Three Pathways of Gospel-Powered Service
Notes
Transcript
Intro
Intro
About 40 years ago, a big shift took place in leadership theory. In 1970, the business world was forever changed by the publication of a book called Servant Leadership by Robert Greenleaf. It would be hard to overestimate the impact of this book.
You see, previously, leadership theories were built around the success of the company. The leader, the manager, the CEO, the VP, the mid-level director — all of them were expected to have as their first goal the success of the company. That makes good financial sense and in many ways is just common sense.
But it turns out that Robert Greenleaf’s theory was also chock full of common sense. Because what Greenleaf said was, if you want to have a successful company, if you want to be a successful leader, you need to work first to serve those you lead. That can take many forms. It could mean you provide continuing education for your staff. It could mean that you take a personal interest in them - their problems are your problems. It could mean that you provide good benefits and competitive pay. Regardless of the form it would take, the takeaway is obvious: as a leader, if you want your company or your department or your organization to thrive, you need to take care of those you lead. If they’re happy and fulfilled, you’ll be happy and fulfilled because they’ll do good work and the company therefore will also thrive.
The rest of the world is still trying to catch up to what the business world has figured out. But what it took the business world decades to learn, Christians have always known. All of us want to make a difference. The best way to make a difference in this world is to serve. The best way to find significance is to serve. Jesus said that if you want to be great in the kingdom, we are to service. Service, then, is the pathway to greatness.
But what are the pathways to service? Because, you see, the danger is that we take the world’s definition of service and adopt it as our own. What does the Bible say it looks like to serve? What does service look like that is distinctly Christian? The apostle Paul modeled that in his life, and he describes it in these verses. There are three pathways of gospel-powered service. The first is that servants suffer.
#1: Servants suffer (v. 24)
#1: Servants suffer (v. 24)
Servants suffer.
Some people have a high tolerance for pain. My sweet wife has dealt with bad migraines now for 10 years. She can deal with searing and stabbing pain without complaining and without getting bitter. On the other hand, I dislocated my knee a few years ago. It was the worst pain I have ever felt. As the EMS workers lifted me up off the driveway where I slipped, I screamed like a little girl. At the ER when the doctor and the nurse together forced my knee back into place, I’m pretty sure I sreamed like a little girl again - even though I was a 32-year-old man.
Some people have higher pain tolerances than others. Some people - some cultures - have higher suffering tolerances than others. How about as Americans? We have to face the truth here. There are few areas of life for which we are so ill-prepared as suffering. We see no value in it. We invest lots of money and time and worry into avoiding it.
But in reality we are one of the only cultures in the history of humankind to every try to do that. For thousands of years, other countries and other cultures have accepted that suffering is a fact of life and they have built up a tolerance to it. They expect; they plan for it; they experience it; it comes and, it’s hard, but - are you ready? they are strengthened by it. Not us.
Author and pastor Tim Keller has written a book called Walking With God Through Pain and Suffering. It’s the best Christian book on suffering I know of. In that book he says that in our western secular society, suffering is never seen as having meaning. It is an interruption. Preventing suffering is the highest goal of western society. It has to be. Do you know why? Why is it that for secular westerners like us, preventing suffering is the highest goal? Because our secular society can see no way past death. For a good secular thinker, there is no life after death. Heaven is something we might teach kids about, but surely we don’t believe it’s real. This life is all there is.
Other societies can see a purpose in their suffering, because they believe in unseen spiritual forces. But you see, our secular society doesn’t believe in unseen spiritual forces. And as a result, this life is all there is, and if this life is all there is, there is no one out there who is in control of our suffering; it’s just us; we’re on our own. And so it’s up to us to prevent suffering. We do not expect suffering. We do not plan for it. Suffering intrudes into our lives and rather than submit our lives to the good and wise God who brought it, we are outraged by it.
24 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, in filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions
Which is why, then, when we hear someone say “we serve by suffering”, we’re taken off guard. And we’re definitely taken off guard when we read Paul’s first words in verse 24. He writes something that for American Christians in the 21st century seems like nonsense. He writes, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake” (Col. 1:24 NASB). Now, the only way someone could say that they rejoice in their sufferings is if they were certain there was some meaning behind their suffering. Does it have significance? Is what I’m going through something that will make a difference in someone else’s lives? Is there a purpose to all of this?
