hallmarks of a godly ministry

Romans 15: 14-21

In the last week or so, for a number of different reasons and under a variety of circumstances, I have found myself on several occasions in a position of feeling like I had to defend my ministry.  Granted, the Beach Fellowship is a different kind of ministry, an unusual church.  And perhaps some would think that I have deliberately tried to construct this ministry in order to be different, to be unusual.  And yet I would assure you that is not the case. 

I believe that first and foremost that this is God’s ministry, and God’s church, and I am compelled, or as Paul put it in another place, constrained to preach the gospel, and God has constructed it in this way for His purposes.   And I think that part of the difficulty that some people seem to have with this ministry is that this isn’t church the way they are used to experiencing church.  And while on the one hand that is perhaps part of it’s attraction, at the same time it’s part of the reason that many find it hard to commit to the fellowship, because in their mind, it doesn’t fit the paradigm of what they think church should be like.  We don’t have all the bells and whistles that are normally associated with church.  And I yet in my defense of this ministry, I offer no apology for not having all those appendages that are associated with “normal” churches.  I offer no apology, because I believe that God has formed this ministry as a unique tool, a particular vessel, uniquely designed for this job, in this place and very importantly,  for this particular time which I believe is the end of the age.

Now in today’s passage as we continue in Romans, I believe the Apostle Paul presents some principles here in this closing address as to what a God centered ministry should look like.   Paul is not offering any apology either for the boldness of his letter.  He offers no apology for the directness of the message.  But he defends that boldness as a direct communication of God.  In the opening statements of Paul’s letter he makes it clear that he is not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation.  And that salvation is our goal, it’s our objective.  To save dying souls condemned to eternal damnation by delivering the saving truth of the gospel in a clear, bold, direct way that does not leave man unmoved, but puts the tip of the sword in their heart and forces them to make a choice.  Not just to go to church, or to try to look religious to your social circle, but to come to the point of complete surrender to the gospel of Jesus Christ and submit to it and be obedient to it so that you may live. 

Now there is an obvious, plain intention in the words that Paul writes here, but at the same time, if we look carefully between the lines, we can find several characteristics of a godly church, and particularly of a godly minister which I think are instructive as we examine our ministry and what we are trying to accomplish here.

And Paul starts off in verse 14 with the statement: “And concerning you, my brethren, I myself also am convinced that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able also to admonish one another.”  What Paul is basically saying is that I know you are good people here folks.  I know you have a sincere desire for knowing the truth.   And I would also hope that the majority of the people that come under my message have been born again, or at least they believe in God and believe in God’s word.  In today’s culture, going to church isn’t mandatory the way it used to be in America.  And so I would hope that those that are here are here because of a sincere desire to learn more about God and to worship Him in Spirit and in truth.   And I applaud that.  I want to encourage and stimulate that. 

But at the same time, I realize that not every one has been obedient unto salvation.  There is perhaps an intellectual assent.  There is an intellectual agreement or acknowledgment of certain basic truths.  But maybe there hasn’t as of yet been a genuine conversion.  Or in some cases, there may have been a genuine conversion, but your faith has lain dormant for years, brought out on special occasions perhaps, or called upon from time to time when you found yourself in a crisis, but for the most part, kept on a shelf or in a closet to be used only on occasion.  But perhaps there never has been a complete sanctification as you day by day surrender your will to Christ in obedience. 

And so my ministry has been to call the unsaved to salvation, and call the saved unto sanctification.  To urge a completion of their faith, to become fully conformed to the image of Jesus Christ and completely surrendered in obedience to His will. 

And I think Paul makes it clear that is what he was trying to achieve through his ministry as well.  Let’s look at the next verse. Rom 15:15            “But I have written very boldly to you on some points so as to remind you again, because of the grace that was given me from God, to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, ministering as a priest the gospel of God, so that my offering of the Gentiles may become acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.”

Paul says I have been bold in this ministry in order to remind you of what is necessary for your sanctification, because I have been appointed a minister of Christ Jesus, ministering as a priest the gospel of God, and you are my offering which I present to God, you being accepted and set apart by the Holy Spirit. 

And this is my ministry as well.  This is my mandate from God, my mission which was given to me from God.  Not that I would build a building and call it a church and attract a lot of people with a variety of programs and yet have a large majority unsaved, unaccepted by God, untaught in the gospel which Christ died for, unknowledgeable of what is required of them by God.  No!  God forbid!  2 Cor. 5:14 says I am  constrained by Christ to preach the unadulterated, unfiltered truth of God, whether or not it is popular, or whether or not people accept it, or whether or not we ever build a building, or whether or not I can ever make a livable income from it.  My goal, my ambition is to minister as a priest of God, handling accurately the word of truth, preaching in season and out of season, reproving when necessary, rebuking when necessary with all patience and long suffering.

One of the verses that God used in His call upon my life is 2Tim. 4:1 Paul says, “I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths. But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.”

