“For He does the work of the Lord as I also do.” 1 Corinthians 16:10 From that text we too can do the work of the Lord because we can find out how the apostle Paul did it. One of my nightly prayers includes a request “Lord may I have an abundant entrance when I depart this life!” That request does not mean I want to be a great success, but it does mean I want to have done the work of the Lord God’s way. What then does it mean? Study 1 Corinthians 16:5–12 and you’ll discover at least five keys. First, let me share the John Paton story because it illustrates all five keys.
While John Paton was a university student in Scotland. God called him to missionary work in the New Hebrides. After graduation he and his bride sailed to the southwest Pacific and began work among the savage cannibals on the island of Tanna. His wife and infant son died a few months later, and Paton slept on their graves for several nights to prevent the cannibals from digging up the bodies and eating them. After almost four years of faithful work he left without seeing a single convert. Many years later his son by another marriage resumed work on Tanna and eventually saw the entire island come to Christ. When the elder Paton revisited the island, the chief of the former cannibals asked the missionary who the great army was that had surrounded his hut every night when he first came among them. God’s angels had protected him. Because of his faithful work and that of his son, when he left the New Hebrides for the last time, after ministering on another island as well, it is reported that he said with tearful eyes, “I don’t know of one native on these islands who has not made a profession of faith in Jesus Christ.”
The first key to doing God’s work God’s way involves VISION.
“but I shall come to you after I go through Macedonia” 1 Cor. 16:5
Even while the apostle Paul was carrying on a ministry in Ephesus he was planning the next steps in his ministry, that is what he was going to do in Macedonia, Corinth and then Jerusalem. I don’t know who said it, but I remember that they put it this way:
“ the apostle never saw a ship at anchor, but he wished to board it to carry the good news to the people across the water, and that he never saw a mountain range but he wanted to cross it to build up the Saints.”
In 1959 Songtime started on WDAC in Lancaster – 51 years on that station! At that time FM was unthinkable in the minds of many but not with the founder, Dr. Percy B. Crawford. He actually made FM radio sets available so people in greater Lancaster could listen. He was a man motivated by a vision. And I would like to think that is where much of my vision began. Incidentally, we can’t talk about vision without including Martin Luther King. On August 28, 1963 he said this:
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. When we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”
For me the key to Vision involves the will of God and the spirit of God. Start with the will of God, Romans 15:32 “that I may come to you with joy by the will of God”
That tells me that inner mental attitude joy is one of the ways we can know we are in the will of God. Expect people to discourage you. When Percy Crawford started WDAC he heard the comment – “it will never work.” However since joy does not depend on circumstances, the critics should not bother you. However, if you are depending on your circumstances, you’ll quit. Vision also depends on the Holy Spirit. One word stands out like a NEON sign in Romans 8:14:
“for as many as are LED by the spirit of God ...”
You see the Holy Spirit is omniscient, so He knows what is ahead. We don’t. Therefore it is impossible to be a person 5:18 is a command, but also in the present tense which tells me this is a daily consideration. Ephesians 5:18 is a present passive imperative, so we can translate it – “be being kept filled.”
Simply stated we can say that no Christian can fulfill the will of God apart from being filled with His Spirit. I cannot understand how churches can hope to have meetings with the church board unless the church has corporate prayer meetings! That is also the reason a board meeting should be dominated by prayer because Romans 8:14 teaches there is no leading apart from the Holy Spirit. Incidentally we will know in future studies that unity is a mark of doing God’s work God’s way, and how do we have unity? - Ephesians 4:3
“endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace.”
Doing God’s work God’s way begins with the vision. We will consider four other keys in future studies. Ignore the five keys to doing God’s work God’s way and you have what someone has described as a committee – A group of the unwilling appointed by the incompetent to do the unnecessary!
Challenge
Write to me personally at Songtime, Box 100, Barnstable, MA 02630 and ask for “Prayers that Bring Revival.” Our freedom is being lost and only the Holy Spirit can hold back the enemy!