Activating God’s People to Complete their Kingdom Work

A pastor has many responsibilities. Praying, studying, preaching, and care-giving are certainly at the top of the list. There is another responsibility scripture mentions for the pastor that is the focus of this article: The Pastor as Equipper.

Ephesians 4:11-13 teaches the importance of this responsibility.

So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.^[11]

Equipping people for works of service. This responsibility is much different than the others (though certainly it is connected to all of them). The former list is measured by what the Pastor does (prays, studies, preaches, and provides care). Equipping, however, is measured by what others do. Embracing the of role as an equipper is to embrace the serving leadership responsibility of being a “body builder”- to make God’s people stronger and more capable to serve. A serving leader is primarily in charge to charge up others.[2]² It is measured by a focused effort to activate the members of the body for kingdom work.

Activate: To make active or to make operative; to put it to work.

This equipping role recognizes the essential calling of the pastor to lead the body of Christ to grow in the character and ministry of Jesus.  The body of Christ, when fully mature, resembles the character of Jesus. When the body of Christ is activated in the ministry of Jesus, it is fully engaged in transforming the community in which it serves. Both of those take a lot of work!  Pastors who are serving leaders produce engaged congregation members who in turn do the Kingdom work of transforming lives of others and the surrounding community.

Every local church has a specific work God has called them to accomplish within the community in which he has placed them to serve. So, how does a Pastor activate the people of the church for the specific Kingdom work that God has called them to accomplish? What challenges can the pastor anticipate that will need to be overcome along the way?

While, Ephesians 4:11-13 teaches the principle of the Equipping Pastor, the book of Nehemiah gives us insight into how to put it into action.

Background Context

The story of Nehemiah occurs toward the end of the period of history in the Old Testament. The greatest challenge that hit the people of God in the Old Testament was the period of the Exile when they were taken out of their land and the city of Jerusalem was destroyed. The people were taken out of their land, but God made a promise that he would bring them back and he would restore them. God kept his promise (as always) and he did bring them back, but when they came back it just wasn’t all that they expected. It was harder than they thought it was going to be because when they got back the place was still a wreck- it was all in rubble from being burned.

The specific work God called them to accomplish was to complete the rebuilding of the city walls, and it was Nehemiah who God used to activate them!

That’s where we pick up the story today.

From Nehemiah chapters 3-4, we learn three insights to help pastors and ministry leaders activate others to complete the Kingdom work they’ve been assigned.

EQUIPPING ACTION #1: BREAK UP THE WORK INTO BITE-SIZE CHUNKS. (Nehemiah 3:1-31)

Chapter 3 describes how community leaders “went to work”  (3:1) by rebuilding key sections of the entrances marked by gates of the wall. Like turning the switch “on” to activate an app on your smart phone, the people made personal commitments to the work and were engaged!

Challenge: Beginning the work seems overwhelming.

Like any big project, there was a lot of work to do. As the initial group of people began the work, it would have been easy to be overwhelmed with the scope work to be done.

Solution:  Specifically, Nehemiah helped them “activate” their energy switch to do the work by breaking it up into bite-sized chunks. They started to rebuild the Gates- the entry points into the city.  Nehemiah gave each small group of workers a section of the work to focus on. When all the pieces were put together, all the gates of the wall were completed.

Here is the first ministry leadership lesson. When beginning to call God’s people to do God’s work, break up the work into bite-sized chunks; then allow people to commit to work according to their best fit!

EQUIPPING ACTION #2: BRING OUT THE BEST IN EACH PERSON. (Nehemiah 3:1-4:6)

Chapter 3 goes on to introduce us to the second key action for equipping others: Bring out the best in each person.

Two observations from the text are significant here.

First, we see the importance of recognition.

Chapter 3 of Nehemiah is a long list of leaders who stepped up to do the work. I find it encouraging that God recognizes people who do his work- he names them one by one in this section. Their names and the specific section of the work they took on are recorded for people of all time (including you and me) to recognize.

Challenge: We often talk about the 80/20 rule in ministry- 20 percent of the people do 80 percent of the work. These are the people who are active and serve through ministry areas such as: giving financially, serving in the children’s ministry, investing in the youth, pouring out intocommunity partners, working in worship and tech teams, sponsoring people through addiction and discipling others in the next steps as a follower of Jesus.

Solution: For those who are already involved in faithful service and those who are first to step up into the new work God is calling you to accomplish, make sure they know: God sees and values their specific effort. He knows them by name.

In this chapter, we notice a second observation.

Challenge: People get critical, because the amount of work seems overwhelming.

In the story of Nehemiah, outside critics show up and are quick to criticize their work and cast doubt on the people’s ability to complete it.

Solution: Encourage each person’s full engagement.

Nehemiah 4:6 says, “So we rebuilt the wall till all of it reached half its height, for the people worked with all their heart.”

