Some years ago, while I was attending a finance committee meeting of my congregation, the chairman recounted the fact that the congregation's offerings were running above the budget for the year. He looked at me and said, "Whatever you are doing, pastor, please keep it up." Immediately, I said, "Please don't credit me for this. I am not doing anything." One of the older gentlemen immediately turned to me and said with a smile on his face, "You are a wise man, pastor. You don't take credit now, so you won't be blamed later on when we have a deficit." But it isn't the work of the preacher to make the congregation grow or bring in more offerings; this is the work of our Lord Jesus Christ, who sends the Spirit. He gives the fruit to the labor. The church and its growth is His business.

Yet, there is a kind of ambivalence about this. Luther could say that God reformed Germany while he and Philip Melanchthon drank beer and bowled in the back yard. However, this is not all Luther and Melanchthon did. They wrote, published books, lectured, traveled, advised, and Luther preached, catechized, and visited. "Doing nothing" is not one of the options on this list of activities. Although Luther was so busy and active, he never had a single doubt who was doing the work in the church and to whom all glory had to be attributed. Non nobis, Domine! He was doing nothing and doing everything. The office of the ministry demands an active life, because the message has to be proclaimed. The Lord commands that we go and preach. The message does not proclaim itself, yet it remains God's message on the lips of the preacher. It does what God sends it to do. About this Luther said, "We should be seen fighting. God should be seen winning."

How easily we fall off the horse on either side of this dilemma. We can fail by attributing our success to our own pious efforts and glorious good works, or we can excuse our lack of zeal in word and deed by referring to God's ability to get things done without us. There is a time bowl and drink beer and there is a time to be zealous in word and deed.

John Chrysostom

"'In Christ Jesus, then, I have reason to be proud of my work for God. For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience- by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God- so that from Jerusalem and all the way around to Illyricum I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ' (Rm 15:17-19). Paul means, 'None can say that my words are a mere boast. For the signs of this priestly ministry of mine, and the proofs of the office too, are many. Not the long robe and the bells as of ancient times, nor the miter and the turban (Ex 28:4), but signs and wonders, far more awesome than these.

"Nor can it be said that I have been entrusted with the office, but yet have not carried it out. Or rather, it is not I that have done anything, but Christ. Therefore also it is in Him that I boast, not about common things, but about spiritual things. This is the meaning of, 'my work for God' (Rm 15:17).  I have accomplished the purpose for which I was sent. My words are not just a boast, as the miracles and obedience of the Gentiles show.' 'For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience- by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God' (Rm 15:18-19).