Ken Barnes worked 17 years with Youth With A Mission as a school leader, recruiter, and a director. He holds a Master of Education in Curriculum and Instruction from Virginia Commonwealth University. He is the author of The Chicken Farm and Other Sacred Places, published by YWAM Publishing in 2010. Currently, he is a speaker, blogger, and freelance writer. Ken lives with his wife, Sharon in Mechanicsville, Virginia.
After he graduated from high school in 1904, William Bordon was called to be a missionary. At different points in Bordon's short life, he wrote in the back of his Bible, no reserves, no retreats, no regrets.
Though he came from a very wealthy family, wealth did not possess him. Early on in his life, a friend expressed that he was throwing his life away by becoming a missionary—he wrote in his Bible, no reserves. After he graduated from Yale, he was offered very lucrative positions—he penned, no retreats. His missionary call narrowed to a Muslim group in China. After doing graduate work at Princeton Seminary, he left for Egypt to study Arabic before arriving in China. In Egypt, he contracted spinal meningitis and within a month was dead at age twenty-five. Before his death, under the other two notations he had made in his Bible, he wrote—no regrets.
Was William Borden's seemingly untimely death a waste of human life? Absolutely not. Thousands of people have read his story and have been encouraged in their missionary call. God never wastes any of our sorrows.
Things happen to Christians. We experience what we don't expect, and some expectations don't come to fruition. The Christian life often entails disappointments we can't understand, but God uses them for his ultimate good. God lives in the eternal now. God makes decisions based on past, present, and future considerations. Humans remember the past imperfectly, know what is happening now, and nothing about the future. God dwells on eternal priorities, man on temporal ones. Our heavenly Father always knows best.
The length of our life and our corresponding ministry are not indications of success in God's eyes. Take, for instance, John the Baptist. It is recorded in Matthew 11:2-3
John the Baptist, who was in prison, heard about all the things the Messiah was doing. So he sent his disciples to ask Jesus, "Are you the Messiah we've been expecting,* or should we keep looking for someone else?"
OPEN VERSE IN BIBLE (nlt)
(NASB1995),
“Now when John, while imprisoned, heard of the works of Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to Him, ‘Are You the Expected One, or shall we look for someone else?’”
His experience tempted John to doubt that Christ was the Messiah.
I once lead a discipleship training school for a missionary training organization. On one occasion, we accepted a student from a foreign country who had been a spiritual leader in the church there. In his culture, he did not serve others, they served him.
We built a two-hour work duty into our daily schedule. When there was a prayer meeting or teaching session, our foreign student was one of the first to arrive. When it came to work duties, he was difficult to find. One Saturday, we had a work day where I labored with the students on a very dirty job. Coming back from the work detail, this student looked into my dusty face and said, “very practical Christianity.” When he said this, I thought to myself, he is finally starting to get it. I had been teaching in the school about having a servant’s heart, with very little response from him. It’s not so much what we say that counts, but what we do. Christianity is more readily caught than taught.
God rebukes the Tekoite nobles. The commentator Matthew Henry says that “they would not come under the discipline of being obliged to perform this service. They thought that the dignity and liberty of their rank exempted them from getting their hands dirty and serving God.”
The action of the Tekoites makes it evident they believed specific tasks had more value than others. Our work has value because God has called us to do it, and we are a person of value doing it. Yes, satisfaction comes from completing a task and doing it well, but that is a separate issue from value. God places no more importance on the CEO of a company than a maintenance worker, if they are both doing their jobs for him. We should not seek to get value from our work but to bring value to it.
In my discipleship training school, changing roles from a leader to one who did manual labor did not change my value. I took on a different role but my value was constant. We are valuable because we are made in the image of God and bought with a price. On that work day, I brought value to that job. I didn’t derive my value or the lack thereof from it.
The Tekoites were operating in the ways of the world, which says you have worth according to what you do. God does not see big or little people; he sees people. He majors on why we do what we do, not what we do. Whatever task God has called you to do, it has great value if you are doing it for him. Such will free us from the bondage of the Tekoite nobles, who look to people rather than God for their acceptance.
It never devalues you to do what God has called you to do.
COVID-19 has devastated our economic landscape. Many, including Christians, are struggling to make ends meet. Stimulus bills have pumped trillions into the economy, but even the government does not have unlimited resources. When we have no other way to turn for help, God is always there.
It is like that time $60 saved my life.
On one occasion, when I served as a missionary, I was doing advanced work to set up a recruiting tour traveling to 35 cities east of the Mississippi River. We were enlisting youth for short-term mission trips. I was traveling with my wife and our two little girls. We arrived in Los Angeles from Hawaii, picked up a loaner car, and started for our destinations in the eastern US. We had round-trip plane tickets and enough money to start our trip, but not enough to complete our travel. We would have to trust the Lord for the finances to end our tour. Previous to this time, I had traveled on missionary ventures by myself, and God had miraculously provided. But this was a bit different. I had my family with me, and my daughters had these strange little habits — they liked to eat and regularly.
