Preacher: Jeremy Herbert

Text: Acts 19:11-22

Thesis: God works powerfully in churches who minister in Jesus’s name

Notes:

The miracles performed in Acts were meant to confirm the message of the gospel–not an end in themselves.

There will always be unscrupulous unbelievers who desire to piggyback onto the gospel in order to feed their own appetites.

* Real ministry focuses on the Word of God, not the sensational

* Real ministry exalts Christ, not men or ministries

* Real ministry relies on God’s power, not manipulation

* Real ministry attracts frauds

* Real ministry changes lives

* Real ministry defeats Satan

 

Real ministry exalts Christ, not men or ministries

* 1 Corinthians 3:4

* Teaching that shifts focus from Christ to a person or ministry leads to cults and spiritual abuse

* Pastors have no right or authority to demand obedience to anything unscriptural

* People are often drawn to the unusual or spectacular as opposed to the ordinary means of grace because they are so “ordinary”

* The word of God

* Meditating on the Word

* Prayer

* All things available to every ordinary believer

* Why don’t we avail ourselves of these?

* We don’t really want to change

* We don’t expect God to work

 

Live It Out!

* Make much of Christ

* Focus on knowing Christ through the ordinary means of grace

* Focus on living and proclaiming Christ faithfully and fully