The Work of the Ministry

The speaker encourages listeners to open their Bibles to Ephesians chapter 4, where they read verses 11 to 16. The main points are that the work of the ministry is not just done by the leaders of the church, but by all members. The speaker emphasizes the importance of serving one another and using the gifts that God has given each individual. They also discuss the need for unity and maturity within the church. The speaker uses examples from the Bible to illustrate their points. We pray that this week's message challenges you in your walk with the Lord, causes you to grow in your faith, and encourages you in your love for the Word of God. So open your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 4. I'm going to give this side of the room another opportunity to open your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 4. This ear wasn't working, sorry. My fault. We're going to read verse 11 to 16. It says, But speaking the truth in love may grow up in all things into him who is the head, Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. Father, we bless your name and we thank you for this time together. We thank you for your presence here. We thank you for your desire to come and fellowship with us. Lord, your desire to make your presence known and to bring with you, Lord God, Lord God, not just your glory that we must and get to worship, but to bring with you in that glory things that you desire to give to us, to do in us. We thank you, Father, for your Word. We pray that you would encourage our hearts, that you would inspire us, that you would, Lord, put an excitement in us. Together as one body, to work together towards what you want to accomplish. In Jesus' name, amen. So the two things I want to point out in this verse is for the equipping of the saints, for the work of the ministry, and for the edifying of the body of Christ. If you've been a part of this congregation for long enough, you will have heard me say that the work of the ministry is not what I do. The work of the ministry is not done behind the pulpit. The work of the ministry is what you do in the context of serving each other, and what we all do when we leave this place and go out into the world. That is the work of the ministry. And Paul, inspired by the Spirit, lists these five gifts that are given to the church. Not five offices, not five titles, not five positions of prominence, but five job descriptions that he has given to the church. And all of these five, their primary function is to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. So what happens here on a weekly basis is the equipping session, is the opportunity to come together as a whole body to worship God collectively. His word says where there are two or three gathered in his name, he promises that he is there. And two or three is great, but a roomful is even greater. And it's great to be able to come in together and worship God, to have an opportunity to pray for each other's needs, to have an opportunity to hear from the Spirit of the things that he wants to accomplish in us and through us. This is the time where we are encouraged, instructed. This is the time when we are built up, when we can learn of each other as well, to serve each other. Remember that Jesus said, I know you are my disciples by your love for one another. The Spirit led that we should have a time of forgiving. It's hard to love somebody when you're holding on to the bitterness that is there. It's hard to, you know, our slogan is do life together. I've heard multiple people over the years use that phrase and say, well, nobody does life with me. Why don't they do life with me? I thought we were supposed to do life together. And it really comes down to me, me, me. Not how can I do life with you? How can I serve you? How can I reach out to you? How can I be used of God? Before we left, we were in our series in 1 Corinthians, and we'll get back to it after next week when Pastor Ken's here. We still have chapter 14 to go through, and it's going to be a wonderful time of looking into what the Spirit wants to do. But our gifts, we have to realize that the gifts that God gives us are for the edifying of the body. What we do behind the pulpit, whether it's me or soon Pastor Sergio, we're going to get him up here to preach soon, Pete or Ismael or Kyle, when we get up to speak here behind the pulpit, we only cause a fraction of what is necessary for the growth and edifying of the body as a whole. We are one part. You are the rest of it. And we can't do our part if you don't do your part. Our part becomes effective as your part is effective. And we cause growth together and build ourselves up together. In Acts chapter 6, verse 1-4, if you're familiar with the story, we have where the feeding program in the church for the widows needed help. And some widows were grumbling that they weren't getting what they need, while others were getting supposedly more than what they need, and there was a problem there. And they came to the apostles, the leaders of the church, and said, fix it. And they said, the 12, it says, verse 2, they summoned the multitude of the disciples and said, it is not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. Now, how do you read that? It's not desirable that we should wait tables. It kind of sounds like waiting tables is beneath us. Like they were saying, no, that's too little of a job. Don't you know that we are the apostles? We are the pillars of the church. We're the foundation stones of the new Jerusalem. We're not going to wait tables. That's not the point. It is not desirable, they said, it's not desirable for you that we should wait tables. And he goes on to say that our role, our job, is to give ourselves to prayer and the ministry of the Word. And he says, so find some other people. But don't just grab anybody. Find people