How to Find a Worker in the Church and Open the Door (Acts 19:8-10)
The title of today’s sermon is, “How to Find a Worker in the Church and Open the Door.” This is ultimately saying that the church needs to find the worker and save the field, meaning God has prepared and called the commissioned one to come to the church.
(Committed Worker)
It seems like we are doing it, but in fact, it is God Who is doing it.
Introduction – Within the Church
1. Atmosphere
The first thing we must recognize in order to raise up the workers inside the church is to raise up that environment . The person changes according to his or her environment, then what is the environment or atmosphere of the church? If it’s filled with humanism, then the workers will not grow. If the church is filled with mysticism or legalism, then the church won’t grow. Before you can say the church is big or small, you should ask, “Where are the workers to save the world?”
1) Jesus Life – Fundamental
The atmosphere of the church must be about the life of Jesus. What does Jesus’ life mean? Life is talking about the fundamentals. Life is the fundamental source of all things. All things come from Jesus, and that is what we call the life of Jesus. It’s the church within this atmosphere. If it is not this atmosphere then it is a different kind of atmosphere. It would flow into the atmosphere of relying on people. All things in life are from Jesus, but if we do not rely on this, then we will rely on other things. Then, the worker to save the field will not be raised up, nor will they even come to the church.
2) Jesus Power
The power of Jesus. There’s no reason for you to say, “I don’t have anything, I don’t have any money,” because that’s the atmosphere of the church that does not enjoy Jesus’ life or power. Being able to enjoy life inside of Jesus is when you will receive strength, so it’s very important for this kind of atmosphere of the church to be established.
In contrast to this, instead of receiving all sorts of things inside the Triune God within Jesus Christ, instead you are relying on other people and yoyr own strength so the workers will not increase. Then, when the person looks at someone without any power, they will tend to look down on them, and if they seem to hold a little bit of power, they will become arrogant. That cannot save the world. The number of church members is important but the atmosphere of the church is more important.
3) Jesus Love – Death
The love of Jesus Christ starts from the cross, then you’ll be able to look at these people with these kinds of eyes. I have died on the cross and Jesus raised me up, then I cannot have a foundation or find anything within myself because I am dead. I am living with Christ, with Jesus, through the power of the cross. In the final verses of Romans 8, Jesus said you will never be able to come out of the mount of Calvary, He will never let us go. Then, it is said that, whoever can believe in Jesus Christ, this atmosphere is so very important. Simply put, everything can be raised up through Jesus.
The method God uses to raise up the church for evangelism and missions is to not rely on people or each other’s strength, but rather, to rely on God because we must have this atmosphere to save the world. But this being called “me,” what happens when we rely on ourselves or other people’s strength? God will actually bring us out of that atmosphere so that we can save the world. You wouldn’t necessarily have to go through all of these hardships if you come to this in the first place.
So, do not be stubborn and just go into this. Don’t always seek forgiveness because that’s just a waste of energy and time. It’s because another thing has been imprinted inside of you. The imprints from the world that say, “You can do it,” and the religious imprints of just worshiping Jesus, that has all been imprinted inside of you. Curses are actually when you go forward with your own strength. God’s grace is to break down the person He loves so they can go inside and enjoy Jesus’ life, power, and love.
Think about it, if you’re doing well in your life, would you come here at this time? You guys are not the ones who would come here, and it starts with me. You all would be going around to the mountains, trying to do something. That is not a blessing. So, that is why God breaks you down so you have no choice but to face God’s grace. Breaking down means it cannot be according to my own thoughts because God does not allow it.
When you go according to your own thoughts, that means you yourself are god, and that’s why God does not allow that to happen. But a person who has a little bit of experience at solving something with their own strength, then they cannot go of that faith they have in themselves, and that is why God also persistently pushes you towards the correct direction. It’s because of that you are a little bait but God allows that to happen.
(1) Church –
What happens if you’re not able to have this taste? You’ll be the last person in church. You can’t just not attend church, so you will be attending church, and it is because it’s according to habit, and the more you’re able to enjoy Jesus’ life, you’ll be able to enjoy His power and love more and more, and you’ll be thankful for everything
(2) Thanksgiving
But for someone who keeps their own standards, they will not be able to have any thankfulness because they’re complaining about something. You must save the world, but before that, you must have the inside of the church. No matter how much you try to evangelize outside of the church if the atmosphere of the church is something different, God will not assign a person to that person.
