Pastor Robert Morris – The Assignment

I want to ask you to turn to Ephesians chapter 4 that's actually the only scripture I'm gonna ask you to turn to Ephesians chapter 4 or click to or you know whatever get somehow get to visa for my my daughter made fun of me a while back I was talking with the elders and I said you know I want to show you all a scripture that the Lord gave me over the holidays and I said so I said to Ethan my son-in-law Ethan go into the greenery go in that with the back office where my desk is and in the left-hand drawer there's my phone and bring me my phone so I can show ever before I can read this scripture at everybody and all the elders and wives they said um we have the Bible in our phones too and I said really I said yeah but I want to read aloud the New Living Translation they said oh we have the New Living Translation - pastor Robert you're not the only person that has the Bible on his phone and then I found out you know you can even get on the internet on your phone did you know that okay all right so it's fantastic all right so so click to get your phone out your device whatever it is get your Bible open to Ephesians chapter 4 here's what I want to share with you about the assignment the assignment now let me also let you know next week can be hard for the kingdom and then the next week in is I'll begin a new series and so in two weeks I'll begin a new series that will take us through the - through the spring I'll tell you more about that later all right the assignment what is the assignment now we're gonna talk about my role your role and our role in fulfilling the assignment what what is the assignment I think we need to be reminded of what the assignment is from God so the first thing I want to talk about though is my role in the assignments there's part number one my role a pastor this is as a pastor speaking right there's been a lot of misconception about what a pastor's role is and let me tell you what people have believed that pastors do past do the ministry that's completely wrong my role as the senior pastor is not to do the ministry my role is to equip you to do the ministry that's how church is grown that's how we have so many people saved and baptized and equipped and disciple and healed and set free is that you do the ministry it's not my role to do the ministry as a pastor as a pastor it's my role to equip you all right and I'm gonna show that to you in Ephesians 4 before I read this first though I want to clarify what these verses are how many of you have heard of I'm sure there's gonna be everybody but how many of you have heard of the gifts of the Holy Spirit Syrian okay so there are gifts of the Holy Spirit we believe in the Holy Spirit fully a gateway church we believe in all the gifts a gateway church but Ephesians 4 are not part of the gifts of the Holy Spirit and in many teachings they lump these in these are very clearly not gifts of the Holy Spirit because it tells us who gave us these gifts these are the gifts of Jesus when Jesus ascended he gave gifts to men Jesus did so again I'm not minimizing the gifts of the Holy Spirit we believe in the gifts Holy Spirit but there are not four categories of the gifts of the Holy Spirit there are three because Ephesians 4 is not included if you read something doesn't mean the persons a bad person just means that he or she does not have the understanding of this passage Ephesians 4 okay so there are just to let you know the gifts of the Holy Spirit there are ministry gifts manifestation gifts and motivation yes ministry manifestation and motivation but these in Ephesians 4 are gifts of Jesus so let me show it to Ephesians 4 verse 11 and he himself that's Jesus gave some to be apostles some prophets some evangelists and some pastors and teachers for the equipping of the Saints I under these words so we would recognize them for the work of the ministry for the edifying of the body fronts so these are gifts that Jesus gave we ascended and I'm going to take this a little bit farther all right he did not give the gift of an apostle to a person listen to me carefully he gave a person as an apostle as a gift to the body of Christ you know the firts people say well I have the gift of an evangelist well if you really have it then you are an evangelist and you're a gift to the body press okay so let me say a little different way okay now please don't get mad at me it sounds a little prideful but I don't mean it's wrong okay I'm just joking with you but I am a gift from Jesus to you and and you can't return me okay so Jesus gaze I just want you to catch us this little difference he gave gifts to men and in those gifts then he gives those me and those people who have these gifts to the body of Christ now here's something you need to understand all five of these offices we call them sometimes all five do the same thing they all do the same thing and it's amazing now they do it differently apostles do it differently than evangelists and pastors do it differently than prophets they do it differently but they do the same thing and he told us right there what they do they equip the Saints for the work of the ministry and what you think about this when we think about a prophet we think about someone who prophesize now he may prophesy also but really what a prophet should do according to Ephesians four is equip the Saints to prophesy he quipped the Saints how to hear God and moving the prophetic gifts and what we've had is a lot of people running around saying I'm a prophet but they're not equipping anyone you know when they apostles prophets evangelists pastors teachers equip that I'm just this right out of Scripture I didn't make this up they equip the Saints for the work of the ministry think about we're having dr. rice Brooks come four times this year he's an evangelist he's a gift from Jesus why is he coming he's not coming to hold a crusade he's coming to equip the Saints in evangelism you follow me see it it's one thing you have an evangelist I'm gonna say it's wrong to do evangelistic outreach us but it's one thing you've an evangelist comes in and has 300 people saved but what if an evangelist came in and he quipped 300 people to win people to Christ then when he leaves town we still have people getting saved are y'all following me so these are the gifts ole so what