Draper: Ministry hard, but rewards will come

AMARILLO, Texas?Despite the hardship of pastoral ministry, enduring faithfulness will pay its dividends, Jimmy Draper told those attending the President’s Luncheon during the SBTC annual meeting Oct. 25 in Amarillo.

Draper, a former Texas pastor who plans to retire as president of LifeWay Christian Resources early next year, said he looks forward to returning to Texas to live and is “happy to be a part of the Southern Baptists of Texas” in partnering with the SBTC through LifeWay.

Ministry is a wonderful calling, Draper told the luncheon crowd, but “the pastor doesn’t get bonuses for 2 a.m. hospital calls or for taking two hours away from his family to help a transient.”

“I have to admit: I get tired of it. I get weary, discouraged,” he related. Such was the state of the Jews described in Malachi 3:14-15, who had returned from Babylonian exile and had asked the question, “Does it really pay to serve God?”

Draper noted. After all, Draper explained, the wicked were prospering as they tested God without immediate consequences. Yet God heard those who feared him and promised help and blessing, the passage reads.

Draper said there are at least three reasons why serving God is worthwhile.

4First, he said, “It’s worth serving God if you’d rather have God’s attention than anyone else’s.”

Draper pointed to the passage, noting, “first of all he heard their complaints ? This is not the cry of ? piety, it’s the cry of anguished truth.”

God, above all others, hears the cries of the faithful, Draper said, citing Martin Luther’s imprisonment and discouragement and Charles Spurgeon’s bouts with despair and depression. It’s worth remembering, Draper said, that “God doesn’t use any of us because of us. He uses us in spite of us.”

4Second, “It’s worth serving God if you want to be remembered by God more than by anybody else.”

The creator of the universe “chooses of all things to remember his chosen ones,” Draper stated. “God has a special remembrance for those who reverence him.”

Draper said God is blessing the SBTC, for example, because it stands not over the Word of God, nor beside the Word of God, but under the Word of God.

4Third, “It’s worth serving God if you’d rather be a treasure than have a treasure.” Christians are God’s personal treasures, Draper reminded, and those he calls to ministry work foremost for him, not for the churches they serve.

“Churches don’t call pastors,” Draper said, noting that Southern Baptist churches fire about 100 pastors a month. “God calls pastors and if churches recognized that they would have fewer problems.”

“In ourselves we are not valuable,” Draper continued. “But we are valuable. We are valuable because he gives us value.”