Memoirs of a Minister

We've been looking at the first chapter of Colossians and Lord willing we will finish the first chapter tonight. In Colossians chapter 1 we have seen that the first major section of the book is that Jesus is Lord over creation and the church. So his Lordship over creation and the church is emphasized in this chapter. Other elements of his Lordship will be described in other parts of the book, but he's really focusing on Christ as Lord in creation and Lord over the church in chapter 1 of Colossians. We saw last week that Jesus is Lord over the church in the sense that he has provided reconciliation. He has by his death on the cross laying down his life made it possible for us to be brought into relationship with God for the enmity and the hostility that was between us and God to be done away with so that we can be brought back to God into relationship with him. At the end of that passage in verse 23, a section of the verse that we really didn't focus on last week, middle of verse 23 he says this, this is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven of which I, Paul, have become a servant. He mentions himself as a servant of the gospel and then he takes a little detour from his main subject as Paul is want to do in his epistles. He takes a little detour from his main subject and talks a little bit about himself. He introduces himself basically and so for that reason we're going to look at verses 24 through 29 and I haven't titled that section of Scripture, Mem wires of a minister. The reason being Paul in a sense gives his Mem wires, it's admittedly the Reader's Digest condensed version, it's only a few verses, six verses to kind of summarize his ministry but remember these people have never met him. He has not been to Colossi, he did not found the church in Colossi. It's probably a paffress that did that coming out of Paul's great ministry in Ephesus and the neighboring town, Colossi, ephab, ephaphrus probably took the gospel from Paul and planted a church there in Colossi. So Paul had not been to Colossi, these people had not met him. They only knew about him what they had heard of him and so Paul is going to give them a little bit of background about who he is, his ministry career, Mem wires of a minister if you will. But I think there is application for all of us even though he is talking primarily about those who are ministering the gospel, those who are in full-time ministry if you want to call it that. There is application for all of us here tonight. Please remember that all of us are ministers, not all of us are pastors but all of us are ministers. I will never get a letterhead that I saw from a church when I was pastoring in Indiana. The first time I really ever thought of it this way but received a letter from a church up there and they had on their letterhead pastors and they listed the names of the pastors and then ministers and under that they had the congregation. That's a good way to look at the church. I think it's a biblical way to look at the church. The responsibility of pastors according to Ephesians 4 is to equip the saints, equip believers to do the work of ministry. So all of us in here tonight, if you know Christ as your Savior, we are all ministers. And so these Mem wires of a minister apply to some degree to all of us although Paul is quite specifically focusing upon his own ministry and by extension I guess by application to all those who minister the word as well. What he does is he describes his ministry in at least six ways. So there are six elements of ministry that Paul focuses on as he introduces himself and talks a little bit about his ministry. Let's look at those six tonight. Beginning in verse 24 of Colossians 1 where we find Paul describing his suffering. That's the first element of his ministry that he talks about. It's interesting that that would be the first one but that was one of the major facets of Paul's ministry wherever he went. It has been said of Paul that he did not find, he did not check out the hotels to see what they were like. Whenever Paul was going to go to a town he always checked ahead to see what the jails were like because that's probably where he had ended up and a lot of times he did. So Paul suffered a lot for Christ. He says three things about his suffering in verse 24. He says, now I rejoice in what was suffered for you and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body which is the church. The first thing he says about his suffering is that although he was suffering he was rejoicing in what was suffered. That's a great lesson to be learned there. Paul did suffer even as he wrote this letter he was in jail in Rome. He was in a Roman prison. Now this was not the final imprisonment. This was an imprisonment before that and according to Acts 28 he had some freedom. He was kept guarded in a house where he was able to entertain visitors and so forth but still he was incarcerated. He was in jail. His freedoms were severely limited but he could still write to the churches that he administered to and he wrote to the Colossian Church as one of the churches while he was in prison. So Paul is suffering even as he writes this letter and he has suffered in many other ways on many other occasions in his ministry and yet Paul knew what it was like to rejoice even when he was suffering. I would remind you that Paul wrote another letter during the same imprisonment to the church at Philippi and that letter is full of rejoicing. In fact 19 times in the letter to the Philippians he mentioned some form of the word joy in four brief chapters. That book is full of joy and Paul is emphatic that it is possible to rejoice even in the midst of suffering no matter what kind of suffering that may be to be able to rejoice in the midst of suffering. So whatever you're going through tonight Paul gives us an illustration of what it means to rejoice even in the midst of suffering. You know if we focus on our sufferings we're focusing upon the things of this life and this world, things that are temporary. If we focus upon Christ and upon even the purpose of our suffering to make us more like him and to perfect us in his image