2. Understand Evangelism
You must understand what evangelism is. People tend to understand evangelism with their own standards. Their strength and standards is upon where it happens or it doesn’t, but in the Bible, it says evangelism is led by God. Through me, through us, evangelism will happen by God’s grace, but we keep thinking it’s a matter of whether it happens for us or not. Why is that? It’s because we haven’t experienced Jesus’ love or power. All things must arise from Jesus’ life, but for us, it’s out of themselves so it’s a matter of whether it happens or not. No matter the amount of diligence, it will not work out for that person, and if it works out, then God won’t allow it to fully work out because God is not One to allow another to steal His glory.
If there are any people like this, then evangelism will not work out because they have an attitude towards evangelism where they don’t care whether it happens or not so their life has already been ruined. This is God’s plan, but why does it matter to them whether it happens or not? They are far from God’s plan, so we cannot listen to the words of the world because they are far away from God. The world is full of themselves being their own gods of whether it happens or not so it’s their own standards and way of thinking. Then, if you’re living in the Old Testament, when God said, “Why are You sending Him now? Why is He here?” It’s the same thing. “God, You promised to send Jesus, but He isn’t here yet. When are you sending Him?”
1) Acts 2:1-47
The working of the holy spirit was upon all regions and evangelism reached all regions.
Time, Power, Door
There was a definite time, and it was the time of the passover, and it was through the working and filling of the Holy Spirit. It’s not something people did, but you don’t understand evangelism, and in order for you to save the world, you must first understand evangelism. And because God’s Holy Spirit comes upon you, the doors of evangelism opens. But because it’s not the time, the power and the doors do not open for you.
40 – Time; Jesus Christ – Resurrection
When this time comes, it is the time when Jesus went up to the Mount of Calvary and gave the missions, that’s the time. It’s towards the ones who have experienced the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Before Jesus Christ died on the cross, the disciples had not had their time yet. At that time, they went out into the field to evangelize but they were still in that state of whether it happens or not so it was not their time. So, when Jesus was supposed to die on the cross, disciples all fled away from Jesus, that means evangelism will not work out. They even confessed, “Jesus, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” and it’s not as if they did not receive God’s grace; they received all the grace, but as soon as the time schedule of life came to them, they ran away.
Before the faith of Jesus Christ’s death on the cross comes upon you, evangelism will not happen. It is at the moment where it comes into you that you are now resurrected and now living with Jesus Christ, so this 40-day mission will come upon you. Holding onto this mission and praying, God pours His Spirit upon you to open the doors of evangelism. The person who is still fixated on whether it happened or not is stuck in Matthew 10. Jesus, knowing the field, sent them out to evangelize, and the disciples faced many demon possessed and evil spirits but they still fixated on whether evangelism happens or not . One day, they bumped into Jesus, but it still didn’t work out, because in Matthew 17, Jesus was not yet their Master. That is why when Jesus went to die on the cross, all the disciples ran away. You must have that experience of the resurrection of Jesus Christ that He is the Messiah. Before that, the mission will not come to you.
These people must accurately understand evangelism. Not the persuasive worldly evangelism where they use persuasive words to try to manipulate you into converting, but a biblical evangelism, that is why the Word is going to be fulfilled.
Word Fulfillment
Relay to them the fulfilled Word
Field
That’s when in the field, according to each household, the doors to regional evangelism opened. This is what happens to the businessperson. There were so many people who were business people and they thought they could do whatever they want on their own, and they believed they could evangelize. All other religions evangelize, why can’t we evangelize? Mormosn and Jehovah’s Witnesses all do evangelism, but what is the evangelism the bible is talking about? They can’t understand this. Because they can’t understand this, they cannot receive the answer in Acts, then how filled is the church? So many church members do not understand evangelism. The church is called a “church,” but when a problem arises, they have no strength. But the person who understands this will go out into the field and save the world, so you must first understand this.
2) Acts 6:1-7 – Church Officer
Paul raised up the 7 church officers who understood evangelism. Because the pastor cannot work, God raised up an elder who can help support the pastor, and that is what God raised up this layleader to do. The first deacon is Deacon Philip who went to Samaria to evangelize, and this person comes to his church and does this work.
