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The Heart of a true minister (1)
He believed that God had entrusted to him a mystery that he was to make known widely to the churches, and the content of this mystery had to do with their spiritual union with Jesus Christ, which has far-reaching implications for us.
For their union with Jesus Christ brought to them all that they needed so that they could believe rightly and live rightly in God's world. Everything is centered in Jesus Christ and our union with him.
And Paul gave himself wholly over to this matter, even struggling with all his energy, that is, with all God's energy, he struggled. And so Paul was willing to suffer hardship on behalf of the church, verse 24, in order to minister the word of God to the church, verses 25 -27, even to proclaim Jesus Christ to each member of the church, all to the end that every one of them may become mature in Christ Jesus, verse 28.
And he sought to labor earnestly, being empowered by the Lord to serve the church, verse 29. And he lastly testified of his own effort to fulfill his calling from the Lord into the gospel ministry, for this I toil, struggling with all his energy, that he powerfully works within me.
And so we now arrive to the next paragraph, which is contained in Colossians 2, verses 1 -5. I suppose if we could call the last paragraph, the calling of a true minister, we could perhaps refer to Colossians 2, 1 -5, as the heart of a true minister.
For here we read of Paul really laying open his heart to those who had not personally met him, but for whom he felt a keen sense of responsibility. And here I believe we can detect some traits of a God-called, God-equipped, God-sent minister.
Of God.
I actually preached on this passage on at least one occasion in the past, but it wasn't in this church. Back in the early months of 1994, I served for five months in a Reformed church, called itself Reformed, hadn't had the Bible priest there in 12 years until I arrived.
And for five months I was an interim pastor, and so they were looking for a pastor. And so I was working through Colossians, and I found Colossians 1 -24 and following all the way through verse 5 very helpful for them as they were working through this pastor's.
Search.
Let's read Colossians 2, 1 -5. For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those in 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 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.
Here's an outline that can help us perhaps digest these. First, a true minister has love and concern for his people, verse 1, but more than that, secondly, a true minister has true spiritual concerns for his people.
And then thirdly, a true minister of the gospel longs for and rejoices when he sees in his people good discipline and stability in faith in Christ, verse 5. Now again, although direct application of this passage may be seen for ministers or for guidance to those who desire to become ministers of the gospel, clearly the apostle intended by these words, personal words, laying bare his heart, he was setting before the readers the kind of regard and concern that they should have for the people of God.
Surely he is leading by example here before these people. And so before us are the kind of desires and goals that we should have for our church as we seek to live for our Lord faithfully in the days in which he has called us.
First, a minister has a genuine love and concern for his people, as he wrote in verse 1,. 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.
Here we see the genuine concern of the apostle, that he had for the people of God everywhere. Now, of course, Paul was rather unique in this in that he was an apostle of Jesus Christ. And as such, he had responsibility for all the churches of the Lord Jesus Christ with which he had contact.
And all of these churches, of course, were a heavy burden upon his heart. And so he was unique in a way. In 2 Corinthians 11, Paul wrote to command his apostolic ministry to the church at Corinth. And in so doing, the apostle rehearsed the hardships he encountered for the cause of Christ, the things that really burdened him, concerned him, that he had encountered.
And so he wrote, in contrast to these false apostles, Are they ministers of Christ? I speak as a fool, I am more. In labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, speaking about being whipped, of course.
In prisons more frequently, in death, or the threat of death, certainly, often. From the Jews, five times I received forty stripes minus one. The Jews would not beat a man with a whip over thirty-nine times.
They thought that that would then become excessive and might take his life. And so you can imagine Paul's back after this number of times. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked.
And he's saying this before the account that we have in Acts, which would have made another occasion. And night and day I've been in the deep. In journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren, in weariness, in toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.
And then he adds this at the end to accentuate it all. Besides the other things, what comes upon me daily, my deep concern for all the churches. And I kind of think he ends this passage with this statement to show that this was the thing that was most upon his heart.
This is what burdened him most. I think he put it there last for emphasis to show that among all of his hardships, this was the greatest that weighed upon him. And Paul was not only burdened for the church as he had directly begun and established, and there were many, but he was deeply burdened even for those churches with which he had no direct contact.
Like this church at Colossae. Again, he wrote, for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face. We had stated earlier that Paul had never visited this church at Colossae, nor had he met face to face the members of the church at Laodicea.
