Peter Witkowski Discipleship

Hope For the Sideline Christian

Buried deep inside the 70-verse list of returned exiles in Ezra 2 resides the story of a clerical error any reader who has spent the day at the DMV can readily identify with and benefit from.

Desiring be a part of God’s supernatural work, the sons of Barzillai travel to Jerusalem to serve as priests in the new temple. But before they can pass go, the Jewish state presses pause on their application because of an administrative error. Ezra 2:62 reports, “These sought their registration among those enrolled in the genealogies, but they were not found there, and so they were excluded from the priesthood as unclean.” Though this providential clerical error undoubtedly discouraged the sons of Barillai, it also conveys a beautiful truth that promises to encourage all Christians: namely, that Christians can glorify God irrespective of where and how they serve in God’s kingdom.

When God Redirects

While the passage unquestionably speaks to a congregation’s need to guard the offices of the church from being corrupted by unqualified men as 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 affirm, it also speaks to those members who can no longer serve prominently in their local church. Though they desire to oversee a Sunday school class, disciple new mom, or serve as the deacon over facilities, they awake one day only to discover that God’s divine providence has put an end to their service. For some, old age and failing health rob them of the strength needed to keep teaching. For others, the arrival of their first child redirects their discipleship time to diapers and sleep schedules. For others, caring for a loved one battling cancer consumes all the energy that would have gone toward changing the shut-in’s air filters and light bulbs. Like the sons of Barzillai, Christians can find themselves barred from ministry. They have not openly violated God’s law and offered unholy sacrifices as the faithless priests had done in Leviticus 10. Rather, God’s providence which surpass human understanding had prevented their service.   

Always for Glory

When God directs Christians out of public ministry, they can be tempted to complain about and disparage their new setting. Like the saints in Ezra 3:13 who mourned the construction of the second temple because they feared it would not be as physically glorious as the first temple, today’s sidelined Christians can be tempted to fear that their new season of less or different activity will bring God less glory than previous years of service.

Thankfully, the opposite is true. The believer’s ability to glorify God is not tied to his or her station in church but to being part of God’s people. The Lord stirred and directed the sons of Barzillai just as much as he stirred Jeshua and Zerubbabel who played a prominent part in the temple’s reconstruction. God called all of them to Jerusalem and assigned all of them to the place that he providentially knew would be best for them and his kingdom. What brought God glory was not the size or prominence of an exile’s post but his faithfulness in that post. God is just as glorified in the faithful prayers of the dear saint in her nursing home bed as he is by the prayers of elder standing behind the pulpit.

Consequently, when God directs men and women out of more prominent ministry roles, he is not sidelining them or putting them out to pasture. He is repurposing them. P.B. Powers rightfully offered the following encouragement to the chronically ill: “Sick man, you have a place of usefulness for God, not the old place, but his place – the place which is best in the eyes of the all-wise one (39).” For some, that service may take the form of prayer. For others, that may take the form of writing encouraging notes and emails. For others, that may take the form of listening to and glorifying God through reading, listening to sermons, and singing hymns.

Lloyd-Jones Agrees

At the end of his life, the famed twentieth-century preacher Martyn Lloyd-Jones found himself sidelined from the pulpit because of his ongoing battle with cancer. Though many of his contemporaries assumed that Lloyd-Jones would be distraught over this change, Lloyd-Jones’ friend Ian Murray reported the opposite to be true. Lloyd-Jones told Murray, “Now I can pray for you men…People say to me it must be very trying for you not to be able to preach – No! Not at all! I was not living upon preaching.” In other words, Lloyd-Jones had no reason to be discouraged for God was just as glorified by Lloyd-Jones’ public preaching to thousands as he was in Lloyd-Jones’ private praying for tens and hundreds. In this sense, no believer can be truly sidelined from ministry for the Lord has designed every act of worship in every setting to glorify him. As Paul notes in Philippians 1:21, “To live is Christ.”

Final Thoughts

In short, all stations in life and the corresponding ministry are designed to glorify God. The eight-year-old bouncing through kids ministry by faith, the forty-year-old preaching to jam-packed auditoriums by faith, and as an eighty-year-old shuffling between chairs by faith can and do glorify God. To quote Paul in 1 Corinthians 10:31, “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”

Moreover, God will always direct us to the place that is best for our soul and that will most glorify him even if he must move us about through a clerical error or cancer. Even in those moments, Christians can rest assured that God is working all things together for their good.

Dear believer, if you feel sidelined, take heart. You have not been sidelined but redeployed for the glory of God. 

Peter Witkowski Discipleship, Ecclesiology

Praise the Lord for the Small Work of Small Days

The Lord often expands his kingdom through the ministry of small things though many western Christians tend to assume the opposite. They believe that God is best seen in megachurches and massive conferences that pull together thousands of people. And while God does work through large evangelical churches and parachurch ministries, the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob is just as much at work in the church of 10 as he is in the church of 10,000, as Ezra and his fellow Jewish exiles discovered thousands of years ago, when they began building the second temple.

