For His Body, By His Power

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I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to Colossians chapter 1 and find your place in Verse 24 During the time of the Christmas season we were going literally one verse at a time for six five or six weeks we're going to begin looking at some larger sections of This letter as we don't ever want to miss the theme of the letter To miss the forest for the trees as it were we want to make sure we see what Paul is getting at and this is a Section that I do believe is held together by two book ended ideas as we will see Paul is dealing with one of the most intensely personal sections of this letter and He is expressing to us The simple idea that his ministry is a hard ministry his ministry has been a ministry of suffering a ministry of toil a ministry of struggle and Those are the words that he's going to use in this section.
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In fact what I'm going to show after we read is It's actually book ended by the idea of suffering and struggle and that that sort of comes at the beginning in the end and everything in the middle sort of Radiates to those ideas that this is a difficult thing and and I do want to make this point today in this I don't want to jump to the application before we've had time for the for the interpretation, but I do want to say this Ministry is difficult I know many many many men Who have found the ministry Overwhelming and have just departed because they felt it was too much for them to bear and Statistics show That that is a very common thing that many men start but few men See it through to the end and what's interesting about that is last week we talked about that in regard to faith We talked about faith has to continue right the perseverance of the Saints was our subject last week and we talked about holding fast the faith but this week Paul's going to talk about how difficult ministry is and he's going to show us that If our our ministry and I'm not just talking about the guy who stands here or the guys who are in the eldership or the deacons I'm talking about every one of us if our ministry That God has given to us no matter what it is is Going to continue to the end.
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It has to have the right motivation and It has to have the right source of power has to without those two it will inevitably Go astray.
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So that's what we're going to see today in this text.
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Let's let's stand together give honor and reverence to the Word of God Mm beginning at verse 24 Paul says now I rejoice in my sufferings For your sake and in my flesh.
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I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body That is the church of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you to make The Word of God fully known the mystery hidden for ages and generations, but now revealed to his Saints To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery Which is Christ in you? the hope of glory Him we proclaim warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present everyone mature in Christ For this I toil struggling with all his energy That he powerfully works within me Father in heaven, I pray now And I echo what my brother said earlier Lord that you would give me Clarity of voice and mind that you would fill me with the power of your spirit that Christ would increase that I would decrease Moreover Lord that you would keep me from error and Lord that your people would be edified challenged spurred on to good works and Ministry and Lord For those here who do not know Christ That they would understand to follow after Christ is not an easy thing For Lord Christ himself said a man must count the cost.
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He must be willing to take up his cross and follow him Lord it is a hard thing, but yet it is worth it Lord help us to see Christ as beautiful and the ministry as Worth it today in Jesus name.
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Amen last week when we read verses 21 to 23 Paul referring to us having been alienated Reconciled and needing to continue in the faith.
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He ends verse 23 With a statement about himself Sort of comes out of nowhere.
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It seems because he's talking about us or more specifically he's talking about the Colossians, but by Extension all believers.
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He's saying that we are to not shift from the hope of the gospel that you heard which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven and then he sort of takes a seemingly side Step and he says of which I Paul became a minister And that word became in the King James is the word made And I do think in the idea of what Paul is saying I was made a minister Does in one sense articulate for us a little bit more of what Paul is saying? Because Paul did not become a minister of the gospel by choice Now a lot of people want to argue about free will That's not the topic today, but I will say this about that Paul didn't Walk an aisle at a Billy Graham crusade and accept Jesus by his own free will Paul was on his way to Damascus to persecute followers of the way Is what Christianity was called early on the way Jesus himself said I am the way So Paul having watched the first martyr Stephen be stoned having watched the cloaks of those who stoned him Paul having given Approval to the death of this man now is on his way having received authority to go and persecute others in The name of Christ Or for rather for having the name of Christ he's on his way to Damascus and he is struck and We are given in the scriptures we are given Several accounts of this because Paul never can quite get over it We get the initial account early on in the book of Acts, but then through the book of Acts He he testifies of what happened several times before men of authority One particular scene is in Acts chapter 26 Where he is before King Agrippa And I just want to read you don't have to turn there I'm just going to read very quickly from the words of Paul He says in Acts 26 I myself was convinced that I ought to do many things in opposing the name of Jesus of Nazareth I was convinced to oppose this man and I did so in Jerusalem I not only locked up many of the saints in prison after receiving authority from the chief priests But when they were put to death I cast my vote against them Hear what Paul's saying Paul's testifying of his own participation in the death of believers Saw someone write something the other day That said Paul entered heaven to the applause of those who he had sought to kill and that's what graces Thought that was a beautiful thing to say But going on he says and I punished them often in all the synagogues and tried to make them blaspheme and in a raging fury Against them.
