Three Mandates in Christian Ministry - Sonship #6

Last Sunday I preached about three spheres in which God gives authority to his sons (and daughters). Exercising this authority is a mark of sonship. Not to exercise it is a denial of sonship. All of these come from John 17

1. Authority to fully complete the task (1-5)
Jesus has given us work to do. You just need to see some of the things he commands his own disciples to get an idea about the kind of thing we are also called to complete. This completion demands power from heaven. When Jesus asked the Father to glorify him at this "hour" he wasn't just being nice. He knew that supernatural power was the only thing that would get him to the cross as well as through the cross. God has a supernatural purpose for us to complete. We should not consider a calling unless it demands supernatural power. There is so much ministry happening that depends on human abilty and human manipulation rather than the power of God. When you consider what God has called you to do it must be beyond your ability and beyond your "working it out." Anything less is unworthy of God. Anything less is unworthy of your relationship with God.
2. Authority to protect your disciples (6-19)
Here are some of the aspects of a minsitry that protects the people God has "given you." Don't think that you are not responsible for people's discipleship. Some of the best discipleship you can do will be with people who are not yet believers but are in your sphere of ministry influence.
a. consider that they are given to you by God and take personal responsibility for their relationship to Jesus(6)
b. make sure they know that what you give comes from God and not just from you (7)
c. make sure you give them what God has given you, not what you think on your own (8)
d. exercise the authority God has given you to protect them from the evil one (11)
e. make sure they know the joy of the Lord, not just the words (13)
f. bind them to God in a solemn covenant bond and see that they are divorced from the world (14)
g. sponsor and commission them to fulfill God's purpose in the world, not just the church(17)

3. Authority to bring the body into supernatural oneness (20-23)

This is profound and deeply challenging. Jesus has a mandate from heaven to draw the church into a supernatural experience of unity. It is a work of the power of God but a responsibiity of Jesus to pursue on behalf of all beleivers. The measure of the unity is that of the Father and Son. Think of what we are experiencing and understand how much we need miracles of revelation and grace. When you realize what Jesus was asking the Father we just realize just how much power from heaven we need. We need power to believe that God could do it, let alone faith to walk boldly toward it and persist until it breaks in on us.

All of these three areas where God has given all of us authority because we are sons and daughters of our Father God are keys to understanding the spiritual warfare strategy of heaven and the targetted areas of Satan. If given opportunity, Satan will want to turn you from the fulfillment of your God ordained destiny. He will get you to believe something else, something less. He will try and get you to rely on yourself rather than on God. He will get you to believe that what God wants for you is way beyond belief. RESIST by crying out to God to glorify you and empower you to complete the task.

If we do nothing, Satan will go after our disciples. He will try to turn them from us and from the faith. We must do the things that Jesus did so that we my "lose none of the ones God has given us." What a challenge!!

If we do nothing, Satan will keep the church from becoming ONE. He will help us to rationalize and justify our disunity. He will use doctrine, personalities, human frailties and weaknesses, disputes over all kinds of unimportant issues. All the while we will be powerless to break the strongholds of the world that will only be smashed by the power of ONENESS in the church.

Brian Medway