her corporate job and the Lord blessed her over the years.

Serving with open hands

What sacrifice?

Twenty-four years later, the only conclusion we can make is this: that God is no man’s debtor. Jesus clearly reminded us (Matt 6:25-34) to look at the birds of the air and the flowers of the field and not to worry about our life, what we will eat or drink, or about our body, what we will wear. It was time then to put what we know from our head into our hearts. It had been an incredible journey of seeing the growth of the church, the provision of God for my family and the spiritual journey of maturity for all of us as a family. What we needed to be clear about is not what we wanted or desired for ourselves. Rather it is about finding out what God desires of our lives. King David was called as man after God’s heart not so much because of what he did for God, but rather at every turn of event in the battles of his life, he inquired of the Lord. It suggests an intimacy with God such that he can genuinely say “Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere;” (Ps 84:10) When we begin to recognize the depth of God’s love for us and the sacrifices He had made, any sacrifice we make pales in comparison. It is no longer a sacrifice on our end to serve Him, but a privilege to serve this Living God. There are just no sacrifices too big compared to what He had done.

Hence, I find it awkward to start listing down the sacrifices I had made in this journey. Were there sacrifices I had to made in matters of dying to my fleshly dreams and desires? Yes of course. But I would not exchange them for what I had experienced up to this point of my life.

I had used the Wesley Covenant Prayer as a renewal prayer in our Watchnight services. This is a prayer used in the Methodist liturgy for the Covenant Renewal Service. This prayer reflects the words of Apostle Paul: “¹⁹ Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; ²⁰ you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.” (1 Co 6:19–20).

I leave this prayer with you for your perusal, that in considering a life time of service to God, it is about obedience, wherever He calls you to, be faithful.

Wesley Covenant Prayer

I am no longer my own but yours.

Put me to what you will, rank me with whom you will;

put me to doing, put me to suffering;

let me be employed for you, or laid aside for you,

exalted for you, or brought low for you;

let me be full, let me be empty,

let me have all things, let me have nothing:

I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things

to your pleasure and disposal.

And now, glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,

you are mine and I am yours.

And the covenant now made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.

Be With Jesus

We have often heard the adage that we must be before we do. What we do does not determine who we are in God. Meaning God loves us not on the basis of what we do for Him. But rather, He loves us for the worth He sees in us despite our fallen nature. We are made in His image and intrinsically we carry something of His nature. The understanding of who we are is the foundation to our life on earth as we answer His call to serve Him.

Doing defines us. Or putting it another way, we do because we are. One of the amazing privileges we have as His children is to serve God and people. We are created to do good works. (Eph 2:10) Once we discover who we are, created to bear fruit in every good work (Col 1:10), we live out that calling. I am challenged by John Wesley: “Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as ever you can.” We don’t serve to gain favour. We serve because that’s who we are.

As we do that faithfully, there is a tendency over time to serve not out of our being, but our doing. We get weary and burdened, eventually leading to burnout. “We cannot make up for failure in our devotional life by redoubling energy in service. We shall never take people beyond our own spiritual attainment.” (William Griffith Thomas)

One of the keys to a consistent and life-long effective ministry is to discover what the apostles were doing in their spiritual lives. I am intrigued by a verse in the book of Acts on one such key. Peter, who was with John, was instrumental in the healing of a lame beggar in Acts 3. Crowds were attracted to this incredible miracle of this lame man “walking and jumping, and praising God.” (Acts 3:8) In Acts 4, Peter preached to the onlookers about the Messiah, which greatly disturbed the priests, captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees. They seized Peter and John and put them in jail until the next day. They were brought before the Sanhedrin, which is the supreme judicial and ecclesiastical council of ancient Jerusalem. In that exchange, here’s what the priests said. “When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.” (Acts 4:13)

How did they know that Peter and John had been with Jesus? I wish Luke had spelt out the criteria of that observation. Would people around say the same about us who are too disciples of Jesus? Not so much about what we have done, but that we have been with Jesus. They were trained from the onset of their calling by Jesus in that way. “Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to him those he wanted, and they came to him. He appointed twelve that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach ¹⁵ and to have authority to drive out demons.” (Mark 3:13-15)

What does it mean to be with Him? It is a relational call of making time for the One who is our Friend, Brother, Saviour and God. We cannot have any meaningful relationship without making time for each other. To be with Him is to make regular time to read His Word and have a two-way conversation. It is not about putting a tick on our daily to-do list for our devotions and prayer time of presenting our request list. It is not merely functional. At the heart of it is relational. The hazard of the modern urban life is that we have no time. Yet everyone has 24 hours, no more and no less. We say time is money and we need to be efficient and effective in all that we do so that we don’t waste time. Yet, have you ever thought that we can and should “waste time” with God? We don’t understand the principle that when we hear God clearly of His will for our lives, we actually save time and even from heartaches and disappointments. There is something about being with Jesus that we begin to center our lives around His agenda and not ours, which could be dramatically out of sync with God’s because we are carnal by nature.

To be with Him is the highest calling for the child of God. Apostle Paul understood that when He said “I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body.” (Philippians 1:23-24). Here’s that key again. He knew and longed for that intimacy with Christ.

Often I hear Christians asking: “What else do we do in heaven?” That is the wrong question. One day in the new heaven and the new earth, doing is not the heart of existence. “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.” (Revelation 21:3) God will BE with us and He will live amongst us. What makes heaven “heaven” then? It's about who we will BE with. With Him and with His people. Heaven is all about relationships. What we will do thereafter for eternity will be unimaginable creativity and joy being in existence.

Therefore, learning to be with Him on earth is a practice run! In the light of all that is happening around us in our nation, with all the uncertainties, challenges and threats, what gives us hope and clarity is the certainty of God’s Presence in our lives. We are not to be paralysed by the fear of the unknown but as in the example set forth by the apostles, if and when the time comes, we will be known as people who had been with Jesus.

Discipleship towards Christlikeness is a call to know Jesus and to be with Him. It is simply helping another person be with Jesus as you continue to make time to be with Jesus. When we learn to do that, we don’t struggle too much in answering this question: “What is the Holy Spirit saying to you?” To be with Him then is the highest calling!