Don’t go alone, stressed Spencer Bell to Alabama Baptists during his message Wednesday morning (Nov. 12) at the Alabama Baptist State Convention annual meeting in Huntsville. Ministry work, he noted, is about “working together with Him.”
“I believe no words more adequately and succinctly describe the partnership and the privilege of our work as Alabama Baptists than those very words,” said Bell, pointing to how Paul begins 2 Corinthians 6:1. “I believe they define us. I believe they refocus us. I believe they remind us that we’re not called to go alone.”
Bell, an associate in the office of evangelism and church revitalization of the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions, gave the theme interpretation, entitled “Compelled to be laborers together for Christ.”
Pulling his message from 2 Corinthians 6 and Philippians 1, the former pastor of Mount Zion Baptist Church in Hartselle, shared three truths related to working together in ministry with Christ.
1. Working together means we rejoice in godly partnership. Bell noted we should strive to be like Paul and model how he thought of Philippian believers with joy.
“Now that doesn’t mean that every waking moment Paul spent thinking about the Philippian believers,” Bell noted. “But it did mean that every time he thought of those Philippian believers in Roman captivity, he was filled with joy.”
Bell added, “I think it begs the question for you and I today: Every time somebody thinks of me – or somebody thinks of my church or somebody thinks of my life and my family – do they think of us with joy?”
“Paul rejoiced in godly partnership,” Bell noted, “because Paul knew without partners, there is no progress.”
2. Working together means we resign to a guided path. In addition to rejoicing in partnership with others, Paul also addressed “our partnership with and through the Lord Jesus Christ,” Bell said.
“If He began the work, He’ll finish the work – and friend, we’re just along for the journey,” Bell noted. “I’m glad to be a partner with Christ, but if I’m really going to be compelled to work with Christ, I’ve got to resign from my own path … and say, ‘God, You’re going to lead me, You’re going to guide me, You’re going to use me. I’m going to trust You.’”
3. Working together means we receive a greater perspective.
Paul had a greater perspective – even as prisoner in Rome, Bell said.
“But what the guards didn’t realize, Paul wasn’t chained to them. They were chained to him – and every six hours Paul is preaching the gospel,” Bell noted. “Paul knew that if the gospel spread in Rome, it will go all over the world. Paul was more effective in his chains, and the same God that used Moses and David and Abraham used Paul’s chains to advance the gospel.”
Bell added, “Paul had a different perspective. He always said it’s not I who lives, but it’s Christ who lives in me. … I really believe God chains us and puts us in places and opens doors for us that we would not open ourselves … that He might use most effectively when our only hope is to simply link arms with Him, be chained to His chariot … and do whatever He asks us to do – and recognize Christ is our only hope.”
He concluded, “Our simple prayer today needs to be ‘Lord, have your way with us – that we might wait for You to tell us what to do and that we might be workers together with You, compelled until You come.”
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