The Diversity and Beauty of Ministry

6 · The preacher applies the biblical pattern to the present congregation, asserting that ministry happens not just on Sundays but throughout the week in every believer's assigned sphere—work, home, and community—where God has sovereignly placed them

The same is still true today. Our church displays a variety of ministries that meet one another's needs. We often think that ministry is strictly tied to Sundays. And obviously we are not all here at the church building Monday through Friday doing the work of ministry. But each one of us, if you are in Christ, is meant to be. The church is meant to be a representative of Christ Monday through Friday, every day. As a matter of fact, we are meant to be the church, ministering wherever the Lord has placed us. So whether you are a soldier, a banker, a construction worker, a therapist, a stay at home parent, you have been assigned a mission field from your boss, the Lord. He has placed you somewhere, not by mistake. It's not accidental. He has purposes that he wants to accomplish through you and in you.

7 · The preacher provides concrete local examples of how ministry takes diverse forms: homemade ice cream ministry, home and car repair, workplace witness, parenting, and even children's role in sanctifying their parents through accountability

Here in El Paso, a few examples of what this kind of looks like in our church, and this is not an exhaustive list, but we have a family in my community group that has a very unique way of caring for others. They serve other people by bringing this is amazing homemade ice cream along with encouragement and prayer. When people are down, this builds us up, maybe in a not so flattering way, after a lot of ice cream, but this is their way of serving others. When they do this, it's a reminder to us of God's care in a very simple and very delicious way. We have multiple brothers in our church who serve people whenever their homes or cars are in need of repair. And when you're with these guys, you experience the care of the Lord as they meet your practical needs. So whether you are in the military, border patrol, wherever it is, wherever you would call work, it might be frowned upon to share the gospel at work. But that doesn't mean you can't pray for your coworkers. It doesn't mean you can't encourage them. It doesn't mean that you can't give counsel rooted in biblical principles. Your faith, wherever the Lord has placed you can influence the way you lead and work with people. If you are a stay at home parent, ministry might look like faithfully teaching your kids God's word. It might look like sharing what the Lord has done in your life. It might look like demonstrating how to live humbly in obedience to God. And kids, you also have a very unique ministry, too. For mom and dad, it's called accountability and sanctification.

8 · The preacher shares a personal story from the previous day when his three-year-old daughter reminded him of the fruit of the Spirit during a chaotic moment with all four children crying, illustrating how children minister to parents through accountability

Yesterday I was a little frazzled because all four of my kids were crying at once for a sustained period of time. It almost felt like the 4 July fireworks, like the finale at the end of the fireworks of just crying, where it's just like, okay, let's get it all out. And my three year old daughter just came up to me and she said, dad, remember the fruit of the spirit? And I said, oh, yes, I remember that. That's been our memory verse as a family. Thank you, sweetheart.

9 · The preacher establishes the first similarity across diverse ministries: all Christians share the same mission of gospel proclamation and disciple-making, evidenced by how the various roles in 1 Corinthians 16 interconnected to serve the church in Corinth

Church. We are all in full time ministry, and it looks different for each of us. So my question for you is, what does your ministry look like? Where is your mission field that the Lord has placed you in? While ministries vary for each of us, we also have some similarities with our ministry. First similarity is we have the same mission. Notice in our text, all of the ministries in acts 16 look different, but all were part of the same mission, to share the gospel, to make disciples, to help people follow Jesus. That is what all these moving parts were aimed at doing. Look how interconnected they are. You get this dysfunctional, messy church fighting, split relationally. So they write a letter. Someone says, I'll write the letter, let's get it out. And then you get people that say, I'll deliver the letter, right? And then you have Timothy on his way. You have Paul receiving the letter, writing back to them. You have people refreshing Paul just through their presence. And then it's every moving piece in the early church aimed at one mission.

