A Church Of 200 Ministers - [Colossians 4:17]

Well, good morning. It is, again, my privilege to be here this morning.

And I bring to you, I think, a rather unusual message, only because you wouldn't normally think, oh, that's the passage

I've got to preach. But I'd like to invite you to open your Bibles to Colossians chapter 4.

Colossians chapter 4. I'm going to begin reading in verse 7 and go to verse 18.

And before I do that, I would like you, as I read through it and as we kind of develop this, and I'm going to do what you're never supposed to do,

I'm going to give you an extended introduction. And whenever I talk to somebody and review their messages, I always say, don't do a long introduction, so I'm doing it today.

But what I want us to do as we read this, as we walk through this, is I want us to really kind of develop the mindset,

I don't know how else to say this, but to think like you are the first century church at Colossae.

That's where the Colossian people were, by the way, is in Colossae. Starting in verse 7 from Colossians 4,

Paul writes, as to all my affairs, Titius, our beloved brother and faithful servant and fellow bond servant in the

Lord, will bring you information. For I have sent him to you for this very purpose, that you may know about our circumstances and that he may encourage your hearts.

And with him, Onesimus, our faithful and beloved brother, who is one of your number.

They will inform you about the whole situation here. Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner, sends you his greetings.

And also Barnabas's cousin Mark, about whom you received instructions.

If he comes to you, welcome him. And also Jesus, who is called

Justice. These are the only fellow workers for the kingdom of God who are from the circumcision, and they have proved to be an encouragement to me.

Epaphras, who is one of your number, a bond slave of Jesus Christ, sends you his greetings, always laboring earnestly for you in his prayers, that you may stand perfect and fully assured in all the will of God.

For I testify for him that he has a deep concern for you and for those who are in Laodicea and Hierapolis.

Luke, the beloved physician, sends you his greetings and also Demas. Greet the brethren who are in Laodicea and also

Nympha and the church that is in her house. When this letter is read among you, have it also read in the church of the

Laodiceans. And you, for your part, read my letter that is coming from Laodicea.

Say to Archippus, take heed to the ministry which you have received in the Lord, that you may fulfill it.

I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand. Remember my imprisonment.

Grace be with you. Now, usually, you know, honesty check here.

When you're reading through the New Testament, you get to the end of these letters, you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Come on, Paul, get on with it. Close the thing so I can get to the next book. Because it's just like, you know, so -and -so says hi, say hi to so -and -so for me.

And I think that's kind of the mindset that we can get into. And I'm certain if we were sitting there in the church in Colossae, we'd be going, okay,

I know what's happening now. The letter's starting to wind down. He's telling us who's greeting and who we should greet and who he's curious about and this and the other thing.

But let's go to the setting, first of all. Again, I want you to think about this like you're in that first century church in Colossae.

Who wrote the book of Colossians? Obviously, Paul did. And he was, even as verse 18 tells us, a prisoner.

Remember my imprisonment, he says. This is one of the prison epistles, makes sense.

You're writing from a prison. These become known as the prison epistles along with Ephesians, Philippians, and Philemon.

While you're in jail, you write a lot of letters. Paul wrote these letters while he was in prison.

Now, where was Colossae? It was a city in what is now part of modern

Turkey. It was about 100 miles east of Ephesus in the region of the seven churches of Revelation 1 -3.

So right in that cluster of churches over there. Colossae was at one time a vital trade center, very rich area.

But then the main road got diverted and it no longer went through Colossae. And so like many boom towns, it started to decay.

It started to become less and less wealthy. So what was the

Colossian church like? Colossae's population was mainly Gentile, meaning non -Jews.

But there was a large Jewish settlement there dating back to Antiochus the Great. If you remember

Antiochus the Great is the one who desecrated the temple. A lot of Jews left after he took over and some of them settled in Colossae.

But this racially blended city also had a racially blended church. Well, part of the problem back then is you weren't just racially blended, you were religiously blended.

You had different backgrounds. The Gentiles would be largely pagans and they would bring some pagan background, some pagan baggage as it were into the church.

