The Ministry of All Believers

Exodus 16:2-4, 9-15; Psalm 78:23-29; Ephesians 4:1-16; John 6:24-35

How shall Christ’s church operate in the world? What is the purpose of the Church? And how should the Church be structured?

These are great questions and in the fifty years after Jesus ascended to Heaven, these questions were very much on the minds of the Apostles as they struggled to follow the commands that Jesus had given them. After all, the Apostles, having heard everything that Jesus taught and having heard His claim to be One with our Heavenly Father, and most importantly having seen that claim verified and ratified and put in front of their faces in flashing neon letters by walking and talking and eating with Jesus after Resurrection – the Apostles were men who were absolutely convinced of the truth of their mission. And yet, so many questions remained unanswered every morning – what would the Apostles do to accomplish their great mission of telling the world about what they had seen and heard and touched?

And so, haltingly at first, and then with growing confidence, the Eleven added Mathias to their number to replace the dead Judas, and then began to teach the thousands of new converts that almost swamped their small band on Pentecost day, and then they spread out over Jerusalem, throughout the area around Jerusalem known as Judea, into the nearby area of Samaria where there lived people who were almost Jewish, but not quite, and finally off into the lands of the Greeks and the Romans and even beyond … to Ethiopia, to Persia, to India, and beyond Rome to far Tarkish, the land we now call Spain.

And everywhere the Apostles traveled, they told the story of Jesus and His teachings, at first completely by their eyewitness testimony, and soon by letters and pamphlets, by scrolls and books they spread the word about the Word that was made flesh and dwelt among us. It was a wonderful time, an exciting time, a dangerous time, but a time when they tried different ideas about organization and finally came up with something that was consistent with what Jesus had taught them and yet was so revolutionary that it completely went against the culture of the time.

In a culture where birth meant everything, where your father and grandfather determined your power, your social standing, your land, your servants, your name – the Apostles declared that a slave and a high-born Roman senator were equal in the sight of God and in the church. In a culture where nationality meant much, where a Roman citizen could do anything and a Jewish man was seen as little better than a dog, where Greek speakers and Hebrew speakers hated each other – the Apostles declared that there was neither Jew, nor Greek, nor slave, nor free in front of Jesus Christ. And if you were prone to state that some people had received a higher class Spirit or a better baptism than another, then the Apostle Paul was ready to state: “4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”

But there was more to this than just being equal, being treated the same in the Church. It also meant that your birth did not make any difference to how high you could rise in the Church. For it was recognized that becoming a Christian, your belief and your baptism and your acceptance of the Holy Spirit, made a difference. When a person believes that Jesus is truly God walking on this earth and appropriately chooses to follow Jesus, that person’s mind opens up to being taught new ideas, new ways of behaving, new ways of speaking. When a person consents to the waters of baptism, God changes his or her heart in ways we don’t fully understand, but which is for the good. The newly baptized person begins to act less selfishly and more selflessly in their responses to their encounters in this world. And when the Holy Spirit comes upon a person, new gifts are bestowed upon that person. Some receive the gifts of speaking new languages, others interpreting languages, others are gifted with the ability to speak in front of groups of people, others become wonderful one-on-one people, others sway people with their musical gifts, still others with their artistic and craft gifts, and others become wonderful administrators, organizing people for mission. Still others become blessed with financial gifts and are able to support the activities of the church. Others receive special knowledge or wisdom or gifts of prophecy which guide the church. And other gifts are given as they will benefit the mission of God to reconcile all people to Himself through Jesus Christ.

Practically speaking, this meant that a slave could become an evangelist, a Hebrew-speaker could become an speaker in front of Romans, a poor farmer could become a wealthy merchant, donating pounds of silver to support the cause. A woman could lead Christian armies into battle, as Joan D’Arc did for the French many centuries later, or a dairy farmer’s son could speak of Christ in front of millions, as a man named Billy Graham has done. The son of a wealthy merchant could become revered as the man who did more for the cause of the poor, a man known as St. Francis of Assisi. A solder could become known as the founder of a group of men who created a wonderful set of church-operated schools, St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order. And through that same Holy Spirit – even before Christ – a man who lisped, who was a murderer, and had lived as a sheep herder for nearly 40 years became the greatest leader the Jewish nation has ever known, a man named Moses. When God acts, people are changed.

When you let God give you the gifts Christ wants to give you through the Holy Spirit, great things can happen. A simple shoemaker named William Carey founded the modern English missionary movement and became the first English missionary to India, translating the Bible into six languages. An English washing woman named Gladys Alward, a maid, led over a hundred Chinese orphans to safety during World War II. And a former Irish atheist name Jack Lewis wrote dozens of books and spoke to all of Britain during World War II over the BBC radio to explain Christianity to the common man and woman. Even today his books are published and have been made into movies, such as “The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe”.

I once knew a woman who became an evangelist at age 88. Listening to the Holy Spirit, she single-handedly brought about 25 different people to the small church we attended in Marietta over the next two years. She just asked people to give her rides to church – a three block distance.

