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

God Centered Theology

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Daily Bites Of God's Word - Part 3 - Psalm 119:3

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Now, this week, there's going to be three things we're going to look at. We're going to note the fact that in Paul's view of ministry, he knew the origin of his ministry, he knew the focus of his ministry, and he knew the purpose of his ministry.

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And to do this, we're going to 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 in the church, which is the church, filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions.

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Verse 25, we're going to note our first point this morning that Paul knew the origin of his ministry.

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Verse 25 says, Of this church. And 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, and 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

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Christians. I think 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. God, through the power of the Holy Spirit is the one that makes us a servant, a minister, gives us a ministry, gives us a calling, gives us a place in which to serve within the

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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 was 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 he did in service to Christ and to the

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Church was from God. That means that his ministry and what he was to carry out for the

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Body of Christ did not originate in himself, but it originated and came from God.

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Remember when we were talking about spiritual gifts, we said that the Holy Spirit when we are saved super -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.

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And it 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 sing 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.

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But the way he sung those songs, and the way say Michael, and Kenny, and even my good friend

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Saul that sang at one of our revivals. And you think of Brother Brad Barber down the street, he sings. You've got our choir.

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Sandra plays the organ. Melody plays the piano. It's all within the music family.

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But each individual Christian is serving in a unique way, contributing to the overall music ministry of the

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Body of Christ. And so, Paul recognizes that his unique ministry, which for him theologically speaking was very unique.

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There's only been one 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 Blick. There's only one John Morse. 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.

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But there's only one of you. Yes, what Paul did was important.

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Yes, I'm glad he wrote half the New Testament, or I don't know what the actual number is, it's more than half probably.

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Yes, he was one of the founding fathers, if you want to borrow the term of the

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New Testament Church in the 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.

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And they were living during the time of Acts. Yes, that is true. But in terms of our position before Christ, in terms of our salvation, my friends you and I are just as equal as the

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Apostle Paul. Have you ever thought about that? I may be a pastor, which may be a world concern, may be a prominent role, or I'm out in front, or I'm in a public arena,

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I'm speaking. My friends, I'm an equal among equals. I'm no better than any of you.

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And Paul's no better than any of us. 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.

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We are all equally said to be in Christ. Now, within the realm of spiritual gifts, and in the 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 equally important. When he says here that 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 the 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 the specific part right here for a certain amount of time, and then they change, or maybe move over here to do something different.

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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.

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What this means is that you will never meet, and you will never encounter any self -made men or women in the

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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, what does the

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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 me here. You're here because God wanted you here. There are no accidents.

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There is no luck. I do it too, I say, well I was lucky this. There is no luck.

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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 going to, you know 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 so 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.

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And we will only be 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 wanted us to have that success in the first place, and it's a part of our ministry.

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So we've 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 us as American citizens should not influence what we do in the

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Church. 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.

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Someone provides prayer. Someone provides opportunities. My first opportunity to speak was in a

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Sunday School class. Someone said, hey, you like to talk? Why don't you teach one

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Sunday? I said, okay. And lo and behold here

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I am still talking. Even if you have a prominent role, which some do and some don't.

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But here's the thing, greater notoriety, a greater influence in the public, or in a particular church, or if you're out front, or whatever you are you want to put to it, actually calls for that person, or that group to be all the more humble, because they should realize they would not be in front of anybody if it were not for the power of God to begin with.

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That's why my friends, I run and hide from a prideful preacher.

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If you've ever had anybody stand in front of you and all they're talking about what they did, and I did this, and I did that.

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Now look there are 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 is prideful, 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 probably don't want to be under that teaching for very long because it's infectious. Sin is infectious.

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The pride will come to you. I've seen it. I've seen it the way I grew up in fundamentalism. You take on the personality of the preacher, and if he's prideful and he's given to sinful things, naturally the people tend to follow.

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I want to be as humble as I possibly can. And I want to point you not to me, but to Christ, to God, the

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Holy Spirit. I want you to not do what I say. 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.

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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. It 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, then there are no competing agendas in the church.

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I think I've said this before about my grandfather's funeral. There are certain things that stick out in my mind.

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One of the things that is very prominent in 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, no matter where he went, no matter what he was doing, you never, ever saw a man with an agenda, a self motivated agenda.

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He was only there for Christ, for the people that were there to be in service to them out of agape love.

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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 any 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.

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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, obviously a certain amount of who you are, and the things you like are going to influence that.

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There's not anything necessarily wrong with that. The key is your motivation. What is the motivation behind what you're trying to see happen?

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Is it because it's truly of the Word of God, and it's truly in service to others? It's truly in agape love, and it's truly in submission to the

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Word of God? Or is it a self serving agenda? 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 as coming from God, you're seeing it as something that is you, something that you must bring about.

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And this is something I struggle with, 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 struggle with the envy of preachers that can sing.

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Singing is not one of my talents. I will sing in a group, or if we had like a group of people singing and I'm there

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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.

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No, stop. 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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I'm 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, 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 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, 50 years before you were even born, 100 years, 1 ,000 years, time is nothing for God.