And the Jewish population on the other hand would bring in some legalism. So you had combination of legalism, mysticism kind of forming together.

The church was founded by Epaphras. We'd find that out in Colossians 1, 5 through 7.

Who apparently was saved during a visit to Ephesus and then started, left

Ephesus and started this church in Colossae when he returned home. Now that's evangelism.

Somebody gets saved, they learn a little bit and they go off and they start a church. Being able to reproduce what you know and to see that actually grow into a church, that is amazing and a testimony to the work of God in the life of Epaphras.

But Epaphras, as the church grew and as he saw the problems creeping into this church, he was very, very concerned as any pastor or leader would be about the church.

And so he went to Rome to get Paul's input on what he should do.

So why was the letter written to the church of Colossae? Well, it was written sometime between 60 and 62

AD and the Colossians says, as I said, we're in danger from within the church as is often the case and as the case today, if you were here a couple of weeks ago during Sunday school, you know that.

The false teaching comes frequently from inside the church. We're all concerned about what's going on outside of the church.

What about what's inside the church? So he went to go get some advice from Paul about what to do.

Paul sends this letter to them with Tyschakos who was accompanying the runaway slave

Onesimus back to his master Philemon, a member of the Colossian church. So those two brought the letter back along with the letter to Philemon.

So you've been sitting there in church hearing this letter from the apostle Paul read to you aloud.

Now, of course, that brings up a whole number of lessons. One is the importance of reading the word of God aloud in a congregation and just think about that if you were to just sit there and hear the whole book of Colossians read to you and that was what they did.

But Paul wrote this, sent it to them and you've been listening to this as the church of Colossae and then we get down to this list of individual greetings and that really, that would be, you know, if it opens, if a letter opens in a specific way and they did and then you have the body of the letter and then you have this closing, this is what marked the closing.

So people are really kind of folding their Bibles as it were putting their water bottles under their seat, they're ready to go, you know, it's over, time to go get lunch.

But what he says about these men and how he says it sets the tone for what

I'm going to discuss with you this morning. First notice the two men that he sent with the letter, verse seven, as to all my affairs,

Tischicus, our beloved brother and faithful servant and fellow bondservant in the Lord will bring you information, for I have sent him to you for this very purpose.

So here you have Tischicus and just imagine the trust that Paul had in him.

He was in effect, Paul's ambassador, he was his spokesman that he sent to this church that was in trouble.

He knew they were in trouble, he knew they were facing false teachers, false teaching and he sends this particular individual.

Notice how he describes him, calls him beloved, means obviously dearly loved, dear, beloved, prized, valued, he was someone who was very valuable to Paul.

Says he's faithful, this is somebody that is dependable, I trust this guy, I am sending you him even though I love him and I'd love him to stay right here with me, but I'm sending him because he's faithful.

I know he's gonna tell you the truth and I know that you will trust him too. He also calls him a fellow bondservant in the

Lord. Now imagine again, you're sitting in that church in Colossae, the apostle

Paul says, I'm sending this man to you and you should consider him as a fellow bondservant in the

Lord, fellow bondservant to Paul. You should equate him with me,

Paul says. You should think of him in the same way that you think of me, an apostle of Jesus Christ.

Just as I am Christ's messenger, he is my messenger. I think you'd listen to that guy.

It's a pretty impressive thing to have on your resume. Paul describing you as beloved, faithful and a fellow bondservant in the

Lord. In addition to Titicus, Paul has sent

Onesimus verse nine and with him Onesimus, our faithful and beloved brother who is one of your number.

They will inform you about the whole situation here. Now Philemon, of course it's

Philemon chapter one, Philemon verses 10 and 11. This is what we read about Onesimus.

I appeal to you for my child Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my imprisonment, who formerly was useless to you, but now is useful both to you and to me.

Formerly was useless. This is the man who is accompanying Titicus.

He was a poor servant. How bad was he? Well, he was so bad that he ran away. And note, you know, people point to this.

I mean, I've been dealing with unbelievers a lot and they say, well, look, you know, slavery even in the

New Testament. Well, slavery was never commanded. We weren't told to keep slaves. It was just acknowledged as a condition of mankind.

