Possibly the Greatest Threat to Your Ministry
by Bobby Killmon
March 3, 2025 · Indiana Bible College, Indianapolis, Indiana
Kind: sermon
Scripture: 2 Corinthians 5:16-19, 1 Thessalonians 5:23, Psalm 79:5, Ephesians 4:26-27, John 2:13-17, Mark 3:5, Acts 2:42

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/bobby-killmon--possibly-the-greatest-threat-to-your-ministry
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
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Those kind words, brother Turner, this great staff, these wonderful people that are giving their life away. It's a joy always to be a part of this great team. I'm going to try to do what I feel from the Lord. Second Corinthians chapter 5, I'll read verses 16 through 19, then I'll let you be seated. The Word of the Lord says, Wherefore, henceforth, know we no man after the flesh. Yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth, know we him no more. It's that spirit, it's that life that we have, that's the thing. Therefore, the apostle says, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away, behold, all things are become new. Then he layers down a little bit, and he says, and all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ.

Turn to your neighbor and say, he saved me. Then he doesn't stop there. He goes on to say, and hath given to us a ministry of reconciliation. Turn to your neighbor and say, he saved me for more than me. To wit that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and hath committed, and the apostles inspired again to say it so we don't miss it, committed unto us the word of reconciliation. I'm going to try to talk a little bit out of my heart this morning on possibly the greatest threat to your ministry now. Possibly the greatest threat to your ministry now. Would you pray that the Lord would help me to communicate what's on my heart and that your heart would be open to receive what he says? Would you help me today? Lord, we come to you, God, in faith,

because we know we don't walk to these moments alone that you're with us. That's our confidence, Lord. Your touch, your goodness, your ability to help us by your spirit to understand the things that were called to God through the word and through our life in the spirit. We ask you to help us, Lord, in these few moments we have together to hear clearly, Lord, the challenge we face, the opportunity that you give us. And we'll be careful to thank you, Lord, to give you all the praise in Jesus' name we pray. Amen, amen. God bless you. You may be seated. I need to specify why I'm preaching on this. We could talk about the issues that have faced generations in the past, and I give this kind of as a supposition. It's just something I'm feeling that may be just, maybe not for everyone, but for possibly quite a few of you,

that there is an issue in our day, in our time, that is challenging us, that may rob us of what God wants to do. And it's this beautiful thing that the Bible calls the ministry of reconciliation, that you've been called to preach a word of being reconciled to God's purposes. And in the fact that you have the courage to do that, as you're used by God in whatever setting He takes you, that turns into what is given to us by the Spirit, which is the ministry of reconciliation. It's where God gives some things to the people that He loves and involves us in His greatest desire. And it's where we use the things that are innate to our makeup, our passions, our giftings, our talents, all surrendered to that great work yields this ministry of reconciliation. So there are passions on the inside of you,

passions for good, like love, passions against evil, hate, passions for a future good, which is desire, and then passions against a future evil, which is avoidance. There are things that result out of us allowing our passions to be directed by God. The possession of good turns into pleasure or joy or the possession of evil turns into pain and regret. The Apostle Paul says in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, verse 23, in the very God of peace sanctified you holy. And he says, I pray God that your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless into the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. And the Apostle is going way beyond just you being righteous in your body. You need to not give your body to certain activities. That is true. You need to be set apart for God's use. But there are other things in the spirit and in the soul

that we need to yield to God. And our passions are, when they're rightly ordered, are a gift for the ministry of reconciliation. But when our passions are disordered or ordered wrongly, they can be turned away from the potential that God wants us to have in our life. Passions. Things like love and hatred and fear and desire and joy and sadness and anger, those are all usually recognized as passions that we have to submit to God and they can all be gifts at times. You can love the right thing. You can love the wrong thing. You can hate the right thing. You can hate the wrong thing. You can operate in fear or you can wrongly desire things or you can rightly desire things. You can fear the Lord or you can fear the intimidation of the world. You can have joy in the right things

or you can take joy in the wrong things. You can be sad for the right reason. The things that breaks God's heart should break your heart. But you can be sad for the wrong reasons. Even something like anger. The killmen anger is always bad, isn't it? No, the world is mistaken on that notion where they try to say that anger, something like that, can't be submitted to God and be used by God. There are all sorts of other things like ambition and ego and acceptance. All of these things that work on the inside of us are the harder things sometimes for us to submit to the will of God and the direction of God. So let's look at anger. Psalm 79 verse 5. The Psalmist says, How long, Lord, will thou be angry forever? Shall thy jealousy burn like fire? Now, I don't know about you,

