Frank Boreham of Australia had a friend whom everyone in town called Uncle Jed.
He had a reputation in the community as Mr. Fixit.
If anything went wrong, they called Uncle Jed.
He could fix it.
One day Uncle Jed was putting a new hinge on an old gate, and Boreham was watching with admiration.
Boreham mentioned that Uncle Jed was always fixing something.
Uncle Jed replied by saying that there were only four sorts of things in the world,
and only one of them was his business; and he would like to do that well.
When pressed for an explanation, he described four sorts of things in the world as he saw them:
First, were the things that never needed repair; so he need not worry over them.
Second, there were the things that could be fixed; so he saw no need to fret over them.
Then, there were some things which would repair themselves if given a fair chance,
and Uncle Jed saw no need to meddle with them.
But there were also the things that would go from bad to worse unless someone repaired them;
and that was his business, and he enjoyed doing it well.
Now that is ministry.
Ministry is an attempt to bring help and healing where it is needed.
It occurs because someone cares.
The ethic of the serving church and the caring Christian is written deeply and indelibly
into the Christian life.
The caring concern that issues in ministry to others started with Jesus Christ.
Throughout His ministry, He would reach out into the crowd and touch the life of an individual
in order to minister to his need and to give him hope.
In Mark 2:1 Jesus was in Capernaum.
Through teaching, answering questions, and healing by the power of God, Jesus had attracted
such a crowd of people that no one else could enter the house.
Then, some enterprising men brought a paralyzed friend to Jesus.
Undeterred by the fact that they could not enter the house, the determined friends climbed up
on the flat roof of the house and tore a hole through the roof, and lowered the man on his palette
right down in front of Jesus.
Three gospels tell the story. (Mark 2:2-12; Matthew 9:1-8; Luke 5:17-26)
In the very midst of a crowd, Jesus performed ministry.
Jesus responded to the faith of the friends and healed the man.
But He also gave the man more than he asked for.
Jesus forgave the man's sins.
In this experience, we can see some of the things that happen when we care enough to minister.
The purpose of ministry is to bring people to Jesus Christ.
There were four friends who held a rope at each end of the pallet,
and they were determined to bring their friend to Jesus.
Ministry always has the underlying purpose of bringing people to Jesus.
Ministry might be expressed in many various ways such as a senior citizen's activity
or a youth trip or a picnic or visiting prospects other such ministries.
But the ultimate intention of ministry is that, through the care of others, people might be brought
into the presence of Jesus.
When Jesus saw the faith of the friends who had brought the man to Him,
He told the man that his sins were forgiven.
Bringing people into the presence of Jesus results in the forgiveness of sin and of a new life.
When we bring a person into the presence of Jesus to a caring ministry,
we have done what we could do.
We cannot force forgiveness on a person.
We cannot make a person believe.
We cannot coerce a person into the kingdom of God.
At that time, the grace of God moves into a person's life to remake that person as God intended.
The friends could bring their friend to Jesus, but they could not heal him -- only Jesus could do that.
A man described his conversion at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.
He said that he once had a very intricate watch.
When something went wrong with it, he knew he could not fix it.
He knew that his best hope was to take it to the watchmaker who knew the inner workings of a watch.
It dawned on him one day that his life was like that watch.
It was intricate, yet wrong in the works.
He tried to fix it himself, but could not.
He realize that his best hope was to go humbly to his Maker, and ask Him to fix him, and He did.
The possibilities for ministry are everywhere.
Many people would have looked at the crowd around Jesus, and just given up.
They would have seen the crowded house, and would have come to the conclusion
that there was no possibility for ministry there.
But the possibilities for ministry abound.
They are limited only by our imagination and ingenuity and our caring.
None of us would have to look too far to find a lot of grief and pain that we could sit beside.
All around us are people who hurt.
All around us are people who feel left-out.
All around us are people who are lonely.
All around us are people who are hungry.
All around us are people who are wounded.
All around us are people who are hurting.
We have no way of knowing whether the friends in the Gospel accounts were relatives or neighbors.
But we do know that they were people who saw the possibility of ministry because they had sat
beside their friend with his grief and pain.
As we look at this encounter of Christ with the paralytic man, we can see something
about the performance of ministry.
Priority is the first matter in the performance of ministry.
These four friends made ministry their priority.
If ministry had not been a priority for them, they would have become discouraged and left.
But because ministry was a priority to them, the man was brought to Jesus and was healed.
Ministry is never done automatically or accidentally.
