The Impetus of Spiritual Ministry

[00:00:00] This audio sermon is provided by AnabaptistSermons.com and may be freely copied and distributed. You may not sell or edit this sermon. Our prayer is that you would be blessed by this ministry. I'd like to turn this morning to several passages of scripture and read them and I'd like for us to notice the scriptures and then see if you see any correlation amongst those passages. They're going to be from a variety of places. So without further comment just now I'd like to read from 1st John, no pardon me, St. John chapter 1 verse 37. [00:00:41] Notice these people that Jesus met along the way and their response. Maybe I should begin at verse 35. And again the next day after, John stood and two of his disciples, and looking upon Jesus as he walked, he saith, Behold, the Lamb of God. And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed him. Then Jesus turned and saw them following, and saith unto them, What seek ye? They said unto him, Rabbi, which is to say being interpreted Master, where dwellest thou? [00:01:18] He saith unto them, Come and see. They came and saw where he dwelt, and abode with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour. One of the two which heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first findeth his own brother, Simon, and saith unto him, we have found the Messiah which is being interpreted the Christ and he brought him to Jesus and when Jesus beheld him he said thou art Simon the son of Jonah [00:01:48] thou shalt be called Cephas which is by interpretation a stone the day following Jesus would go forth into Galilee and find a Philip and saith unto him follow me now Philip was of Bethsaida the city of Andrew and Peter and Philip findeth Nathanael and saith unto him We have found him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. Going from there to Acts, the fourth chapter. [00:02:21] We have here the account of Peter and John who had just been put into prison and were released and were now being, shall we say, instructed or shall we say threatened, whatever it was. They were not to speak any more in that name. And then in verse 19, chapter 4 of Acts, Peter and John answered and said unto them, Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. [00:02:52] For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard. Let's go on to 2 Corinthians, chapter 5, in verse 14. I don't know if we can connect all of these together as we go if we go rather rapidly but see what comes to your mind verse 14 of chapter 5 he says for the love of Christ constraineth us [00:03:23] because we thus judge that if one died for all then we're all dead He was talking here about being responsible to speak to other people, to being an ambassador for Christ. Now we can go back to the Old Testament, Jeremiah, in chapter 20, verses 8 and 9. Jeremiah had a very difficult mission. [00:03:53] He was to announce to the people the judgment of God that was coming on them. And one of the prophets, or one of the priests, rose up and contradicted about everything that he was saying and persecuted him. As we read the story of Jeremiah, you will find him at one time in a dungeon, and he was flogged. Anything to stop his message. Jeremiah came to the place that he nearly gave up. [00:04:24] He says, For since I spake, I cried out, I cried violence and spoil, because the word of the Lord was made a reproach unto me and a derision daily. Then I said, I will not make mention of him nor speak any more in his name. There you find Jeremiah coming to the end of his ministry, as it were, In, I don't know if he was just burned out, if he was discouraged or what, but that's not the end of the verse. [00:04:58] But, his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay. Jeremiah said, I'm finished, I'm done. But, he said, something was burning in him. There was like a cauldron of smelting materials boiling up in him. And he said, I got to the place, I'm done blocking it off. [00:05:31] I'm finished with forbearing. I can't hold it back. He was about to explode. And he said, I can't hold it back any longer. So Jeremiah, the prophet whose message was neglected and disregarded, went on preaching. Acts chapter 1 and verse 8. Jesus said these words to his disciples at his departure. But you shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and in Judea and in Samaria and to the uttermost parts of the earth. [00:06:07] Now the question I'd like to just raise a bit this morning is, where is the power? I don't think any of us hesitates to quote these scriptures and to say that we believe these are the words of inspired scripture. The question then is, is it a profession or is it a possession? Is it a reality? We've entitled the message, and I don't know if this is the right title, [00:06:38] but the message titled this morning, for right now at least, is The Impetus of Spiritual Ministry. The Impetus of Spiritual Ministry. Impetus means the driving force. It is the inspiration. It is the motivation. It is the stimulation that produces activity. There is much discussion today about the need for witnessing. There is much discussion about a lot of doctrinal truths and applications that need to be put into