The Responsibility of Salvation
Eph 4:7 - 8, 2Cor 5:18, 1 Cor 12:5, Eph 2:10 2 Tim 1:8 - 9, Gal 1:15, Eph 4:1, 1 Pet 2:9 -10
1 Pet 4:10, Mat 28:18 - 20, Phil 2:5-7, Mat 16:25, 1 Cor 12:27, Rom 12:1 - 12
November 4, 2002
I. I have talked in the last two weeks about worship, and prayer.
A. We are to worship God to show our love for him and to draw near to him.
B. When we worship we are raised to a higher place above our circumstances, where we can look at our problems from the perspective that God does.
C. Through prayer we are able to communicate with God on a daily basis to stay connected to our power source, and be reminded that we are children of God, who have the benefits of being children of God.
D. But with those benefits come responsibilities.
E. When we become Christians the bible says that we are given spiritual gifts
(Eph 4:7 - 8 NIV) But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. This is why it says: "When he ascended on high, he led captives in his train and gave gifts to men."
F. Spiritual gifts come with the grace that we receive that makes us right with God, these gifts are given by the grace of God through Jesus.
G. If we are Christians then we have spiritual gifts, and these gifts that we have been given are to be used by us to build up, or strengthen and expand the body.
H. We are to be involved in helping people come to know Jesus as their savior and then help them mature in their relationship with God to the point that they can then help others know God and grow in their relationship with Him.
II. This all basically means that as Christians we are to be involved in ministry, because as a part of our salvation God has gifted us so that we can be involved in his plan for reaching the world in the name of Jesus.
A. One problem that we have with this at times is that we decide that we can’t do the things that God has told us that we are to do. Sometime we get caught up in measuring our ability by the standards that the world around us measures it.
B. We have to be careful not to measure our ability, by what we do or by what we see ourselves as able to do.
1. World values often fail to recognize true success. In 1902, the poetry editor of Atlantic Monthly returned a stack of poems with this note, "Our magazine has no room for your vigorous verse." The poet was Robert Frost.
2. In 1905, the University of Bern turned down a doctoral dissertation as "irrelevant and fanciful." The writer of that paper was Albert Einstein.
3. In 1894 an English teacher noted on a teenager’s report card, "A conspicuous lack of success." The student was Winston Churchill.
4. Another student once graduated 42nd out of a class of 58 at military school. This student with so little potential was named Napoleon Bonaparte.
5. The world often fails to see the potential for success that lies within a man or a woman.
6. But God created us and he knows our true potential and it is Him that we are to please, we have been gifted and commissioned to carry out His work here on Earth.
C. People have different kinds of emotional needs and the Bible says it takes different kinds of ministries to see to these needs. And it takes different kinds of people to carry out these different ministries.
D. That is a lot of what we have been talking about in the new members class that we have been having. None of us is built in such a way that we are able to carry out all the ministries of the church, because God does not intend for any one person to carry out all the ministries of the church.
E. Each one of us has been given different gifts because all of us have ministry that we are to carry out to see that the needs of others are met.
F. (2 Cor 5:18 NIV) All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:
G. Reconciliation is when you take two opposing parties and you bring them together. The Bible says it s our job as Christians, our ministry, to reconcile people with God. We re to bring people who have been separated from God to God, and bring about reconciliation.
H. One ministry that we are all to be a part of is telling people about the salvation that God has made available through Jesus. We Christians ( those who have been reconciled to God) have been given the responsibility of seeing that others are reconciled with God. We are to share with other people the salvation that God has given us. That is first and foremost!
III. But what is that purpose of Ministry?
A. (1 Cor 12:5 NIV) There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men.
B. Notice that it says "different kinds" We are all together one body of Christ, and each and everyone of us is a separate and necessary part of the body, and we all have a function in the body that we are responsible for, to see that the body is able to live and grow and accomplish the things that God has put it here accomplish.
C. So you might ask why should I be interested in that?
D. The first reason is that you have been created for ministry.
(Eph 2:10 NIV) For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
E. We were all created in Christ Jesus to do good works. You were created for ministry.
1. I don’t think that we think about that enough, most of us seem to think that we were created to do our own thing, but God created us to do ministry.
2. You were created for ministry, good works, that God prepared in advance for you to do. You were made for ministry.
3. To fulfill the very purpose of our creation we have to be involved in ministry, and there will be a void in our lives if we are not involved in the ministry that God created us for.
F. On top of that we have been saved for ministry.
(2 Tim 1:8 - 9 NIV) So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God, who has saved us and called us to a holy life--not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time,
1. The Living Bible says it this way "It is He who saved us and chose us for his holy work, not because we deserved it but because that was his plan long before the world began."
2. The Bible teaches that every Christian is saved to serve. We are gifted when we are shown grace because we when we are saved we are to serve God through the ministry that he has gifted us to carry out. A non- serving Christian is a contradiction.
G. We are also called to ministry.
(Gal 1:15 NIV) But when God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, was pleased
(Eph 4:1 NIV) As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.
(1 Pet 2:9 -10 NIV) But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
1. We are given a gift of salvation by God but it comes with responsibility and that is that we are to use what God has given us to meet the needs of others.