Ezra and Small Days

Following the leadership of Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and others, the Jews of Ezra 3 set the foundation of the second temple in 536 BC bring 70 plus years of worship futility to an end. They rightfully long to celebrate and set aside a day to worship the Lord for his good gifts.

But as the worship unfolds with loud hymns and joyful praises, another dissonant sound begins to invade the service…the sound of weeping. Ezra describes the scene as follows: “But many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers’ houses, old men who had seen the first house, wept with a loud voice when they saw the foundation of this house being laid, though many shouted aloud for joy (Ezra 3:12).” Instead of rejoicing in the laying of the temple foundation, these old men derided this day as a day of small works…a day that could not measure up to, much less rival, the glory of Solomon’s temple, whose every corner sparkled with ornate gold designs (Zech. 4:9; Hag. 2:4). As the quirky baseball coach Yogi Berra once noted, “The future ain’t what it used to be.”

Though cultures have changed a lot since then, the temptation to compare—and then complain about—God’s ongoing work remains in full force. Western evangelical denominations seemingly mourn their declining numbers without end and spend countless hours coming up with baptism strategies, giving campaigns, and church-growth proposals in an effort to recapture the glory of the 1950s. Similarly, local congregations can remain fixated on past glories, complaining about the smallness of their children’s ministry, the lack of people at worship, or their trickle of baptisms. They remember when the children’s ministry was busting at the seams, when the church had to hold two services to accommodate all its members, and when the church was spitting out baptismal candidates faster than Ford made cars. That was when God worked. But this?

The Glory of Small Days

But what evangelicals miss today—and what the Jews of Ezra’s day missed—is that the work of small things advances the kingdom of God just as much as the work of large things. What the old men mourning the temple foundation did not know was that this temple would one day house the glory of the Son of God. As the Lord told Zerubbabel: “Be strong, all you people of the land, declares the Lord. Work, for I am with you, declares the Lord of hosts… The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts.” Jesus would come to worship and teach in this temple, guiding men and women to eternal life. Though this work seemed small, it would be used by God to advance his glory in ways those men could never imagine. In other words, the small works were not to be lamented but praised for they were even more glorious than the fomer.

What was true of the temple is true of every denomination and local church today. God is still advancing his glory through the ministry of small things. As Reuben Bredenhof notes in his book, The Ministry of Small Things,” The most glorious and everlasting foundation has been laid, and that is Christ (1 Cor 3:11). If we are building on him, then we need never despair, nor discourage these small beginnings.” God can and does use the woman teaching five children in Sunday school to regenerate the hearts of lost children. God can and does use the pastor faithfully counseling two to three members a year to sanctify and grow his people. God can and does use the finances of small church budgets to sponsor missionaries around the world. The hours spent advancing the gospel in small places, in small ways, are not wasted but are being used by God to expand his kingdom. One day soon, countless men and women will be gathered around the throne of God, praising Jesus because men and women were faithful in the day of small things. Praise the Lord for the small days of ministry.

Spurgeon and the Day of Small Things

The great preacher Charles Spurgeon, who preached to thousands and shaped much of nineteenth-century evangelism through his prolific ministry output, came to saving faith through the ministry of small things. On the snowy morning of January 6, 1850, teenage Spurgeon slipped into a small Methodist church that was even smaller than usual that morning. Because the church’s pastor could not even make the service, a senior deacon had to ascend to the pulpit in the pastor’s place. The faithful old saint preached a simple and yet direct message of salvation that God used to awaken and redeem Spurgeon’s heart. The Prince of Preachers was brought into the people of God because a man was faithful on the day of small things.

Small Things Are Essential

What was true of the second-temple era and of the nineteenth century is still true of the church today. The gospel goes forward because men and women like Zerubbabel, that deacon, and countless others keep up the ministry of small things. For example, my church exists today because our finance team faithfully collects and deposits the church’s offerings and pays bills. My church can gather for worship because the deacons faithfully show up early to unlock the church, because my church’s worship team faithfully practices during the week; because the nursery team faithfully watches the children; and because men set aside time to prepare prayers, Scripture readings, and sermons that guide the worship of the church. Worship occurs in my church and in millions of other churches across the world because men and women are doing small things. The next generation of Christians will be in heaven because this generation of Christians, like every other generation of Christians before it, delighted in the ministry of small things in small days. As Bredenhof notes, “we should remind ourselves that oftentimes the little things are the big things.”

Dear saint, do not grow weary in doing good. God is advancing his kingdom through the service of small days.

Final Thoughts

While all Christians should aspire to see the universe praising the Lord and should praise the Lord for grand displays of worship, they should also recognize that God is working in the small days as much as the great days. Brothers and sisters, when you see the smallness of your denomination or church, do not complain about what you lack and lament what you once were. Rather, rejoice in the knowledge that hearts are still being changed and that lives are still being sanctified. Rejoice in the small works of the Lord that are advancing his kingdom and filling up the reservations for the marriage supper of the Lamb. And then… do the next small thing.

