OPEN: (The following illustration originated from either Tom Osborn or Lynn Malone here on sermoncentral.com)
I read the following description of a preacher’s job from someone who had known a number of preachers over their lifetime, and they had put together a synthesized view of a man they called “Pastor Fetch”.
They said that pastor Fetch’s job description looked something like this:
Unlock the doors to the church before the services
Turn on the lights
Check the water in the baptistery
Make sure all the pews have hymnals
Type, print and fold the bulletins
Preach both Sunday morning and Sunday night
Teach a Sunday school class
Teach a Wednesday night Bible study
Lead the youth group
Attend all class functions
Be an ex-officio member of every committee
Take communion around to the shut-ins
Type, print, fold, and mail the church newsletter
Attend the board meetings
And, mow the church grass, if necessary.
The only person in the congregation - besides the janitor - who had keys to the church was “the preacher.” If he could not be there, meetings did not happen.
His role was to preach, baptize, hand out communion, visit the sick, bury the dead, marry off the young, and bring in new members.
He was to be every one’s friend - and was to be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
He was expected to return home from vacation if someone became seriously ill or passed away.
The members came first; his family a distant second because, after all he was the minister, the only minister, and that was his job.
This preacher did the ministry because he was paid to, and the members CONSUMED ministry because they paid for it.
APPLY: Now, that was not a healthy church.
That congregation was not the priesthood of believers described in I Peter 2:9
They were just a bunch of people who got together once a week to observe somebody else serve God.
Ephesians 4 tells us that is NOT how the church should function!
In Verse 1 Paul tells us that we need “to live a life worthy of the calling you have received” (Ephesians 4:1)
Verse 12 says preachers and teachers and the like should “prepare God’s people for works of service…” (Ephesians 4:12)
And verse 16 says a healthy church “…grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. (Ephesians 4:16)
God never intended the church to be a single celled organism.
He didn’t design His church for His people to wait around for a priest or a pastor to do work for them.
Nooo. A healthy church - a strong congregation - is a place where the people realize the importance of there being a priesthood of ALL believers.
Where many people have keys to the building
Where meetings take place where the preacher doesn’t have to show up
Where people take on jobs like the bulletin and newsletter
Where people are waiting in line to teach SS. classes and mid-week Bible studies, and work with the youth.
By that standard this is a fairly healthy church.
We have so many keys floating around that it drives Jim (our building supervisor) nuts.
Meetings take place all the time that I don’t have to be at.
There are people doing the bulletin and newsletter
And we have lots of people teaching and willing to teach.
So this sermon isn’t intended to be a rebuke to this congregation. We already do a lot of things right. But, there’s always room for improvement and this sermon is intended to challenge us and encourage us to be even more involved in ministry.
I. But, someone might ask… why is it MY job?
Why should I do ministry? Isn’t that what we pay preachers and youth ministers for?
ILLUS: That kind of thinking reminds me of the story of the Sunday School teacher who was teaching her children the benefits of being unselfish. She concluded by saying “Kids, the reason you are in this world is to help others.”
After a moment’s silence, a little girl piped up “Well, then, what are the OTHERS here for?”
There are Christians who believe that ministry is something ONLY professionals ought to do.
You know the saying: “these are trained professionals… don’t try this at home!”
Basically these Christians are saying: “I don’t think I ought to ‘try this at home’”
But that’s not what Ephesians 4 is telling us:
According to vss. 11-12, preachers, teachers, elders, evangelists and missionaries have one goal:
“to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up” (Ephesians 4:12)
These leaders have been ordained by Jesus to train the rest of us for ministry, so that we CAN try this at home. So that we CAN serve God even though we aren’t “professionals.”
II. How do these leaders TRAIN us for ministry?
If they’re doing their job right… they do it in at least two ways:
1st - they do it by being “point men” (they point us in the direction we ought to go)
The purpose of the church is to be a place where we “…spur one another on toward love and good deeds.” (Hebrews 10:24)
Good teachers and preachers, elders etc. create an atmosphere where that comes naturally. Where we almost unthinkingly do good works - for each other within this congregation and for those outside the church.