is what's my role my role is to equip you to do the work of the ministry that's that's my role my role is to spot the gifts that you have and to somehow facilitate that for you to be equipped in the gifts that you have for the work of the ministry and we're going to clarify the end the war the work of the ministry is because that is the assignment all right so I I can spot gifts in people it's it's a a coach can spot I starts a basketball footballing a coach can spot athletic ability he could just do it he or she they they they just spotted so people can spot things okay so as the as one of the fivefold giftings I spot gifts and people it's easy to see these gifts and I remember in college I led this guy to the Lord and he came to me just not long after like the next day after I led him to Christ and said to me I know what God wants me to do and he has not even been saved a full 24 hours he said know what God wants me to do I said what does God want you to do he said see so I said have you ever sung before he said in the car and he said he and I was freed remember in college I was preaching revivals and Crusades and things like that and he said to me and I want to go with you and sing at one of your Crusades so I said okay why don't you prepare a song and let me hear it and I'll tell you whether you're gifted or not so he prepared this song he came in and sang it and he was gifted I mean he could sing and it was fantastic I said that's great I said you know what this Sunday night now this guy got saved on Tuesday this was like Thursday he was so excited I said this Sunday night I'm will preaching in a real small church so let me call and ask them if it'd be okay if you came in saying the special music so I called the pastor now I was preaching in Baptist churches and I'm not saying anything negative at all I'm just giving you the the clarification understand of what happened all right so I said call the pastor and said hey there's a guy and I'd like to bring him to singing a special music and he said well I said would that be okay said that'd be great so when we got there I was talking to someone the pastor came up to this guy this was Sunday he got saved on Tuesday I forgot to tell you this he had never attend the church and the pastor came up to him and said to him you know when Pastor Robert told me that he was bringing a song leader with him I got so excited because our and that's the way they referred to a worship pastor a song leader I got so excited I gave our song leader the night off I'm so happy you're gonna lead the singing tonight did I mention he got saved on Tuesday this was on Sunday so he came to me panicked he said Robert I did it with it won't we leave the singing that's okay relax I can help you okay I said um you need to a couple of things okay first of all I have just song leaders and I'm not again I must say anything critical and just this is the the time and and that's not as much now but at that time early eighties I said badges song leaders have to wave their arms when they lead singing there's a manual or something somewhere and they have to write they have to do this so he said to me I don't know how to wave my arms so I said have you ever dug postholes you remember the whole post hole diggers the old ones now not the automatic ones right I said okay four four is breaking the dirt up see how I'm equipping you you could go lead him so now in a church and you know and 3/4 is taking the dirt out 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 and 4 first breaking up 1 2 3 4 1 2 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 ok so I'm showing that hence hope and then I and then I see said okay and he started to leave I said one more thing now the service would not start I said you need to know that Baptists never sing the 3rd verse and by Friday I six thank you shaking their heads and maybe it's Methodists - I don't know but for some reason no 3rd verse is anointed in any hymnal I don't know why so I said they've never seen the third verse they always sing whether what we're gonna stand and sing first second and last right we're sensing the first second and last verse of 343 love lifted me you know okay so well and by the way I remember right before we started he came over he said is this taking the bird out or breaking the dirt up but he got up and he got a little nervous you know and so he said when he started see he said okay let's stand and we're gonna say a hymn number so and so and then he said and you know we Baptist he just got saved on Tuesday I don't even think he'd been baptized yeah so he said you know we Baptist that's what he said never say the first second last verses we always sing just the third verse of every hymn so let's all say the third verse of love lifted me and we sang the third verse of every human life and the pastor came to America said that was great I've never seen those verses we're gonna start doing that every Sunday night okay so my role is to equip the Saints for the work of the ministry here's point number two you're a role what's your role okay your role you say okay well I know it's to be equipped with ministry so let me make it even simpler than that it's to be available to be equipped that's all you have to do we have equipping classes we have Kairos we have freedom we have small groups we have places you can serve you seem to be available just somehow make yourself available to get plugged into the local church and you can be equipped for the work of the ministry because we're going to equip you that's what we do but in order to do it we can't equip you if you're not here so you just simply make yourself available now when I say that let me show you a scripture where Paul tells Timothy how to do this and watch what he says it's very important second Timothy 2:2 and the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses commit these watch these words to faithful men who will be able to teach others also okay here's what he said look for faithful people who will be able to teach others also you teach faithful people and they'll teach others okay here's the point though faithful and able faithful and able able be the word ability to where we have the word ability if you're able you're you have a bill together okay here's what happened with the church we got that backward