Colossians chapter four and verse 17 and say to Archippus, take heed to the ministry, which thou has received in the Lord that thou fulfill it. Let's pray. Father, we once again, thank and praise you for the privilege of being able to gather together in the name of Christ and to to open the word of God together. And Lord, we pray that your Holy Spirit would teach us and instruct us. And Lord, that you would enable us to put into practice the things that we learn from your word. And we ask this now in Jesus' name. Amen. We noted this morning that Archippus quite likely was the son of Philemon and Apphia, serving as the pastor at the church at Colossae in the absence of Epaphras. And we noted also that he received the ministry and that his ministry was in Christ, his ministry was in the Lord. And tonight we want to look at, which I was hoping we'd get to this morning, but the main exhortation in the passage, and that is that thou fulfill it. He received a ministry from the Lord. And Paul's exhortation was that not only would he possess it, he received it, but that he would fulfill it. And so let's think about what it means to fulfill a ministry. The word itself means to fill to the brim, to make full, to make complete in every particular, to permeate. And there are really Two very similar and related aspects of the meaning of this term. One, we might understand in the sense of permeate something. For example, this was the term that was used. Remember when Mary took that costly perfume and anointed the feet of Jesus and washed his feet with her hair in that ointment, and it said that the The odor, the smell of that ointment filled the room, it saturated the room, it permeated the entire room. And that's the word that's translated fulfill here in Colossians 417. For another usage of the term, look in Acts chapter 12, Acts chapter 12, and this is quite similar to the setting in Colossians 4, Acts chapter 12 and verse 25. And Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem when they had fulfilled their ministry and took with them John, whose surname was Mach. So it says here that Paul and Barnabas had a short-lived ministry to participate in, and when they had fulfilled that ministry, they returned. They finished the job they were sent to do. And that word fulfilled is the same word that's used in Colossians, where Paul challenges or encourages Archippus to fulfill his ministry. One other interesting use of the term turn, turn to Colossians chapter two in verse 10. Colossians chapter two in verse 10. Here, Paul writes to the believers in Colossae and he says, and ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power. And this word complete is the same word that's translated fulfill in Colossians four. Paul is saying here in chapter two and verse 10, that in Christ we are fulfilled. We are filled to the brim with everything we could ever need or want. We are lacking nothing in Christ. We are permeated, saturated with everything that a child of God could ever want or could ever desire as a new man in Christ. So here are two, what seem perhaps to us, unrelated definitions, but they're really one. On the one hand, it means to finish the job. to complete the task, to fulfill the ministry that you've been called to do. And on the other hand, it means to fill something to the brim, perhaps from the inside, to permeate, to saturate. And those concepts are really intertwined. And I'd like for us to turn to the book of Ephesians for a moment, Ephesians chapter 1. And here we see this concept of the filling, the fulfilling of the church in Ephesians chapter 1 in verse 23. But for the context, start in verse 22. And hath put all things under his feet and gave him to be head over all things to the church, which is his body. And now notice how Paul describes what the church is. The church is the fullness of him that filleth all in all. In other words, the church is the fullness of God. The church is full of God. The church is full of Christ, in particular, the one who fills each and every member of the body of Christ with himself. The body of Christ is full of him, it's full of Christ, that's God's design. It's full of the one who fills it. And Christ is the one who fills the body with himself. He fills it with his life, with his love, with his grace, with his righteousness, with his holiness, with his compassion and his mercy. He fills it with his character. He fills it with his life. And so he is the one that fills the body and he fills it with himself. That's a great way of describing what the church is. He fills the body as we yield to him as you and I as individual members of that body surrender. And I like Harold's selection of songs tonight. They went well with what we're going to be looking at here. I didn't ask him to pick those songs, but the Holy Spirit evidently knew as we surrender, as we yield to God, our own, our all as we put our all on the altar. However, you want to describe it as we yield whatever we are and ever we have unto God and abide in him like the branch abiding in the vine. The branch becomes full of what the vine is and that branch is filled or another way of saying it, it's fulfilled. It is saturated, permeated with everything that the vine is. It is full of Christ. And this is God's design for the local church. The church is the body or in other words, a body whose members are filled with him. The one who fills it with himself. And look in Ephesians chapter 3 in verse 19. Ephesians chapter 3 in verse 19. Paul's prayer for the believers in that assembly was that they might know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge. He wants them to know something that's unknowable. Know