How to be Effective in Your Ministry Part 1

Pastor Mike will be speaking on How to Live a Transformed Life Part 2. He will be reading out of Acts 9:32-43.

All we got to do is bring them to the understanding that our hope is not in government, our hope is not in the economy, our hope is not in the stock market, our hope is not in our assets, our hope is not what we have physically and tangibly and materially and financially.

Our hope is in Jesus Christ. Hello this is Pastor Mike Sanders and this is Hope Worth Having radio program. We’re delighted to be with you today and looking forward to what God has for us as we’re going to be in the book of Acts chapter 9 and we’re studying how to be effective in your ministry.

When we look at the life of the Apostle we know that he certainly was an example of effective ministry so we’re going to look into the Word of God and see what that standard is and what it’s like to be effective for God.

So join me as we study together. I want you to come to Acts chapter 9 we’re gonna be studying verse 32 through 43 and I want to talk this morning about how to be effective in your ministry. A truth that we all need to believe every believer is called to ministry that may seem profound to you but it is basic understanding in the scriptures.

Every one of you that loves Jesus Christ and that has received Christ as your Lord and Savior you have been called to ministry. God is calling all believers to serve him. The Bible tells us in Romans chapter 12 verse 6 and 7 where the Apostle was teaching about how believers are equipped with spiritual gifts and he said having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us let us you and he refers to one of those gifts as being ministry.

Let us use it in our ministering. When we think of this word ministry in the Greek, it is the idea of serving. You’ve heard it referred to as maybe deacon, is the Greek word diakonos, and it means to serve tables.

It means to serve others in a tangible way, in a physical way. And what God is calling all of us to do is to be a minister. The church, when it gathers, is not simply a place where we just sit and we learn and then we leave.

Too many believers look at that’s the scope of their faith. They come on Sunday, they sit in the pew, they learn a few things from the pastor, and they go home, never. ever thinking about what has God called me to do and what am I to do with what I have learned?

But I wanna remind you in Ephesians 2 .10 that the Bible says we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God has before ordained that we should walk in them. You are his workmanship.

That is the idea of a masterpiece, an artistic painting in that God is painting a beautiful picture on the canvas of your life. And as you and I respond to him, what he has already preordained in our life, what he has already purposed in our life, what he has already called us to do, he is saying, walk in that plan, walk in that purpose.

God has gifted every believer. God has gifted every person that loves the Lord Jesus Christ. He has gifted you that you might serve him. Now the Lord has called us to believe. He’s called us to believe on him for salvation.

He has also called us to belong. He has called us to belong to a local church family where we have the opportunity to be able to grow and to be nurtured, strengthened, cared for and to be able to be held accountable that we might be all that God wants us to be.

But I want you to understand the Christian life is more than believing and it’s more than just belonging for you have been called to minister. You have been called to serve. And specifically, at the outset of your ministry, you are called to serve each other as believers.

And we need to understand that we need each other. You know, some people say, well, I don’t need to go to church. Well friends, here’s the thing. You’re misunderstanding what it’s all about. First, as I told you a few weeks ago, I need to come to church because not because I’m perfect, because I figured everything out, but I come to church because I need Jesus Christ, because I’m broken, because I realize that I need to come to a place where there’s healing and there’s hope and there’s help.

I need to come to a place where the grace of God is being poured out upon me. I need to come to a place to be with the believers where I can receive the ministry of the believers, that I can enjoy the blessings of being engaged with God’s people.

And I can’t take time to break all that down for you, but rest assured, the people that say I don’t wanna go to church, or the people that say I’m gonna stay out of church are only arrogantly saying I don’t need God this week.

How about that one? That’s right, that’s right. You say, well, Mike, I can go out on the lake and I can worship God. Who said you couldn’t? Did you ever think that I was up here teaching that there’s only one place to worship God?

Did you think that? I’m not here because it’s the only place to worship God. I am here because we are called to come together and we are called to minister to each other. Now here’s the deal. If I’m called to minister to you and you’re called to minister to me and I’m not here to minister to you, you miss out.

And if I’m not here to minister, then I miss out. You’re not here, I’m not here, we all stay home. And let me tell you something, you can’t reach your full potential in Christ without being in community with God’s people.

