Importance of Ministry

Mark 2: 2-12

Frank Boreham of Australia had a friend whom everyone in town called, Uncle Jed.
He had a reputation in the community as Mr. Fixit.
If anything went wrong, they called Uncle Jed.
He could fix it.

One day Uncle Jed was putting a new hinge on an old gate.
Frank Boreham was watching with admiration.
Boreham mentioned that Uncle Jed was always fixing something.

Uncle Jed replied by saying there were only four sorts of things in the world,
and only one of them was his business, and he would like to do that well.
Pressed for an explanation, he described the four sorts of things in the world as he saw them.
First of the things that never needed repair; he did not need to worry over them.
Then there were the things that could not be fixed. He saw no need to fret over them.
Some things will repair themselves if given a fair chance; Uncle Jed saw no need
to go meddling with them.
But there were also the things that would go from bad to worse unless someone repaired them.
That was his business, and he enjoyed doing it well.

That also is ministry.
Ministry is the attempt to bring help and healing where it is needed.
It occurs because someone cares.
The ministry of the serving church and the caring Christian is written deeply and indelibly
into the Christian life.
The caring concern that results in ministry to others started with Jesus Christ.
Throughout His ministry, He would reach out into the crowd and touch the life of an individual
in order to minister to his need and to give him hope.

One occasion, Jesus was in Capernaum. (Mark 2: 1)
Through teaching, answering questions, and healing by God's power, Jesus had attracted
such a crowd of people that no one else could enter the house.
Then, some enterprising men brought a paralyzed friend to Jesus.
Undeterred by the fact that they could not enter the house, the determined friends climbed
the flat roof of the house, tore a hole in the roof and lowered the man on his palette
right down before the Master.

Three of the Gospels tell this story. (Mark 2: 2-12; Matthew 9: 1-8 and Luke 5: 17-26)

In the midst of a crowd, ministry was carried out.
Jesus responded to the faith of the friends and healed the man.
But He also gave the man more than he asked for: Jesus forgave the man's sins.
In this experience, we can see some of the things that will happen when we care enough to minister.

The purpose of ministry is to bring people to Jesus Christ.
There were four friends who were needed to hold a rope at each end of the pallet,
and they were determined to bring their friend to Jesus.
Ministry always has the underlying purpose of bringing people to Jesus.

Ministry can be expressed in many different ways.
Ministry may be…

But the ultimate intention is that, through the care of others, people might be brought
into the presence of Jesus.
When Jesus saw the faith of the friends who had brought the man to him, he told the man
that his sins were forgiven.
Bringing people into the presence of Jesus results in the forgiveness of sin and to a new life.
When we bring a person into the presence of Jesus through a caring ministry,
we have done all that we can do.
We cannot force forgiveness on him.
We cannot make him believe.
We cannot coerce him into the Kingdom of God.

At that time, the grace of God moves into his life to remake him as God intended.
The friends could bring the man to Jesus; but they could not heal him.
Only Jesus could do that.

A man described his conversion at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.
He said that he once had a very intricate watch.
When something went wrong with it, he knew he could not fix it.
He knew that his best hope to have it fixed was to take it to the man who knew
the inner workings of a watch.
It dawned on him one day that his life was like that watch: intricate, yet wrong in the works.
He had tried to fix it himself, but could not.
He realized that his best and only hope was to go humbly to his Maker and ask Him
to straighten him out.

The possibilities for ministry are everywhere.
Many people would have a look at the crowd around Jesus and despaired.
They would have seen the crowded house and come to the conclusion that there was
no possibility for ministry there.

But the possibilities for ministry abound.
They are limited only by our imagination and ingenuity. ...

None of us would have to look far to find a lot of grief and pain that we could sit beside.
All around us are people who hurt.
People who are left-out.
People who are lonely and hungry and wounded.
The sorrowing people who are alone in the world.

We have no way of knowing whether the friends in this Gospel account were relatives or neighbors.
But we do know that they were people who saw the possibility of ministry because
they had sat beside some grief and pain.

As we look at this encounter of Christ with the paralytic man in the crowd, we can see
something about doing ministry.
Priority is the first matter in the carrying out of ministry.
These persons had ministry as a priority.
If ministry had not been a priority for them, they would have become discouraged and left.
But because ministry was a priority to them, the man was brought to Jesus, and was healed.

