Sept. 10, 2017 The Goals of Gospel Ministry by Mike Kelley - Pastor Gateway Church

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Sept. 10, 2017 The Goals of Gospel Ministry Colossians 2:1-5 Mike Kelley, Pastor of Gateway Church

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I invite you to turn to the book of Colossians. It's been my privilege since coming back to the
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Bay Area last October to be plotting what I would like to be preaching to the saints at Gateway, and I plotted to preach
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Colossians, and I've been plotting my way through it. We began the study probably sometime in December, and we're about halfway through, and I've gone back to the archives this morning to be with you all, and we're gonna look in particular this morning at Colossians chapter two, verses one through five, and I've entitled that text,
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The Goals of Gospel Ministry, and you might be asking, well, you know, I'm not a pastor. Why is this for me?
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You know, well, these are things you can keep that guy focused on, okay? You keep your eyes on this, dear brother, and make sure that he's got good goals.
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I know he does. For all of us who love the word and are in gospel ministry, these are great goals, but it's also the goal of every man and woman, boy and girl in Christ.
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These are good things to seek after and to be focused upon. Before I begin, the
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Saints at Gateway greet you, and we hope to have good fellowship tonight. They want you to know that they love you and look forward to more fellowship.
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I don't think I'm the root for the three churches getting back together, contrary to what this dear man said.
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That is not true, but I'm glad to be a cheerleader of such things.
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I'm very glad to be part of it. Our last time together, I can't remember.
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We were trying to figure that out. I have very warm memories of this church, ties going back now close to 20 years.
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This was my church home for a year or so, way back when. My first wife and I had a lot of health issues, and she got promoted, and I went on to Westminster and pastored in Southern California for 16 years, remarried down there to my dear wife,
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Judy, who you will meet tonight at our gathering. So many memories of this place.
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All good, all very good. I'm glad the Lord has preserved this ministry. I'm glad he's given you this man to shepherd and Conley and others.
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Most of you, I know. Some of you have blessed me greatly in years past, and so I appreciate those forever ties.
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So with no further ado, let's look at Colossians 2, one through five. I'm gonna read the first five verses.
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I'm gonna back up a few verses, give a little synopsis of that, and then we will dig into particulars of the text.
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Colossians 2, one through five. Paul is writing to the church at Colossae. For I want you to know how great a struggle
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I have for you and for those at Laodicea, and for all who have not seen me face to face, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance, of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is
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Christ. In whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments, for though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ.
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If we backed up a few verses to see what he was immediately talking about, we would see certain characteristics of Paul's gospel ministry revealed to us.
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If you look in particular chapter one, verse 24, we see that it's a ministry of suffering. And I take that from the language, in my flesh, he says,
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I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ. He is seeking to be for those for whom Christ died, useful and willing to give himself away no matter the hardship to better their standing, to better their understanding of the gospel.
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To be a faithful shepherd, he will suffer. In verse 25 of chapter one, we see it's a ministry of stewardship.
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There we see very clearly, he wants to make the word of God fully known. That is his trust, that is his charge, and he is about that.
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He has a stewardship given him by God. The third point
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I would say is it was a ministry of revelation. And this was something, again, to the saints and to all that he had met and not met, he wants to reveal the saving truths of Christ's gospel.
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And then fourthly, it was a ministry, which is what the verse says, a proclamation, an admonition.
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And lastly, in verse 29, it was a ministry of perseverance and innovation. He toils, that text says.
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And he says he toils with all the energy of Christ within him. So it's not his own energy, but it is
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Christ working in him. And he is laboring in a human sense with divine resources and treasure, which brings us to our text.
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So what we just described was very briefly the characteristics of his ministry, suffering, stewardship, revelation, proclamation, admonition, perseverance, and innovation.
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Yes, true, but also there are certain goals in the discharge of that ministry, those characteristics, and the goals are in our text.
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So here's our big ideas for this morning. I have four sort of divisions in our text. Here they are, and then we'll begin to look at each one in some level of detail.
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In the first verse, we see it's a ministry of labor and blessing. In the next two verses, two and three, it is a ministry of specific objectives and purpose.
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Thirdly, verse four, it's a ministry that confronts error. And lastly, verse five, it's a ministry that desires order and stability.
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These are his goals as he displays the characteristics of his gospel ministry. So as we begin our time together, let me start with a question.