Both of these cities were east of Ephesus where Paul had served for several years. Laodicea about 90 to 100 miles east of Ephesus and Colossae about 10 to 15 miles farther east than Laodicea. But notice a concern.
Even though he had never been there, never met them, we see his concern and involvement for these churches. And of course it particularly fell upon him because he was called by Jesus Christ to be an apostle to the churches.
And yet certainly we can glean a good and important principle from Paul's words. We should be concerned for all the churches of Jesus Christ, not just our church. I think that's an important principle.
And I don't think it's followed by everybody. We should have a deep affection and concern for Christians and their churches everywhere. And I might add, too, not just Reformed churches, although obviously I'm a man of Reformed convictions, but wherever the people of God meet, where the gospel of Christ is proclaimed and they're seeking to order their life and their faith according to the scriptures, we desire their well-being.
It's common, however, for a church and its pastor to become so self-centered that they have little interest and concern outside of their fellowship. And I encounter that all the time through my involvement in the New England Reformed Fellowship.
There are some pastors that have no contact whatsoever of anybody outside of their own little congregation. And it's like they're trying to build a little kingdom. I don't know. But it seems to me that we ought to have a genuine concern for the kingdom of God and all the churches that comprise the people of God that are, again, attempting to preach Christ according to the scriptures and at least are not heretical in their efforts to do so.
And so it should not be a desire. It should certainly be avoided to become too ingrown in ourselves, but always have a sense of concern and outreach for others and seek to encourage others and strengthen others about us.
We should be concerned for the broader kingdom of God as it expands throughout our region, our nation, and the world. Just as the apostle taught the Gentile churches to have concern for the struggling, suffering saints at Jerusalem.
Remember, he took up that collection. Over a year, he took up that collection. So we should be concerned for our Christian brethren and their churches everywhere they exist in the world. Now, this burden the apostle possessed was not natural to him, was it?
This concern was wrought and is so by the Lord. What was natural to Paul was he hated God, the true God, hated Christ, and hated the people of God. He acknowledged this affection he had was from Jesus Christ.
Philippians 1 .8. For God is my witness how greatly I long for you all with the affection of Jesus Christ. This love for the brethren was a product of God's grace operative in his life. It was the love of God that had been shed abroad in his heart that resulted in Paul loving the brethren.
If we don't love the brethren, it's because the love of God apparently has not been shed abroad in our hearts as it has been in other people's lives. We may recall what Paul's natural conception and care was for the churches of Jesus Christ.
Apart from God's grace, he persecuted the church.
He hated it.
Most in our society seem to be rather indifferent to the church. It's boring. Bunch of stodgy people over there. Moralist, self-righteous people. I don't want any part of that. But they would just soon ignore us.
You do your thing, that's okay. I just want no part of it. But Paul was not that way. He was a hater of God's people. And he would do what he could to persecute them, the people of the way. And so he had gone forth from Jerusalem, breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord.
But here in Colossians 2 -1 we see him expressing the burden of his heart on their behalf, even struggling for them, for he was so concerned for their well-being and for their advancement in the cause of Christ.
That's an evidence of saving grace, isn't it? As we've talked about so much in the past. Love for the brethren is a product of the grace, the saving grace of God. And yet finding a man like this does not seem to happen very often.
We would say sometimes it's rather hard to find a minister who genuinely cares for the spiritual well-being of the people of God. It was hard on Paul's day. He wrote to the church of Philippi, I trust in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you shortly.
Why Timothy?
Well that I may also be encouraged when I know your state. And then he says this of Timothy, I have no one like-minded who will sincerely care for your state. If I remember the King James it says, who will naturally care for your state.
It's just part of his nature. He loved the people of God. And then verse 21 he says, For all seek their own, and not the things which are of Christ Jesus. Notice the things which are of Christ Jesus is seeking the well-being of the people of God.
You see that?
No, a minister such as this is not commonly found,.
But they are around.
For God himself has promised his people that he would provide them faithful shepherds, that is if his people truly desire his leading. It was in the presence of the failure of Israel's shepherds, that is the leaders of the people of the Old Testament, the Lord promised he would call and equip faithful shepherds to put in charge of Israel, leading Israel.
And so we read in Jeremiah the Lord's promise to bring his people relief from their corrupt leaders. Jeremiah 23 .1 and following, Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture.
And here he was probably referring to not only the political leaders, but the priests, the rabbis. Therefore, thus says the Lord God of Israel, against the shepherds who feed my people, you've scattered my flock, driven them away, not attended to them.