then there can be rejoicing even in the midst of suffering because when we're suffering we can say Lord how do you want to use this to make me more like the Lord Jesus. There can be rejoicing even in the midst of that. So Paul rejoiced in his suffering. The second thing he says about his suffering in verse 24 is a very interesting intriguing somewhat difficult statement to understand. He says I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions. Now what could possibly be lacking in the suffering of Christ that Paul would then fill up or complete if you will? What is he talking about here? Well there's been a whole doctrine built by one particular denomination on this phrase called the Marit's of the Saints and what that doctrine teaches is that Christ's suffering does provide merit for us if we trust him as our Savior but there are also other people, saints who knew the Lord, who have also suffered and when they've gone to heaven you can get some of their merit too if you will pray to them. And so these specially godly people who may have suffered to a great degree they have built up a storehouse of merit which was more than they needed and so they can loan some of it to you if you will pray. You can receive some of the merits of the saints and this text is used to support that doctrine that we are filling up, we are completing what's left behind or lacking in the sufferings of Christ. Well a little closer examination of this verse reveals that that cannot be the interpretation of verse 24. The word affliction in the gospels or in the New Testament is never used of the suffering of Christ on the cross, never one time. It is however used of his earthly sufferings, of his life sufferings. Now Jesus not only suffered on the cross, he suffered throughout his life as well in a number of ways. Please be careful to note that it is Jesus suffering on the cross which gains merit for us for salvation. That's what saves us. It is not his life sufferings that save us. His life sufferings give us an example but it is his sufferings on the cross that save us. The word used here refers to his life sufferings and what Paul is saying is that now that Jesus is no longer here on earth and he's not suffering persecution, ridicule, misunderstanding by religious leaders and all of those other things he suffered during his life, people since they can't get at Jesus will often get at his followers. And so there is some of that kind of suffering which is still being embraced and experienced by his followers and it is that sense in which Paul is saying I'm filling up what is still left over from the sufferings of Christ. It's his life sufferings, it's the persecutions, the ridicules and all of those kinds of things that Jesus suffered during his ministry that Paul says, I'm still doing that as well. I'm suffering in that way too. It's interesting that Jesus, when he met Paul who was then Saul on the road to Damascus, he said to him in Acts chapter 9 and verse 4, when Saul fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? Now who was Saul persecuting? He was persecuting the church wasn't he? He was arresting believers and throwing them in jail and killing as many of them as he could but that was a direct attack on Jesus. That was a filling up of what was still lacking or left over or needed to be completed from the life sufferings of Jesus. And Paul, once he came to know Christ, suffers in the same way. And so that is what he's talking about. He's not talking about entering into or completing anything that was lacking of the suffering of Christ on the cross and thereby helping to save some people by the merit you've stored up. You're not talking about that at all. Nothing is lacking in the sufferings of Christ on the cross. When Jesus died on the cross, he said it is finished and that was true. The work of God was completed for salvation. But the sufferings that Jesus experienced during his life in ministry, we too may experience certainly Paul did and whenever we do, we are simply following in the footsteps of Jesus Christ, completing, if you will, the same kinds of sufferings that he suffered in his ministry. So that's the kind of suffering that Paul is speaking up. The third thing he says about his suffering in verse 24 is that this suffering is at the end of the verse for the sake of his body, which is the church. The only kind of suffering which God rewards and blesses and turns to rejoicing is suffering which is done for the right reasons, for the cause of Christ, if you will. Paul is not talking about suffering because of a bad personality or being obnoxious or anything like that. He's talking about the kind of suffering that was done on behalf of the body of Christ. In his efforts to spread the gospel when people to Christ and build them up in the faith, Paul suffered for that reason. Peter talks about that in verse 4. He says, if you suffer for your own misdeeds, then you suffer justly. You should suffer. But if you suffer for the cause of Christ or for doing well, that's the kind of suffering God rewards. So that's the kind of suffering Paul was doing here and what he was talking about. As he introduces himself to the Colossian church, as he gives his reader's digest condensed version of his life in ministry, he says, first of all, I've suffered for the gospel and for the church. I'm filling up the sufferings like Christ suffered in his ministry. So he talks about his suffering. But Paul also talks in this passage about his responsibility in verse 25. He says, I have become its servant going back to verse 23 where he mentions being a servant of the gospel. I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness. Now the word commission is an interesting word. If you have a King James Version, I think it's translated dispensation. It is the word that's often translated dispensation in the New Testament. Now a dispensation basically is a responsibility given by God to manage something. It is a particular type of managing of a responsibility. That's what the word dispensation means. It has to do with stewardship, being a good steward of something, taking a responsibility and fulfilling it faithfully to the