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Does the work of a good gardener all of a sudden stop as soon as those little seedlings pop out of the soil?
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You who love the dirt, I love the dirt. I've got an acre and three quarters of it in Brentwood. It's great dirt.
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They say the finest in the world, and trust me, everything grows there. If I plant something there, and then
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I expect the seedlings to come up, and indeed they do come up, am I all done? Do I just start kinda rubbing my hands together in anticipation of the crop
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I'm gonna be eating in a few months? You know, you're smiling. Some of you are people that are too.
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That's where the work begins. I cannot, you cannot simply relax in the reality that our sprinkler timer is properly set, and the coverage is perfect, and the weather is fine, and the soil is good, and then begin contemplating this food falling into our laps, and then shortly to our mouth.
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There's work that will be required to make that happen. Good gardeners must be diligent to pull up all the weeds that will soon be taken advantage of the blessings being provided to that area.
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The weeds will come, and a failure to do so will result in the ruin of the crop.
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The work of a good gardener is only beginning once those seedlings begin to show their little heads.
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We know that tears grow up amongst the wheat. We also know that we must do this work or there will be no wheat to eat.
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This is just the beginning. Jean D 'Aia, French reformer of the 1600s, writes these words, "'Such weeds might choke or injure the good plants.'"
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This man has become one of my favorites. He has a commentary on Colossians that I recommend to you for piety, and breadth of knowledge, and wisdom, and just pure sweetness.
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I haven't found anybody to get close to him. He is a wonderful brother. So he says, "'Those weeds might choke or injure the good plants.'"
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And I'll quote from him once or twice more before we're done this morning. But moving on. So the spiritual soil of our souls in like manner needs to be worked, and that consistently and diligently in order to root out any and all inaccurate, deceptive doctrines which might obscure and cloud the person and work of our
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Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, we have to be alert, in attendance, watching our thoughts, watching our input, being careful with what we embrace, and being quick to spit out or pluck up by the root anything that is unseemly or inaccurate.
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Error, false doctrine, they compromise our understanding of Christ, and they serve to obscure again who
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He is and what He has done for us. And these things will cause us to be tripped up and perhaps injured.
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False doctrine, which is affecting the church at Colossae, which is why Paul wrote the letter to them, false doctrine there and in all places of every age robs the people of God, robs the people of the
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Lord of assurance, comfort, and satisfaction. It is a joy killer.
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And if left unchecked, it will cripple souls and that eternally. If we do not do the hard work of weeding, fertilizing, and watering of our souls, if it's not performed in a prioritized matter, potential spiritual ruin, and for sure, some measure of spiritual atrophy will occur.
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And the body of the Lord Jesus in both an individual and corporate manner will suffer. You ever been witness to poor teaching?
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You ever been caught up by poor teaching, heretical teaching? Some of you may have been in a cult, and you know what those things did to you in your soul, and you know now the fullness of Christ and the delight of Christ and what he has offered, what he alone uniquely, completely, and sufficiently can offer.
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So it's incumbent upon gospel ministers to do this work, to pluck up the weeds from the soil of God's people so that we can enjoy a rich and abundant crop.
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In Acts 20 verses 27 and 28, Paul gives some words to the elders at Ephesus, and you know these words.
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We read there, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the
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Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the church of God which he purchased with his own blood.
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What's Paul's agenda? The blessing of his hearer's souls. What does this mean to accomplish his agenda?
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The pure word of God. That's what he wants his hearers to hear. We will see this in this morning's text,
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I believe how Paul begins the process of rejecting and refuting the
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Gnostic errors that had infiltrated this church of Colossae and bringing them back central and squarely standing upon the work of the
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Lord Jesus. And my Frenchman John Dyer again eloquently captures the agenda of his agenda,
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Paul, and the purposes of his labors to and for the Colossians and the
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Laodiceans and even all whom our text says have never seen me face to face.
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This is interesting, isn't it? He's never seen these people, but he's working diligently to bless them.
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The Frenchman writes that this people, these people he's never seen, that this people as a field or garden of God being cleared of all worthless and noxious seed, the precious grain of the gospel which the apostle has sown there might take root and spring up and grow at large, covering and crowning it all over with the flowers and fruits of incorruption which are sincere piety and true sanctity, no strange plant being mingled with it.
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He wants a pure gospel. He wants them to enjoy this. So may the Lord do a work like that in our midst as we dive in.
