By Apostle Aje Pelser
Qualifications that render the church an essential service in the world today:
To summarize:
1. The Church is a channel of God’s love.
2. Living Epistles are written in the Church
3. The Church is the collective temple of the Holy Spirit.
4. Jesus placed His ascension gifts as precious foundation stones in the church.
5. The Church is the equipping centre of the saints for the work of the ministry
6. The World can only see Christ through a many-membered body of Believers, His church.
7. The essential agency that fulfills Jesus’ great commission is the Church. Making disciples of all nations is what Jesus asked us to do.
1. The Church is a channel of God’s love. Love never fails! When Jesus gave us the all-encompassing command:
Joh 13:34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.
Joh 13:35 By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
There is a great love story between the Bridegroom and the Bride. The Father makes sure that the Son has gone to prepare a place for the Bride, and when it is ready, the Father sends the Son to collect His Bride and the marriage feast can happen, and then they will live happily ever after!
Jesus is coming for His church, she has made herself ready and He has gone to prepare a place for her!
Jesus build His Church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Apostle Paul calls it a great mystery!
This world is becoming loveless:
Pro 30:11 There is a generation that curses its father, And does not bless its mother.
Pro 30:12 There is a generation that is pure in its own eyes, Yet is not washed from its filthiness.
Pro 30:13 There is a generation—oh, how lofty are their eyes! And their eyelids are lifted up.
Pro 30:14 There is a generation whose teeth are like swords, And whose fangs are like knives, To devour the poor from off the earth, And the needy from among men.
If you train your child up in the way he should go, he will not depart form it when he is older. I thank God for the children’s and youth ministries that nurtures and grows the next generation of believers into the pillars of church. It is a counter-balance to the spirit of the world that promotes what the wise predicted in the ancient book of Proverbs.
With our study of the multiplication of cells and the intricate working and functions of a living organism designed by God, we start to appreciate all the work the goes into the preparation of the worlds greatest wedding feast!
One of my favourite combinations of scriptures is:
1Jn 4:8 He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
If God is love then the following is qualified truth:
1Co 13:8 Love never fails.
Therefore it follows that God never fails – he has never failed me throughout my life and I know many of you reading this can testify to that truth!
If We are Jesus’ Bride and God abides in us as a temple by His Holy Spirit, it also follows tha we shall never fail!
2. Living Epistles are written in the Church: people see God through you!
2Co 3:2 You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men;
2Co 3:3 clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart.
3. The Church is the collective temple of the Holy Spirit. We are to develop the saints as the temple of the Holy Spirit – coming together as one.
1Co 3:16 Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?
4. Jesus placed His ascension gifts as precious foundation stones in the church. Equipping the Saints is the responsibility of the five-fold ministry gifts, and causes growth.
We equip the saints for the work of the ministry in order to achieve the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ
Body joint and knit together by which every joint supplies
Eph 4:11 And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers,
Eph 4:12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ,
Eph 4:13 till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ;
Eph 4:14 that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting,
Eph 4:15 but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—
Eph 4:16 from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.
5. The Church is the equipping centre of the saints for the work of the ministry
School of Tyrannus – Apostle Paul taught the word daily till the whole of Asia heard the word. God did unusual miracles, life changed for the Ephesian traders, Principalities were shifted in the communities, not by going to the streets but by making accurate disciples first who then spread the word. Accurate lifestyles of a church, is the manifold wisdom of God that dictates to the local principalities and powers. (Apostle Paul preached Christ to the Gentiles and showed them the manifold wisdom of God through the church. (Eph 3:10 to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places,)
Act 19:9 But when some were hardened and did not believe, but spoke evil of the Way before the multitude, he departed from them and withdrew the disciples, reasoning daily in the school of Tyrannus.
Act 19:10 And this continued for two years, so that all who dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks.
The result:
Act 19:11 Now God worked unusual miracles by the hands of Paul,
Act 19:12 so that even handkerchiefs or aprons were brought from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out of them.
Act 19:13 Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists took it upon themselves to call the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “We exorcise you by the Jesus whom Paul preaches.”
Act 19:14 Also there were seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, who did so.
Act 19:15 And the evil spirit answered and said, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?”
Act 19:16 Then the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, overpowered them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.
Act 19:17 This became known both to all Jews and Greeks dwelling in Ephesus; and fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified.
Act 19:18 And many who had believed came confessing and telling their deeds.
Act 19:19 Also, many of those who had practiced magic brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted up the value of them, and it totalled fifty thousand pieces of silver.
Act 19:20 So the word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed.
6. The World can only see Christ through a many-membered body of Believers, His church. That is why we labour to see Christ formed in people, to present them perfect in Christ.
Paul’s Ministry to the Church
Col 1:24 I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church,
Col 1:25 of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God which was given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God,
Col 1:26 the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to His saints.
Col 1:27 To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Col 1:28 Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.
Col 1:29 To this end I also labor, striving according to His working which works in me mightily.
Apostle Paul also writes to the Galatian believers: Gal 4:19 My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you,
7. The essential agency that fulfils Jesus’ great commission is the Church. Making disciples of all nations is what Jesus asked us to do
Mat 28:18 And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.
Mat 28:19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
Mat 28:20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.
To summarise:
1. The Church is a channel of God’s love.
2. Living Epistles are written in the Church
3. The Church is the collective temple of the Holy Spirit.
4. Jesus placed His ascension gifts as precious foundation stones in the church.
5. The Church is the equipping centre of the saints for the work of the ministry
6. The World can only see Christ through a many-membered body of Believers, His church.
7. The essential agency that fulfills Jesus’ great commission is the Church. Making disciples of all nations is what Jesus asked us to do.
In one sentence:
Become God’s love letter to the world, and be a temple of His spirit and gifts, accompanied by the character fruits, so that you can go and make disciples of all nations.
LOVE –LETTER – TEMPLE – GIFTS – EQUIP – BODY – GO!
Let Jesus build His church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it!