This morning, we’re beginning a ministry training series.
As we learned last week, God is a god of purpose and intent. He is calling us to walk intentionally into the purposes for which He created us for.
There is a purpose for our salvation far beyond our own selves.
There is a purpose for being Spirit-filled beyond an emotional feeling.
There is a purpose for gathering together with other Christ followers.
There is a purpose for the church.
When our focus and vision are taken off of God’s purposes for them, things start to go wrong fairly quickly… A church that is supposed to be the body of Christ starts to look less like Jesus and a bit more like a Picasso portrait or worse!
Together, we’re going to go beyond just words and teachings about these purposes! We’re going to live them out and take them beyond the walls of this building to wherever our Spirit-lead lives might take us.
How do we find and fulfill our unique purpose? Paul wrote:
Ephesians 4:1-16 (NLT)
1 Therefore I, a prisoner for serving the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling, for you have been called by God. 2 Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love. 3 Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace. 4 For there is one body and one Spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future.
5 There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism,
6 one God and Father of all,
who is over all, in all, and living through all.
7 However, he has given each one of us a special gift through the generosity of Christ. 8 That is why the Scriptures say,
“When he ascended to the heights,
he led a crowd of captives
and gave gifts to his people.”
9 Notice that it says “he ascended.” This clearly means that Christ also descended to our lowly world. 10 And the same one who descended is the one who ascended higher than all the heavens, so that he might fill the entire universe with himself.
11 Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. 12 Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. 13 This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ.
14 Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. 15 Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. 16 He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.
Each of us have been called by God.
Each of us have been uniquely gifted by God.
Each of us are ministers.
Each of us have been equipped to come together in unity of faith and knowledge and maturity.
God has given us the gifts of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. We refer to them today as the five-fold ministry. God gave them the responsibility to equip all of God’s people to do the work of ministry and help build them up into the body of Christ.
They help guide and equip everyone to explore and find and develop their own gifts. The fruits of the Spirit are a very short list and intended for all Christians to possess. The gifts of the Spirit are many and diverse and how they operate through our individual personalities differs as well.
The word minister in both the Hebrew and Greek languages simply means to serve.
Consider our physical bodies. Every part of our bodies are very unique from the other parts. They each have very unique purpose to fulfill.
However, that unique purpose is to serve the needs of the other parts of the body; to minister. It is only when they are connected together that they can fulfill their purpose. It is only when they are connected together that they can receive what they need from the other parts.
When one part suffers, every part suffers. When one part thrives, every part thrives. All of these very different and unique parts coming together in harmony to create unity and to form a body.
That’s God’s concept for His church. Jesus is the head and all of us are a unique, but critically important part of it.
My primary gift and role as pastor here is one that I need to be far more intentional about; to equip you! That’s what this series and accompanying hands-on activities are all going to be about.
Today, we focus on ministry.
In our American-minded culture, church and ministry is viewed through the eyes of a consumer. What can I get? What programs do they offer to me? Do they play music that I like? Are services at a convenient time? Are there people there my age that share my interests? Do they tell me when to sit down and stand up and what to say? Do I like the style of preaching and teaching? We tend to be very self-focused.
The ratio is about 99 to 1 of people who reach out to this church because they need something material as opposed to those who reach out because they desire God.
Don’t get me wrong. We love serving the needs of the community around us and we are honored to do it! However, that’s not our primary purpose.
Today, we go back to the heart of ministry.
In the Bible, we find two general types of ministry.
Ministry to the Lord and ministry to people.
The focus and emphasis of most American churches today is the latter. Ministries and programs are developed, packaged, and sold based on the needs of people.
Success is defined by head counts, money brought it, and money sent out.
Is this how God defines successful ministry, though?
Jesus watched thousands who were following Him walk away because of one hard teaching.
Yet He didn’t fail, didn’t sin, didn’t miss the purpose of His ministry.
What kind of ministry can we do that will leave us hearing, “Well done, good and faithful servant?”
Again, there is nothing necessarily wrong with ministries which are built to meet needs, but remember what Jesus told us.
John 12:8
You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.
Which one do we value more? Which one is our emphasis and focus and desire?
How many church ministries could operate and be considered highly successful and yet be completely void of the empowerment and gifting of the Holy Spirit and result in absolutely no spiritual transformation at all?
How many ministries serve in Jesus’ name, but completely void of Jesus’ Presence?
They bring in lots of money and supplies.
Lots of people show up to serve.
Even more show up to be served.
They meet the needs of many.
They last through many seasons and grow.
Yet how many people of those served are still spiritually dead and hell-bound?
How many teaching positions in modern church ministries could be operated by taking any unsaved person off of the street, handing them the curriculum and having them read it out loud and do just fine?
