THAT THEY MAY SEE YOUR GOOD WORKS (NOT YOU)
Let us do some reading:
“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven'.
(The Words of Jesus taken from Matthew 5: 14-16)
A lot could be written on the above passage. However, I just want us to focus on verse 16.
Noticed that Jesus said:
' In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven'.
Our light has to shine so that people may see our good deeds, not necessarily us, but our good deeds.
Personal fame should never be the ultimate goal of ministry or of any Kingdom related service. In my years of teaching the Word of the Lord, I have learnt that it is possible to produce works that are extremely shiny while remaining almost unknown.
I 'll prove it to you: 'Do you remember that Jesus had 12 Apostles, right? But how much do we know about them after Jesus went up to Our Father?
We mostly know about Paul, John, Peter. We know a bit about Matthew (he wrote one of the Gospels), we know a bit about James.
What about Bartholomew, Andrew, Philipp, Jude, Simon.... What about them? We mostly speak in our sermons about Paul, Peter and John.
Some people give them the liberty in alluding that half of the Apostles did close to nothing after the Ascension of Jesus.
I disagree.
You see my friend, in my years of ministry, I have learnt that it is possible to impact on thousands of lives daily, and yet remain almost unknown.
If we assume that half of the Apostles did nothing after the Ascension of Jesus, then how do we explain that their names are found in the 12 foundations of the New Jerusalem City? (Reference 21:14).
Just close your eyes for a second...and imagine God building the New Jerusalem City. Imagine that in the process of building Its foundations, 'God-The Eternal One' inserts in each foundation the names of all the 12 Apostles of the Lamb.
Just imagine that for a second....
Someone might say: 'But Maurice, the passage of Revelation21:14 is not enough to prove that all the Apostles worked hard at pushing the Gospel forward.'
Well, if someone says so, then I will have to disagree again. And this is why: ' In the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30), Jesus makes it clear that He has a distaste for a slothful and lazy servant to the point of casting him out in the outer darkness.'
Since God has a distaste for lazy servants, then He would surely not insert the names of the Apostles on the New Jerusalem foundations if they were lazy at implementing the Great commission order.
It may take you some time to process the fact that 'a not so famous' Apostle has his name in one of the New Jerusalem foundations, but here is an explanation:
'A few weeks ago, I was listening to John Bevere, a Bible teacher, and he was speaking about the parts of Body of Christ. In his teaching, he mentioned something that really struck me: 'all bodies have seen and unseen parts'.
Bingo! I understood why half of the Apostles and millions of Christians out there are not so famous. Paul wrote that we are the Body of Christ and each one of us is a part of it (1 Corinthians 12:27). The picture that Paul uses to describe the church is borrowed from the human body.
And the human body has parts that we can see and others parts we can't see.
Some of us were designed to be the 'seen parts' of the Body. And this is a reference to the people who have easy access to public platforms and public limelight. Those people are like the hands, the legs, the chest, the feet...we can see.
On the other hand, some of us were designed to be the 'inside and unseen parts' of the body. This is a reference to parts such as the liver, the heart, the molecules, the veins, the bones, the intestines, the lungs and many others. Those 'inside parts' are relevant and are also parts of the Body of Christ. They function effectively at keeping the human system alive without being seen in the limelight.
Here is the lesson:
'Some of us are the 'inside parts ' of Christ Body and we may never be seen or known. But our works will be seen. You may not see a liver but you can see its works. You may not see the lungs, but you can see its works on the human body. This explains why Jesus said in Matthew 5:16 : '...that they may see your good works' (not you, but your good works).
Therefore, on the basis of what I just wrote, some of the Apostles were not designed to be famous like Paul, Peter and John were. But those lesser known Apostles carried some tremendous works in Ethiopia, India, Russia, Syria, North Africa, Northern Europe....And those works carry strong testimonials till today.
Remember this: 'shine, whether you are an internal or external part of the Body, and let world see your good works, that they may glorify Our Father in Heaven.