a little bit more about it. To know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge that you might be filled. filled with all the fullness of God. That is God's design for the body. That's God's design for you and me, for every member in that body, that we might be filled with a fullness of God, that godly character would permeate the local assembly. And he goes on to say in verse 20, unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us. You see, when we are filled with Christ, it is his life and his power that works in us in order to accomplish his perfect will. And there's no other way for a local assembly to accomplish the will of God than. To have each one of us get self out of the way and have our lives be filled with Christ so that his will, his goal, his desire, fills us in such a way that it moves us to accomplish His perfect will through us. We ought to be filled with the fullness of God, His life, His power. And when a visitor comes into the local church, that's what they ought to see. They ought to see Christ in us. They ought to see God. Or as Paul put it to the Corinthians, they ought to fall down and worship and report that God is in you of a truth. And so if the body of Christ is anything, it is the fullness of him who fills it with himself. How is it that we're able to fulfill our ministries? The only way that our ministries could be filled, accomplished and also permeated with the kind of life that is necessary to accomplish it God's way. is the same kind of a challenge that Paul is giving to Archippus, that he would fill and fulfill his ministry. In other words, Paul doesn't want when when Paul writes to Archippus and says, I want you to fulfill your ministry, it doesn't just mean his his his request is not this. He's not saying Archippus show up for work every day. It's not just do all your duties, but rather it's do all your duties as you are filled with the fullness of God, fulfilling your ministry as one that is complete or filled, full of Christ. That's how our ministries are to be conducted. And that's the only way any ministry is ever going to be acceptable in God's sight. And that's a challenge to us all. The local church ought to be full of him, not us, but him turn to second Corinthians, chapter four, second Corinthians, chapter four. Paul wrote to an assembly where this was an issue. In current, the church of Corinth was in danger of. becoming filled with instead of being filled with Christ, it was in danger of becoming filled with Paul and Apollos and other ministers, other men where they took the preeminence and people were siding and polarizing with this Bible teacher or that instead of giving Christ the place that he deserves. And notice in second Corinthians four and verse five, Paul says, for we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus, the Lord and ourselves, your servants for Jesus sake. Almost nothing is more obnoxious than a minister who preaches himself. And he talks about himself and everything he's done and everything he's accomplished, and then when the sermon is over, you know more about him than you do about the Lord. Something isn't right with that kind of teaching. Paul says that we are not to preach ourselves, but rather we are to preach Christ. We're but servants. And Christ is to be the one who fills us and enables us to preach. And he's also to be the goal and the content of the preaching would have preached Christ and him crucified. And that means that the ministry, the message and the methodology and the manner of it all, all ought to focus on the Lord Jesus Christ. He is all in all. And only then will God's purpose for any ministry in the local church be accomplished. Now, Archippus in Colossians four and verse 17 was challenged by the Apostle Paul to fulfill his ministry. And it doesn't just mean. To check off all the things on his to do list, it means rather that he was to be saturated with Christ in such a way that he could really function as a member of the body of Christ. He needed to be faithful, yes, in doing all the required chores and some mundane things that need to be done as well. but he needed to do it as one who was complete in Christ, one who was fulfilled in Christ, one who was full of the fullness of who Christ really is, filled with the Spirit, filled with Christ, filled with the fullness of God, so that he would be able to be a representative of the head, the Lord Jesus, and that's the only way to function in the body, for me, or for you, or for any one of us. Turn to 1 Timothy chapter 4. First Timothy chapter four. In verse 15. Here, Paul writes to Timothy as a minister in the church of Ephesus, and he says, meditate upon these things, give thyself wholly to them that by profiting may appear to all. Paul had just challenged Timothy, we saw this morning in this chapter, he had just challenged him to stir up his gift. And to be faithful in giving attendance to reading and to exhortation and to doctrine, and then he says in verse 15 that he was to meditate on these things, meditate on his responsibility to be a man of God's word. And, he says in verse 15, that he was to give himself wholly to those things. In other words, if somebody is going to be a minister of the gospel, if somebody is going to function as a pastor in a local church, they ought to be given wholly to the Word of God. That's God's definition of what the ministry is all about. So if a person is going to fulfill his ministry as a pastor in a local church, it needs to be God's definition of what the ministry really is. Some men behind the pulpit during the week are busy fulfilling their denominational requirements. Some men are busy trying to fulfill