ILLUS: I learned this – almost by accident – at the 1st church I served. I was teaching an young adult Sunday School class, when two of the men got into a discussion. One of them challenged the other to a contest where they would do something for God.
Now I can’t remember what it was they challenged each other to do
And I can’t remember what I said that got them all excited
but I DO remember that for the next few weeks, they worked at it with excitement and determination.
Somehow, I had created the atmosphere where they felt compelled to challenge each other to do good works for Jesus.
ILLUS: One of the things I like about this congregation is the fact that – long before I got here – somebody had already figured this concept out.
For example: in most Churches of Christ/ Christian churches, the only people who serve at the Communion Table are the Elders. Now, there’s nothing wrong with this… it’s just not something that’s taught in Scripture.
In the congregation, someone realized that you didn’t have to be an Elder to serve at the table and so in this church you’ll rarely see an Elder seated there. The prayers and devotions are given by Godly men who love Jesus and are willing to talk about Him in worship.
So, 1st the good leaders create an atmosphere - they encourage us to do ministry
2ndly - they train us for ministry by focusing our vision on WHY we do good works
Quiz time: Why should you and I do good works? (pause and wait for an answer)
Jesus said: “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and GLORIFY YOUR FATHER which is in heaven.” Matthew 5:16
In other words, our good works should be motivated by our faith in God and our desire to please Him.
* We’re not just doing good works because it makes us feel good (which it does)
* And we’re not just doing good works because it’s in our charter (tho’ it might be)
We do good deeds because (ultimately) that will bring people’s attention to Jesus to their need for salvation.
(pause, to slightly shift gears)
Ephesians 4:14 tells us that when preachers, teachers, elders do their job “Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming.”
In other words: Good teaching about WHY we do good works, will protect us from bad doctrine on other issues
ILLUS: A few weeks ago, Time magazine did an interview with the recently elected Bishop of a major US denomination. One of the questions asked of this denominational leader was:
“What will be your focus as head of the U.S. Church?”
And the leader replied: “Our focus needs to be on feeding people who go to bed hungry, on providing primary education to girls and boys, on healing people with AIDS, on addressing tuberculosis and malaria, on sustainable development. That ought to be the primary focus.”
Now, are those good things? Of course they are.
I wish I had the budget to do things like that.
But as important as those goals may be, they are NOT the primary focus that Jesus taught us to have.
In Matthew 28:19-20 Jesus said our first priority - our primary focus - MUST BE to
“…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…"
People can have a full stomach and still go to hell.
People can be healthy till the day they die and still spend an eternity cut off from God and His love.
Later in the interview this denominational leader was asked another question:
“Is belief in Jesus the only way to get to heaven?”
And this leader replied:
“We who practice the Christian tradition understand him as our vehicle to the divine. But for us to assume that God could not act in other ways is, I think, to put God in a awfully small box.” (10 Questions For Katherine Jefferts Schori – Presiding Bishop-elect for the Episcopalian Church of the U.S.A; Time Magazine July 17, 2006)
Now, that’s pure heresy! But it’s in keeping with the fact that this denomination has apparently totally lost sight of God’s priorities.
Good leaders in the church will work to make sure that this does not happen.
Good leaders will make sure that good doctrine is the foundation of good works so that Jesus will be glorified and men and women will be saved.
That is the church’s primary objective, it’s first priority.
III. And because that is the Church’s primary objective Jesus has a vested interest in our doing ministry.
Jesus wants to empower us so that we CAN bring Him glory and so that people can be saved. That’s why He has ordained leaders in the church to train us and coax us into ministry. But Ephesians also tells us that Jesus has given us one more special advantage.
Look with me to Ephesians 4:7
“But to each one of us GRACE has been given as Christ apportioned it.”
Jesus is actively seeking to empower us thru His grace.
That’s how Paul said he became a useful servant of God. In Ephesians 3:7 he said:
“I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace given me through the working of his power.”
In fact, Paul says that God is more than willing to do the same thing in our lives. He wrote that God “… is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us” Ephesians 3:20
ILLUS: One person put it this way. Referring to the 1st miracle Jesus performed in the Gospel of John, he said:
“Wine was made out of water by Jesus at the Wedding at Cana.
