I recently caught a Master’s Seminary Chapel video during my lunch at work this week….Because that is what all of the cool kids do during their lunch breaks…
Anyhow, the speaker was talking to the seminary students about what it looks like to have a joy-filled ministry from John 3:22-30. The term he used was Gospel humility.
Here is a link to the sermon: https://youtu.be/8Lb9YFwMSDs?si=Gpzypotv1_7CAZmP
The passage he went through was about John the Baptist and his disciples. John’s disciples were alarmed that more people were going to Jesus than to John. The speaker brought up several good points on John the Baptist's joy. John the Baptist’s ministry seemed to be fading but his joy was complete. The speaker in the video said that Gospel humility was the key to joy in John the Baptist’s ministry and is our key to joy in our ministries.
The four points that the speaker brought up were:
We pursue Gospel humility by:
- Refusing competitive influences (25-26)
- Recognizing universal provisions (27)
- Remembering our true identity (28)
- Relinquish personal exaltation (29-30)
I won’t walk through the entire message but one of the points that stuck out to me was that a key to Gospel humility was recognizing God’s provisions for us.
There is nothing about the ministry that I am supplying that hasn’t already been supplied to me by the Lord. This is something that I need to be reminded about as I go through either leading our IL team or while serving the Lord in other areas of my life. Sometimes our tendency is to think too highly of ourselves and to think of all of the great things we think we bring to the table. The reality is we don’t bring any good work to the table that already wasn’t given to us.
John the Baptist points this out in John 3:27:
John 3:27- John answered, “A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven.
As Christians we need to be humble enough to realize we don’t bring anything to the table. There are some giftings in all of us that God uses but it is only by His grace that we have those giftings. We are stewards of what God has given us. Joy shrivels up and dies when we try to be owners instead of stewards. I know there are times that I forfeit my joy because I think of myself more than I should or seek to take credit for a good deed that God allowed me to be part of.
However, I can take joy in knowing that God has gifted our teams with the opportunities that we have, the men and women that we have on the field, and the opportunities we have had this year. I can take joy in knowing that the Creator of the universe will supply all of that and not me!
Day two of our trip started with a 3:15 AM alarm going off. I got up, tore down my CPAP machine, got my softball uniform on, and prepared for another early day of prison softball.
We made our way to the vans and headed to a local Waffle House five minutes away from the prison. If you are familiar with most Waffle Houses, you can take a guess at how that ended up. They were understaffed and actually a little busy so they were really slow. Some of our team got to eat and some of our team didn’t even have an opportunity to order their food before we had to go. We left the Waffle House in order to get to the prison on time. We arrived at FMC Fort Worth a little after 5 am and we quickly made it out to the prison yard. It was fun walking out on the softball field in the dark before the sun could come out.
Blame it on the early start, the Texas humidity, or Waffle House, but our team came out a little flat and we lost game 1 to a really excited Fort Worth team. In between the games, Jon Isbell from our Illinois team shared his testimony. After Jon shared his testimony, Brian Morrison shared the Gospel with the men in the yard.
During the ministry time, I had an opportunity to talk with one of the prison guitar players about the Gospel and gave him advice for finding a church once he got out.
I also had an opportunity to briefly talk to a man who is dealing with prostate cancer and has a fear of dying in prison. Please pray for his salvation.
After our ministry time, we started a second game and unfortunately we lost that one too. After the game we were able to circle up with the men we saw and remind them of the Gospel and pray with them one more time.
After that game was over, we went back inside to the art room and enjoyed some air conditioning time. The prison administration bought us pizza so we enjoyed a good lunch!
By the time we got back out, we didn’t have a bunch of time so we were only able to play one game. We played half of a game and then broke for our ministry time. During the ministry time, Geoff Saturley from New Jersey shared his testimony. After Geoff shared his testimony, our Executive Director, Frank Zeidler shared the Gospel.
During the ministry time I had some time to play guitar with several of the guitar players out in the yard. As you might believe, there are several guitar players running around Texas! Being able to stop and talk music with some of the prison musicians was a cool way to have an in to share the Gospel with them.
After the ministry time, we finished our game and we pulled out a victory in our last game of the day!
After the game, we huddled up with the team on the field and prayed with them one more time before we left.
Overall on the day we handed out 455 Gospels and saw 30 men make professions of faith.
We left the prison and headed for a staff training facility on the prison campus where we were able to shower before heading to the airport.
I wish I could say it was smooth sailing from there but our flight from Dallas to Peoria was cancelled so we had to rebook a flight to Bloomington. Of course that flight was delayed a couple of times, but we eventually made it back home.
With our first Federal Team visit in the books, I am looking forward to our next two Illinois visits to Robinson CC and FCI Pekin. The Federal team will be back on the road in late July.
Thank you to everyone who has been praying for our teams this summer! God has provided so much for the ministry and I can't wait to see what comes next!
