The Work of the Ministry Rom. 16:1-15 CLICK TITLE FOR AUDIO

The ministry takes a church not just an individual and yet every individual must do his part because we are ONE body of believers.  Notice how many people, by name, were involved with Paul in Rom 16:1-15.  No man can do this work alone.  Not even Paul could do the work alone [1 Cor 16:15-16; Col 4:7-17].  Not even Jesus tried to carry on this work alone.  He had 12 apostles [Matt 10] and then added 70 more disciples [Lk 10].

If a pastor had to work alone, he’d have to do everything, he would have to pray for all the people, pass out all the tracts, preach the gospel and all the messages, disciple all the converts, contact them regularly, and soon, he’d reach his maximum capacity and find himself doing lots of things poorly and neglecting other things that really need to be done.  He’d end up getting discouraged and quitting.  But imagine if he could do that part that he is good at and others could do the parts they are good at and everyone doing his individual part well made the whole process function smoothly and efficiently.

That’s what we see in these passages.  And that’s what we can do in our church.  Here’s how.  We can do the work of the ministry with:

Tracts – each of us could pass out just 5 tracts per week.  You could do more, of course.  But if we each passed out five that would be 1,000 tracts per week or 52,000 tracts in a year.  That is an astounding number of tracts and no one would be unduly burdened to get that done since we would all be doing a little.  When you leave here today, take five tracts off the tract rack and pass them out this week.  Next Sunday, get five more, and so forth.

Bibles – we could each pass out 1 marked New Testament per week, that would be 200 per week.  Can you imagine.  That would amount to over 10,000 New Testaments distributed by us in one year.  That is a lot of scripture each year.  Simply pick up one New Testament from the back of the church when you leave and then ask God to show you where to give it this week.

Witnessing – we could each give one good gospel witness per month, that’s 200 per month or 2,400 per year.  We don’t get to preach the gospel to that many lost people in church in many years, much less one.  Just sit down with a lost person and open the Bible and go through the gospel with them.

Prayer – we could each pray for 4-5 relatives, neighbors, classmates, co-workers or friends every day.  That would amount to dedicated intercessory prayer [Heb 7:25] for over 800 people per day.  What and incredible way to work together in the ministry.  And there would be no undue hardship on anyone.

Giving – we can each give to missions every month.  Many of us give a lot to missions.  But imagine if we each gave only $5.00 per week to missions.  That’s $52,000 in missions giving per year. That is a tremendous offering for so little from each person.  Of course, we are doing much more for missions than that.  But what are you doing?

Conclusion: It doesn’t take much from everyone in our church to end up doing a tremendous amount for the Lord, if we all do it and we keep doing it.  Can you do your part?  Will you do your part?