10 · The preacher uses the 1936 University of Washington rowing team from 'The Boys in the Boat' as an analogy for the church: different people with different roles, all in the same boat, working toward the same goal

Now, recently, Amanda and I watched this movie called the Boys in the Boat. I'm not sure if you've seen that. I won't spoil anything, but this movie is about the true story of the 1936 University of Washington rowing team. And this was taking place during the Great Depression. And the team that made up the junior varsity team was a bunch of people that tried out that came from a background of poverty. Now, on the team, there is eight people on one boat. You have one person who is responsible for balancing the boat. You have the stroke, who is setting the rhythm and the pace, the number of strokes each minute for the crew. You have another person. You have all the rowers in the middle who are providing power for the boat. And then there's the rowers. Or you have the coxswain who is helping to guide and coach and steer and direct the boat for the team. They all have a different purpose on the boat, but they are all heading the same direction. They have the same goal, win the gold. And so it is with the church. We are all in the same boat, working to accomplish the same mission.

11 · The preacher establishes the second similarity: ministry is hard work requiring sacrifice

The second similarity is, I changed this up a little bit, but ministry is hard work, and it requires sacrifice. Look at how Paul understood his life and ministry. In verse eight, Paul says, but I will stay in Ephesus until Pentecost for a wide door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many adversaries. For Paul, he looked for opportunities wherever the Lord had him. He looked for open doors that he could enter into. He was more concerned about those who were lost and who didn't know Christ than he was about his career, his retirement, or even his own safety. For Paul, if there was an open door, he entered it. He stayed in there. He was willing to sacrifice anything for the sake of people being saved despite adversaries and obstacles. This was a man who was shipwrecked, flogged, beaten, stoned, thrown in prison. Here's what he says at the end of his ministry in two Timothy, chapter two, verses 1010. He says, therefore, I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain salvation, that is, in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. That's Paul's mindset.

12 · The preacher draws a principle from Paul's example and supports it with a Spurgeon quotation: Christian ministry requires both human effort (work as if all depends on us) and divine dependence (pray as if all depends on God)

And what Paul's ministry shows us is that our efforts and sacrifice go hand in hand. You can't have one without the other when it comes to our effort. Here's what Spurgeon says. He says the Christian should work as if all depended upon him and pray as if all depended upon God.

13 · The preacher illustrates sacrificial service through a community group leader's story: hosting cost him a destroyed house and broken possessions, but he counted it all worth it for the spiritual fruit in his children and the group's discipleship conversations

Now, at times, sacrifice will be involved when it comes to serving others. Now, the other day, now, this was a while back, but I was talking to a community group leader. He just became a community group leader at the time, and he was sharing about his first community group gathering at his house. Someone, hey, tell me all about it. So he says, yeah, well, first we spent a few hours just cleaning up our house, cleaning up the backyard, getting it ready for everyone. And he said, we do have quite a bit of kids in our group. But after everyone left, it looked like a tornado had flown through our house and into our backyard. He said, we had food smushed into the couch and carpets. Things around the house were broken. And I thought, oh, man, this was a bad community group experience. I don't think he's going to want to be a community group much longer. But this was his response. He said, but it's all worth it. Our kids are learning and experiencing ministry. That ministry is about serving the Lord by serving others. He said, our group is having conversations about the sermon on how do we wrestle with this? How do we apply it in our lives? We're opening our lives together, he said, the stains and the messes, it's an easy loss when we consider all that could potentially be gained within the people. Here in ministry, we work hard. We sacrifice to serve others, and then we leave the heart work to the Lord. But we do our best to be faithful.

14 · The preacher exposes two forms of sacrificial ministry in the text: Timothy's leaving (traveling 350 miles to Corinth), and the three letter-carriers' 700-mile journey, versus Paul and Apollos staying put and missing fellowship and family time because ministry needs kept them where they were

But we also see in our text that sometimes sacrifice looks like leaving Timothy's ministry looked like leaving Ephesus in order to be with the church in Corinth because the church in Corinth needed help. It's a sacrifice to leave your family and friends in order to go and serve others. Stephanus, fortunatus, and Achaicus became glorified mailmen and traveled over 700 miles round trip to deliver a letter to one place and back. Guys, that's the equivalent of walking from here to Houston. But they did this to serve the church. Sometimes sacrifice looks like staying. Look at Paul and Apollos example. Both remained where they were because there was ministry needs where they were at. They missed opportunities to enjoy sweet fellowship. They missed time with family and missed birthdays. All these things. But they had to sacrifice their wants and their needs for the sake of the gospel.