And I have tried to be faithful to that mandate.  Yet not all endure sound doctrine.  Many turn away from the truth and return to teachers who tickle their ears.  But I have learned that I cannot control that.  Rather I should be steadfast, sober, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, and fulfill my ministry.  God will take care of the results.  God will build His church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

Therefore, since it is the ministry of God then it’s not what I do but what Christ does through me.  Paul says in verse 17, “Therefore in Christ Jesus I have found reason for boasting in things pertaining to God. For I will not presume to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me…”  And while it would be self defeating for a minister to declare that he is humble, I will let you be the judge of that.  But I will tell you that a true minister is a servant of the church.  And humility is a hallmark of a godly pastor.  I will not take credit for anything, other than what God has done through me.

I will tell you this.  God had to break me before He could use me.  He had to humble me.  I used to be fairly successful, and in my field I was well known on a national level, and I thought I could be an effective witness for Christ because I was so successful and had it so together.  I could point to my successes and say, see there – this is how God blesses you if you’re living for Him and wouldn’t you like to be blessed like I am blessed?  And God used a long, long period of trials and testing to pretty much strip me and humble me in every respect.  I may still not be a perfect picture of humility, but brother I can tell you that I have been humbled.  And God keeps me in humbling circumstances to keep me from exalting myself.  And I think due to human nature this is not unique to me only.  God probably will have to do the same thing to you.  And I know that He is already doing it to some of you, so that you will not rely on your own strength, but completely learn to rely on God.

And secondly, another hallmark of a godly ministry is that the minister preaches obedience. Paul preached obedience to the Lord. He not only was humble but he was faithful to preach the necessity of obedience. In verse 18 he says, "For I will not presume to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me, resulting in the obedience of the Gentiles by word and deed…”

Paul saw the message of the gospel as calling people to obedience, calling them to submission to the lordship of Christ. Remember in chapter 6 verse 16, "Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness? But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness."  Listen folks, make no mistake, salvation is to obey from the heart the gospel delivered to you. It begins with an obedience to Christ.  It is the message that I have endeavored to preach from the beginning.  Nothing less than a complete, full submission in obedience to the word of God.  Grace is not a substitute for obedience, but grace is merely the means to obedience.  It is the means of righteousness, and now we are no  longer slaves to sin but slaves to righteousness.

The third hallmark of a godly minister here is he had personal integrity. And we could say Paul was authentic. He was not only humble and faithful but he was genuine. Notice the end of verse 18; "He preached his message to make the Gentiles obedient and the message came by word and deed." And the godly preacher is the preacher who proclaims the genuine word of God, not his own words. I’m not here to tell funny stories, or sad stories.  I’m not going to try to prove how great an orator I am.  I would rather read 10 words of God empowered by the Holy Spirit than speak a thousand words of oratory that comes out of my own wisdom and conceit.  I have come to realize that if our ministry here is to have any power, any worth, it will be because we focus on the word of God, we preach the word of God and we rely on the power of the Holy Spirit to take that word and drive it into men’s hearts, dividing between soul and spirit, joint and marrow and thoughts and intentions of the heart. 

Hebrews 4:12  “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”  The word of God isn’t dry and dull, an afterthought to my message, but the Word of God is alive, and John 1 says the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  The Word is the living power of God, and it is the central thing in this ministry.

And notice also that Paul was authentic because his deeds backed up what he preached.  He lived what he preached.  There is no greater deterrent to the working of the power of God than a disparity in the life of the preacher between his word and his deed. That’s the essence of hypocrisy - of a phony. I can’t help but think of these television preachers who tell you that you need to sacrifice and support their ministry and then live in million dollar mansions and fly all around the country on private jets.  They aren’t feeding the sheep, they are fleecing the sheep.  They are preying on the sheep for their own profit.   And it should come as no surprise when we find out so many of them have lived double lives of debauchery while pretending to be something spiritual.

Fourthly, another hallmark of a godly minister, Paul’s work was given divine affirmation. He was not only humble, he was not only authentic, he was not only a genuine preacher but he was also one who was powerful. And power flows out of everything else, the right message, the message of obedience; the right character, authentic. Out of that comes the flow of power as God authenticates that genuine servant.

Notice verse 19, "in the power of signs and wonders, in the power of the Spirit;" Accompanying the ministry of Paul were mighty signs and wonders by the power of the Holy Spirit. God used those to confirm His word spoken through Paul.  Paul was an apostle, part of the apostolic age.  And the apostles were particularly ordained by God to be the foundation upon which the church would be built.  And so God gave these men the power of the Holy Spirit to work signs and wonders as an affirmation that the revelation they received was from God Himself.  And I believe that this is borne out in scripture.  Whenever God gave new revelation of scripture, He would affirm it with signs and wonders, whether or not it was the apostles, or Old Testament prophets, or Moses.  Each time God gave new scriptural revelation He also gave a authentication through miraculous signs and wonders.

In 2 Corinthians 12:12, Paul said that he was given the signs and wonders and mighty deeds that are the marks of an Apostle. He bore the marks of an Apostle. In Mark 16 verse 20 it says, " the Lord working with them and confirming the Word with signs following." The signs were to authenticate their message, that it might be made known that their message was true.