Ministry is never done automatically or accidentally.
It is done because someone thought it was important enough to act.

Patience is also an element in ministering.
Had these friends been impatient people, ministry would never have happened.
And this man would never have been either healed or forgiven.

Most of us act like what one bumper sticker which said:
" Lord, give me patience and give it to me now!"
We do not want to wait for something to develop.
We want it instantly.

These friends who cared patiently figured out a plan and carried it out.
They removed the roofing material and lowered the man on his pallet into the presence of Jesus.

But there really can never be ministry without persistence.
Persistence paid off.
Less persistent people would have returned home.

Augustine, bishop of Hippo, became a saintly scholar.
But he had lived a wild life as a youth.
His mother, Monica, was a Christian who pled with him, preached to him, and prayed for him.
He left North Africa to go to Italy, and his mother had given up hope that he would ever find Christ.

A Christian pastor assured her that it was impossible for a child of such tears and prayers to perish.
And he did not.
In Italy, Augustine found a crisis through the preaching and the direction of Ambrose.
Persistence brought him to Christ.

Persistence in ministry will pay off with spiritual dividends, and persistence will find ways to minister.

The promise of ministry is forgiven sin and a renewed life.
When Jesus saw the man before Him, He said, " Man, your sins are forgiven you." (Luke 5: 20)
The statement of Jesus upset the religious leaders who were in the house.
They murmured that no one could forgive sins but God.

That was the point!
Jesus was acting in the power of God to forgive sin.
This is the promise of ministry.
When people are brought into the presence of Jesus, their sins can be forgiven,
and the can have life eternal.
Jesus did exactly what He promised.

The spiritual was demonstrated and proven through the physical.
Jesus knew that the religious leaders were questioning His ability to forgive sin.
So, He asked them which would be easier to say: one's sins were forgiven or
he was healed of paralysis.
Obviously, it would be easier to say that sins are forgiven.
That is an internal thing and very difficult to prove.
But in order for them to know that Jesus had the power to forgive sins, he commanded the man
to rise up and walk.
And he did.

In the anxious Jew's understanding of illness, there was a relationship between sin and sickness.
By Jesus forgiving the man's sins, there could be no doubt that his life had been renewed.
Both physically and spiritually, he had been made right with God.

Jesus was able to demonstrate His spiritual power by His physical healing results.
That's the only way some people will ever understand spiritual power.
That is also the promise of ministry.
Spiritual power can be demonstrated by physical change.

In his memorable sermon, " Handling Life's Second Bests," Harry Emerson Fosdick told
of William Duncan who gave himself to the cause of missions.
As a missionary he was sent by his mission board to a little Indian Island called
Metlakatle off Alaska.
These Indians were a poor, ignorant, miserable tribe.
Their morals were vile beyond description.

Dean Brown of Yale University visited that little island after William Duncan had been there for 40 years.
He reported that every Indian family lived in a separate house with all the decent appointments
of home life.
They had a bank, a cooperative store, a saw mill, a box factory, and a salmon cannery run
by Indians in a profitable industry.

There was a school where Indian boys and girls learn to read, write, think, and live.
There was a church where an Indian minister preached the gospel of eternal life.
An Indian musician, who was once a medicine man was playing a tom-tom,
and also played a pipe organ.
The congregation of Indians sang the great hymns of the church to the praise of God.

This all became possible because a man named William Duncan cared and showed
spiritual power through physical actions.

When the people in that crowded house saw what had happened,
" Amazement seized them all, and they glorified God and were filled with awe, saying,
'We have seen strange things today." (Luke 5: 26)

Certainly, strange things happen when ministry is performed.
These are things of spiritual power that occur when the people of God minister.
When out of the crowd that surrounded Jesus that day ministry was carried out
and a life was totally changed.
Strange and amazing things can become commonplace as ministry is performed.

C. W. Brister was a professor of mine in Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Some years ago, Dr. Brister wrote a book entitled, People Who Care.
When he mentioned the title to a friend, the friend replied by asking,
" Do you mean that there are still some of those people around?"

There are some of those people around.
Many are sitting here in this congregation.
There will always be some of those people around as Christ touches and transforms them
from out of the crowd.

Sermon adapted by Dr. Harold L White