Biblical Ministry: Equipping Saints That Are Not Doing – Sermon Audio 2626

Jesus said in Matthew 28:19, Go, therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Welcome to Go Teach all nations, bringing you Christ's teachings through Australian and international speakers. And here is today's presenter, Blair Lemke. SPEAKER B 00:00:34 - 00:01:22 It's time to eat grandpa. Don't worry, grandpas who are out there. Hopefully there'll be no cannibalism today, but I'm looking forward to sharing with you what we have in mind for this message. And indeed, this— the title of this message has been inspired by a friend and colleague of mine, Pastor Cameron Dovazia, who preached a sermon of the same topic at a GYC Youth Conference. And I would encourage you to check it out, have a listen to it on AudioVerse for further study. But you're going to get a version, or a Pastor Blair version of it today. And I hope that it will be a blessing. But before we get into it, I'm going to pause for one more brief word of prayer as we begin our time together in God's Word. Let's pray together. SPEAKER A 00:01:22 - 00:01:23 Amen. SPEAKER B 00:01:23 - 00:03:32 Heavenly Father, we want to thank you so much for the Sabbath day, and we want to thank you for our opportunity at this time to come before you with the consideration of your Word. And we just ask that you would bless our study of your Word this morning, you'd lead us into truth, and we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, well, when you saw the title of our message today, you might have got an image like this in your mind. Grandpa in a sandwich or something like this. But this is not actually what I was really envisioning that you would think of, although it makes sense with the way that the grammar is put in the sentence there. But if you leave the words the exact same way, you can completely change the meaning of a sentence by simple grammar, can't you? And if we were to add a comma into this sentence, it's time to eat, Grandpa, you might have a bit of a different picture, something more civilized like this one with Grandpa eating at the table and a very normal scene that you might expect to see as opposed to Grandpa in a sandwich being eaten. Now, you might be wondering, why are we talking about grammar? Isn't this a sermon? Aren't we sitting in church? We're not in an English class. What has grammar got to do with the topic of our study this morning? Well, if you've ever given a Bible study to somebody on the state of the dead, I'm sure that you would have come across, you most likely would have come across and had to deal with this passage in the book of Luke chapter 23, verse 43, which says the following. And this statement that Jesus made was in the context of him having a conversation with the thief on the cross as he was dying. And the thief on the cross acknowledges faith in Jesus, and Jesus turns to him and says— and I'm going to read it as the grammar dictates. Jesus turns to him and says, assuredly I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise. SPEAKER A 00:03:32 - 00:03:35 What? SPEAKER B 00:03:37 - 00:03:39 Is this verse heresy? SPEAKER A 00:03:39 - 00:03:42 Yes. SPEAKER B 00:03:42 - 00:10:27 It seems almost wrong to even ask that question, doesn't it? If it's in the Bible, I believe it. Amen? But the way that this verse reads, and anyone who has given a study on the state of the dead before, at first reading and the way that the grammar is positioned in this Bible verse, it causes— it can lead to a misapplication or a misunderstanding of this verse. Because of the way the grammar has been placed. Now, of course, when the Bible writers wrote the Bible, they weren't using— they didn't use grammar. They were writing in Greek, in Hebrew, and there was no grammar in those languages, in the languages as they were written. The grammar has been added later after the fact to help as translators translated the Scriptures into English and into other languages. The Bible verses, the chapters, the grammar was put into the Scripture to help us to understand in our language, in whatever language, the native language that we're reading in. And so this little comma there, it reads as if Jesus was saying to the thief on the cross, I'm telling you, today you will be with me in paradise. This very day you'll be in heaven. But we can know beyond a shadow of a doubt that that was not what Jesus intended to say. And how do we know that? Because of the context. Maybe you can think of a few Bible verses or other passages of Scripture. Whenever we study God's Word, we have to study it in the context of all of Scripture. We can't just take one isolated verse and build a doctrine or a theology to the neglect of the rest of Scripture. And we know from all across Scripture that when you die, you don't go straight to heaven. We also know from Jesus himself When Jesus— where did Jesus go after he was on the cross and he died on the cross? Where did he go to? To the tomb. To the tomb. And he rested in the tomb over Sabbath. And what happened on Sunday morning? He rose from the dead and he showed himself to his disciples. And when he showed himself to his disciples, he expressly said that he had not yet gone up to be with his Father. He had not yet gone back to heaven. So, was— did Jesus intend to say that that very day, Friday, the thief on the cross was going to be with Jesus in heaven? Was that what he was trying to communicate? Absolutely