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I persecuted them even to foreign cities in this connection I journeyed to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests at midday Oh King I saw what I saw in the way a light from heaven brighter than the Sun that shone around me and Those who journeyed with me and when we had fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language Saul Saul, why are you persecuting me? Now that's the point I want that's the part I was trying to get to Because it goes on he talks about kicking against the goads and asking the Lord who he is and having this moment But but the point I'm saying is as Paul is recounting what he was doing to Christians he recounts the Lord Speaking to him and the Lord asks him a pointed question.
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Why are you persecuting me? What do we learn from that simple question from our Lord Jesus Christ to Saul We learned that when Christians suffer for the name of Christ they are suffering as if they were Christ and Christ sees the suffering of believers in his name as His own suffering Why are you persecuting me? What do we call the church the body? of Christ and therefore when the body of Christ each individual believer Goes through a time of persecution for the name of Christ It is if Christ himself is in that moment receiving that persecution Because they are persecuting not the individual but the individual that is represented and that is Christ himself So I brought that up Hmm Because when we go back into galosh Colossians We note in verse 24 Paul speaking of his sufferings and noticed what he says.
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He says I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake And he goes on to say I'm going to I'm going to Exegete the text in a moment, but he goes on to say He says for the sake of the body that is the church Paul recognized that his sufferings Were on behalf of the church Paul recognized that his his Difficulties were on behalf of Christ's body.
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And so as I said earlier and I brought the whiteboard up here I know this is not always easy for everybody on this side to see so I'll try to make it as best I can I want to show you sort of something in the text to maybe provide a visual here and that is that what we see at the beginning is Paul mentions his sufferings and The word suffering there is the word Pathema it comes from the root pathos and We're familiar with that.
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We we talk about pathos as like emotion Mike and I've talked about that word a lot.
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Haven't we with the word? Impassibility and all that that whole argument with the passions right that's where the word pathos This this this same idea the idea of emotion, but in this sense, it's the emotion that is derived out of pain Right.
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We have many emotions, right? We have the emotion of joy Happiness pleasure, but you know those all Maybe not emotions, but those drive our emotions, right? And we also have the emotions of suffering and grief and hurt Right.
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Well, this would be on the negative side this this this word here Pathema is the idea of of suffering negative emotion well at the end of The section down in chapter 1 verse 29 we get another word and that is the word struggling Sorry for my poor handwriting.
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It's hard to write like this It's a way the board's set up there.
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This word is a different Greek word.
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Not the same word It is the word agonit so my now pretty much any English speaker should probably be able to pull the root word out of that that we Derive into English, which is the word agony But here's what's interesting about the word agony As we think of agony is like suffering, right? We kind of connect it there and it is in Paul's idea but the the word actually comes from the idea of being a contender or a fighter someone who is training and Suffering in the training and anybody any of you who have ever done anything particularly physical Understand the physical stress that that you put into your body when you're training for something.
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I Thought whether or not I was going to share this I will I started going to the gym and it wasn't a New Year's Resolution I started before the New Year But my friend Tim, but you all know Tim who's here.
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He's been helping me Well, when I go to the gym by myself, I enjoy myself more Because when Tim comes he takes me into a little room I Call it the torture room big ropes Heavy bags these things you got to step up on step off of it is agony It does not feel good now it feels good when we're done we're sitting in that hot room You're sweating it out.
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But during the moment it is hard and I'm sweating and and and it is that's the idea here of the agonism is the idea of contending striving for something Still though in one sense and the negative because this word is also combined in verse 29 with the word toil Now most of us when we think of the word toil don't think of that in the positive Do we if we say we're toiling this day? That usually means we're working in some kind of way.