But look at that, begotten by Paul. What did Paul mean by that? He didn't have a baby. He was just talking about, listen, under my ministry, this man came to faith in Christ.

And so now think about how he changes. He was once unfaithful, useless, and a fugitive.

Now he is faithful, beloved, and a brother. The change, the work of change in a life.

Jesus Christ transforming a life, someone who was disobedient, who ran from what was right to someone who goes back, now faithful, beloved, a brother.

Paul goes on to describe six men who were with him or ministered to him in Rome.

Verse 10, Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner, sends you his greetings.

Now he was from Thessalonica and he had traveled with Paul. In fact, he was one of the men who had traveled with Paul to Jerusalem to take the money that Paul had collected for the

Church of Jerusalem. And I think it's also interesting that he was actually grabbed by the angry mob in Ephesus.

When things turned ugly in Ephesus, Aristarchus was one of the ones who was grabbed by the mob.

But he was a man who had willingly suffered for the cause of Christ and was with Paul in prison.

He also talks about Mark, verse 10 also. Also Barnabas' cousin Mark, about whom you received instructions.

If he comes to you, welcome him. Well, Mark was the writer of the gospel according to Mark and we would think, boy, that must be a real stalwart.

He was, from what we can gather, a disciple of Peter and somebody who had spent some time in the company of Christ, which seemed to be impressive on his own, but he had failed to press on in the work of the gospel.

And this possibly or probably led to a rift between Paul and Barnabas so that they split up in their missionary work.

But look at what Paul says about him now. He says that the

Colossians, if Mark comes, you should welcome him. It means that they should be receptive even as they would be of a guest into their homes.

All has been forgiven. Mark is, again, our beloved brother, someone that we should welcome as a dear guest into our homes.

Mark had been completely reconciled to Paul and so Paul commends him fully, not saying, hey, don't forget about what he did with the whole

Barnabas thing and all the problems when he just left, when Mark abandoned us. Forget about that.

He's been restored fully. You should take him into your homes. Also, justice, verse 11, and also

Jesus who was called Justice. Now, the name Jesus was very, very common in the

Jewish community back then. And after salvation, he was known as Justice, most likely in deference to the

Lord. I mean, certainly if you became a Christian and your name was the same as the

Lord's, you would not want to be called Jesus, I wouldn't think. So he comes to be known by that different name.

Now, notice these men are the only fellow workers that had been a comfort to him. Paul's situation was difficult.

I mean, he was chained all the time. I don't know that they had yard time like they do in prisons now, but it was miserable.

This was beyond anything that anyone talks about in today's prisons. It was absolutely a miserable, pitiful situation to try to live in.

And he had come to cherish these men who served with him. Now, they were

Jews and they could identify with Paul in a number of levels. Of course, they used to be Jews and had become

Christians. They were opposed to the truth and now they were changed by the truth.

He goes on in verse 12, Epaphras, talks about Epaphras, who is one of your number, in other words, a member of the church at Colossae, a bond slave of Jesus Christ, sends you his greetings, always laboring earnestly for you in his prayers.

Like Paul, he was a bond slave, as I said, probably the founder of the church, a person who voluntarily and wholeheartedly served the

Lord. We heard about it this morning, Brother Lewis was talking about it, what it means to be a bond slave, how you are free, but you, of your own free will, choose to be a slave of someone, to consider yourself their servant.

So when you are a bond slave, in the New Testament sense, you are a bond slave of the

Lord, you're his voluntary slave, as it were. Notice that it says he worked earnestly on behalf of the church at Colossae, and then it says even how he did that work, by praying for them.

What's the implication of that? That real prayer, real effectual prayer takes effort, it's spiritual work, it counts for something, you have to labor at it.

You ever tried to pray for somebody for any extended period of time, you know how difficult that is. And Paul says,

Epaphras works earnestly, he labors earnestly on your behalf in his prayers.

Why? That you may stand perfect and fully assured in all the will of God, the prayers of Epaphras had but one aim, the complete sanctification of the saints at Colossae.

And such prayers were commended by Paul. That was real spiritual work.