It’s just an impossibility. You can’t maximize your potential for Christ and be all that God wants you to be. Now look, I understand some people are coasting. All they wanna do is coast into heaven, just make it by the skin of my teeth and praise the Lord, I’m here.

But for me, I just gotta be honest with you. I’m an all in guy. I’m all in for Jesus, 100%, not up here bragging. I’m not up here trying to be pious or somehow try to think I’m better than you because that’s not the truth.

The ground is level at the foot of the cross, but I don’t jump into anything halfway. We’re either all in or we’re not. And that’s the way I am as a believer and as a follower, been that way ever since I came to Christ.

And I just want you to know that there has to come to that moment in your life that you recognize it’s not just a duty, not just a command, but that there’s actually a ministry that God has for me when I come together with the believers.

That God wants me to serve others. He wants me to be a blessing to others. And that when I come to the family of God, that I am here to minister to you and you are here to minister to me. Have you ever considered that?

That God has called you to minister to other people and certainly in the household of faith. Now we come to Acts chapter nine and we have been learning as we’ve been tracking through Acts chapter nine, that really the book of Acts is.

is about God revealing to us the acts of the apostle and what they did for Christ as they were carrying on his work and they were carrying on his mission and they were carrying on his cause throughout the world.

The outline of the book of Acts is found in Acts 1 .8. That is that they are to take this gospel, they’re to take this good news onto Jerusalem, Samaria and to the uttermost parts of the earth. And as we have been watching how the church was under in chapter four and chapter five under persecution and the Bible says that that led to the scattering of the church and they spread out everywhere that they could go and then in chapter seven,

we are featured the ministry of Stephen as he is stoned to death for preaching the gospel to the people in Jerusalem and this would lead to greater scattering of God’s people and then in chapter eight, we’re introduced to the ministry of Philip.

who is sent to witness to the gospel. We see that Philip is going to different towns and different cities and he is ministering to people and then the Holy Spirit spoke to Philip and said, leave the crowd and go minister to this man, this one person in a chariot.

And there Philip left the crowd and he went and ministered to this one person and that person, the Ethiopian, he came to Christ, he became a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. Last week we learned about Saul.

Saul was a antagonizer of the church, a persecutor of the church. Go back to verse one of chapter nine, then Saul still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord. He was a person who was persecuting the church, but you and I witnessed in those beginning verses of Acts chapter nine, how Saul came to know the Lord Jesus Christ as his savior.

Today we pick up in verse 32. And now the focus goes from Saul to back to Peter, this great leader in the church, this man who is serving and he stands as an example for us on how to effectively minister wherever you may be, wherever God has called you because Peter’s ministry was one of great power and effectiveness.

Want you to pick up with me in verse 32, the Bible says now it came to pass as Peter went through all parts of the country, that he also came down to the saints who dwelt in litter. There he found a certain man who had been bedridden eight years and was paralyzed.

And Peter said to him, Jesus the Christ heals you, arise and make your bed. And then he arose immediately. Look at verse 35. So all who dwelt in litter and Sharon saw him. That is, they saw the ministry of Peter.

And what did they do? They turned to the Lord. Let me give you some things real quickly that talk about how to be effective in my ministry. You might say, Pastor Mike, I don’t have ministry. Let me ask you something.

Do you have a family? Do you have people that you come in contact with? Are you in the church that you have ministry? It’s not that you don’t have ministries that you need to activate it. You need to get engaged.

You need to get involved. And you do remember that if you’re a mom and dad today, your first ministry is to your children. If you’re a grandparent today, your first ministry is to your grandchildren.

But don’t ever think that you don’t have ministry. When Terry and I were raising our three children, we always felt that that was our first mission field. And we felt that not only when they came to Christ, our job was not only to help them to know and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, but it was our job to disciple.

them to become strong believers, fully engaged in the gospel, fully engaged in the church family, committed to the Lord Jesus Christ. This is what I’m saying to you. This is your task before you. If you say, I don’t have a ministry, which I know you do, but just look around, right around you, there are people that God has placed in your life and you do have ministry.