not, because Jesus himself didn't go to heaven that very day. And so we know that the thief on the cross intention of what Jesus was communicating was not on the fact of the day being in heaven. Rather, the emphasis was on the assurance. And I'm going to read it now if we put the comma in a slightly different place like we did with our scenario with our grandpa. Jesus said to him, assuredly I say to you today, you will be with me in paradise. The emphasis of the text is on the assurance that this man will would be saved, not on the exact timing. And the confusion has been created because of the placement of the comma or the grammar of the sentence in the English language. Now, when the translators do this, they bring their own presuppositions to the text and they insert or place grammar and commas in ways that seems to make sense based on the presuppositions that they bring to the text. Now, it's pretty audacious to say that the way that the plain reading of the text is not exactly accurate or doesn't best convey what we know to be true, but that's exactly what we must conclude if we take in the entirety of Scripture and, in fact, Jesus' own example of where He went on that day. And so, this is one of the examples in Scripture of where grammar really matters. in how we understand the Bible. And if we get this wrong, we can come to erroneous conclusions that can lead us quite astray. Now, I want to introduce you to a less well— a far less well-known passage of Scripture that contends with this same problem with grammar. Most of us would be probably familiar with this particular example in the Bible. Perhaps many of you in this room have yourselves gone through the explanation that we just went through a moment ago as you've studied the state of the dead with somebody. Well, you may be less familiar with what I consider another example of this grammar issue coming up. I want to invite you to take your Bibles and open up to Ephesians chapter 4. We're going to turn to Ephesians chapter 4 and we're going to read verses 11 through to 16 here together this morning. as we consider another example of misplaced grammar, if you will, that can lead us to some erroneous conclusions in God's Word. We're reading here in Ephesians chapter 4, verses 11 to 16, and the Bible here is speaking of the role of spiritual leaders in the church and what he's called the church to do. And we read here in verse 11, It says, and he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers. So here we see the calling of leaders in the church. Some are called to be pastors, some are called to be teachers, and the various offices or leadership roles in the church. And clearly here, not everyone is called to be a pastor. Not everyone is called to be a teacher. There's different giftings, there's different callings here for each individual person. But the text goes on, and in the following verse, verse 12, we find the purpose for which God has raised up church leaders. What are the church leaders there to do for the church? And we're going to read verse 12 together, and I'm going to read it firstly from the King James Version this morning. And I've put up several translations that we're going to look at today together. The first one in verse 12, the Bible says, so these church leaders have been given for— and notice what their job or their description is, their role is. They've been given for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, and for the edifying of the body of Christ. These are the 3 roles of the church leaders, the pastor, etc. The 3 roles that they're called to do. SPEAKER A 00:10:27 - 00:10:27 Now, SPEAKER B 00:10:29 - 00:11:30 The grammar makes it quite clear that these are 3 distinct roles. But notice what happens if we have a look in some other translations. And I'd like you to look at the second translation there. We've got the New King James Version that we're going to consider. It's the same words, but the grammar is slightly different and it changes the meaning. So it says, the pastors, the church leaders have been put there for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry. For the work of ministry. Number 1, first role, and for the edifying of the body of Christ. 2 roles there that the pastor, church leaders are called to do: equipping the saints for the work of ministry and edifying the body of Christ. But notice the last one there from the NIV. This translation renders it this way. The church leaders, the pastors, they've been put there to equip his people for works of service So that the body of Christ may be built up. How many roles is there there? SPEAKER A 00:11:30 - 00:11:32 2. SPEAKER B 00:11:32 - 00:13:20 We went from 3 in the first one to 2, and in the last one to 1 role. 1 job. And each of those verses there, each of the way that the grammar has been translated in those translations has an implication, a different implication. The implication in the first one from the KJV a fantastic translation. However, in this verse, I don't think renders the text as accurately as it could. Positions it as if the pastor, the church leader, is to come in and to do the perfecting of the saints, the work of the ministry, the edifying of the body of Christ. The pastor's the hero. They come in and they do all of this stuff. And it seems like a pretty high job description, right? And then as you move down to the The NIV, a more interpretive translation. And this is not, by the way, a seminar