practice. [00:07:14] But somehow, there's often a difference between the profession and what really happens, what really takes place. Now, we're not going to suggest this morning that we can somehow get to a mode where we can be just automatically from there on living out to the fullest the life of God. But what is that dimension? What is that in us that you see in these scriptures that might be a help to us in having that motivation, that driving force, or that stimulation that turns out to do what we say? [00:08:05] There are lots of efforts made today, and maybe we'll just name a list of those a little bit later. But what do you see in these scriptures? Have you seen any correlation in those different accounts of Jesus when he talked to Andrew and Philip? Of Paul's experience in Corinthians? In John and Peter's experience when they were in prison? what was it that created that kind of an atmosphere [00:08:39] that kind of a condition in their heart that they could say we can't help it, we can't hold it back that made a Jeremiah say I'm done but then he just about split because something in him was churning that worked much more effectiveness than another meeting about how to do things I'd like to notice a few things that Philip and Andrew had said. [00:09:11] They said, we have found him. We found him. We found, who did we find? We found the Messiah. There was a contact, there was a relationship established. Their heart was seeking after something. And many people's hearts today are seeking after something. But it is not until we find Him that this issue is going to be really taken care of. There is nothing that is a greater motivation for ministry for God. [00:09:47] And when we use the word ministry this morning, it is not just in being missionaries. It is not just in evangelizing. But this thing of living out the Christian life. There is nothing that is a greater motivation than finding Him who the heart longs for. That was one thing that we find there. Peter and John, when they were told not to continue preaching, said, We cannot but speak the things, which things? [00:10:20] The things which we have, what? Seen and heard. you know they were having a relationship they were seeing things they were hearing things that were working they were the answers to life and they were convinced about those answers it reminds me of the scripture that Jesus where Jesus said out of the abundance of the heart [00:10:51] the mouth speaketh now we can study books I have studied books on how to evangelize. I have studied books that say you use these three principles and you read these four verses and you present it to people and then you can be a witness. But there are people, I think just now of a man that couldn't read or write. He was a man that was very backwards in many ways. [00:11:23] He walked behind an ox team and he turned the ground with his wooden plow day after day. I don't know of any man in that area that brought more people to the church than that man. Certainly it was not because he learned the phrases and because he had all the theology down pat. But that man just simply talked about things that he had seen and heard. And it drew people to come with him. Just a few months ago, I related that experience where one of his sons was present. [00:12:01] And that son was a broken man. He said how that impacted his life to think about his illiterate father being instrumental, used of God. He was thinking he came from a family, a place where they were from the wrong side of the tracks, as it were. And that young man brought things out of his life that were so horrible I would not verbalize them here this morning. But, somebody had seen and heard something. [00:12:38] The question is, what have we seen and heard? When a person speaks out of his mouth foul language, bad words, bad ideas, dirty stories, Why does that happen? Because those things are in his heart. There's a cesspool. And if a person wants to talk about God, the first place to go for an answer to be that, to find that impetus is to have that in our hearts. [00:13:13] The things we see, the things we hear, the person we've found And our heart is satisfied and at rest with him When you look at Paul's life, look at all the things that he suffered But in 2 Corinthians he said, there's one thing that keeps me going And it wasn't because he had attended the synagogue It wasn't because he had seen just some miraculous things Or because he was on a guilt trip But the Apostle Paul says, the love of Christ constrains me. [00:13:49] Now he saw the reality of things, just like we heard in our devotions. The stage was set this morning for this message throughout the service. And as Paul looked at mankind, as he remembered the day he met Jesus, and as he remembered the load of guilt that rolled off of him, He had found him and that resulted in a love in his heart that constrained him. [00:14:21] Do you think Paul had to be urged to share Christ? All the urging was to the contrary. He was urged over and over again not to do it. The circumstances were against it. But the love of Christ constrained him. and again in Jeremiah's case Jeremiah said I'm finished but he said there's something within there was a fire burning in