A few weeks into our trip, we arrived at the home of our contact outside of Indianapolis, Indiana. We were out of money. We conducted our business, and the next morning our host family sent us off with a large brown-bag lunch but no financial blessing. As we hugged our hosts to say goodbye, there was a knot in the pit of my stomach.
As I started our car that morning, my eyes went to the gas gauge. There did not appear to be enough fuel to get us to Tennessee, our next stop. I had recently heard stories about Brother Andrew, who smuggled Bibles into Eastern Europe. When pursued by the authorities, his gas gauge in his little car, reportedly, never went down. I watched my gas needle seem to move toward empty faster than ever. After driving for a couple of hours, though it was not quite lunchtime, I suggested we stop to eat. When you don’t know what to do, you delay and silently pray, of course. As my wife got out the lunch, I went into the station to inquire about the driving time to our next stop. The news was not good. I did not have enough fuel to make it to our next destination in Tennessee. I did have a charge card, but I knew that if I started spending money that I did not have, I was starting down a slippery slope.
As I returned to our car, I noticed my wife had a big smile on her face. As she had unpacked our lunch, she found an envelope on the bottom of the bag. It had $60 in it. When she gave it to me, it was like she had saved my life.
The meetings I arranged that summer started that fall, and the tour ran for 13 years. As Abraham ascended Mt. Moriah to sacrifice Isaac, God had a ram in the thicket for the sacrifice. God had our ram in the thicket on the bottom of our lunch bag. Where God leads, He feeds, where He guides, God provides.
We are living in a time where there is a great temptation to make government our security. Stop-gap measures may be necessary for the short-term, but government treasuries do not have enough money to meet our long-term needs. For Christians, God owns the cattle on a thousand hills (Psalms 50:10
For all the animals of the forest are mine, and I own the cattle on a thousand hills.
OPEN VERSE IN BIBLE (nlt)
), and his supply is virus-proof. God is our provider in good times and bad.
Luke tells us about two sons. The younger son forsook his father and his household for riotous living. The older son stayed home and did all the right things for all the wrong reasons.
I grew up in church and had all the perfect attendance Sunday school pins down one lapel and up the other. I made a public confession of faith and was baptized, which was expected of all young people in our church. I was known as a good boy. I tried to do the right things, especially on Sunday mornings, yet I was not past being a little naughty during the week, especially if I thought I would not get caught. It was a performance-based relationship with God to earn my acceptance from Him.
This all continued until one day on my college campus; I attended a meeting sponsored by a Christian group. A missionary from Switzerland spoke, and he said, “God doesn’t want half of you or three-quarters of you, he wants all of you.” I felt a tug on my heart and responded to his call, and things have never been the same. The greatest evidence of a true conversion is a changed life. I went from trying to win God's approval to being grateful for His approval that I already possessed. I realized God wanted my heart more than my deeds. At this point, I saw I had been a lot like the older brother of Luke 15.
The younger brother spent all his inheritance on wild living. Eventually, he was living among the pigs and even their food looked good to him. He finally came to his senses. (Recognizing our sin is like finally seeing the obvious.) He realizes that he no longer has the right to be called his father’s son (Luke 15:13-19
"A few days later this younger son packed all his belongings and moved to a distant land, and there he wasted all his money in wild living. About the time his money ran out, a great famine swept over the land, and he began to starve. He persuaded a local farmer to hire him, and the man sent him into his fields to feed the pigs. The young man became so hungry that even the pods he was feeding the pigs looked good to him. But no one gave him anything. "When he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, `At home even the hired servants have food enough to spare, and here I am dying of hunger! I will go home to my father and say, "Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son. Please take me on as a hired servant."'
OPEN VERSE IN BIBLE (nlt)
).
The younger brother returns home and voices to his father the contrition he has already experienced in his heart (true repentance never demands mercy). His father, being a type of Christ, treats him like he has never sinned, by clothing him with a beautiful robe and killing the fatted calf for a celebratory feast; enter the older brother (Luke 15:21-23
His son said to him, `Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son.*' "But his father said to the servants, `Quick! Bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him. Get a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet. And kill the calf we have been fattening. We must celebrate with a feast,
OPEN VERSE IN BIBLE (nlt)
).
The elder sibling does not seem to be excited about his brother’s return. He is angry that his father is giving what he feels he deserves to his brother.
When our hearts are right with God, we always rejoice when a sinner repents. It appears that all the elder brother's good works have done little to change his heart. He served his father, not out of love, but to earn what he felt he deserved—his inheritance. Spiritually speaking, we can never receive anything until we realize that we deserve nothing.
