Day 39

Ministering in the Power

of the Gospel of God

Roger and Eileen Himes

www.ThePracticalGospel.com

God doesn’t just want our best; he wants us to experience his best.

Today, let’s look at ministering the gospel. See another difference between instructors in Christ and fathers of the gospel. Instructors are directive, in a horizontal dimension. Their focus is on the flesh and body to do good things. Fathers impart the things of God, in a vertical dimension. Their focus is on the spirit, and believing the right thing.

Apollos is a mighty man of God in the early church. He’s mentioned a half dozen times by Paul and in Acts. You can read about him in Acts 18: 24-28. We are told he was ‘mighty in scripture,’ and ‘instructed in the way of the Lord.’ He was ‘fervent in spirit,’ and ‘he spoke accurately the things concerning Jesus.’ He was a preacher to reckon with, and man to listen to. He knew his stuff, and what he preached was correct.

Despite all of this praise, was his preaching totally right-on? Or was he what Paul would refer to as only an instructor in Christ?

After all this praise, we are given some insight about him: “But he only knew the baptism of John.” He preached repentance from sin. This is what John the Baptist preached (Mark 1:4). He didn’t know the truth of the ministry of Jesus: “Repent and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15).

Priscilla and Aquila were husband and wife. They were disciples of Paul. They had been trained by him in the gospel, He had birthed the gospel in them, and they had become fathers of the gospel. They listened to this eloquent, fervent preacher who was ‘instructing them about Jesus.’ But they could easily tell he had NO gospel revelation.

So they took him aside and had a little ‘fellowship in the gospel’ with him (Phil 1:5). The Bible says, ‘They explained to him the way of God more accurately… or more perfectly.’ They showed him how there was so very much more than just a salvation from sin message.

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GOSPEL TRUTH #77

Priscilla and Aquila did for Apollos what Jesus did on the road to Emmaus: “He opened their eyes to understand the scriptures” (Luke 24:45). Paul asks how shall they hear without a preacher? (Rom 10:14).

This means that you give someone a spiritual eye transplant, so they can see gospel truth, causing them to be separated unto the gospel. This converts someone into a father of the gospel, so they are faithful to teach others gospel truth (II Tim 2:2). The job of fathers is what Priscilla and Aquila did with Apollos: impart gospel truth.

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Gospel ministry is to take someone from one glory to another. What the glory is has been preached so many different ways that it can mean almost anything, depending on who you listen to. Read II Corinthians 3 carefully and see that Paul speaks of two glories: (1) the glory of the Old Testament law vs. (2) the glory of the New Testament gospel. He says we should minister the New, and not the Old (3:6).

Apollos was ministering the Old Testament law. This is the baptism of John: ‘Repent from sin.’ We have seen that sin is defined by the law. Priscilla and Aquila set him straight, and took his focus off the law, and put it on the cross. He became a minister of the New Testament gospel.

The gospel is the highest level of glory we can arrive at, because it is the means by which God imparts the revelation of his thoughts and ways to us (Isa 55:8-9). I believe this is what Paul means when he says to do the work of an evangelist. A true evangelist doesn’t just get someone saved and then walk away. A true evangelist gets someone saved, and then also brings them into the knowledge of the truth (I Tim 2:4).

Apollos was getting people saved. He knew they had to repent from sin. But he couldn’t bring them into a knowledge of gospel truth. Why? Because he didn’t KNOW gospel truth, and he couldn’t give away what he didn’t have. You must first BE a gospel father.

This is the big problem that exists for gospel truth today:
seminaries and Bible schools don’t teach it,
so pastors don’t know it and can’t preach it.
They only preach the ministry of John: repentance from sin.
They are like Apollos was.
“They have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.”

Paul says: “Awake to righteousness, and not to sin.” Righteousness is the ONLY New Testament ministry. Sin is the Old Testament ministry. Paul calls it the ministry of condemnation and death (II Cor 3:7, 9). If we have a sin-consciousness, not a righteousness-consciousness, then all we can see is sin. Everything looks like sin to us.

We see everything as good or bad, based on The Tree of Knowledge. As an example, Paul says, “If any man be overtaken in a fault, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in the spirit of meekness” (Gal 6:1). I’ve never heard this preached in any other way than this: if you see someone sinning, those who are spiritual (which I guess means sinless) should get him to repent of his sin and do good. This is the preaching of someone who is sin-conscious, and can only see sin. The question that comes to my mind is this: if spiritual means without sin, who is spiritual? No one! So you have one sinner telling another sinner to stop sinning!