3) Acts 9 Field
There are disciples and church officers like Ananaias in the field. It’s the question of how many layleaders are there like this person in our church? That is the mystery of saving and conquering the field. That is why the church is a training field. It’s not just through human training, but it’s something Jesus does, and He will do it through the church. So, there are some people who just receive grace from the church and head on home but there are some others who receive this training and go to their field.
4) Acts 10 Cornelius – Home
There is the church officer Cornelius, he did the evangelism movement in all the fields in each respective home. You must have that one person who has no choice but to do evangelism in the business and evangelism field. People can say the very first thing, that Jesus is the Christ in Matthew 16, but they don’t seem to understand it, they understand Christ and they were able to receive and experience Jesus is the Christ when no one else could.
But they themselves don’t want to die, that means they have not yet experienced Jesus Christ. If something is not beneficial to them, they run away. That means they have not yet experienced Jesus Christ. “If it is to my disadvantage, I run away,” then they haven’t experienced Jesus Christ. We must wait for their time schedule. This mission cannot go into them because they have yet to experience the resurrection.
How many church members are like this? The doors of business will open for such people, because God has prepared business for evangelism, so that is why God will definitely open the doors. That person is bound to experience and enjoy Jesus’ life, power, and love. So ask God, “is this happening? Is this working out?” The church members will appear according to God’s time schedule. You must understand and experience this so that it will be relayed to the future generation.
People with diligence think that evangelism is about working very hard and relaying the gospel everywhere, but that’s just their evangelism. Some others think, because of their old age, they can’t do evangelism, that’s their own standards. Paul continued to evangelize even until his old age, he continued to evangelize till his death. Paul was really old so people are saying nonsense. But in order for it to make sense, we must change our scars. God is the Truth, then I am wrong, I have to change my lips, my thoughts, my feelings, I have to change myself. When I understand this I will receive power.
Your illnesses will be healed miraculously according to God’s time, but you don’t understand this and you’re going around preaching nonsense then that problem will continuously be there. It would be better for you to stay still, but you just go around talking so God will continue to pour problems upon you until you understand. You must understand evangelism so that this burden, this yoke of life can come off you. But it is a burden to you because you have not experienced the cross. God’s power must and will definitely come upon you but you continuously go on with your own strength, so how tiresome is this? Not your own way of evangelism, but the Biblical evangelism must be understood.
All remnants must understand evangelism. It’s not a matter of avoiding evangelism because they don’t want to hear about it, but it’s a burden they must carry. Though you might run around trying to avoid sermons or lecture about evangelism, it’s your own burden. Why is evangelism such a heavy burden for such a person? It is because they are centered on themselves. If they were centered on Hid then they will anticipate and expect for all things God has prepared. That person must start with experiencing the cross. If a person says nonsense then you must think that that person has not yet experienced the cross. Though they have experienced the cross, if they continue to spout nonsense about evangelism you must recognize that they haven’t experienced Christ, because they are just continuing out of their own diligence, they attempt acts of conversion, but they have yet to experience that Jesus is the Christ.
Why am I saying this? It is because the atmosphere of the church is very important so you must know this biblical atmosphere that we are trying to set up so we are not swayed, so we aren’t swayed by the nonsense atmosphere.
Why are you scammed? It is because you are touched upon that part and you’re scammed. The young people live their life in a daze, so that is how they are touched and that is how they are scammed. So, these people go around living in fabulous clothes and designer homes, but it turns out they are taking loans from banks and friends, and it turns out they are actually in poverty. It’s because the guy was able to see the empty parts of the girl. If you’re not able to understand evangelism, your life will continue on like this. If you think, “Should I enter into this field or that field?” That’s isn’t evangelism but your own standards. God will grant you a time schedule.
3. Understand Missions
1) Acts 11:19-30
Missions trying ro raise up their own church are not missions. Missions to receive blessings is something that is packaged as missions; it is not true missions. Even the church members tend to speak of missions in this sort of way. But missions is about God raising up the disciples in a different culture and a different region, that is why God raised up the Antioch Church.
2) Acts 13:1 –
God raised up four teams to go into the regions and to evangelism and missions.
3) Acts 16
4) Acts 19
These teams were sent to Philippi and Asia
4. Understand Culture
If you do not understand the culture of the world, you cannot do evangelism or missions.
