Many times in our life as Christians we can feel like our work for God is not enough. We look at other heroes of the faith and see the miraculous work God has done through them and begin to feel inadequate. I know there have been many times in my ministry over the years that I have fell into this trap. You preach the Word of God, share the Gospel of Jesus Christ clearly, and beg people to come to Christ, but they remain frozen in their seats. As a Pastor, so many of us take this as the only quantifiable means of justifying our ministry. If I fail to see the attendance of my church grow, then I must be a failure.
This trap can lead us to focus on some of the wrong things. How many programs does our church have? How many people are attending small groups? What is our average Sunday School attendance? How many people were in the church service this morning? Now, I am not saying that there is anything wrong these concerns. As a pastor, we should want more people involved in each of these areas of ministry. The bible even commands us to meet, “not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is” (Hebrews 10:25). There is nothing wrong with counting and knowing the number of people who attend. I mean, Numbers is a book in the Bible after all. (Just an old pastor joke)
I want us to look at what is written in Revelation 2,
2 “I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. 3 I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary. 4 But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. 5 Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first…”
It is so easy to become caught up in doing the “work” of God, that we fail to do the “Work” of God, the One who sent us. I have 2 favorite passages of scripture.
The first is John 9:4:
4 I must work the works of Him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.
The second favorite of mine is Ephesians 2:10:
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
You will notice in both passages we see the word “work”. One of the dictionaries definitions for “work” is this:
“an activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result.”
The night is coming when no one can work: Jesus understood that opportunities for “doing His Work” will not last forever.
I must work is a marvelous statement of Jesus.
The Worker is “a well-earned title to the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the worker, the chief worker, and the example to all workers.” (Spurgeon)
We are His workmanship, His creation – something new He has made of us in Jesus Christ.
“The spiritual life cannot come to us by development from our old nature. I have heard a great deal about evolution and development, but I am afraid that if any one of us were to be developed to our utmost, apart from the grace of God, we should come out worse than before the development began.” (Spurgeon)
I am not saying that I have never fell victim to this trap. In fact, I would say this is one of my biggest struggles in life. I feel the need to be constantly busy “doing”.
When I was younger, my dad Bro. Mike Quillman Sr., would often make the statement that he “relaxed” by working. For those of you who knew my dad, you know that this is the case. When I was a teenager, I thought this was the most insane statement I had ever heard. Let me give you a very clear picture of what I am talking about. We would go out very early in the morning and begin cutting down trees for firewood. As my dad used the chainsaw to cut down the trees, it was my job to cut them into chunks and then split them with a splitting maul. If you don’t know what a splitting maul is, it is very similar to an axe, but with the weight and girth of a sledgehammer. The one we used had a 12 pound head. I found out later in life that you can get them much lighter, but bigger is better right?
Then, it would be my job to take the wood and stack it in the back of the truck. This truck we used was called a bob truck and was equipped with a dump bed. Dad typically borrowed this truck from one of the farmers in our church when they were not using it to haul grain. Eventually we were able to purchase our own. The bed of this bob truck would hold 12 ricks of wood. Again, if you are not familiar with this term “rick”, it is a 4-foot high by 8-foot-long stack of wood. The bed of the truck was 8-foot-wide, and dad had painted a line on the interior of the bed of the truck marked at 4-foot-high. After stacking this wood to the correct height, we would then drive the truck to our home where dad would have me back the truck up and then dump, yes DUMP, the perfectly stacked ricks of wood into a pile in the backyard. So, what happens next? You may have guessed it. I would then have to restack all that wood back into 4-foot-tall by 8-foot-long stacks, again, between 2 metal t-posts. If I questioned my dad about the reason for doing this, his response was always the same, “Work is good for you, it builds character.”
As a teenager I didn’t understand the purpose of doing this “work” that my dad had set before me. I couldn’t see the end results or benefit to doing this his way. I just knew that I was commanded to do this, and I needed to do it the way I was told and trust in my dad’s guidance that there was a purpose behind what he was asking me to do.
With our Father in Heaven, He has given us some very specific commands of how He wants HIS work to be accomplished.
