I haven't done it for a long time. But I hope that in the next few minutes that we can all of us get something out of it to profit in the service of the Lord. So if you will, open your Bible to the fourth chapter of the book of Ephesians. Hopefully this will go along with some of the things that Josh has been teaching. I didn't bring the Bible this morning that I usually have over there. It's still over there because I thought I better bring one that's a little bit older and a little more useful than used a little more. And hopefully we can glean something out of this that will be beneficial to each and every one of us. In the fourth chapter of the book of Ephesians, Let's read the first, the seventh and eighth verse, and then carry on from there down to the 11th verse. Ephesians chapter four, verse seven. But unto every one of us is given grace. according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore, he saith, when he ascended on high, he led captivity captive and gave gifts unto men. He's speaking here now about giving the gifts to men. As I read through this chapter this morning and several times, I've noticed that the gift of tongues is never mentioned here. But some of the really important gifts that he gives to men, and it's not, we say, you're talking about giving to preachers? No, giving to church members. And it's given to the measure that Christ measures out. Now then, drop down to verse 11, and we'll see some of these gifts that he's given. And he gave some apostles, some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers. Now, let's examine each one of these gifts that he says he gives. And since he mentioned pastors, he mentioned everything beforehand. So evidently there are other people that Christ has given to his churches for the benefit of the church. And he'll show us what those things are. First of all, what is the gift that he's talking about? He gave some apostles. Has New Life Baptist Church got an apostle? Why? What in the world has happened? Steve, where have you failed? You recall when the Lord called His 12 together, He named them. And He said, He called them apostles. And you say, whoa. I believe that was the time of the organization of his church. He called them together. He prayed over them. And he said he called them apostles. But why do we not have anybody show up today that is called an apostle? Over in the book of Acts, your very first chapter, you call Judas fell. When it came time to elect another apostle, they said it was necessary that someone take the place of Judas. It was necessary. It was absolutely necessary to somebody take the place of Judas. And what was the qualification? It said that he must accompany us from the baptism of John until this time. Now, is there anybody in our midst that has accompanied from the time From that time till now, not one. Well, what about the Apostle Paul? The Lord called him and named him an apostle to the Gentiles. And so the office of apostleship has long been gone and has not been renewed, even though some people claim that they are an apostle, or they may be a disciple, but not an apostle. That office has died. You don't find it anywhere else. But then notice the next thing that he says, not only apostles, but prophets. Now, don't we understand prophets as somebody that tells the future? Well, they did. And they were prophets. But you know what? A person that interprets the prophets also turned into doing some prophecy. You know what? Every time that your pastor stands up there and preaches to us, he's not telling you everything that he's doing. He's telling you what the Lord has done, and what's gonna be the result of this if you do it, and the result if you don't. He's prophesying. Now how far we take that prophecy, that's up to us. That's up to us. Then I want you to notice the next thing that he said. Prophets and some evangelists. What is that? What kind of a critter is that? Go to any one of the Gospels in your very first page in either one of the Gospels you got. Go there, I want you to read something. Either Matthew, Mark, or Luke, John, either one of them, the very first page. What is the title that he gives there? I know what it is in my Bible, what it is in yours. According to what? The gospel according to Luke. What in the world does that have to do with evangelism? In my Portuguese Bible, it says, the gospel according, the evangelium according to John, Matthew, or Mark, or Luke. The evangelium, what is that? That is the word for gospel in Portuguese. Where does it come from? It comes from the Latin language. And so in Portuguese, if an evangelist is one that preaches the gospel, and by the way, that's the responsibility of every one of us, he gave everyone else that gift. And you say, oh, I don't have the gift of doing that. Are you converted? If you've been converted, you got a story that's entirely different than mine. And if you got saved, you know what the gospel is. And he tells us over in Corinthians, he says, this is the gospel that Christ died for our sins according to scriptures. He was buried and he rose again according to the scriptures. And those three things is the gospel. And if that happened to you, Paul says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believed to the Jew first and to the Greek. So if that is the power, that God is going to use for the salvation of people, the gospel is what it is. And so what is an evangelist? He gave some evangelists, that should be every one of us. Everyone that has ever been born again, they