I have three aims for this message.

First, I want to impress upon you the fact that the pastoral ministry is supernatural. All of the distinctly Christian goals in your pastoral life are humanly impossible, and God alone is the decisive cause if those goals are attained.

Second, I want to try to show how you go about life and ministry so that you become an instrument of God’s decisive work. How do you work so that he is the decisive worker?

Third, I want to exult with you that God has designed the ministry this way so that he gets the glory through Jesus Christ in your ministry forever and ever.

So, you could sum up these three aims like this: The Christian ministry is by God’s grace, through faith, for God’s glory.

My text is 1 Peter 4:10–11. As I read it, look for those three realities.

As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: whoever speaks, [let him speak] as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, [let him serve] as one who serves by the strength that God supplies — in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

This text is very precious to me. I suppose no other text in the Bible was prayed more often over me in the half hour before I stepped into the pulpit during those 33 years of pastoral ministry. They would pray, “Father, help Pastor John to preach in the strength that you supply so that in everything you, Father, will be glorified through Jesus Christ. In his name. Amen.” So, let’s focus on this text for a few minutes and let Peter make my three aims plain and (I pray) effective in your life.

Servants and Stewards of Grace

Verse 10 says, “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace.”

He speaks about the “gift” (charisma, at the beginning of verse 10) and “grace” (charitos, at the end of the verse). It’s the same root, the same reality: God’s supernatural grace. God’s grace is not just God’s disposition to pardon guilty people. It is also God’s active, powerful working in and through his undeserving servants. So, it’s a gift to each in the first half of the verse and varied grace in the second half of the verse. That’s where ministry starts: God’s active, powerful, undeserved grace.

Then stay in verse 10 and notice the two ways he describes our handling God’s supernatural grace. First, he says, “Use it to serve one another” — more literally, “serving it to one another.” Then he changes the image in the middle of the verse and says, “as good stewards of God’s varied grace.” The first picture of the ministry in the first half of verse 10 is of a servant, a table waiter — a diakonos. And God’s gift (charisma) is what he is serving to the guests at the table. So, the table waiter gets his gift of grace in the kitchen, and he puts it on the tray, and he carries it and serves it to the guests at their table. That’s the picture of diakoneō.

Then Peter changes the picture in the second half of verse 10 and says, “as good stewards of God’s varied grace.” A steward is not the same as a table waiter. A steward of a household manages what the head of the house owns and sees to it that it’s all put to use for the good of the household. Both the table waiter and the steward are go-betweens. They are receiving grace from the chef or from the head of the household. And they are using their servanthood or their stewardship to bring that grace to others. And the miracle of life that happens when the guests or the household receive that grace is a decisive work of that grace — the decisive work of God.

Helpless Go-Betweens

Then in verse 11, Peter doubles down on making sure that the waiter and the steward — whether they are handling God’s grace by speaking or handling God’s grace by some other service — are really serving up God’s grace not their own resources. Verse 11 says, “Whoever speaks, [let him speak] as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, [let him serve] as one who serves by the strength that God supplies.”

So, on Sunday, the supernatural grace that you are called upon to handle might be delivered through speaking (preaching), and on Monday the supernatural grace you are called upon to handle might be delivered with your car at 10 o’clock at night on the way to the hospital.

In the first case, Peter says, “If you are going to do good to your people — lasting good — by speaking, then your speaking will need to be the oracles of God.” “Whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God.” You are a table waiter picking up the grace of God’s oracles in the kitchen and serving them to your guests at the table. You don’t pull out your own oracles — the leftover ham sandwich in your pocket — and put it on the table. And you are a steward getting the oracles of God from the head of the household and distributing them in helpful ways to the household to make the household healthy and strong and unified.

Or on Monday, driving to the hospital, Peter says, “Whoever serves [whoever drives to the hospital in my service], [let him serve] as one who serves [drives the car, rides the elevator, enters the room, opens the word] by the strength that God supplies.” If you are going to do good — lasting good — by serving them, you must serve in the strength that God supplies. You not only carry God’s oracles rather than your own; you also carry them in God’s strength rather than your own.

In other words, as God’s table waiter and God’s steward, you are not just a go-between; you are a helpless go-between. You depend on God for his oracles, and you depend on God for his strength to get and deliver the oracles. Ministry is supernatural. All its distinctly Christian goals are humanly impossible.

