Colossians - We Need To View Ministry Like Paul, Part 2 - Andy Cain

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Colossians - We Need To View Ministry Like Paul, Part 3 - Andy Cain

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Now this week there's gonna be three things. We're gonna look at we're gonna note the fact that in Paul's view of ministry

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He knew the origin of his ministry He knew the focus of his ministry and he knew the purpose of his ministry and to do this we're gonna pick up With verse 24 where we started or where we were at last week

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He says now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of his body, which is the church

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Paul doing his share each individual Christian has their own uniquely qualified Ministry that is yours and we are to do our share on behalf of Christ's body

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It isn't our body. It isn't the pastor's body. It's Christ's body and we do this

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In the church, which is the church filling up was lacking Christ afflictions verse 25

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We're gonna note our first point this morning that Paul knew the Origin of his ministry verse 25 says of this church

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He again repeats what he said at the end of verse 23 when he says

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I was made a minister it literally means I Became or came to the point of being a minister.

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This isn't something Paul did for himself He wasn't on the road to Damascus to kill Christians suddenly stopped halfway and said, you know,

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I Probably should think about my life and I probably shouldn't be killing Christians I think

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I'll just I think I'll become the Apostle Paul and I'll go and preach and I'll write half the

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New Testament He didn't do that If God had intervened he would have went and killed the

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Christians He would have gotten the papers to go kill the God through the power of the Holy Spirit is the one that makes us a

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Servant a minister gives us a ministry gives us a calling Gives us a place in which to serve within the body of Christ And while I won't repeat the entire sermon series on spiritual gifts in this sermon

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I will highlight and pull a couple of thoughts from that as we look at this this morning

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He says I would made a minister according to the stewardship from God bestowed on me

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Paul recognized that he knew that his ministry his Christian life everything

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He did in service to Christ and to the church was from God That means that his ministry and what he was to carry out for the body of Christ did not originate in himself

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But it originated and came from God remember when we were talking about spiritual gifts

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We said that the Holy Spirit when we are saved endows or bestows upon each believer a combination of spiritual gifts that is perfectly and uniquely crafted to your personality to your talents to your gifts and abilities and it

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Specifically crafts it to such that you can serve the body of Christ in a unique way

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Now you take something like where they sang a song and you have other people that sing songs So you have a multitude of people that would serve in the capacity of music but the way he sung those songs and the way say

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Michael and Kenny and Even my good friend Saul that sang at one of our vivals and you think of brother

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Brad Barber down the street He sings you got our choir Sandra plays the organ melody plays piano.

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It's all within the music family But each individual Christian is serving in a unique way

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Contributing to the overall music ministry of the body of Christ And so Paul recognizes that his unique ministry which for him theologically speaking was very unique There's only been one one

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Apostle Paul, but guess what? There's only ever been one of each one of you.

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There's only one Earl Blake. There's only one John Morris There's only one Andy Cain. Thank you,

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Jesus We don't need more than one of me in this world one is enough, but there's only one of you

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Yes, what Paul did was important yes, I'm glad he wrote half the New Testament you are I don't know what the actual number is.

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It's more than half probably Yes, he Was a found one of the founding fathers if you want to borrow the term of the

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New Testament Church in a sense that he was one of the Apostles the Disciples that was carrying out and doing these missionary journeys and so on and so forth and they were living during the time of Acts Yes, that is true

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But in terms of our position before Christ in terms of our salvation my friends you and I are

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Just as equal as the Apostle Paul. Have you ever thought about that? I may be a pastor which may be in World may be concerned.

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Maybe a prominent role or I'm you know, I'm out in front or I'm in a public arena I'm speaking put my friends.

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I'm an equal among equals I'm no better than any of you and Paul's no better than any of us.

