SERMON BRIEF
Date Written: November 2003
Date Preached: November 26, 2003
Church: OZHBC (Wed night)
FOUNDATIONAL ELEMENTS
Title: A Reminder for Ministry
Text: Colossians 4:17
Introduction:
When the Apostle Paul wrote a letter he would also include some miscellaneous items that were important BUT not the focus of the letter.
Here we find Paul doing this in the final verses of the book of Colossians. Now although we know almost nothing about this man Paul addresses as Archippus.
There are some who think he may have been the son of Philemon.
There are still others who believe that he was the pastor of the church that met in Philemon’s house.
It is not really known WHERE he served… if he even served in a pastoral position or not!
To tonight I want us to take a look at some reminders that we can find in this verse to the ministry that Paul charged to Archippus and likewise to the ministry we are ALL called by God to do…
The first reminder is that
MINISTRY IS PERSONAL!
Our ministry is a personal matter. Paul addressed this particular reminder to one particular person… ARCHIPPUS!
All Christians have a ministry to which they have been called… each of us may be doing something different in the Kingdom, but we are ALL called by God to minister for the Kingdom.
This personal ministry is to have precedent in our lives. Jesus assured those He taught that He had come into the world to minister rather than to be ministered to.
We find God calling Moses, Samuel, Paul into very specialized type of ministry for His sake and each of these people made the ministry that they were called to a precedent in their lives.
Also this very personal ministry God has called us to is a permanent ministry that God has called us to.
There have been stories throughout missionary history where missionaries have been placed by God in certain situations and from an earthly perspective it seems to be futile.
Take William Carey for example, in his first 7 yrs in India we know that he had NO conversions, but he would not leave because he believed that God had placed him there and unless God moved him… it was permanent assignment.
There was this missionary in Dakar, West Africa who met with Billy Graham in 1960 and he told how he had been there for 10 yrs and ministering to the Muslims of the area.
Graham asked him how many people had accepted Christ in that time. He thought for a moment and told Graham that 2 or 3 had made a profession of faith in Christ.
When Graham’s team members asked this man about his unsuccessful mission attempts… they asked him point blank, “If there are so few converts, why are you here? Why do you stay?”
The man thought for a moment and then said, “I stay here because God placed me here… not because of what I have chosen…”
This man realized that God’s decisions must be permanent in our lives and we are to lean on Him.
But not only is our ministry a very personal thing, I can also see where our ministry is a very practical matter for the believers.
We need to WATCH WHAT IS DONE in our ministry. Paul is telling Archippus here that he is to ‘see to it…’
IN ministry we watch what is actually DONE. There are many different jobs in ministry and they have different priorities.
Pastoral care, encourager, prayer, Bible study are ALWAYS going to be priorities in the ministry.
And we must be up to the task of seeing that these task ARE done and done in the way that God desires.
But we are also called to monitor and oversee HOW ministry is done. In ministry the end does NOT justify the means.
We must ensure that our ministry honors and uplifts and glorifies Jesus Christ in all we do and say. We must make sure that our ministry is done in such a way that it points people to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.
We must ensure that how our ministry is done brings glory to GOD and not to us.
The 3rd reminder that we can find in this verse is that our ministry is to have purpose.
To ensure that your ministry in the church DOES have purpose you must first seek out the source of that ministry.
We find Paul telling Archippus that he was to complete the work you have received from the Lord. The ministry that Archippus had was from God.
As believers, we must constantly re-evaluate whether or not we are doing this for GOD… did God give us this ministry, or is it a creation of our OWN?
One way we can know that it is of God is that God will give us the resources and the courage and the strength to complete the ministry He has called us to do!
I speak of strength because it DOES take a tremendous amount of spiritual strength to continue a ministry for the kingdom.
But we must realize that it is NOT by our power, but by the Power of Christ that we are able to do ministry for God.
Stay in touch and in tune with the source of your strength. Stay close and intimate with God and His strength will ALWAYS be with you.
Finally tonight I want us to look at the 4th reminder that Paul gives and it is the reminder that our ministry must be pointed!
Our ministry must be fulfilled. If we are called by God, we are called by God to complete and fulfill this ministry. When we fail to be obedient in our calling from God, our relationship with God suffers and we drift away from Him.
Our ministry cannot be transferred to another person. Each of us carry a personal responsibility to complete and fulfill the ministry God has called US to do. We cannot give it over to others to whom God has NOT called to this particular ministry. God will call them… we do not have to.
Another thing we must realize is that our ministry cannot be measured by another model that is inaccurate to what God has called us to do.
So many times we take God’s plans and try to force them into a pre-conceived plan or a plan that may work in secular society…
So many times we feel that we have failed at our ministry unless we have ‘won’… and we define winning in many ways!
But we find that Jesus gave us a different model by which we evaluate our ministry and that model is the very life of Jesus, Himself.
Even our apparent failures may become HUGE successes in the hand of God. ON the surface the Cross at Calvary looked like a miserable failure by Jesus… but the resurrection 3 days later show that the Cross was really the fulfillment of God’s purpose in the redemption of all humanity.
In ministry we have to 1st accept it when God gives it to us. WE have to take the responsibility that it is our ministry and if we do not do it… it is NOT going to happen.
Not that God cannot MAKE it happen, but that God chooses to allow us a decision and unless we choose to take responsibility for the ministry God has chosen… our walk with God is going to suffer.
We have to be willing to TAKE the ministry God has given us and then we must also be willing to HEED it as well. We must be willing to DO what God has called us to do!
We must be willing to make the ministry God has called us into all that God desires it to be.