Giver Gets the Glory

Now, why? Why would God set it up that way? Why would God make himself the source of the oracles — and make himself the source of the strength to serve the oracles? Why would he make you totally dependent upon him for the content of your ministry (the oracles of God) — and make you totally dependent on him for the capacity to carry it out (the strength that he supplies)? I am sure that the reason this text became the dominant prayer over me Sunday after Sunday as my praying friends sent me into the pulpit was that it gives such a crystal-clear, God-centered, Christ-exalting answer to that question. It’s in the second half of verse 11. It says,

Whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies [Why?] — in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

The giver of the oracles gets the glory. The giver of the strength gets the dominion. And we get the eternal happiness of giving praise to the glory of God’s sovereign grace. “Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory” (Psalm 115:1). So, the content of your ministry is a gift of grace, and all the spiritually effective actions of your ministry are gifts of grace.

Supernatural Ministry in God’s Strength

So, remember the three aims for this message:

First, I want to impress upon you that the pastoral ministry is supernatural. All the distinctly Christian goals in your pastoral life are humanly impossible, and God alone is the decisive cause if those goals are attained. And that’s what we have seen in 1 Peter 4:10–11. We are powerless emissaries between the grace of God and the needs of our people. We don’t have in ourselves either the oracles that our people need for life, and we don’t have in ourselves the strength to serve up the oracles. We must have both — the oracles and the strength — from God or not at all. We are go-betweens, and we are helpless. Ministry is supernatural. God is decisive.

Second, my aim is to show how you go about life and ministry so that you (in your role as helpless go-between) become an instrument of God’s decisive work. How do you work so that he is the decisive worker? Peter answered, “Serve in the strength that God supplies.”

The third aim is to exult with you that God has designed the ministry this way (with himself as the source and the strength) so that he gets the glory. We serve with God’s oracles in God’s strength (verse 11) “in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.”

But we’re not done because my second aim is not adequately completed. To say that we become God’s instrument in the ministry by serving in the strength that he supplies leaves this question unanswered: How do you do that? How do you get up in the morning and go about your tasks in the ministry in such a way that it is not you but the grace of God, the strength of God, that is decisive in your acting?

This is really basic and really crucial. If we believe (with Peter) that the pastoral ministry is supernatural, and if we want God to get the glory for our work, we need an answer to this question. How can I act with my seemingly natural mind and natural mouth and natural hands in such a way that my ministry is super-natural? What did Paul mean when he said in 1 Corinthians 15:10, “By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me”? Which is the same as Peter saying, “Serve in the strength that God supplies.” How?

Paul talks like this over and over again: “Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God” (2 Corinthians 3:5). “I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me” (Colossians 1:29). “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). These are not just words. They are reality.

“All the distinctly Christian goals you have are humanly impossible. God must act.”

This is right at the heart of pastoral ministry — indeed, the Christian life. Walk by the supernatural Spirit (Galatians 5:16). Be led by the supernatural Spirit (Romans 8:14). Bear the fruit of the supernatural Spirit (Galatians 5:22–23). Put to death deeds of the body by the supernatural Spirit (Romans 8:13). Brothers, the ministry is supernatural, or we are playing games. And it is supernatural not just because we preach the supernaturally inspired oracles of God, but also because we do it — we serve — in the strength that God supplies. The critical question is, How?

No Place for Professionals

I’m going to try to show you how I have answered that question in my own life — how I have sought to serve in the strength that God supplies. My plea to you is that you consider it seriously and, if you find it biblically faithful and authentic, you would adapt it to your own life. And if you don’t find my way biblically or existentially satisfying, would you devote the rest of your life to finding a better way?

If you don’t find a way to serve in the strength that God supplies, you will begin to justify a hundred man-made techniques and managerial strategies for becoming a successful religious professional.

One of the first books I read in 1980, in my first year of pastoral ministry, was E.M. Bounds’s Power Through Prayer. In that book, he wrote, “God, deliver us from the professionalizers! ‘Deliver us from the low, managing, contriving, maneuvering temper of mind among us’” (59). There was born in me a very strong passion not to become a professional rather than a prophet — a professional rather than a pastor, a shepherd. Out of that passion grew the book Brothers, We Are Not Professionals, because I asked myself,

• Is there professional praying?
• Professional dependence on promises?
• Professional weeping over souls?
• Professional pleading with sinners?
• Professional meditation on divine revelation?
• Professional rejoicing in the truth?
• Professional adoration of God’s name?
• Professional treasuring of eternal riches?
• Professional dealing with demons?
• Professional night vigils with a dying saint?
• Professional perseverance in a hard marriage?
• Professional playing with children?
• Professional courage in the face of persecution?