15 · The preacher contrasts the right posture (asking the Lord to lead and following) with the common reversed posture (telling the Lord where we're going and expecting Him to follow)

Guys, so much of part of serving the Lord is just saying, Lord, what do you want us to do? Where do you want us to go? You lead, we'll follow. But I think oftentimes we have that backwards. Lord, I'm going here. If you want to tag along, great. I'll call you if I need you. I'll let you know where I'm going.

16 · The preacher grounds the sacrificial ministry concept in the congregation's lived experience: families who've moved away for ministry, and weekly behind-the-scenes servants (worship team, AV team, prayer team, hospitality team) who sacrifice time and sleep to serve the church

At Cross of grace, we have felt the pain of these types of sacrifices, haven't we? You know, even this past week, I received two separate emails from two families whom the Lord has took to other places to do ministry. We miss the Lucero family. We miss the corpuses. We miss these dear friends and the Scots as well. And every week we also get to just witness examples of saints at this church serving sacrificially so that others might benefit, don't we? Every single week. You may not know this, but our worship team is here at 07:00 a.m. with the AV team to make sure that what you are hearing sounds functional. We have a prayer team that comes at 08:00 every day to be behind those walls, just to pray for our services. Every single week we have people on the hospitality team waking up early just to go pick up some donuts just to serve you right. There's a lot of sacrifice going on in this church for the sake of ministry because it brings so much good to our church family. So much good, and it pleases the Lord.

17 · The preacher applies the sacrificial ministry principle with direct questions probing whether the listener's ministry involves sacrifice and what they might need to give up to serve others

So let me ask you, is your ministry, we've all been called into full time ministry. Is yours sacrificial? If it's not, what might you need to give up in order to serve others?

18 · The preacher exposes the third similarity—ministry means submitting to other Christians—by showing how Paul commands the Corinthians to honor Timothy and Stephanus, not despising them but submitting to them with mutual respect and humility

A third similarity. Ministry means submitting to other christians. Verse ten. When Timothy comes, see that you put him at ease among you, for he is doing the work of the Lord, as I am, so let no one despise him. Help him on his way in peace, that he may return to me, for I am expecting him with the brothers. Then move down to verse 15. Now I urge you, brothers, you know that the household of Stephanus were the first converts in Achaia and that they have devoted themselves to the service of the saints. Be subject to such as these and every fellow worker and laborer. The first act of submission looks like submitting ourselves to one another with mutual subjection, mutual honor, mutual humility, mutual respect and service. Because he's telling them, hey, don't despise Timothy when he comes. He's coming to help you. He's traveling 350 miles to serve you.

19 · The preacher illustrates the principle of not despising different ministry styles through household analogies: toilet paper placement, fridge label orientation, and dishwasher loading methods—all different, none deserving contempt

Now, we talked about how all of our ministries look a little different. And I don't know about you, but I am the type of person that believes there is only one way, one correct way to load up toilet paper. It's with the toilet paper going on top, never underneath. That is just too messy, that doesn't work. And in the house, when it comes to cleaning, we may all do things a little differently. Right? I have family members that all of the labels in their fridge have to face out. I mean, that's just. That's weird. But that's the thing. I have other family members in particular. I like to load the dishes very methodically, systematically. And my wife just, okay, they're clean, loaded up, we're good. It would be wrong of me to get to despise them, my family for helping me clean. Right.

20 · The preacher applies Paul's instruction not to despise but to embrace, thank, and recognize those serving in different roles, rooted in God's design that each person's unique gifting covers what others cannot cover alone

Paul is saying that there's different roles happening in ministry. Don't despise them because it's different than you. He says, embrace them, thank them. He says in verse 18, recognize them. So the main point is we should be thankful to all the people that are serving us on Sunday mornings. They're not here to wait on us. They're here because they want to submit themselves to us in a way that serves us. And here's a cool thing. I was talking to Kathy Osmos about this after the service. God has created all of us uniquely and differently, with different gifts, with different likes, with different looks, everything. God has given all of those things to us in order to cover all the parts of the church that I can't cover myself, that Mike can't cover by himself, that Cody can't cover by himself. So the Lord says, I'm gonna give you people to be part of my mission, because that's the wisdom and the goodness of God to bring us together, not only to unite us to him, but to unite us to one another. And we are called to recognize the people that serve alongside us and that serve us.

