Greater Works than These

I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, if anyone steadfastly believes in Me, he will himself be able to do the things that I do; and he will do even greater things than these, because I go to the Father. – John 14:12

Many of us have heard this passage preached many times with various interpretations of the passage.  While I do not want to try to evaluate what the proper interpretation of the passage is, I do want to propose that there is a nugget in this passage that could radically affect the culture of ministry that we operate in.

The Ministry Culture of Jesus

If you examine Jesus’ ministry, one thing that immediately stands out is how limited His sphere of ministry actually was.  While His ministry was spectacular, it is also amazing how He limited Himself to a specific area, refused the promotion of men, devoted only 3 years of His life to public ministry, and poured Himself into His disciples.  To understand why Jesus orchestrated His ministry in this way, it is critical that we examine how He launched the gospel through the disciples.

What is so amazing is that rather than seeking the largest public platform, Jesus poured Himself into the disciples.  In some cases, His ministry was limited to the 12 and in other cases it was the 70, and at times it included some other followers.  Regardless of the exact number, the point is that Jesus really only gave Himself to a small number of followers.  He also freely shared His power with them even when they were immature.  Not only did He send the disciples out with power, He even sent Judas out with supernatural power on him.  That alone should astound most of us.

Have you considered that Jesus invested His life in this small group of people and then He entrusted them with the propagation of the gospel to the nations?  If you think about it, it is almost inconceivable that Jesus would ascend just after His moment of triumph and leave the declaration of His victory to a handful of unstable followers.  If we are honest, we have to admit that we would consider Jesus’ ministry strategy to be ridiculous. 

How many of us would adopt that kind of strategy?  How many of us would repel the crowds that were ready to exalt us and instead invest in a small group that were struggling with proper theology?  How many of us would put power on a group of young men still struggling with their own egos?  How many of us, at the very height of victory, would step aside from visible ministry and instead give our spirit to others that they might be empowered to take the gospel to world and do great exploits?

Now, understand the point here and don’t read too much theology into it, but if you judge Jesus purely by ministry output you will see that the apostles superseded Him in virtually every way.  Most of them had much longer ministries, affected much wider areas, and produced more converts.  What was so radically different about Jesus’ value system that caused Him to minister in this way?  The answer has profound implications for just how deep our own ministry can go.

Greater Works

To find the root of Jesus’ ministry philosophy, we now must turn our hearts to the issue of greater works.  Whatever else this passage may in fact mean, I believe it was the ministry philosophy of Jesus to so invest Himself in others that they would do greater works than He Himself did.  He poured Himself out on behalf of the disciples with a heart burning to see them exceed the works that He Himself had done. 

No one has greater love than to lay down (give up) his own life for his friends. – John 15:13 AMP

Just before He went to the cross, Jesus gave another critical insight to His ministry philosophy in this classic verse in John 15.  Jesus described the heights of love as laying down and giving up one’s life for his friends.  The problem is that this verse is typically limited to the romantic idea of taking a bullet for a friend or performing some other ultimate kind of sacrifice for another.  While that kind of ultimate sacrifice was demonstrated by Jesus and is definitely included in the meaning, could it be that Jesus is aiming at something deeper?

The deepest depth of love is not to just surrender your life for another in a moment, but to give your life each day for another.  There is a daily laying down of our lives in the mundane, day to day existence that very well may supersede dying for another in a moment.  In many ways it is the daily death that is the more costly and painful.  We are called not just to consider giving our lives in a moment, but to live in such a way that we are daily laying down our life that those around us might live.  We are to so invest ourselves in others that we put our talents, our giftings, and our callings at risk so that we can see the talents, giftings, and callings of others grow and supersede our own. 

Is this not what Jesus did?  Did Jesus not define this greater love, not only by His sacrifice on the cross, but also by His daily ministry of preparing the disciples to minister on a stage that would exceed His own?  We tend to think of love as something that we may posses, but the Scriptures teach us that God is love.  Love is defined by what God is and what God does, and here Jesus is showing us what Love does.  Love invests itself in others so strongly that the other grows and flourishes beyond what we ourselves accomplish.  This is love.  It is the intentional laying down of our own lives that others may exceed us.  It is not just being complicit with another superseding us because they have greater talent, but actively investing ourselves in others with an intentional aim to equip them to supersede us whether they are naturally more talented than us or not.

Could this philosophy of ministry be contained in Jesus’ declaration that the disciples would do greater works?  Again, the passage quite certainly has other implications, but is it not possible that Jesus was defining His own ministry philosophy of equipping His disciples and followers to exceed Him in ministry?  Have you consider the weight and depth of that statement?  Is it not a majestic statement that God in the flesh would look at a handful of young men with no advantages with regard to the flesh and declare to them that they should exceed Him in ministry?  This statement should baffle your mind and ultimately lead you to prostrate yourself in worship before the God that would show such love to men.

