How do you define the word Church?
When you hear the word Minister what is the first thing
that comes to mind?
What designations are you aware of for Ministry within
the body of the church
How many reading or those who are here today are aware
that each and every one of us are Ministers and that you are called to use your
ministry to help others?
May 24, 2015 readings: Roman 8: 22-27 Psalm John 15:26-27, 16: 4-15
There is a true story told of a
man name Yates who, during the depression owned a sheep ranch in Texas. He did not have enough money to continue
paying on the mortgage - in fact he was forced like many others to live on
government subsidies. Each day as he
tended his sheep he worried about how he was going to pay his bills. A seismographic crew arrived on his land one
day and suggested that there might be oil on his land and they wanted to do
could a test drilling. After a lease was
signed they went ahead. At 1115 feet a
huge oil reserve was struck – subsequent wells revealed even more oil than the
first well revealed. Mr. Yates owned it
all. He had the oil and mineral
rights. He had been living on relief all
this time and yet he had no idea what lay just under the surface, he was always
a millionaire but it took a stranger to bring it to his attention.
How often do we feel poor and
helpless - unaware of the extraordinary power that we have available to us - that
which is lying just below the surface held within your Spirit. Each one of us here has been given by God our
own special day of Pentecost, a day on which God made known to you the indwelling
of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit gives you more than strength,
support, teaching and comfort; those things we normally identify with God's
presence. The Spirit gives us more than
joy, peace, patience, and kindness, those things which we call the fruit of the
Holy Spirit. The Spirit gives us a set
of gifts designed for the building up of the body of the church. Your talents, abilities and giftedness are not meant just for your own benefit but are to be used for your individual ministries to which
each one of us have been called. Yes,
that is right folks, each of us has been given a ministry and we are called to use
our gifts to minister to one another. We are all worthy as ministers.
The prophet Joel, from verses 28
and 29 in his prophecy of the last days, mentions some of the gifts for ministry that have
been granted by God through his Spirit:
Gifts of vision and gifts of dreams gifts of prophecy poured out upon
our sons and our daughters, upon our young and old alike. In a book I recently was looking at on the
internet, the author listed twenty-seven gifts of the Spirit – Here are some - the gift of teaching, the gift of discernment,
the gift of communication, the gift of hospitality, the gift of intercession, the
gift of presence of listening, the gift of wisdom, the gift of prophecy, the
gift of faith, the gift of administration, the gift of helping, and the gift of
humility of compassion. Each of these gifts are spiritual gifts – not
to be confused with the natural talents we are born with - they are gifts of
grace being honed through life experiences and tempered by the Spirit for our
second birth. This second birth can
transform an apparently untalented, shy, self-conscious and fearful person into
someone who has a remarkable ability to speak and minister to others. On the other hand I have seen it transform
self-centred egotistical arrogant persons into humble servants. So the
question remains what spiritual gifts do you have hiding just below the surface? What gift or set of gifts has God poured out
upon you so that you might love and serve in the way God has intended
especially for you? Have you ever
considered or tried to identify within yourself your spiritual giftedness, I
have a challenge for you today. Doing so could
be a profitable faith exercise - because it forces you to think about what God
wants to do through you. Each and every one of us were meant to be in ministry as an instrument of God’s love in our world.
Here’s the challenge: Prayer and
a reflective reading of the scriptures can be used as a means to discovering
what God has done through you in the past and where you feel He is leading you now.
If you were to do that daily as a
spiritual discipline, using a short daily devotional reading such as the Upper Room, Daily Bread or Sarah
Young’s Jesus Calling, you will
activate the Holy Spirit within, which in turn will give you a hunger for more bring awareness and the
Spirits power to the forefront of your life.
What gift or gifts has God given
you for your second birth? Discovering
the answer to these questions is so profitable an exercise that I suggest that
as a way of honouring God you start here.
Take a few moments out of today after church, sit quietly at home and reflect upon
yourself. With a piece of paper and pen,
begin by listing one or more of your personal strengths - of your qualities -
write them down.
This small exercise in
discovering your giftedness can be a powerful experience if you are totally
honest with yourself. One in which you will
begin to see what God has given to you and is doing in your life. That is kind of what happened with Mr. Yates
- someone helped him to see what lay just beneath the surface - and his discovery took him from a life of depression, poverty and desperation into a life of abundance and of generosity. He was richly blessed. He found what had always been there - and he
used it - and it changed his life. That is what the Spirit is about change, that is
what Pentecost is all about. The Spirit
wants you to discover what your gifts are and how your gifts can help others.
They are there to be used in the
work of God, a work to which we are all called,
and which, when we all serve as
we are intended - transforms us , our church, and our world - into what God
intends us to be. Let us pray
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