on Bible translations, which you should use and which you should not use. They all have their issues and you need to take them verse by verse on which ones work well and which ones don't, given whatever verse or topic you're studying. I personally like to use a more literal translation for Bible studies and my own personal study. Always it's important to check against other translations and best of all against the original languages to best understand what is trying to be communicated. But here in the last one it says, we see that the role of the pastor, the church leaders, are to equip the people for the works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up, may be edified. Do you see that shift in meaning? It's actually as dramatic as eating grandpa or sitting down to eat with grandpa. SPEAKER A 00:13:21 - 00:13:21 No. SPEAKER B 00:13:21 - 00:14:42 Because in this last translation or this last rendering of the verse, we see that the role of the pastor, the church leaders, is to actually equip the church, equip the members to do the work of ministry, of service, and to build the church up. Not to do it all themselves, not to be the hero of the situation and do everything while everyone watches, but to equip and train the members for the work of ministry. We see this very clearly as we explore this passage of Scripture. And I want you— I want to unpack this idea a little bit as we look at a couple of texts of Scripture. This is one of the examples I would consider another example of incorrect grammar or grammar that can lead us to conclusions that are other than the intent of the author. Now, how do we know that Paul, when he was writing here to the Ephesians, when he was writing, how do we know that he intended best, that this last translation best renders the intention of the inspired counsel that God had given? How do we know that that's the best rendering? Well, just like we do with Luke 23:43, we compare it against the rest of Scripture or we keep reading. We keep reading and finding out what the context is. SPEAKER A 00:14:42 - 00:14:42 That's right. SPEAKER B 00:14:43 - 00:16:55 and let Scripture interpret itself. Now if we continue reading on with this passage, and I invite you to do so with me, in Ephesians chapter 4, we read on from verse 13 to 16, and we'll see very clearly that Paul's intent is made very clear as we read on. The Bible says, verse 13, Until we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. The church leaders are edifying. We're being edified through the Word, through the work of ministry. And verse 14, that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but speaking the truth in love may grow up into all things into Him who is the head, Christ. And then This last verse here, verse 16, really makes it crystal clear what Paul was trying to communicate in this passage. Verse 16 says, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edification— for the edifying of itself in love. I don't want you to miss what Paul is trying to communicate here, what God is communicating to us in this inspired counsel. We see very clearly that the intention of this passage is to say that every bit of the body is to do its part to edify itself in love. This is not— the work of ministry is not for some pastoral class. that are to do it all and they— we sit and watch. It's for every part of the body to do its bit for the edification of itself in love because the pastors, the church leaders, have equipped the members, the community members to do this work of ministry instead of doing it all themselves. SPEAKER A 00:16:55 - 00:16:55 Amen. SPEAKER B 00:16:56 - 00:18:05 Well, this, of course, is the consistent model that we see throughout the New Testament church. I'll take you to another passage here in 2 Timothy chapter 4. We could go to many passages of Scripture today, but we're just doing a brief survey of some of these passages. And I'm going to share with you in 2 Timothy chapter 4, verses 1 to 5, a passage of Scripture that if you've ever been to a pastoral ordination, you would have almost certainly heard these words of Scripture quoted because this is one of the most popular passages of Scripture to share at a pastoral ordination where you're charging a minister to do the work of God. And it's a quintessential passage of Scripture directed towards ministers. What's your job? What are you to do? And I want you to notice here what the Bible says in 2 Timothy chapter 4, verses 1 to 5. Paul's charging young Timothy, his protégé, with these words. He says, I charge you, and therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom, preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering— SPEAKER A 00:18:05 - 00:18:06 Teaching. SPEAKER B 00:18:06 - 00:18:59 And teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires because they have itching ears, will heap up for themselves teachers, and they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables. But you, be watchful in all things. Paul charges Timothy, the young minister, be watchful in all things. Endure afflictions. Do the work of an evangelist. Fulfill your ministry. A description of the role of a pastor And we find here the call to do the work of an evangelist. Now let me ask you a very simple question. Who do evangelists preach to? Who do evangelists preach to? Is it church members or seekers? SPEAKER A 00:18:59 - 00:19:00 Seekers. SPEAKER B 00:19:00 - 00:23:51 We would expect that an