Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast,
where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.
In this podcast series, we're going to be looking into biblical
words that have great significance to our faith.
The name of this series is called the Word of the Week, where
once a week we will dive deeper into these words that we are
familiar with in scripture.
So come along with me.
Let's study the Word of the week.
Pastor Josh here.
The word of the week is gift.
We've been studying the gifts given to us in the Spirit in Romans
chapter 12 here for a long time.
Now we're getting towards the end.
We're going to be talking today about the gift of administration.
Whereas the King James says the.
The gift of ruling.
And so you can see that there In Romans chapter 12, it speaks of
that gift.
And as all of these gifts are, they are given to us by Christ through
the Holy Spirit with the discernment of God so that we can
use them for his purposes in our life.
And so the gift of administration could be defined as
the Spirit giving grace and I would even say motivation to serve
God in the body of believers, to visualize the bigger picture of
the body, to understand its needs, to define the needs, to communicate
it with other people, to formulate plans of action to encourage
members of that body and to complete goals, obviously for the
sake of God's glory within the church.
And so it is a more public gift when it comes to administration.
It is a gift that what we would say is, is in one of the upfront
ministries, even though it might not be necessarily preaching
or teaching, it would be definitely a ministry that would.
Would be demonstrating administrative needs for the body
as a whole.
And so people that are rulers or administrators are motivated to
make the body run with optimum efficiency.
Meaning there are things maybe that are going well within the church.
They want to make it run better.
And they have the tools, as God has given them to, to make the
church run better.
So some of these people in scripture that would have had these
gifts, people that I think about would be people like Nehemiah,
Solomon, Joseph, even you look at Joshua there in the Old Testament,
these would be people who could have the ability to visualize
the final outcome.
Sometimes you have people in the church that, and come up with
ideas, but they're not able to make them come to pass.
These would be individuals led by God in, in the area of, of defining
the needs for the goals at hand and being able to delegate the
right people for the right jobs.
And so biblically speaking, this is a needed position within
the church.
Obviously it's not always necessarily the most attractive position
for people that aren't gifted in that area.
Um, they, they would be people who are very faithful and dependable
with, with various skills and talents that would be administrative
and, and really they are people who are going to be.
Tend to be workers.
Very, very busy.
And.
But anytime we have these gifts, we know that we can exercise
these gifts with the power of the spirit or the power of the flesh.
And so just as much as an administrator is helpful for the
church, when exercise within the power of the Spirit, someone
that's exercising themselves in a carnal fashion, a fleshly fashion,
would, would maybe be harmful to the body at large.
And so some people that would have the gift of administration might
tend to be more dismissive of others that don't have their vision.
Some people that are working in the flesh might be tempted to
use people to accomplish goals.
So, so using people, right, Seeing people as a, a tool instead
of a soul that, that is in need of care, they might be.
Tend to be so driven that they forget about other responsibilities
in their life.
And so we, we know that there's a proper way to administrate
and there's an improper way to administrate.
And I think the, the goal for somebody who is an administrator
would be to exercise their gift that God has given them in the
framework of the fruit of the Spirit.
And any of these gifts could be exercised that way.
If you think about it, you could either work in the flesh or
work in the spirit.
Galatians chapter five lays that out for us.
The Bible speaks of the flesh and the spirit warring against each
other.
And if we are acting in the flesh, we are going to be characterized
by these things of the flesh.
And there's a whole list of those things in Galatians chapter
five.
But then we see at the end of Galatians chapter 5, there is the
classic list of the fruit of the Spirit.
And if we are characterized in any of these gifts today, specifically
including administration, we would be characterized by, by these
character traits.
So if you look at Galatians chapter 5, verse 22, it says, but
the fruit of the Spirit is love.
And so I think it's key to an individual who is administrating
to do it with love.
The spirit of love would be selflessness, humility, care for
others, Instead of seeing people as tools for the job to get
done.
You know, just steps in the machine process.
It's, it would be like, hey, this person has issues and Needs
and, and might need to be shepherded and cared for.
So, so love, joy, so do this in joy.
All these gifts can be done in joyful manners.
And they could also be done in manners of bitterness and anger.
You know, a person could say, well, can't believe I have to do
this for the church.
Or I can't believe I have to do this for the Lord.
No, it's, it's done with joy.
That's one of the character traits of doing these things in the
spirit.
Peace, long suffering.
That, that word in our everyday language is patience.
You know, you gotta have patience with administration.
Sometimes someone gifted in the gift of administration can see
exactly what needs to be done, but someone's not doing it.
And there could be an inpatient spirit with that.
And so to be exercising the gift of administration would be to
exercise it in a manner of patience.
We see the word gentleness here.
Goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, that's self control.
Against such there is no law.
And so the Bible lists there the different character traits of
the fruit of the spirit.
And I think that as we're looking at the gift of administration
today, it would be wise to check ourselves with that list.
You know, am I exercising my gift in these areas?
So the gift of administration, the gift of giving, the gift of prophecy
or proclamation, the gift of teaching, the gift of exhortation,
am I doing it with love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness,
goodness, faith, meekness and temperance.
If I'm not, then I'm exercising my God given gifts with
the flesh.
And I think that that would be a dangerous place.