that are full of the Spirit and wisdom. That was a high requirement. A lot of times in churches now, we just take a warm body. We need somebody to be a greeter. Anybody, somebody, anybody. It doesn't matter if you're qualified. You just need somebody to be there. It has come down to a employment by necessity rather than serving out of a willing heart. When it's employment out of necessity, it's because one part of the body is not functioning the way that it should. And so the other part of the body takes up the slack. And what happens? You get atrophy in the part that's not working. And soon decay comes. And things break down. And then unity breaks down. And whole manner of problems come. But when we are doing things together, doing what we are gifted to do, doing what is our responsibility to do, then we find that it causes growth together. We find the gifts listed in Romans chapter 12. The nine gifts of the Spirit listed in 1 Corinthians 12. We find another list of gifts that are at the end of 1 Corinthians 12. We can look at those things and sometimes people get really messed up with them. Either they're like, well, I want that gift because that gift is a gift of prominence. Or there's no way that I can allow God to use me in that gift. I just can't do that. They go one of two ways. Either they run to it wanting the fame of it or they run away from it because of their insecurities and lack of trust in God to be the one that works that gift through them. There's one gift in 1 Corinthians 12 verse 28 listed that we are all responsible for. It doesn't matter if you are gifted in one of the five listed in Ephesians 4 or one of the nine listed in the first part of 1 Corinthians 12 or in the gifts listed in Romans 12. Every one of us fits into this category. It's the gift of helps or the ministry of helps. Verse 28 says, and God has appointed these in the church, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, after that miracles and gifts of healing, helps, administrations, and variety of tongues. We can see this explained in Paul's encouragement to Timothy when he says, do the work of an evangelist. Not everybody is an evangelist. There are people that can't help it. No matter where they are, they are going to tell somebody about Jesus. Hands down, Ishmael is an evangelist. He can't prevent himself from telling somebody about God. It doesn't matter where he is. It's going to come out. It doesn't matter what he's speaking about. It's going to come out. Not everybody has that gift, but everybody is responsible to evangelize. Not one of us can say, well, that's not for me. No, that's in the Great Commission. That's for everybody. When it comes to helps, we can't say, well, that's not for me. No, it is. As the whole body serves itself, it builds itself up in love and unity and service until we all come together until we all come together to the unity of Christ in the power of his life. In the maturity, that's an ever-present issue in every church. Why? Because we are all people. As one of our pastor friends says, people have been people as long as people have been people. Ministry would be easy if it wasn't for the people. But it wouldn't be ministry if there were no people. We've got to mature together. We have to grow together. We have to not look so much on how can I be served, but how can I serve those who are around me. In 1 Samuel 14, as I was studying this, this came up in my mind and I thought, really? That's an interesting place to go in this topic, but it's really cool. 1 Samuel 14. The Philistines were, of course, in control of everything that was around the Israelites. The only people in Israel to have swords were King Saul and Jonathan. Nobody else was allowed to have any type of weapon. They had an army, but it was an army without weapons. And one day, King Saul was sitting under a tree with all of his troops, kind of lamenting the situation. And lo and behold, Jonathan and his armor bearer aren't present. Why? Because Jonathan had something in his heart. He didn't want to just sit there and be depressed. He didn't want to just sit there and be consumed by the circumstances. He wanted to do something about it. David was the same way when he saw Goliath. Who is this uncircumcised Philistine? And what is wrong with you? I think if David had the opportunity, he could have looked to Saul, King Saul, and to the rest of the army and said, What's the matter with you people? You have forgotten who you are. And this uncircumcised Philistine has you all cowering. And we do the same thing when our circumstances get over top of us. We forget that we have the authority. We forget that God has put us over our circumstances. And he has given us a way to go through these circumstances where we are not defeated and we are the victor instead. So Jonathan and his armor bearer, Jonathan goes out and he says, Let's go pick a fight with the Philistines. He tells his armor bearer, we are going to go show ourselves to the Philistines. And if they say this one thing, then we know we are dead meat. But if they say, come on down here and we will teach you a lesson. Come on up here and we will teach you a lesson. Then we know that God has given us the victory. That he has delivered them into our hands. And the armor bearer, who is carrying Jonathan's armor and carrying Jonathan's sword, who has no way of defending himself, once he gives that armor and that sword over to his leader, he is like, you better protect me dude. He had every cause in that circumstance to look at Jonathan and say, you are out of your ever loving mind. There is no way. There is no way. But his armor bearer, let's go to verse 6 and 7. Then Jonathan said to the young man who bore his armor, Come, let us go over to the garrison of these uncircumcised. It may be that the Lord will work for us, for nothing restrains the Lord from saving by