And Epaphras was quite the prayer warrior. He wasn't just praying for the church at Colossae, verse 13, he was also praying for those who were at Laodicea and Hierapolis.

Now that's a ministry, that's serving the body. He goes on and he talks about Luke, the beloved physician sends you his greetings.

Now I don't know, to me this almost sounds like Luke was just kind of in the room, and he says, hey Luke, you wanna send your greetings?

Yes, I do. But he's the beloved physician, also the human author of the gospel according to Luke and the acts of the apostles.

Traveled with Paul frequently, tended to him. Paul was not a well man in a number of respects, physically had difficulties, was good to have a doctor with him.

And then he goes on to Demas. Now Demas gets almost no reference at all. 14b, and also

Demas, okay? Demas sends his greetings, Demas says hi. But Demas was at this time, someone the apostle

Paul knew would mean something to the church at Colossae when they read his name.

When they heard the name Demas, they would know this guy. But what they didn't know, what he didn't know was how this would turn out.

Second Timothy four, verses nine and 10. Paul writing to Timothy and he says, this is his last letter.

So some time has passed here and he says, make every effort to come to me soon. For Demas, having loved this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica.

Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia. So Paul writes to Timothy and he says, please come see me.

Demas loved this present world and the implication is more than serving Christ and has deserted me.

So these men had been fellow prisoners. They had been encouraging to Paul.

They were well thought of by Paul in the Colossian church, even though Demas, kind of the exception there, was somebody we didn't know yet, they didn't know yet, was going to abandon

Paul in the future. Now there's a little bit of transition in verses 15 and 16 where Paul encourages fellowship with other

Christians, tells the Colossians to make sure the letter that they're reading is also read in Laodicea and that they get the letter that Laodicea has and they read it aloud in that congregation.

By the way, I'm not gonna go into a huge excursus or a sidebar on this, but I believe that that letter is probably the letter to the

Ephesians. And now we come to verse 17 and this is where I wanna focus. This is where we've all been going here is we're sitting there and we're running down this list of names and we're listening and we're going, oh yeah, we know that guy.

Oh, it's really nice that Paul would say this about that person. Oh, this is good. Demas, who's he?

We're just going through these names. Then we get to verse 17 and this is a shocking, radical departure from this list.

Say to Archippus, as a congregation, say to Archippus, take heed to the ministry which you have received in the

Lord that you may fulfill it. This is unique in all of Paul's letters.

For him to single out one person and say, listen, church, go and talk to this man.

There are exhortations at the end of other letters. I mean, for example, if we think about 2

Corinthians, examine yourselves, see if you're even in the faith, those kind of things. But for one person to just have the spotlight,

I mean, we don't know, it'd be speculation, but just imagine you're sitting there in the church, Colossae, and all of a sudden kind of the spotlight, as it were, is just on Archippus.

How would you like to be him? I mean, here's the church services going on, you've sung some hymns, you've had

Charlie get up and play the guitar and Dan on the keyboards, and you've sung some other songs.

You've had the reading of the word of God, maybe you've had a sermon, maybe you've had communion. This letter's winding down and you're just like,

I mean, everything is done in your mind. And then wait a minute, say to Archippus, Paul is commanding everyone in that church to confront and exhort

Archippus with regard to his ministry. Again, how would you like to be sitting there and your name is

Archippus? This is not probably exactly what you have in mind. Many commentators have concluded that because we can figure out, extrapolate, that Archippus is likely very young, that he was an interim pastor or maybe even a replacement for Epaphras.

In fact, many of them think that he was Philemon's son. But in any event, he may have been the interim pastor, he may have had a very significant ministry.

We don't really know, it's just kind of guesswork. But the implication there would be that he was a little bit timid and he needed some encouragement, much like Timothy did.

Even so, let's say that's right. How would you like to be the temporary interim pastor or the new pastor?

And have the Apostle Paul say, church, go talk to Archippus, make sure he does his ministry right.

Now, what else do we know about Archippus? Not much. In Philemon, Paul calls

Archippus a fellow soldier. Now we get the idea, and this kind of builds towards the idea that maybe he was a pastor.