evangelist would be preaching to people that are learning, coming to learn and know the truth, right? This is the purpose of evangelism. It's sharing our faith with people that don't know or haven't had the opportunity to respond to the truths of Scripture. And so right here in Scripture, we have the call for ministers to be involved in the work of evangelism. Now, this— where we've ended up in the modern Seventh-day Adventist Church is that we've so far niched specific roles within the work of the ministry that many pastors of a local church have never ever conducted an evangelistic series or been involved in evangelistic preaching, which is according to Scripture a core function of the work of a pastor. And so, we see the clear example of Scripture for the role of a pastor in the New Testament in the Bible is that they are called to equip the church members for the work of ministry and to be going out into new areas and evangelizing, raising up new bodies of believers, sharing the good news of Jesus Christ with the world around us, and overseeing all of these different churches and groups that they are raising up at the time. Now, I want to share a statement here from The Upward Look, from the writings of Ellen White. She describes this phenomenon in this way. She says, my brethren and sisters, there is something more for you to do than sit in your churches Sabbath after Sabbath and listen to the preaching of the Word. You have a work to do for friends and neighbors. God requires that you visit these families and seek to create interest in the truth for this time. You are not laboring together with God if you neglect the work of of helping others to take hold upon eternal realities. Our ministers are not encouraged to hover over the churches to repeat to the believers week after week the same truths. Now if I was to ask you what makes a good minister, what would you say? Maybe you'd have a lot of different answers. One of the really common answers that I hear is, They're there every week and they preach good messages. That makes a really good pastor. But you know, the biblical model that we have and the inspired counsel that we have been given would indicate that we have probably got our metrics of what makes a good pastor a little bit off. We've drifted from the original model that God has given us in His Word. And we see this time and time again. I'll take you to one more example in the Bible. Titus 1:5. We see here Paul went about on one of his missionary journeys and he was traveling along there and he took his— Protégés. Protégés with him as he went along. And the Bible says, for this reason I left you in Crete, that you should set in order the things that are lacking and appoint elders in every city as I've commanded you. So what we see happening in the New Testament is that Paul would go along as a minister, as an apostle. He would go along, he would evangelize, he would preach messages, he would raise up bodies of believers, And then he would leave people for a time, understudies for a time, to work in those areas, to appoint elders who would help to run the church, and from that point on would run the church and work with the local area, and he would then move on and start new areas. And then he would come back every couple of months and visit all of those churches that he was raising up and starting as he was taking the truth into new areas. and new parts of the field. This is the biblical model of church ministry, of how to move forward and take the gospel to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people. And did you know it's not only the biblical model, this is the model that we as a Seventh-day Adventist Church operated by from the very earliest beginnings of our movement. We've drifted some from where we started, but I want you to notice, I'm going to take you— I'm a little bit of an Adventist history geek. I love studying history. Most people find history boring and I don't know why because history is really just the story of people. They lived a little while ago, but it's interesting, it's fascinating. We learn so many lessons that can apply to us. And when we study Adventist history on this topic, it's very insightful. And I want to take you— I'm going to take you through a bit of a timeline. We're going to say this is like the old, old, older period and we're going to work through to the modern days. SPEAKER A 00:23:51 - 00:23:51 Amen. SPEAKER B 00:23:52 - 00:25:17 over here. And I'm going to take you on a little bit of a timeline of the Adventist Church and how we practice this biblical model from our earliest beginnings and where we've got to, all right? So this is a statement from a newspaper article in 1886. It was given by Elder G.B. Starr, and he was responding to a reporter. So basically, in the 1840s, the Adventist movement rose as a part of prophecy. It was prophesied that the Advent movement would come at the close of the 2,300-day prophecy. They formulated their beliefs and their movement. They took a formal structure in 1863. They began putting institutions and things in place to grow as a movement. And by the 1880s, they were skyrocketing in growth, in rapid expansion across America at the time. And as they were growing so rapidly, other people started to notice. And reporters came to ask, what's the secret to how quickly you're growing? And this is recorded in one of the newspaper articles. It's from one of our elders, G.B. Starr. He says, well, in