There is a denomination that exists today that bases it’s whole ministry on the idea that they are able to perform signs and wonders as the apostles did.  And in their attempt to make that claim a reality, I’m afraid they have completely abandoned the word of God, and have become part of this whole new emergent church movement where experience is more highly valued than God’s word.  And as a result, they are quickly becoming apostate.  In other words, rejecting the truth of God’s word for experience.  And the devil can give you an experience.  Don’t be deceived about that.

But God still does signs and wonders today.  I believe in the sovereignty of God. He heals when and where He wants.  But we don’t have the power to manipulate God’s healing.  I was at a Bible conference a couple of years ago and some missionary was speaking and he claimed that somewhere in Africa God brought a dead person to life during a baptism.  And I’m not going to argue whether or not he was telling the truth, or if he was mistaken or deceived, I don’t know.  But this large congregation of over a 1000 people stood up and gave a standing ovation for the statement that a person had been raised from the dead.  But then later on in his message, the man stated that an entire village became saved after hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ.  And I waited for the applause, for the standing ovation, but I didn’t even hear an amen.  Listen folks, there is something wrong with that picture.  God’s greatest miracle and the greatest miracle of any ministry or minister, is seeing men and women saved from spiritual death unto spiritual life.  Jesus said it was a perverted generation that seeks for a sign and neglects the power of the gospel.

Remember when Jesus healed the paralytic that had been let down through the rooftop?  And Jesus said to him first, your sins are forgiven.  And the Pharisees had a problem with that because they said He was blaspheming.  And so Jesus answered, which is easier to say, your sins be forgiven or rise up and walk.  Now, so that you know that I have the power to forgive sins, I say, rise up, take up your bed and walk.  Listen, the greatest miracle is the power of salvation.  The power to forgive sins and change lives.  And the godly minister is going to be concerned with saving souls, not running around claiming to be a faith healer or so called miracle worker.

Finally, the fifth hallmark of a godly ministry is that the minister  preaches the full gospel.  Notice the end of verse 19, Paul has preached all over Asia, and he says, “so that from Jerusalem and round about as far as Illyricum I have fully preached the gospel of Christ.”  Paul said in Acts 20:27,            "For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.”

I made a commitment over 7 years ago when I started this church, to preach the Bible word for word, chapter by chapter and verse by verse.  And one of the benefits of that is it’s difficult not to preach the full counsel of God.  You can’t cherry pick your way through the Bible and just preach stuff that won’t offend people.  Or just preach the stuff that is easy to preach.  You know, there are some preachers that get their messages in the mailbox.  You send off for a series that some group some where cooked up, and they have every thing all laid out for you.  All you really have to do is just deliver it.  They even include all the small group materials and graphics for your video screens and the whole package is available for a price.  And that has become pretty much standard fare today in most pulpits.

Our message doesn’t come out of our mailbox, I can assure you of that.  I may read my messages, but let me tell you that I write every word out of blood, sweat and tears.  But my message comes first and foremost from the exegesis of the word of God.  It comes from a lifetime of Bible study and a lifetime of living out my faith and having it tested in the fire.  It’s not another man’s message, but it’s the message each week that I believe God gives me from His word for this particular time and place.

And in conjunction with this idea Paul says that he didn’t build upon another man’s foundation.  Look at verse 20;  “And thus I aspired to preach the gospel, not where Christ was already named, so that I would not build on another man's foundation;

but as it is written, "THEY WHO HAD NO NEWS OF HIM SHALL SEE, AND THEY WHO HAVE NOT HEARD SHALL UNDERSTAND."

In response to one of the men to whom I was giving a defense of my ministry this week I said that if there had been a church in this area, that I felt was really preaching and teaching and living out the full counsel of God, was basing their ministry on the unadulterated truth of God’s word, then I would have joined that ministry.  I would not have started another work.  But as I looked around this area, I was a part of a couple of different congregations for a while, and I became convinced that while they had some good people there, some good intentions perhaps, there was not an emphasis on the gospel as the power of God unto salvation that there needed to be.  There may have been a great deal of emphasis on programs, and building a building, or attracting a crowd, but the truth of the gospel was lacking.  And the Bible says that for lack of knowledge, and for lack of vision, the people perish. I saw that people were perishing for lack of a preacher who preached the word of God, and so I volunteered. Rom 10:14 “How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher?”

And so I commit my ministry to what Paul committed his ministry to, the preaching of the full counsel of God so that the people who are perishing shall have their eyes opened that they might see, and they who have not heard the truth of the gospel would understand. John 8: 32 Jesus said, “you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”

For Paul, this passage presents a definition of his ministry. He was a priest who offered a sacrifice to God and that sacrifice was people who had offered their lives as a sacrifice to God to be used for His glory. And Paul’s ministry is the standard for my ministry. I want to follow his example.  Not to follow man’s paradigm for church planting, but to follow Paul’s paradigm. And I trust that you also are challenged by this commitment to proclaiming the full gospel of Jesus Christ, in word and deed, in signs and wonders, through changed lives in this community, and through the visitors that come who carry this flame back into their communities, wherever they are from.  I pray that you will have a genuine commitment to obedience, to follow the Lord fully, completely and offer your own life in a sacrifice to God to be used for His glory.  God invites you to participate in this ministry.  I pray that you will.