many or by few. So his armor bearer said to him, do all that is in your heart. Go then, here I am with you, according to your heart. As I was studying this, this is what the Spirit spoke to me. When the body gets in line with the vision of the leader, and the leader entrusts the work to the body, great things get accomplished. You see, there is a unity there. There is a partnership there. It wasn't just Jonathan's vision or plan. Jonathan said to his armor bearer, let's go up. He didn't say to his armor bearer, you stay here, give me my armor and sword, I'm going to go and I'm going to do it all. He said, let's go. And the armor bearer didn't say to him, here's your sword, here's your armor, I'll stay here and pray. And hope you come back. He said, I'm with you. Now the moment he handed over the shield and the sword, he was defenseless. But he was still there. And as soon as Jonathan killed the first Philistine, now the armor bearer could pick up his own sword and his own armor and fight alongside. And it says that as they went, remember they're going up, a very hard position to gain ground from. If you're a Star Wars fan, you all know the thing. Defending up is hard. Attacking up is hard. And it says as they went up, Jonathan killed those who were before him. And the armor bearer killed those who were behind him. Behind them. It doesn't say Jonathan killed 20 men. It says Jonathan and his armor bearer killed 20 men. When every part does what it is supposed to, the church will grow and build itself up in love. And in the power of the presence of God. Well, I don't know what my gift is. What the armor bearer could do was present within him. But he couldn't do it until he got in line with the vision and started moving forward with the one who the vision was given to. They went together. And the gifts and the abilities began to flow. So as we're talking about these gifts, as we're going through 1 Corinthians 11-14, as we're diving into these things, you may say, well, I don't know what my gift is. It's okay, just get in line. The gift will reveal itself. Well, I need to know what I'm gifted at so that I can do it. No, you need to trust the Holy Spirit. Because 1 Corinthians 12 says that he is the one that gives the gifts according to his will in the moment that it is needed. Don't worry about what it's called. Just be a vessel. Be part of the body that is willing to move forward and to cause itself growth in love. Amen. The worship team comes. One of my favorite stories in the book of Judges is this guy that's mentioned one time. The only other time that he is mentioned, it's like honorable mention. In the days of this guy, so and such and such. But, in verse 31, we find out about this one guy. His name's Shamgar. Judges chapter 3, verse 31. After him was Shamgar, the son of Anat. We have no history on this guy. Who's Anat? No idea. He's a nobody. He's obviously somebody because his name got in the Bible. And so does his dad's name. It's always interesting who God chose to put their names in the Bible. But these guys made it in the Bible. Shamgar, son of Anat. Who killed 100 men of the Philistines with an ox goat. And he also delivered Israel. He killed 100 Philistines with an ox goat. Again, no weapons around. Huh? 600? I thought 100 seemed small. I don't know what my notes say. 600. Well, there you go. 600. 600. I read it wrong. I'm sorry. Killed 600 men of the Philistines with an ox goat. And he delivered Israel. Jonathan and his armor bearer killed 20. This dude didn't even have a sword. Killed 600 people. I'm not encouraging you to go kill people. What I'm saying are these three things. Do what you can with what you have in your hand. In the place where you are. Do what you can with what's in your hand or what's in your ability. Where you are. And you will see God do amazing things through you. And for the edification of the body that he has placed in you. Amen? Let's stand together. Father, again, we glorify your name and we thank you for this time together. Father, inspire us as I prayed before. Spark an enthusiasm in us, Lord God, to be concerned with the growth of each other. That, Father, doing life together not be just a slogan, not just be something to complain about. Not just be something that sounds good. But, Father, that our very nature, our very characteristic, the makeup of this body, Lord God. May it be that we intentionally do life together. And show us how to do it. With every joint supplying. And, Father, when there is a part of the body that is suffering, that is hurting. That we would gather around them and build them up. And stand with them in faith and encourage them and say the things that you would want us to say. Not just the things that come to mind that sound good. May our words to each other, Lord, be life. And wisdom. May our words to each other be as honey. Thank you, Lord. Father, we glorify you and we anticipate with great expectation. Not as spectators, Lord God, but as participants in the plan that you have for CCI Fellowship. And for the church as a whole. Lord, remember your promises for this nation. And allow us to be a part of you accomplishing those things. As we build each other up. As we encourage each other. As we take every opportunity to do good to those who are in the household of faith. We pray to you in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Thank you for listening to this week's podcast. If you are ever in the Tegucigalpa area and looking for an English-speaking congregation, please join us on Sunday afternoon at 4 p.m. in the main auditorium of Iglesia CCI in Colonial Trepichi, just off Boulevard Cuyapa, near Una. If you would like prayer or more information about our church, contact us at fellowship.cci at gmail.com. That's fellowship.cci at gmail.com. Or follow us on social media. We hope to see you or hear from you soon. Blessings.