The Church: Every Member a Minister
Notes
Transcript
What do I want them to know? Every believer is a minister
Why? For the church to be empowered and for them to have joy
What do I want them to do? Be a priest, a minister
Why? It builds up the church
INTRO
One of the things we have discovered over this past year is that not everything is pandemic proof.
Over this past year we have seen coffee shops close
We have restaurants that have been in business for decades close their doors PPP loans not enough
We have seen business close or close part of their operation gone the way of the DODO bird (I saw in the first 2 weeks of Covid an Enterprise at the end of my block close and a Subway close) I was shocked that was so quick
We have seen ministries and local expressions of churches close.
What we learned is not everything is pandemic proof.
BUT ONE THING WE HAVE LEARNED AT DEEPER LEVEL IS though local expressions of churches have close, THEE CHRUCH, GOD’S CHURCH IS PANDEMIC PROOF, NOTHING CAN STOP IT.
And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
What we learned what God has set in motion, the church, the body of believers, God’s ekklessia (Greek word for church) will not be stopped.
And I believe during this pandemic is asking the church to do is to return to being the church, just be the church…or I should say to RETURN TO BE THE CHURCH.
What the pandemic has exposed is that the church broadly speaking in America has bought into 3 false beliefs about the church. and in doing so it has drifted away from what the church is supposed to be.
To move away from the 3 false beliefs that the church as at large has been believing in, these are not new beliefs
We see these lie spring up from time to time in church history, we see the church in Corinth buy some of these lies, we see the Roman Catholic church buy into these lies, and we have seen for the
What are these three big lies?
The church is the building that has a worship service for 1 hour a week on Sunday to glory God and get our instructions on how to live…it is a gather place for the people of God…and because we believe it is about the building and not the body of believers (also know as the church) this we must focus all of our attention on that 1 hour and we must create cool, hip, trendy, beautiful churches…that’s important…tell that to our brothers and sisters in Christ in 3rd world countries… “to have a church you need a cool hip building with fancy lights and fog machines…make it look like a concert” NOW I AM NOT AGAINST HAVING A GOOD CHURCH BUILDING, WE NEED THEM, BUT IT IS NOT THE FOCUS.
I thought we need Jesus and the believers....he’s the cornerstone
The pastor is the CEO, he runs the church, he runs the ship, he’s the gifted one, the called one, and maybe there a few other leaders who help out, but he’s in charge.....kind of like in the Old Covenant when it was the priest, Pharisees, Sadducees those people lead.
Which leads us to this conclusion
If the church is a building
The pastor is the CEO and along with a few other leaders who lead the church
Then what does it make those who attend church who are not the leaders? Consumers
Is this what God had in mind? Is this God’s plan?
Did God institute His church to be a building, run by CEO and a few leaders where everyone else is a consumer?
Building
CEO
Consumers
It sounds like church is a business
Is the church to operate as a business, is this what we see in scripture? No, when you read scripture you see God wanting His church to act like family on mission
Which is why many people do not want to come to church....people do not want to come to a business.
This should be no surprise to us as we have watched over the last several decades in the American, during the church growth (church building growth movement bigger better strong, more gifted CEO pastors) movement that started in the 60’s, at time when at 63-70% of America attended church every Sunday and now its around high end 30% of America pre-Covid.
What we started to see in the 60’s and it only has increased rapidly
You started seeing church leaders and pastors seek the advice of secular business people in how to run a church, where you now have church leadership conference, after church leadership conference where half the people are secular business people telling the church how to be a church.
I have been to 20-30 leadership conferences
My desk used to be full of leadership book after leadership book, we study leadership books as a staff.
It works to build a big church
But that is not what God has called us to be a BIG CHURCH BUSINESS....HE has called us to be the church
What does it mean to be the church?
The best place to go is to see what the early church did and to see what does the word church ekklessia mean
First, what did the early church do?
Acts 2
Devoted themselves to the Apostles teaching (taught on the goodness and majesty of God and taught them the ways of the kingdom of God)
Prayer and Praise (kept the 3 prayer hours of religious Jews and prayed more on top of that)
Generous (they sold property and possessions so that no one in their church family was in need)
Breaking of bread (communion and they had agape love feast where they would eat together and fellowship over food…I am old enough to remember that in the 80’s and 90’s that when I though of church I thought of food and fellowship because after church most Sunday’s we would go out as a family with other church family members after church to grab some food and as a I grew older I did this in my youth and college years)
Fellowship (fellowship is more than 15 minutes before worship service and 15 minutes…fellowship means hanging out and calling each other outside of worship gatherings)....this is not the sermon for today, God is saying enough with the busyness, enough with the individualization of our culture. You need to be with your family and your family needs you to be with them.
The church body realizes everyone is a priest: You think me a priest!?! No, no, CHET is a priest, I am a priest, No, no you are a priest
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
You are a priest!
Do you know what that means?
In the Old Testament, priests did two main things: Mediator and ministry
1. They had the right, privilege, and responsibility to go directly to God. They could pray and talk to God, worship, and fellowship with God. Everybody else had to go through a priest.
but what happens in the New Covenant?
Do we need to find a priest or pope to talk to God on behalf?
Pastor can you talk to God for me, like I have some special red phone....I can but so can you....you are a priest
By Jesus death and resurrection he tears the veil between us and God and we can commune with God because of what Jesus has done making us priest.
2. The priest had the privilege and responsibility of representing God to the people and ministering to the needs of other people (serving).
you are a minister
DO YOU BELIEVE THAT?
