“An Inspired Job Description”
Opening Prayer:
Lord Jesus, you were sent and anointed to lead us into freedom; empower us now, by the same Holy Spirit, that we might fully grasp and obey the commission you have set before us, and so establish the kingdom of our Heavenly Father. Amen.
Introduction
I often have people tell me that they are not sure what God wants them to do, how to serve him best. They are looking for a detailed job description from God. Sometimes he gives it to us very clearly; sometimes he does not. However, he has given us something that is very clear: the overall goals and objectives he wants to accomplish through us.
Last week, we heard God calling out to someone to comfort and speak tenderly to his people, to declare to them that their hard service had been completed and their sin paid for (Isaiah 40:1-2). This week, we have the reply 21 chapters later: “The Lord has anointed me to preach good news…to bind up…to proclaim freedom and the year of the Lord’s favour…to comfort all who mourn” (Isaiah 61:1-2).
Now we know this was fulfilled in the short run with the Jews being brought back miraculously from exile in Babylon. They did “rebuild the ancient ruins” (verse 4) and see some encouragement and restoration of their land. However, the prophet was inspired to look beyond the immediate situation to the long-term. There was to come the establishment of an everlasting covenant (“everlasting joy” – verse 8). And it was this very chapter that Jesus took as the description of his mission when he spoke at the synagogue in Nazareth at the beginning of his ministry “The Spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me…Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4: 16-21). These verses in Isaiah 61 describe Jesus’ ministry that was to come.
But not only does it describe Jesus’ ministry, it describes ours also, because he has told us that “As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you” (John 20:21). Here is our job description as Christians! Here are the overall objectives God wants to accomplish through us. They do not give us details; but they show us what the specifics of our lives – our unique gifts, our particular tasks – are to be used for. Let us examine them to see what his ultimate objectives for our lives and ministries are. We shall look at our equipment, our commission, and the specifics. This is our “inspired job description”!
Our Equipment
As we start to look at the various elements of our job description, we see first what equipment God has given us to carry out his work. It is interesting that Luke begins his account of Jesus’ early ministry in Galilee with some general comments and then goes straight to the story of Jesus reading this passage from Isaiah in the synagogue in Nazareth. From Mark, we know this event happened sometime into his ministry (Mark 6:1-6). Why does Luke want us to hear about this right away? Because he wants it to be heard as soon as possible after the description of Jesus’ baptism. He wants us to see the two are related. At his baptism, Luke says, “The Holy Spirit descended on him In bodily form like a dove” (Luke 3:22). A few verses later, Luke tells us, “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert” (Luke 4:1). After this, Luke tells us that “Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit” (Luke 4:14). Then he follows this with the reading in the Synagogue, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me” (4: 18).
Do you see the connections? There is no doubt that God’s ministry can only be accomplished through the empowerment or anointing of the Spirit. If Jesus had to receive the anointing or empowering of the Spirit, so must we. This is why, just after Jesus says, “As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you” in John 21, it continues: “And with that he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’” (John 20:22). The one element common to Isaiah’s prophecy in the Old Testament, Jesus’ own ministry, and ours is the anointing of the Holy Spirit.
This anointing of the Spirit now comes to us from Jesus as John the Baptist declared just after the passage read as our Gospel, “The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit” (John 1:33). As we go to Jesus in repentance and confession, obedience and faith, with empty hands, desiring to be filled – he will indeed fill us with the Spirit for ministry. Unless we receive this anointing, which is a repeated filling (as we read in Ephesians 5:18 – “keep on being filled with the Spirit”), we can not carry out our job description. By ourselves we wallow in failure and despair; with that anointing we can do everything God has called us to do – it is the essential equipment he has given us.
Our Commission
Now we can move on to the commission that God has called us to undertake. It is to extend the ministry of Jesus which is to preach good news to the poor, bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release for the prisoners, and to proclaim that God is setting all things right.
What does this mean? Is it to be taken in a literal or a spiritual way? Both. Because Jesus taught us to love people, we will want to care for their immediate needs, such as providing food and clothing and shelter to those without. We will want to stand for justice and set free those wrongly imprisoned. It is wonderful how many movements to eliminate injustices in society have been led by Christians – although, not without opposition by others – often by Christians themselves, as we saw in South Africa. But when we are involved in this immediate way it is because it is part of a larger deliverance that Jesus has made possible.
This is demonstrated for me when I visit people in prison. For some, because of Christ, even though they are physically restricted, they are free – free from the very chains that led them into the activity which got them into prison. I think of a parishioner from my last parish in prison whose joy was unmistakable. He had come to recognize the sin that got him in there and repented of it, willingly serving his time for the crime he committed. Why is this? Because, while in prison, he was led to Christ by a prison guard and found freedom for the first time in his life. His liberty of soul and spirit was such a contrast to people I know on the outside who have physical liberty but are held back by chains of addition, self-hatred and despair. They are the captives that need to be released.
It is to these people that we can bring the message of hope Isaiah describes. It says the people of God will “rebuild the ancient ruins” (verse 4). God has called us to help people rebuild the ruins of their lives. This is done spiritually, psychologically, and physically. Spiritually, we can lead people to be “clothed with garments of salvation and arrayed in robes of righteousness” (verse 10). With the gospel of Christ, we can lead them into deliverance from guilt and the power of sin through the death and resurrection of Jesus. In the psychological realm, through the power of the Holy Spirit, we can lead them into freedom from the effects of sin – both theirs and that of others done against them. This has also physical manifestations as people are rescued from addictive and harmful behaviour. In this way, through our ministry of care, proclamation and deliverance, in the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus is able to release people from their spiritual poverty, moral imprisonment and emotional brokenness. This is our commission.
The Specifics
Now, these overall objectives do not give the specific details as to how we are to carry out our commission. This is both the excitement and the frustration of being a Christian. Each one of us has to discover the details of how things are to work out for the specific tasks to which God has called us. How do we do that? First, ensure you are filled with the Holy Spirit. Live an obedient life of growing dependency and intimacy with God. Then, examine the gifts and opportunities God has given you. How can you use your gifts either in paid employment or in your free time? If you have the gift of mercy, it is easier to see different routes through which that gift can be channelled to bring release to people bound up in sin or sickness, What if you have the gift of administration? You could be used by God administering an airline or helping a Christian counselling agency run its office more efficiently. Be God’s agent for transformation whether it is in the secular or Christian sphere. The details are up to you and Christ to work out together.
The starting point in all our thinking, though, must be the basic attitude that I want my gifts, resources, and position to help establish Christ’s kingdom of power and release in the world. Then I ask how can I be used best in spreading the good news in word and deed that people may come to find Christ and his freedom in their lives. Jesus came into this world to set us free and then to equip and commission us to bring freedom to others. This is your inspired job description – now go and do it!
