Mike Focht 7/26/2024
I am convinced that most of the promotion that happens in the church today is sinful. Now, I am not trying to press an extreme. I know there is a difference between self-promotion and informing the congregation you pastor what time a service starts or what dates the baptism or retreat will be. That said, informing and promoting are too very different things. It is the shameless self-promotion happening all around us that is sinful. There is an audacity to it that shocks me.
Beneath this self-promotion lies the assumption that anything we are doing on God’s behalf should go as far and as wide as we can push it. Public figures, doing any public ministry on God’s behalf, believe all means and methods of promotion are valid because the ends are valid. This is a false and very dangerous assumption. First, the ends never justify the means. Second, we assume that the minister and the ministry are pleasing to God because they look outwardly pleasing, but we all know by the carnal fruit produced much of this effort is fleshly.
Unfortunately, we have too many examples of the promotion of false teachers, false ministries, and false godly men and women. On top of that, we have many examples of those who started well, but because they created their own kingdom that God wasn’t building by promoting their ministries with business methods, their inward life no longer supported their outward life. Yet, most refuse to cut their kingdoms in half. Top-heavy outwardly and leaking inwardly, their ministries end with an inevitable moral shipwreck. These are just some of the tragic outcomes of sinful self-promotion.
What is the answer? I think there is at least one, and it is exactly where all of our answers should be found—in the Word of God. The only personal promotion that should be trusted is the promotion that God does for us. Without us. What do I mean by that? When God wants to promote the ministry of a man or woman, how does He do so? What do we see in the Bible? We see that God promotes by His own supernatural means.
How did God promote the ministry of John the Baptist? He sent Gabriel to his father Zacharias, promised a miraculous birth, and made him mute until the time came for John to be born. We are told, Then fear come on all who dwelt around them; and all these sayings were discussed throughout all the hill country of Judea. And all those who heard them kept them in their hearts, saying, “What kind of child will this be?” And the hand of the Lord was with him. This is the formula all through the Bible. When God wants to promote a ministry—He does so Himself.
When God wanted to prepare the way for the ministry of His Son, He set a star in the heavens, sent wise men from afar, sent angels to shepherds, and sent John the Baptist to the people. When God wanted to promote the ministry of the apostles, He sent the tongues of fire on Pentecost, healed a paralytic, and even killed the lying couple Ananias and Sapphira. With Paul, God had his sweaty rags heal people, had the seven sons of Sceva get beat up in Paul’s name, and raised him up after a stoning. The Biblical formula is evident. The man or woman whose ministry is from the Lord will also from the Lord receive all the promotion their ministry requires. That is what I see in the Bible. That is not what I see happening in the church. It is also why I see the personal self-promotion happening in God’s name as sinful and dangerous.