but if the Bible says the Lord gets angry, I don't want to make that a negative. Ephesians 4, 6, and 27 goes further. It says, Be ye angry. Turn to your neighbor and say, Be angry. But the apostle doesn't stop there. He says, Be ye angry and sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your wrath. Neither give place to the devil. That means if my anger is not submitted to God and I'm allowing it to move me into sinful practices, that's when I give topos. I give geography. I give a place to the devil to operate in any relationship or any area of my life. Don't give place to the devil. It's not about anger being wrong. It's about anger leaning to sinful practices. As a matter of fact, in John 2, 13 through 17, we can see our Lord make a scourge of cords

and he gets angry and he drives people out of the church house. So you should be angry and sin not. Your anger should move you to some actions. Mark chapter 3, verse 5, Jesus is about to heal a man and the Bible says him when he had looked round about on them with anger. Now why is Jesus angry? Being grieved for their hardness of their hearts. He saith unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand and he stretched it out and his hand was restored whole as the other. You have a man in church with a need. You have a man that needs to be healed and there are critics setting around in the church waiting on Jesus to heal on the Sabbath to say I'm going to pick apart everything you're doing in the church. I know there are needs in the church but I'm going to pick apart all the ministry of the church

and I want to stop Jesus from healing people. Now what does that mean if Jesus is showing that a righteous wrath is required by Scripture? It's not something that just may occur but it's something that ought to occur. A good prayerful study of Scripture would be something like this. What makes Jesus angry? I'm not going to go down this road very far but I promise you criticizing his desire to make someone whole does get Jesus angry. The well need not a physician. I'm going to lean in just a little bit. I know we clean up pretty good but you knew what it was like when you needed an altar when somebody walks in, yes they've blown it, yes they've done wrong, yes they've fallen short of the glory of God but I'm going to tell you all of us have fallen short of the glory of God

and if they want an altar they ought to be welcome inside the house of God so they can find a place. The Bible says our Lord was angry. He looked round on them with anger because they're only coming to seek opportunity to accuse the healer of looking at the needs in the gathering. Can I just tell you, quit looking at what you perceive sometimes as the weakness of ministry and maybe if you get your eyes around on the needs in the church you'll be less critical. Now I understand that you've got to know them the labor among you. You know I'm strong on that but I'm just going to tell you that the easiest way for you to quit criticizing every song that's sung and every sermon that's preached is you be teaching a Bible study and you bring somebody to the house of God that needs the Holy Ghost

and I tell you what you'll do you'll be praying, God help the worship team today God help the preacher today there are needs in the house. I'm going to try to get off this and I know I risk being misread but you know it's me, I'm bad Bobby whatever. Bishop I just worry about people because I think the people that are in church that has the harshest criticisms are the people that are least involved in reaching the loss and touching people if you're reaching the loss and touching people all that ambition all of that competition you don't care who's singing all you want is a move of God so somebody's life can be changed there they are gathered in the presence of Jesus forgetting that the well need not a physician but somebody desperately wants to receive wholeness and I'm telling you that type of attitude

will stop Jesus in his tracks and he'll look around with anger so it's easy to lose control of our anger and to allow our unsanctified and unsubmitted passion to control us and instead of allowing the spirit to guide and use our passion anger becomes sinful only when it's inappropriate now you're saying brother Kilman that possibly the greatest threat to my ministry is anger no it's not when I come to preach today all of our passions all of our desires have to be tempered and guided and directed by the fruit of the spirit and the reason I brought up anger today is because it's a bridge it's easy to see that one's easy to get a hold of it can be righteous and it can be unrighteous it's easy to see but maybe not admit and submit but there are other passions that have to be sanctified

and set apart for God's use and our passions and their accompanying emotions and feelings can be guided by righteousness and virtue or perverted by sin and vice I this little sermon whatever it is is born out of a new book that I'm waiting to hit print and he's been interviewed in a number of places and the book is called The Sin of Empathy and the subtitle is something that describes the book something like this the author says because love is a real virtue empathy's power is posing as a selfless care for victims posing you have to really love someone that's what I come to preach about today the difference between empathy and sympathy empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another whether killing that sounds like a positive it can be just like anger sympathy is a feeling of pity or sorrow for someone else's

misfortune sympathy is in some ways more isolated more withdrawn you don't get so involved in the victim's status that you lose objectivity psychology today that magazine they would say it this way empathy sympathy and compassion are often used interchangeably but they are not the same sympathy is feeling a concern for someone else and the desire they become happier or better off empathy involves sharing the other person's emotions you don't need to share everybody's emotions there are some things that you need to say I'm sympathetic I want you to become something else I want you to become better off I want you to be actually happy I'm not trying to sympathize with your feelings if what you're participating in is going to destroy you now what do you mean brother Kimmel let's look at it passions that are not submitted and not sanctified and not guided

