Sermon Tone Analysis

*Discipleship Training*

*Your Loving Ministry in the Local Church*

* *

What a privilege to be part of a church family!

For all of our weaknesses and sinfulness and struggles, we are a group of God’s children that He has brought together for His sake.

We are family in Christ.

We are ambassadors for Christ in this area.

We’re coming up on 6 years of being a local church here.

How do we keep maturing, keep growing as a church?

What steps do we need to take in the next year to be ready to parent another church, and send some of our people to Grace in Rancho?

We’re going to take a two week break from our normal pattern of working our way through chapters and books of the Bible, and search biblical answers to these questions.

Earlier this year we decided that it was a wise time to take a step forward in terms of our facility.

The Lord provided for us to make the move here to the college, which is a much more prominent, accessible location in Menifee.

We’re spending some money to try to advertise, we just had a team here working very hard canvassing for us, we’ll have three GOnights before August 2, we’ll each be individually inviting and reaching out as we can.

Obviously, we are trying to act aggressively.

The economic situation could tempt us to retreat, but instead it should spur us on to reach out as ambassadors for Christ.

But unless the Lord builds the house those who build it labor in vain.

And so we must be people who pray.

We cannot slip into the mindset that ministry activity produces eternal results.

(pause) And so last Sunday night you had a prayer meeting – I hope you took the time to go.

(I don’t know who went.)

This Wednesday night the ladies meet to pray.

Next Wednesday night the men meet to pray.

This emphasis on aggressive activity + humble dependence is reflected in Paul’s words in I Corinthians 15:10: /but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me/.

As Paul labored diligently the grace of God accomplished the work through him.

So we combine aggressive activity with diligent prayer.

When you have done that, you leave the results up to God.

We’re excited about August 2, and open house, and the opportunity to advertise and invite.

But whether anyone comes or not on August 2 is really not our concern IF we have labored diligently and prayed diligently.

No need to be disappointed, discouraged.

No need to set numbers of inflate expectations.

Labor hard, pray hard, and then you can just rest in the Lord for the rest.

/But what if?/  What if God does bless our efforts and our prayers by bringing people-contacts for us?

Every people-contact is a stewardship from God.

Every person in this church family is a stewardship from God, and every new contact is a stewardship from God.

Each person is a God-given responsibility, and each new contact is a God-given responsibility.

So, are we ready for that stewardship?/

/If God chooses to entrust us with people contacts, are we ready to faithfully fulfill that opportunity?/

/That question lies behind everything we will do for the next three weeks.

Our church places a major emphasis on the first greatest commandment – love God with all that you are.

We put a strong emphasis on the majesty of God and on our relationship with God and responsibilities to our Creator, Savior, and Father.

But that emphasis needs to be supplemented with an emphasis on the second greatest commandment – love your neighbor as yourself.

If you have the second without the first, you have liberal Christianity: run a food bank, give out socks at Christmas, but God and the gospel are nowhere to be seen.

So you can’t do that – you can’t make the second greatest commandment the only commandment.

But once you lay the foundation of the first greatest commandment, love for others flows out of that.

As John emphasizes so clearly in his epistles, love for others is always a mark of a true Christian.

This is not love in the world’s sense: I think you’re cute and I think you’ll make me happy, so we’re in love let’s get married.

The love of the second commandment is the love pictured at Calvary as Jesus is murdered unfairly because of his love for rebels.

It’s that kind of love.

Here’s my point: for us to be good stewards of people contacts, for us to be prepared for the stewardship of a growing church, we must not only be a church anchored in the first greatest commandment, but we must also be a church characterized by loving ministry, in both evangelism and discipleship.

Why would God allow our church to grow if we aren’t ready to faithfully minister to the new people?

Why would God entrust anyone else to us if we are not characterized by loving ministry?

I’m not saying that we aren’t!

But for the next two weeks we are going to focus on how we can be a church characterized by loving ministry.

So that on August 2, or any other time, when God chooses to bring people contacts, we’re ready.

And at the same time, we’re also further equipping ourselves for ministry to one another within the church family.

How could you recognize a church characterized by loving ministry?

What would that look like?

It would be a church where a single adult struggling with unfulfilled dreams would find people who don’t just glibly say “That’s God’s will for you, Amen,” but come alongside that person with compassion and be a family for them, and encourage them to take the next step with Christ.

A church where when mom and dad bring their teenagers, they can expect that other adults will seek to interact with their teens and point them to God.

A church where there is not a big division between youth and adult, but where there is God-centered interaction between the two.

A church where it’s normal for people to stop and pray together on the spot about a need.

A church where a person with learning disabilities is not shunned, but people are willing to invest for the long term in them.

A church where the person living through the ravages of cancer finds that the church family draws to them instead of away from them.

A church where men are humble enough and God-centered enough to speak to one another about their hearts, to encourage each other to godliness.

A church where the parents struggling with their kids find help instead of glares.

A church where someone can walk in dressed inappropriately, talking inappropriately, and they are met by people who see their potential through grace, instead of the surface issues.

A church where two women talk after church, and recognize that they are starting to gossip about someone, and they stop and find a quiet place and pray instead.

A church where the elderly widower finds people who are willing to walk beside him through the valley of the shadow of death.

A church where the people pray for the church leadership, and actively pursue strengthening and encouraging them.

A church where a woman could admit sin, and the other women wouldn’t shy away, but reach out with loving encouragement and accountability.

A church where an immigrant, who feels out of place or misunderstood finds people who love him in Christ, and are willing to put in the hard work to overcome the cultural barriers or language barriers and help.

A church where visitors sense that these people really want me to grow in Christ.

If I want to grow, I can tell that these people would do anything to help me.

Of course we could keep going, but that helps me get a more concrete glimpse of what loving ministry looks like.

And many of those things happen here, but we can do more.

We can do better.

We can continue to mature and grow in loving ministry.

*My prayer: that each one of you would say “I commit myself to God to do my part to see a culture of loving ministry here at Grace Bible Church.”*

That’s the goal for the next two weeks, and it will unfold in three parts: in the rest of our time now, we’ll be talking about the church family’s need for you.

In the next hour, we’ll consider your need for the church family.

Then next Sunday, we’ll consider your role in a growing church, your role in our stewardship of the people contacts that God brings to us.

Again I am praying that each one of you would say “I commit myself to God to do my part to see a culture of loving ministry here at Grace Bible Church.”

*This church family needs your loving ministry*

* *

Let’s work backwards through that phrase.

/Ministry /

Ministry is what happens when you play a part in someone else’s growth toward Christlikeness.

That might involve evangelism or what we usually call discipleship, but you play a part in someone else’s growth toward Christlikeness.

That’s ministry.

And you do that primarily by being an instrument to bring God’s Word to people.

/Loving  /

Biblical love is a sacrificial commitment to what is best for someone else.

Ministry takes sacrifice, and that is why ministry must be driven by love.

We will quit if we are not driven by sacrificial love for God and others.

So the phrase “loving ministry” means that you, out of sacrificial love, play a part in the growth toward Christlikeness of other people.

Now the whole phrase says: This church family needs your loving ministry.

You may well have loving ministry outside of this church – I’m not ignoring that.

But my focus these two weeks is on this church that God has brought together.

This church family needs your loving ministry.

I can say it a little more strongly: you have a stewardship here, a God-given responsibility here.

TURN TO I Cor.