To drive the point home further let’s talk about the word ekklesia that is used 112 times in scripture where we often translate it to be church or assembly
What does the word ekklessia mean
Ekklessias in the Greeco/Roman world were set in towns and cities through the Greeco/Roman world, where gathering of called out, selected, chosen people who would come together about 40-50 times a year to do 2 things “declared Caesar or their emperor was Lord” and they listen to the edicts and instructions of the king Caeser and discus how they could bring those edicts, orders, and instructions to their towns and cities....it was a governmental position.
Now when you think about church you cannot think it is just a gathering of people on Sunday morning or Saturday night where people
- We for the most part get the first part right in church “Declaring Jesus is Lord”
But we do not fully live into the second part of the church…that we are all priests on mission to enact the orders of THEE KING
What God is saying church is it is not about the building, it is about the body, it is not about select parts of the body but the whole body working together on mission.
Every believer is a priest, a minister, you have a vital role to play to inact the ways of THEE KING, to help usher in the kingdom of God.
Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution.
(church is growing we had 2 big events where on one event 3000 people come to know Jesus as Lord and another event 5000 people and more people were added outside of that so at a bare minimum there were 10,000 new believers in Jesus in a matter of months and 12 leaders to the church for the 10,000 people
As a result of this massive amount of numbers because the Hellenists widows were being neglected
So what would they do? Have a church meeting of the 12 and say alright who should do this task, I know we have about 1000 people per apostle.
We are just going to have to fit it because you know the pastor/apostles need to do it all
Peter buck up, I know you are preaching spiritually food but these people need physical food
IS THIS WHAT HAPPENS?
And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said, “It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables.
Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty.
But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”
(can you imagine that being said today in many churches? It is not right for you pastor to do ____)
Good news in verse 3
Apostles say it is not good for us to give up what God has called us to do, even if it’s a good thing.
It is not what I am called to
But good news, we are all priest, we are the church and the church has 10,000 priests.
God has called these apostles to prayer and preaching
And what they said pleased the whole gathering, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a proselyte of Antioch.
These they set before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands on them.
Here’s something interesting and
WHO SERVED PEOPLE BEFORE JESUS? WHO SERVED THE THE WIDOWS?
Priests
What happened when the supper star apostles gave up authority and responsibility and did only what they were called to do?
Church must have shrunk
We need those people
And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.
Word greatly means: Exponentially
The empowerment of God was empowered in more people not less when other people live into their priestly role.
If the apostles did the work they would limit the power of God working in their ministry becaouse
they were not doing what God called them to do
they would be stretched thin.
My yoke is easy by burden is light.
I believe where God is calling the church is to be the church, be the priesthood of all believers.
We don’t need bigger buildings, better lighting, better video cameras, bigger events, while all those can be good, the more important thing is that they will not matter if the church is not the church.
The priesthood of all believers
But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift.
Therefore it says, “When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.”
(In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth?
He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.)
And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers,
to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,
What is going on this passage?
Paul is quoting Ps 68 about a divine warrior king
What does it mean that Jesus descend and ascened?
How a king would fight in battle is that when he would see a enemy king coming he would descend from his throne go defeat the enemy and then bring back the spoils and pass them out to his people.
In a similar manner
Jesus sees the enemy Satan
Desends from His throne (from heaven to earth)
Defeats throw His death and resurrection
Then gifts us with what? $
No
Spiritual gifts
Apostles
Prophets
Evangelists
Shepherds
Teachers
Wisdom
Faith
Miracles
Serving
Administration
Encouraging
Giving
Leadership
Mercy
Prayer
Hospitality
Why? So that we saints, priest can build up the body
This is 2 fold
1. Strengthen the body that is here we need each other to live into their gifting to build us up....you are missed when you are not a part of the church.
until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,
so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.
Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,
from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
2. Grow the body numerically (Evangelist and Apostles)
And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.
Lost people matter to God....they are His one true treasure
And he said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.
What God is saying to is to live into your calling as a PRIEST, a MINISTER, TO FAN INTO FLAME
Live into your priestly role
This is what Paul tells Timothy
I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well.
For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands,
for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.
Fan that flame, fan that flame that flame
How do I know what I
Ask God “what have you called me to do?”
Passions tugs at your heart, I just love to serve people, or shepherd and counsle people “Moses had a passion for justice before he was called to seek justice for the nation of Israel”
People (affirmation) ICNU…the gift to teach
Practice
Lastly some of us are going to need to stop believing
Father of Lies Comes, Flesh Comes, and our family and friends naysayers come (Jospeh, David own family)
But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong;
God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are,
so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.
You are not what you do, you are who God says you are.
You are not who you think you are,
You are not what they think you are
My story
Fast talker
Mumble
Not smart
more F’s in sixth grace
Told I was not smart or gifted
Rejected from Moody two times, it took 3 times to get in
Rejected from Western
If I believed the Father of lies, my Flesh, and my family and friends who were
God is calling you to do something and the enemy is saying nope
God is calling you do soemething and your flesh is saying no
God is calling you do live as a priest and your family laughs
But God is not laughing, He knows what He has called you to do.
God is not saying no, but yes, you are not going to be perfect at it first.
How do I know what I
Ask God “what have you called me to do?”
Passions tugs at your heart, I just love to serve people, or shepherd and counsle people “Moses had a passion for justice before he was called to seek justice for the nation of Israel”
People (affirmation) ICNU…the gift to teach
Practice
GREAT DAYS ARE AHEAD FOR THE CHURCH, A GREAT AWAKENING IS HAPPENING