Here’s the pastoral message to our kingdom workers: All of it requires all of you. Completing this work will require all you’ve got, your very best. It’s a call for each person to bring their best. Full personal engagement.

We live right now in an era where it’s common to criticize from the sidelines. But God does not approve these outside critics. He says, “I want you in the game!” “I want you working. I want you out of the pew, off the sidelines, and into the game…and I want you to bring your best.”

As a Christian, we live for an audience of one.  People shouldn’t serve to please the preacher, a parent, or grandparent.  Followers of Jesus embark on Kingdom work because God has a calling on their life. When he says, “go to work,” the believer’s response is to say “yes” and then you bring your best for him.  The Bible says in Colossians 3:23 that followers of Jesus are to “work at it with all your heart because it is the Lord Christ you’re serving.”

If we’re going to overcome the criticism and the challenges: All of it requires all you’ve got!

There’s one more lesson we find in this wonderful scriptural example of equipping others for Kingdom Work.

EQUIPPING ACTION #3: CATALYZE A COMMUNITY OF CO-LABORERS. (Nehemiah 4:7-6:15)

In Nehemiah, it says they gave their very best. They did not hold back one piece of what they could do. They were all in on the work. However, the biggest challenge was still yet to come.  

In Nehemiah 4,  we see the challenges start to increase from the outside, but there’s also a new wrinkle. The challenges also start to come from the inside.

Nehemiah 4:10 says,

“Meanwhile the people in Judah said, ‘The strength of the laborers is giving out, and there is so much rubble that we cannot rebuild the wall.’”

The criticism is not just the outsiders anymore. Those who have given it all are getting frustrated and tired. The people on the inside are now looking at the work that remains and saying, “We got a problem.” The resources are starting to drain.  The energy level is coming down.  The fuel tank is about to hit empty. The battery charge is wearing out. There are limited human energy left, but there’s still a lot of work to do.

Personally, I’ve been in full-time active ministry for over 25 years. Over that period the most common challenge I have experienced and witnessed in the ministry of others is this::

Challenge: The few people who are doing the work are getting tired and there’s still a lot of work to be done.

It sounds like, “We’re doing the work, Mike, but there’s just not enough of us. We need more people to step up.”

The truth is, this is not a new problem I find it comforting to know (I hope you do too) that Jesus himself saw the same challenge in his ministry.  After a long day of meeting the physical and spiritual needs of the people, Matthew 9:37-38 says,

³⁷ Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. ³⁸ Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

There’s so much to do, but there’s only a few workers. If it’s only the few doing the work then eventually, they get tired. If we as pastors and ministry leaders are really going to accomplish what God has called us to do, not just start good things or just talk about them,  but get the work done to completion- this is the biggest challenge that we face.

Solution: The biggest challenges require co-laboring.

 Co-laboring means working together alongside one another in community.  Nehemiah 4: 13 says,

Therefore I stationed some of the people behind the lowest points of the wall at the exposed places, posting them by families, with their swords, spears and bows.

Here’s the idea – Nehemiah is looking at his people and he’s looking at the work and he says, the few people that we’ve got doing the work are doing a great job- they’ve been all! But they’re getting tired, and when I look at the needs of the wall there’s still so much more that needs to be built.  So, what’s the answer? Like Jesus said, we need more workers.  Nehemiah positions them family by family to take ownership of the part of the project the most directly impacts them.

Here’s the final lesson:  All of it, requires all of us.  

We can’t all do everything but each one of us can take our part. Everybody’s got to do their part.  When we all contribute as a community, the entire work can be completed.

Nehemiah chapter 6:15 says,

So the wall was completed on the twenty-fifth of Elul, in fifty-two days.

After 52 days they finished that project of building the entire wall

they got it done right by bringing all of them as individuals and all of them together as a community.  

Final Thoughts

Pastoral leadership is not so much about what you do, but more about what others accomplish in the season of Kingdom work you’ve been entrusted to oversee. An equipping pastor and ministry leader understands their role is to activate God’s people for works of service and in the process become more mature- reflecting the character and the ministry of Jesus.

This work includes:

Equipping action #1: Break up the work into bite-size chunks.

Equipping action #2: Bring out the best in each person.

Equipping action #3: Catalyze a community of co-laborers.

The result will be the transformation of the place you’ve been called to serve to represent more of God’s Kingdom as a foreshadowing until the final Kingdom comes.

Article based on sermon preached at Calvary Christian Church on January 1, 2025. Full sermon can be viewed at: https://www.youtube.com/live/Lb9-XzOv6PI?si=JICFPqlMaPxaDpB0&t=1397

---

1. The New International Version (Eph 4:11–13). (2011). Zondervan. ↩︎
2. Jennings and Stahl-Wert, The Serving Leader. ↩︎