So how do I become effective in that ministry, Pastor? Number one, be aware of people’s needs. I want you to see in the life of Peter that as he is traveling, the Bible says in verse 32 that Peter went through all parts of the country and he came down to the saints who dwelt in Liddah.

And then we find later that he is in Sharon. And then we see in verse 36 that he’s in Joppa. So Peter, he was ministering everywhere that he went, you see the gospel is reaching new areas. You jump back to chapter eight and verse 40, remember Philip, Philip was found at Azatas and passing through, he preached in all the cities till he came to Caesarea.

And here’s the point, everywhere the disciples went, everywhere that the apostles went, everywhere that the people went, they were ministering and they were aware of the people’s needs. You see friends, I want you to know that there are needs everywhere you go.

I want you to understand that you don’t have to think that you know what, there’s no needs because there’s needs everywhere. Why are there needs? Because we live in a simple world. We live in a selfish world.

We live in a world where people’s lives are messed up. Sometimes it’s their own fault, sometimes it’s not their fault. But here’s the point, they’re looking, they’re looking for help. And that’s why everywhere God puts you, every place that God puts you, every family that God puts you in, every work spot that God has for you, there is a job for you to do.

Because there’s not one person. who is unimportant to the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, I want you to see something. This is profound what Luke is doing under the inspiration of the Spirit of God. As you are walking through and you are witnessing going chapter to chapter and you are seeing the spreading of the gospel, you’re seeing the disciples taking it to Samaria and to the uttermost parts of the earth,

there is an undercurrent that is taking place. What is this undercurrent? It is that God is showing. Not only his disciples, but he is showing all of us who would read this later that there’s not one person that is not important to God.

You see, in this culture that Peter is ministering in, women were devalued as only being property. The Samaritans were considered unclean and that they were to be avoided and that they were not to be interacted with.

Gentiles were considered outside of the salvation of God, and the sick were considered left to themselves, but it is the gospel of Jesus Christ that Luke keeps bringing up as the physician, as he shows that Peter and Philip are ministering to people who doesn’t matter what walk of life, what their education is, what they might be experiencing, and what they might be facing in their life, that they’re all important to the Lord Jesus Christ.

That’s why I’m trying to say to you is that you need to be aware of people’s needs because people matter to God. Every person on this planet is important to God, and that God wants to use your life to minister to them.

For you to be effective, you need to be aware of this. How do I do that first? Notice the hurting. There are hurting people everywhere you go. So how do I do that? I gotta focus on others. I can’t get up and say, it’s all about me today.

You know what, I gotta get up every day and say, Lord, who can I minister to? Lord, help me to be aware and alert to my opportunities to minister to somebody else. You see, some of you are going through some challenges in life.

You’re going through some rough patches in your life. You’re facing some difficult situations. Here’s the key to your healing. The key to your healing is not to become self -focused and have a pity party.

The key to your healing is to jump out of yourself and focus on others and let God use your hurt and use your pain and use your problem and use your challenges as a platform to share the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

To have spiritual conversations, to encourage people to turn their lives over to the Lord and to recognize that God is at work in every life and that even you as a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ, even you as a person who might be facing some trials in your life that God could use those trials, that you could not only encourage other people, but that you could help others to find and know the Lord Jesus Christ.

So how can I be aware of people’s need is by focusing on others, looking outward, rather than always focused on my problems and my pain and what I’m dealing with. But invert that and say, Lord, how do you want to use this so I can reach other people?

Another way to be aware of people’s needs is always looking for opportunities. I mean, when you go into your day, say, Lord, don’t say, why me, Lord? But say, Lord, what are you up to here? What are you up to here, Lord?

There’s something going on. You’re trying to put people in my path so I can reach them for the Lord Jesus Christ. Look for opportunities because God has wonderful opportunities for you each and every day.

But you must be prepared to take advantage of those opportunities when they come. I also want to encourage you to reach out to the hopeless. You see, there are so many people. You look at this man in verse 33.

Would you note again that he was bedridden for eight years? He was paralyzed for eight years? For eight years, it was well known in the community when Peter showed up, people probably told Peter about this guy.

Peter was probably wanting to know who are the people that are hopeless? Who are the people that are struggling? Peter walks into this community and he doesn’t want to meet with the high and affluent.

