Marks of a Gospel Minister

Sermon Transcript

Imagine you know someone and see them regularly. He seems to have a deep spiritual life, he’s quite popular among your neighbors, and in general, life seems to be going well for him. Another is someone you’ve never met, and he’s writing from prison. Before his imprisonment, he’d been beaten, stoned, abandoned by his friends, going in and out of poverty, and admits to having trouble sleeping. Whose advice are you more likely to take?

 

This morning we’re continuing our series in the book of Colossians. The book of Colossians is a letter written from prison, by the apostle Paul, to a church of people he’d never met, and he’s writing to them because he has learned that they’ve been infiltrated by false teachers who are offering them a deeper spiritual experience than the one Paul offered them in Christ. He may not seem like the obvious choice of someone to whom to listen, and we face a similar dilemma today: Why listen to what this guy wrote 2000 years ago when there seems to be so many other ideas for how to live a good life available to us today? But we’re going to see in this passage that you can trust the apostolic proclamation of Christ, and we’ll see that by looking at the apostolic sufferings, the apostolic commission, the apostolic method, and the apostolic goal.

 

The apostolic sufferings

 

Our passage begins with a clarification from Paul. He is suffering, and the Colossians knew that. Most obviously, he was imprisoned at the time of writing this letter. Aside from imprisonment, though, we learn elsewhere in the New Testament that the apostle Paul was stoned, whipped, beaten with rods, shipwrecked, robbed, threatened by both people from his own ethnic group and people outside it, nights he couldn’t sleep, hunger, thirst, and friends betraying him. How much of that had happened by the time he wrote Colossians we don’t exactly know, but the point is that he lived a very difficult life. And what do most of us naturally want? A not difficult life. So how likely would be to follow the teachings of someone who lived that kind of life?

 

But Paul clarifies: Far from resenting his sufferings, far from seeing them as the part of his job he doesn’t like, like even if you like your job there’s always some part you don’t like, like you love what you do generally but those monthly expense reports are annoying, far from that, Paul says he rejoices in his sufferings for the sake of the Colossians. Suffering is not an unfortunate appendage to Paul’s otherwise exciting job; it is an integral part of his job as an apostle. It’s a feature, not a bug.

 

And we know that because look at what he says next: In my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church. That’s why Paul can say he’s suffering for the Colossians, even though he’s never seen or met them. He’s suffering for the sake of Jesus’ universal church, that community of those reconciled to God through Christ, as we saw last week, and the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae are visible members of that church because they are visible members of their church in Colossae. As earlier in chapter 1 we read of the love the Colossians have for all the saints, so the apostle Paul is suffering for all the church, even those members, like the Colossians, whom he has never met or seen.

 

Now, what does he mean when he says he is filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions? Well first we can be sure of what he does not mean: He does not mean that Christ’s suffering on the cross was insufficient to pay for the sins of his people, like Jesus suffered for 90% of your sins, and now Paul’s suffering to cover the last 10%. Just last week Gareth proclaimed to us verse 22, which is past tense: He has now reconciled us in his body of flesh by his death. That work is finished. If you believe in Christ today, you have been reconciled to God, and that status won’t change even when you sin again. But Gareth also proclaimed to us from that passage that Jesus’ desire in doing that was not merely to reconcile you to God and leave you as you are; it’s to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before God, which will only happen if you continue in the faith.

 

So there is still work to be done, not to accomplish our reconciliation to God, but to apply and continue in that reconciliation, and Paul is saying here that he has a role to play in that work, a role that necessarily includes his being afflicted as well. Why was Christ afflicted, after all? Certainly by God’s design, it was for our salvation, but by the design of those afflicting him, it was because they hate God, just like we all once did, and are therefore raging against God and against his anointed. Well if you who used to be on their side then get reconciled to God, so that now you are on his side, guess what they are going to do to you? Hate you too. Afflict you too. Put you in prison, beat you, and utter all kinds of evil against you, which is exactly what Paul was going through. So far from being an argument against Paul’s legitimacy as an apostle of Christ, Paul’s sufferings were a mark of it.

 

I mentioned already that we generally listen to successful people over imprisoned people, because we naturally want an easy life rather than a hard life. But what if you want you most is the real Christ? The Christ who was himself afflicted, imprisoned, beaten, falsely accused, abandoned by friends, impoverished, and so on? If you want that Christ, the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, through whom and for whom all things are made, then Paul is exactly the guy whose books you want to read, and thankfully Paul wrote Colossians, much of the rest of the New Testament, and other apostles like him, preaching the same message he did, sharing in the same sufferings, oversaw the writing of the entire New Testament.