So, wherever you are in your ministry, pray that God would save you from forsaking the power of a supernatural ministry and drifting into the success of a professional one — from serving in God’s strength to serving in your own.

How to Act the Miracle

The way I have sought to serve in the strength that God supplies — whether in preaching, counseling, going to the hospital, doing a wedding or a funeral, dedicating a baby, or planning a capital campaign to build a building — is by consciously walking through the acronym APTAT as I enter that moment in ministry. And I take some sweet comfort that I am close to what Peter and Paul intend because long after I had come up with my acronym APTAT, I found the very same steps laid out by J.I. Packer on page 126 of his book Keep in Step with the Spirit.

A — Admit
P — Pray
T — Trust
A — Act
T — Thank

Let’s take preaching as the example of the ministry we want to do in the strength that God supplies. I’m sitting on the front pew, and the text is being read. I have one minute before I step into the pulpit to speak the oracles of God. O God, I want to do this in the strength that you supply!

Admit

So, very consciously I say to the Lord from my heart, “I admit that everything distinctly Christian that I want to happen through this message I cannot make happen. I know this because you said in John 15:5, ‘Apart from me you can do nothing.’” That is true. And I admit it.

Pray

“Ask and you shall receive” (see Matthew 7:7). There are dozens of things you could pray for yourself in the act of preaching, and for your congregation as they hear it. You can’t pray them all. But as you were preparing, God impressed upon you a few things you believe he might be pleased to do through this message. And at that moment, you pray for yourself and for that. “Oh, as I preach, would you give me humility and clarity and courage and prophetic power, and would you save marriages, deliver the enslaved, and save the lost?”

Trust

Many people move from the P to the A — from Pray to Act — without stressing the T: Trust a particular promise that God will act for you and in you. I think right here is the crux of the matter in serving in the strength that God supplies. I quoted Galatians 2:20 earlier but stopped halfway through the verse. Let me quote it again and not stop:

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.

That’s where I stopped. But how do you live when you do not live but have been crucified? How do you minister so that it is no longer you but Christ?

And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

I think that’s Paul’s explanation of Peter’s “serve in the strength that God supplies.” Don’t let that be vague. Make it specific thirty seconds before you step into the pulpit. Have a specific promise ready for that moment that you have gotten from God’s word that morning or from the bank of promises in your memory. How many hundreds of times have I faced speaking situations with anxiety and, as I step forward, hear the Lord himself in my mind say, “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”

Now that is Isaiah 41:10, but it is as real, precious, personal, and powerful as if Jesus Christ himself were standing beside me with his hand on my shoulder, saying, “I’ve got this. I’m here for you. I’m going to help you. Now, preach.” And the crux of serving in his strength is this: Will you trust him for that? It’s not a vague trust, but specific. Will God act supernaturally now for me? Trust him.

Act

You act. You do what I’m doing right now. This is my mouth talking. This is my mind thinking and putting words together. These are my hands. This looks so natural. But it’s not just natural. It is supernatural. I’ve seen it, brothers. I’ve seen it. Something is happening right now in this room by God’s Spirit that is distinctly Christian, spiritual, glorifying to God and strengthening to his church — supernatural. I preached; nevertheless, it was not I but the grace of God that was with me (1 Corinthians 15:10). You act. You serve in the strength that God supplies.

Thank

“[Give] thanks always and for everything” (Ephesians 5:20). God worked. God honors his oracles. They are never spoken in vain. How many hundreds of times did I come to 1 o’clock or 1:30, after a long line of needy people seeking prayer and counsel was ended, and I headed home — an eight-minute walk. I crossed the 11th Avenue bridge (for the fifteen thousandth time). I had walked across in the other direction at 7:45 that morning, praying and pleading — the first admit and pray. And now I’m walking home thanking: “I don’t know all that you did, but thank you.”

Brothers, the ministry is supernatural. All the distinctly Christian goals you have are humanly impossible. God must act. We are helpless go-betweens. We serve up his oracles. And we serve in his strength. We admit we can do nothing. We pray for his help. We trust his promise. We act. And we thank him. And we exult together that to him belongs the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.