Peter Witkowski Discipleship

God’s Stirring & Church Growth

Vanishing men’s breakfasts, shrinking children’s classes, and plummeting worship attendance often drive local church members to despair and complaints. The church members claim that their church would grow if their elders would preach more relevant sermons, if that 90% which did never volunteer would finally serve, and if their facilities were nicer. In short, they despair and complain because they believe that their church’s revival and restoration depend upon human effort and skill.

How God Worked in Ezra

Though such thoughts have seeped in the conscience of countless churches, they do not align with the ethos of Erza. The book which details how God restored and revived faithful temple worship after a seventy-year hiatus gives all the credit to the Lord. Ezra 1:5 reports, “Then rose up the heads of the fathers’ houses of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests and the Levites, everyone whose spirit God had stirred to go up to rebuild the house of the Lord that is in Jerusalem.” The temple’s restoration and revival depended upon the Lord stirring men to action.  

What was true of temple worship proves true of new covenant church worship. God builds his church through the stirring of his people to action. Commenting on his church planting and evangelistic ministry, the Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 3:6: “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.” God brings builds his church through the stirring men and women to action.

Pray for Stirrings

When church attendance sags and ministries dry up, men and women should first and foremost take their concerns to the Lord. Instead of complaining to their friends or attempting to guilt the bottom tier of the church’s roles into action, believers should implore the Lord to stir them, their fellow church members, and their unsaved neighbors to action. As J.I. Packer notes, “This is the universal rule, in evangelism as elsewhere. God will make us pray before he blesses our labors in order that we may constantly learn afresh that we depend on God for everything.” In other words, Christians should pray that the Lord would stir the lost out of Babylon and into their local church through the waters of baptism. Christians should pray that the Lord would stir their fellow church members to be done with pornography, greed, and anger. They should ask the Lord to raise up the elders and deacons that the church needs to care for the saints. They should ask the Lord to stir up older women to disciple younger women, to stir up men to evangelize their neighborhoods, and to stir people of all ages to serve in the nursery. They should pray to the Lord who builds his church.

At times the growth will be slow and almost unnoticeable. The nation of Israel waited seventy years for their restoration. Our prayers too may have to span generations. But the Lord will answer. The gates of hell will not prevail. Though our local churches may come and go, the great church triumphant will never disappear and will be forever renewed in local assemblies until all are gathered to Jesus in the unending worship of the new heavens and the new earth. Pray for the Lord to stir, for he will not abandon his church.

Act on the Stirrings

Second, church members should follow the Lord’s stirring. Those who long to see their churches revived must join with the Jews of Ezra’s day and go rebuild their church as they are able. They must respond to the Lord’s stirring and put sin to death when their consciences convict them. Following the Lord’s leading, they should pursue righteousness and knowledge so that they can be qualified to lead their church and to disciple their brothers and sisters in Christ. They should follow the Lord’s stirring and invite their neighbor over for dinner and begin a relationship that will facilitate the sharing of the gospel. Those who are stirred to see more children in the church should begin volunteering in the nursery or teach a children’s Sunday school class. Those stirred to give to the church should increase their tithe and support of gospel ministry. Those who truly long to see their church grow and the worship of the Lord expand will ask the Lord to stir and also act on his stirring.

Test the Stirring

However, not every idea that pops into a believer’s head should be equated with the Lord’s divine leading. To determine an idea’s or a stirring’s source, the believer must ask and answer two questions. First, he should ask, “Does this idea or desire align with the clear teaching of Scripture?” The Lord stirred the Jews toward Jerusalem because he had promised to bring them back to Jerusalem after seventy years of desolation (Jer. 25:11–12; Dan. 9:1–2). Consequently, the man stirred to confess his sins to a trusted mentor should do so and turn from his sins. The woman stirred to divorce her husband because she finds him boring has not been stirred by the Lord and should not act on those stirrings.

Secondly, the believer should ask, “Has the Lord given him the skills, the station in life, and the resources needed to accomplish this stirring?” When God sent the Jews to Jerusalem, he sent them with the resources needed to accomplish the rebuilding of the temple. As Ezra 1:6 notes, “And all who were about them aided them with vessels of silver, with gold, with goods, with beasts, and with costly wares, besides all that was freely offered.” Consequently, if a man feels called to go on a mission trip that will cost him his job and his ability to provide for his family, he should not go. He lacks the resources. But if the man feels stirred to have his neighbor over for dinner to share the gospel, he should work with his wife to put that dinner on his calendar. Similarly, if a woman feels called to give a large sum of money to her church’s building fund but would have to take out a loan to cover her gift, she should not follow that stirring. The Lord has not blessed her with the ability to wisely fulfill her desire. Conversely, if she receives an unexpected bonus and is stirred to give some of that as a special offering to her church, she can and should give in accordance with her resources. God provides his people with the resources they need to follow his stirring.

Final Thoughts

Though Christians can be tempted to view the rebuilding or revitalization of their church as the work of others, Ezra 1 presents a different narrative. The Lord rebuilds his church through the stirring of his people to action. Those who long to see their church renewed so do two things: pray that the Lord stirs his people and then follow the stirring of the Lord. The Lord must build the house.