 

They also instituted the office of pastor to lead churches in teaching the Bible, and the apostolic example of Paul, while unique to him in some ways, also shows us some of the basic marks of a gospel minister, the first of which is a willingness to fill up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body. We live in a country in which it’s very unlikely at the moment at least to be imprisoned for proclaiming Christ, so that parallels aren’t identical, but you should be looking for men who are willing to make personal sacrifices, to accept a harder, less comfortable life, for the sake of seeing Jesus’ church built up. And you are looking for men who are willing to proclaim the kinds of things that will make some people really, really, not like them. Jesus said that the reason the world hated him was because he testified against it, that its works are evil (John 7:7), and so his ministers must be willing to testify against the world, that its works are evil. Even beyond his ministers, though, all believers in Christ Jesus, all who were hostile in mind, who have now been reconciled to God through Christ, should expect that those who remain hostile in mind will hate them too. I’m not suggesting every individual unbeliever you meet will hate you; that’s not true. Jesus was a friend of sinners, and many will probably respect and appreciate your faith. But don’t make it your aim to avoid the hatred of the world. Part of following Christ, a feature, not a bug, is participating in the afflictions of Christ. And an important part of how the gospel will reach the thousands of unreached language groups in the world today is through believers who are willing to go and fill participate in Christ’s afflictions to bring the gospel to them.

 

Affliction a feature of the Chrisitan life, not a bug, but it is also not a goal in itself. Paul never whipped himself or stoned himself. The afflictions were a feature, but the commission Paul received from the Lord was bigger than the afflictions, so let’s look next at the apostolic commission.

 

The apostolic commission

 

Look at verse 25. He already says that he’s suffering these things on behalf of the church, but how do his sufferings help the church? The church doesn’t need any more atonement; Jesus finished that work. What, then, was Paul commissioned to do? Verse 25 tells us: The stewardship from God that was given to him for the Colossians was to make the word of God fully known. That’s what he was commissioned to do. When Paul encountered Jesus on the road to Damascus and was converted from a God-hating persecutor of the church to not only a Christian, but an apostle, the word of God had not yet been fully made known. There was still a mystery hidden for ages and generations, verse 26 says, and which verse 27 describes as “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

 

When it says mystery there, it doesn’t mean something we could never understand. Mystery in the Bible generally means something only partially revealed, and not knowable apart from further special revelation. So, for example, the meaning of a dream is described as a mystery, not because it could never be understood, but because it’s not currently clear, and can’t be figured out unless God reveals it in a special way. So also God’s plan to save the Jewish people, and his plan to bless the non-Jewish peoples of the world, the Gentiles, which is what most of the Colossians were, that was all there before Jesus or Paul came. But exactly how God would do that, that God would do it by sending Christ not only to the Jews, but to the Gentiles, to dwell in them, that was new. The idea that Christ will come again, and the way for us to be resurrected from the dead to everlasting glory in that day is through faith in him–that was new. So God specially revealed it to Paul, and then he commissioned Paul to go and proclaim it especially to the Gentiles, so that they too would be reconciled to God and obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus.

 

Notice the finality of this commission. Paul was commissioned to make the word of God fully known. That means after him and the other apostles carry out their task, there are no more mysteries still hidden that God will reveal to us in this age. Everything God wants his church to know about him and his saving purposes in Christ has been handed down to us by the apostles. The faith has been once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3). In the words of our church’s elder statement of faith, “Any legitimate contemporary exercises of [prophecy or other such gifts] do not

contradict scripture, nor do they add requirements for salvation, what people are to believe concerning God, or new commands from God binding on all of God’s people.” That means you can and should disregard the teachings of Muhammad, Joseph Smith, the pope, and anyone else claiming to have substantially new revelation from God that was previously hidden, but which they are now revealing. That was a distinctively apostolic commission, and the apostles told those who came after them to “take the things they had heard from them and entrust them to faithful men who would be able to teach others also” (2 Tim 2:2), not to add new revelations to them.

 

So as you think about which pastors to follow now, you shouldn’t look for men with a lot of new ideas. You want to look for men proclaiming the apostolic message. A willingness to suffer is a necessary, but not sufficient mark of a gospel minister. People are willing to suffer and die for all kinds of falsehoods, and the degree and type of suffering a minister of the gospel will have to endure will vary according to place and time, but the one thing that won’t vary according to place and time is the word of God. So listen to men who are proclaiming it.