Matthew 5:16, 16” Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”
Matthew 6:19-20, 19 “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: 20 But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:”
Matthew 22:37-39, 37 “Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.”
Acts 1:8, “ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.”
Matthew 28:19-20, 19 “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: 20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.”
God has a specific purpose and plan for us, and that is to do His work. There will be moments in our life when we don’t understand why we are being asked to do things in a certain way. I will be very honest with you, I never thought that my wife and I would be living in Africa, far away from our children and grandchildren. There are days here when we struggle emotionally and even question if we are doing the right thing. But God… those 2 words are another message in itself…but God is always faithful to comfort and remind us why we are here. Many times, this comfort appears from receiving a phone call or a message of encouragement from someone back in the United States. A pastor, church member, or family member will reach out to us at just the right time.
My encouragement to you is this, be faithful in what God has called you to do and who He has called you to be. You are where you are at for a purpose and a reason. Your mission’s field may be to provide a smile, a hug, and a prayer for a patient who has just received a diagnosis of cancer.
It may be to meet your neighbors and begin to share your love for them as a person and open a door to share the love of Jesus Christ with them. (A recent poll showed that 1/3 of Americans have never met their neighbors and 2/3 of Americans are not friendly with their neighbors)
One of my favorite sayings is this, “most people will not believe that you care about them dying and going to a literal hell until they see that you care about the figurative hell they are living in here on earth.”
God has called us to work for Him. His work is for us to LOVE people, WALK alongside them, and LEAD them toward Him. Our job is to do the work that He has called us to do, while we still can. His job is to SAVE them. Salvation is way above our pay grade. So, when we begin to feel like we are failing, or not doing enough, let us remember what we read in Galatians.
Galatians 6:4, 4 But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another.
We should take a careful look at the work we are doing for God. We may think our works for Him are fulfilling what He has asked of us, but in the end, we may come up short of what He has really asked of us.
One Friday in July (yes, we cut wood in the middle of the summer) my dad allowed me to go and get firewood by myself. This was a way for me to make some money on my own. My dad said we needed 4 more truckloads of wood to fulfill the orders. I forgot to mention, we didn’t have a wood burning stove ourselves, but sold the wood to help provide for our family of 7. I went to the woods alone at around 4:00 a.m. and began to cut and split the wood.
Since I was on my own, I decided to try things my own way. After cutting and splitting the wood, I began to load it into the truck in piles instead of stacking it. I piled it up close to the line my dad had made and then set off to deliver it. This was so much easier! I piled it up and then took it to the customer. All I had to do was back up, dump the firewood, and leave.
I repeated this process 3 more times for the other customers and finished much quicker than I thought I would. This meant there was still plenty of daylight for me to go and do what I wanted do. For me, this was to go play basketball with my friends at the local YMCA on the outside courts. That evening when I returned home my dad called me in and asked if I had completed the work he had sent me to do. I happily explained that I had done everything he had commanded me to do. He then asked if I had done it the way that he had shown me, to which I said “yes”, knowing in my mind I did it, but my way was more efficient. Dad then asked me, “then why did I receive 4 phone calls from people wanting to know why when they stacked all of the firewood, we had shorted them.” It was then that I realized that I should have just listened to my dad and did it the way he had asked me to.
My dad had a purpose for asking me to do it his way. It was so that those who were needing the wood, would receive exactly what they were supposed to. Doing it my way, fell short.
God has a purpose behind asking His children to do what He commands. We may not understand why He is asking to do certain things or even in the manner He has asked us. He asks that we trust in His plan so that we do not come up short. For me, I was able to (told that I had to) go back and get more firewood, in the dark, no matter how long it took me.
When it comes to doing the work of God, night is coming, and we won’t be allowed to go back and work in the dark. Let us do the work that God has entrusted to us, in the way that He has called us to, and see His mighty hand complete the work.
Philippians 1:6, 6 Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:
The Quillmans 
Loved this it meant so much , since I have been led to this church at Loyalty God has been showing me that it was him that moved me and my wife. He has also showing me to speak when I feel like I have something useful or valuable to tell it.You have greatly encouraged me and I feel like we are true Brothers in Christ , and have an Ideal on a fund raiser for your tires.Just have to get well been down all week
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