all the expectations of the people. Which is mission impossible. Some men are trying to fulfill all the duties that they have imagined or assumed to be part of the ministry, with soup kitchens and political action and social involvement and all the rest. In other words, it's very possible for a minister of the gospel to be busy in trying to fulfill all these alleged duties and at the same time be negligent To the ministry that God has really called him to. The definition of the ministry as outlined in the Bible. Let me illustrate this some years back, I enrolled in a course in church administration. And being as naive as I am, I don't get out much. I don't get around much. And being as naive as I was, I thought I assumed I was enrolling in a course on the pastoral epistles and maybe some excerpts from the Book of Acts and elsewhere. But oh, no. Let me read to you the chapter titles. how to select new employees, how to help new staff worker get a good start, how to organize the church staff, how to prepare job descriptions, how to establish a formal salary plan, how to help workers develop on the job, how to be a better supervisor, how to develop leadership skills, how to plan and conduct staff meetings, and the role of the personnel committee. These were the ten chapters of the main text for the course. And, you know, we went through half of the book, not one Bible verse, not until we got to the middle of the verse in the middle of the book. And they finally had a verse from, no, not the pastoral epistles, but Proverbs. Now, I like Proverbs. We've been going through Proverbs for years in our Wednesday night prayer meeting. But I'm still naive enough to think that if you sign up for a course on how a church ought to function, that it ought to come from the Bible, not the business. It was like a course in Business 101, business management. It wasn't any different. And some of those ideas they had were good and helpful in their own way. But being as naive as I am, I still think the Bible is the best way to train a young man as to how to function in a local church and how God's work ought to be conducted. Our ministry. You know, it's not up for us to decide what the ministry is. It's up for us to read God's word and determine what the ministry is in God's sight, not what we imagine it to be, not what other folks are doing out there or not what all the Bible colleges are training young men to be skillful in. It's what does the Bible actually say about how a minister ought to function? And as you read through the epistles, it becomes very clear he ought to be a man given to the word. And Paul writes to Archippus and he challenges this man who is functioning as the pastor in the church at Colossae. That he ought to be full, he ought to be fulfilled as he functions as a pastor. He ought to be full of the fullness of God. He ought to be filled with the Holy Spirit. He ought to be wholly given unto the Word of God. And only then will he be equipped and ready to serve as the Lord appoints. Fulfill the ministry. Turn to 1 Corinthians 1. 1 Corinthians 1. In verse 7. So that you come behind and no gift waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The church at Corinth. Like any other local church that has been designed by God, the church at Corinth was not lacking for spiritual gifts. Remember, Paul's exhortation to Archippus is fulfill the ministry that you've received in the Lord. That's his main exhortation to this man to fulfill it. And the local church needed that ministry. The local church needs every ministry. And here we learn of a church in Corinth, and this was certainly not the cream of the crop among the New Testament churches in the first century, this church had its issues, but one thing they weren't lacking in. with spiritual gifts, they were not lacking in talented people able to function in the body. They came behind no church. If we might consider Ephesus and Colossi is the cream of the crop of New Testament churches. The church at Corinth was not behind them. One wit in skill and equipment that God had built into the body. They were not lacking in gifts. The problem is never a lack of gifts. The problem is often a lack of available gifts. Some gifted members could serve in the local assembly, but they're living in sin and are thus disqualified. Some gifted members are too busy with the affairs of this life and the cares of this life and choked out spiritual things, and they're not available to serve in the local church. Some gifted members just aren't faithful. They're not reliable. You can't count on them. For some gifted members, it's beneath them to serve. They're too important to sweep the floor. They're too important to pass out bulletins. And for other gifted members, why, it's above them. Well, I couldn't teach Sunday school. Well, I could never do that. And very often that's just a smoke screen for a false humility. Some gifted members start off using their gifts well in the service of the Lord and over time fizzle out. What we do know is that God has designed the body in such a way that it lacks no gifts. Remember Paul's challenge to Archippus? Fulfill. You've received the ministry in the Lord. Fulfill it. Be full of Christ. Let Christ control your life. Be yielded to the Holy Spirit so that the Holy Spirit has access to every one of the members of your physical body, your mind, your heart, your eyes, your hands, your feet, so that when God speaks, we ought to be able to respond and say, yes, sir, here I am, Lord, send me. In fact, in Colossians 4 and verse 17, When he says, see that thou fulfill it, he uses a present tense which indicates keep on fulfilling it. You see, functioning in