 

Notice not only the finality of this commission, but the glory of it. Verse 27 uses the phrase “the riches of the glory of his mystery”; do you see it? Remember from last week in the passage before this what we learned of Christ: He is one in being with God the Father, but is personally distinct as the Son who reveals the Father. He is the one through whom all things were made, and he is the one for whom all things were made. All things hold together in him. He is the first to rise from the dead, guaranteeing that his church will also rise with him in glory one day. All the fulness of God dwells in him, and in him God is reconciling all things to himself. So here’s the riches of the glory of his mystery: That Christ, is now in you, if you are a believer in him. His Holy Spirit has so come into you to mystically unite you to Christ, and Christ to you. You are now a member of his very body. It is his very life living in you, giving you new spiritual life. You don’t just know about him like a figure in a history book; you know him with utmost intimacy, because he is in you.

 

Do you ever feel like the struggle against sin is hard? Of course you do. Do you ever wonder how you’ll persevere through suffering? Of course you do. Do you ever just feel kinda bored and numb to God? Of course you do. But here’s some of the riches of the glory of this mystery if you’re a believer in Jesus: You don’t need more than what you already have; you just need more of what you already have. Christ is already in you. If you want to get physically stronger, what we call HGH, human growth hormone, is an important aspect of that. But here’s the good news: HGH is already in you. Your body naturally produces it in your pituitary gland. So you don’t need to inject it from the outside to get stronger; instead, you need to release what you already have to your muscles, which happens during things like intense exercise and deep sleep. Similarly, if you want to grow in spiritual strength, you already have what you need: Christ in you, and what you need is not more than him, but more of him, to, we could say, release more of his glory into more of your soul, but you can probably guess that doesn’t happen through deep sleep and intense exercise. So let’s look next at the apostolic method.

 

The apostolic method

 

We see Paul’s method beginning in verse 28: Him we proclaim. That’s the big headline and summary. How did the apostles make the word of God fully known? How do they make known the riches of the glory of this mystery? They proclaim him. They don’t draw him or sculpt him; no offense to visual artists; visual arts can be beautiful and done to the glory of God, but they aren’t the medium through which God reveals Christ to us. They don’t make movies or tv shows about him; no offense to film producers or actors; film can be beautiful and done to the glory of God, but it’s not the medium through which God reveals Christ to us. The medium through which God reveals Christ is speech–pronouncement, a heralding, a proclamation of Christ himself: It is him the apostles proclaimed.

 

They did not most fundamentally proclaim an ethical system of do’s and don’ts, though certainly the proclamation of Christ entails a number of do’s and don’ts that we’ll even see as we get further into Colossians. They did not most fundamentally proclaim a philosophical system, though certainly the proclamation of Christ entails a worldview. They did not most fundamentally proclaim a political system, though certainly the proclamation of Christ has entailments for how we approach human government. But above all these alternatives, they proclaimed Christ. They proclaimed that he was the image of the invisible God, the one through whom and for whom all things were created, they proclaimed that he became man, that by his blood he reconciled people to God from every tribe and language and people and nation, that he rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, that one day he would come again to judge the living and the dead, and that in that day all those who persevered in faith in him would appear with him in glory.

 

What better subject could you possibly proclaim? It is possible to talk about the Bible and to talk about various elements of Christian theology without ever talking about him. If you visit a church and you hear an entire sermon that doesn’t mention Christ, you can usually assume that’s not a church to which you should return. As the great preacher Charles Spurgeon once said, “No Christ in your sermon sir? Then go home, and never preach again until you have something worth saying.” Consider your own relationships; is Christ the one you are proclaiming to one another and to your friends who don’t believe? More than good advice, a listening ear, or a shoulder to cry on, valuable as those things are, what your friends and family need more than anything is Christ. The apostolic method was to proclaim him.

 

And then we see two aspects of that proclamation in verse 28: Warning, and teaching. Warning is a necessary aspect of proclaiming Christ because there are competing messages, sometimes even about Christ himself, and we are prone to wander from Christ. So in the pages of the New Testament we see the apostles warning Christians about false teachers, and warning them about wandering from Christ. The 2023 movie “Air” depicted the story of Nike executive Sonny Vaccaro convincing Phil Knight and other Nike leaders to sponsor a new NBA player who had just been drafted out of the University of North Carolina named Michael Jordan. But other Nike executives wanted Nike to sponsor Melvin Turpin, who I assume you’ve never heard of. In the process of advocating for Jordan, then, Vaccaro had to argue against Turpin. He didn’t do it because of some personal beef with Turpin; he did it because he really believed Jordan was that great.

