The Ministry of the Holy Spirit XVIII - Living Grace Fellowship

Sunday 07/20/14

Topic: Looking Back…A Review

Series – The Ministry of the Holy Spirit XVIII.mp3

Click here to watch the video.

A Review:

We’ve been on this series for 10 months now (every other week – so more like 5 months) and so I thought that this week we needed to review what we’ve covered so far before pressing into the last segment of this series on the Ministry of the Holy Spirit. Below are a list of the basic topics covered in this series…

The Ministry of the Holy Spirit I –

Worship = life lived passionately honoring God.

Worship in a believer is a life style which communicates “I adore you Lord”.
True proof of our adoration is fruit-bearing.
Fruit is the unavoidable result of living in joyful union with our Lord.

This message took a very personal turn in that as an elder I found it necessary to turn a objective bright light on ourselves as a church to examine our hearts of worship as an assembly.

The questions were asked….

Where are our hearts?
Do we long to time together as a church?
What does it take to keep us away?
What led us to the place we are now?

This led us to looking at our worship and our fruit.

The topics of fruit bearing and walking within your grace-gift are related in that both are the immediate result of walking in surrendered union with Him!

His promise was to send the Holy Spirit Who would cause them to understand what they had not grasped during his time with them. He would teaching them how Jesus is in the Father and that He was in them and they where one with the Father and that together they would come and make their permanent home within them.

This is the beginning of the Ministry of the Holy Spirit!

The Ministry of the Holy Spirit II – Oneness (Jn. 14-16)

What we took from these chapters were the following:

The Holy Spirit is ALL ABOUT revealing Christ – John 16:14
He is here to convince us of our reconciliation or oneness with Jesus and the Father – John 14:20
- He convinces us of the abolition of death – Eph. 2:15; 2 Tim. 1:10
- Death (separation) has been swallowed in victory – 1Cor. 15:54
- He has brought judgement to victory (vanquished separation)- Matt. 12:20

He is here to co-partner with us in establishing the Kingdom of God.
- 1st within by our victory over sin – (will cover next week).
- 2nd without by our active and fervent love of our brothers (-will cover next week).

The Ministry of the Holy Spirit III – Joint-partnership with the Holy Spirit

The Ministry of the Holy Spirit IV – A Call to unity (doctrine and thoughts) & Kingdom mindedness

The Ministry of the Holy Spirit V – Co-partnership in His sufferings I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, IX

The Ministry of the Holy Spirit X – In the life of Christ

Led to be tempted
Returned in power

The Ministry of the Holy Spirit XI – Partnership in ministry – all that Christ BEGAN to do and teach Acts 1:1

The Ministry of the Holy Spirit XII – Spirit within…the Spirit upon – difference between spirit in / on/ and filled with

The Ministry of the Holy Spirit XIII – Spirit within…the Spirit upon – fell upon.

The Ministry of the Holy Spirit XIV – Pentecost – wheat harvest (Joel – restore the wheat – son’s and daughter’s prophecy.

The Ministry of the Holy Spirit XV / XVI– receive power (to be / to do)

The Ministry of the Holy Spirit XVII & XVIII – Praying in the Spirit I & II

The Ministry of the Holy Spirit XIV – The gift of and the prayer language of – Easy to understand / order

The Ministry of the Holy Spirit XV – Groaning in the Spirit

He will take of Mine and show it to you

We will soon be video taping our services so that there will actually be a person to watch as the message is being played as a video…just give us a few weeks to iron out the details. Also, you can pray for me (Mark) because doing real video footage is going to eat up A LOT more of my time every week, so I need to approach it with more enthusiasm then I can currently muster up.

I hope you will enjoy the rest of this teaching and as a result be better equipped to co-partner with the Spirit in the work of the ministry!

We encourage you…give it a listen!

Pastor Mark

View posts by Pastor Mark

Hi my name is Mark and though I am opposed to titles, I am currently the only Pastor (shepherd/elder) serving our assembly right now.

I have been Pastoring in one capacity or another for nearly 30 years now, though never quite like I am today.

Early in 2009 the Lord revealed to me that the way we had structured our assembly (church) was not scriptural in that it was out of sync with what Paul modeled for us in the New Testament. In truth, I (like many pastors I am sure) never even gave this fundamental issue of church structure the first thought. I had always assumed that church structure was largely the same everywhere and had been so from the beginning. While I knew Paul had some very stringent things to say about the local assembly of believers, the point of our gatherings together and who may or may not lead, I never even considered studying these issues but assumed we were all pretty much doing it right...safety in numbers right?! Boy, I couldn't have been more wrong!

So needless to say, my discovery that we had been doing it wrong for nearly two decades was a bit of a shock to me! Now, this "revelation" did not come about all at once but over the course of a few weeks. We were a traditional single pastor led congregation. It was a top-bottom model of ministry which is in part biblical, but not in the form of a monarchy.

The needed change did not come into focus until following 9 very intense months of study and discussions with those who were leaders in our church at the time.

We now understand and believe that the Bible teaches co-leadership with equal authority in each local assembly. Having multiple shepherds with God's heart and equal authority protects both Shepherds and sheep. Equal accountability keeps authority and doctrine in check. Multiple shepherds also provide teaching with various styles and giftings with leadership skills which are both different and complementary.

For a while we had two co-pastors (elders) (myself and one other man) who led the church with equal authority, but different giftings. We both taught in our own ways and styles, and our leadership skills were quite different, but complimentary. We were in complete submission to each other and worked side-by-side in the labor of shepherding the flock.

Our other Pastor has since moved on to other ministry which has left us with just myself. While we currently only have one Pastor/Elder, it is our desire that God, in His faithfulness and timing, may bring us more as we grow in maturity and even in numbers.

As to my home, I have been married since 1995 to my wonderful wife Terissa Woodson who is my closest friend and most trusted ally.

As far as my education goes, I grew up in a Christian home, but questioned everything I was ever taught.

I graduated from Bible college in 1990 and continued to question everything I was ever taught (I do not mention my college in order to avoid being labeled).

Perhaps my greatest preparation for ministry has been life and ministry itself. To quote an author I have come to enjoy namely Fredrick Buechner in his writing entitled, Now and Then, "If God speaks to us at all other than through such official channels as the Bible and the church, then I think that He speaks to us largely through what happens to us...if we keep our hearts open as well as our ears, if we listen with patience and hope, if we remember at all deeply and honestly, then I think we come to recognize beyond all doubt, that, however faintly we may hear Him, He is indeed speaking to us, and that, however little we may understand of it, His word to each of us is both recoverable and precious beyond telling." ~ Fredrick Buechner

Well that is about all there is of interest to tell you about me.

I hope our ministry here is a blessing to you and your family. I also hope that it is only a supplement to a local church where you are committed to other believers in a community of grace.

~God Bless!