He calls him a fellow soldier, which means basically a comrade in arms. And it's used to those who devote themselves to the service of the gospel.

So we know that Archippus was serious about the ministry. It's a term of honor.

In other Greek literature, interestingly, it talks about, it makes the soldier, the foot soldier equal to the commander in chief.

In another, it makes the warrior equal to the king. So this was quite a title that Paul bestows on him.

And again, as I said before, these letters to Colossae and to Philemon are written about the same time, so there's no reason to think that Paul is just simply blasting

Archippus, but even so, it's gotta be a little unsettling to hear your name called out like that. Now, he calls him out, but he tells them to tell

Archippus to take heed to his ministry. And this verb would normally be something translated to see.

I see, you know, I spy. It's just kind of a general verb like that, but in this context, it means to pay close attention to, to give strict oversight to.

Now, if Paul were writing Bethlehem Bible Church, would he single you out?

Would he say, church, I want you to talk to so -and -so. Tell him or her to take heed to their ministry.

I have to tell you, the apostle Paul wrote, if my name was Archippus and I'm sitting there, that is a major jolt of adrenaline.

I'm gonna be a little taken aback. And if we had that same situation today and he was to call one of us out,

I think that would be pretty shocking. I think that would be great motivation for serving. As I said, just based on what we read in Philemon, we could basically judge that Archippus' ministry was significant, but can

I ask you a question? What is not significant in terms of ministry in a church?

What ministries does a church have where we could just go, well, you know what? Nursery, not important.

Sunday school, not important. Ushers, not important. It's everything working together that makes the church run.

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 12, if the whole body were an eye, in other words, if the body of Christ had one part and it was just eye, we had multiple eyes, where would the hearing be?

If the whole were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But now God has placed the members, each one of them in the body, just as he desired.

If they were all one member, where would the body be? In other words, if they were all exactly the same, there'd be no body.

We wouldn't talk about the body of Christ. We would talk about the eye of Christ, the ear of Christ, the nose of Christ, the hand of Christ, but it is the body of Christ.

Paul goes on and says, but now there are many members, but one body. And the eye cannot say to the hand,

I have no need of you. Or again, the head to the feet, I have no need of you. The body of Christ is to function together.

Some of us may be the eye, some of us may be the foot, some of us may be the hand, but it is all of us working together.

So let's say for the sake of argument that Archippus was gifted as the eye, that would be vital. But if he was the hand, still vital.

In verse 17, note the source of Archippus' ministry. Take heed to the ministry which you have received in the

Lord. Now the verb received is used with the same nuance as when

Paul reports in 1 Corinthians 15 that he has received the gospel.

In other words, this is a direct reception. Ministry is given not by leadership, not by the church, but it is in an extended sense received in the

Lord. It is divinely appointed. If you are serving in the nursery, you are serving

Christ by serving in that nursery. If you're serving at the door, greeting people as they walk in, you are serving

Christ as you do that. What ministry do we have here at BBC that is not given to you as a stewardship by the

Lord? We went through Ephesians 2 this morning.

If we did that, we're not going to, but if we did, has he not saved each and every single

Christian unto good works? The answer is yes. And among those good works is service within the body of Christ.

Look again at verse 17. There's the word that, and you just go, well, what's significant about that?

Well, it is the Greek word hinnah, and it shows purpose.

So we could look at it this way. So that you may fulfill it, or in order that you may fulfill it.

The outcome of taking heed to a ministry given to you by the Lord is the fulfillment of that ministry.

Let's say Archippus' ministry was a bit overwhelming to him. Let's say, like Timothy, he was a bit timid.

Let's say that he felt like he had more weight than he could handle. Do you not think that it would be an encouragement to him, for the imprisoned apostle, someone who was suffering daily, in the midst of all these greetings and commendations at the end of this letter, to command the entire church to come alongside

Archippus, to encourage him to focus his attention and energy on this God -given ministry, with the promise that if he did so, it would be fulfilled.