the first place— this is an answer to how we've been growing so rapidly. In the first place, we have no settled pastors. Our churches are taught to take care of themselves while nearly all of our ministers work as evangelists in new fields. SPEAKER A 00:25:17 - 00:25:17 Wow. SPEAKER B 00:25:17 - 00:37:22 Does that sound familiar? That's like exactly what we just read about in the New Testament. That's the biblical model, right? So this is the answer to how have we grown so rapidly. This is 1886 in the Adventist Church. Let's move on. And a few years later, by 1912, we have the General Conference President, A.G. Daniels, and he was not a prophet. or the son of a prophet, but I think the words that he shares here in 1912 were very, very insightful. And I want you to notice with me what he said. He said, describing the ministers and the work of the Adventist Church at the time, he said, We have not settled our ministers over churches as pastors to any large extent. In some of the very large churches we have elected pastors, But as a rule, we have held ourselves ready for field service, evangelistic work, and our brethren and sisters have held themselves ready to maintain their church services and carry forward their church work without settled pastors. So essentially, we don't have settled pastors. But except in a few rare exceptions where there's a large church and it kind of is needed, it's deemed as necessary, this practice has popped up once or twice, right? Now notice he says, and describing this general norm where most pastors are not settled but they're going out and raising up new churches, he says, I hope that this will never cease to be the orders of affairs in our denomination. For when we cease our forward movement work and begin to settle over our churches, to stay by them and do their thinking and their praying and their work that is to be done, then our churches will begin to weaken and to lose their life and spirit and become paralyzed and fossilized, and our work will be on the retreat. This is a pretty prophetic statement, if I can use those words. He described the reality. He said, I hope that we'll never move to a different model, and I hope that we'll stick with the biblical model because if we do, we're going to find it's going to affect our church growth. And if we look at church charts of church growth, we can see that exactly what he predicted has taken place. This is a passage here from— this is a statement from H.M.S. Richards, the famous evangelist. And a minister in the Adventist Church. He said, the time— this is in 1957 now, so we're moving towards— up towards the modern day. He said, the time of too many of our preachers, instead of being occupied by carrying messages into new fields, is taken up in settling church difficulties, laboring for men and women who should be towers of strength instead of subjects of labor. When I was baptized, he said, and later became a young preacher, we looked upon churches of other denominations that had to have settled pastors over every flock as being decadent. Most of our preachers were out on the firing line holding meetings, winning men to Christ, and raising up new churches. Then every few months they would come around and visit the churches that they had already been established. This seemed to be, according to our view of it, the plan of the apostolic church. Now where did they get that plan from? From the Bible. From the Bible, like what we've just reflected on in brief. So, by the time we get to 1994, this is a statement from the Elder's Handbook, which is one of our resources to train local church elders. And it's really interesting. It says, during the— so we're getting close to our modern day, right? During the Middle Ages, the clergy largely took over the work of the church. The Seventh-day Adventist Church still struggles to overcome that medieval tradition and seeks to restore the biblical concept that all believers are ministers. Members in general and elders in particular need a greater vision of their significance and responsibility in the church and in its work. Now, this was— whoever wrote this recognized that there was a transition away from the biblical model to a more settled model. where pastors ended up coming in, settling over a church, doing all the work of the ministry instead of equipping and training the saints to do that work. And this Elders Handbook is describing that transition away in our denomination. And if we track the percentage of our growth over this period of time, there's likely other factors involved, but one of the key I believe, is this move away from the biblical model that we had to a stagnating growth compared to our earlier years. Now, what I find interesting is that by the time we get to the Elder's Handbook, they did a revision of the Elder's Handbook in 2013, and notice how they now describe— earlier it was recognized that we were moving away from this biblical model, and then some of our— more recently the version says this: The Seventh-day Adventist Church is growing rapidly and many churches are understaffed. In such situations, there may be a large multi-church district where pastors are shared among several churches and is able to visit each church only once every 2 or 3 months. It is the faithful service of local elders that helps keep these churches strong and growing. Do you notice the shift? We go from elders— from the pastors coming in and raising up churches