Show Me What You Say

I want to start by asking you to get a picture in your head that demonstrates ministry.

Was your mental image of ministry:

• A man passing out tracts on a street corner?

• A missionary sharing Jesus with tribal natives?

• A preacher with a Bible?

• A gospel life light meeting?

Maybe you had a totally different image; for example:

• two men eating lunch at a business convention.

• How about friends playing on a bowling team?

• A few friends conversing on face book during a noonday Sunday.

Now in all honesty most of you probably imagined images like the first five. After all, those are evangelistic settings, right? We’d probably call those “spiritual”, in context: the church, the gospel meeting, the missionary.

And we’d probably figure the other three were worldly in nature. A business luncheon, a game with teammates and friends, social networking on-line. We usually think there’s nothing “spiritual,” in those scenarios, unless those people were talking about the Good News of Jesus Christ!

I believe it’s an Interesting concept, but one that’s false. Jesus Himself ignored the labels of “worldly” and “spiritual,” because any place He went became sacred. In reaching out to sinners, He personalized the gospel to each individual, speaking in terms the world understood, wherever He met them.

I want you to first notice about readings from Mark 1:29-31 that Jesus leaves the Synagogue to minister. Let’s look at Marks account of the day’s events.

As soon as Jesus and his followers left the synagogue, they went with James and John to the home of Simon and Andrew. Simon’s mother-in-law was sick in bed with a fever, and the people told Jesus about her. So Jesus went to her bed, took her hand, and helped her up. The fever left her, and she began serving them. They told Jesus she was sick, but it does not say they asked Jesus to do anything. They did not demand anything of Jesus, but only made Him aware of the problem. What faith!! They wanted Jesus to be in a relationship with this woman and somehow they knew, they felt, He would take it from there.

Simon and Andrew took a leap of faith. They saw Jesus heal in the synagogue, so they took a leap of faith by just telling Jesus she had a fever. Jesus told us that he came so that we would have “life to the fullest” (John 10:10). If that was Jesus’ goal while he was on earth, don’t you think that should be a goal of ours?
I sometimes wonder if most people in my 100 foot circle know how to live a life to the fullest in Christ. Sure, most people have full lives. (These are wonders I have every time I attend a bible study, men’s gospel group or even Sunday church service) They’re always going from one place to another, from one accomplishment to another, and often from one relationship to another. Many people’s schedules are full, but that’s a far cry from living life to the fullest through Jesus Christ. And so, the question for me this day is from whence our delivery does come? We, who are supposed to have this ministry, yet find ourselves in need of ministry- how can we be delivered, so that we can deliver others? Lord, how can we help others if we are too impotent to help ourselves?
First we must learn to respond to God’s word with immediacy. The first thing we learn about Jesus and his effect on his community is that they all responded with immediacy, and that foremost , is living a life to the fullest starts with Jesus. We cannot have a full life without him. Salvation is the starting point to a life fulfilled, but it’s not the end. There are a lot – I mean a lot – of unfulfilled Christians even in the church. And that devastates our witness to the world.
After salvation, a fulfilled life is one of the following four basic needs (support, stability, self expression and significance) and how they are met. God has uniquely called the Body of Christ to meet those needs.  Everyone wants to know they’re not alone. God said in Genesis 2:18 “It is not good for man to be alone,” but there are a lot of factors in today’s world that are causing us to be more alone. The vast majority of us live in cities, and we don’t know our neighbors. We’re increasingly separating people into different boxes – further isolating ourselves. In just a few generations, we’ve gone from the extended family to the nuclear family to the single-parent family or the new normal.

For some of us, things have become more important than people.

People are coming into the church searching for something to belong to. They want to know they aren’t alone. They want to know someone cares about them.

That’s where the church steps in. God designed the church to be a family (Ephesians 2:19).  Small groups are crucial to this. That’s where we meet the need for support in people’s lives. Not just answering the question but living it by your Actions!

 Have you ever heard this statement, “People are looking for a strong foundation to build their life on”? This is surprising to me because. Every study you read about truth these days says people don’t believe in absolutes anymore. But people want/need absolutes to center their life on the sad part is that even regular church goers aren’t acknowledging absolute truth. But if you have no absolutes in your life, you’re asking for anxiety and stress.

Deep down, the people in your community know that. Those who walk into your church this weekend want absolutes to build their life around. Whether they want to admit it or not, they’re looking for principles to help guide them. Until people establish an authority in their life, they’ll never have life to their fullest.

You have an opportunity to do that. We must teach people that God’s Word is that kind of authority. It’s an anchor that we can depend upon when life gets rough.

 God made us all a unique mix of gifts, passions, abilities, personality, and experiences. And he gave us an irrepressible desire to express our uniqueness. When we can’t express that uniqueness, it produces frustration, dissatisfaction, and boredom.

The vast majority of men and women who’ll walk through our church doors every weekend – and the vast majority of people we are trying to reach – are bored out of their mind. They are conditioned to feel they have no opportunity to express their uniqueness. Often, the media, their jobs, their family, and their friends are trying to stuff them into a box that makes them just like everyone else. When they come to the church, they’re hoping you’ll help them express that uniqueness.

The church should be that kind of place. Helping people discover their uniqueness by worshiping God finding out about their S.H.A.P.E. (spiritual gifts, heart, abilities, personality, and experiences that help them to be fully alive in Christ). Teaching how to minister through the unique way God created us.

 We all want to know our life matters. We want to be part of something bigger than ourselves. We’ve been wired for this. Man’s search for meaning wrote the history of the 20th century. Communism and nationalism thrived because people long to be a part of something bigger than them. Today, radical Islam operates in that same way.

We should corner the market on meeting this emotional need. You and I are a part of the biggest mission imaginable – sharing the Good News about God’s Kingdom. I can’t think of any bigger mission to center our lives around. As we help people see their unique part in this mission, we’re meeting this huge need in their lives.

Philippians 2:13 in the New English Bible says, “For it is God who works in you, inspiring both the will and the deeds for his own chosen purpose.” God has a purpose for our lives even before we were born. One of the greatest things we can do for people is helping them to discover that. What is their unique mission? How does God want to use their uniqueness to tell his story? Our church has the opportunity to help people discover that.

Romans 5:2 sums up my heartbeat for my church and what I hope is your heartbeat for your church: “We can confidently and joyfully look forward to actually becoming all God has in mind for us to be.” I want to be able to say that I’ve helped my congregation and community become all God wanted them to be. That means I have to be meeting those numerous basic needs in the ministry of our church.
Of course, here’s the underlying message to this transformation: If you’re built around the biblical purposes of the church (worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry, and evangelism), you will be on the journey of meeting those needs. A church committed to fellowship meets the need of support. A church committed to discipleship meets the need of stability. A church committed to mobilizing members for ministry meets the need of self-expression. And a church committed to evangelism and missions meets the need of significance. It’s our responsibility and privilege to worship, love, exalt, and serve the Lord, let us join the chorus and worship Him!

God Bless You and This Ministry!