As I mentioned last week, these messages while they may be about things
that happened 2,000 years ago they apply to us. We, everyone sitting here,
every believer in the world, is a member of The Church. We are the Church, we
are the Body of Christ.
Jesus is not walking around the Earth anymore teaching and performing
miracles. Instead He has us, every person who has chosen to follow Him to do
His work for Him.
Acts 1:8
“8 But
you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you, and you will be My
witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the
earth.”
We are to be His witnesses to our Jerusalem, our
communities and to the world. We are supposed to do everything possible to
spread the Good News about what Jesus did for us and how it can help others. We
are to show His love to everyone we come in contact with.
We are to accomplish God’s plan in this world through
the working of the Holy Spirit. As the Body of Christ in the world we have
different gifts so that we can accomplish this tall task God has given us. ,
Let’s look at some verses in 1 Corinthians chapter 12.
1 Corinthians 12:3
“3 Therefore I am informing you that
no one speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus is cursed,” and no one can
say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.”
If you can sit here and say that Jesus is Lord and mean it with
complete conviction and no doubt, the Holy Spirit is alive in you.
If you believe that Jesus is Lord, I want you to say it with me. ‘Jesus
is Lord’
The Holy Spirit is alive in you! Now that does not mean you are going
to have a flame come and sit on you, but it does mean that God is at work in
you. It also means that the Holy Spirit has gifted you to do something.
1 Corinthians 12:4-6
“4 Now there are different gifts, but
the same Spirit. 5 There are different ministries, but the same
Lord. 6 And there are different activities, but the same God
activates each gift in each person.”
If someone is said to be ‘all thumbs’ that does not mean they have 10
thumbs they are just a little on the clumsy side. They really have all their
digits like the rest of us. God did not create the Body of Christ to be ‘all
thumbs’ or did not made a Body out of all heads, all stomach, or all feet. He
created each person in the Body and gifted them accordingly to fill a specific
need. As these verses said ‘there are different gifts, different ministries,
different activities.’ One God, one Body, but each person has a different job.
The next few verses list some of these gifts from the Holy Spirit.
1 Corinthians 12:8-10
“8 to one is given a message of wisdom
through the Spirit, to another, a message of knowledge
by the same Spirit, 9 to another, faith by the same Spirit, to another, gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10 to another, the performing of miracles, to another, prophecy, to another, distinguishing between spirits, to another, different kinds of languages, to another, interpretation of languages.”
by the same Spirit, 9 to another, faith by the same Spirit, to another, gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10 to another, the performing of miracles, to another, prophecy, to another, distinguishing between spirits, to another, different kinds of languages, to another, interpretation of languages.”
These are the 9 gifts of the Holy Spirit. We do not see these every day
in our lives, but the Holy Spirit is active in the world today.
Different gifts for different people in the Body of Christ.
1 Corinthians 12:12-14
“12 For as the body is one and has
many parts, and all the parts of that body, though many, are one body—so also
is Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one
body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and we were all made to
drink of one Spirit. 14 So the body is not one part but many.”
No matter who we are, what our past is, or what gift
we have been given, if we can say that Jesus is Lord we are members of the Body
of Christ. Every person who attends Clark Baptist and believes in Jesus is a
member of The Body of Christ as well as a member of our local Body. Each one of
us has something that the Holy Spirit has gifted us to do.
As the Church we are Jesus’ arms, legs, mouth, etc… we
are to think like Jesus, act like Jesus, and love others like Jesus loves them.
As the Church we are to carry out that last order that
Jesus gave us, to be witnesses to our Jerusalem and to the entire world.
Romans 1:16
“16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is God’s power for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek.”
Paul started with the Jew but also reached out to the Greek or Gentile, he did not want to miss sharing with anyone. God wants all people, in all parts of the world to hear the Good News of the gift of salvation though the work of Jesus Christ. Paul was one of those tools that God used to reach the lost. As the Body of Christ we are also the tools that He uses.
As most of you know I am a super hero junky. I love super hero movies, the battle between good and evil, the struggle to protect loved ones, and I love learning about their origin story. Superman was born on Krypton and sent to earth as his home exploded. Spiderman was bit by a radioactive spider, Captain America was injected with a super solider formula, and Green Lantern was given a ring by a dying alien. A good origin story grabs your attention and is the start of a great adventure.
Now Paul is not a super hero you would read about in a comic book but he is someone with a remarkable origin story and a role model we should look to. Paul was who God raised up to spread the Gospel to the ends of the earth.
Paul was not always the super missionary and evangelist, when we first read about him we see that he is not a real nice guy.
In Acts chapter 7 we see that the witnesses who stoned the first Christian Martyr Stephen laid their robes at Saul’s feet. And that is nothing.
Acts 8:3
“Saul, however, was ravaging the church. He would enter house after house, drag off men and women, and put them in prison.”
Acts 9:1-2
“Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord. He went to the high priest 2 and requested letters from him to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any men or women who belonged to the Way, he might bring them as prisoners to Jerusalem.”
In super hero talk, Saul was the arch enemy of all Christians. He was spending his life trying to destroy anything that Jesus started. Today we might put him in the same category as the leaders of ISIS or Boko Harem who are out to destroy any they disagree with. Saul hated Jesus and the church and personally hunted down Christians and voted to have them killed.
As usual when we continue reading we see that God is always at work.
Acts 9:3-6
“3 As he traveled and
was nearing Damascus, a light from heaven suddenly flashed around him. 4 Falling
to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” 5 “Who are You, Lord?” he said. “I am Jesus, the One you are persecuting,” He replied. 6 “But get up and go into the city, and you will be told what
you must do.”
Then in verse 15 we see God’s purpose for Saul when God directs Ananias to go pray for him.
Acts 9:15
“15 But the Lord said to him, “Go! For this man is My chosen instrument to take My name to Gentiles, kings, and the Israelites.”
Saul of Tarsus was the least likely candidate to become the world’s first and most renown missionary. He even was amazed that Jesus chose him to be one of His witnesses to share the Gospel to the ends of the earth.
1 Corinthians 15:9
“For I am the least of the apostles, un-worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.”
Through the work of the Holy Spirit Saul became Paul and he spent his life planting 10 churches, that we know of, and wrote 13 of the 27 books in the New Testament.
If you ever wonder if God can use you to reach the lost, think about Paul. He had a hand in killing Christians but was still used by God to reach so many. No matter what bad things we have done or how ill-equipped we feel, God can and will use us, if we let Him.
The one thing we need to do is confess that Jesus is Lord. On the road to Damascus Saul recognized that Jesus was Lord and then a short time later was proclaiming the good news to anyone who would hear. Saul answered the call. That is what each one of us need to do, we have already confessed that Jesus is Lord now we need to answer the call and be His witnesses.
We are to be witnesses.
If we confess that Jesus is Lord the Holy Spirit is alive in us.
Each one of us is part of the Body of Christ and hence have a gift and a calling.
We are to follow Paul’s example and act on our calling.
Why is Paul’s mission to the ends of the earth important to us?
Chances are if you are sitting here this morning you are a gentile in other words not Jewish. It was Paul that God sent out to reach the gentiles. It was his mission to invite us into salvation through Jesus’ death and resurrection.
Starting with the Book of Acts the New Testament is our story. The acts of the apostles are to be the acts of the local church. Like them we are to love others, we are to lift others up, we are to share the message of Jesus, we are to spread that message to every corner of the earth. The mission, we the Church have been given is to be Jesus to our Jerusalem, to our Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.
The church here in Clark and The Church needs ‘all hands on deck’ to complete the mission we have been given. Are you ready to act on your calling?
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