Paul certainly believed so. Look at what he says next. First he says he rejoices in his sufferings, but then he expands on why. “and in my flesh”, he says, “I do my share on behalf of His body, which is the church, in filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions” (Col. 1:24b NASB). In other words, in my flesh - or in my body - I am experiencing physical suffering - maybe beatings, maybe hunger, probably both, and Paul was not unfamiliar with what those things felt like - I am experiencing physical suffering in my flesh.
What kind of suffering? What is Paul experiencing? Well, we don’t know where exactly, but Paul is in prison as he writes this letter. In fact, Colossians is one of the four so-called prison letters in the NT, the others being Ephesians, Philippians and Philemon.
So he is incarcerated, and while we don’t know where, we do know why. Persecution of Christians is becoming more widespread by this time. And during times of Christian persecution, it’s Christian leaders who are usually the first targets of persecution. Paul’s influence was so great that his enemies thought if they could muzzle him, the progress of the Christian church would fade. That’s usually what secular governments think, by the way. It never works, of course. In fact, it has the opposite effect.
So that’s what Paul is suffering. He’s in jail and he’s experiencing all that goes with that. And in some way, Paul’s suffering was a service to the church. His suffering is building people up. It’s encouraging the believers. It’s really not hard to see why. After all, to see Paul in prison and thriving there? To see Paul in prison not withering away in unbelief, thinking God has abandoned him, but rather worshiping and praying and still speaking the message of salvation? Man, if he can do that, maybe this thing is real. Maybe all of this is true.
And then, well wait a minute... if Paul can do it... maybe I can too. Maybe I don’t have to be afraid of the Roman authorities. Maybe we really can go out and evangelize and see the gospel move forward with the same power in us that was in Paul. And maybe, just maybe, if I’m arrested, it’ll all be okay. If I were imprisoned, it would do me tremendous good to know that my experience had galvanized Buffalo Baptist Church of Shelby to not just keep on ministering despite opposition but to step it up. Wow, how encouraging that must have been to Paul! His suffering had meaning because it was a service to the church. And yours can too.
But that’s not the only reason Paul’s suffering had meaning. He says “I do my share on behalf of His body, which is the church” but then in a puzzling phrase Paul says that somehow what he is suffering is, in his words, “filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.” What could he possibly mean there? I have to be honest with you. I don’t know exactly. It can’t mean that Paul thought he was somehow sharing in Christ’s sufferings on the cross. Jesus needed no such help. Paul didn’t die or suffer for my sins. Jesus alone did.
There are various opinions about what Paul means and I don’t find any of them convincing. But what I do know are two things. Number one, when Paul says he is sharing Christ’s sufferings, he is speaking of the deepest possible intimacy with Jesus.
It’s funny that we are so quick to think that when we suffer, God must be absent. Paul seemed to think the opposite was true. Paul seemed to believe not that Jesus had abandoned him or was angry with him when he suffered, but rather that Jesus was somehow present with him in his suffering, maybe even closer to him in suffering than ever before. After all, the prophet Isaiah does say that the Messiah will be a “man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.”
Now you say, Pastor Dustin, I don’t think God is present with me when I suffer. I’ve been through a lot, you say, and I’ve never felt Jesus’ presence more deeply when I suffer. But feelings are funny things, aren’t they? I mean, sometimes feel like God is angry with me or disappointed with me, but when I look at the cross, the cross tells me that He is neither - that he, in fact, delights in me despite what I do because of what Christ did; it tells me that He is for me and that He has eternally committed Himself to me. And my feelings to the contrary don’t mean God is a liar. My feelings aren’t always trustworthy. Very often my feelings are caused by things as significant as spiritual warfare, and sometimes they are caused by things as insignificant as whether I slept well last night or how long it’s been since I’ve eaten. Feelings are deceptive. The cross, though, where the Son of God Himself suffered for you, declares to you that God is not absent when you suffer but is in fact very, very powerfully present. And if that doesn’t give suffering meaning, I don’t know what does.