Jeremiah's heart [00:14:53] that created a pressure I would to God that that impetus would be in our hearts that that fire would burn up in our hearts that it would create a pressure that would unseal our lips Jesus said to his disciples, you shall receive power. And immediately with that he said, you shall be witnesses. [00:15:28] We find in that scripture something that many people covet after is the power. But I wonder what the concept of power is that we ought to have as we look at Jesus' word there. You shall receive power. I wouldn't mind having a lot of power, a lot of abilities, a lot of the ability to verbalize things that would move people like Hitler used to be able to. He could move the masses because he had an inflammatory presentation in his wording. [00:16:02] People got stirred up. They rallied. They went to do things that led them to their death and that were altogether wrong. They had a power, but that's not the power Jesus was talking about. You shall receive power. The word there for power is dunamis, which is similar to dynamite. And it wasn't an explosive power, although the scriptures did say of those people that experienced that power, they are the people that have come to us and turned the world upside down. Hallelujah. The world was turned upside down. If there is a time that the world needs to be turned upside down, isn't it today? It needs some upside down turning. [00:16:50] but it wasn't through marching in Washington or those kind of presentations but it was simply they had met someone who was now working in them and when Jesus then further said you shall be witnesses unto me that word witnesses there is martyrs the word witness is the same used there is the same root word for martyr So Jesus said, you shall receive power to be martyrs. [00:17:25] And that's really what happened. And that is why it is true, as it's been said of the Anabaptist church, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. When people saw those people going to their death, one after another, with a power that did not recant, with a power that was willing to die, It was a tremendously powerful message that came through that here is something that people would give their lives for. [00:18:00] It was indeed a dynamic power. Without revival, the church's mission will not be fulfilled. I'd like to read the words of John R. Rice, if you don't mind if a Baptist teaches us a little bit this morning. John R. said it like this, Most so-called work these days is done in the power of the flesh and not in the power of God. [00:18:33] Mothers should give their sons to the ministry. Fathers should bring up their children in the nurture and admonition to the Lord, Longing and pleading that God will use them in his service Not necessarily that they'll take over the family farm or business Not necessarily that they will be people of acclaim But sons and daughters who will be given to the service of God And if that's in a business, that's fine But that their motivation, the things that come out of our heart [00:19:08] Come from God I don't know how many of us, when our children come to us, dedicate them to God. It could be in a church service, but more profitably, it ought to be in our hearts. More effectively. I remember when my mother told me the first time that when I was born, she gave me to the service of the Lord. [00:19:45] Do you think that impacted my life? I could never get away from that. I haven't always fulfilled that as I ought. But when mothers and fathers have the vision that we have received power to be witnesses, that means we have received power to die, to die to our own interests. Maybe not at the stake or in the river, but to our own interests and desires we give our children. [00:20:26] When Jesus spoke about this and he gave us the commission to be in his service, he said, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go you therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. He said many things in those few verses. He talked about this power and then he gave us at least three ideas that go with being in this ministry. The first one he said was, go. Now he didn't say necessarily that we need to go to India or China or some far distant land, but that he said, go. [00:21:04] No, that means get at it. Because that power that has been given to me, he said in Acts 1, shall be given to us. And if that power is operating in us, don't you think it will be just like it was for Jeremiah? It's a power that you can't hold back. Ever try to stop a river from flowing. All that happens is you just scatter it all over the place. [00:21:38] You can put a dam there, but the water is not stopping. It is going to come and it's going to go somewhere. And so he is saying, go. Then he says, teach. It's interesting to me that in Matthew 28 there in 19 and 20 he says, baptizing them. In other words, make disciples of them. Baptism is a commitment we make to go on. He's saying not only go and tell people about salvation, but he says lead them into an experience where they are going to make that commitment to walk with Jesus from there on. [00:22:22] Baptizing them. Baptism is a commitment we make. It is saying I will go through with him because he says he