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Let's look at the first point. Verse one, a ministry of labor and blessing towards others.
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And I'll read it again. For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face.
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What's going on? Well, there are air -filled seducers corrupting the church of the
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Lord Jesus Christ. They are in Laodicea. They're in Colossae. And they've been in every other place potentially where people may gather and live.
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They are there and they have an agenda. Minimize the work of Christ. Take away from his complete sufficiency.
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Add something to it. Subtract something from it. Corrupt, twist, pervert. This is what they do.
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They are mandating the teachings of the Mosaic law for salvation. Others are promoting the worship of spiritual emanations.
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Remember the Gnosics, they believe that all things material are evil. And all things immaterial are pure and holy.
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And God being a spirit is pure and holy. But they don't embrace the teaching of the
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Lord Jesus Christ and those who knew him that he was God -man in the flesh. They couldn't embrace that.
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A God in the flesh couldn't possibly save them from their sin. So they have to have some sort of a system or a schema to somehow reconcile what's good about Christ with what from their economy is not good about Christ.
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That he has corporeality and substance. So they devise this system of angelic emanations.
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And they leave from the one true God and somehow in their teaching, there's a loss of the corporeal substance.
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And it's all spirit. And the enlightened ones in the Gnostic camp, they are those who understand the teaching of these angelic emanations.
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And then they're slowly catechized and they go sequentially through different steps of spiritual growth and maturity.
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Complete contradistinction to what Christ says in his gospel. That he is completely all -sufficient.
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At the moment of conversion, you have everything that you need. You don't need to be adding to or enhancing what he has already done.
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And he identifies with us in our lostness and our humanity. In all points, tempted as we are, yet without sin.
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In all points, feeling the temptations that we feel and yet not sinning.
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Being seen as sinless. And when he gave himself away on the cross at Calvary, his death had merit.
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His death turned away the anger of God and produced favor on our benefit and behalf. So the
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Gnostics, Mosaic law, spiritual emanations, worship of angels even as well.
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Others were promoting ascetic practices and secular philosophies. All are the noxious weeds that pollute the garden of the
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Lord and they must be pulled out and not by the root. So with Paul in this opening verse,
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I just feel like we get an intimate glimpse into the recesses of his heart. He's going to war against error.
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He doesn't like it. And if we can keep the garden analogy going a little bit, he's spraying a spiritual roundup whenever and wherever necessary.
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And he's not diluting it. It's 100%. It's not the 10 % concentrate you get at Home Depot for cheap.
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It's that expensive, full -strength stuff and he's putting it on as originally designed and he wants to kill anything that it hits.
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These are the things that he's trying to kill. He struggles. It's a life -consuming task.
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He's working hard at it. The word used is agona from where our English term for agony is derived.
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Literally, it's a struggle against opposition. It's a fight. It's fighting and struggling.
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It's not a playground brawl. It's the fight of his life. It's not a few minutes of intensity and a bloody nose and a few scrapes.
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His whole life after that Damascus Road conversion has been a struggle and a fight.
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This word that's used for struggle is used in Philippians 129, used in the context of suffering for Christ.
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Not only believe in Him, that text says, but also suffer for a sake. And if you believed in Him, if you've been embraced by Him, you are all too happy to struggle for His sake.
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But it's work. In 1 Timothy 6, verse 12, that is literally glossed in this way.
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Struggle the good struggle of the faith. You probably have fight the good fight of the faith, but I like struggle the good struggle of the faith.
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See, it's not always fisticuffs. It's not always this pugnacious exchange between two parties.
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It involves a lot of things. Just getting out of bed in the morning when you don't feel so great because there's things you know people are depending on you to do.
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A wife to care for and children to feed, a commute that must be endured. There's lots of struggles in life.
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That seems to catch it a little more accurately, I think. In 1
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Thessalonians 2, we read, For you yourselves know, brothers, that our coming to you was not in vain.
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Though we had already suffered and been shamefully treated at Philippi, as you know, we had boldness in our
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God to declare to you the gospel of God in the midst of much struggle, agona. Much struggle.
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What had happened there? A lot of things had happened. The crowd attacked them. The magistrate beat them with rods.
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They imprisoned them. They put them in stocks and they're miraculously released. And they're rejoicing.
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They'd be considered worthy to suffer for the name. Wow. That's struggle.
