contributed to Christ church are contributed by 20% of the people. There was a study not too long ago that actually proposed, in evangelical churches, 10% of regular attenders have never put a penny in the plate. I don't care what size your church is, if it's a church of 50 or 5,000, you will never hire enough ministry professionals to cover all the spiritual needs of any given week of any time in the life of that church. It won't happen. This is God's total involvement paradigm. That's what it is. All of God's people are called to this. And we have to stop the drift. It's hurting us. The church is not meant to be a place where you can find ministry. The church is meant to be itself an organic ministering community. There's a huge difference. You can feel my passion. In a real way, I've given my life to proclaiming this message. Now, why these character qualities? Why did Paul come up with this list? Where did he get this list? You can talk. It's legal. Where did he get this list? Well, the fruits of the spirit. Well, where'd that come from? It's the character of Christ. Now, once you say that, you know your position in the work of God. Literally, using the example of clothing, Paul is saying, "Put on Christ. You carry Christ to one another. It makes me weak in my knees when I say it. Bring Christ to one another. Yes, it is true, Jesus is the answer." What he's saying is, all of us, every person, has been called and positioned by God to be His ambassadors. Everyone in this room has been called to be an ambassador of the king of kings and the Lord of Lords. Now, what is the only thing an ambassador ever does? Represent. This is amazing to me. The invisible king intends to make himself visible through His people who carry His presence to one another. How amazing is that? It boggles my mind when I say it. The invisible grace of God is meant to be made visible as people who have received that grace now carry that grace to one another. Welcome to your employment. I'm serious. Every day, every day, you are called to be the look on the face of Jesus, to be the tone of His voice, to be the touch of His hand, to be His gentleness, His patience, His forgiveness and His love. People need to see Jesus, people need to see Jesus, people need to see Jesus, people need to see Jesus, people need to see Jesus, because what happens is my sin looms large in front of me and it defeats me. The problems of life get me down and they cloud my vision of the one who is my hope. I need you to carry Jesus to me. I need it all the time. I need it- Amen. ... because no on this side of eternity is a grace graduate. I need it. I need people in my life who are the voice of Jesus, who are, to me, the love of Jesus, who are the hand of Jesus. That's what I need. Now, I would just like to say to you, you have no ability at all to do what I just described, none, none. You just don't have any ability. Don't say, "Yeah. I'm going to do that," because you'll be one scary Jesus. If you think you can do this, you won't be reflecting Jesus. You'll be reflecting something, but it won't be Jesus. You see, people of grace who intend to carry grace will be driven to the throne of grace in order to give that grace. That's the way it works. People of grace who have been given grace will be driven to the throne of grace in order to be able to carry that grace to one another, because you can't do it. Get the CD. People of grace, did you get that, I'm giving you grace right now, who intend to carry that grace will be driven to the throne of grace in order to be able to give that grace to others. Now, this brings us to this point. There's really only two ways of living. There really is. You live as owner of your life or you live as an ambassador, and this just blows apart our normal conceptions of ministry. Here's our normal formalistic view of ministry. I own my little life and I step out of my life as an act of submission to God, and I give him a little piece of my life, hero that I am, for an episode, short-term missions me. I went to Africa and built stuff. Shared the gospel today. And so you give God an episode of your life, and then you step back out of ministry, back into your life. That's not a biblical view of ministry. Hold on to your seats, your life is ministry. Every dimension of human life is a forum for ministry. Now, you have to ask yourself the question right now, if we would watch the video of your existence, would we see an owner or an ambassador? Oh, I find that so convicting. I would like to think of myself as an ambassador. I told you that my family would take these vacations to the Jersey Shore, and we still gather as a family every summer for a week. I have four children, three boys. They're all married. My daughter, Nicole, is
Transcript: Session 5
WOMEN HELPING WOMEN
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