and then establishing elders, local church elders to run the church and moving on to new areas, to the pastors do it all and there's a lot of understaffing. We need more pastors in churches. That'll fix the problem. And only the really poor churches that can't afford it in multi-districts get not one pastor. Like, they've got to share a pastor. And in those churches, the elders can do the work. Does that sound like a good deal? Does that sound like a good model? Very clearly, we see a transition away from what we see in our movement and in the Bible as the model for ministry. And I want to share with you, I've taken some time this morning to make a short biblical case for the original biblical model of ministry, that pastors are not— we've mixed up our role. Along the way, there's been— we don't have a full biblical vision of what God is calling pastors and members to. We've shifted and adopted some unbiblical ideas along the way that make it difficult for church growth and for strengthening our membership. Now, I want to take you now, after building that biblical case and looking at our Adventist history, I want to make 2 simple suggestions or draw 2 key applications from this message. And I'm going to reflect on the writings of Ellen White to make 2 observations at this point as we consider this inspired counsel. I want you to notice I think the first thing that we need in our churches, and you're going to see practice in this church right here in the Mooloolaba Seventh-day Adventist Church, we need less preaching and more teaching. Now let me show you what I mean by that. Here in Testimonies for the Church, Ellen White says, the greatest help that can be given our people is to teach them to work for God and to depend upon Him, not upon the ministers. Let the minister devote more of his time to educating than to preaching. Let him teach the people how to give to others the knowledge that they have received. We need more teaching and less preaching. This is part of the reason why we have been conducting a Bible series in our sermon time going through how to share. The Know Jesus series is a Bible study resource. It's how to share this resource with other people that you know. It's using our typical structure of a sermon to try to teach how to share your faith. This is also why Pastor Ash and Pastor Boris started off the Simple Truth studies for this same purpose, to educate, to train, to equip the church to be able to share their faith. And we see that very clearly. Notice this one here from Ministry of Healing. Every church should be a training school for Christian workers. Its members should be taught how to give Bible readings, how to conduct— or Bible studies— how to conduct and teach Sabbath school classes, how best to help the poor and to care for the sick, how to work for the unconverted. These churches are to be training schools. I love that language. The Mooloolaba Seventh-day Adventist Church, rightly understood, should be a training school for the church members. The purpose of church is not necessarily for evangelism to unbelievers. It's for the edifying and the building up of the church members to go and do that ministry. And for the pastors to go out and to be involved in that as well, because they're members as well. So we see this pattern very consistently through Scripture and the writings of Ellen White. Notice this one from Evangelism. If the proper instruction were given, if the proper methods were followed, Every church member would do his work as a member of the body, just like we read about in Ephesians chapter 4. He would do Christian missionary work. But the churches are dying and they want a minister to preach to them. They just want to hear preaching week after week. They should be taught that unless they can stand alone without a minister, they need to be converted anew and baptized anew. They need to be born again. It's this serious. We don't understand what God has called us to, and I'm using a collective we here. I'm not saying necessarily everyone in this building, but as a movement, somewhere along the way, we have missed the full calling that God has for pastors and members. And we've got confused along the way by following the pattern of the world and the other churches that are out there that follow different models to the biblical model. Now, so we need less preaching and more teaching. You're going to see in Mooloolaba Seventh-day Adventist Church intentional teaching, teaching us as a church family to be able to share our faith with other people. That's a commitment that I can make to you as a pastor of this church because that's the call that God has given ministers to do, not just to come in and preach every week the same things to people who already believe, but to train and equip for the work that we've been called to do. The second lesson that I think we need to take from this study of Scripture and Adventist history is we need less watching and more working. Notice this one here from the Ministry of Healing. Everywhere there is a tendency to substitute the work of organizations for individual work. Human wisdom tends to consolidation, to centralization, to the building up of great churches and institutions, multitudes leave to institutions and organizations the work of benevolence. They excuse themselves from contact with the world and their hearts grow cold. They become self-absorbed and unimpressible. Love for God and man dies out of the