by the spirit lead to simple behavior I'll give you an example the ecumenical impulse that's afflicting the religion today where they put fellowship before doctrine but I'm going to tell you there there's more than that empathy is where we put our feelings before truth and so that sinfulness that ecumenical impulse that we so readily and should critique your desire to be a blessing to people has to be guided by truth that means our passions can be covered and dedicated to God's purposes I'm preaching some strength into you this is not a rebuke today I'm telling you the world is trying to silence the true compassion that's in the church the world is trying to lie to you and say unless you accept me you don't love me I'm going to tell you I love you too much to accept your lifestyle that's going to destroy you and rob

you of innocence and destroy the sanctity that God wants to build into your life guided enabled and empowered in the biblical paradigm the Bible shows that our passions can be rightly ordered God gave you a heart you're not just the brain but loosed from revelation our passions can be dedicated to things that are frivolous and trivial and misguided and you'll forgive me this morning even dangerous it's where we're so worried about feeling good about ourselves that we we change what God wants to use our sympathy and our empathy for it's where we're so worried that people might feel bad and we feel for them that we're going to accommodate any lifestyle through our silence you got to love people more than that because sympathy isn't empathy sympathizing with the person is good but you can sympathize the wrong way let me read a quote to you

out of Christianity today shocking that this came out of there Carnell writes love and truth must be simultaneously respected see the problem is is the world is trying to convince you that love and truth are in conflict you cannot love unless you love through the truth Christian truth accounts for the church's time-tested conviction that God inspired holy men to declare the plan of salvation through divine authority unless our religious convictions grow out of a divinely revealed system of truth he says we shall have no means by which to be certain that anything is holy not even love itself brother Kilman that came out of Christianity today in 1965 because they are far from that today because that magazine has left the revelation of Scripture it was created to defend inerrancy and if you don't believe this is the inerrant word of God how are you going to define holiness

and if you don't define holiness correctly you will not be able to have a framework for love there's a principle here that without the guidance of Revelation without the direction of Scripture and without the covering of truth our passions are outside removed from cut off from the revelation and the benefit of God you are cut off from the ministry of reconciliation that's why terms matter that's why there's some terms we don't use I'm going to lean in just a little bit that's why I understand all the pronoun issues and I understand all the complex things that are being adopted by society and sometimes even come out of the mouths of well meaning apostolics but you can't use words that are detached from truth if you're going to define something in somebody's life that's not attached to truth you're not helping them you're not going to help them

if they detach their life from the truth you know what you call somebody that's living with the detachment of the truth you call that insanity people that are insane are detached from the truth I'm going to tell you there's a lot of insanity in our culture and if you love people you got to call them out of insanity and into a life of holiness where God can put their life back together so what are you saying brother Kilman I want to exhort you this morning you cannot and here's what I think the threat is and this might be for somebody or many somebody's in this room I know it's part of the spirit of the age you cannot let someone's personal issues steer your sympathy if they can steer your emotions they can steer your compassion and if they steer your compassion you're going to act in ways

that exacerbate their pain and suffering and what you need to say is I refuse to love you that little this is not out of a spirit of arrogance this is because we really love people and you want I know you want my acceptance this is where you're going to live when you walk out of this room when you leave here and you go in the context of ministry people say why can't you just accept me for the way that I am because I love you too much why can't you give me permission to live the way I want to live because I love you too much why is it you won't let me be involved and do things I just want to be involved but I don't want to be committed because I love you too much and that permissiveness make me feel good a little bit and you feel good

but it's going to leave you broken it's going to leave you still in the bondage of sin and God has so much more than the bondage of sin I was reflecting and I was trying to form my thoughts around this this last night and the night before and I was thinking of my sister Tammy who grew up in our neighborhood and there was a lady just two doors down three doors down and that lady let her children run the neighborhood all night and my sister Tammy kind of got aggravated at my mom because we had a curfew like even in Indiana Bible college we love you too much to leave you unaccountable we love you too much to let you be robbed of your innocence through fornication we love you too much to allow things to happen in your life you're going to do it over

over everything we can do to keep you pure you're going to listen when you get out of this building you got to be the kind of preacher you got to be the kind of minister that says I love you too much to let sin have an open build day on your life I love you too much to allow you to wreck your innocence and wreck your family and down that pathway of regret somebody's going to warn you every step of the way there is a God who has more for you the reality is when my sister's friend is being arrested and drug out of the house because of so much crime and truancy and all of the things that she got involved if and the mama's out there just crying my baby my baby and she's going to juvenile hall until she's 18 very stone cold base