1) Genesis 3:4-5 Me
People themselves are their own gods, if you aren’t able to recognize this then you aren’t able to recognize the field. God must be God but they themselves are their own gods. That is sin, but they don’t recognize that as sin, so they just think of it as living their own lives. That is a falsehood that has been planted in them by Satan, but they live their lives thinking it’s completely normal because they’ve seen their parents and grandparents before them living their life in this way.
Good / Evil
And the standard of determining what is good and evil is themselves “If it’s good for me, it’s good; if it’s bad for me, it’s bad,” this is the characteristic of a sinner, but they don’t recognize themselves as sinners.
2) Genesis 6 Good Things – Evil
Genesis 6 is about them doing whatever they want, whatever they think is good, but God looked into their heart and saw that everything was evil. It must be good according to God; however, when they look at it themselves they think it’s good, and this is the culture of the world. You must know this in order to go into the evangelism field and relay something. If you don’t know this, what will you exactly relay? You must tell them the reason for curses and disasters is sin, in which they are their own god, and you can tell because if something doesn’t go their own way, they get angry. If someone doesn’t understand their words, they do anything to try to make the other person understand. But coming to church, they don’t recognize that this is the working of Satan, so they are continuously caught by this and dragged by it. Knowing this, the church must allow the person to recognize and understand what this is.
3) Genesis 11 Power
Genesis 11 is talking about our own strength and power, that everything is possible through our own power and not God’s, however, this is all evil. All fields are like this, and if you yourselves are within this, you cannot change anything. If I hear something that disturbs me, I’m not able to evangelize because my self esteem is hurt, then you must stand above that. Not me, but Christ. If you’re to gather a group of people with power, you think of yourself as something great, it’s like the incident of the Tower of Babel when people gathered themselves and thought of their own glory and power God was there. But in the field, people are going about, thinking this is a good work, not realizing that this is what actually causes disasters.
But for a person whose Tower of Babel has broken down, they may be able to listen and hear the word of God. And this is God’s time schedule where he makes them rely on Him. When they believe they can do it with their own strength and power, they can’t do any works. If our church members have a positive and determined outlook on life, the church will be ruined. A positive outlook thinking, “This is going to happen, this is going to work out,” but what is going to work out? We have to rely on God. Even if you’re A little bit positive it would be a little better to give positivity to support others, but ultimately, it’s the same outcome.
4) Acts 13 Shaman, Acts 16 Fortune-Telling, Acts 19, Idols
This is the culture of the world. In other words, they listen to evil spirits and are moved by evil spirits. The majority of people are within this. Some people who are a little more spiritually inclined are within this atmosphere, but it’s the people who are inside of this, Acts 13, 16, and 19, who assert influence into the world . If this is Satan’s word residing in them, that is Satan’s spirit actually controlling them. Spiritually, the influence is upon their respective businesses and networks.
5. Understand Disciple
You must understand what a disciple is. Everyone is a disciple and everyone is within a time schedule to determine whether they are a disciple or not, but what is the disciple the Bible is speaking of?
1) Entire Life
Don’t just look at the present-time, but look at the entirety of your life through evangelism. God uses our life, God has already determined when you will go to heaven. He has already determined in what way you will go to heaven. You must look at the entirety of your life through evangelism. That is why when you’re evangelizing, there are so many opportunities so you must continue to evangelize. It’s the same for all the church officers in the church, but they don’t have a lot of time, because once they stop evangelizing they will soon go to heaven. If our church officers procrastinate or delay just a little bit, they will soon end up in heaven, but the remnants have a little more time, so they have to recognize and know your life’s time schedule to appoint your time to certain things; that is wisdom.
You can’t be any less than Queen Elizabeth of England, you can’t be any less than the queen, so even just saving one life is doing many more works than what the queen has done. Though the King of Joseon held much power in the world, they weren’t able to save lives, so we must be able to save even one life. Isn’t that so much better? That’s why laying down your life, what are you going to do in the future.
My grandmother passed away last Sunday at the age of 103. I could barely remember her face, but I remember the words she spoke to me. She would always say, “Why aren’t you married yet?” Once I got married, she said, “Please give me a kid,” and once I had a kid, she asked, “Why is there only one? Get me a son as well,” and that is the life she has led, that was presented by words. It was through my marriage with my wife that she was able to convert and receive the gospel. However, a relative, perhaps her daughter-in-law, was in some kind of mystic religion, so after a while, I lost contact with her.