Paul says that “Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, 12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until 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."

Note that there are two aspects of Paul’s comment.

First, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers do not just happen. Christ himself gave them to us. These people exist because of the direct working of the Holy Spirit as Christ wills. And I have noticed that gifts tend to flow to people who listen most closely to the Holy Spirit. Thus, if you desire these gifts – they are there for you. Listen to the Holy Spirit and you will be able to pick the gifts up off the table and use them for the Church. Or you can leave them laying there and Christ will give them to other people, depriving you of the joy that you would have received by using those gifts for the Church, by using those gifts for God’s mission.

The second part of Paul’s comment deals with the purpose of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers, which is “12 to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until 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.”

If you are a Christian believer, you have works of service in your future. My purpose and the purpose of your Sunday school and small group teachers is to build you up so that you can better accomplish those works of service. If you don’t attend a small group, then you are missing out on that personal growth!

As you know, Andy is headed off to college shortly. And this costs money. A course which meets for an hour a week between August and December costs about $500, plus textbooks and his cost of living. Here, we teach classes which are just as rigorous and we don’t charge you anything except the donations you choose to give to the church. Why not take advantage of those classes?

Furthermore, did you notice that the ultimate goal of all this building up by the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers is so that “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?”

We are each expected to try to gain the “whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” We are all expected to become mature Christians. Yet we usually act as though some people are destined to be godly and we are not.

You know, I’ve seen this particular misunderstanding in a host of things I’ve taught. I’ve seen kids – and adults – say “I can’t understand math.” And so they don’t even try. I’ve seen kids – and adults – say, “Thomas is smart – I’m not.” And so they don’t even try to succeed in classes that had Thomas in them. I’ve seen kids – and adults – look to other adults and say, “I can’t cook”. Really? Would you truly starve if no one prepared food for you?

It is as though many of us believe that some people were born as infants knowing certain things and others – usually themselves – were absolutely incapable of ever learning those things. Like the people who say, “I can’t read maps.” Well, is this your plan for the rest of your life, to be lost every time you drive in a new town? Or the person who says, “I can’t sing” and never tries. I’m waiting for the person who says, “I’m not able to pour water from a faucet.”

Yes, some things are easy to learn and some things are difficult to learn. For example, I love learning languages, but every language course I’ve ever taken has dragged down my grade point average. I love wood-working, but my pieces just don’t turn out very well polished, possibly because I never spend time polishing them. I found that Thermodynamics took me twice as long to learn at college as it was supposed to. I had to repeat the course.

But I try. For I have seen that almost anyone can learn anything if they truly believe they can learn it. It just takes some people more time and effort than others.

My wife is one of those people who used to tell you "I can't sing". My wife will tell you that she was told by her elementary school music teacher to not sing in class. She was that bad! But over the last few years, because she knows the benefits of music on spreading the Gospel, she has prayed and she has practiced certain songs, and one day, when an elderly woman was dying at the nursing home, Saundra was able to sing “Amazing Grace” to her, and later received compliments on her singing from the nurses down the hall. God truly will give you gifts when you need them, because all believers are necessary to spread the Word of God. And you can learn and develop knowledge and gifts if you pray, asking God for help developing that knowledge and those gifts.

A major reason that the Methodist Church grew in the time of John Wesley was because the church accepted this doctrine of the ministry of all believers, that ministry is not just for the professionals, but that, like the early church, every believer is involved in ministry to others. Everyone brings a different set of tools to ministry and everyone has been gifted with a tool set. And when the church members stopped believing this, the church began to die. And so I challenge you: What is your part of the ministry? What is your tool set? What gifts have you been given? What gifts do you desire?

So look at yourself. Close your eyes and listen to the Holy Spirit. Let us pray:

Holy Spirit,

Come to us. Speak to us. Give us the gifts you need us to have to accomplish your mission. Speak to each one of us about our roles in that mission. Tell us what you need each of us to do – and speak in our minds of what gifts we have, what knowledge we need, and what we must do. Give us a vision of this church and the ministries which each of us are to become. Show us who we are and what we are to be. Show us how to begin the journey to get there. And now we listen for a moment….

[listen in silence for an entire minute or two]

Thank you for speaking to us. Amen.

In your mind, you may have heard a Voice encouraging you into some ministry, to develop some gift, to learn something. I strongly suggest that you listen to that Voice, that you confirm that the Voice was the Holy Spirit by asking “Is this something that Scripture would encourage?” and by talking to mature, godly Christians that you know.

Ministry was never intended to be something only a few people did. Ministry was intended to be the “works of service” which Christ sent people to be built up to do – all people. As I’ve said before, Christianity is not a spectator sport, a type of entertainment for Sunday mornings, but rather it is a player sport, a sport where everyone participates, a sport where the world is changed through the action of the Holy Spirit – and people as strong – or as weak – as you. Find your tool set and bring it into the Body of Christ.