A Challenge To New Deacons Series

Sermon Details:

Sermon Series: A Study in Colossians

Sermon Title: A Challenge to New Deacons

Sermon Text:: Col 2:6-7

Introduction:

Now I want you all to know that as I began preparing to write this sermon, I was thinking and praying about what to do and I was thinking to myself, "...well God I am going to have to interrupt our study in the book of Colossians to do this special service..." but the Holy Spirit came to me and that still small voice told me… to stay with the text in Colossians!

I began to read and it was abundantly clear that God was right… Can you believe that…God was right and I was wrong! Can you imagine how many times that has happened? Has that ever happened to anyone else here?

But tonight we are here to celebrate a new beginning the lives of these men. Tonight they enter into a new and more challenging role in service to God and this church.

So often though when we get into a NEW area in life, we can get confused and we can get turned around… this reminds me at a comedian who I really loved back in my youth…

Illustration from Sermoncentral.com contributed by David Yarbrough

His name was Yakov Smirnoff and he said when he first came to the United States from Russia; he wasn’t prepared for the incredible variety of instant products available in American grocery stores. He says, "On my first shopping trip, I saw powdered milk--you just add water, and you get milk. Then I saw powdered orange juice--you just add water, and you get orange juice. And then I saw baby powder, and I thought to my self, what a country!"

James Emery White, Rethinking the Church, Baker, 1997, p. 55-57

We are often like Yakov when we move into another area of service to God. We see SO MANY things that we may not have seen before and it is easy to get confused and ‘tricked’ by words or by another person who deceives us with a slick presentation that uses just enough truth that we fall for it…

Tonight I want to share with these men a few short words… about staying true to Christ! Because even though you are beginning a new era in your Christian walk… you must remain solid and grounded in the faith in which you first believed!

Please stand with me out of respect for the reading of God’s Holy, Infallible, Inerrant, Immutable, All sufficient Word! Turn with me to Colossians 2:6-7 and follow along or you can follow along on the screen… I will be reading from the Holman Christian Standard Bible:

6 Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in Him, 7 rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness

Col 2:6-7 (HCSB)

Here we find Paul urging the new believers of this church in Colosse to remain true to their foundation in Christ… Like Paul was speaking to New Believers… tonight I am speaking to believers with a NEW JOB in the kingdom… they are NEW DEACONS!

So tonight, I will be using the “Holy Spirit” inspired words of the Apostle Paul to illustrate the same charge and challenge he gave to these new believers… as I give it to these fine Christian gentlemen sitting before me…

But I want you to understand that this charge and challenge that I give to these new deacons is NOT limited to them! As a body of believers we are called to support their leadership and NOT undermine their role in the fellowship! We are to support them and encourage them and pray for them just as we are called to live as Christ has called us to live!

Tonight I want to reveal to these new deacons and to this body 3 “new” things they will encounter in this journey to being the deacon God has called them to be…

The first is that tonight these men are embarking out on…

1. A New Start (v.6a):

6 Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, Col 2:6a (HCSB)

So often in Scripture we see the word, ‘therefore’ and when we see it we have to ask the question what is it ‘there for?” Well Paul had been speaking to them about His struggle in knowing they were under persecution and there were many trying to lead them down the wrong path… but he ends v. 5 by saying, “…yet I am with you in spirit, REJOICING to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ…”

So Paul is continuing this discussion on staying TRUE to their faith in Christ by saying… THEREFORE… in other words since your faith has been SO grounded… continue in your walk as you have rec’d Christ as Lord…