After their recent game 2 playoff loss to the Denver Nuggets, Lakers center Anthony Davis lamented, “We have stretches when we don’t know what we’re doing.” Whether this was a cloaked criticism of Lakers coach Darvin Ham, only Davis knows. More importantly, Davis’s comment had Lakers fans recalling Kobe Bryant’s disdain for “accidental basketball.” By “accidental basketball,” Bryant meant the haphazard approach to scoring that many basketball teams employ. It’s offense with no purpose; scoring on accident:
Pastoring On Purpose
As in sports where winning is rarely on accident, faithful ministry is always on purpose. Pastors cannot be drifting through each week unmoored from a clear gospel purpose for their ministry. What is the great purpose of our pastoral labors, you ask? Christlikeness. This is what we’re aiming for in the churches we serve. The rivers of our ministry (all of our various labors such as preaching, teaching, and caring) are to flow into the ocean of Christlikeness in our people.
The Apostle Paul was not a man adrift. He had a laser-like focus for his gospel work, a great end in view. We hear it in Colossians 1:28–29 where he explains the purpose of his ministry: “Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.” Everything Paul did in ministry was to serve the purpose of “presenting everyone mature in Christ.” This was the goal of all his toil and struggle.
We see this further when Paul compares the Christian life to the rigorous, purposeful life of an athlete:
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.1
Not running aimlessly; not boxing the air. The qualified ministry is a purposeful ministry. This perspective on ministry is what Paul sought to embed in his young apprentice Timothy by invoking several metaphors to demonstrate faithful shepherding:
Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. It is the hard-working farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops.2
Soldiers, athletes, farmers—purposeful, all.
Beware Drift
There are countless things in a week that can tempt a pastor to get off purpose. You know, the various “siren songs” of the world that call the ship of our life off course. Things like the “song” of social media that beckons the pastor to engage in some theological or cultural thread only to find his afternoon drifting aimlessly in the sea of fruitless controversy. Or the “song” of meetings with staff or other leaders in the church that meander into discussions that unnecessarily turn an hour into three (and probably verged into grumbling and complaining and gossip, if you’re honest). Or the entitlement mentality of some pastors who take excessive leisure time because he’s convinced himself that he’s overworked and under appreciated (which, in my observation, is rarely true).
Brothers, the drift is real. By the grace of God, we must resist it.
Remembering Our Purpose
In an evangelical age adrift from gospel purpose, pastors must heed the exhortation Paul gave to Timothy:
Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel, for which I am suffering, bound with chains as a criminal. But the word of God is not bound! Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.3
Faithful ministry doesn’t happen on accident, but as pastors “remember Jesus Christ” while helping others do the same. This is the great purpose of our pastoring.
1 Corinthians 9:24–27 (ESV)
2 Timothy 2:3–6 (ESV)
2 Timothy 2:8–10 (ESV)