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That's not pleasurable But that's how Paul describes his ministry he describes it as suffering and toil and Struggling and Yet, I don't believe that he's doing so to throw a Pauline pity party Paul's not giving us this so that we'll feel bad for him The point in this is that we would understand That this is serious business Because in chapter 2 what we're going to see when we get into chapter 2 is That he is going to begin challenging the false teaching of the of the heretics at Colossae that have tried to bring in these False teachings and he is going to very clearly show them that what they are doing is dangerous because this is serious business The gospel is not a trifle The gospel is not something that is simply a game The gospel is serious business.
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It is worth suffering for and it is worth struggling with But it is hard It is easy to become discouraged it is easy to feel like Throwing up our hands So Paul in the midst of suffering and struggling gives us five Motivations For ministry in these passages and here's what I'm going to do, by the way I am going to go over these five today But next week I'm going to go back into this text and I'm going to look at some things that today I'm only going to hit at the surface Because there are a few things that I want to dive deeper into and I felt there's no way For me to get through all of this and all of that in a way that would be Reasonable for the brain to absorb, you know, not only I love it when people say you can go as long as you want I understand and I appreciate that.
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I know not everybody says that but those who do But but also there's no use in going past what the brain can receive right what the brain can absorb that's important, too And I want you to see these five things today as the overview and the next week We're going to dive into more of what's there more specifics Okay, so here it is.
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We're going to see one the recipients of His ministry two is the source of his ministry number three is the Content of his ministry number four is the purpose of his ministry and Number five is the strength of his ministry.
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So why don't you just do a PowerPoint? Because I literally wrote that last night I just didn't have time I literally this I've been working on the sermon all week I mean, I work on my sermons anyway all week and my notes Sort of changed throughout the week what midnight last night I sat down and looked at the text and I said wow There's five parts to that and here's here they are So I just didn't have time to throw it in a PowerPoint.
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So I thought this would work But these are the things that allow him to rejoice in his suffering There's notice what he says.
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He says he says in verse 24 now I rejoice in my sufferings I want to tell you something.
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I do a lot in suffering But rejoicing is not always Number one Hey, don't you sit there and not say amen, you know, I'm right.
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It's hard to rejoice in sufferings But Paul says it and what's interesting about this.
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He's saying this from prison Remember we have four epistles that we call the prison epistles So Paul is saying this while he's under arrest while he is in prison He's saying I rejoice in my sufferings I actually have I actually have Cairo is the Greek word, which is the the root of that is grace You say well, how does that work with the idea of rejoicing he says I'm experiencing grace in my suffering I'm experiencing the joy of the Lord and I hope I hope that you've heard me say this but maybe you haven't I know some Of you are new But there is always going to be a distinction in your life between joy and happiness Happiness is based on happenings And our happiness kind of goes and comes because happiness is a is a state of emotion But joy is a state of being Paul says there's a peace that passes all understanding Right.
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That's that state of being in Christ the state of being in grace the joy That is consistent Even throughout Times of severe grief.
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I don't expect you to be ha ha happy all the time if you are that worries me I'm not ha ha happy all the time.
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There are things in our life that we shouldn't be happy about But we can still have joy in the midst of suffering and Paul says that he says I rejoice in my sufferings But then he adds to this he says I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake if these are not just the Normal everyday sufferings of Paul that we all endure we all endure aching joints.
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We all endure Tiredness we all endure pain and suffering we all endure grief and loss But Paul says I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake and who is the your way says in a moment? He says it's the church Paul is suffering on behalf of the church.
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Why is he in prison? Paul could have gone to a house somewhere in Israel and just wrote letters and sent him out and Just hidden away, but he didn't what did he do? He was a missionary and he went from place to place oftentimes being beaten sometimes being arrested sometimes being stoned He was stoned Almost to death Paul was a man who had suffered for the sake of the church And yet he says I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake why because that's the recipients matter to him The reason he can stay motivated in his ministry is because the recipients of his ministry matter to him He's saying to the church you're worth it I Can rejoice in this because what I'm doing I'm doing ultimately To ensure that you receive the gospel and it's worth it now he says something else in this passage that I actually think it's difficult to understand and Could easily be misunderstood So I want to take a moment to clarify the very next clause in verse 24 Because he says now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake and Then he says and in my flesh.