will be faithful to us. and then teaching them to observe all things whatsoever we command you, whatsoever is commanded to us. This matter of receiving power, to be a witness, takes me back to the story that David relates about his own failure and experience. [00:22:56] And he says, he cries out to God there and he says, take not thy Holy Spirit from me. David had experienced a walk with God that he didn't want to lose, but he had lost. And now he was saying, don't make it permanent, God. And he was coming back to him and he said, sacrifices and offerings thou wouldest not. If that's what you would want, I would gladly sacrifice. I would give them, he says. [00:23:28] Sacrifice and offerings thou wouldest not. Or else would I have given them, he says. Down about verse 17 or somewhere there in Psalm 51. But this is what he discovered that God wants. He said, but what you want is a broken spirit and a contrite heart. It's the power to be a witness. The power to be a martyr. One of the prerequisites of knowing that power of God is the broken heart. [00:24:01] The broken heart. It is the primary, the chief prerequisite, I believe we could say. If we could, I think all of us would love to bring a sacrifice to God. We'd be glad to make offerings. In fact, we show that. I'm not sure. I've struggled a bit with what I'd like to say at this point. I don't want anybody to say this morning that the preacher says we shouldn't be doing these things. [00:24:39] But there is something lurking in my spirit that is telling me that many of the things that churches do today that we call mission work comes far short of what Jesus was talking about. Why do we do these things? They're all good. And let me say again, let's keep on doing all of them. But let's go beyond this. We go to the rescue missions, what we used to, [00:25:16] to give a program. and that's good. We go to old people's homes to sing, to bring cheer to people and that's good. We go to the prisons. We preach to out and out people in sin and that's good. What else do we do? We pass out tracts every once in a while and that's good. We even talk [00:25:47] about starting an outreach and that's good. And you could add to that list. But may I say this morning none of those in themselves are meeting the fulfillment of Jesus' command. In fact, it could be, it may be that sometimes we do those things because we're on a guilt trip. [00:26:20] We know we ought to do these things. What is missing in the list, the short list that I just mentioned? Oh yes, we also have Bible schools with children. Especially missions work with children. But what is missing in this list? Or isn't there anything missing? Is that the package? To me, the chief thing is still missing. And that is that all of life is lived to be a witness. [00:26:59] That which is easier to teach a children's class, to sing at a rescue mission, or at a nursing home, Or even to go to a prison or to go to the man that you buy your gas from, the neighbor right next to you, your relatives, and have a burning in your heart that's going to explode if you don't get it out. Tell me which is easier this morning. [00:27:32] How much of the latter is done? I would venture to say this morning we can go to prisons, we can go to have Bible schools, we can go to the mission field, we can even do disasters ministry and a lot of those things and we aren't getting close to our call to ministry. Pray. If those things do not come out of a heart that's burning, it becomes more dead works. [00:28:13] Even the Pharisees did a very difficult thing to do. It's difficult to pray, isn't it? prayer is hard work but they prayed some people even today pray hours on end day after day but they didn't meet the master the inner heart has not been filled yet there are those people that live in monasteries and places like that that make tremendous [00:28:44] sacrifices but the impetus of Christian ministry lies in meeting Christ, seeing Christ, hearing Christ, and being filled with His Spirit. Otherwise, it's like John R. Rice said, most of these things can be done, all of these things can be done in the power of the flesh. In fact, a preacher can even preach in the power of the flesh. If it doesn't come from that inspiration from within, we would be glad, we seem to be glad to make sacrifices. [00:29:28] We give money to missions and that's good. Again, let's make it clear. Let's do all of these things, but not at the expense of the real thing. that is the thrust of the mission the message with that it could be added and said never that I can read in history has the church had all the helps that we have today [00:30:00] think of all the how-to ministries of our day there are seminars for just about everything Now, a seminar is a meeting where you do teaching, and that's good, can be good. So, the point is not against the seminar, but let me illustrate. We have seminars today on how to teach children. We have seminars on husband-wife relationships. We have men's seminars. We have women's seminars. [00:30:32] We have single seminars. We have youth seminars. We have grieving seminars. We have adoption seminars and we even have seminars to teach preachers how to preach. Is the mission being accomplished? Where