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That's agony. We all struggle in a variety of ways. We expend effort.
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We expend energy. We expend time, talent, treasure in a variety of directions. Every one of us does this.
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Life is full of this sort of thing. Difficulty and exertion, blood, sweat, and tears, part and parcel living here.
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Have you noticed, as I have, it's not heaven here. I guess that's not why
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I'm post -meal. If you are, that's okay. We can talk about it later. I don't see things getting better. I see things getting worse.
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Amen. Come Lord Jesus, right? But it's still good here. Great here.
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I'm not a cynic and I love my life, but there's struggle. There's labor. And what
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Paul is saying his struggle is all about, what it's really focused on, is it's a struggle that's oriented, that it's just directed to the blessing, to the benefit of the other guy, not himself.
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He cares about the other guy, the other gal. That's where he's at.
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That's his focus. What's the content of a struggle? He is about that process of blessing others with the things of Christ.
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That's what he wants them to see in his life. He's willing to be poured out for this, that others could get a little higher, heightened, elevated, more practical, joy -producing view of the
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Lord Jesus Christ in his work. No hardship is too hard for him to endure if there's the potential for blessing someone in the things of Christ.
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He doesn't worry about it. This man was undeterred.
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There are many dangers he faced, but he struggles. I wanna illustrate this a little bit.
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I think most of us are willing, even eager, to struggle for the blessing and benefit of someone that we're close to, someone that we know.
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But you notice, again, in this text, this struggle is for those he's never met. He's never had a handshake from them.
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He's never had a hug. He just got reports from people who visited him. By the way, he's in prison, struggling.
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He got the word of the situation from others. So he reads their letters.
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He reads their report. He sends letter instruction back. And I think his primary posture in prison is he's praying that other people will be benefited.
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It's incredible to me, the maturity, the focus of this man, the diligence of his struggle.
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He's well -acquainted with strife, with difficulty, distresses, deprivations of every imaginable kind, yet he's more than willing to endure them if someone can be blessed.
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So here, near, or far away, our brother Paul, and we're gonna meet this man one day.
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You're gonna meet him. One thing I like to talk about when I'm feeling weird with people, and it's really not weird, it's really deep theological truth, is that every believer that you have ever met, every single one, you will have an eternity of time to spend with.
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So John, guess what? We haven't seen each other too much the last 16 years. A few visits here and there over that time.
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An eternity of time, just you and me, doing Lord knows what, those things he's prepared for us who love him.
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Things that I can't see, or mine conceive of. An eternity, just you and me. Suzanne, you and me too.
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All of you who love Christ, guess what? You're stuck with me, and I with you, and we'll be glad. Endless time to be together, because that's what eternity means.
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Think about it long and hard enough, you will get a headache. Wow. So it's not weird that he's struggling for people he's never met, is it?
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When we grasp eternity, at least a little piece of it. He does so, he struggles.
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Romans says, his words again, in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the
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Gentiles. There's an agenda. I want something from you. And really what it'll be is their
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Christ's consecration. It will be their full hearts with the delights of Christ's work, his doings, his blessings given to them.
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And again, he's in prison. And he's enduring deprivation, which would likely consume most of the attention of normal men.
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But it's not consuming his. I've tried to put myself in his shoes.
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I just feel like personally, the circumstances would just be overwhelming to me.
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I've studied the conditions of Roman prisons. It's not good. It's terrible.
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And this man is just so diligent. He's just so focused. Even in the midst of a setting that we can only call terrible, his mind is oriented to the blessing of others.
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So he struggles. Secondly, some particulars of his ministerial struggles.
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Verses two and three. Let me read them to you again. That their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love to reach all the riches of full assurance and of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is
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Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
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Specific objectives. We could have entitled the second point, the goals of ministry struggles.
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Three main objectives, purposes revealed here. The first, that their hearts may be encouraged.
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That's a good objective. That's a good goal. You see, the Christian life is not simply some intellectual exercise that affirms, confirms certain truths and spiritual realities.
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It does include the exercise of intellect. Definitely so. But the truths that are held correctly in a proper position, posture of the heart, should do much more than simply promote confidence about one's conviction about the true nature of things.
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It should produce confidence. Definitely. But there's more. There's more.
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What this truth should do is to just promote, create, and preserve warm, giddy, cheerful hearts.
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Hearts that are guided and comforted by the realities of what Christ has done. Folks, we Reformed Baptistic types, we should smile more than anybody.