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We're equals among equals because we all find the same level footing at the cross

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There are no super Christians. I Love Superman. I'm a big

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Superman guy, but there are no super Christians in terms of our position before Christ we are all equally said to be in Christ Now within the realm of spiritual gifts in a realm of ministry, there will be some with more prominent roles

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There will be some with roles that are more behind the scenes But this does not change the fact that every role and every

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Christian is an equally important When he says here that he had him he was a minister according to the stewardship from God This word stewardship is a word that can also be translated administration a management of household affairs

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It can also be translated with word dispensation meaning a specific or special period of time

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So when you sort of view your ministry regardless of what you do It's for a specific or special period of time

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Some people will serve in the same capacity and in the same way for the entirety of their

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Christian life Other people may serve in this specific part right here for a certain amount of time

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And then they change or maybe move over here to do something different You'll see sometimes pastors may get called into a position outside of a church

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Or you may see somebody that works in a Christian function outside of the church go to become a pastor

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You may see someone that is in music Maybe they leave music at some point and get into more of a teaching role

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It all comes down to what your spiritual gifts are and it comes based on how the Holy Spirit is leading you individually and then you submitting to the

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Word of God and to the Spirit's control being filled up and Completely controlled by the Spirit of God to walk in service to God Because your ministry as Paul points out is from God what this means is

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That you will never meet and you will never encounter any Self -made men or women in the body of Christ It just isn't so and if you meet someone that thinks they got to where they're at on their own

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What's the Bible say about pride going before a fall It's coming. It's not a matter of if it's a matter of when

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I'm not standing here today preaching before you because something about Andy was so great that I got myself here

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I'm here because God wanted to be here. You're here because God wanted you here.

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There are no accidents There is no luck. I do it too. I say well was lucky this there is no luck

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There is God is sovereign and we make choices every day within the sovereignty of God within the confines of our

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Christian life Things that happen happen because they were supposed to happen There are no self -made

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Christians If you think you're gonna you know, that's it's a struggle too for me to do because I love me some

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America I just do I love me some America. I love the rugged individualism. I love the

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Constitutional Republic and I love everything that is America But there is a portion of the

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American mindset that is not quite biblical You have to kind of balance these things America says go out on your own do it all on your own

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You'll gather yourself up by the bootstraps. You can be anything you want to be I do agree with that But it's not complete unless you combine it with the fact that we are completely and wholly dependent upon God and we will only be

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That which we are willing to submit to God to allow us and put us in a position to be

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Any success we have in the American culture Should only be because God want us to have that success in the first place and it's a part of our ministry

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So we got to kind of you know Be a little careful how much we allow our American culture to influence our theology and our

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Christianity Our Christianity can influence what we do as American citizens But as American citizens should not influence what we do in the church

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That's sort of the point because there are no self -made Christians. We all need each other We all need someone to back us someone to promote us or someone to provide funding someone provides prayer

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Someone provides opportunities. My first opportunity to speak was in a Sunday school class.

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Someone said hey you like to talk Why don't you teach one Sunday? Okay, and lo and behold here.

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I am still talking even if you have a prominent role which

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Some do and some don't But here's the thing greater notoriety greater a greater influence in the public or in a particular church or if you're out front or whatever you

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Whatever you want to put to it Actually calls for that person or that group to be all the more humble

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Because they should realize they would not be in front of anybody if it were not for the power of God to begin with That's why my friends

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I run and hide from a prideful preacher if You've ever have anybody stand in front of you and all they're talking about what they did and I did this

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I did that Now look, there's some stories you have to tell where you have to explain what you did That's not what I'm talking about But if you can tell when somebody's prideful you you just sort of sense it

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Run as fast as you can Maybe not literally doing the service because you don't want to disrespect anybody

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But you don't probably don't want to be under that teaching for very long because it's infectious Sin is infectious it with a pride will come to you.

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I've seen it I've seen it the way I grew up in fundamentalism. You take on the personality of the preacher if he's prideful and he's

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Given to sinful things it naturally the people tend to follow I want to be as humble as I possibly can and I want to point you not to me

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But to Christ to God the Holy Spirit. I want you to not do what I say

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I want you to do what the Word of God says Anything I say should only be followed and or obeyed if it's in line with the

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Word of God And it's not me that you're following. It's the Word of God and the God that wrote it That's the point and any preacher that's worth his salt will tell you it's not me but Christ I am merely a mouthpiece.