we started looking for people of ability and hoped they would be faithful and here's what I love about that verse Paul said to Timothy listen if you'll just find faithful people God will make them able it doesn't say who are able doesn't say commit these to faithful people who are able it says commit these to faithful people who will be when God gets finished with them as God works on them who will be able okay remember again of Abel we get this it sort ability okay think now please hear me God is not looking for people of ability he is looking for people of availability by the way same root word ability availa ability if you just make sure available the reason he God doesn't need people of ability is because he has all ability he has all ability so all he needs is someone who's available so he can make them able for ministry that's it all right so now they say okay you said to it to faithful and pastor I'm not gonna admit this publicly but I'm not always faithful I mean I make some mistakes fall not always faithful so I guess I need to work on being faithful okay Olo let's talk about that what's a faithful person please hear me a faithful person is not a person that never makes mistakes that's not what we let's see that's the way we define faithfulness and what it is is perfectionism and we can never get there and that's how the enemy keeps saying this you're not ready yet you're not ready yet you're not ready yet let me describe a faithful to you first person to you let me use this verse proverbs 24:16 for though the righteous fall seven times they rise again okay a faithful person is not a person that never falls a faithful person is a person that gets up after he falls that's all it is that's it and I'll put you in CODIS that it describes these people who fall a lot seven times that's completely perfection they're just perfect at falling it describes them as righteous people doesn't say though the unrighteous fall says no the righteous fall the ones that Jesus has made righteous by his blood please hear me please hear me please hear me all of us have a little bit of this perfectionism illness and it's horrible and it's crippling and you can never live up to it I was talking to dr. Henry cloud many of you know I talked to dr. cloud as a coach and a psychologist and so we were talking about perfectionism and so he finally got me to admit okay yes I might have a little problem with perfectionism I might not be perfect in this area so he said to me do you know what kind of people he said I've been doing this stuff for 40 years psychology you know what kind of people have a problem with perfectionism he's to take a guess so I said okay CEOs business leaders corporate leaders he said no I'm thinking wider than that that's okay entrepreneurs he said nope thinking wider than that okay I said Heidi people Heidi people everybody said no I'm still thinking why it's okay you tell me what kind of people have a problem with perfectionism he said humans he said it started in the garden when the serpent said to Adam and Eve you can be like let me say that another way you can be perfect and what's amazing was they already were they already were and yet he sold them on it so Henry told me something that I really like and I want you to hear this - he said Robert you don't have to be superhuman you're not superhuman you're also not subhuman he said most of your life you felt subhuman but you needed to be superhuman he said you're not superhuman and you're not subhuman you're simply human they've taken a lot of pressure off of you when you quit trying to be perfect well what happens is then you can do the work of the ministry you don't have to get some place some perfectionism before you can do the work for the ministry you have a gift start ministry somewhere start serving somewhere when I say what is your role it's to be available and the best way to be available just start serving somewhere the one thing that I didn't like about the statistics that we showed today 8700 something volunteers I think we should be 15 to 20 thousand volunteers I think more people should be serving somewhere I don't mean that in academia way I'm just thinking everyone ought to surf somewhere and here's the problem that most people say well I want to serve in my gift now let's forget about that for a moment let's just serve somewhere because if you serve somewhere your gift will make room for sure when I was at a Shady Grove pastor old wounds on the front row here he was a senior pastor and I was a traveling evangelist remember I did revivals and things like that so but when we joined the church we I made a commitment I want to be here at least once a month I'll only do three weekends a month preaching revivals I want to be here at least once a month you know and I would get the back then it was tapes so I can listen to the sermons when I was traveling and so but the thing was they had a rule there's a good rules of policy that if you put your children in the nursery you served in the nursery at least once a month so I we're over there one spot so they had to services and so we would serve in the nursery one service and attend one service so we could be that the Sunday we were home you know but I just have to tell you something okay so first time we went we served in the nursery when we got home I'd have a nap I was worn out and I remember complaining the word I said Lord that's not my gift that is not my gift I need to explain to them that's not my gift and so the Lord said to me well what is your gift I said preaching and he said to me well then use your gift so the next month I went in their six month old babies I said Fernandes right after three I said we're gonna talk about rebuilding the temple today it's actually great cuz they all went to sleep all the parents were happy they started we had to go red tapes they started buying my tapes to put their kids to sleep anyway all right just serve somewhere okay so here's point number three what is our assignment my role your role what's our assignment okay it's real simple Matthew 28 verse 18 and Jesus came and spoke to him saying all Authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth go therefore and make disciples of all the nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the son of the Holy Spirit teaching them to