ought to have a story that they can tell. In fact, that was my entire ministry. When I stopped and looked back over, it didn't matter where I was. I could have come up in a bunch of people that I thought every one of them was believers, and if a family walked in that I thought that I had never seen before, my message was Christ died, was buried, and rose again for your sinners. And so in this day and age, we think of the evangelist, well, that's somebody that we're gonna call in, and a lot of people are gonna get saved. No, it's one of every church member's responsibility. And we'll see that it was put into practice in Bible times. All right, and then what else? Besides a prophet, said pastors. Well, I think we have an idea of what that is. That's one that God has placed in our church as a leader. He's not a boss. He's one that is called to do. And by the way, I might say that all of these gifts here that he's talking about now could be in every one of us. I know that he's called some, he says, he that desires the office of a bishop, desires a good position. And he gives some qualifications for those. And so I remember back when I first started preaching, I said, I don't know what it was, I said to my pastor, we're not gonna ordain you. He says, you're a novice. Prove yourself. Prove yourself that God has really called you. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, about two years later, I was ordained. I had proved myself. But you know what? I started in a church that was just recently formed. That's where I was saved. Why it was, because someone went into that neighborhood and began to preach the gospel. A half a dozen or more people would gather together there in the name of the Lord, and I got saved there. You know where the next place went? The assistant pastor said, will you go with me across town to start another one? Yeah, let's go. Went across town and started another one. We had a radio program. What we began to do was preach over the radio along with that pastor. And finally, a couple came from another city. Said, we want one of you brethren to come over and start a church where we are. Well, when do you go? And I said, which one you want? Unfortunately, they said, we want you. Went across the state of Florida, started another one. You know how we did it? Preaching the gospel, preaching the gospel, preaching the gospel. You know where I went from there? I went further south. I had the opportunity to start several churches. You know where I started? I started preaching the gospel. I was an evangelist, I was an evangelist, I was an evangelist. I heard one of the missionaries say recently, he says, well, I tried to start a group out there and said it wouldn't start out, there's a lot of people, adults came and said, oh, that's all I had was less than five or six kids. And he says, I went on somewhere else. I said, I've been through that a hundred times. That's where you start. You start and you preach the gospel. Kids are capable of hearing and believing the gospel. But they're not gonna believe it if they don't hear it. And so every one of us has the responsibility to preach the gospel. We're gonna see it in practice in a little bit. And then of course, the office of a pastor, if you've never been there and ain't done that, you don't know all that that entails. Every Monday morning, or occasionally on Monday morning, pastors decided to resign. Don't do it on Monday. You can quit tomorrow. And I'm sure that Brother Steve has experienced that. I have. And so somebody asked me one time after I'd been on the mission field several years, they said, has it ever occurred to you sometime when you're going further that you're done? I says, which time are you talking about? It comes into your mind every once in a while, but don't give up on Monday. Leave it till Tuesday, tomorrow. And by Wednesday, you're ready to go again. But we don't know, I perhaps know a little bit about it, but at least Pastor Steve and several others may know a little bit about what that is, but he does call some to be pastors. And I will ask you to not do this. Don't try to take a position that you don't have. I remember one young man in a new work that I started. He wanted to pastor the church. So I took a boatload of pastors. We went up there to pastor that church. And one of the pastors said, we're going to have to ordain him. I said, let's go slow. Let's wait a while. In about two years, he said to his wife, he says, let's get out of here. He said, there's an easier way to live than this. Lord never called him. We didn't ordain him, of course. So it is a special calling. And he's a leader. He's not a dictator. He tells you what you ought to do, but he can't make you do it. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. And so it's our responsibility to follow that. All right, now, why did God call people to these special ministries? He tells us what it's for. And I think that this is important in verse 12. He called all these people in these offices, what's it for? For the perfecting of the saints. Now, what is the purpose of these evangelists? What is the purpose of these pastors, these prophets? It's for the perfecting of the saints. And then what after that? I want you to notice what the next thing it says. For the ministry of the edifying of the church. You know the attitude in the last at least 40 or 50 years has been, we're gonna send our young men off to college and off to the seminaries, they're gonna make preachers out of them. They go there, they study for four years, and haven't learned much of anything. They just begin to learn how to study the Bible and learn some basic doctrine. And some church says, well, he's graduated now, said he's going to college. He knows everything, knows how to do it. Says, we're just gonna let him do it. And that's been basically the idea. The ministry belongs to that man. Steve, the ministry belongs to you. We don't have a thing to do with it. That's not what he said here. To prepare you for the ministry. That ministry doesn't belong to him. He's the leader of the ministry. He's the minister of the ministry. But I tell you what, every one of us has a ministry. We, the church, has the ministry. For what purpose? For the edification of the church. Notice on down here in verse 14. No, verse 13. That we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. The ministry belongs to you, it belongs to you, it belongs to you, and it belongs to me. It belongs to this congregation. And what is the purpose? Perfect one another to the fullness of Christ. You've got a responsibility to help me in every way that you can to be the kind of Christian that God wants you to be. I've got that same responsibility as one of you. So we have the responsibility. We are the ministers. The ministry hasn't been given to the church. It hasn't been given to pastors. He is nothing more than the leader of that. but each and every one of us have the responsibility to make everyone else come into the perfect man, woman that God wants us to be. Come on, help me, will ya? How can I help you? But this ministry was given to the church, it wasn't given to Pastor Steve. He's our leader. But it's a responsibility of each and every one to help every member that we can to come to the fullness of Christ. He predestined us to be children of Christ. He wants us to be just exactly like Christ. Why? Look down in the next verse. That henceforth, henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine. You know what? You question most Baptists, they couldn't tell you why they're Baptists. I would say, just off the top of my head, that 90% of them, they are Baptists because that's where they were saved. They have no idea what the Baptists believe. Wouldn't have to know how to stand up. You go over into the book of Hebrews, and he says, at the time, you ought to be teachers. You had need of someone to teach you. You can't take strong doctrine. Haven't been devoted any time to study. That's where you are. Need to help one another. We're not somebody that just carried about any wind of doctrine. A good example, I remember back in the early part of my ministry, some lady that picked up to take the church, and she said, well, as long as you're preaching the word, I'll be there. It didn't take about two times to preach something she'd never heard about until she was gone. Did you ever read the little book, Why Be a Baptist? Why are you a Baptist? What is it about it? over there in the book of Hebrews, all these sisters said, let's leave the doctrines of repentance toward faith and faith in Christ, and says, let's go on to something more, said, your baby's in Christ. So it's not only, it's you as a member of New Life Baptist Church, as well as it is I, as well as it is for Steve or anyone, it's due to us to know why, if somebody asks you why you're a Baptist, what's your answer? Well, that's what my pastor believes. Well, do you know what he believes? I believe he knows what he believes. I just believe because I think he's right. I like him. That won't cut it. As a member of a local church, it's each and everyone's responsibility to understand why we believe and why we believe it. Why do we not believe every wind of doctrine? It doesn't matter what church you attend. They're all the same. If they're all the same, I wouldn't be here in new life. I know why I'm a Baptist, and I came to that conclusion early in my ministry. I know what Baptists stand for. Hadn't heard anybody preach on the church for a long time, was going to the conference of Baptist Faith Mission, and I said, why don't somebody preach on the church? I know what I believe about the church. I know where it came from and how it got here. Lo and behold, Dempsey, Hender, and Priesthood. Yeah, I'm not the only one that believes that. The basic doctrines that I believed in the first two years that I was saved, they've stuck with me today and I still believe that they're true. It's our responsibility to help one another believe that. It's our ministry. Now you say, do you suppose that would all be put into practice? Let's go to the Book of Acts, the eighth chapter. Did this all work in the first century? Well, let's take a look here in the very first part of the first chapter, first verse of chapter eight. Verse one. And Saul was consenting unto the death, at the death of Stephen. And at that time, there was a great persecution against the church was at Jerusalem. And they were all scattered abroad throughout the region of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. I want you to notice the last three words, except the apostles. Let me ask you, if that kind of persecution came to us today, what would we do? hunkle down, hunker down. I don't know what's gonna happen. I had one occasion one time many years ago. In fact, 30 years before I arrived on the mission field, this one little village, the Catholics accused what few believers they had of destroying an image. Turned out it was the Catholics themselves that broke the image in their church. But