We have many older brothers, like I was, in our churches today. They feel good about keeping the rules to earn their way to heaven. Lacking a heart transformation, they never see their need. Working for our salvation always makes us feel entitled. Only the poor in spirit will know Christ.
As I write this piece, it’s the spring of the year when our gardens start to blossom. Along with the beautiful flowers are the nemesis, the weeds. Among them are poisonous vines, either ivy or oak. These plants are three-leaf in form, and so goes the saying, if it comes in threes, leave it be.
There are also three things the Bible says grow out of our flesh — namely jealousy, envy, and strife. For our spiritual health, these three should also be avoided.
In recent years, due to some sickness and the oppressive summer heat and humidity, we have not maintained our flower beds as we should have. My wife loves to garden. Me, not so much. But I love my wife, so I try to help her with this chore.
One day last week, we waded into this unpleasant but necessary task. As we started to pull the weeds, we remembered something we had learned from previous years — if you do not pull weeds out by the root, in a few months they will be right back.
This reminded me that the three works of the flesh — jealousy, envy, and strife — have a root source, pride. Thomas Aquinas thought pride was the cause of every other sin. It lurks under the surface like roots of weeds, sprouting into these three divisive characteristics. If pride is not dealt with, it won’t be long before our spiritual garden needs to be weeded again.
Knowing that we had poisonous plants in our garden, we took a proactive approach. We clothed ourselves from head to toe to protect against the oil from poisonous plants. Much of the same strategy will guard us against jealousy and envy. Watch for thoughts or words that compare you with what others have or can do.
C.S. Lewis once said, “Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man ... It is comparison that makes you proud.” Comparison is the fertilizer that makes our emotions mushroom into jealousy and envy.
I also noticed that the poisonous plants were primarily vines running close to the ground. They were often obscured from sight by the leaves and blossoms of the flowers.
Such is the case with jealousy and envy. They are hidden by pleasant things such as flattery. We don’t realize the intent of words or suggestions because they are wrapped with things that make us feel good about ourselves. They appeal to our pride — the root of all of our problems.
The oil from a poisonous plant does not always show up immediately as a rash. It can take a week or two for the skin irritation to the surface.
It is much the same with jealousy and envy, the outward manifestation that can warn us is often delayed. If thoughts that provoke these devilish characteristics are not challenged, by the time they surface they can be ingrained in our emotions and thinking.
Finally, after a long day, we were finished. We took off our clothes and put them in the wash and jumped straight into the shower. As the old saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
As the Bible says, we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5
We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ.
OPEN VERSE IN BIBLE (nlt)
(b)). If we do not take our thoughts captive, they will capture us.
If we see jealousy, envy, and strife, these devilish three, let them be.
Humility may be one of the most sought-after virtues in the Bible, but possibly the least achieved. We know it when we see it, but it is difficult to define. It is one of the Christian graces that if you try to pursue it, you may distance yourself from it. You cannot choreograph humility into the script of your life. God has to facilitate the process. If you are trying to get it through self-effort, the accomplishment negates the desired result.
Long ago, the famous preacher, Harry Ironside, from Moody Bible Church, worried that he was not as humble as he ought to be. He asked a friend what he should do. The friend counseled him to make a sandwich board with the plan of salvation in Scripture written on it and walk around the busy shopping district of downtown Chicago for an entire day. Ironside thought this would be a humbling experience, so he walked around the Windy City, spouting Scriptures along the way. When he finally returned to his apartment, he thought about how humbling his excursion had been and was feeling pretty good about the experience. As he was removing his sign, he caught himself thinking, “There is not another person in Chicago that would be willing to do a thing like that.”
Humility is a contradiction in terms. When you feel like you are closest to achieving it, you are farthest from possessing it. When you realize how far you have to go in acquiring it, you are actually closer to having it. Meekness is a virtue that if gotten through your self-effort, can make you proud of your humility. It is a grace that we must continually pursue, but recognize that we can never entirely grasp.
Billy Graham, arguably the greatest preacher of the modern era, might teach us something about humility. On one occasion, someone stole his Bible. He told someone, “I can’t see why someone would want it, it had my name printed right on it.” He was clueless about the fact that a Bible with his name on it, was the very reason someone would want to steal it. Pride always gives us an elevated sense of self-importance. Humility keeps our life in perspective. Over the years, people have studied the preaching of Billy Graham, his style, content, and structure. Many have tried to emulate these, with not near the success he had. Could it be that the secret of his success is not the mechanics of his preaching but a less apparent reason, humility, that God always honors in a person’s life?
In God’s Kingdom, the way up is always down. In the world, you can usurp authority, but in ministry, conceit impedes your progress. Pride is just an incorrect view of who you are in relation to who God is. Accurately compare yourself with God and the only reasonable response will be humility. Humble yourself before God, and He will lift you up.