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I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions For the sake of the body that is the church now right away every one of us Gets tense when we hear Paul say there's something lacking in Christ's afflictions and Rightfully so because if what we think that means is that somehow the cross of Christ was Insufficient then we are not understanding Paul Paul is not saying that the cross of Christ Lacked anything when Christ was on the cross.
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What did he say to tell us I which means what? It is finished paid in full right? In fact, I do want to show you this if you don't mind very quickly run over to Hebrew is with me Hebrews chapter 10 and go to verse 12 Just to reiterate this idea in Hebrews chapter 10 verse 12 it says this but when Christ had offer for had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sin he sat down at the right hand of God waiting from that time until his enemy should be a made a footstool for his feet for by a Single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified so if you think there's something lacking in The atonement of Christ and that's what Paul means.
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I would say you are incorrect There is nothing lacking in the atonement of Christ because we were told by Christ It is finished and we were given by the writer of Hebrews a more explicit statement Which says for by that one sacrifice he has perfected for all time So what then does Paul mean When he say that he is filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions Well, it's important to note.
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One thing is that this Greek word for affliction here is never used regarding Christ's death That's just an important point that it's never used regarding Christ's death Rather this word is used in other places to refer to Suffering that we would or affliction that we would undergo in our normal life and things that we go through as we go through this life and So I do believe that what Paul is referring to here Is that what Paul is referring to is that? He is experiencing affliction and he is experiencing affliction on behalf of Christ And the affliction that he is experiencing is the affliction that Christ himself would suffer were he here Because again, he is part of the body of Christ and when someone Persecutes the church.
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What did we learn in Acts? Why do you persecute? me You understand Paul is saying that what I am doing and the word here for filling up Actually comes from the word that we might better understand is the word supplement He's saying I'm supplementing to Christ's afflictions The idea here is that Christ has ascended to heaven Christ is afflicted no more in his body But as Paul is afflicted in his body and he represents Christ in that sense He is receiving what Christ would receive were Christ here I'll give you a quote Christians experience wrath from unbelievers who are really still persecuting Christ That is venting their rejection of Christ on his followers because they can no longer pull Christ's beard or spit in Christ's Face so they do the next best thing they persecute the people in whom Christ lives Another writer says it this way.
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He says every stone that Paul received was meant for Christ So as Christ is as Paul is there receiving the stoning it Is is it is as if he's receiving it on behalf of Christ as if Christ were there So Paul is in no way Diminishing what Christ has done, but he is showing the the reason why He is able to do this because he understands this is directed at my Savior This is directed at him and why can I endure this because of the sake of the church? We receive this on behalf of the church by the by the way Just remember That this also applies today now again, I don't like to jump right to application all the time, but this does apply That when we are persecuted For the name of Christ And I don't know if you've ever had that happen I Don't know if you I know some of you I've talked to You can always point out Mike as we talked so much from Mike You know when open-air preaching people spit at you people throw things at you people call you curse words Had a guy one time put a screwdriver in my face told me he was going to kill me on The Jacksonville Beach not too far from your house.
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Actually it happens And it is on behalf of Christ You're suffering on behalf of Christ that's Paul's idea here So he says I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake and in my flesh.
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I Am filling up what is lacking in Christ afflictions For the sake of his body that is the church again the recipients make it worth it Because I could be hiding in a room somewhere writing letters, but I'm not I'm in the church.
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I'm planting churches I'm starting churches.
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I'm building churches on behalf of Christ and I'm suffering for it, but it's worth it because Christ's church is worth it beloved the The the church is worth spending and being spent over the church is worth toiling for the church is worth suffering for And as I said earlier, it's hard sometimes because the suffering is sometimes Unrelenting and sometimes it comes from friendly fire Can't believe there's no amen to that that should have been You know what I'm saying Heard a story just recently a pastor somehow I guess fell into disfavor with his church and he was living in the church parsonage He got home to all of his stuff sitting in the yard There was no Severance there was no time to discuss they were unhappy with him.