they took all the Bibles, the few believers that were there, tore them up. Each one had a songbook, and they were torn up. They formed two lines, and the believers would run down through it, bang, bang, bang, whips. One young man escaped when he took off, had said he'd been called to preach, and disappeared for 10 years. He was one of the most faithful ones that I knew in Brazil after that. But anyway, I go there 30 years later, and they said, ha ha ha, they got a beating 30 years ago, and they're asking for it again. What do I do? There's two or three believers, two or three families of believers in that little village. I said, will you start a church here? That's when that man said, they got a beating 30 years ago, and they're asking for it again. Do I start a church there? Yeah. Did they ever beat up on us? No. Did they ever threaten? Yes. One night we looked out there and by candlelight we could see machetes all the way around a little service we were having outside. Brick bats in their hands. And I thought, well, time has come. You know what happened? We walked out. Was I scared? No, I didn't have sense enough to be scared. I just thought I'd better preach the gospel. I did. You know what we did while the machetes were flashing? Who wants to have a service in the home tomorrow night? That carried on for weeks and weeks. They showed up. One night they circled our house to burn us out. What do you do? We hung our heads and went to sleep. I'm still alive today. Was I scared? Didn't have sense enough to do that. Where are we going to have service tomorrow night? With the persecution of Saul, they were scattered abroad. They were scattered abroad, scattered abroad. Now, I think there are times to run. And I think there are times to howl fast. These brethren saw it was time to move on. And I want you to notice what he says here. They were all scattered abroad except the apostles. Were they not scared? I'm sure they were. They'd already been through some of the persecution of their own. They knew what it was. But some found a time to run, so they moved on. But they didn't go alone. Look down in verse four. Therefore they that were scattered abroad Went everywhere, and what were they doing? Preaching the word, preaching the word. Why did it take persecution to get them out of their comfort zone? You know why? Because Jesus came, and they thought he was gonna establish his kingdom on earth, and they were gonna expel the Romans, and that would make them satisfied. That didn't happen. But now then, something more serious has come along. It's a matter of life and death. Paul found times that it was time to leave. Saul of Tarsus was one of the teachings that turned into the name of Paul. There was times that he ran. There was times that he held fast. But these that were scattered abroad, they took one thing with them. They took them where they went. How does that apply to us today? You students that are in school, take the gospel to school with you. You that are on the job, take it with you. I came from Thompson Road Baptist Church before I came to New Life. While there, I began to look back, and I said to Lois one day, I said, Lois, I said, I've become slack because when I was starting a new work in Brazil, in the morning, I hit the streets, house to house, visiting, preaching, teaching, teaching, telling people to come, asking people to come to church. In the afternoon, I hated to do that. I had to kick my behind every afternoon to get myself back out there. But you know what? I never came home sad. Had to beat myself in the morning, had to beat myself in the afternoon, but I always came home happier than I went out. Organized churches was doing that. And so these, they went, and what'd they go with? They went preaching the gospel everywhere they went. Why did the apostles not go? The Lord told them, said, you'll be witness to me in the whole world. You go and preach the gospel to every creature, baptizing them, and then teach them to observe all things. That teaching all things is what we've already been talking about this morning. Growing up in Christ. But you know what? It isn't very difficult to preach the gospel. It isn't too difficult to get people baptized. but it's hard to get them lost. And then when you get them lost and you get them saved and you get them baptized, it's a lifetime of teaching them all things. They just never seem to learn at all. I learned so little of it. So they were all scattered abroad except the apostles. Then what took place? Look down in verse Then Philip went down to the city in Samaria and preached the gospel to them. What did he preach to them? The evangelio, the gospel, evangelist. Philip was an evangelist. He went there and he preached and they gave ear to what he said. But don't you remember? The Lord Jesus Christ went to one of those cities or went to one of those villages and the whole city came out to hear him. And they went back, the men came out at least, because of what this prostitute woman had told them, says, is this not the Christ? They came out and says, ah, we believe now because, not because you said it, but because we heard ourselves. They went out there and they heard Christ. What did they believe? That, yeah, he is the Messiah. She said he was. He said, you know what? He's now going to set up that kingdom that is going to destroy the Roman force. Whether they were converted to Christ or not, I don't know. But now Philip goes there and he preaches the gospel. And the whole city came to him to believe. You