By: Dr. Wayne Barber; ©2004 |
We’re going to be talking today about God’s Pattern for Ministry. I guarantee you that there is not a single person in here today who is a believer who doesn’t want to be usable to God. I promise you that. You may not be walking after the Spirit right now, in the Spirit; you may be walking after the flesh. But in your heart of hearts, the heart that God gave you in Christ Jesus, that participation in the divine nature causes us to want to be usable to God, to be about the desires of God. |
Pillar 1 – God’s Pattern for Ministry
Lord, in my weakness will you be my strength. Will you speak to us? Let this series not just be for information, but for transformation. May we understand, Father, that ministry is not what we do for you, but what you do in and through us. We love you and praise you in Jesus name. Amen. Turn with me, if you will, to 1 Corinthians 12:4-7. We’re going to be talking today about God’s Pattern for Ministry. I guarantee you that there is not a single person in here today who is a believer who doesn’t want to be usable to God. I promise you that. You may not be walking after the Spirit right now, in the Spirit; you may be walking after the flesh. But in your heart of hearts, the heart that God gave you in Christ Jesus, that participation in the divine nature causes us to want to be usable to God, to be about the desires of God. But here is the question: “How? How do I go about it? What is the ministry all about?” Well, today we begin a seven part series on what we call the “Seven Pillars of Ministry.” Let me help you see if you can understand that. The word “pillar” is something that holds something else up. Something rests upon these seven pillars. So therefore, we have to know what these pillars are, if something rests upon them. Everything that we will do, when it comes to ministry, missions, whatever, are going to rest on these seven pillars. I hope it is not just a concept of where the church is going. My prayer is that each of us will understand that anything God does in and through us rests right here on these seven pillars that we are going to be looking at. These seven pillars define our philosophy of ministry. Now I hope that you understand there are at least two philosophies of ministry very apparent today. One is that philosophy that says, “We will do all we can do for Jesus until He comes back and we will ask Him to bless the process.” That’s one of the philosophies. How many of you, besides me, grew up on that philosophy? I grew up that way. “But if it is up to you, son, if you don’t do it, it will never get done.” As if God is somehow shackled by my unwillingness to obey. The old hymn—and I have to apologize even before I say it because it probably wasn’t written to irritate me. It is just my flesh that gets irritated with it. Got irritated with it when I first heard it and been irritated with it ever since—that old song that says, “We’ll work till Jesus comes; we’ll work till Jesus comes” I got so tired of that song; no joy, just get out there. And you better work, because in heaven you’ll find your joy one day. As if salvation is getting us into heaven. Salvation is far more than that. Salvation is getting heaven into us, and being able to participate in the divine working of what God is already doing. But there is another philosophy; that’s where we are going to rest. That philosophy flows out of the understanding of living grace. And that living grace, again, you should know it by now, “Let Jesus be Jesus in me, no longer me but thee; resurrection power, fill me this hour, Jesus be Jesus in me.” The philosophy, which says, “I can’t do anything for Him, other than surrender to Him and let Him do, what only He can do through my life.” In other words, I get to join what He is already doing. That’s where we are headed with these seven pillars as a church. This last philosophy of ministry is where we will be as a church. We, as elders and staff, are committed to lead the church to have an intimate relationship with Christ so that we might be the conduits through whom the life and work of Christ might flow. We will focus much more on intimacy with Him than we will be focusing on doing for Him . And sometimes you may think that is an imbalance; if I am imbalanced anywhere, it will be right here. Because if I have to err, I am not going to err on the side of “do, do, do” I will err on the side of “become —be what God wants you to be.” If becoming is what God says it truly should be, then the doing will take care of itself. That is what the book of James is all about. If faith is real, then it will produce the works that it seeks to produce. We will seek to daily surrender to Him and to His word, knowing that it is only when we are saying “yes” to Him, yielded to Him that we can participate in that which He is doing already on this earth. We will discover in this series in God’s word that all ministry, no matter what facet we are talking about, is not achieved for God, but scripturally it is received from God. Now let me get to the message today, and I’ll show you that. In fact this is the passage that nails it as clearly as any passage that we’ll look at. In our message today, we have to remember that when you think of ministry you have to think of three things:- The gift, or the ability and motivation to do whatever it is that needs to be done.
- The ministry itself, the actual taking part in that which is going on. That is the second part of it, the ministry.
- The eternal effect that has on the people that are recipients of that ministry.
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