Lord. And that's what Paul's talking about. He has this ministry that God's given him as a dispensation, as a gift from God, not only a gift of responsibility, and it's a responsibility that he has as a steward that he will give an account for. You remember Jesus told a story about a master of a household and property leaving and going on a journey and leaving some people responsible for his work. And when he came back to check on them, they were to give an account for how they had handled the master's work in his absence. The idea is the same here. Jesus has given Paul a commission. A dispensation if you will. A responsibility as a steward. He's entrusted to him the precious gospel of Christ. And that is something that Paul will give an account for. What did I do with that? How did I manage that? How did I handle that? Was I a good steward of the ministry that God gave me? Every one of us, if we have a ministry for the Lord, whatever it may be, whether it's to preach the gospel, to keep the nursery, to do usher's work, to teach a Bible fellowship, or whatever it may be. Whatever God has given you as a ministry is a commission. It's a responsibility that God has given you. And you will give an account to him someday for that responsibility. For all of us, our ministers, in that sense, where we serve God, we've been given a steward ship, a responsibility that we are to carry out for his glory. Now, Paul tells us specifically what his steward ship was, what his commission was, and that was to present to you the word of God in its fullness. That, I believe, is the primary responsibility of every preacher of the Word of God is to preach, present to you, proclaim to you the Word of God in all its fullness. In order to give an account to God, to fully discharge that responsibility, one must first of all preach the Word of God. It must be biblical truth that comes forth from a preacher in order to give a good account when we stand before Christ. It must also be the preaching of the Word of God in its fullness, Paul says. That means even the things that you don't particularly like to preach, you preach. Even the difficult things that are not easy to communicate, you preach. Even the judgment type things, the sin and holiness passages that are not the kinds of things that make people smile, you preach. In order to be faithful to this responsibility, God's Word must be preached in all of its fullness. It means that we preach the blessed truths of the gospel and the hard truths of condemnation and judgment. It means that we preach the wonderful truth of grace, but also the difficult truth of holiness. Preach it in all of its fullness and all of its completeness, Paul says. You can turn on your television today and you can see brightly shining smiling preachers who will preach only those things which tickle the ears and which make you feel good. Only the positive aspects of the Bible. That is a distortion of the message of the Word of God. I don't care if it comes from Houston or Dallas or wherever it comes from. It's a distortion of the Word of God. I don't care if it's the best-selling book in America. It's a distortion of the Word of God. Any preaching which does not faithfully declare the fullness of God's Word, and there are those who clearly say we just want to give a positive message. Well, that's only half the message, folks. Any full preaching of the Word of God will contain both the grace message and the holiness sin and judgment message that has to be balanced if we're going to preach the Word of God in its fullness. So the responsibility of the minister is to preach the Word of God in its fullness. And by the way, let me say that too many get sidetracked today from that main responsibility by all of the other responsibilities that go along with ministry. I want to take a moment just to say how grateful I am for the other pastors on our staff and for the possibility they give me to focus upon the ministry of the Word. You ought to be grateful for these men like Jim and Jim and Kevin and soon to come Judd because these men are pastors as well, just as much as I am. They are pastors. They have different responsibilities than I do. They have different gifts than I do. Thank God they have those gifts. We'd be in trouble if they didn't. They have great gifts and they use those gifts for the body of Christ. They may not be standing in the pulpit and preaching every service. But in a church hour size there are so many other things that have to be done. These are men who give their time and energy and effort to take those things away from me thankfully so that I can focus upon this responsibility which is my primary responsibility. If I lose that calling or that sense I have forsaken my commission as a preacher of the Word of God. I thank God every day for those men who labor alongside me and labor just as much as I do in different ways but make it possible for me to focus upon the ministry of the Word of God because as a preacher of the Word of God that is my main responsibility. That was Paul's responsibility. So he's talked about the suffering of his ministry, the responsibility of his ministry. Notice if you will his message, his message. By the way I didn't give you anything to fill out on your outline tonight that doesn't mean you can go to sleep. You still need to stay awake even though you don't have to wait for something to fill in. The message is in verse 26. He says this is it. This is what the Word of God in Ault's Fulness. The mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations but is now disclosed to the saints. To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery which is Christ in you the hope of glory. Paul twice mentions this word mystery and he says that that's the focus of his preaching ministry. His ministry, his commission, his stewardship, his responsibility was to preach the Word of God in Ault's Fulness specifically to preach the mystery he says. Now he indicates that this mystery has been hidden in past ages but it's now disclosed to the saints and that by the way is the meaning of the word mystery as it's used in the New Testament. I've said many times and I'll say