know what? Philip didn't last long there. The Lord called him down to just one little old road. going down this road, he met one man in a chariot. And he heard him reading the Gospel, or the Book of Isaiah. He said to him, he said, do you believe what you, do you understand what you're reading? He says, how can I unless a man teach me? He asked Philip, he says, come up here in this chariot and teach me. He preached Christ from the 53rd chapter of Isaiah that the man was reading. He said, He said, here's water to keep me from being baptized. If you believe with all your heart, he preached the gospel just to one person. And so you may not think it's very important when you're preaching to one person, but that guy went on his way merrily because he had found Christ. And those back there where Phillip had preached, the apostles, look over into verses 14 and 15. Now, when the apostles, which were at Jerusalem, heard of the Samaria, had received the word of God, they sent Peter and John. And when they were there, they prayed and laid their hands on some of them, came there and verified the fact, yeah, these fellows have been saved. You know what Peter and John did? when they were come, they prayed over them and must have the Holy Spirit. Then if you look down in verse 25, and they, when they had testified and preached the word to the Lord, returned into Jerusalem and preached the gospel in many of the villages. That's real strange. The apostles went up there, verified the fact that these people were saved, laid hands on some of them. They went back to Jerusalem. To do what? They went back to do the very same thing that the commanders would do, teach you and I and each and every one of us to do what they said. They went back to do what they were called to do. They were called to edify the church. They went back to Jerusalem. So it all comes back to that same thing. Did it ever happen again? I want you to go over into the 19th chapter of the Book of Acts. Now we find the Apostle Paul at Ephesus at this particular time, looking down into verse 19. He was there preaching, and by the way, Ephesus was a city that was completely given over to idolatry. The great goddess Diana. And he was there and discussing and preaching the word and the contentions became so great that he separated himself from the group of the general public and took those that were believing. And of course he says in verse 19, but when divers were hardened, and believe not, but spake evil of that way before the multitude, he departed from them, and separated the disciples, disputing daily in the school of Tyrannus. And this continued by the space of two years, so that all that were, which were in Asia, heard the word of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, what did Paul do? There in Ephesus, he preached the word. Some contended, he separated himself from them, took these few believers that he had and went into a school. And there he taught them, how long? Two years. What was the result of him being there in Ephesus for two years? All of Asia heard the gospel. How did all of Asia hear the gospel if he stayed in Ephesus two years? They heard that same word that I'm preaching to us this morning. One by one, they started out preaching the gospel wherever they went until all of Asia. You know, Paul didn't reach all of Asia in two years. But those that he taught, he taught them the responsibility that the ministry is upon you. Get out there and do it. And all of Asia heard the gospel. Well, I'm old. I'm going to let Steve do it. Both Steves. A few years ago, still over at Thompson Road, I realized that I had gotten slack on that house-to-house visitation. I said, Lois, I'm scared to death that you can try that now. I'm in a different culture. I don't have any courage. But when spring comes, I'm going to start something. I'm going to go house to house. I don't do any more than 10 houses, but I'm going to force myself to do 10 houses. When spring came, I did 10 houses. No results that I know of. Next Sunday in Sunday school, I said to my class what I had done. I'm going to start that here around this church. Church had no outreach. Two brothers says, can we go with you? And for the next few weeks, the three of us, every Saturday afternoon, it finally developed into something a little larger. A group of us, under the leadership of the pastor, left the church on foot. We first designated which ones would go which streets. I knew where I was supposed to go, so we all walked from the church. I climbed steps on about three houses. When the pastor came by, Dave Park came by, he found me sitting on the curb. I couldn't climb another step. He went to the church and got his car and hauled me on back to the church. And now then you ask, will that work today? I don't know what will work today. But I remember I taught this lesson in one place and the pastor came to me after and says, it will work in America. I said, it worked for me in Brazil. I believe it will still work. If where we work, where we go to school, if we'll take the gospel with us. The problem is we're cowered down by illnesses, lethargy, careless, and I confess I don't much care anymore. Pray for me, I need help. Our Father in heaven, I pray that this has been helpful to all of us. that we that have heard that we'll share it with others and that we in ourself will put it into practice. It will work in America if we would just go and take the gospel with us and leave it out. Have mercy on us, Father, for I pray in Jesus' name, amen.