Jesus said it and it is absolutely true that there will always be poor among us. There will always be material need. We are absolutely called by Jesus to meet those needs, too!
I think Jesus is calling out to us today as He did to the Pharisees:
Matthew 23:23
You should have practiced the latter without neglecting the former.
If we do things in Jesus’ name, but without Jesus’ Presence, then we’re doing them on our own and even perhaps in vain. Wasted time. Good deeds, but not done in faith by obedience. Good deeds that do not lead to God’s goodness.
For our ministry and service to people to be what God purposed it to be, we need to put first things first. God first. Yes, practice the latter, but without neglecting the former! Ministry to the Lord resulting in ministry to people.
The ministry to others that we find throughout the pages of scriptures are undeniably God at work through mankind!
You can’t pull someone off of the street and have them heal the sick, raise the dead, feed thousands with only enough food for a few people, purify well water forever with a dash of salt, cure poisonous food with a dash of flour, watching your coworker’s iron ax head fly off of the handle into a river and floating it to the surface for him by just throwing a stick at it, oh and so, so much more!
True, Spirit-filled, ministry is so, so much fun!
Serving impossible needs of others like this can only be done by God through mankind!
Relationship and cooperation!
I’m not trying to minimize visiting the lonely or feeding the hungry or providing clothes to the poor; all things Jesus commanded us to do! However, these can all be done by anyone and without Jesus ever showing up.
These acts of service only lead people to salvation and life transformation when they are Spirit-lead and Spirit-empowered. Ministry to the Lord must precede and become ministry to people for this to be the end result!
God’s Presence and empowerment is really the only thing that makes you or I any different than any other person getting pulled off of the street. It’s not WHO we are, it’s WHOSE we are!
1 Peter 2:9-10
9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God.
Yes, priests served people, but their focus and emphasis and sole purpose was to serve the Lord. Even serving the practical needs of people was an act and an expression of serving the Lord. It was all about God.
We are a royal priesthood! We intercede between God and man when we serve others. We bring Heaven on earth when we serve others – just as Jesus taught us to pray!
This was no different with the ministry of Moses and Joshua and David and Elijah and Elisha and Isaiah and Nehimiah and Jesus and His disciples and the early church and it should be no different with the ministry of us, the church, today!
Jesus didn’t heal the sick and raise the dead and deliver people from demons and feed the hungry and calm storms and so on so that their lives would be a little better and more comfortable.
He did it to seek and save the lost! He did it to reveal God’s Kingdom! He did it to reveal the heart of our Heavenly Father and direct people back to Him! This was the same reason that God moved in and through the life of every human being Old Testament and New Testament; to draw people back to Him!
This is the true purpose of all ministry!
Jesus said:
John 10:36-38
36 …Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’? 37 Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father. 38 But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.”
Jesus, God incarnate, Messiah, Lord of Lords and King of Kings, Alpha and the Omega, ALL power and ALL authority, dwelling in our flesh required relationship and cooperation for ALL of His ministry.
How much more do we?
Jesus rarely, if ever, performed the same miracle in the same way twice. Jesus was surrounded by sick people, poor people, hungry people, demon-tormented people, and He didn’t address every need of every person. Yet He was sinless.
How could overlooking the needs of people that you had the ability and the authority and the power and the resources to meet not be sin? How did Jesus minister so effectively and know when to say “Yes” and when to say “No”?
All of His ministry, even meeting the needs of others, was ministry to His Heavenly Father. When questioned about His ministry, He said:
John 5:19;30
19 Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.
30 By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.
That is why Jesus spent so much time alone with His Father. Ministry to the Lord is really all that true ministry is. Ministry to people results from ministry to the Lord.
Luke 5:16
Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.
Why is it that free meals are so well attended, but prayer services and worship services and Bible studies are so rarely attended?
What do we hunger and thirst for?
Do our hearts and minds and souls cry out for the Living God?
Or do they hunger and thirst for the lesser things of this world?
Is He our source, our everything, our all-in-all?
Do we serve Him or is He the one whom we expect to serve us?
This morning, there is freedom in this house.
You are free to head out and continue on with your week.
You’re free to impatiently for the service to end.
You’re also free to find a place in this room where it is just you and Jesus.
You’re invited into an encounter with the One, True, Living God!
You’re invited to minister to Him.
Through prayer and praise and worship and even just quietly resting, give Jesus your whole attention.
Tell Him and show Him how much you love and appreciate Him.
Tell Him and show Him how awesome He is.
Tell Him and show Him how much you desperately need Him.
Rest in His Presence, enjoy it, and let Him speak to you.