I think the King James says not visited them. I don't have it in front of me, but I think that's what it says. And behold, I will attend to you for the evil of your doing, says the Lord. But I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I've driven them and bring them back to their folds, and they shall be fruitful and increase.
And here it is, verse four. I will set up shepherds over them who will feed them, and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, nor shall they be lacking, says the Lord. And then he gives a prophecy of the coming Messiah.
Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord. I'll raise to David a branch of righteousness, be as capitalized as a reference to Christ. A king shall reign and prosper, execute judgment and righteousness in the earth.
In his days Judah will be saved, Israel will dwell safely. Now this is his name by which he will be called, the Lord our righteousness. And this is a prophecy of the Lord bringing a remnant of his people back from Babylon, which was realized, of course, in the 5th century B .C., and continues to be realized as the people of God are coming from all over the world, making their pilgrimage, as it were, to Zion.
And the Lord Jesus, of course, appointed shepherds over his people, taking away the cruel, unjust shepherds of Israel that were unfaithful. In fact, we read about that in the Gospels. This is what the Lord Jesus did, didn't he?
Toward the end of his ministry, in Matthew 21, he declared that he was removing the corrupt priests and leaders, Pharisees and scribes from their position of leadership and entrusting his people to others.
And the Lord Jesus entrusted his people to the Apostles. We didn't go into great detail here, but we've done it elsewhere. He appointed 12 Apostles because he intended to put them over the charge of the 12 tribes of Israel.
The church is the Israel of God. He took the authority away from the Jewish leaders of Israel and entrusted it to his Apostles, faithful shepherds, who would care for his people. In fact, it would seem the Apostle Peter was alluding to this in his instruction to shepherds in 1 Peter 5, 1 and following.
The elders who are among you, talking about the church, I exhort, I, who am a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that will be revealed, shepherd the flock of God which is among you, talking to pastors or elders, serving as overseers, not by compulsion, but willingly.
Not because you have to. And don't do it for the money. Not for dishonest gain, but rather eagerly. And nor as being lords over those entrusted to you. There's a problem with that in a lot of churches, sadly.
But rather being examples. That's what a faithful shepherd is to be. An instructor and an example. Not a pope. Not a dictator. And then the promise, when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that does not fade away.
Speaking of the Lord Jesus. And so a true minister of Jesus Christ should have a genuine love and concern for his people. But again, more is needed than just love and concern. I would argue that, you know, that heretical ministers many times will have a love and concern for their people.
But secondly, we see in verses 2 -4 of Colossians 2, a true minister, that is who is thinking and serving rightly, has true spiritual concerns for the people. Again we read, For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea, for all who have not seen me face to face.
And then he has, you know, he explains what his struggle was for. The purpose or desire that he wanted to see realized in their lives. 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 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. And so Paul's concerns for these people were spiritual concerns. And he identifies four for us. First, that their hearts would be encouraged.
Secondly, that they would be knit together in love. Thirdly, that they would experience full assurance of their standing before God in Christ. And fourthly, that they may be preserved from errant teaching.
And so I want us to work through these. And today we're only dealing with the first one. Hence, this matter of encouragement. So their hearts would be encouraged. A true minister will be concerned that his people are encouraged in and by the Lord.
And of course, each of us should be concerned that others about us are encouraged in the Lord. Encouragement seems to be a recurring need, isn't it? Because we are prone to discouragement. Perhaps some of us need this ministry of encouragement more than others.
Some of us are better equipped for this ministry than others. Barnabas was the son of consolation, the son of encouragement. And you know some of those kinds of people, don't you? You just get around them and they're encouraging.
The Lord's just given them that spiritual gift. They encourage people wherever they go, whatever they say. Spurgeon wrote of this need among the people of God. Fits of depression come over the most of us.
And Spurgeon was one who experienced great periods and depths of depression. We call it depression today. The strong are not always vigorous, the wise not always ready, the brave not always courageous, and the joyous not always happy.
There may be here and there some men of iron to whom wear and tear work no perceptible detriment. But surely the rust frets even these. And as for ordinary men, the Lord knows and makes them to know that they are but dust.
All of us encounter these things in one form or another, one degree to another. And of course the need to be encouraged is present for the people who are easily discouraged, and some are. Discouragement is a very difficult matter to endure.
I thought about the clever line. I see it every year at Christmastime here in the movie It's a Wonderful Life. Joseph summoned the angel Clarence, of course all fictional. Clarence, a man down on earth, needs our help.