soul. Christ commits to His followers an individual work, a work that cannot be done by proxy. SPEAKER A 00:37:22 - 00:37:22 That's right. SPEAKER B 00:37:23 - 00:38:42 Through ADRA or through ACS or— well, as individuals through all of these things, yes, but not as organizations. We can't outsource the work of the gospel. It's an individual work. Ministry to the sick and the poor, the giving of the gospel to the lost is not to be left to committees or organized charities. Individual responsibility, individual effort, personal sacrifice is a requirement of the gospel. This is what God has called us each to do. And this is the blessedness. This is actually the beauty of being a part of the body of Christ because through doing the work of the ministry, God grows us and develops our faith and confidence and trust in Him and refines our characters and sanctifies us as believers. Evangelism, page 382. If the ministers would get out of the way, If they would go forth into new fields, the members would be obliged to bear responsibilities and their capabilities would increase by use. It's just like going to the gym. When you use the muscle, it grows. And it's the same for us in a spiritual sense. When we use the spiritual gym that God has given us— witnessing, Bible study, prayer— we grow in strength in our faith. This is the means by which God grows us. SPEAKER A 00:38:42 - 00:38:43 Amen. SPEAKER B 00:38:43 - 00:40:32 and helps us to get closer to Him and to experience the presence of God deeply in our lives. The work of God in the earth can never be finished until the men and women comprising our church membership rally to the work and unite their efforts with those of the ministers and the church officers. This is the consistent model of Scripture. It's the pattern that we see in the early Adventist Church. We have strayed some from this, but I have taken courage because last year I had the privilege of going to the General Conference session over there in Indianapolis. And I'm going to steal some of my daughter's water. And one of the things that we voted through at the session there was a revision to the church manual. In the first couple of pages, there was a section there on The role of a pastor, the role of a minister. And there have been some fantastic introductions or additions to the Church Manual that point us back to this biblical model, this early model that we started out with. And so, I have hope that we are seeing a change back to this biblical model. And I have hope that our— I'm encouraged that our North New South Wales Conference, under the leadership of Pastor Christian Kopacanu, have made this a core feature of the vision of the North New South Wales Conference in their leadership towards raising up missionaries as pastors and equipping members for the work of the ministry. So, we're in an exciting time. And here at this church, I want to commit to you as the pastor that we are going to be seeking to follow God's model as closely as we can as we learn to try to work within the system, the existing system that we have. SPEAKER A 00:40:32 - 00:40:32 Amen. SPEAKER B 00:40:33 - 00:41:41 But to honor the call that God has given both members and church pastors. And so I want to leave you with this final verse, Matthew chapter 9. And you can turn with me to Matthew chapter 9, verses 36 and 38. We're going to leave with a simple appeal from our message today. In Matthew chapter 9, verses 36 and 38, the Bible says, speaking of Jesus, it says, But when he, Jesus, saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them because they were weary and scattered like sheep having no shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, the harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore, pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest. And I want to ask a question this morning. How many of you feel a burden for the harvest that is out there? How would you like to see the work of the gospel going to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people culminating in the return of Jesus Christ? Would you like to witness that event? SPEAKER A 00:41:41 - 00:41:42 Yes. SPEAKER B 00:41:42 - 00:42:21 I pray that you do. I long to see that event. Would you like to devote your best energies and effort and attention to this work? The best of your energy, effort, Attention to the work of the gospel. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we want to thank you for the word that you give us and the message that you've given us through Christ. Lord, we don't want to keep it to ourselves. We want to share it with the world. We know that there's a harvest out there, and we want to put our best energies, our best attention towards this most important work. There's nothing more important. SPEAKER A 00:42:21 - 00:42:21 Amen. SPEAKER B 00:42:22 - 00:42:43 on this world. Help us as a church to follow your biblical model. Be with us as a pastoral and leadership team and help us, Lord, to be devoted to the model that you give us in your word. Teach us as we study and follow Jesus. And this is our prayer in Jesus' name. Amen. SPEAKER A 00:42:43 - 00:43:35 Amen. This message was made available by the Murwillumbah Seventh-day Adventist Church. For more resources like this, visit their Facebook page, Murwillumbah Seventh-day Adventist Church. It's been a pleasure bringing you this program here on 3ABN Australia Radio. 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