It is a dangerous place to be because we are squandering what God
has gifted us in, in the area of stewardship.
And you go back to, I think it's First Peter, First Peter, Chapter
4, Verse 10.
We started here says, as every man hath received the gift, there's
the gift.
Even so minister that service the same one to another.
So the purpose is others as good stewards of the manifold grace
of God.
So what we've been given is a gift of grace.
Therefore we are stewards of it.
Because it's not ours to, to claim, it's, it's God's, but he's
given us the opportunity to manage it and use it for his good.
So if we have been given these things in our life and we use them
for our own pleasure, or we use them for our own purpose, then
we essentially are squandering or wasting the gift of God.
We are not being good stewards of what he has gifted us in.
And so, so often we, we waste the things that God gives us for
our own pleasures, for our own fleshly desires.
And so the challenge for us today would be God has given us so
much.
He has given us talents.
He has given us time, truth, treasure.
He's given us all these wonderful gifts.
As James 1 says, Every good gift comes down from God.
What are we doing with these gifts?
How am I using this for the furtherance of the gospel?
How am I using this for the edification of the body of believers,
the church?
How am I doing this to edify my fellow brothers and sisters in
Christ?
How am I exhorting others to love and good works?
And so I think of, of may, of all the gifts, administration would
be one that could be seen as sometimes as, hey, I'm deflecting
work, right?
Because I'm, I'm, I'm tasking other people.
And though it can turn to that.
And we do need people that are good delegators within the church.
We do need people that can see the bigger picture and see the end
goal and be detail oriented.
Not everyone is naturally detail oriented, but I do know that
even as all the gifts are, even if we're not supernaturally
gifted in these areas, we are supposed to grow in these areas.
And so you, you might think that, hey, you know what?
I don't have the gift of administration, so I don't need to
worry about the details.
No, I think as believers, we all need to grow in these areas.
And so if I'm scatterbrained or if I'm not organized in my ministry
or my service, I need to see how God can help me get stronger
in those areas.
And so I think that that's the goal for all of us when we come and
look at these gifts is how can we all grow in these capacities as
believers?
So we are looking at administration today.
Next week, we are going to look at the gift of mercy.
And that will essentially conclude the gifts that are listed
there in Romans, chapter 12.
And I really hope that this has been a beneficial study for you.
And I think that if you.
Well, let me say it this way.
I know that if you are a believer, God has gifted you with
at least one of these gifts.
And the challenge would be to, number one, identify that gift in
your life, but then, number two, to see how you can use that
gift in the local body of believers that you were a part of.
And so the assumption there would be that you are a part of a
local body of believers.
I know that Many of the folks that are listening to this podcast
are members of Middletown Baptist Church, but we know that
there are many great churches around the world.
And so if you're not a part of Middletown Baptist Church, I'm sure
there's a church out there for you.
And I encourage you to find a local body of believers that you
can be a part of so that you can.
You can be utilized for the kingdom of God there.
Now, you don't have to be a.
A member of a church to be saved.
You can trust in Jesus Christ as your savior, but the assumption
in Scripture would be that immediately we find a local body
to be a part of and to grow in.
And so the Bible does say to not forsake this, the assembly of
ourselves together.
And the Bible says that there's a purpose to that assembly,
and that is to exhort one another to love and good works.
So it's not so much that I have to go to church, but that I
want to go to church and that I need that body to complete me.
Now, Christ completely satisfies everything that I need
in my life, but Christ uses the church.
And the Bible says that Christ loves the church and he gave himself
for it.
So Jesus loves the church, and so we should, too.
So we're gonna look at the Gift of Mercy next week and conclude
our study, and then we will get into some new words.
I know we've been on the spiritual gifts now for.
For a long time, and I know that anytime you're studying one
thing for an extended amount of time, it can be difficult.
But I do encourage you to stay through and see it through so that
we can move on to some more wonderful words here as we study
the words of the week.
God has given us so many things in scripture to learn from
and to grow in, and I want to do that along with you.
So thank you so much for following along in the study.
We are looking for ideas that maybe you would like to hear about
in scripture.
And so if there's a word or a phrase or a person in Scripture that
you would like to hear more about, we would love for you to share
that with us.
You could email me at Josh, that's J O S H Massaro M as in Mary,
A S as in Sam, S as in Sam a r o@middletownbaptistchurch.org you
can send me an email there, or you can, you can reach out to the
church at large.
You can call us at the church, you can find our contact information
on our website, you could find that@middletownbaptistchurch.org or
you can find a link to our church website at our podcast website.
That's nbcpodcast.org well, thank you so much for listening and
I appreciate your faithfulness as we've been going through these
words for quite a bit of time now.
Well, God bless you.
We hope you have a wonderful week.
We look forward to hearing from you soon and we will be back
next week with another Word of the Week.
Take care.
Hey, I really appreciate that you listen to the Word of the Week
podcast.
If you have any questions about the podcast or about our church,
Middletown Baptist Church, you can find more information about us
on Facebook or YouTube or you can find the podcast on NBCPodcast.org
you can contact me directly at Josh Massaro at middletownbaptistchurch.org
stay tuned for future Word of the Week episodes where we dive deeper
into words that impact our life according to scripture.
Thank you so much.
God bless.
We'll talk to you soon.