it again in the New Testament the word mystery does not mean an agatha Christie thriller. It doesn't mean a book that you just can't put down until you get to the end of it. That's not the meaning of the word mystery. The word mystery means something which has not been revealed in the past but has now been revealed in the New Testament something new that God waited to reveal until the time of the church. And that mystery Paul says here is in essence Christ in you the hope of glory. Now Christ living in us and that being our hope of reaching glory is one way of stating the gospel. That when we come to know Jesus as our Savior Christ comes to live within us. He said as much in John 14. He said the Holy Spirit would come. He would send the other comforter to dwell within us and then he said, I will come to you. I will not leave you comfort us. The Father will abide with you and remain with you. So Christ in us in essence means that we have trusted him as Savior and he has come to live within us and that is our only hope of glory to know the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the mystery he's talking about. Paul defines this mystery in a little more complete way in Ephesians chapter 3. So I want you to hold our place here and turn back just a few pages to Ephesians chapter 3. Verse 3 through 9, where Paul describes this mystery a little more fully. We'll begin. Let's begin reading all the way back in verse 1 to get the flow of thought. Ephesians 3.1. For this reason I Paul the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles. Surely you have heard about the administration of God's grace that was given to me for you. Same type of wording as in Colossians. He's been given a administration. The word is dispensation. The stewardship. What is that dispensation God's given in that responsibility? Verse 3. That is the mystery made known to me by revelation as I have already written briefly. In reading this then you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ. Now look at verse 5. Which was not made known to me in other generations as it has now been revealed by the spirit to God's holy apostles and prophets. Okay. So this mystery is something that was not revealed in the Old Testament before the time of the apostles and prophets. It was revealed in New Testament times to the apostles. That means after the time of Christ the apostles whom Jesus put in charge of founding the church. God revealed to them what this new truth was, this mystery was and what exactly is it verse 6. This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel members together of one body and shares together in the promise in Christ Jesus. I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God's grace given me through the working of his power although I am less than the least of all God's people. This grace was given to me to preach to the Gentiles the unsurczable riches of Christ and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery which for ages past was kept hidden in God who created all things. What is this mystery that God kept hidden in the past in the Old Testament? The mystery Paul says is specifically that Jesus Christ is now saving both Jew and Gentile and putting them into one body which is the church. You see in the Old Testament God specifically worked among his people the Jews. Israel. He wanted Israel to be a light to the Gentiles and he wanted Gentiles to be saved. But they were never brought into Israel in the sense that they were made one body God's people. In the New Testament the church is different than Israel. The church is a body composed of both Jew and Gentile and everybody who gets saved no matter what race religion nationality whatever you come from if you get saved you're placed in the same body. Now that's the mystery that was not known in the Old Testament. Church was not Old Testament truth. The church is revealed in the New Testament to the apostles and Paul says that's the mystery that I'm presenting to you Ephesians and also in Colossians 1 to the Colossians. So the mystery is that Jesus Christ is now bringing both Jew and Gentile into one body the church as he saves them they are placed into the same body. That is his message. But notice if you will also in verse 28 of Colossians 1 his method verse 28 we proclaim him. He just talked about preaching Christ in you the hope of glory. We proclaim him and here's his method. Admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom. Two things about his method first of all he admonishes that's a word for warning. It's a word to warn to exhort to preach against things and there needs to be some preaching against things. There needs to be warning of people to preach against sin to preach against error to preach against lukewarmness. Those kinds of things need to be preached against. There is a ministry of preaching against of tearing down and then there is a ministry of building up and that's the word to teach. He admonishes and then he teaches everyone with all wisdom. To teach is to give positive instruction that builds people up that encourages them that helps them grow stronger in the faith. This is a balanced ministry to warn to admonish and then to teach. It's kind of like the ministry God gave Jeremiah in Jeremiah chapter 1. God called him to be a prophet and he said to Jeremiah you are to tear down to uproot and then you are to build. Tear down first then build. Warn admonish first then teach. So both of those must be done in order for there to be a balanced method of ministry. Both the negative if you will and the positive must be presented from the word of God. So that was his method, complimentary aspects of ministry. Notice if you will in verse 28 his purpose. We proclaim him admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. That's his purpose. Paul knows that someday he is going to stand before Christ and he is going to lay down his ministry and his goal is that everybody he is minister to that he is warned that he is taught will be presented to the Lord Jesus perfectly mature. Now obviously that's not going to happen for any of us till we get to heaven. None of us are going to be perfect but the