observe all things that I've commanded you and lo I'm with you always even to the end of the age now I just have to clarify something and I underline the phrase go and make disciples we think incorrectly about discipleship I've had people tell me my gift is discipleship I love to disciple people now say well what do you mean by that here's what they mean by that well if you have a new believers class I'd love to go to that new believers class and teach them the about the faith and the foundation of Christianity and I love to teach new believers I like to disciple believers hey here's only probably when Jesus said go and make disciples there weren't any other disciples there were a few but he did not mean go find some saved people and teach them the foundations of the faith he meant go find some lost people and win them to me and then teach them all things that I've taught you well you follow me so making disciples includes evangelism it includes winning people to Christ this is the assignment and I wrote down a couple of ways we can do it real simple number one is going tale this phrase is in the Bible Matthew 11 for jesus answered said go and tell John the things which you've seen hear and see we talked about that in the witnessing message go and tell mark 5:19 the gathering demoniac wanted to go with Jesus however Jesus did not permit him but said to him go home to your friends and tell them what great things Lord has done for you and how he's cut has compassion on you so we're equipping you to go and tell the other way it's real simple if you say I'm just not ready to go and tell it I still need a little more equipping me to come to dr. Burke's class okay here's the next way come and see come and see let me explain it to you John 1 verse 43 the following day Jesus wanted to go to Galilee and he found Philip and said to him follow me now Philip was from Bethsaida the city of Andrew and Peter Philip found Nathanael and said to him we found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote Jesus of Nazareth the son of Joseph and Nathanael said to him you ever heard this verse can anything good come out of Nazareth you ever heard that first Philip said to him come and see okay can't anything good come out of a megachurch or someone like saying this way they might not stay that way they might stay this way I'm just not comfortable with a large church ever had someone say that did you say if or you came okay so I'm just not comfortable with going to such a large church okay when someone says that G here's what you say come and see come and see what it's like well I'm just not come for though watching the message on the screen come and see just come and see well I don't know if I'm comfortable your pastor is one of those TV preachers right I don't know just come and see just come and see just invite people that's the assignment all right to our assignment only put this way it's to win as many people to Christ as we can and disciple them to win as many people to Christ as they can we can't get away from that so here's my closing illustration um when I was in college I took a preaching class now you got to remember I was already preaching and I kind of thought I was hot stuff and so we had this preaching class and the professor said now your assignment is to write a sermon and then he kept talking but I stopped listening because I started thinking of all of the great sermons that I had written and I started thinking out which one because I really thought I'm gonna wow the professor I mean I already do this you know big crowds and also none that these guys don't get I do it I'm I'm gonna really want which sermon should I turn in it really Wow's them and and he was giving instructions that I didn't hear and he told what kind of sermon to write I wanted you to write an expository sermon on this passage I never heard that so I turned in one of my great crusade sermons and I couldn't wait to see that a plus at the top of the page but when I got it back it said F and underneath it he wrote this is a great sermon but it wasn't the assignment I don't want to hear when I get to heaven yeah you built a great church but that wasn't the assignment the assignment was to go and make disciples of all the nations to win as many people to Christ as you could and to disciple them to win as many people to Christ as they could that's the assignment I want you to bow your heads and close your eyes everything we do around here men's ministry women's ministry equipping groups Kairos freedom stewardship youth students children's everything we do please hear me we've got to make sure we're centered up everything we do is to win people to Christ and to disciple them to win people to Christ and I want every member of Gateway church to be a soul winner when every member of Gateway Church to be equipped for the work of the ministry we want to pray for you you're going through any type of a difficulty we want to pray for you you need prayer for your finances your marriage your family your health you need prayer in this area for boldness we want to pray for you if you need to give your life back to the Lord or you need to receive the Holy Spirit whatever you need we want to pray for you now just want you to know you don't have to be a member of Gateway church to come for prayer lots of people will come for prayer in just a moment we have one more worship song at the front of every campus in front of every room even if it's an overflow room we'll have people that are trained and that are loving that want to pray with you so if you have any prayer need as soon as we stand up in a moment you just simply stand up step out and come and just let us pray with you all right and then this week I want you all week to just be asking the Lord or what are you saying to me through that message so if you need prayer for any any area of your life as soon as we stand up you stand up and step out and come Holy Spirit I pray you'll draw every person at every campus that needs prayer in Jesus name Amen

Channel: gatewaychurchtv

Views: 141,279

Keywords: Christmas, gatewaypeople, Gateway, Gateway Church, Robert Morris, Pastor Robert, Savior, Dallas, Southlake, Texas, Jesus, Sermon, salvation, christ

Id: 7_-SZymxVVo

Length: 31min 9sec (1869 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 24 2018