He doesn’t want to meet with the religious. He doesn’t want to meet with the most educated. He wants to find the people that are hurting and hopeless. And he says, I want to go meet with them. Shows up at this guy’s place, wherever he is, and he does great ministry to him.

What Luke records for us in verse 34 is that Peter said to him, Jesus the Christ heals you, arise and make your bed. And then he arose immediately. Remember that the Bible is like a photo album. Now I know in the old days, we used to have physical photo albums.

How many of you still have a physical photo album? You haven’t looked at it for 10, 12 years, right? Maybe 20, I don’t know. But see, now they have these photo albums on your phone. Isn’t that nice? And you can share it with your family and it digitally lives forever and ever.

And so here you have these beautiful photos, but you know a photo doesn’t capture every detail, does it? But it gives you a summation of what happened. That’s what’s happening when we’re looking at Peter’s ministry.

We’re seeing the summation of what is happening. Sometimes we have to be led of the spirit to see and understand between the lines. And you don’t have to be brilliant. You just gotta have common sense.

Peter showed up at this guy’s place and he ministered to him. And at the conclusion of his ministry to him, he said, Jesus, the Christ heals you. Arise, make your bed, then he arose immediately. So all of that, verse 35, who dwelt at Lydda and Sharon saw him, saw the ministry of Peter and they turned to the Lord.

The gospel of Jesus Christ rests in the hope of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ comes to bring hope to all. I know some of you are, worried about all the problems that are going on in this country, all the things that are happening in this world, but let me tell you something.

I see it as an opportunity because when the darkness is at its greatest, that is that the light will shine its brightest. This is an opportunity for us to have spiritual conversations, to communicate, to interact with people, and as they’re trying to express their frustrations, all we gotta do is bring them to the understanding that our hope is not in government, our hope is not in the economy, our hope is not in the stock market,

our hope is not in our assets, our hope is in not what we have physically, and tangibly, and materially, and financially, our hope is in Jesus Christ. Do you believe that? If you believe that message, friend, that I want you to walk out of this place today and take that hope to every person God puts in your path, we’re learning how to be effective by being aware of people’s needs.

That’s all Peter did. But the second thing we’ll note about how Peter was effective is that… He was always exalting Christ. Be Christ exalting. We back up and we again look at verse 34. Peter said to him, Jesus the Christ healed you.

Wasn’t Peter who healed him? But it was Jesus the Christ heals you. The Bible teaches us for other foundation can no man lay than that is laid which is Jesus Christ. The foundation of your salvation is Jesus Christ.

You can’t be saved any other way but by Christ the Bible tells us that Jesus proclaimed, I am the way, the truth and the life and no man comes to the Father except by me. You cannot be saved by any other way except through the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Bible says for by grace are you saved through faith that not of yourselves. It is a gift of God not of works lest any man should boast. You cannot work your way to heaven. You can’t be good enough to go to heaven because you would always fall miserably short.

That’s what it means to sin. The Bible tells us that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. We all fall short. There is nobody perfect but praise the Lord, Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins.

He paid the price for our sins and when we come to Christ by faith that he blesses us with eternal life. The foundation of your salvation is Jesus Christ. Now hang on. The foundation of your ministry is Jesus.

The foundation of Peter’s ministry was Jesus Christ. And you’ll note that we see in the Gospel of Luke and in the Gospel of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John is that they’re constantly lifting up Christ. And here Luke in the book of Acts as he is documenting through the power of the Spirit of God, through the inspiration of the Spirit of God, he is documenting the ministry of the apostle Peter.

He notes that he always exalted Christ. He exalted. We go back to chapter two and verse 36. We see that Peter refers to him as the righteous and the holy one. We jump over to chapter three. He is referred to as the Son of God, meaning Jesus Christ.

And then we come to chapter nine. He is referred to as the Messiah. And here, Peter says, Jesus the Christ. Jesus the Christ, even Philip preached Christ. In the synagogues, Saul, Saul, that Christ was lifted up.

It convicted his heart and drew him to Christ. What I wanna say this, Jesus made a promise to us. If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto me. How about that? If I be lifted up, you see what he means is this, is Christ is saying is that if I am lifted up, that I will draw all kinds of people from all walks of life, from all nationalities, from all people groups, I will draw them all to me.