What they fail to see is for five chapters, Paul has been talking about is the difference between spirit and flesh — spirit being living in the gospel, and flesh being living by the law. Because all they can see is sin, they don’t even know how to give the gospel honorable mention. They can’t see that what Paul is really saying is that if you see someone in the fault of slipping back into the flesh, and living by the law, restore him back to the gospel. If Apollos had been a gospel preacher, and had slipped back into the law, this is what Priscilla and Aquila would have done for him. But he never knew the gospel.

As another example, what should be the message of evangelists on the street corner preaching to people who pass by? Most of them preach the law. They preach SIN, and they tell people to repent or they will burn in hell. Should this be our message, or should it be the love of God? Paul says the love of God constrains us, not the law (II Cor 5:14). Which attracts YOU to God more? — (1) that God loves you unconditionally, or (2) that he’ll set you on fire in hell? Paul talks about us being two things to people (I Thes 2): (1) a nursing mother, and (2) an exhorting father. In verse 8 he says he not only shares the gospel of God, but his own life, because they are dear to him.

Our approach should be in love, care, and compassion,
not in hell, fire and damnation.
The ministry of sin is one of hell, fire and damnation.
The ministry of the gospel is love, care and compassion.

Both John and Jesus can be said to have had a ministry of repentance. John’s ministry was repent from sin. The ministry of Jesus is to repent and believe the gospel. The first is turning from something bad, the second is embracing and receiving something good. Paul had a ministry of repentance too. His ministry was to cause people to see that what they believe is wrong, and to repent so they may come to know gospel truth (II Tim 2:25). This is what Priscilla and Aquila did with Apollos.

Once again, correct behavior will not produce correct belief, but correct belief will eventually produce correct behavior. Sin-consciousness will never produce anything other than sin-consciousness.

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GOSPEL TRUTH #78

The ministry of the gospel is first and foremost a ministry of truth, or correct belief. In II Timothy 4:3 Paul calls it ‘sound doctrine.’ In the prior verse he says preach the word: convince, rebuke, and exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. Whenever Paul uses terms like ‘the word,’ or ‘the doctrine,’ or ‘the truth,’ or ‘the way,’ he is talking about his revelation of the gospel of the finished work of Christ. After belief, the ministry of the gospel is second and foremost a ministry of love, not sin. Instructors too often see it as a ministry of sin, not love. As we have seen, love comes from belief. Sin focus comes from unbelief.

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In Matthew 7, there is a story of people doing all types of good things in ministry: they ‘prophesied in the name of Jesus, cast out demons in his name, and in his name did many other wonderful works.’ Jesus said to them, “I never knew you! Depart from me, you who work lawlessness.”

This seems pretty harsh of Jesus. Was this loving? This is a necessary story to make a very important point. We talked earlier about doing right things for wrong reasons. Here we are seeing doing right things in the wrong way. This is what Jesus means by ‘lawlessness.’ The gospel should be our only motivation in life, and good gospel fruit should be the results we are seeking to obtain. If we are not living the gospel, both our motivation, and are results are not consistent with God’s desires.

In I Timothy 1:9 Paul says, “Knowing this: that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless.” In God’s eyes, if we live by the law, we are lawless. This doesn’t make sense in the natural, but seen through gospel eyes it does. If we live by the law, we cannot produce gospel results. This is what these people were doing — producing GOOD results, but in the WRONG way. They were using ‘the name of Jesus’ because someone had told them to do it this way. They had converted using Jesus’ name into a LAW. It was not born in relationship. Outside of gospel truth, we tend to do this with everything.

We get into religious molds we think are right, but God sees them as wrong — as lawless. Paul speaks of the law of faith (Rom 3:27). Whatever is not done in faith is sin (Rom 14:23). He also says that the law is not of faith (Gal 3:12). If you look at this seriously, you have ‘a legalist’s nightmare.’ You can’t live in both law and faith. If you live by laws and principles, you are ’faithless.’ Jesus says, “I never knew you.”

This is where all preachers and instructors of the law (living by principles, rules, methodologies and systems) are trapped. They are trapped in a religious system that negates the finished work of the cross. Paul says, “Wanting to be teachers of the law, even though they do not understand either what they are saying, or the matters about which they make confident assertions” (I Tim 1:7). He says they are ever learning, but never able to come into a knowledge of the truth (II Tim 3:7). Why? Because, since the finished work of the cross, the truth is in a totally different dimension and paradigm. Grace and truth came by Jesus. Thus, Paul says be ministers of the NEW Covenant (II Cor 3:6).