as they're dragging her away my sister Tammy just saw them and happened to be in the proximity and she looks at her mother and her mother and pushes her away and say why didn't you do what Tammy's mom did why didn't you just make me go to church like Tammy's mom did why didn't you give me a curfew like Tammy's mom did I'm going to tell you it's not loving to allow people to self destruct you need to hear me today the greatest threat you may have is the lies about what real love is and I'm going to tell you at the end of that road in a pig pen somewhere when the consequences come home they're going to know there was a preacher that loved me and warned me and tried to save me from the clutches of hell I'm going to take a risk today

I really don't want to be understood but it's like one of our apostolic ladies in a church somewhere who is a grandmother I want to tell this story carefully and she had a relatives child come and and that child had just gotten out of prison and he's sitting on the pews with her and their wonderful little apostolic church in that state where they're at and guess who's up singing it was Indiana Bible College up there singing and he saw some of those students up there and he leans over and he said if I was your son I would be up there singing would not you hear me you hear me what they need is leadership what they need is a love that constrains what they need is not empathy what they need is real sympathy that says I understand that you're dealing with temptation I understand

the peer pressure but I gotta save you from regret I gotta save you from the clutches of the enemy that will destroy everything good in your life because the loss of the revelation of scripture and the power of the spirit to guide our compassion to godly ends and goals to deal with the reality of sin and offer hope that's what you lose you need to say I refuse to let the enemy rob me of the ministry of reconciliation I'll I'll try to hurry today why do you what happens when I reject sinful empathy you're freed from some things you're freed from the manipulation of media you won't care what anybody says about you online because you're too invested in people's actual freedom than you are worried about your perception of reality in some type of political arena you will be willing to go to jail for preaching

truths that are against the culture thank god we've had a little bit of a tide turn whether or not whether a turner they agree with everything we got a little bit of a tide turn my brother mooney was in court bishop three times were saying homosexuality was a sin and you may get to the place in your ministry especially if you go abroad you gotta say I don't care I'm invested in the ministry of reconciliation I understand the greatest threat to my ministry may just be me worried about my little perception worried about what my church what's gonna be said about my church what's gonna be said about my sermon who cares what they say on social media the question is is your voice strong enough to call somebody back into reconciliation with god you're free to say the truth because it will take the word

of reconciliation to be the ministry of reconciliation that means that you're free from the manipulation of relationships and it doesn't matter what your friends say and it doesn't matter what your family says and it doesn't matter what even I promise you it'll cost you it'll cost you money I'm trying to behave but here's what can result if your passion if you don't get that empathy and sympathy sanctified and aimed at truth you'll have a false empathy that will silence you that's the spirit of the age misguided, misinformed and misunderstanding you can malform and twist your passions to wrong ends and it can be in the service of sin not because you are sinning but because you're accommodating it with your silence you can hasten the destruction of a life and a marriage and a family and a church and a movement and a nation and I refuse to be

part of that I think it's what the apostle Paul said in Acts 2.42 and they continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine and fellowship and the breaking of bread and in prayers and all fellowship it's tied to the apostles doctrine or it's not good fellowship all of our breaking of bread all of our little restaurant get-togethers cannot be about dismantling the apostolic doctrine even our prayer because he says and in prayers all of that what are we doing when we eat together or even pray it must be guided by truth what is fellowship for why do we gather what do we pray for I promise you what will happen is if you determine that I'm going to say the truth there are too many hurting people for me to mute my voice and accommodate to the spirit of the age it will cost you money

it will cost you a seat at the table it will cost you prestige because you're going to preach against things that the world will not affirm but I'm going to tell you what it will gain it will gain you the ministry of reconciliation you will be used of God to bring broken people to an encounter with him that will absolutely transform their life and you should say hell with my hands my question this morning is I'm headed to a close can we do it again can we have revival and again in the face of the spirit of the age I wish I could just give you the mic let you do what you said we got to hear what the ministry of reconciliation looks like and you pray for our friends when they step into the ministry and I'm glad they're going to Washington they're going to build a great church

and God is going to use them but what they need in Washington is the hope of reconciliation to the purposes of God every generation fights particular battles and spirits and the spirit of the age to make you mute your voice out of the lie called false sympathy false empathy yeah but rather kill me there's new opportunities and we're we get a higher profile in the culture and we can reach more people and we can blow the church up that way with our numbers and we can reach the masses what are you going to reach them with you have to pay a price and how can compassion and empathy have God's aim and it's refused to forsake what we know to be true true compassion false ideas aims and goals that are misguided passions I think we're the preachers out in the room raise your hand for me