21 · The preacher establishes that submission in ministry requires discipleship relationships with trustworthy believers, which cannot happen in isolation but requires spending time together in community—community groups, regular meetings, and staying after services rather than bolting out the door

Second aspect of submission to one another. So much of our ministry to others is connected to our discipleship relationships. I'm going to unpack that a little bit. But as Christians, we all must find trustworthy people to submit to and be discipled by in order to find trusted, worthy people. That means we have to spend time with people. That doesn't mean we remain in isolation the rest of our lives, that we avoid christian relationships, that we never serve or join a community group, and that we just keep bolting out the door as soon as the service is over. No, we all need a community of believers in our lives who are doing their best to follow Jesus and who are coming alongside us and lifting our eyes to the Lord and saying, I'm gonna help you follow Jesus as well. We need that. So my question for you is our is your life submitted to a trustworthy person who is pointing you to Christ? Do you have someone you meet with regularly to open up your life to pray with?

22 · The preacher exposes Paul's four imperatives in verses 13-14 as keys to lifelong ministry: be watchful (because sin destroys isolated ministers), stand firm in the gospel (holding to Scripture's authority in trials), act like men (military bravery for unpredictable ministry), and do all in love (to be developed)

Our third point, another truth to ministry. These are the keys to faithful and lifelong ministry. Verse 13, be watchful. Stand firm in the faith. Act like men. Be strong. Verse 14, let all that you do be done in love. And Paul, what he's trying to do throughout this entire letter is point them to the very thing that protects, that strengthens, and that restores their ministry to one another. And that's the gospel. Over and over. The gospel. What's the answer? The gospel. We safeguard our ministry by being watchful. My church. Here's the reality. We have three enemies we are facing every moment of the day. That's our flesh, that's our world. As the enemy, we have to be watchful. We've seen examples, horrific, tragic examples of church leaders, people in ministry who were not watchful and allowed sin to creep in. And it destroyed their ministry, and it affected the church. And the common thread between all of these people is they were alone. No one had their sicks, no one had their back. That was caring for them. They weren't opening their lives to others and sharing what was going on. And Paul also calls us, we are to stand firm in the gospel. This call back to the gospel. We must hold unwaveringly to scripture as the authority in our lives. When we are going through a trial. When something difficult in life is happening, what do we do? What does God's word have to say about this? How does the gospel meet this head on? Lord, what are you doing here? What are you revealing? What are you showing me? And Paul tells them to safeguard their ministry by acting like Mendez. Now, this phrase he uses when he says, act like men is this idea of this charge given to military soldiers about being brave, getting ready, staying ready for war, because ministry can be unpredictable. It could be messy and very hard.

23 · The preacher exposes love as the most important element of the letter, connecting it to 1 Corinthians 13 and showing that the lack of love caused all the Corinthian divisions, while Paul's rejoicing at the letter-carriers' presence (verse 17-18) and other churches' greetings demonstrate love's power to refresh and unite

Then lastly, Paul says, let all that you do be done and love. And we're going to sit here for a little bit of. Because this is the most important part of the entire letter. We see verse 13, or we see in first corinthians chapter 13. Paul spends a whole chapter talking about love. Remember we talked about that missing ingredient? They're in the kitchen, they're cooking, but they're leaving the most important ingredient on the shelf, which is love. Love, a lack of love, is the reason for all this division. It's a reason for this disorder, this relational strife. The reason they are just suing each other, being jealous of each other. And love is how Paul closes out the letter. It's because of love in verse 17 that Paul rejoices at the presence of these three men coming to him with this letter. He says in 18 that their presence was refreshing to his spirit. That is love's doing. Don't you want your ministry to be refreshing to other people? Love is displayed as we look at the other churches that are saying, send our hearty greetings to the church in Corinth. Give them our love.