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God in his kindness and favor has given us this wonderfully high view of himself. And by the way, we didn't give it to ourselves.
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He gave it. That's such good news. We should not be characterized as cold, accurate, intellectuals, and debaters, but as warm -hearted lovers of Christ who show the reality of his work received in our souls, and we show and demonstrate that loving behavior to others.
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It's our default. We're happy to do so. We can do no other because we have been gripped by who
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Christ is. Just so important. So important.
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Encourage hearts. Producing the useful and comforting condition and fruits of peace and perspective, even while in the very middle of life's storms.
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Big hurricanes going down right now, huh? Probably as we speak. We need to be keeping these people in prayer. You know who's gonna weather the storms with the most success, right?
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Those who are holding on to the promises of the Lord. They know our God has the whole world in his hands.
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They know this. They know that he is the master of the storm. That he's the calmer of the waves.
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He can settle the seas. They rest in that truth, and if he is pleased to call them home, he will do so.
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While not at loss a day that had been ordained for them. We should have encouraged hearts.
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God in Christ is for us. God the Holy Spirit is within us. He is guiding and directing and reminding us of his truth.
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He is keeping us as his own. You're way too serious out there.
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He's doing these things for you right now. Smile, this is great news.
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You're not alone. You'll never be alone again. Even if you live by yourself, maybe just have a cat.
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You're not alone. He's there with you. We can have perspective, even as Paul did in the middle of an imprisonment.
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We can have a useful life, even as Paul did, even in the middle of an imprisonment. It's just incredible.
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Here's a good one. We can be encouraged even while in the very midst of our own failings, our own sin.
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Because we have an advocate, and we are not kept by our performance. We are kept by his performance.
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And we can be what we are, in process, not quite yet processed, anticipating further ongoing progressive sanctification, in anticipation of a great day, a finality when we're glorified.
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You won't be perfect here. You'll try perhaps, and you will fail like me. And we will be kept.
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Christ has died for our sins, for all of them. Christ was given as the full payment for each and every sin you and I will ever do, could ever imagine to do.
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We are accepted in the beloved. We are safe. We are settled. We are secure.
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Paul knows these things. Any pastor who's worth his spiritual salt, labors to encourage his flock with such things.
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And I know this dear brother does this here. But we need the reminders. All Christ called shepherds desire for their flocks to be in possession of encouraged hearts.
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Encouraged hearts. Hearts that are full of courage, innervated by courage, rooted in the reality of who they are uniquely as a result of Christ's work.
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The second objective he has in this second point is that their hearts would be knit together in love.
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Well, you ask, how does this occur? Do we all simply just get together and read the scripture together?
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Well, that'd be a good thing to do. That's fine. There's more, I think. That's part of it. Shared times in the word can definitely knit us together.
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Certainly the truth is the most durable of the glues that can hold us together, certainly. But there are other ways.
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There are other means that are helpful. Years ago, when I was pastoring in SoCal, we were concerned as elders about the, just seemed like there was a tendency in the church for people to just come to Sunday morning worship and then that was it.
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There was a lot of what we felt was maybe just sermon tasting going on and then you're kind of out and about and see you next week.
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You weren't there for any of the other events of the church and we had a lot of things available. And so I was tasked to speak to that and I coined a term, onerism.
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Don't be a oner, okay? And it was a rebuke really to Lone Ranger Christianity which is something the
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Bible knows nothing of. Nothing at all. Simon Garfunkel had it wrong.
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You're not a rock. You're not an island. You're supposed to touch someone and others are supposed to touch you too, especially within the community of faith.
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We'll move on. Call, the call that's here is a call to community, to enhance more regular fellowship.
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It's a call to shared lives, to shared living, praying together, eating together, playing together, being creative in how we do that, serving one another, spending time with one another, being what we are, a stitch at a time that our hearts would be knit together.
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That's the whole point. We are the forever family. We've been embraced by the living
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Christ and for endless ages, I mentioned that a moment ago, we will be in the enjoyment of one another's presence.
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Start the knitting process now. Don't wait for then. It's just logical. You don't like those rough spots right now?
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They'll all be smoothed over in glory. It'll all be gone. Marriage is perfected. No more strains, no more conflicts.