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I may provide teaching through my spiritual gift, but it's not me. It is God That is the originator of my gift in my ministry

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Any success I would ever have as a pastor has nothing to do with me has everything to do with the level of submission and Obedience that I place on the

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Word of God for my own life and to the extent that I push this church To be in submission to the

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Word of God and in submission to Christ and this is what Paul knew he knew this about the origin of his ministry

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The last thing I want to say about the origins of ministry before I move on to the focus When you understand that your ministry is from God and it does not originate in yourself

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Then there are no competing agendas in the church I think

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I've said this before about my grandfather's funeral one There's certain things that stick out in my mind one of the things that's very prominent

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My mind is one of the speakers that spoke that day said about my grandfather who was a preacher for over 40 years

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He said brother Bill Burr was someone that you knew for a fact had zero agenda

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If he was singing in your church if he was preaching in your church Whatever role he was playing even when he was a pastor or if he was an evangelist

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No matter where he went no matter what he was doing. You never ever saw a man with an agenda a

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Self -motivated agenda he was only there for Christ for the people that were there to be in service to them out of a

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God they love There is no room for agendas in the church. There just isn't there's not any room for my agenda

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There's not a room for y 'all's agenda now. This does not mean that you don't have leaders of certain areas

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So like say youth leaders have a certain agenda and a certain program that they're trying to build and so we're talking about Self -righteous self -motivated agendas that say my preferences must dominate

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The things that I want to see happen must happen or else. I'm gone There's no room for those types of agendas that say

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I'm somehow more important now if you're in a particular role or a particular Leadership structure where you are in a place to make certain decisions

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Obviously a certain amount of who you are and the things you like are going to influence that there's not anything necessarily wrong with that The key is your motivation

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What is the motivation behind what you're trying to see happen? Is it because it's truly of the Word of God and it's truly in service to others

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It's truly in a God pay love and it's truly in submission the Word of God or is it a self -serving agenda?

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Those are the things we have to be careful about because when you have a self -serving agenda It keys in on the fact that you're probably not seeing your ministry is coming from God You're seeing is something that is you something that you must bring about?

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And this is something I struggle with the pride is something a preacher will struggle with a lot Because we do the comparison game.

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We see this preacher has this this preacher has that or this preacher has this gift I mean, I'm I struggle with the envy of preachers that can sing singing is not one of my talents

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I will sing in a group or all you know, you know if we had Like a group of people singing

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I'm there. I'll sing along and stuff, but you'll never see me do a solo It's just not what I do and I see preachers that can sing like man if I could just do that No, stop

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Stop Andy Because if God didn't give you that gift and you're saying you have to have it now

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You're starting to insert myself into my ministry and saying well God must have made a mistake No, he didn't

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I am uniquely Crafted and uniquely made and given the right Combination of spiritual gifts to serve exactly as how

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God wants me to serve because the ministry is from God and not from myself So we need to be careful of envy and being discontent with who we are

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Be satisfied with you who you are because it is who you are and God makes no mistakes

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He told Jeremiah before you even formed in the womb. I knew you God knew you before you even a

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Fifty years for you even born Hundred years thousand years times nothing for God.

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So Paul knew the origins. We also knew the focus of his ministry Verse 25 of this church.

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I was made a minister according to the stewardship from God bestowed on me for your benefit for your benefit

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Now who is the your? It's the Colossae Church Specifically in context, but you can take it and more broadly apply the speaking to Christians who is for Christians We are called into service to other

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Christians Now there is an element of what we do that we can be in service to non -christians And hopefully that will open up avenues to preach the gospel to them.