In that same book I mentioned earlier, Tim Keller shares a story from a young wife whose husband left her suddenly. “In September, completely out of the blue, my husband left me and our four children for someone else (who left her husband and her two children as well). This other family were friends of ours; we’d vacationed with them on three separate occasions during the summer. I thought they were our friends.
“My heart died within me. This could not be happening. My Christian husband - the one who with me sat down with our kids and explained that while divorce does happen, it would never happen to us - we made a covenant, a promise to God and to each other - no matter what - that we will always be here for each other and for them. I sobbed and begged him not to go, that we would figure this out. No, he was leaving.
“I asked him what he was going to tell the kids; he said he didn’t know. I told him, ‘You can’t just leave without telling the kids something.’ Surely, this would hit him - he would not be able to look at these precious children and tell them that he was leaving…but he did. He called them back downstairs from bed and told them he was leaving. They didn’t understand…was this for work? When will he be back? No, kids, I’m moving out - not to come back. He left. We were crushed.”
Months later, she said “my kids are still dealing with the impact that their dad left; they are depressed, angry, confused, and frustrated. My oldest has started questioning his faith; he is rebelling against all authority, and lashing out at his family. My house is up for sale - a short sale, which could turn into being a foreclosure. We have no idea where we will move.
As I wrote this part of my sermon, my own eyes choked back tears as I thought of my wife and my kids. Who can imagine her suffering. But note this, church. This is what the same woman was able to say about her deepened faith in the Lord. “And yet, in the midst of all this - I have come to know God on a different level, to see him work in a way I had only heard about. To experience this is quite amazing....[In the past], when I needed God’s comfort, the image in my head was me clinging to Jesus and him hugging me. My image now is me just completely collapsed, and him carrying me - and it is awesome.” [Timothy Keller, Walking With God Through Pain and Suffering (New York: Dutton, 2013), pp. 31-34]
Note what she’s not saying. She’s not saying she’s happy. She’s not saying she’s glad this happened. She would still take her husband back, I’m sure. The suffering isn’t gone. The crushing sense of loss is present. What she is saying is that in Jesus, she has found joy in the midst of her suffering. Alongside the suffering is a deep, deep joy that, if I read her right, she never experienced with the Lord until this happened.
Servants of Jesus suffer, and there is meaning and purpose in our suffering. Servants of Jesus suffer for Jesus. They suffer for His church. And when they do, they find that He suffers with them. It’s only when we’ve trained ourselves to listen less to how we feel and more to what God’s word says is true that we will begin to feel that it is true. The first pathway of service is suffering. Servants suffer. The second pathway is telling. Servants tell.
#2: Servants tell (vv. 25-27)
#2: Servants tell (vv. 25-27)
25 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 word of God, 26 that is, the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations, but has now been manifested to His saints, 27 to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory
Now Paul just said that he suffers as an act of service to the church, which, Paul said, is His body. Verse 25 Paul comes back to the particular form His service to the church takes: telling others the good news of Jesus. Verse 25, “Of this church I was made a minister” - note that Paul is passive in that; he didn’t appoint himself a minister; he was called to be a minister by God and equipped to serve as a minister by the same. But besides suffering, what does Paul’s ministry look like? “Of this church I was made a minister according to the stewardship from God bestowed on me for your benefit” - a stewardship is a trust, something entrusted to Paul that he is called to be faithful with - some task that he is called to engage in and one day give an account about it. What is that task, that trust, that stewardship? “so that I might fully carry out the preaching of the word of God.”
“Fully carry out the preaching of the word of God.” Preach the word, Paul, and leave no one out. Preach to everyone, everywhere. Anyone who will listen, preach to them. And preach the whole word, Paul, leave no part of it out. Preach the parts people want to hear and the parts they don’t want to hear. Preach the fully and complete gospel, Paul - the hard news about our sin and guilt before a holy God, and the incredibly good news that all sin and guilt is forgiven through Christ for everyone who will believe. Fully carry out the preaching of the word of God.