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It'll be lovely. Knit hearts together. Third goal or objective he has is that they would all reach all the riches of full assurance and understanding in the knowledge of God's mystery, which is
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Christ. And here, Paul just fires off another cannon broadside into the good ship,
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Heresy. Bwah! You don't need this stuff. You need the fullness of Christ.
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More of him is good. He's stating that it is in Christ, only in Christ, where we can find true understanding and knowledge.
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I shared this many times. I'll share it once again. Probably shared it in this pulpit years ago, so if you heard it, I'm sorry, but most of you haven't.
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Young man, did not grow up in a Christian home. Yours truly. Head off to Ohlone College, interested somewhat in spiritual things.
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I take philosophy. I take ethics. I take compared world religions east, compared world religions west.
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Reverse that for your direction. For mine, I'm right. And I'm confused. I've taken all this stuff in, and I am just absolutely scattered in terms of what am
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I supposed to follow? What am I supposed to embrace? So I just kind of gave it all up for a few years, and I get converted.
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John MacArthur does such a great job of this. He says there's really only two belief systems in the world. There's a belief system of human accomplishment, which summarizes all those things
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I had pickled my noggin with for several years at Ohlone College. Or there's a one in true faith, which is the religion of divine accomplishment, which is forsaking all others, casting themselves upon the sufficiency of the
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Lord Jesus Christ alone. Christ plus nothing.
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If there's a blank that you're trying to add to your faith, my faith plus blank, erase the blank.
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Christ is all sufficient. It is in Christ in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
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Verse three. Again, in Christ in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
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Now, being hidden doesn't mean they can't be found, but they must be sought for. They must be contemplated.
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They must be looked at and chewed on. Genuine gospel ministries labor to import genuine wisdom and discernment.
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They point their hearers always to Jesus Christ. That's what they do. If they're not doing that, they're not genuine, and don't pay them any attention.
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No, nevermind, they say in the south. Flush them. They're wolves.
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Chef Wilson has written, hidden does not mean kept concealed, but stored up as in a treasure chest.
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And that's been my experience 30, 35 years of walking in Christ. The treasures just keep coming out, and they're more shiny and more desirable than ever.
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Matthew Henry wrote these words. He says, the treasures of Christ are hid not from us, but for us in Christ.
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They who would be wise and knowing must apply themselves to Christ. We must spend upon the stock which is laid up for us in him, and draw from the treasures which are hid in him.
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He is the wisdom of God, and as of God made unto us wisdom.
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Friends, we were dumb as dirt before we came to faith in Christ. We were. We had the potential for life, just like my garden does as soon as I put the seed in.
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But that life doesn't spring into being until we come to Christ. Treasures, supernatural wonder and awe with regard to the realities of the person and work of Christ.
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Can you believe that a sinless God man would give himself for you? I can hardly believe it.
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He'd do it for me. Amazement, wonder should be characteristic of our living.
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We should have some level of effort and energy to peer deeply into these wonders of the scripture and learn of this
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Christ. Learn of his particulars. Delight in his redemption. Contemplation of our future gathering to be with him for endless ages.
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This is intensely beautiful and wonderful. We should be musing and reflecting on the breadth and the scope of the love of God for doing such things for knuckleheads like you and me.
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It's incredible. Let me ask you this.
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Is it hyperbole or some sort of a crass exaggeration to suggest that at times it should be just a natural act for us just to put our hand over our mouths and just drop jawed wonder and amazement for what
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Jesus has done for us? Shouldn't that be a normal posture for us? I think it should.
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It would appear there are no limits to the display of divine love, Christ for his own. And God in Christ has chained our hearts to his with loving constraints and they can never be broken.
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Our encouraged hearts are being knit together in the promotion of the agenda of his church.
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I hope we'll leave here today with an increased measure of such things, a desire for such things. Thirdly, verse four, a ministry that confronts error.
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We read here, I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments. As you know, this letter was written because of heresy in the camp.
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You know as well as I do that sometimes error is shared in a manner which appears to be reasonable or plausible.
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On the surface, it looks pretty good. But upon further dissection, it's not so good. So we need to be careful.
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So here I think in our text is a clear call to put on one's thinking cap. If you're my age or close, you know what that means.
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If you're young, it just puts an old acute expression which just means think, use the brain
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God gave you. Consider, muse, reflect. Put your thinking cap on and be diligent, be careful to truly dissect and consider the import and content of the words you just heard from this person.
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Be a good Berean. It's plausible words we're talking about.