I think every one of you should own Ian Murray's great little book called evangelicalism divided you should go read even if nothing else just a chapter on Billy Graham and how he lost every type of mooring and conservative conviction he had well I read about a Baptist preacher brother Kilman because you'll understand how prominence and platforms and notoriety moved him from every conservative thing he believed to the point he's saying there might be revelation and other holy books we're going to have these nice crusades and Bishop are going to count numbers but now reason we're counting numbers because the media thinks we're lying so we're only counting numbers to do that now the problem is and Ian Murray points this out the problem with counting numbers is long after the social media was or the news was trying to critique them to prove that the conversions happen

they still kept counting numbers why well we can if our numbers can be seen we could document visual demonstrations it can be quickly publicized and here's the word they use and that's key for the projection of success why are you worried about projecting success with the best of intentions I think they sincerely wanted to help people but the ever present concern becomes the maintaining and the increasing of numbers and if that's your desire the maintaining and the increasing of numbers I promise you you will forsake the ministry of reconciliation because you'll keep numbers at any cost you'll do whatever it takes you'll let anybody sing on the platform you'll let anybody preach on the platform it's a shame when T.D. Jakes is asked to preach on an apostolic platform it's a shame that we don't know that when you know somebody is not preaching the truth

that you're not even supposed to keep company with them let alone let them in your pulpit there's some people that they're not in the same ministry that you're in you need to understand I got to guard my heart we're not looking for notoriety in numbers and some big platform one whereafter is something powerful called the ministry of reconciliation so here's my question today is this a generation that can be counted on to do with the apostle is charged by the spirit to ask can we earnestly contend for the faith agonizomai that greek word earnestly contend it means to struggle as in war but here's what will happen if you can submit your passions to God you will be free from the manipulation of others outsiders even those close to you and you'll be set free from the manipulation of your own heart set free to this powerful thing

that God wants to use you for in the world now I'm going to take a risk here I'm going to ask whoever is recording I want to share some stories so I'm going to ask you to pause the recording for me so I want you to stand with me the enemy wants to try to rob you of what real reconciliation looks like by making you feel like I'm just being too harsh if I preach that are they going to understand I don't want to offend and I don't want to hurt people and I don't want to offend and I don't want to hurt people but I can't let that paralyze me because I'm tied into worldly definitions if you love you have to preach the counsel of God but when you do you're going to find that calling people to repentance and purity is actually going to help a young person

find the type of man that he's supposed to be preaching against things is going to help a young lady to let go of that guilty conscience come and make consecrations to God and be reconciled to a purpose and you can change a family history from addiction and abuse and hurt and pain watch God begin to use you don't let the enemy rob you of that that's my call today I want you to bow your head with me I don't know who I'm speaking to but I just felt like the Lord wanted me to press somebody that the greatest issue you may be facing is this lie the wrong definition of sympathy and empathy and you need to decide right now I don't care what my generation says about me I don't care what they say about me on college campuses I don't care what they say about me on social media

and in the world I'm going to cling to the ministry of reconciliation I'm going to see lives actually changed come on if that's you I want you to walk down here and I want you to say God take control of my heart take control of my passions I don't want to misinform God if I need to lay down my idolatrous notion of what love and sympathy looks like and embrace something deeper that will actually help people work on my heart God give me courage to love well give me courage to really reach people with truth call them out of darkness into his marvelous light my my my come on that's it maybe some of you need to link up a little bit you don't know what your peers have at home maybe they are the first generation I'm just going to tell you sir I'm going to tell you ma'am that's okay

don't be intimidated what God is going to unfold out of your ministry will shake cities it will shake towns you can take this to urban areas you can take it to rural areas why because it's the ministry of reconciliation but it's tied to the word of reconciliation preach it preach it don't be ashamed be kind be generous be loving but preach the word of reconciliation so that you can see God do what only he can do come on that's it I commit God I commit God my my my my I commit God doesn't matter what your family says doesn't matter what your friends say doesn't matter what anyone else says you got to be committed to the right things so the Lord can accomplish his purpose in the earth he's saying today can I trust you with the ministry of reconciliation can I trust you with the word

of reconciliation he's got hurting people waiting on yes's today my my my there's a city that needs a pastor there's a nation that needs a missionary my my my come on that's it there is a church somewhere that needs godly examples all on the platform to sing the truth and preach the truth and call people to their real purpose in God unashamedly we're committed to that thing