They will come and they will believe. Does that mean every person will believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? And that’s not what he’s trying to say. He is saying from all walks of life, people will come and receive the Lord Jesus Christ if I be lifted up.

Now friends, how can you be effective in your ministry? Lift up Jesus. Lift up Jesus Christ. Always exalt him. Don’t lift up you. Don’t lift up what you’ve accomplished. Always lift up the person of Christ because our ministry is nothing without Jesus.

The Bible teaches us that Jesus proclaimed you can do nothing without me. You say, well, look at my skills. Look at my abilities. Look at me. Look how great I am. I wanna tell you friends, anything that is accomplished in you, through you and around you is because of Jesus Christ.

It is his good work in you. He deserves all the credit. He deserves all the glory. And so if we wanna be effective in ministry, we must exalt him and we exalt him by exalting his person, exalting his power.

It was the power of God that raised up this man who for eight years was bedridden. Eight years he was paralyzed. It was the power of God. And I want you to recognize that God has wired you. He has designed you.

He has called you to a task and you can do whatever God has called you to do by his power and through his grace. Now some of you, you got the I can’t attitude. I can’t do this. Well, first of all, I tell people the Bible teaches us that we can do all things through Christ, amen.

Now I used to coach basketball. God helped those little girls who I used to coach and those middle school girls would say to me, I would show them how to do a layup and they’d look me right square. in the face and they’d say, coach, I can’t do that.

And I said, first of all, if you’re gonna be on this team, there ain’t gonna be no, I can’t. Like, you just need to go into your dictionary and I know people don’t have dictionaries anymore, but see, all my illustrations are being thrown out the window by technology, okay?

But in the old days, we had these books called dictionaries and we would cut out the word can’t because it doesn’t belong, because, you know, Jesus said I can do all things. But then I would tell the girls that they had to do a book report on the little train that could.

You guys remember the story of the little train that could? The few of us left, okay. Now you young people, if you don’t know that, you just go out there and Google that and you’ll find it somewhere on YouTube or somewhere.

But here’s the thing is this, we can. We can be a minister for God. We can minister in His power. We can minister in His grace. Who’d have ever thought? that maybe something, some of you look at your life and say, man, I would never be where I’m at without the power of God, amen.

If it were not for the power of God, we could not achieve anything effectively for God, but when we rest in his power, when we rest in his strength, then he will always meet the need. But I also want you and your Christ exalting to exalt his person, his power, but his purpose, his purpose.

We come down and I want you to see in verse 35 real quick. So all who dwelt at Lydda and Charon saw him and they turned to the Lord. Friends, do you know why God sent Peter to these towns so that people would be saved?

Do you know why God raised this man who had been paralyzed for eight years to be able to walk so people would be saved? I want you to remember that as we are witnessing here, they turn to the Lord. It is a reference to turning away from sin, that they are turning away from sin and they are turning to the Lord Jesus Christ.

What is the purpose of God? The divine purpose of God is that people would know the Lord Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. The Bible says he is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to what church?

Repentance. What does the word repentance mean? Oh, you think it’s some big biblical word that you’ve learned in Bible college. I’m telling you the word repentance means to turn around. It means to be going one direction, stop in your tracks, turn around and go the other direction.

What happened to these people when they saw the power of God and they saw the person of Christ lifted up, that I want you to know that the purpose of God was fulfilled in their life in that they turned from their sin and they received Jesus Christ as their Savior and they turned to the Lord and they followed him as well.

true disciple. I wonder how many people would come to Christ if you would rest in the power of God and you would exalt the person of Christ. How many people would be coming to Jesus Christ? The church is God’s platform for His glory.

The church is God’s vehicle to promote and share the gospel. I hope that as you’re learning about ministry sometimes we look at other churches and say that’s the standard for effectiveness and maybe sometimes we even look to the world but really we ought to look to the Word of God and we ought to look at the ministry of the Apostle Paul and what is it that is truly effective for God and I hope that these principles that have been shared will continue to happen.

help each of us to not only individually have effective ministry, but also corporately in our local churches. This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope worth having.