I’ve been reading lately about the Methodist church in its early days in this country. The Methodists, influenced by John Wesley, were big on this. Some of their preachers were circuit-riders. As America moved ways, the circuit-riding preachers on horseback followed the frontier, back and back from the Appalachians to plains, westward across the Rockies in the north and the desert in the south, all the way to the shining Pacific Ocean - from sea to shining sea these men rode and preached, and rode and preached, and rode in preached. America was evangelized in large by these circuit-riding, horseback preachers.
The pioneering circuit preacher was a man named Francis Asbury. He called upon Methodist men to step up and engage in this work. And then he set the example. This man, Francis Asbury, traveled basically nonstop for 45 years. In doing so, he ordained more than 4,000 Methodist pastors. He preached more than 16,000 sermons. He traveled 300,000 miles on horseback, crossing the Appalachian mountains 60 times. He had no house, no home, no permanent address. When he left England, he told a friend who wanted to write to him and asked for his address: “address them to me in America.” Not real helpful for his friend, of course. But a modern-day Paul. [Douglas A. Sweeney, The American Evangelical Story: A History of the Movement (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005), p. 62]
Now that’s what it looks like to fully carry out the word of God. Paul did this, too. By the time Colossians had written, the gospel had spread as far as the city of Rome, a long way from Jerusalem - that’s 1,434 miles. Half the continental United States. Across that distance Christian churches and gospel witnesses could be found. And Paul had a lot to do with it. On foot, or on camel, or by boat.
Now when we talk about men like Paul, or Francis Asbury, or Billy Graham, it’s easy to think that it’s people like that who are called to fully carry out the word of God. But we all have that calling. Jesus said to all who would follow Him,
And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 aGo therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
Servants tell. This is a reminder, from Jesus Himself, to ordinary Christians like us, that Jesus engaged in telling others about Him, and if you’re going to follow Jesus, you must follow Him in His work of telling. Our work won’t look quite like these men, probably. But it’s no less significant for being small. And it is precious to Jesus. Those men did their thing, and that’s great. But I’m not them and you’re not them; I’m me and you’re you. And God has called me and you, as we are, where we are, to tell others about Jesus. What better way is there to serve a person than to tell them about the One in whom they can find the happiness their heart longs for? What greater love can there be than for us to tell those we come in contact with about the One who has satisfied our deepest longings and who will do so for anyone who comes to Him in faith? There is no greater love, no better way to serve, than this.
Servants tell. Maybe not in Indonesia or Kyrgystan, but definitely in your neighborhood, at your workplace, your kids or grandkids’ sports teams. And it’s so easy to get started. Do you know that all you have to do get started is invite them to church with you? That’s not where it stops, of course. You have to stay with them. But that’s the first step. You may not feel comfortable right now sharing the gospel with them, and you know what? That’s ok. Pray about that, but in the meantime, everyone can say, “Hey, I love my church and I think you might too. Why don’t you and the wife and the kids come and go to church with us this Sunday? It’ll be great. Meet us there, we can go grab lunch each together afterward. You’ve been saying you want to finally start going to church, and we’ve been saying that we need to get our families together - this kills two birds with one stone! Go us!” Anyone can do that.
And by the way, that is the primary way our church is going to grow. Do you want Buffalo Baptist Church of Shelby to grow? Would you like to see this sanctuary full? I can’t do it - I can’t invite your friends to church. Everyone expects the pastor to do that. Their eyes glaze over and they give you a half-smile and then give you 1,245 excuses. They just think I’m after their money. People will not trust pastors today until they know them, that’s just how it is. It’s way more effective when you invite your friends to church. In fact, why don’t we do that? It’s time for us to stop letting COVID-19 hold us back from doing ministry. Why don’t we set a date for a bring your friend to church Sunday? We’ll have refreshments, coffee, you take them out to lunch after. It’ll be great. You’ll have the satisfaction of obedience; they’ll enjoy coming to church, or at least they’ll enjoy lunch. And they might just take one step closer to Jesus.
Servants suffer. Servants tell. And lastly, servants disciple.