in the Bible do you find that the church said, Look, we have a need to learn better how to carry out the ministry of the church. [00:31:03] What they did instead is they got closer to Jesus Christ. And when that fire was burning, it makes me think part of this is just the outcome of a journey that we're on as a family. When we as siblings get together and we talk about the past. You know, we're old enough now that we say, I remember. [00:31:34] And then we share what we remember. The interesting thing to me has been what we remember at this stage in life. You know what we're remembering? Now maybe it'll be different in your home. But the things that we remember are the ordinary things of life that we did together as families. We hear people today talking about spending quality time. Is there somewhere a scripture that says it's alright to spend unquality time? [00:32:07] Or does the Bible just say we should redeem the time, the quality time or all the time? We kind of categorize, we kind of learn how to do things. My parents, as far as I remember, I cannot remember one time that my parents told me, except maybe on my mother's deathbed, that they loved me. I don't remember that. Maybe I forgot. [00:32:40] But you know what? I never once even thought about questioning whether they loved me. The reason was, they loved me. You hear today ways of expressing, verbalizing things and that's not to say that we shouldn't do that. No, we ought to do it more. But all those things without this power within our life really don't mean much. [00:33:11] There are parents that have told their children over and over that they love them. But the children are at sea. They're awash. They don't know where they're at. They don't have that security. They heard the right words. So what we're trying to say this morning is, you know, it must be in the heart or the rest is so much uselessness. And as we apply that to things like an outreach, let us be assured this morning that if we start an outreach just to start an outreach, just to start another group, there may be some advantages, but it's not going to be the fulfillment of the vision of the Church of Christ. [00:34:02] There have been numerous outreaches that ended up in failure. Now I hope this is in no wise a discouragement to start an outreach. But rather an interest that whatever we do, we do it on a foundation that's going to work. We must have a vision. We must have a burning within us. And if we don't have that burning, then the question ought to be asked, why don't we? Why don't we have a vision? [00:34:35] And we're not saying this morning we don't. I'm only bearing in my heart of something that we see across the land. And I appreciate every brother and sister that has a vision. Every brother and sister that reaches out for the right reason, that has that passion and compassion and love and commitment. And you can tell when the commitment's there. Remember, the way we carry out this ministry really is an exposure of what's in our heart, isn't it? [00:35:08] Because from the heart come these things. We're not saying this morning that we shouldn't go to a seminar. We're not saying we shouldn't do any of these ministries. But there is something much more needed today than another seminar. And that is faithfulness in what we already know. You see a simple heart, a simple childlike trust in God, you can find, well it happened in the New Testament, [00:35:40] the people said of those disciples, aren't these unlearned fishermen? Where do they get all this wisdom? You know where they got it? They walked with Jesus. His teaching was, more than anything, a matter of, what's the word I'm trying to think of in cat? Showing by example. [00:36:13] Mentoring. That's how Jesus taught his disciples. He mentored them. It was in his heart. They saw it come out in his life. It got into their heart and they confounded the wise and the Pharisees and the scribes and the Sadducees, these unlearned fishermen, because they said we can't help it. It's in here, it's got to come out. That's the way of being witnesses. [00:36:49] I hope you understand this word witness we're using in a broad sense this morning. Jesus said, even talking about himself, that except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. Jesus applied that principle in his own life. and it's there again is an interesting word when you look at the word except the seed no this is in another parable that Jesus said when he said that the good seed are the children of the kingdom [00:37:23] the word seed there is sperma in the original and when I looked up that word sperma And my heart was blessed because that word for seed means the seed that was saved to plant next year. In other words, that was not the seed to eat. That was not the seed to store in the bin. That was the seed that was meant to die. [00:37:55] because it abode alone if it didn't die. And so Jesus said the good seed are the children of the kingdom. That's what we're for. We are to be seeded. That means really it doesn't really matter what my interests are, what my goals are. What I'm here for is to be available to God. [00:38:28] And when that's a motivation, then I think we can get our priorities straight.