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So all of his stuff was sitting in the yard now I have no idea what he did.
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Maybe he deserved it in one sense.
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I don't know But it's hard for me to imagine that you would treat a man of God like that And again, I'm very thankful for You all I'm thankful for our church and I'm not here today crying a pity party I love you all and I'm treated very well here But I have a lot of friends Who suffer for the church suffer in churches and so again Paul says I rejoice in that because the church is worth it.
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The recipients are worth it second thing Is the source of his ministry verse 25 He says of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you to make the word Of God fully known understand this what Paul is saying in that is Paul is saying something very simple Paul is saying I was made a minister and again that word made comes up again It says in the ESV that he said I became a minister, but in the King James it says I was made a minister I was made a minister according to the stewardship from God King James says dispensation from God that ought to get you excited if you came out of Dallas seminary because it says if you're given a minute a dispensation said which simply does mean a Dispensing of or a ministry of God gave this to him So again, not only is Paul motivated by the recipients of his ministry Paul's motivated by the source He didn't start this ministry God started this ministry He didn't call himself an apostle Christ called him an apostle and So his ministry has the source that is God himself.
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I remember years ago, and this is so hokey, but I'll I Just can't help but say it.
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I you know, you've heard the term Daddy called mama sent Maybe you have it.
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Okay, I Said ministry is a God calling But not all ministers are called by God Some are daddy called mama sent that was the way it was said if your source of ministry isn't God himself, that's a problem Now not all callings are the same we would talk about the different calling of eldership deacons We'd call everybody's called to something but it's a different in The aspect of how the Spirit works and all those things and get into all that right now, but the point of it is if the source of our ministry isn't God Then what is it? Is it pride? We're doing it because we want to make a name for ourself.
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Is it is it? to gain friends and social relationships I Know in the past I've heard of churches where if you weren't a part of that church You couldn't be part of the local political scene.
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I Was told years ago By a friend of mine who was very well known in this city that if he really wanted to go anywhere politically he had to Join first Baptist downtown because that's where the movers and shakers were if you really wanted to get anywhere politically Now this was 25 30 years ago But the point of the matter is what is the motivation for ministry? What's the point of what's your motivation for being here, right? Because if it is not that God is as has called you to ministry and called you to this ministry Then it's not the right motivation Paul's motivated again by the recipients of his ministries.
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He's motivated by the source of his ministry Which he goes on to say is The what the ministry is he says the ministry is making the Word of God fully known Making the word fully known to who that church that he just said was the recipients of his ministry number three Is the content and this goes continues on with the Word of God.
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He says the mystery hidden for ages and Generations but now revealed to his saint to his saints to them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery Which is Christ in you the hope of glory, by the way, if you're wondering what part we're going to go back to That's it Because there's a whole thing about the mystery of the gospel and the word mystery how it's using the Old Testament how it's using the New Testament how Paul uses it several times and he it's even mentioned in the gospel of Mark the mystery of the kingdom Mark talks about or Jesus talks about the mystery of the kingdom Paul talks about the mystery of the gospel And he and he refers to it in different ways He talks about himself or rather Christ talks about himself being the mystery of the kingdom being the mystery even the inclusion of the Gentiles Being a mystery.
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So we're going to look at some of that more next week because I think that's deserves its own time But the point is this is the content and the content of Paul's message is Christ Because he says what is the mystery Christ in you the hope of glory That's the content.
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That's the content that drives Paul.
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What does Paul say? I I I Determined to know nothing among you except what? Christ in him crucified That's the content of Christ of Paul's message was Christ And what's so amazing about that is is we we fill our messages with everything but Christ Churches today will preach about everything from Star Wars to marriages that All kinds of stuff and I'm not saying marriage isn't important, but we'll talk about everything but Jesus And that's all Paul wanted to talk about Was Christ The content of our message must be Christ Spurgeon said it and I think sometimes this phrase is misunderstood.
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I think we have to We have to consider some of what he was saying, but he did say he says he said young man He's speaking to a young pastor He says young man If you preach and there is no Christ in your message stop preaching and go and study until you have something to preach about If there is no Christ in your message.
