All Christians engage in Christian service (or “ministry,” Ephesians 4:12). Every Christian is a servant of our Lord and Master Jesus Christ. We serve him in loving others, spreading the gospel, and doing good in his world for his glory.
Sometimes we see fruit of such service. We witness people coming to faith. We notice people change.
Yet other times we do not. We feel we have been trying to serve Christ and spread his gospel (not perfectly, of course, but genuinely with a clear conscience, whether it be in a ministry at church or in a relationship with a friend), but we see less fruit.
An Old Problem
And this is not a new issue. Take for example the prophets in the Old Testament. Some of them, such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, ministered and almost no one heeded their call. These saw little to no fruit (and God even told them this would happen).
Yet other prophets did see fruit. Take for example Haggai and Zechariah. They prophesied telling the people to start the rebuilding the temple, and the temple was rebuilt through their efforts.
So this is an issue the people of God have been dealing with for thousands of years. And as we all know well, it still applies today.
Two Important Questions about Success and Fruitfulness
Using the example of the prophets above, we have two important questions we must answer for them and for ourselves.
- First, can we say that those in ministry now do see manifest fruit (such as Haggai and Zechariah) are better servants of God than those who don’t (such as Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and Isaiah)? Or to say it another way, can we say those who see fruit are more successful?
- Second, can we at least say that they were more fruitful? Zechariah saw much fruit; Isaiah saw little; can we say Zechariah was more fruitful than Isaiah? Can we say a Christian minister with big numbers is more fruitful than one with less?
What I hope to show—for our humility and encouragement—is that the biblical answer to each question is no. We can’t say that a lack of manifest fruit means that we aren’t as 1) successful or 2) fruitful (as surprising as that sounds). This is the case for two reasons.
1. Are Servants Who See Fruit More Successful? No—Success is Faithfulness, Not Seen Fruitfulness
First, we’ll address the question, Can we say people who see fruit are better or more successful? The answer is no. Why? Because success is not defined by seen fruitfulness, but by faithfulness to God.
This is something most agree with, and rightfully so. It’s nearly impossible to define the “success” of our Christian service. It’s an unhelpful idea. For example, we could say that since so few obeyed Isaiah’s prophesies that he wasn’t successful (since he was calling people to return to the Lord). But by doing so, we’d be defining success as “responding rightly to the message”—a definition that isn’t God’s definition for his messenger or Christian servant. Rather, Isaiah was successful. Why? Because he was faithful.
The same goes for Ezekiel and Jeremiah and for any Christian today. In whatever way we’re serving, our calling is to be faithful. For this is biblical success, not numbers, or positive responses, or any other seen fruitfulness.
2. Do Faithful Servants See More Fruit? Not Necessarily—Fruitfulness is Not Always Something You Get to See, Since God Gives the Growth in His Time
This, then, leads to the second, harder question: Can we at least say someone who sees more fruit is more fruitful? Perhaps to our surprise, the answer here also is no. Why? Because even fruitfulness isn’t about you or I seeing the fruit. This an important distinction. Fruitfulness of course is about fruit (or else the word would have no meaning), but fruitfulness doesn’t imply that you and I will see the fruit.
This may be confusing at first, but I think we’ll all agree here, too. With a two-step argument, we can see that fruitfulness isn’t necessarily about seeing the fruit yourself.
First, we can consider the biblical idea that God gives the growth: “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth” (1 Corinthians 3:6). Paul acknowledged that if there’s to be growth, God would give it. A fruitful servant doesn’t grown or produce the fruit themselves; God does it. So, faithfulness doesn’t equal fruitfulness because it’s God, not us, who produces the fruit.
But someone might still agree and say, “Right, but if we don’t see God give fruit, then we have to admit that you aren’t fruitful.” Yet even here this isn’t true. For 1) God gives the growth, and 2) God gives the growth in his time. So, we can’t say that us not seeing fruit means we’re not fruitful. God might be using our efforts for fruitfulness, but he may keep us from seeing the fruit. (Consider again Ezekiel, Isaiah, and Jeremiah…)
This is the point Jesus made for his disciples when he said,
“‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.” (John 4:37-38)
Jesus teaches here what we’ve been saying: fruitfulness itself isn’t necessarily about you seeing fruit. Why? Because you might be the sower (not the reaper). Is the sower unfruitful? Of course he’s fruitful! He’s planted the very seeds that are going to grow and become fruit. But does the sower in Jesus’s analogy see the fruit? No. The reapers alone harvest the sower-planted fruit.
Therefore, we not only must define success as faithfulness, we also can’t even say that someone who doesn’t see fruit is less fruitful than someone who does. For the fruit is God-given and will bloom in his timing.
Biblical Success and Fruitfulness
This is why we must say that Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel weren’t less successful prophets than Zechariah and Haggai, and why we must say that they weren’t less fruitful prophets than Zechariah and Haggai.
In the cases of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, we see these principles played out with clarity. Sure, at the time of their prophesying few people obeyed these men. But now we see how their very words led to an abundance of fruit much later on—not only in the exiles of Israel, but even more so in the Christian church. They were successful in that they were faithful. But these men who encountered almost unanimous negative responses were even fruitful. They themselves didn’t live to see the fruit (at least on this earth). But their labor was extremely fruitful; the fruit just came later.
They were faithful, harvest-less sowers, but it was still they who sowed future fruitful seed. So, they were fruitful.
Reconsidering Our “Success” and “Fruitfulness”
These same principles of biblical success, faithfulness, and fruitfulness are still true today. It’s humbling, but we have to realize how little we know about our true fruitfulness.
Some of us might fall into the trap of thinking that we’re very fruitful because we’ve seen a lot, or because of an explosion in something like numbers. But God alone sees the long-term effects, he alone gives the growth, and he alone defines fruitfulness. And as we all know, fruitfulness is certainly not numerical per se—the Bible makes that clear, and so do the amply attended seeker sensitive and prosperity gospel churches.
Others of us may fall into the discouraging trap of assuming that if we don’t see the fruit, then we must not be fruitful. The Bible—with its long timeline, its prophets, its “One sows, another reaps,” and especially with its Savior who seemed quite fruitless when he died betrayed and without friends—just doesn’t allow for such thinking. God gives the growth in his own time. And that time of fruitfulness might be when we have moved on from our service and ministry, like in the instance of you sharing the gospel with a family member or friend who then is converted in a different conversation with someone else years down the line (your times of sharing still mattered). Or, even more humbling, that fruit could come even after we’ve died, like in the case of Isaiah. Either way, we must be leery defining our own fruitfulness, for God gives the growth in his time.
Let us, then, have a more robust view of success and even fruitfulness in Christian ministry and service, avoiding one based on numbers or even fruit we see. Christian service rather is about faithfulness—an above-all obedience to God, his word, his mission, and his gospel—and not about numbers or manifest fruit. It’s not about how we perceive our fruitfulness or lack of fruitfulness (in things like hands raised or numbers in attendance or excitement from people), because our calling isn’t to see fruit, it’s be as faithful to God, his word, and his gospel—not just to “what works,” but to trust God alone to give true fruit in his timing.
May such a biblical view of success and fruitfulness encourage us to be faithful to our sovereign, fruit-giving God.