24 · The preacher illustrates the churches' love for Corinth through his own parents' and in-laws' long-distance love for his children—the longing to be present, to hug, to express affection when separated by distance

Now, Amanda and I, we don't have family here in El Paso. Both of our family is out of state in Colorado and California. But when I talk to my parents or Amanda's parents about just life and the way our conversation always ends is, would you just give those kids my love? Would you just give them a hug for me? Give them a kiss for me. Tell them we love them, right? You just hear this kind of calmness from mom and dad of like, just please do that. But really underneath, they're just like, oh, we want to be there so bad. We just want to love those kids, our grandkids, we love them. That's the type of relational affection going on behind the scenes behind this messy church is you got other christians from other parts of the world praying for them, saying, we just want to be with them, but we can't give them our love.

25 · The preacher exposes the holy kiss in verse 20 as a cultural expression of love, translating it to modern equivalents (handshake, bro hug) while warning that love must respect comfort levels—what is intended as loving can be unloving if it makes someone uncomfortable

Notice in verse 20, he says, greet one another with a holy kiss. Some of you may be like, okay, where is he going with this? Well, in the New Testament times, a kiss was a common form of greeting among family and close friends. A kiss symbolized love, brotherly affection, and fellowship. In our culture today, it would be the equivalent of, like, a bro hug or a handshake or one of these. You see that, brother? And that simple is just me saying, man, I acknowledge you. I'm glad you're here. Thanks for being here. I'm so thankful that the Lord has saved you, too, that the Lord has saved me, that he's united us not just to himself, but to one another. And that is something we rejoice in. So please put the chapstick away. Hold your horses. The point is, as brothers and sisters in Christ, we want to love seeing one another, but in a way that is appropriate for one another's comfort level. So we want to be cautious there, because it could be unloving if it's uncomfortable for someone.

26 · The preacher illustrates genuine Christian love through his experience at a Sovereign Grace pastor conference where he witnessed a family reunion atmosphere—people hugging, embracing, weeping together—and through visitors to Cross of Grace who comment that the church really loves each other

I remember the first time, the first year I came on staff, I was here for about a month or two when I got invited to go to the sovereign Grace pastor conference. And so Amanda and I got to go just to get a bird's eye view, like a bigger picture of man, what goes on in our family of churches here in sovereign grace. And people from the US, all over the US, we're here. People from outside the US, from all over the world were there. And what we saw as we were worshiping the Lord, as we are gathering around the preach word, is we saw a family reunion. We saw all of these people hugging each other, embracing one another, thanking the Lord for each other, even being in tears, remembering things that were so difficult that they walked through together. And I remember looking at a man and I said, I said, these guys actually love each other. I've never seen something like this. They were brothers and sisters in the faith, and they had this affection that was just so beautiful and really drew my wife and I in church. We have that here. We really do. Whenever we have family that comes into town to be with the grandkids and they come to church with us, they always say, your church really loves each other. I could just tell we were here for an hour and a half, and I could just look around and say, this church knows how to love really well. And we, my family and I, have been recipients of your amazing love in so many ways. Again, that is a good thing, and it honors the Lord.

27 · The preacher exposes Paul's personal signature in verse 21 and his closing benediction in verse 24 as final evidence of Paul's love for the Corinthians—he wrote the letter himself and closes with a declaration of love, demonstrating that love is non-negotiable in ministry

Lastly, we see Paul reminding them of his love for them. Look at verse 21. He goes out of his way to say, I'm writing this entire letter with my own hand. I'm writing my signature on the dotting line saying, everything I have said to you guys is from me. It's from my own thoughts. It's from my own encouragement. It's from my own heart, because I love you guys. Look at verse 24. My love be with you all in Christ Jesus. Amen. Because Paul loves the people he ministers to. He loves them, and we are to have that same love for one another. We cannot do ministry without love. We cannot leave that ingredient on the shelf.