2. Before you became a Christian you were a nobody, but now you re a somebody. Now you are God s own.
3. The very minute that everyone of us became a Christian we were called into ministry.
4. I ‘m not who I think I am, I am not who you think I am, I am who God says I am!
5. And God says that our primary identification is not that you re a man or a woman, not that you re a husband or a son, or a daughter or a mother, or a wife.
6. God says that our primary identity is that we are a minister of Jesus Christ.
7. If you ll let that sink into your life, it will flat out change your attitude on everything. You are not who you think you are, and you are not who I think you are, you are who God says you are!
8. And God says we were created, we have been saved, and we have been called into ministry.
9. We are ministers of Jesus Christ. We could just stop here and go home because that s one of the most profound truths you ll understand. When you became a Christian, you became a minister. It s clearly taught in Scripture. We were called, We were created, We were saved to minister!
10. The bible teaches that we are all ministers, and that is what we are saved and called to be!
H. As I said before you have also been gifted for ministry
(1 Pet 4:10 NIV) Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms.
I. We have also been authorized for ministry.
(Mat 28:18 - 20 NIV) Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
1. We have been given authority by Jesus himself to be ministers and carry out the ministry that he started he on Earth.
2. The bible says "We are therefore Christ s ambassadors." An ambassador is someone who represents royalty or a throne or government.
3. The Bible says you re an ambassador on the earth for Jesus Christ. If someone comes up to you and says, "So you are minister of Jesus Christ, huh?" Then you should say yes I am!
4. And if they say, "Who do you think you are, anyway?" You say, "I am one that has been authorized by Jesus Christ to be a minister."
5. It s not because you deserve it. You don t. It s not because I deserve it. I don t deserve to be in the ministry. I don t deserve even to be a Christian.
6. But it s all by God s grace. I have been authorized and you have been authorized to minister to other people.
J. And you have been commanded to minister.
(Phil 2:5 - 7 NIV) Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
1. Jesus said in Matthew, "You attitude must be like my own, for I, the Messiah, did not come to be served, but to serve."
2. Jesus said it s not an option! We may not like to hear it, but A non ministering Christian is not obeying God.
3. God expects us to be like Jesus.
4. The secret of a fulfilled life is to find the ministry that God made you for and get right in the middle. You re going to find fulfillment there more than any other area of your life, because it s what God made you to be.
(Mat 16:25 NIV) For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.
5. When we are willing to give up our life for Jesus and to serve him we find what real life really is.
K. The Church ( the body of Christ) needs you ministry.
(1 Cor 12:27 NIV) Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.
1. Every one of us is a separate and a necessary part of the body, and the body cannot function the way it is supposed to without us.
2. When we don t fulfill the ministry God has given us, the rest of the body gets cheated.. We re all a necessary part.
3. What if your liver said to your body, "I don t want to serve this year. I need some time off."
4. You say, "I m sorry, dear liver, but because you re part of the body of me, you ve got to perform your function." Because, if the liver doesn t do it s part, the whole body gets cheated, weakened and can die.
5. Many people are in a church hopper and shopper mode that they think the church exists for them. THE BIBLE SAYS THAT THE CHURCH EXISTS FOR THE WORLD.
6. We, the body of Christ, exist for the world. The body of Christ needs our ministry. Because the body of Christ is here to change the world!
IV. So how do we discover our ministry.
(Rom 12:1 - 12 NIV) Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will. For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man’s gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.
A. First dedicate yourself. Offer you yourself as a living sacrifice. You don’t have to understand it all, but be willing to dedicate yourself, everything that you are to to God, to be what he wants you to be.
B. Then get rid of the distractions. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind!
C. The reason that a lot of people are not able to get where they need to be in being involved in ministry is that they have their lives clutter up with too many other things.
D. It may be less television or it may be something else. But if you put in the important things in life, you re going to have to take something out that is less important.
E. God needs you to give him some of you time, and if you are too busy to serve God then you are just too busy and some things have to be rearranged.
F. Evaluate your strengths, that is what we are doing in the New members class, we are trying to discover where our gifts are, and who we are, how God made us tick, and where we were created to serve.
G. Romans 12:3 in the Phillips translation says it well, ‘Don t cherish exaggerated ideas of yourself or your importance, but try to have a sane estimate of your capabilities by the light of the faith God has given to you."
H. He says, be honest. Every one of us are a great mixture of some strengths and weaknesses. You have some things that you re very good at. You have some things that you re lousy at and so do I. With every strength comes a weakness. With every weakness comes a strength. The key is to find out, What am I good at? and have a sane estimation.
I. Humility is not denying your strengths. Humility is being honest about your weaknesses. It s OK to say, "I m good with my hands." Why? God made you to be that way. Some of you are good with words. Some of you are good with numbers. Some of you are good with people. Some of you are lousy with people, you re good with things. You re good with projects. God has made us different to fit us all together in the body of Christ so that the ministry that God has put this body here to do gets done, but we all have to evaluate our strengths so we know where we fit into the picture, because eternity rests on whether or not we do our ministry.
J. And finally we have to Cooperate with others.
Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.
1. Every member is a minister in Christ s body.
2. Every member has a different function.
3. Every member s ministry is important.
4. Every member belongs to all the others.
K. We are a body and we belong to each other, and we are here to help each other form a unit, a body that carries out the ministry that God has put us here to do, and we need each other to do that.
L. Please take the time to come and ask God to help you discover your ministry and then prepare yourself whatever it takes to carry out that ministry because this body depends on you.
