Sep. 07, 2025

Series: Transformed   9-7-25

Ingredients of an Effective Ministry

(Romans 15:14-31)

AN EFFECTIVE MINISTRY:

1. _______________________

Romans 15:14 I myself am convinced, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with knowledge and competent to instruct one another.

• “Goodness” - actively expressing good, often involving rebuking, correcting, or chastising to cause good in others. 

• “Instruct” (nouthetéō - from noús mind, and títhēmi to place) to admonish or warn, to counsel about avoiding or ceasing an improper course of conduct. 

Romans 15:14 (NTT) “Since you have a knowledge of what Christianity entails, don’t be afraid to hold each other’s feet to the fire by warning, correcting, and rebuking one another because that will eventually cause good to blossom in the lives of your brothers and sisters in the faith.”

Proverbs 27:5–6 (NLT) ⁵ An open rebuke is better than hidden love! ⁶ Wounds 

from a sincere friend are better than many kisses from an enemy. 

Proverbs 27:1–2 (NLT) ¹ Don’t brag...  ² Let someone else praise you, not your 

own mouth...

Proverbs 27:21 (NLT) ²¹ Fire tests the purity of silver and gold, but a person is 

tested by being praised.

Proverbs 27:17 ¹⁷ As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.

1 Timothy 1:3–5 ³ stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain people not to teach false doctrines any longer… ⁵ The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.

• “Pure” - clean, pure, clear, in a natural sense unsoiled, unalloyed.

• “Sincere” - originally it meant inexperienced in the art of acting. In the NT, it came to mean one without hypocrisy, genuine, real, sincere.

• “Conscience” - the psychological faculty that distinguishes between right and wrong; either afflicts or comforts the person depending upon their actions.

• Our role is to ___________________ what we see, the Holy Spirit’s role is to _________________ their heart to change.

• “Confess” (homologeo - homo, same; logeo, agree or admit) to say the same thing about our sin that God does.

2. _______________________

Romans 15:15–16 ¹⁵ I have written you quite boldly on some points to remind you of them again, because of the grace God gave me ¹⁶ to be a minister of Christ Jesus…

2 Peter 1:12–15 (NASB) ¹² Therefore, I shall always be ready to remind you of these things, even though you already know them, and have been established in the truth which is present with you. ¹³ And I consider it right, as long as I am in this earthly dwelling, to stir you up by way of reminder... ¹⁵ And I will also be diligent that at any time after my departure you may be able to call these things to mind.

• David remembered ____________ and ____________ stories.

1 Samuel 17:33, 37 ³³ Saul replied, “You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a young man, and he has been a warrior from his youth…” ³⁷ “The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine.” 

TWO HINDRANCES TO CHRISTIAN GROWTH:

1.) We ________________ what we’re supposed to ____________.

Isaiah 43:18–19 ¹⁸ “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. ¹⁹ See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.

2.) We _____________ what we’re Supposed to ______________.

Colossians 1:13 ¹³ For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves,

Jeremiah 31:34 (ESV) ³⁴ I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

Psalm 103:10–12 ¹⁰ he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. ¹² as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. 

Ephesians 1:4–7 ⁴ For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love ⁵ he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will… ⁷ In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins

3. _______________________

Romans 15:16 ¹⁶ to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles with the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.

Ephesians 2:10 ¹⁰ For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

• “Workmanship” (Poíēma) - Something made, a workpiece, a workmanship.

Romans 1:19–20 ¹⁹ what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. ²⁰ For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

Romans 15:19-24 ¹⁹ So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum (Where is that? – Albania, Serbia), I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ. ²⁰ It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else's foundation. ²¹ Rather, as it is written: "Those who were not told about him will see, and those who have not heard will understand." ²² This is why I have often been hindered from coming to you. ²³ But now that there is no more place for me to work in these regions, and since I have been longing for many years to see you, ²⁴ I plan to do so when I go to Spain. I hope to visit you while passing through and to have you assist me on my journey there… 

• QUESTION: DO YOU HAVE A SPAIN?  

4. _______________________

Romans15:17-19 ¹⁷ Therefore I glory in Christ Jesus in my service to God. ¹⁸ I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done-- ¹⁹ by the power of signs and miracles, through the power of the Spirit.

• "Expect great things from God, attempt great things for God," William Carey 

5. _______________________

Romans 15:30–31 (NLT) ³⁰ Dear brothers and sisters, I urge you…to join in my struggle by praying to God for me... ³¹ Pray that I will be rescued from those in Judea who refuse to obey God. Pray also that the believers there will be willing to accept the donation I am taking to Jerusalem.