Ministry Culture

In order to see the reality that Jesus died for, we must apply Jesus’ value system to our present culture.  To apply it, we must ask the hard question, “does our present ministry culture call on each individual to raise up others to a level that exceeds their own giftedness and then make room for those whom they invested in to display their greater giftedness?”  I’m afraid the answer is that we do not.  More often than not we tend to try to obtain some level of giftedness or blessing and then use that gift, not to equip others for greater works, but to make room to put our ministry on display.  When we do have a measurable ministry impact on others, sadly more often than not we use the individual we impacted to validate the effectiveness of our own ministry rather than being content to silently stand by rejoicing and provoking them to do “greater works” than we have done.

How many individuals called by God are repressed because leaders fear the giftedness of a lay person or of a younger minister?  How many are forced out from where they are initially called because of insecure leaders who fear giving room to another whose gifts might supersede their own?  Likewise, how many young and gifted leaders refuse to give room to other more seasoned in the faith fearing that the more seasoned one may overshadow their youthly zeal?

At this point, many of you are immediately thinking of ones who may have prevented you from expressing what God has put in you.  You may be thinking of a repressive leader or another who, because of fear or jealousy, would not give you room to express what God gave you.  Saints, that is not the purpose of this exhortation.  We must forgive those who have sinned against us and then turn this understanding inward and allow it to judge the thoughts and motives of our own hearts.  The reality is that we often look at another with thoughts of fear when we perceive another in our sphere whose giftings challenge our own.

Is your ministry philosophy set so that whoever you minister to, whether it be an individual or a group, you minister to with the intentional goal of enabling that person to exceed you?  Are you willing to take what it has taken you 15 years in the wilderness with God to obtain and freely give it away in a moment to a young, immature believer that you know may well exceed you in ministry?  Do you freely give away in a moment what took you years to obtain even if the recipient is seemingly unworthy of such a thing?  Are you willing to stand by with a heart of joy and see other believers demonstrate gifts that go beyond your own?

God has called us to be a peculiar people that are a demonstration of His nature and character.  Part of that demonstration is to be a people that freely lay down our lives for each other.  What kind of people would we be if every one of us actively committed ourselves to doing all that we can to enable others to exceed us in ministry?  What kind of demonstration would happen if the people of God celebrated the work of God advancing as it advanced in others?  What would happen if, rather than simply acknowledging when God raises up a gifted individual, we committed our lives to equipping the saints around us so that their giftedness exceeded our own and then actively gave room for them to express gifts that exceed our own?  What might God do if we actively worked to replace our own current ministry through investing in and raising up another?

This sort of ministry culture is not cheap, but I dare say it is apostolic.  It is full of difficult and painful choices.  This kind of culture will test us in the deepest way as we have to trust God to make room for the ministry He has placed in us as we daily, actively do everything we can to make our own ministry giftings secondary to another’s.  That being said, I have to wonder if the failure to adopt this sort of culture has prevented the church from growing in the way that it is designed to grow.  Perhaps we have failed at the exponential growth the early church saw because we were not willing to embrace this culture.

One thing is for sure, God is going to get a people that are willing to demonstrate this culture.  When He does, all the world is going to take notice as God pours out His Spirit on these people in a way unlike anything in history.  Once a people make the expression of God flowing through another the priority over the expression of God flowing through themselves, God will be free to trust them with power that He cannot trust others with.  The key is for us to adopt this culture and then begin to intentionally implement it in our daily lives. 

The action plan is simple.  Forget what others have done to you or are doing to you.  Forgive any who operate from a place of fear or jealousy.  Commit yourself to lose sight of the burden of maintaining your own ministry calling and give yourself today to investing in others.   Invest in them so radically that the only possible outcome is that they grown so deep in God that they supersede you and are far more effective in ministry than you have ever been. 

Commit that from now one you will do everything you can to make your ceiling every one else’s floor.  Commit that you will make room for the more gifted ones, whether they be older or younger.  Commit that you will not defend or protect your ministry but freely relinquish it to God and allow Him to place you on the stage or under the stage at His own whim.  Finally, celebrate when God exceeds what He has done in you in the life of another.  When you can truly contribute to and rejoice in God’s work through other surpassing your own ministry, your culture is shifting.

The balance to this is that God will still need those who are leaders and mature for His purposes of guiding the body.  That being said, those that are mature must still adopt this ministry culture to enable the life of the Spirit the freest possible expression.  Those that will make a commitment to this culture are going to form a people that are the expression of God’s desire.  Nothing will stand before them and it will be a sign and a wonder to all the earth.  It is what Jesus died for.