word perfect here to present everyone perfect in Christ. The word means to be complete or to be fully developed. There is a sense in which that happens in stages. We can look at a little baby when it is first born. When that little baby is first born once the mom and dad count all the fingers and toes make sure they are 10 of each and they look to make sure there are two eyes and all that. They say, oh what a perfect little baby. Now that doesn't mean that the baby has no growing to do it. It means for that stage of its life it is just right. It is where it ought to be. And then as it grows older what a perfect little child what a perfect teenager. We don't ever say that. But anyway you get the idea. What a perfect perfection at each stage means that you are where you ought to be for that stage and phase of development. And it is possible for us to be perfect in that sense not not in the sense that we have reached sinless perfection. None of us will get there until we get to heaven. But it is possible for us to be growing at the rate that God wants us to grow. And for the phase or stage of our lives our Christian lives that we are in to be right on track to be on target to be growing like God wants us to be growing. Paul says that's the purpose of my ministry, the spiritual maturity of believers. Yes, yes to preach the gospel. But there is much more in the word of God that needs to be done. Not every message can be a gospel message. That too is to neglect a great degree of God's word. But there must also be the building up of believers, the teaching of believers so that they are maturing in Christ and growing in Christ so that someday we will be presented perfect, fully grown. When we reach heaven and see the Lord Jesus, that was His purpose. And then if you will notice lastly His power, how did He accomplish all of this? How did He do all of this? Verse 29, He says to this end, I labor. The word labor is a very strong word. It means to labor to the point of exhaustion, to the point of being completely worn out. Paul knew what that was like. He says to this end so that I can present people perfect in Christ someday, fully mature, growing believers. I labor for that. I work till I'm exhausted to that end. But did He do it in His own strength? No. He says struggling, and that's an athletic term by the way, to agonize, agonize the word, to agonize as though we were in an athletic contest to push ourselves to the limit. Paul says to this end, I labor struggling in that way with all His energy, the Greek word in our gay law. We actually get our word energy from it. It means an inward energy, an inward strength that comes from Christ. It's His energy that we draw from. And then He says which so powerfully works in me. Paul's efforts, Paul's ministry, Paul's labor, His agonizing, His struggling in the Christian life and in ministry was done not through His own power, but through the power of Christ, the energy, the indwelling energy of Christ, which He says so powerfully works in me. Now many of you sitting in this room have since what it means to have that energy take over. In times when you were called upon to minister to someone, maybe in your family or maybe a friend or maybe a fellow member of the body of Christ. And there was a crisis and there was a need and you swung into action to help meet that need when maybe your energy was at its end. And yet once you began you sensed that there was an energy flowing through you which did not come from you, which could only be explained in terms of the energy of Christ which powerfully works in us. When the need is there, the energy, the strength, the power is there to do whatever God wants us to do. Too often I find that we hold back waiting for a sense that I can do this. When if we would step into the position God wants us to occupy we would find His energy begin to generate, begin to work. Once we are obedient God gives us the strength to do whatever He wants us to do. So Paul says that's the power that I serve by. And thus He ends this memoirs of a minister. This Rears Digest condensed version of His life and ministry. But what lessons there are for us to learn as ministers not only as pastors but all of us as ministers servants serve us. Servants of the gospel. When you suffer, suffer for well doing, suffer for the cause of Christ, suffer for living faithfully for Him and that will be rewarded by Him. Take the responsibility that God has given you and fulfill it carefully as a commission, as a responsibility that God has given you. Take the message wherever you go, the message of God's grace Christ in us, the hope of glory, the message of the gospel. Take it with you. And be honest with that, use the method Paul did, both warning and teaching, both negative at times and positive. Keep the purpose in front of you that we are building each other up and preparing one another to be someday presented to Christ, fully mature, saints of God. We're all in that growing process. Let's keep that purpose in front of us. And don't forget, when the going gets tough and when the energy is low, then there is a power that works within us that cannot be explained in any other way than that God Himself provides it. Jesus Christ Himself is energy, is there to do what we cannot do in our own strength. Keep that in mind. And ask God as we serve Him and live for Him each day that He will make these realities that Paul knew every day of His life and ministry. He will make them real to us as well. And someday you will stand before the Lord or maybe you will communicate to your grandchildren or leave a journal for them. And it will be like Paul, the memoirs of a minister. Let's pray. Lord, keep us faithful. Keep us faithful to you and to the message and to your word as long as we have breath, we pray that we will be faithful. Lord, we look at Paul and in these glimpses in His letters, Lord, where He shares with us His life and His ministry what a challenge it is, help us all to take encouragement from Him as to what we're to do while we're left on this earth. May we go about sharing the gospel, fulfilling the commission that you've given to each of us. We ask in Jesus' name, amen.