Nothing else but your words remain beyond your life, so what are the words you have spoken with your life? That is yourself. Is it a constant complaint? Then you’ll know your life was full of complaints. But saving a person’s life with the gospel is what will remain. That is why it must be a church officer who will remain within the gospel. It’s your words that will remain.
2) Personality
Optimistic
You must know their personality. There are some people who are oppressively optimistic, however, the severity is a mental illness. The chatctxteristiv of this person is work after work, it happens for them. If you look at one’s business, you can tell they are constantly optimistic because, even if it doesn’t work out, they continue to do work. And there are some people who are pessimistic, it never works out for them.
Pessimistic
These people say smart things because they are able to learn from other people but they are always the ones who are constantly kicked out of their companies. There’s nothing that works out for them. They’re smart and constantly think they are saying smart things but they’re always kicked out. They’re separated from God, they’re not even normal, they’re far from normal as well. That is why we must receive healing from God’s Word.
Everything is contained within the church, whether it’s big or small. The works that come from this or that start to mix, but God will make it and changeyou into a disciple that says, “I can only do it through God.”
3) Walk of Faith
This person is a disciple, but is he or she legalistic?
(1) Law – Legalism
What does “legalistic” mean? They say correct and righteous things with biblical evidence, but that’s the end of it. We call such people “legalistic” people. The people who are caught in this heretic movement are the legalistic people. Look at the Jehovah’s Witnesses, they are focused on whether you’ve kept the Sabbath or not, whether you’re keeping the command or not. They focus one whether they can enter the army or not, that’s legalism. Because the word of God is presented as the law, they’re able to be entrapped in this state of legalism.
These people’s words have strength because they seem to be according to the law, and they continue to speak from having this evidence in the Bible. However, they themselves cannot uphold the law, they put up a front of being able to keep the law, but God stated that no one can keep the law, so eventually, this person will also fall into their own legalism and face humiliation.
You must change this legalism to the gospel. They think of themselves as bright and very smart, so what must we do? We must wait, and they misunderstand that they are the only ones doing good, and they are trapped in this for the rest of their lives. So, the people with the gospel appear to have nothing to them. We just have to wait. Legalism appears in many forms, so we must just wait.
(2) Gospel
And there are some people who are so focused on the gospel, though they have not listened to the gospel, they seemed to be focused on the gospel. These are people who are naturally loving and naturally forgiving, and some people listen to the gospel and they change gospel like. These people are also criticized by legalistic people because it seems like they aren’t doing anything right. You can actually go back and forth in between these. If you don’t have morals, you will fall. You will not be able to stand in the world if you don’t have a standard, but they have the gospel. That is why God gave me time to raise up a scale.
4) Nature (Worldly)
Everyone has their respective nature, but some people have a more worldly nature. There’s a nature that comes from Genesis 3, 6, and 11, and that enters into the church, what happens, we must change that but we must wait. Everyone has their nature.
5) Spiritual Problems
Anyone has spiritual problems, and simply put, coming to the church, you must understand what a disciple is. Without knowing this you think, “is that all that here is to it? However, the time schedule is all up to God, so it’s not a simple thing, but God is the one to change all this itin the church and we will send them out to save the world. The rest is for the next lecture.
So today, in order to raise up the church officers in the church who will save the field and open the doors of evangelism in the field, we must settle the atmosphere in the church because it is within this atmosphere that the works are raised up. And also we must continuously raise them in the church; the atmosphere of the church.
So I noticed that the characteristics of our church is for the very loud legalistic people to either be changed or leave the church, and especially when they’re changed, they’re humiliated enough to change because God is letting them know that that is not the standard. And I talked previously about evangelism as well. Even though it doesn’t work out, you must know that evangelism is evidence and you must not spout random words. And if you say, “Evangelism worked out for the three of us,” you must recognize that you are in Matthew 19.
And you can’t just say evangelism is nurturing a few people, and so, there’s the evangelist speaking words of evangelism, but you are evangelizing but your words don’t align. You can’t just make evangelism happen if you give them the letters of evangelism. Whether that’s 100 people or several thousands of people, you can’t say that’s evangelism. You must understand that evangelism is not a matter of numbers. Missions, culture, and then you must fully understand this so that once you know a little bit about it you’ll be able to truly evangelize.
Prayer
Dear Father God, thank you. May You open the doors of evangelism through the workers You have appointed in the church. In Jesus Christ’s name we pray, amen.