 

So also the apostolic method of warning is not because they were alarmists or got a weird high off criticizing false teachers. It was because they really believed Jesus was that great, and they didn’t want to see anyone led astray from him, whether by false teachers or their own sinful desires. Of the 21 apostolic letters in the New Testament, at least 13 of them were written to combat false teaching, including the letter to the Colossians. If there is a real Christ who is truly glorious, and he isn’t just whoever we make him up to be, wouldn’t you want someone to warn you if you were straying from him? So be willing to receive biblical warnings from your pastors and fellow church members. As people who still struggle against sin, shouldn’t we expect to need warnings? And shouldn’t we expect that our brothers and sisters will sometimes need our warnings? If you realize you haven’t seen someone in church in a while, the time to reach out to them is then, when you realize it. If you see someone reading a book or listening to teaching that is contrary to Christ, the time to warn them is then.

 

But the proclamation of Christ is not all warning; verse 28 says not only that the apostles warn everyone, but that they teach everyone with all wisdom. The proclamation of Christ can be summarized briefly, and yet there is always more teaching to do. There is more of the glory of Christ to reveal, more to understand, not by going beyond scripture, but by going deeper into it. There is more of it to apply, as it affects our thoughts, our sexuality, our desires, how we handle conflict, our speech, our suffering, our singing, our gratitude, our marriages, our parenting, our employment, our relationships with outsiders–all things this letter addresses. The apostolic method is not merely to teach people the bare minimum of Christian truth to get them saved and then just put them to work doing good. The apostolic method is to persevere in teaching.

 

If that sounds like a lot of work, that’s because it is. Look at verse 29: For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me. Expect the work of pastors and of the Christian life to be one of hard work. Remember that if you want is a life of ease, Jesus is the wrong guy to follow. But because Christ is in you, there is also strength available from him for that hard work. We work for him because he powerfully works in us. We wake up early on a Sunday morning like this to set up sound equipment, curtains, signs, and chairs, because he powerfully works in us. We persevere in prayer even when we don’t feel like doing it because he powerfully works in us. We take a meal to that member in need even when we don’t feel like doing it because he powerfully works in us. We listen patiently and proclaim Christ to one another even when we don’t feel like it because he powerfully works in us. We proclaim Christ to those who don’t believe even when we don’t feel like it because he powerfully works in us. And all to what end? Let’s look next at the apostolic goal.

 

The apostolic goal

 

The goal is summarized in verse 28: “That we may present everyone mature in Christ”. It gets unpacked further in chapter 2:2, where Paul clarifies that he has this same goal and engages in this same struggle even for those who have never seen him: That their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Why is Paul writing to the Colossians, after all? They have already been reconciled to God. Why not move on to see more reconciled to God? Well, Paul’s concern is not just that they be reconciled to God. Jesus’ concern, in reconciling them to God, remember, was not just that they be reconciled, but that they be “holy and blameless and above reproach” before God, or, in the words of our passage, that they be mature, or complete, in Christ. That is God’s desire for you if you are a Christian here today.

 

I took my 4-year-old son to his first Phillies game this week and he did great. But, of course, the time came when it was time to use the bathroom, so I took him with me to the men’s room. We expect a parent to accompany a 4-year-old to the restroom at a big event like a Phillies game. But what if you went with a 37-year-old friend of yours, and he turned to you and said, “I have to go to the potty”? You might say, “Go for it”, but what if he then said, “Can you take me?” We’d all probably assume something had gone seriously wrong. Why? Because we expect children to progress to maturity, and so also the Bible expects Christians to not only be reconciled to God, but to go on to maturity. He goes so far as to say that he wants this for every individual in Jesus’ church. The apostolic goal in verse 28 is to present everyone not just in Christ, but mature in Christ. It should not be accepted or normal in any church that some of its members are simply not pressing on to maturity. The concern of the pastors and even of the members of that church should be for every member of that church to press on to maturity, and that should be your goal for yourself.

 

What does that look like? Well, the rest of the letter is going to unpack it, but for now we can see in verse 2 of chapter 2 that it looks like reaching all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ. The idea there is that the mystery has been revealed in the proclamation of Christ, and though the Colossians already understood it enough to believe it, here he still holds out to them a fuller assurance of understanding, a fuller and deeper knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ himself. We could say then that two aspects of growing to greater maturity in Christ are becoming more certain of what you already know, and going on to learn more about Christ.