How could he know that? How could Paul know that? Because it was God -given, it was a God -given ministry. And if sanctification is the one aspect of life, yes, we, if we're to look at it this way, who saves you,

God or you? Well, God does. Who sanctifies you, you or the Holy Spirit? Well, the answer is, yes.

Because you have to work out, you have to work out your own sanctification with fear and trembling. Who, how do you serve?

Well, do you serve on your own strength? Hopefully not. But certainly some of your strength must go into it.

We can only do what we do by the grace of God, but God uses willing vessels.

When he saves you, he puts an obligation on you and he gives you the ability to fulfill that obligation.

So as Archippus was faithful, as he gave heed to his ministry, as he worked at his

God -given ministry, it would be fulfilled. If God calls someone to serve and they are faithful to that calling, will

God, the sovereign God of the universe, not bring about the precise result he has designed for that ministry?

The answer is yes, of course he's going to do that. Now let me ask you this.

I've developed five groups and I'm going to not take a showing of hands, but I want to figure out, just as I walk through this,

I want you to think about where you are in terms of your service to the body of Christ.

And we have five categories, as I said. We have full speed, half speed, engine malfunction, not qualified to serve, probably like no engine, and in need of an overhaul or burned out.

Let's talk about full speed first. Taking heed, literally focusing yourself, wrestling your ministry down to the ground, doing everything you can, and exhausting yourself in service to God.

Now there are many ministries here at Bethlehem Bible Church that are being done with excellence.

My question this morning is, whatever ministry you have here at Bethlehem Bible Church, are you paying close attention to this ministry so that, and it is a

God -given ministry, are you paying close attention to it so that you might fulfill it?

So that God might be pleased to work through you to serve the body of Christ.

Are you operating at full speed? That's group number one. Second group, half speed.

Some might be operating at half speed or three core speed, 90 % speed. You might serve and do what is needed, but it's not something that weighs on you as a ministry, not all the time anyway.

Do you think, do you ever think to yourself, how could I improve this ministry so that it might better serve the body?

Do you ever do a little brainstorming sessions and just think, okay, this is what I'm doing, how could it be more effective for the church?

What resources could I bring to bear? What would make this better?

What would bring about a better result? What would be more pleasing to the Lord? Do you ever lay awake at night, find yourself thinking, there's something more

I can do, I just don't know what it is. Maybe I should go get input from somebody else. Maybe there are things that I can change or improve that I just can't see.

Do you pray about where you serve? Do you ask God to help you to come up with new ways, better ways to serve?

Has your ministry become one of grudging duty? I pray that's not the case.

Our third group, engine malfunction, which means you have no ministry to heed.

Imagine this, again, you're the Church of Colossae. Paul writes, church, say to Archippus, oh wait, forget it, he doesn't have a ministry.

It's kind of a silly idea. And frankly, so is the idea of a Christian without a ministry.

There may be reasons why ministry is difficult or even impossible for a season.

I mean, if you have young children, it may be difficult or impossible for you to serve.

Although you might find that you're able to serve in the nursery. You might find that you're able to serve in other ways. Maybe it's phone calls or something like that.

You might have two jobs because you're in a financial bind. You might have some kind of physical difficulty that makes it hard to serve.

But let me give you some reasons that are not okay to not have a ministry. I have no idea what

I would do. I just don't know. I'm not really sure where I would fit in.

Well, we have now a chart that lists all the deacons, all the things that they're in charge of.

And as I said, when we first developed this, you can go and ask one of those deacons and we will find some place for you to serve.

Here's another one that just doesn't work. I don't think I can help. It's a little bit of false humility.

Second Corinthians 4 .7 says this, but we have this treasure in earthen vessels so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves.

Paul talking about himself, talking about the power of the gospel, describes himself as an earthen vessel.

Other places, you know, a clay pot. And the idea is this is no great thing that I am.

The apostle Paul says, it's not me. And he says in other places too, it is

God at work through me. It's all about the power of God. If you don't think you can help, it's because you are underestimating the power of God.

None of us are perfect. Not one of us. We are all earthen vessels. And it is

God's might and God's strength and God's power that enables any of us to serve at any time.

Reason number three, why you think, well, I really can't serve. Isn't that why we have elders and deacons?