Clarence says, splendid, is he sick? And Joseph responds, no worse, he's discouraged. And I think that says it well. In fact, discouragement for the Christian spiritually speaking is probably worse than sickness.
Discouragement saps a person of motivation and desire to plan and will to move forward or to resist that which opposes him. As the cutting of Samson's hair drained him of his strength, discouragement drains people of their strength.
And some people get beat down so often for so long they just give up. Those of you that have been around a while, you've heard me cite that classic psychological experiment. Now I'm forgetting who did it.
It must have been B .F. Skinner, a behaviorist who developed this understanding of learned helplessness. Do you recall that? He had this metal cage, basically. He wired it with electricity and put a dog in it and kept jolting repeatedly.
And at first the dog did everything it could to get out and couldn't because the cage was locked. And so after a while the dog just sat down in the corner and whimpered as it was being shocked. You can imagine how that would go over today's world with PETA and whatnot.
And then Skinner did something else. He opened the door of the cage at the end and then proceeded to continue to shock the dog. And the dog just laid there and whimpered. In other words, the dog had previously tried and made every effort to escape and he knew there was no escape.
And so he didn't see the way of escape when it was so apparent to him. And Skinner said, this is how people are. They learn helplessness. There's no way of escape. There's no hope. And so they just kind of give up and lie in a corner and whimper.
And I think that is the case. And yet thankfully there is always hope for the one in Christ, isn't there? If we're taught rightly, think rightly. And if we're being encouraged rightly by Christians that are about us.
And again, some are more in need of this than others. Well, I want us to turn to 1 Samuel 30 and give attention to this passage in the time we have. We actually studied this passage some years ago, but when I thought about this matter of encouragement, I immediately thought of this passage and thought it would be appropriate for us to allude to it again.
In fact, it was, I saw it was 10 years ago, over 10 years ago, October of 2005 that we addressed this in 1 Samuel 30. And so I thought probably many of us were not here then, and those that were here probably forgot anyway.
And so it wouldn't hurt us to go over this matter again. Because here I think you have a classic passage in which you have set before us different reasons that people get discouraged and then the way that encouragement can come even in the midst of great difficulty.
Of course, there are different causes of discouragement in our lives. What are some of these causes? Well, we would argue a reason. Sometimes discouragement occurs after there's been a prolonged period of unrealized hope.
People get discouraged. When a Christian is weighted with longing for a desire to be realized and enter her life, but he or she comes to doubt that it will ever come to pass, then discouragement results.
Just like the learned helplessness we just described. And sometimes this occurs when you thought that your desire was in sight, only to have its prospect seemingly shattered before you. You become discouraged.
David must have felt himself in this kind of situation at this stage of his life, in this event. 1 Samuel 30 verses 1 -6 we read of what happened to David and his men as they were away from their home of Ziklag.
The Amalekites invaded, they destroyed Ziklag, burned it with fire, captured all of their women, all of their children, all of their valuables. And we read in verse 4, that David and the people who were with him lifted up their voices and wept until they had no more power to weep.
Now here was a discouraged group of guys. David's own wives were taken captive. In verse 6, David was greatly distressed. Why the people were turning against him, they wanted to stone him. Because the soul of all the people were grieved, every man for his sons and daughters.
And one can see how this could easily happen and fall out. And so at this stage of life, David finds himself in great straits, difficulty. Put yourself in the frame of mind of David. For he had such a bright and beginning life didn't he, early on.
Here he is, married to be stoned by his own group of guys, having nothing. And yet in the beginning, early on, God had been doing great things through David and made great and wonderful promises to David.
David had slain the giant Goliath and soon after David had risen to be the leader of Saul's, King Saul's army, women sang of David. Saul has killed his thousands, David his ten thousands. And it just seemed like his life was blessed of God.
It was onward and upward for him. He was a young man in the land. Everybody would have chosen to be the most likely to succeed. But David's hopes had not been realized. He had not become king. And it did not appear at this stage he would be.
He had to flee from Saul's presence to save his own life. He was a haunted man. His followers were relatively few. He had 600 men here. And they were not the noble ones who had followed him into battle at an earlier time.
But rather we read at one point, everyone who was in distress, everyone who was in debt, everyone who was discontented gathered to him. So he became captain over them. And there were about 400 men with him.
Sounds like a church to me. And so David really became a man without a country. He was a haunted man. He had to live in an obscure corner of the land. Found it necessary to consort with the enemies of Israel.