It is done because someone thought it was important enough to act.
Patience is also an element in the performance of ministry.
Had these friends not been patient, ministry would never have been performed.
And this man would never have been healed or forgiven.
Most of us act out what one bumper sticker reads:
" Lord, give me patience, and give it to me now!"
We do not really want to wait for something to develop.
We want it instantly.
These friends who cared patiently came up with a plan and carried it out.
They removed the roofing material and lowered their friend on his palette into the presence of Jesus.
So, really there can never be ministry without persistence.
Persistence paid off.
Without persistence, these four friends would have returned home.
Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, who became a saintly Christian and scholar had lived
a wild life as a young man.
His mother, Monica, was a Christian who pleaded with him, preached to him, and prayed for him.
He left North Africa to go to Italy, and his mother was concerned that he would never find Jesus Christ.
A Christian pastor assured her that it was impossible for a child of such tears and prayers to perish.
And he did not.
In Italy, Augustine found Christ through the preaching and the instructions of Ambrose.
Persistence brought him to Jesus.
Persistence and ministry will pay off with spiritual dividends.
With persistence ways can be found to minister.
Many years ago, I visited a lady in her business who had visited our church.
Our church was many miles away from her home and business, but I felt that if she was interested
enough in visiting our church, then I should let her know that we were happy to have her.
That lady joined our church, and through her influence and witness more than a dozen others
joined our congregation.
The promise of ministry is forgiven sin and a renewed life.
When Jesus saw the man before Him, He said, "Man, your sins are forgiven you."
(Luke 5:20, RSV)
But the scribes and religious leaders who were among the crowd in that house got upset over this.
They murmured that no one could forgive sins but God.
That was just the point.
Jesus was acting in the power of God to forgive sin.
This is the promise of ministry -- when people are brought into the presence of Jesus,
their sins can be forgiven and their lives can be changed for all eternity.
Jesus delivered exactly what He had promised.
Jesus had promised forgiveness and a new life.
Jesus knew that the religious leaders were questioning his ability to forgive sin.
So, He asked them which would be easier to say.
Would it be easier to say that one's sins were forgiven or that he was healed of his paralysis.
Obviously, it would be easier to say that sins are forgiven for that is an internal thing,
and would be very difficult to prove.
But in order for them to know that Jesus had the power to forgive sins,
he commanded the man to rise up and walk.
And he did!
In the ancient Jew's understanding of illness, there was a relationship between sin and sickness.
By Jesus forgiving the man's sins, there could be no doubt that his life had been changed.
Both physically and spiritually, he had been made right with God.
Jesus was also able to demonstrate His spiritual power by His physical actions.
That is the only way some people will ever understand spiritual power.
That is also the promise of ministry -- spiritual power can be demonstrated by physical changes.
In his memorable sermon, "Handling Life's Second Best," Harry Emerson Fosdick told of
William Duncan who gave himself to the cause of missions.
After some time, he was sent by his mission board to a little Indian Island called Metlakatla off Alaska.
These Indians were a poor, ignorant, miserable tribe.
Their morals were vile beyond description.
Dean Brown of Yale University visited Metlakatla after William Duncan had been there for 40 years.
He reported that every Indian family lived in a separate house with all the decent appointments of home life.
They had a bank, a cooperative store, a saw mill, a box factory, and a salmon cannery
run by the Indians as a profitable industry.
There was a school where Indian boys and girls learned to read, write, think, and live.
There was a church where an Indian minister preached the gospel of eternal life.
There was an Indian musician who was once a medicine man playing a tom-tom,
who was now playing a pipe organ.
The congregation of Indians sang the great hymns of the church to the praise of God.
This was all possible because a man named William Duncan cared and showed spiritual power
through physical actions.
When people in that crowded house saw what had happened, "Amazement seized them all,
and they glorified God Anne were filled with awe, saying, 'We have seems strange things today.'"
(Luke 5: 26, RSV)
Certainly, these are strange things.
These are things of spiritual power that occur when people minister.
When out of the crowd that surrounded Jesus, ministry was performed, and a life was totally changed.
Strange things can become the commonplace things as ministry is performed.
Some years ago, my seminary professor, C. W. Brister of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
wrote a book entitled, "People Who Care."
When he mention the title to a friend, the friend replied by saying:
"You mean there are still some of those people around?"
There are some of those people around!
And some of those people are sitting before me, today.
There will always be some of those people around as Christ touches and transforms them
from out of the crowd.