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Words which may be, could be, potentially be.
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The Greek term employed here refers to a word of the law courts and it's not a positive word. It's a type of word that was employed in a situation used of a lawyer to persuade the court in such a manner as to have the prisoner perhaps escape his just punishment.
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It's a weasley defense lawyer fooling around with specious argumentation, trying to get somebody who's guilty off the hook.
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Plausible words, words intended to place doubt in the hearer's hearts.
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J .B. Lightfoot paraphrases our verse, the words of the apostle in this way, quote,
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I do not say this without a purpose. I wish to warn you against anyone who wants to lead you astray by specious arguments and persuasive rhetoric.
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Wordsmiths look pretty good sometimes but often they have an evil agenda. It's tricky speech, carefully crafted to promote a dishonest agenda.
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And such speech among the cultists usually has several goals, to deny or minimize the person and work of Christ, to deny his ability to save, to lend credibility to the erroneous thought that Christ plus something, fill in the box as necessary,
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Christ plus something is necessary for your salvation. That's what's happening in Colossae. It's probably going on in Laodicea too, most historians think.
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It was this cancer that had camped out in the area. And they had this wonderful embryonic little church established there.
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And they had embraced Christ in the way that they should have and they were growing. And then these specious argumenters come in and they start stirring the pot up there, creating doubts.
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This is corrective to come back to basics. These are those who are found guilty of devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, 1
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Timothy 4 .1, they're evil. And such activity is a departure from the faith, 1
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Timothy says, it's leaving the faith. In another place, Paul warns the Galatians, you know these words, but even if we or an angel from heaven should preach you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.
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As we have said before, so now I say it again, in case you didn't get it. Okay, if you didn't get that accursed language
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I just gave you, in case you didn't get it, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed a second time.
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Do you think he's serious? Do you think he's concerned? I think he's really concerned. God's people need to be warned by their pastors.
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And Paul, ever the faithful gospel minister, he warns them, he warns them.
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Lastly and briefly this morning, verse five, fourth point, last point.
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A ministry that desires order and stability. I'll read it again.
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For though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ.
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It is a painful truth of the human condition that many of us are often found guilty of the expression out of sight, out of mind.
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Lester, I forgot your name, okay? I did, I forgot your name. I remembered your face,
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I forgot your name because I haven't seen you for a couple years. I'm guilty, okay?
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It's not sin involved with that, it's just out of sight, out of mind. But Paul is saying something very different than that and he's saying this very clearly.
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He's saying you are decidedly not out of my mind, brothers and sisters in Colossae.
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I'm thinking about you, care about you. I care for those of you that I've never met face to face.
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You occupy my thoughts. As a matter of fact, you are the very content of my prayers. Wish I could say
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I've been praying for you faithfully too, Lester, but I can't. And then, while the circumstances of the apostles' imprisonment, they hindered him from being physically present with his hearers, that is for sure.
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He's laboring for them in prayer, in his meditation, in his writing, and he even uses his visitors to be conduits to them for their instruction and warning.
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This man's focused. One man wrote that it's as if Paul is conducting himself as a general and that general's in the process of reviewing his troops and he gives them encouragement just before they go into the fight.
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I want you guys to be charged up. This is a good battle and I wanna encourage you and I want you to be well -trained and I want you to win.
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So we ask, why does he undertake such focused attention towards them?
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It's in our text, that he might rejoice. It makes him happy to do so.
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Why? Because he sees their good order in the firmness of their faith in Christ.
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I don't know about you, but for me, what makes me the happiest is these days, now I have 13 grandchildren, and when
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I see one of them being warm to spiritual things, I get giddy. I'm 58,
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I'm in good health right now. That could change next week. I hope to have 20 or 30 more years to be here and be useful.
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I may or may not, I'm not worried about it. But I can tell you what makes me rejoice is the thing we're praying for, my wife and I, pretty much daily.
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We're praying for the next generation to be converted. And when I see a little chink in the armor, a little warmth of the things of Christ, we're just so tickled.
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That makes us the happiest. What makes you the happiest? You ever ask yourself that question?
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What gets you giddy inside? What do you like the most? What could be better?
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What could be the more enduring, more wonderful? That someone you love, someone you respect becomes a faith in Christ, or gets stronger in the faith, acts in a way in accordance to the faith.