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So and so forth, but the primary Reason for ministry is to be in service and agape love style fashion to other

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Christians Because the context here is that I was made a minister of the church and the church

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Universal is only those that place faith in Jesus Christ Now obviously we would hope that non -christians would either come into contact with you or myself

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Or maybe something about our church would interest them to maybe possibly come into the doors and attend

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And we would hope and pray that would come to faith in Christ But the actual church is only those that have repented and placed faith in Christ It is of this church that Paul was made a minister and he's saying that a ministry that I do in service to Christ Church is for your

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Christians benefit in Submitting ourselves to God and the

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Word of God and through our obedience. We find that the true focus of every ministry is For the benefit of others and not ourselves and we covered this in great detail in the spiritual gifts series

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So what does this mean? It means that people matter Look, this is a touchy subject because y 'all been through a fire, but I'm gonna say it anyway

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This building could burn tomorrow Any church building in existence in the world today could burn tomorrow.

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It does not end Calvary Baptist Church It's a building this piece of wood right here could be gone tomorrow and we could still have church service

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This this whole entire parking lot could everything on it every building could just cease from existence

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We could still find a place to go to have church It doesn't mean buildings aren't important We obviously love them and we it was obviously tragic and you hate to see things like that happen.

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That's not what I'm saying But ministry is not about buildings. It's not about Anything else other than people it's people that matter

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Buildings are just something that we use in service to people You've got to be very careful that we never get the understanding that somehow anything other than people matters more than the people people matter this is why outward service to other

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Christians outside these walls and even outward service to non -christian outside these walls and service to Christian inside these walls

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Balancing the inward outward mindset is what we're about what we should be about doing

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Now this doesn't mean you don't maintain Buildings and you want to have a pretty building and this is we those of you that remember when

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I first got here One of the first things Gina and I said, this is one of those beautiful churches. I've ever stepped foot in just Beautiful church.

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I'm very proud to be able to preach in this building every week that goes without saying

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But if it came down between deciding between this building and people I take people every single time

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Because in eternity when the whole earth is think about this my friends When in eternity this earth is gonna be done away with and there's the whole debate whether you think you'll just simply, you know

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Refurbish this one or if it'll be completely done away with and a brand new one will be built But there will be an old earth

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There will be a new earth and we're gonna live on a new earth and you know, what's not gonna be there this building

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I'm sorry, but it's true. It just won't be there. You know who will be there and Jesus Christ It doesn't mean we don't maintain it we don't keep it beautiful We don't have beautiful flowers outside and all those things are fine

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But it should never take the place of people That is the true focus of any ministry and it was the focus of Paul's ministry

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Paul says everything that I do Even in prison all that's on his mind the whole time is people the people of Colossae the

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Christians The benefit of our ministries for those around us and not for ourselves

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Paul says of this Church, not the building but the people that comprise the church.

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I was made a minister. He was not a minister to Paul Self -serving agenda,

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I'm not a minister to myself I'm a minister to others At the end of verse 5 he says so that I might fully carry out the preaching of the

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Word of God This is a tricky thing here. What he's saying here. Is that by serving others?

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by engaging in ministry that puts others first We're fully carrying out what the

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Word of God Intends for us to do is the the filling up or the completion of the

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Word of God is said in this so Think back for you if you will in the Gospels, you know when the people come to them and they say, you know

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Sum up the law and the prophets for us and and Jesus Christ says what it can be summed up in this Love the

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Lord your God with all of your heart soul and mind and love your neighbor as yourself That's what

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Paul's point is here. He says if you want to sum up Everything the Bible has to say about ministry and you want to make sure you're living out the sum total of ministry

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It's done in one word and it's spelled o t h e r

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Others Our joy is fully maintained in serving others

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Our joy is increased and serving others and our joy

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Cannot be dissipated or done away with if we're in the business of serving others regardless of the circumstances

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I've studied the history on what happened with the fire here I've heard stories from any of you and there was a consistent theme in it

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Yes, we're sad it happened yes, we would have rathered one of our buildings not burned

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But I heard stories of joy Stories of we're gonna be okay

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Stories of how the very next Sunday you still met and had church

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That's because you understand Foundationally as a church, it's not about buildings

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But it's about people see I'm not preaching this message at you like somehow y 'all fail at this

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Yes, we obviously always have room to grow but I'm preaching this to you this morning one because it was next in line at Colossians but two because I've seen evidence that you understand it

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You get it if the building had a burn and y 'all say well, I guess we'll just go home.