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I Preach through Genesis It's all those many messages and how often did we look back to Christ as the reason for that very book which was written 1,500 years before he was born Christ is our message Christ is our message.
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He is the content Christ in you the hope of glory.
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We're going to talk about that a little more next week what that means Is that's part of the mystery Number four is the purpose He says in verse 27 to them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles of the I'm sorry verse 28, excuse me In him we him we proclaim Warning everyone teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present everyone maturing Christ.
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That was Paul's purpose Three three ideas here warning teaching and Presenting and all of them have the same object warning everyone Teaching everyone presenting everyone mature and Christ That may end up being a sermon on its own too but for today I'll just give you the short gist of it because that's that's a three-part sermon if I ever heard one because Paul is Explaining what we do in ministry Paul is explaining what Andy and Mike and my job description is Admonish the people of God teach the people of God and present them mature and It goes in that order First we admonish which is actually comes from the word new those which is the idea of new thetic we talk about new thetic counseling the idea of warning someone People say you shouldn't preach hard messages.
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You should just woo people to Jesus some people need to be Some people need to be confronted in fear We're told that some have to be as it were plucked out of the fire So we warn and we teach Didactic Sorry mess up my word there It's the word we get the word didactic the Greek word for didactic teaching and we present them mature where James says Perfect, but it's not perfect in the sense of having no no sin But the idea of being a grown-up Paul had a purpose his purpose was to make Christian grown-ups not Christian babies Paul says some of you I'd like to give the meat, but you're still on milk And if you've ever had a little baby, you know how that works.
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You can't just Take the steak out of the grill and set it down in front of Theo and him gum it down that don't work He's got to get some teeth he's got to get some jaw strength he's got to get a tummy that's able to digest and that comes from Maturity Paul says we want to present you mature in Christ and then we get to The last thing and that is the strength for his ministry and that's in verse 29.
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He says for this I toil Struggling with all Listen to this struggling with all his energy That he powerfully works in me Notice the two pronouns there are not regarding Paul Paul doesn't say I struggle with all my energy that I powerfully work in me know he uses the Second person pronoun a third person rather he says he's he that he Powerfully works in me Understand this Paul's main Understanding of where his power for ministry came from Was not himself How could it be from himself? You say well Paul was an educated man Paul learned at the feet of Gamaliel Paul was a disciplined man Obviously lived his life a life of discipline.
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There's a lot about Paul that we could say was Virtuous But Paul never Ascribes himself the power to his own ministry But he says what? I've been crucified with Christ Nevertheless, I live Yet not I But Christ lives in me Paul understood That ultimately in all of this the center of all of this beloved is Christ in you That's what allows us to get through the sufferings of ministry.
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That's what allows us to get through the struggles of ministry That's what all of this points to the recipients are who? Those who have Christ in them the source is Christ who called him to ministry the content is Christ The purpose is to make men mature in Christ and the strength comes from Christ That's why Christ in you the hope of glory is the very center idea here.
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And that's what I wanted to point to That yes, we will suffer yes, we will struggle yes, we will toil but Christ is worth it and Christ is the only power that will see us through Christ in you the hope of Glory, it may seem at first glance That Paul comes across somewhat prideful in this passage Because he says at the beginning I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions and some who have sought to attack the Bible have Seen in the Apostle Paul a hint of pride in that statement But understand this pride is not what is motivating Paul to write this Rather it is that the church might understand where his ministry and his power comes from and It's Christ alone Not from himself Not from his training from Gamaliel, even though I'm sure that he found that useful at times his power to sustain ministry his power to endure suffering his power for the struggle was Christ in him and Beloved it's the same for us we Can endure but it must be in the power of Christ and not ourselves Father I thank you for your word.
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I Thank you for your truth and I pray even now Lord that as we consider the sufferings and struggles of Being a part of a church being a part of a ministry of of life in general as a Christian in a world that hates Christians I Pray Lord that you would by your grace remind us that the power that we have been given is Christ in us and the motivation that we have been given is the hope of glory and Father we pray that we would as Paul says be willing to endure all things for the sake of the church Which is your body? Father I pray for those who don't know Christ Lord I don't know how they do it.