How well does the following statement describe you? Are you, "aselfless person sacrificially using your spiritual gifts, abilities, and resources to build up Christ’s spiritual family, the Church?"
Spiritual gifts are spiritual because they are enabled by the Holy Spirit. They are gifts because they are freely given by God. They cannot be earned nor do we receive them based on spiritual maturity. On the other hand, abilities are the natural talents and skills we possess. Abilities are often based on our life experiences or on a particular line of work. Resources are the assets God has blessed you with, whether financial means, possessions, land, or something else.
Spiritual gifts are the essense of ministry.
The bottom line is that our spiritual gifts, abilities, and resources are to be leveraged sacrificially for others. This is the essence of what it means to love people. It is also the essence of this thing we call ministry. We typically possess one of two mindsets. There is the selfish mindset that sees one’s gifts, abilities, and resources as a means to advance one's self-interest. But then there is the mindset of the servantwho sacrifices these things in service to others. Which mindset do you possess?
For many people, ministry is an intimidating, if not over-spiritualized concept. We assume that ministry is only for those who have received special training. The average person does not see it ashis responsibility to do ministry, oreven to be considered a minister.
But all of life is ministry! And at some level you are most likely already doing ministry. Ministry is essentially "one-anothering" other people. In the Bible we are told generally to love one another. But more specifically we are told to serve one another, admonish, rebuke, encourage, and prayfor one another. One-anothering is all about leveraging our gifts, abilities, and assets to promote God’s word in people’s lives, to insure that they receive God’s grace, to challenge them to live under the lordship of Christ, and to call them to liveholy lives. In other words, ministry is advancing God’s concerns in the lives of other people.
All of us have a responsibility to do ministry. Ministry is the domain of the parent, pastor, teacher, student, employer, or employee. In fact, the scope of ministry is four-fold. Ministry starts with ourselves, our immediate family, our church family, and ultimately moves toour world. Let’s briefly consider each of these ideas.
The starting point for ministry: managing yourself well.
To be effective for God to others, we must first take on God’s concern for our own lives. If you are genuinely self-centered, I believe you would take on God’s concern for your own life, your own salvation, and your eternal destiny.
A key verse is in Hebrews 2:1-4 (NIV) which says, "We must pay more careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. For if the message spoken by angels was binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment,how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation? This salvation, which was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him. God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will."
The four key questions of self management relate to the four points of identity we have been discussing in recent weeks: word, grace, lordship, and holiness. Do you know the living word of God? Are you searching the written word, the Bible, to know God fully? Do you know God’s love and forgiveness? Does God’s grace compel you to live a different life? Are you submitted to the lordship of Jesus Christ? Are you responding to the conviction of God’s Holy Spirit in your life? Are you bearing fruit in Christian character? Are you becoming more like Christ?
Ministry quickly transcends mere self, and then focuses on other people. In Matthew 22:37-40 (NIV) it says, "Jesus replied: 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."
If we are growing in regard to God’s word, grace, lordship and holiness, it will begin to impact our relationships with other people. The first relationships impacted by our love for Godare inour immediate family.
The first frontier or sphere for ministry: your family.
A great example of how our love for God impact our families is in Ephesians 5:25-33 (NIV). In this passage Paul calls husbands to exhibit the sacrificial love of Christ himself. The goal of sacrificial love is to cultivate holiness in one’s wife, and by extension, inone’s children. These verses collectively provide a pattern for how the church works!
"Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing a her by the washing with water through the word,and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body. 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.' This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband."
If you are genuinely family-centered, you would take on God’s concern for your own family and not just yourself. You will be concerned that your wife and children embrace God’s word, grace, lordship, and holiness! But just as ministry must transcend self, it must also extend beyond one’s individual family.
The neglected frontier for ministry: your church.
Ministry is not an either/or concept. It's not that we minister to our families or that we minister to God’s Church. Ministry is both/and. Ministry is about advancing God’s concern for our families but also for God’s spiritual family, the Church. This means promoting God’s word, grace, lordship, and holiness in the lives of other believers, or potential believers.
Consider 1 Timothy 3:1-13. Notice how the circle of concern moves from how one manages his own spiritual life to how he manages his family life, to his ability to manage God’s family, the Church, and ultimately to his ability to minister to the world.
Self:
1 Timothy 3:1-3 (NIV) says, "Here is a trustworthy saying: If anyone sets his heart on being an overseer, he desires a noble task. Now the overseer must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money."
Family:
1 Timothy 3:4 (NIV) says, "He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect."
Church:
1 Timothy 3:5 (NIV) says, "(If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?)"
World:
1Timothy 3:6-13 (NIV) says, "He mustnot be a recent convert, or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the devil. He must also have a good reputation with outsiders, so that he will not fall into disgrace and into the devil’s trap. Deacons, likewise, are to be men worthy of respect, sincere, not indulging in much wine, and not pursuing dishonest gain. They must keep hold of the deep truths of the faith with a clear conscience. They must first be tested; and then if there is nothing against them, let them serve as deacons. In the same way, their wives are to be women worthy of respect, not malicious talkers but temperate and trustworthy in everything. A deacon must be the husband of but one wife and must manage his children and his household well. Those who have served well gain an excellent standing and great assurance in their faith in Christ Jesus."
You might think that ministry is just a leadership task. Yet later on in 1 Timothy 5:14-15 we find the same language being used with other people in the Church who are being counseled to take on God’s concern for their families.
1 Timothy 5:14-15 (NIV) says, "So I counsel younger widows to marry, to have children, to manage their homes and to give the enemy no opportunity for slander. Some have in fact already turned away to follow Satan."
Ministry is a task for everyone.
In every way, ministry is an everybody task. Ephesians 4:11-16 (NIV) says, "It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers,to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built upuntil we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.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. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. 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."
The key idea in this passage is the church building itself up in love, with each part doing its work. It is the task of every Christian to take on God’s concern for self, one’s immediate family, and the church family.
The unexplored frontier for ministry: God’s world.
Next week we will explore the Christian’s duty to take God’s concern to the world. How can we promote God’s word in the world? How can we proclaim God’s grace? How can we help people live under the lordship of Jesus Christ? How can we encourage holiness?