#3: Servants disciple (vv. 28-29)
#3: Servants disciple (vv. 28-29)
Servants disciple. What does it mean to disciple someone?
I’m holding in my hand a three-ring binder that is 23 years old. My mother put this together for me on the occasion of my graduation from high school in 1998. In this binder are over 25 letters from people who played significant roles in my life. There are letters from teachers, letters from close friends, letters from family, but most importantly for our purposes this morning, this binder contains letters from people in my home church - men and women - who made a spiritual investment in me - who loved me enough to tell me about Jesus and once I had made a profession of faith, they loved me enough to teach me and show me what it meant to follow him. Will you indulge me this morning as I read a couple of these letters to you?
This first one is from a man named Eddie Sellers. Eddie Sellers was my 7th and 8th grade boys Sunday School class. This man loves the Lord and he has a passion for young men. This is what he wrote: “Dear Dustin, I remember when your mom and dad wondered if they could ever had a child. Then you were born. The whole church praised the Lord. I remember when you came into the Youth Division and we stayed at the same home on Mission Tour. I’m so proud of you graduating from high school and how you are setting the example to younger youth and leading in worship with your music. I wish you the greatest success in life. Walk in integrity. You know, the world will try to win you over by remember, ‘That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God” (Colossians 1:10). Your friend, Eddie Sellers.
The second one I’ll read to you is from my youth pastor, Eddy Bunton. He wrote this: “Dear Dustin, I’ve struggled with this letter for days trying to say the right thing without being sappy or sentimental. I believe I have come up with the most important advice that I can convey to you. It probably isn’t the flashiest of advice, but my own experience is proof that it is true. In all things you seek after, in all the many wonderful experiences that will come your way always try to do this one thing: Be faithful to belong to Jesus Christ.’ Jer. 29:11-14 tells us that God has a plan for our life that will prosper us and not harm us, a plan to give us a hope and a future. It says we will find God and he will listen to us when we see with all our heart. Continue to do that, my friend. Give Him all of who you are and continue to make that choice every day that He gives you.”
Then there’s the one from my dad. This is an excerpt: “As you go out into the world, remember to keep your faith in God and if you don’t do anything else in life, be a person of integrity. (You know I had to say that.) Doing the right thing, whether anyone else will ever know the different - that’s integrity.”
And lastly the one from my mom. This too is an excerpt. “Now it is up to you to make your own decisions about the direction of your life. Just follow Psalms 37:3-5 and you can’t go wrong! “Trust in the Lord and do good, so shalt thou dwell in the land and verily thou shalt be fed. Delight thyself also in the Lord and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart.” Did you catch that verse? Put Him first, serve Him faithfully, and He will give you the desires of your heart. That passage goes on to say ‘commit thy way unto the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass - rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him.’ See, I told you there was good stuff in the Bible.”
What you just heard were important people in my life doing what Paul describes in verses 28-29.
28 We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man dcomplete in Christ. 29 For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me.
We proclaim Him, Paul says. Who is Him? It’s Christ, verse 27 tells us. Christ in you, the hope of glory. It is Him we proclaim. Translation: It is Him we are telling everyone about, because servants tell. And there’s two components of this: “admonishing/warning every man and teaching every man.” Warning means warning - warning people about the consequences of their actions. I’ve had to do this as a pastor more times than I ever wanted to do it, and I’m sure I’ll have to do it more. It’s not fun. People generally don’t like it when we warn them about their sin no matter how lovingly we do it. But just like teaching that goes with it, there’s a really wonderful and exciting goal and hope in mind as we do that. Why do we warn and teach every man with all wisdom, Paul says? “So that we may present every man complete in Christ” (Col. 1:28b NASB).
Servants disciple. What does it mean to disciple someone? Here it means warning, and teaching - discipleship - that is, helping others learn to follow Jesus. That’s all it means to disciple. And it is hard work. I could tell you how hard the work, or you could probably tell me because most of you have done this. But let’s hear what Paul has to say about it: “For this purpose” - for what purpose? warning and teaching every person so that every person might stand holy and blameless before Christ at the last day - “for this purpose also I labor” - I work hard, I work until I’m exhausted, I work until it hurts, but that’s okay, Paul says, because there is power outside of Himself available to Him for this task - “striving according to His power, which mightily works within me” (Col. 1:29 NASB).
