HOW TO MEASURE SUCCESS IN MINISTRY

Text- 2 Corinthians 10:10-18

Introduction


This morning I am going to continue with our study from the book of Second Corinthians which the Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth on the topic of ministry.

One of the things that Paul was dealing with at this time was criticism from some who said he had no authority as an Apostle.

They bragged about all that they had accomplished and ridiculed him for what he was doing.

While they considered themselves to be a success, they considered Paul to be a failure.

The only problem with this was that they were using a different standard for measuring success than God uses.

In verse 7 Paul said of these people, "You are looking at things as they are outwardly."

While they measured Paul's ministry by external, physical things that they could see with their eyes, God measures a person's ministry by the internal, spiritual things that only he can see.

1 Samuel 16:7 But the Lord said to Samuel, "Don't look at how handsome Eliab is. Don't look at how tall he is. I have not chosen him. God does not see the same way people see. People look at the outside of a person, but the Lord looks at the heart."  (ICB)

The difference in the way God measures and the way man measures can be compared to the difference between the metric system and the standard we use in our country today.

Think of what would it be like if instead of using terms like pounds, miles and pints, we used terms like meters, millimeters, grams, kilograms and liters?  Many of our old sayings and proverbs would be dramatically different.  Instead of saying, "Give a man an inch and he'll take a mile" we would have to say, "Give a man 2.54 centimeters and he'll take 1.609 kilometers."  Instead of saying, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" we would have to say, "28.350 grams of prevention is worth 453.592 grams of cure."  Instead of saying, "A miss is as good as a mile" we would say, "A miss is as good as 1.609 kilometers."  Or, “A journey of a 1,000 miles begins with a single step" we would say, "A journey of 1,609 kilometers begins with a single step."  Some of the nursery rhymes that we learned as children would be completely different.  For instance, instead of saying, "Peter picked a peck of pickled peppers" our children would go around saying, "Peter piper picked 8.810 liters of pickled peppers."

This morning our text is found in 2 Corinthians 10:10-18 and the title of my message is, "How To Measure Success in Ministry."

Five times Paul uses the word "measure" in this text.

As we examine this passage there are three questions we need to ask ourselves in order to measure the success of ministry.