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So, Paul knew the origins, but he 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.

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For your benefit. Now, who is the your?

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It's the Colossae Church specifically in context. But you can take it and more broadly apply it, you speak into Christians, so it is for Christians.

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We are called into service to other 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

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Gospel to them, so on and so forth. But the primary reason for ministry is to be in service in a 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

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Church universal is only those that have placed faith in Jesus Christ. Now, obviously we would hope that non -Christians would either come into contact with you, or myself, or maybe something about our

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Church would interest them to maybe possibly come into the doors and attend. And we would hope and pray they would come to faith in Christ.

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But the actual Church is only those that have repented and placed faith in Christ, and it is of this

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Church that Paul was made a minister. And he is saying that the ministry that I do in service to Christ's Church is for your

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Christian's 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.

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And we cover this in great detail in the Spiritual Gifts series. So, what does this mean?

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It means that people matter. Look, this is a touchy subject because you all have been through a fire, but I'm going to 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

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Church service. This whole entire parking lot, 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 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.

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It's people that matter. Buildings are just something that we use in service to people.

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You've got to be very careful that we never get the understanding that somehow anything other than people matters more than the people.

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People matter. This is why outward service to other Christians outside these walls, and even outward service to non -Christian outside these walls, and service to Christian inside these walls, balancing the inward -outward mindset is 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 those of you that remember when

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I first got here, one of the first things Jeanne and I said, this is one of the most beautiful churches I've ever stepped foot in.

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Just beautiful church. 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'd take people every single time.

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Because in eternity when the whole earth is, think about this my friends, in eternity this earth is going to be done away with.

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And there is a whole debate whether you think He'll just simply refurbish this one, or if it will be completely done away with and a brand new one will be built.

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But there will be an old earth, there will be a new earth, and we're going to live on a new earth. And you know what's not going to be there?

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This building. I'm sorry, but it's true, it just won't be there. You know who will be there?

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Us, people, 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 ministry is 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 is saying here is that by serving others, 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. It's the filling up, or the completion of the

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Word of God is set in this. So, think back for you, if you will, in the Gospels.

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You know when the people come to them and they say, you know sum up the law and the prophets for us. And Jesus Christ says, well 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 are living out the sum total of ministry, it's done in one word, and it's spelled

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O -T -H -E -R -S, others. Our joy is fully maintained in serving others.

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Our joy is increased in serving others. And our joy cannot be dissipated or done away with if we are 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 many 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 going to 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, but it's about people.

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See, I'm not preaching this message at you like somehow you all fail at this. 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 you all would say, well I guess we'll just go home, nothing left to do.

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I mean we'll just wait a couple weeks, or we won't have church until we get the building repaired. That probably would have been a problem.

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But my friends, it's on our website right now. There's a video, there's pictures of you all meeting in I think it was a local park or something, right?

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Down the road. That's what church is. It doesn't matter what the circumstances is.

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Your joy can be maintained even in the face of a fire, or in prison as Paul found himself.

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So, Paul knew the origin of his ministry, he knew the focus of his ministry. And then lastly this morning he knew the purpose of his ministry.

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Verse 26, I'm going to repeat verse 25 again. Of this church 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, but has now been manifested to His saints, to whom

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God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is

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Christ in you, the hope of glory. We are all called to a specific ministry.

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

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A mystery in the Bible is something that there either is an element of truth, there is some information, but it is not fully or clearly revealed.

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In the book of 1 John, I believe it is in chapter 3, 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 is going to go on, but we don't know exactly what it will look like.

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I don't know exactly what my resurrected glorified body will look like, or what we'll be doing exactly, so on and so forth.

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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

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His Kingdom. 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 indwell believers as a continuing presence of the person of the

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Holy Spirit. It was a mystery to them. And this is what Paul is preaching, he says, this is my mission, this is my ministry to reveal this ministry that for past ages and generations was a mystery, but now has become fully revealed to you in the person of Jesus Christ, that you as believers are indwelt by Christ.

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Christ in you, the hope of glory. Our hope is not in a body, a religious figure lying somewhere in a tomb, it's in a risen

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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 ministry, but to a purposeful ministry.

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You, my friends, have a purpose. I don't care from the world's view, from your view, from any

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Christian looking at you, from their view how important or insignificant it is.

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You say, Andy, I don't sing in the choir, I don't teach a Sunday school class. I mean really all I do is come to church.

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And you know when I'm at home I pray a lot. There's no other ministry. You pray.

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My friends, churches are built on the foundation of prayer. 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.

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If that's all you do, that's enough. That's more than enough because you that are behind the scenes are the heart of the church, and we need you far more than you need me.

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You say, well, Andy, are you saying preachers and pastors aren't important? No, 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 come from people that are by themselves in their prayer closet at home, crying out to Almighty God with words they can't even express, but the

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Spirit knows them. And He takes them straight to the Father and says, 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, you're not important.

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I may be up here, but my friends, even if I wasn't, God's Kingdom was to advance.

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And it's because of people, even including me, doing things in service to other people.

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We need to view ministry like Paul did, who knew the origin of it, the focus of it, and the purpose of it.