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That should be what we love. And Paul is employing military terminology, and he uses that terminology as an enviable description of the quality of his audience's faith.
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He says, he desires and he's delighting in their good order and their firmness. When I came here this morning,
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I knew nothing weird would happen. I was confident.
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I know I would come here, there are gonna be some serious lovers of Christ because they've been seriously taught by good men. They're here now in years past.
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A rightly ordered congregation. It's not stuffy either. Let's not be stuffy ever, okay?
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Let's delight in what we have and really be happy about it. I knew that it'd be a congregation that had good order and firmness.
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If I had come in this morning and started to preach you a gospel other than the gospel of Jesus Christ, this man right here would have grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and he would have chucked me through those doors, maybe through a closed one with glass,
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I don't know. And I'm glad for that. See, the
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Colossians like ourselves, we're being described as any good army should be described. We're drawn up in a proper formation for battle.
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We're standing immovable and steadfast as good brave soldiers should and we are prepared to faithfully resist our enemies.
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We're ready. True ministers of Christ, they exhort their people to keep their armor on and they remind their people what their armor is.
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Their armor is Jesus. And they do this because the battle can be deadly. It can harm.
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So as we conclude, there is so very much we could learn from the example of the Apostle Paul in the scholarship ministry.
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He took a long, strong stand for the truth. He confronted the errors of the Gnostics. He told them in common parlance, buzz off, you guys.
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Go pedal your joy -crippling, Christ -demeaning, Christ -minimizing air somewhere else.
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Go. It's an old expression the kids used. Talk to the hand. Because the ears aren't listening.
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I actually Googled talk to the hand to see what the roots were of that when I was preparing for this. I'm not listening to you.
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Talk to the hand. Away from me. Talk to the hand because our hearts are so full, so complete.
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So enraptured in the all -sufficient and soul -filling love of Jesus Christ that we cannot even embrace for a moment a scrap of that heresy that so smoothly pours from your lips.
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We want nothing to do with it. We will not listen. Talk to the hand.
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Recall too that not a one of the great trials this dear brother faced served to dim or lessen his affection for and dedication towards the people of the
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Lord God. Or even those who might possibly be by his
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God -innovated, God -directed labors one day become the people of God. He shared it indiscriminately.
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He loved them by word and by deed. Whether free or in prison, in seasons of plenty and in seasons of deprivation, he loved them because he was captured by the love of Christ.
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He had the grace and energy of Christ and he goes and ministers these realities to others in the strength of those graces.
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He just produced it for himself. It was given. He states in another place,
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I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls. 2 Corinthians 12 verse 15.
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True ministers of Christ will spend and be spent for the souls of their hearers. In Philippians 2 we read, even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith,
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I will be glad, I am glad, and rejoice with you all. If I lose everything, but I'm still there with you in the things of Christ, I'm tickled pink.
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I'm gonna rejoice. As did his Savior, his model, Jesus, the object of his love and affection and devotion, the one who gave his life for his friends, the one who calls of himself,
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I am the way, the truth, and the life. Life incarnate, God with us. That's the strength that Paul ministered in.
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And we love this great Savior like Paul. We know he's an all -sufficient
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Savior. We know he's unique. We know he's priceless. We know he's worthy, infinitely so.
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I'm gonna close with a quote from the Frenchman, Jean Dayen. He writes, almost exactly 400 years ago, let us extend our love and solicitude as he,
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Paul, did, not only to the faithful whom we know, but even to those whom we never saw.
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Let us also love all true Christians and expand our affections to those whom many seas and mountains sever from us.
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Let us strive for them by prayer and do them, however far off from us, all the services of which our love is capable, laboring with holy tenderness for the salvation and edification of each other.
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May the Lord be pleased to minister in our midst such things, amen? Amen. Want me to close?
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I will close. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this time together in your word.
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We thank you, Father, for its power. We thank you for its encouragement. We thank you for the example of great men who have gone on before us, even our brother,
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Paul. Thank you for supernaturally enabling him to be a useful man during the course of his days in this world and to leave as a testimony a pattern for even we ourselves to follow in some measure.
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We thank you, Father, for the Lord Jesus. We thank you for his victory over death. We thank you for the security we have as his people.
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We anticipate that time of gathering. In the interim, make us useful. Make us faithful and we'll be grateful.
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Privileged to be considered among your workers in your field white under harvest. In Jesus' name, amen.