News > North America

Eau Claire UBF, US
March 5, 2014

To Proclaim the Year of the Lord’s Favor

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18-19)

I. The Ministry of Intercessory Prayer (1 Samuel 12:23a)
Some time ago, I had heard about the four concepts of ministry. They were: (1) We are carrying out our ministry; (2) God is carrying out our ministry; (3) We are carrying out God’s ministry; and (4) God is carrying out God’s ministry. Among the four, the only correct understanding of a ministry is the fourth; the previous three are all incomplete, incorrect misunderstandings of ministry.

In the year 2013, God has made it perfectly clear that this is how it is with our house church as well. In the beginning of 2013, we started off with a ministry key verse of 1 Samuel 12:23a. “As for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the LORD by failing to pray for you.” Foreseeing what was to come, I intended to pray diligently for the house church, fully relying on God while I would be away from Eau Claire during the spring semester. I cannot honestly say that I had been more diligent than before in my prayer life. I had been, however, more deeply dependent on God, asking Him to carry out the ministry for His own glory. I am happy to report that He has not disappointed us. In fact, He was very faithful and sincere in carrying out His own ministry.

This does not mean, however, that the process was smooth and everything was done almost effortlessly. On the contrary, the year was full of challenges, uncomfortable changes and twists and turns throughout. What was amazing, however, was what God accomplished in the midst of it all.

In January, as Sarah and I were planning to leave for China during the sabbatical semester, the house church was still meeting at the sisters’ apartment across State Street from Hibbard parking lot. We planned that Brian would be the main messenger for the Sunday worship services, while inviting Brady, Levi and/or Nate to stand as messengers from time to time. However, all of those brothers were quite busy in their personal lives and thus not willing to become messengers right away, and so the burden of delivering messages week after week fell squarely upon Brian. This caused him to become overwhelmed very quickly, with the heavy requirements of the semester, deepening relationships with his eventual wife Amy, and other ministry requirements (such as Water Street ministry every Friday evening) added to the mix. Soon he found out he had acquired Crohn’s disease, dropped out of school and ministry altogether, and headed down south to Florida, where his parents lived, in order to take care of his physical illness.

Around that time Mike and Josephine also sensed that the sisters’ apartment was becoming increasingly an inappropriate place for Sunday worship gathering due to some sisters bringing their boyfriends home Saturday night and staying with them in their bedrooms till Sunday afternoon. So they took the initiative, exercised leadership, and made a major decision to move the worship service location to their own house. But without Brian, they were without a messenger for Sunday worship gatherings, so Mike and Josephine began having group Bible studies with whomever would come on Sunday. I thank and praise God for raising them as ever more responsible, hardworking and faithful stewards of the house church ministry.

When Sarah and I came back from China in June, we started having Sunday worship messages again. The teenagers have all gone back to Korea or graduated and moved on to college, and even though we had Sophia and Carry attending occasionally, often times it would be just Mike and Josephine worshipping with Sarah and I – a bare minimum of four worshippers.

Things would change, however, when one Saturday, we ran into Johanna at Aldi grocery store. After chatting for a while, she invited us to her home for dinner on Sunday; and there she shared how she and her husband hadn’t been attending any worship services for some time, holding devotional meetings instead in their living room in lieu of worship service. When we invited them to come to our house church gatherings, they readily accepted the invitation, and Ben has been a faithful messenger at our house church ever since, taking turns with me at a rate of once every two weeks.

Ben and Johanna were also instrumental in inviting Christin and Ashley, who in turn invited their family members, including Father Mike (Ashley’s dad). With Sophia and Carry, along with Ken and his children/grandchildren coming from time to time, our worship service was once again full of people and occasionally very lively (due to energetic youngsters running around and playing freely in our midst). How wonderfully does God carry out His own ministry!

While Sarah and I were in China, we were able to study the Bible with a few students, among which Nancy Grace became the most visible fruit of the gospel. Already wanting to be a Christian but not knowing how, she readily accepted the invitation to study the Bible with Sarah; and after just one time studying John 3, she immediately declared herself a born-again Christian, and started to encourage her friends to believe in Jesus and to study the Bible. When we came back after the spring semester, Nancy began to hold Friday night English Bible study gatherings in her apartment, starting with eight people at the beginning of the semester and, by the end of the semester, having 24 people gathering to celebrate Christmas together in her small apartment. Thank and praise the Lord!

II. To Proclaim the Year of the Lord’s Favor (Luke 4:18-19)
The experience of God’s work last year led me to contemplate on holding on to Luke 4:18-19 as the ministry key verse for the new year 2014. “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” The passage is from Isaiah 61:1-2, from which Jesus read at a synagogue on a Sabbath when he visited his hometown Nazareth for the first time after launching his public ministry. When all eyes were fastened on him, he began by saying, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” It was a marvelous proclamation of His Messianic ministry.

The reason I was drawn to this passage was that after seeing what God was doing in our house church, including Ben and Johanna reaching out to their friends and coworkers, and Ashley and her family members reaching out to homeless and hungry people of Eau Claire, I was reminded of Jesus’ ministry while He was on this earth. If Jesus’ ministry was the ministry of God through the Holy Spirit who dwelled in Him, then the Church, which is called the Body of Christ, would naturally be doing the same things Jesus was doing on this earth. So it would not be a blasphemous thing to say Luke 4:18-19 can be reread as: “The Spirit of the Lord is on us, because he has anointed us to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent us to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Of course, in saying this, we are not by any means elevating ourselves to the status of the Messiah. There is a fundamental and qualitative difference between Jesus and ourselves: He was sinless, we are sinful; He is The Savior, we are simply forgiven sinners. However, as we are forgiven by His blood and are filled with the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God in us moves us to do His will and carry out His ministry; and it will be a marvelous thing to observe. We are not saying “we can” do this (we cannot on our own); we are not even saying “we should” be doing this (as if it is a moral code). All we are saying (by faith) is that “we will” be used by God in such a way, according to His good will and eternal plan, as Jesus proclaimed, “I will make you fishers of men”.

So I look forward to another year in which we will be experiencing God carrying out His own ministry. I pray that we will be humble and obedient to His guidance and leading, always offering ourselves as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to Him. May the year of the Lord’s favor be manifested clearly and mightily in our midst!

One Word: To Proclaim the Year of the Lord’s Favor.

By Dr. Abraham Nahm