Life was tough. He and his men would go on raiding parties. But if the prince of the region found them out, they'd be killed. We know from the scriptures that God takes his people through experience that in some ways parallel David's experience.
Whenever a person has a dream, an understanding, you know, a vision, a hope, maybe a solid marriage and family, a responsible position in a company or whatever it is, and the point comes when that person perceives that dream will never be realized, well, again, discouragement results.
And with all its accompanying effects. And so the absence of hope brings sadness, irritability, impatience, loss of sleep, loss of appetite, lack of motivation. For hope, as we've said so many times, is that which provides motivation for life.
And when hope is not realized, discouragement and even depression results. Hope deferred makes the heart sick. That says it in a nutshell, doesn't it? But a person can hope against hope for some time providing everything else goes pretty smoothly.
But the problem that's not the way of the Christian life. Things don't go smoothly. In fact, it's my opinion that God really wants to strip away everything at different stages of life until we hope only in God and what He's promised.
And there's nothing else it seems to suggest to us that's going to be realized. And so David experienced a series of disappointing events. This is another cause of discouragement. Not only when a desire is not realized, but you just keep getting hit, slapped left and right.
And what are those past victories of David? Well, the fact is they were past. He was a has-been, so to speak. Samuel, who had anointed him, had encouraged him. He was dead. David was no longer the leader of Saul's army.
Saul would hunt him down and kill him if he could. Saul's daughter, David's wife, was taken from him, given to another man. And now far removed from the people of God, David was living among the enemies of God's people.
And even they had rejected him, which we could read in the previous chapter. And so whenever a Christian suffers repeated disappointments with seeming no let-up, no relief, then discouragement can easily result.
But again, some seem to be quite resilient and can come back after each blow to take another. David did. And that might work for a while until, thirdly, discouragement results when you suffer a great personal loss or defeat.
And this is what happened to David here in chapter 30. And so a time away from their home, the Amalekites came, captured David's city, took away all their wives, children, their goods. And David was at fault.
He had left him unprotected. And now his own men were threatened to kill him. And so this was really a low point in David's life. The little that he had in comparison to what he had hoped to have was taken from him in one stroke.
Nothing was left. And it appeared there was no recovery from this. He had nothing. And again, God's people can experience similar thoughts and manifest similar emotions to what David must have had when a great problem arises in life.
It can come in any number of forms. You plug it in. You've probably been there or are there in one form or another. One way or another. And so what is the result? Devastation. Can it get worse? Yeah, I can.
For even when one who suffers a major knockout blow such as this can feel the sense of others, perhaps his friends who have suffered similarly, and they're standing with him. And that's a good thing. And there is some consolation for a sufferer in the thought, well, at least I'm not alone.
We can all help one another get through this. But David did not have that, did he? They all turned against him. And so a fourth cause of discouragement results when friends fail you or worse, they turn on you or family.
And so David now is quite alone. Or at least he thought himself to be. And in this way, suffering can become quite acute and depression can become quite deep. Who does he have? What does he have? So have you experienced this kind of hardship in life, period of life?
Your friends with whom you walked and communed do not comfort you or encourage you, but they make your suffering worse, it would seem. But again, I believe our Lord on purpose removes those things with which we prop up our hopes until they're all gone so that we will learn to look to Him alone.
He wants us to come to that place. He wanted David to come to that place. And a person might be okay if he can perceive at least he was blameless in the matter. But David couldn't think that because again, David was at fault.
And so fifthly, another cause of discouragement, a discouragement results when you perceive that you yourself are blameworthy. Yeah, it was me. It was my fault. It was my failure. And David's men thought that he was at fault.
And David thought that indeed he was the one responsible for what happened. And so again, David is left with nothing. A grave might be welcome at this point. For David really hadn't been walking as he should have been walking at this time, at this stage of life.
He had been suffering earlier when King Saul was pursuing him. But during those times he could see the power and providence of God in his life. God had brought wondrous deliverances when he had been in great difficulty.
These occasions could have only encouraged him in his faith and engendered his hope. But David had grown weary of that. And so he fled to live among the enemies of God. And he compromised in doing so.
And we read of this humiliating display of David in 1 Samuel 21, 10 -15. David arose, fled that day for fear of Saul. Fear of things in life will lead us to do shameful things. He went to Achish king of Gath.
The servants of Achish said to him, Is not this David the king of the land? Did they not sing one to another of him?