There are a lot of ways to make a difference in this world. Teachers make a tremendous difference in this world. Raise your hand if you appreciate teachers. They help us succeed and reach our potential. Medical workers make a tremendous difference in this world, extending people’s physical lives and alleviating their pain. Our elected leaders have the opportunity to make a difference and improve people’s lives. All of these professions have influence for good.
But there is only one kind of work - just one - that has an impact not only in this life but beyond this life. When you take it upon yourself to help someone follow Jesus, God is using you as a means by which that person is growing and being perfected and being prepared to stand holy and blameless before Jesus on the last day. I want to be part of that.
Thankfully God has used me in this way in the lives of some people. I can’t claim any credit for it. It’s all been him. I’ve been discipling a young man from my first church now for nine years. It has been the privilege of my life to watch him grow - and man has he grown! From a college student who was sort of indifferent to the thing of God, he has grown into a young man who is strong and courageous in Christ. He’s a faithful husband and father. He loves God’s word, and now in his church he is teaching others his age the word of God as a Bible teacher.
Do you see how this works? People poured into me. Not just those in my home church but professors in seminary, older pastors who mentored me. Nevertheless they made a spiritual investment in me. By grace, it paid off. By grace, God used me to pour into others, like my friend I was telling you about. And now he himself is pouring into others and helping them to grow.
Do you see the chain reaction? This is what Paul talked about when he said, “The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these things to faithful men who will be able to teachers also” (2Tim. 2:2 NASB).
Christianity, friends, does not self-perpetuate. We must be intentional about reaching the next generation. If any of you are wondering why we are still searching for a full time youth and children’s pastor instead of just going with volunteers, in the middle of a pandemic and an economic downturn, here’s the reason: making this investment in the next generation is not only the greatest privilege you will ever have. It’s also a biblical imperative, a matter of obedience. And without it, our church will not be here in 20 years. This work is worth the sweat and the money and the fatigue, the labor, as Paul called it, because this is a work that reverberates into eternity. Servants disciple.
Conclusion and call for response
Conclusion and call for response
It is my prayer for you all that you will catch a vision for how service to Christ by serving His church is the future of our church. Our church council is going to be meeting soon to start looking ahead into the post-COVID area and start planning how to get everything started again. But we would be wrong if our goal was simply for things to be just as they were in January of 2020. That’s not my goal. In 2021 and 2022 and 2023 and 2024 and in 2030 and 2040, my goal is to enter into what Jesus has for us then, what He’s calling us into now. Whatever that looks like, I know it will involve these three pathways to service: servants suffer - it will be hard; servants tell - we have to do outreach and evangelism - and servants disciple - we have to make a spiritual investment in others and help them grow.
Are you doing some of these things now? Chances are many of you are doing some of these things, but the fact is that we are called to all three of these things. Our vision of the future of this church involves all three of these things. These things are so basic and essential that I’m not sure if we’ll get there at all if we don’t do them.
Servants suffer. How are you suffering? How are you striving and laboring? Are you giving your time and sacrificing your money and giving up your comfort and convenience to do what Jesus is calling you to do in serving this church? Are you trying to leave your options open by not joining our church? Jesus is calling you to commit.
Servants tell. Many of us need to get better at this, myself included. But I know we can. And in the meantime, Cleveland County is full of lost people who are without God and need to be told about His love in Jesus. We’re not going to just expect them to come here first. We’re going to go to them. Are you willing to go with us?
Servants disciple. Are you willing to make an investment in the next generation of Christ followers? Do it out of love for Jesus. He has done so much for you, invested so much time and patience and love in you. Do it out of love for our church. 10 or 20 years from right now - will this church be full of new families because we have gone to them and told them and loved them and suffered for them and now they’ve come to us and we’re investing in them and helping them grow, letting them begin to lead?
This is the future I believe God is calling us to as a church. I invite you to pray this morning about how God is calling you to be involved.