Something new was made out of something old.
God’s creativeness works this way. Something is always made out of something else.
Fishers of men were made out of fishermen; Paul was made out of Saul.
’…made out of…’ is a major theme in the Gospels:
Jesus, changed water into wine, sinners into saints, and the ordinary into the extraordinary."
That’s what Jesus wants to do in your life, and in mine. He wants to turn our ordinary lives into that which is extraordinary. And He does that by giving us His grace, by working within us with His power… and then turning us loose to DO things in His name.
SO Jesus empowers us for ministry by giving us leaders who will train us… and by giving us His Spirit to empower us.
IV. What that means though, is that you and I have to lay hold of that power.
Notice what it says in Ephesians 4:16
“From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.”
What are the first TWO WORDS of that verse?
“From Him…”
From whom?
From Jesus!!!
If we believe that Jesus gives us the power to do ministry then we need to be constantly tied into Him so that we can be effective.
We need to be talking to Him
We need to be spending any time in His presence
We need to look to Him in expectation for His power and His direction.
What happens too often, is we try to get by on our own energy. We draw on our own personal reserves to do ministry for Him. And because we do it that way, we end up getting worn out and discouraged. Why? Because that’s not how energy usually works.
ILLUS: A visitor to a electric plant in East Texas once told about his experience. He told of watching as the coal was crushed into powder. Then that powder was superheated in huge furnaces to the point where it ignited like gasoline and turned the cranks of three huge turbines.
These turbines whirred along at 3,600 revolutions per minute and were housed in concrete and steel casings 100 feet long, 10 feet tall, and 10 feet across. They generated enough electricity for thousands of people.
In the course of his tour, he asked the chief engineer, “Where do you store the electricity?”
“We don’t store it,” the engineer replied. “We just make it.”
When a light switch is flipped on in Dallas one hundred miles west, it literally places a demand on the system; it registers at the generating plant and prompts greater output.
Now, God’s energy, His resources, are inexhaustible,
And they are always available at the moment of our need.
But His power and grace cannot be “stored up”
We NEED to be connected to Him to lay hold of His overwhelming power.
One last thing.
Often times people will wonder: “What can I do to serve Jesus?”
ILLUS: I just returned from a funeral memorial service for my Uncle Donald in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I really liked my Uncle, but being as far apart as we were and seeing each other only once a year or so at best, there were many things I didn’t know about him. One of those things was the fact that every Sunday for the past 11 years, he and Aunt Doris would go to the VA Hospital. Uncle Donald was veteran of WWII and these were people he cared about.
So, what did he and Aunt Doris do at the VA? They went to the rooms of patients who wanted to go to chapel that Sunday, and they’d wheel or walk them down to worship. Every Sunday for 11 years. And Uncle Donald wasn’t in that good a shape to begin with himself.
That story only serves to illustrate that service for God isn’t that hard. It just simply has to be something you want to do.
Here at this church, we have a number of people who do ministry.
* Bill Schache, for example, goes to the nursing homes to give them communion every Sunday. Then, throughout the week, he’ll go and feed the patients and talk with them and pray with them. If you’d like to share in his ministry, I want you talk to him this week.
* Charlie Goudy, goes to another assisted living facility in town and he preaches to them every Sunday. If you’d like to go along with, talk to him and volunteer to help.
Back in the back of the sanctuary, there’s sign up list for a number of other ministries you can work with this month. If you sign up, I’ll make it a point to try and be there with you.
CLOSE:
A young man was baptized into Christ and was very excited about Sunday School and Bible Study. After a while, one of his teachers asked him:
“What have you done for Christ since you believed?”
The boy replied: “Oh, I’m a learner.”
“Well,” said the questioner, “when you light a candle do you light it to make the candle more comfortable, or to have it give light?”
He replied, “To give light.”
“Do you expect it to give light after it is half burned, or when you first light it?”
He replied, “As soon as I light it.”
“Very well,” was the reply, “go thou and do likewise; begin at once.”
