He Lived Forever: Sustaining Ministry to Suffering People
[Pastor Newton Conant was 90 years old at the time of this lecture] I hope you’ll excuse me. I had a recent doctor’s appointment. And the doctor told me I’m doing well. He said “you know what keeps you in good health? You’re active all the time.” You know what keeps me active? A daily renewal in the process of the Lord. Each day is a clean slate, a refreshing in the Lord. I would never leave home without it.
When we minister to the suffering, we need spiritual renewal to keep going. Consider with me 2 Corinthians 4:16 “For which cause we faint not, as though the outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.” The body grows ever weaker but the heart and soul get a daily renewal. It’s a hard thing for the body to wear out and the soul to be within it. But it is not so bad if we have a daily renewal. DAILY. Where do you get that renewal? In the presence of the Lord. What keeps me going is my daily renewal
It was daily renewal that kept Jesus Christ moving through his ministry. Jesus made things happen in his ministry by preceding it with prayer. He spends 40 days in the wilderness in prayer, then he is baptized. He needs the power of the Holy Spirit before he goes out. His time in the wilderness precedes his ministry in Mark 1 where he is healing, casting out demons, and more. Then he retreats again to pray (Mark 1:35).
He goes early in the morning. He has to be exhausted and worn but he wakes early to pray because that is how he is refreshed. Because Jesus needs the power of the Spirit and he returns to the power of the prayer. He learned in prayer where he needed to go next and he did not follow the crowds or the call of his disciples but the lead of the Lord. Our translations often say that Jesus’ reason is “For I must move on because this is why I came” but another way to translate this is “I came forth [from a place of prayer] and know that I must move on”(Mark 1:38). He did not just by how prosperous the ministry was there but received the direction from the father for his ministry.
I told you last time a story about a man in my ministry who attacked a young girl. Here is the conclusion of the story. I visited him in jail. Because I visited they gave me an opportunity to address the entire group in jail there. God worked in the man’s life and he got straight with the Lord and today his is the trustee in a fine organization.
We must be sensitive to the Holy Spirit. Remember the work of Philip. He ministers in Acts 8 in Samaria in a very successful ministry. A great crowd is coming and he leaves and goes to the desert. Then a chariot comes. The man riding was reading Isaiah and Philip waits until the Spirit tells him to go. Later in the book of Acts Paul sees a vision of a man in Macedonia, calling “come help us!” (Acts 16:1-5). Because of this Europe will get the gospel. Prayer brought the baptism of the Spirit and directed their ministry.
May we learn, like Jesus and the saints before us, that lasting faithfulness is not sustained by success or strength, but by daily renewal in the presence of the Lord. When we return again and again to prayer, the Spirit not only refreshes our weary hearts—He gently guides our steps into the quiet, holy work God has already prepared for us.