28 · The preacher summarizes the three main points before moving into application: (1) we're all in full-time ministry with different roles but the same mission, (2) ministry requires sacrifice, (3) ministry requires submission to one another, and all of it must be done in love

So to sum up our message today, before we jump into a time of application, we are all called into full time ministry. It looks different for each of us, but we're all on the same mission. We're all in the same boat trying to win the gold. And all of our ministry also requires sacrifice at times, and it also requires us to be submitted to one another in love and respect and honor. And all of our ministry must have love. We have to love, or we're missing the point of ministry.

29 · The preacher grounds the pattern of ministry in Christ's own ministry—entering open doors, submitting to the Father's will, sacrificing His life, and being raised from the dead—and declares that the same resurrection power that raised Jesus is available to Christians for ministry work

So why does our ministry look this way? Sure, we could say Paul and the early church, they modeled this for us. So we want to mimic that. We want to imitate that. True, but even more so, this is what Jesus ministry looked like for us. Right. Jesus, when he came to earth, he, in a sense, entered the open door. But his ministry was very different. It was one that we could never accomplish on our own. It was unique only to him. And despite our rebellion and sin, Jesus still submitted himself to the father's will by going to the cross. His ministry was the ultimate sacrifice. It cost him his life. He exchanged himself for us so that we would be forgiven and brought into a relationship with the Lord again. But death, as we learned in chapter 15, could not hold him down. He was raised from the grave, and the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is with us as we do the work of ministry. Isn't that encouraging? Isn't that good? We forget about that. We look at adversaries and we're like, oh, okay, I'm just not going to answer that door, because we have the spirit of the living God in our hearts to do the work of ministry. That's amazing.

30 · The preacher introduces a Spurgeon quotation as the lens for thinking about ministry: the world has a great need for Christ, and Christians have a great Christ for their needs—the perfect sufficiency for the world's desperate condition

Before our application, just a kind reminder from spurgeon of what he says. I mean, I hope this just becomes the lens as we think about us in full time ministry. We just remember what Spurgeon says here. He says, our world has a great need for Christ. And he says, and we have a great Christ for their needs. Our world has a great need for Christ. But we as christians, as the church of God, we have a great Christ for their needs. Amen.

31 · The preacher gives four concrete application points: (1) identify your mission field and press into open doors, (2) live sacrificially by joining a Sunday team, (3) live submitted to trustworthy people by joining a community group and finding someone to meet with regularly, emphasizing that busy seasons especially require community

A few application points before we wrap up today's sermonous one, identify your ministry and your mission field. All the people you interact with on a weekly basis that's not by chance, press in and to the open doors and be a faithful witness of the gospel in order that others might be saved. But we won't know unless we go live sacrificially if there's anything getting in the way of you serving others. Start by joining a Sunday team. Learn the joys of serving sacrificially three live submitted to trustworthy people often we think, man, my life is so busy, I don't have time for a community group. I don't have time to meet with people and open my life up and receive encouragement from them. But friends, it's exactly in those times when life is busy and when life is stressful that we need community and we need brothers and sisters alongside us to keep our eyes up, focused on Jesus. So live submitted to trustworthy people. Join a community group. Find someone in that group and say, will you be willing to meet with me to just share life?

32 · The preacher applies the love principle specifically to work, reframing jobs from obligations to mission fields and contrasting 'got to do' with 'get to do' ministry

And lastly, do all things in love. I was talking to Steve about this. Just one specific area that I think is helpful here. We all know people that go to work and complain about their job. We all know people that just say, man, I hate my job. I don't even want to be here. I'm just here to collect a check. We all know those people, but there's probably some of us in here as well who go to church or who go to work, but we don't bring love into our workplace. So how can we love work? Through your work as a ministry from the Lord, your job is not an obligation you must fulfill, but a mission field given to you by our gracious heavenly Father. Another thing Steve was mentioning that their church used to say on staff when he was back in Maine at the rock church. He said that they had a saying that was, this ministry is not something I got to do. Ministry is something I get to do. So church, go and do the work of ministry. There's a great need and you are the means the Lord is using to accomplish his saving purposes. And we have a great Christ for those needs.

33 · The preacher closes the sermon and transitions to prayer

Let's pray now.