 

I’ll do some of my job as a pastor and give you a warning now: As you continue in faith in Christ, you will encounter various threats to your assurance of Christ. You’ll hear a sermon or read a passage in the Bible and on some level think, “Can that really be true?” You’ll go through a hardship or be hurt by someone and think, “This isn’t what I signed up for.” Perhaps most commonly you’ll encounter unbelieving arguments or lifestyles and think, “What if they’re right?” Do you know what those are? Those are opportunities to press on to maturity. Don’t let them just become background noise in your life. Confront them head on, and seek to strengthen your assurance of understanding. Ask hard questions of God in prayer, open your Bible to seek answers, ask other believers in your local church, ask your pastors. That’s part of the way you become more sure of what you already know, and part of the way you learn more.

 

And keep Christ at the center of that learning. As you’re asking more questions, generally a good thing, keep coming back to, “What does it have to do with Christ?” The other day I was reading about different views of the extent of Christ’s atonement, which is the question of for whom Christ died. In the words of the rapper Shai Linne, “The question concerns those for whom Christ died: Was he trying to save everybody worldwide, was he trying to make the entire world his bride?” I read some fairly nuanced answers to that question that felt a bit academic, but what’s the point? The point is to better understand the work of Christ, and that is a very worthwhile endeavor! That is part of pressing on to maturity! That is part of what I’m charged to teach as a pastor, and it’s part of what you should want to know. Don’t let the fact that you have to think intimidate you; God gave you a brain for a reason, and he designed it in such a way that you could understand the gospel and even understand it more deeply as you mature.

 

Sometimes people are worried that if they think too much and gain too much knowledge, their love for Christ will be weakened along with their good works. Doesn’t God want us out there doing good rather than stuck in an ivory tower? Yes; there is a real danger there. But if what you are seeking is a deeper knowledge of Christ, and the way you’re going about seeking knowledge is always coming back to Christ, that risk is significantly less. Study theology as an abstract science like existentialism or the history of the punic wars, and yeah that’ll puff you up and damage your spiritual life. But study it as a means of knowing Christ more deeply, and it will tend to grow your love, not kill it. And the alternative, just getting out and doing good works while remaining shallow in your knowledge of Christ, generally just leads to people burning out and eventually quitting those very good works. As the great theologian Herman Bavinck once said, “Religion is not merely a doing. Christian works, however good and necessary, cannot by themselves satisfy the human heart, or give peace and rest to the conscience…Love cannot supplant faith. Martha will not be able to deprive Mary of the praise of her Lord. The righteous shall live by faith alone.”

 

Not only is it safe and good to grow in knowledge of Christ; where else would you look for knowledge? Verse 3 tells us that it is in him that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hid. So once again we see that you don’t need more than him; you need more of him. The path to maturity is not beyond Christ, but deeper into Christ. In him there is an infinite depth of treasure, treasures of wisdom and knowledge, and we see so little of it. I mentioned that later in Colossians Paul is going to get into sexuality, speech, conflict, marriage, parenting, and more of the “stuff of life”. He’s going to give us wisdom for these things, you might say. But do you know how he’s going to do it? He’s going to take what is there in Christ and apply it to these things. You want to know how God wants you to do your job well? Get to know Christ better. You want to know how to handle conflict better? Get to know Christ better. In him are hidden treasures of wisdom and knowledge that no self-help book can give you.

 

This must be said, after all, Paul says in verse 4, because some will try to delude you with plausible arguments. Some were trying to tell the Colossians that they shouldn’t listen to Paul; he’s just some imprisoned loser that had never even seen them face-to-face. Some were trying to tell the Colossians that they needed more than Christ. Some will try to tell you that there are treasures of wisdom and knowledge, things you really need to live a full life, that can’t be found in Christ, and they’ll gladly take your money to give it to you. Don’t buy it. You can trust the apostolic proclamation of Christ. The apostles shared in the sufferings of Christ, they revealed the riches of the glory of God’s mystery, which is Christ, and they labored in it so that each of us might not only be reconciled to God, but grow to maturity in Christ. True gospel ministers today take on suffering to proclaim Christ and present everyone to whom they minister mature in Christ. Recognize such men, follow such men, pray for more such men. Receive the apostolic teaching, believe it, grow in your knowledge of it, and let no one delude you with plausible arguments.