Aren't they supposed to do everything? Check with the deacons. They won't agree with that one.

The Bible doesn't know anything about Christians not serving in the local body.

Number four, not qualified to serve. Now there are some people who aren't biblically qualified to serve.

Who are those people? Those would be folks who are either not saved or those who are saved who are currently living in disobedience.

Now maybe you're sitting there this morning thinking, what is this guy talking about? Take heed to my ministry. What is a ministry?

It's a service to the Lord that ministers to the local body of believers that must be enabled by the

Holy Spirit. Let me say that again. It is a service to the Lord that ministers to the local body of believers that must be enabled by the

Holy Spirit. That means if you have not received

Christ, you cannot have a ministry. You might be able to do something at the church, but it will not be a ministry because you don't have the

Holy Spirit. If that describes you this morning, then may

I just urge you in the most forceful way I can to look at your condition knowing every single person knows that they sin.

Every single person knows that they are imperfect, that they vary, that they don't hold up to the perfect standard of God.

That if God was to come down and say, are you perfect? They'd have to say no. And yet God demands absolute perfection.

He's not going to allow imperfect beings into His presence. He hates sin.

He will not abide sin. Sin cannot abide in His presence. And you say, well, that doesn't really help me.

I'm a sinner. God's holy and He doesn't like sin. Well, the good news is

God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, God in the flesh who lived a perfect life, never did anything wrong, did everything right, died a horrible death, a death that we deserved, was raised from the dead on the third day.

And now by repenting, by changing our minds about our self -reliance and about God and who

He is and turning from our sin, relying solely upon Jesus Christ, we can be saved.

In other words, we can stand before God and we all will one day, stand before God and not say,

I did it, I was great, I was perfect. We'll never say that. We can say, I believed in your

Son, Jesus Christ, who was perfect on my behalf. That's what we will say. We stand righteous before God, not because of our own inherent righteousness, but because of what

Christ did on our behalf. And if you don't believe that, if you haven't been saved, I would urge you to repent and be saved today.

Now, if you are a Christian, and you're living in disobedience, maybe you have a pattern of sin in your life,

I have two suggestions. Number one is straight from Bob Newhart. Stop it. Whatever your pattern of sin is, stop it.

It's easy to say, maybe you need some help. Well, we can help you, but stop it. It's wrong.

Secondly, examine yourselves. Trees that consistently bear bad fruit might be bad trees, meaning maybe you've deceived yourself into thinking you're saved when you're not.

But stop that pattern of disobedience, whether that means simply repenting of it, or coming to the realization that you're not saved and throwing yourself on the mercy of the

Lord himself. Our fifth group, what

I call being burned out, they are in need of an overhaul. They need a new engine. Now, I have to tell you the truth.

I just kind of made this up because I don't even know what it means. I don't know what it means to be burned out. If you mean that you can't serve like Pastor Mike, well, join the club.

You know, I'll be handing out cards afterwards. That's not, the man sleepeth not.

On the other hand, sometimes we're too anxious to drop ministry to free up some time for other things.

You know, we go, wow, I've got all these things. I don't know how I could possibly juggle all this. I better get rid of whatever

I'm doing at the church. Now, it's impossible when we talk about burned out that you might feel underappreciated.

May I just kind of turn that around? If you've been serving at the church and you feel underappreciated, may I just suggest to you that there are a lot of people who serve at this church that would like to hear a good word too.

And that's not a plug for me. I don't want you to think that. I hear good stuff all the time. I don't, sometimes.

I don't need to hear that. I mean, I like it too, but you know. The point is, you know, what was the last time you said when you picked up your kids,

I'm sure you do this, but thank you for serving in that way or thank you for putting the donuts back there or thank you for this, that, or the other thing.

We serve one another a lot. But if you're feeling underappreciated, then may

I just suggest to you too that your motivation is not quite right. We don't serve because we want to hear nice things said about us.

We serve because we serve a holy God who demands that service and who has the right to expect it.

He saved us when we didn't deserve it. It only says is, you know what?

You have eternity with me and I am going to ask you for the time that you are here to serve me and my people.