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Nothing left to do I mean, we'll just wait a couple weeks or we won't have church until we get the building repaired

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That probably would have been a problem But my friends it's on our website right now.

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There's a video There's pictures of y 'all meeting and I think it was a local park or something right down the road

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That's what church is the circumstances is your joy can be maintained even in the face of a fire

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Or in prison as Paul found himself So Paul knew the origin of his ministry knew the focus of his ministry and then lastly this morning

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He knew the purpose of his ministry verse 26 Verse 25 again of this church

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I was made a minister according to the stewardship from God bestowed on me for your benefit So that I might fully carry out the preaching of the

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Word of God That is the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations

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But has now been manifested to his saints to whom God willed to make known What is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the

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Gentiles, which is Christ in you the hope of glory? We are all called to a specific ministry

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Paul specific ministry He says at the end of verse 23 says it in 24 and now he's repeating it through here a minister of the gospel and his particular ministry was in revealing what up to that point had been a mystery a

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A Mystery in the Bible is something that there either is an element of truth There's some information, but it's not fully or clearly revealed in the book of first John I believe it's in chapter 3

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John writes about the fact that we are children of God But it has not been fully revealed yet what we will be

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We know a lot about heaven. We know a lot about eternity We know a lot about what's gonna go on, but we don't know exactly what it will look like I don't exactly what the my resurrected glorified body will look like or what we'll be doing exactly so on so forth that means that some about eternity is still yet a mystery to us at this point in time

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The Old Testament looked forward to the Messiah the new Messiah would come he would set things right establish his kingdom

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But the mystery was that this coming Messiah not only would die and be the suffering servant but that he would be buried rose again and that he would actually come to physically and dwell believers as a

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Continuing presence of the person of the Holy Spirit It was a mystery to them and this is what's

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Paul preaching. He says this is my mission This is my ministry to reveal this ministry that for past ages and generations was a mystery

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But now has become fully revealed to you in the person of Jesus Christ that you as believers are indwelt by Christ Christ in you of Glory, our hope is not in a body a religious figure lying somewhere in a tomb.

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It's in a risen Savior, that's why we have hope our hope is in the resurrection the coming

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Lord and This was his purpose He was not called to some generic mission ministry, but to a purposeful ministry

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You my friends have a purpose I don't care

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From the world's view from your view from any Christian looking at you from their view

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How important or insignificant it is? Say Andy, I don't really

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I don't sing in the choir. I'll teach a Sunday school class I mean really all I do is come to church and you know when

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I'm at home, I pray a lot You pray my friends churches are built on the foundation of prayer

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And if all you think you do is pray and pray and pray for the pastor pray for your fellow

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Christians Pray for your Sunday school class pray for the kingdom of God pray for Calvary Baptist Church If that's all that's more than enough because you that are behind the scenes or the heart of the church and we need you

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Say why are you saying preachers and pastors are important? I'm not saying that But I'm saying there are some things that you can accomplish through prayer that will accomplish far more than any one sermon will

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The totality of a teaching ministry over time is important. Yes, but my friends some of the best things that have happened in the church

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Come from people that are by themselves in their prayer closet at home cried with words

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They can't even express but the Spirit knows them and he takes them straight to the father and said this is what my children need

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Never neglect your ministry just because so -and -so or some person out there Might say well because you're not in front of somebody speaking.

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You're not important. I May be up here, but my friends even if I wasn't

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God's kingdom would still advance It's because of people Even including me doing things in service to other people