Find a way to serve. As I said before, service to the body of Christ is not optional.

1 Corinthians 12, verses five to seven. And there are varieties of ministries in the same

Lord. There are varieties of effects, but the same God who works all things in all persons.

But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. Each of us has a spiritual gift which we are commanded to use for the common good.

Now let me ask you another question. Are your priorities right? When I came here three years ago,

I don't remember what the exact occasion was, but I had the opportunity to talk about priorities and those things do not change.

They are immovable. What are your priorities in life? Have you examined your priorities lately?

If your first priority isn't God, may I suggest to you that you've really got things upside down.

Your second priority, family. How can that be your second priority? Well, because God said,

Jesus Christ said, if you do not hate your mother and father, if you do not hate your brother and sister, you are not worthy to be my disciple.

What was he talking about? He wasn't saying you should hate them. He was saying, listen, in terms of how much you love me, the first great commandment is to love the

Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And the second is likened to it. But the first one is love

God. Second, family. Third, work. Second Thessalonians 3 .10

says, if anyone is not willing to work, he is not to eat either. And that is the command to us all the way back to Genesis as a result of the fall.

So God, family, work. Number four, ministry. My question is, do you really have no time for this?

Is there such a way that you cannot organize your schedule that you can't break out your day timer and spend a little time serving the body of Christ?

Number five, priority. You're free not to have this priority. Hobbies.

And I can't help but think that in a lot of cases, number five just kind of creeps up and gets up too high.

Number three might creep up and get too high. Number four, I don't know to me,

I think I've maybe in my lifetime, I've known one person where I thought, you know what? Ministry is too high on this guy's list of priorities.

That's pretty shocking. You know, when you run into somebody like that, you just go, brother, I don't know, your family might be too high on your list of priorities.

You might fall apart, but you're serving a lot. That's not right. But it is no accident that when

Paul is closing this letter, when he is going through name after name after name after name, that he just stops all that and he takes the time to command this entire church to urge, exhort, encourage

Archippus. His ministry was important. It was of the Lord, it was given to him by God.

Are you taking heed to your ministry? Do you think of your ministry as being from God, from the

Lord? Are you working at it in such a way, are you viewing it in such a way that it might be fulfilled, that God might work through you?

Years ago, a local paper in Los Angeles, I'll show you how long ago this was.

They wrote an article about Grace Community Church and they called it a church of 900 ministers. Well, now it would be 10 ,000.

Because the idea was everybody there was serving one another. They were involved with one another. They were going to classes, they were being equipped and they were doing the work of the ministry.

Now what about, could the Worcester Post -Telegram, Telegram Post, Telegram Gazette, whatever it's called, the local paper, could they write a story about Bethlehem Bible Church and call it the church of 200 ministers?

Would they look and see 200 people taking heed of their ministries, working diligently at their ministries, functioning with diligence as the body of Christ, devoted to serving

God? Now does that kind of church, devoted to serving one another, devoted to the cause of Christ, devoted to impacting this entire area for Christ, does that sound like a weapon that God could use?

Could he really use BBC, Bethlehem Bible Church, to change West Boylston?

Could he use it to change Worcester? I think he can. I think he can.

The key is we, as individuals, every single one of us, have the obligation to serve our

God, to take heed to our ministries, to find a ministry, serve in it, serve heartily in it, exhaust ourselves in it, to have the right priorities, knowing that we can't put ministry up front, but ministry can't be something that's not even on the calendar.

Let's pray. Our great

God, Father, you have done so much for us. We think of even the common graces that you have given us, the little things, even things as simple as protection from the weather.

But God, you have given us great things and nothing greater than forgiveness of sins, nothing that could so obligate us as forgiving a debt that we could never pay, through no efforts of our own, by your own grace, through your son, who died on our behalf.

God, would you just make us a people who love you and show our love for you, by our service to your body, by our service to this community.

Father, would you make this a church of 200 ministers? Would you wield us as a tremendous weapon in your hands?

Would you so bring about a unity in this body that we might love one another as we ought, serve one another as we ought, and just cherish one another as we ought.