the body, being a functional member of the local assembly is a full time lifetime job. It is never finished. If God gave you gave you a gift and he did, then he expects that every one of us use it until he takes us home. And even if we're lying in a nursing home and we can't even move our hands around, we can still pray. And what could be more powerful than that? So keep on fulfilling our ministries. And, you know, our goal ought to be like the Lord Jesus. We're told that he was filled with the spirit as he ministered. He was filled with the spirit. And we are also told that one of his prayer requests or one of his statements in John 17, his high priestly prayer was he said to the father, I have finished the work that thou gave us me to do. He lived his life as one who was filled with the Holy Spirit, filled, yielded, surrendered to God's will, ready to do and say whatever the father wanted. And at the end of his earthly life, he could say, I have fulfilled whatever you wanted me to do. And that ought to be our goal as believers, to be like the Lord Jesus Christ. And Paul said something similar as at the end of his days in Second Timothy, when he looked back over his life and he said, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. God, help us to be able to get to the end of our earthly days and to be able to look back and say, I have finished the course by God's grace, I have finished my course. That ought to be our goal in our prayer request. It's a stewardship, archipelago stewardship, archipelago was given a ministry and he was expected to fulfill it to be filled. To have God's word permeate, saturate his mind and his heart and his thinking, and to be so yielded to the Holy Spirit that he was that God was able to work in and through him and accomplish whatever God wanted to accomplish through that minister as he ministered to the people. And in that way, it's really the body of Christ. So take heed, Paul says, to your ministry that thou fulfill it. Now, let's flip back to Colossians chapter four once again. Archippus was to fulfill his ministry. His ministry was to give himself wholly to the word of God. Poor Archippus, poor Archippus didn't live in the age in which we live. He didn't have the helpful resources that we have today. He had to depend on studying God's word and digging into it and spending hours and hours comparing scripture and scripture and studying the word and looking up words and all the rest. Poor archivists didn't have access to the things that I get in the mail. Like this came last week. I get all kinds of great things in the mail. You wouldn't believe the sorts of things they sent to churches in the mail. Where has this been for the last 25 years? If I sign up for the pastor's resources, I'll get 141 free sermons. You know, I mean, I wouldn't even have to open my Bible for the next six months. This is the greatest thing. Poor Archippus, he didn't have that sort of thing. All he had was the Bible. And you know what? What makes this so pitifully sad is the fact that they're selling these resources and offering these things means there's a market for it. And men in the ministry. Are taking advantage of these things, which means that they may be busy in the ministry. They may be busy in a ministry of their own imagination, or they may be busy trying to fulfill all the expectations of the people, or they may be ministry busy in a ministry of social work or political action or all the rest, but they're not giving themselves wholly to God's word. And that's the ministry as God defines it. So poor octopus had to study the Bible all the time and sometimes he got weary and discouraged and Paul had to write to him as he did now and warns him to take heed to fulfill that ministry. And of hope, we understand I'm being facetious here. Now, let's look at that charge once again. And as we read through verse 14, we might easily skip over this thought. Notice in verse 17, Paul says, now remember who he's addressing. This is the apostle Paul in Rome, in jail, writing a letter addressed to the church, the believers, the congregation in the city of Colossi. And so Paul says, and say you, the congregation of the church at Colossi. Paul wanted the congregation to tell Archippus this. This is not an exhortation coming directly from the Apostle Paul to Archippus. Rather, this is a coming to Archippus indirectly from the Apostle Paul, but directly from the congregation. The Colossians, the recipients of this letter, are to deliver this challenge, this warning, this exhortation, however you want to describe it, to Archippus to take heed to the ministry that he's received in the Lord to fulfill it. Paul wanted the congregation to challenge the minister to keep on ministering. Now, Archippus, as the pastor in the church, had authority in the local church. It was the shepherd under Christ, but he was the shepherd and it was a position of authority. However, a person in the position of authority in the local church, whether he's a pastor, an elder or a deacon or anybody else, He is still under the authority of God's Word. And ministers and pastors and pastor teachers are to be held accountable for the ministry. And that's what Paul is challenging the believers in Colossae. He's telling them to challenge their pastor to take heed, to be faithful and fulfilling his responsibilities. You know, we have built into our church constitution and the constitution is certainly not on par with the Bible, but it hopefully is derived from principles in the Bible. And we have built into our constitution that if I is the pastor. Step aside from the doctrine or the practice of God's word, the rest of the board of elders has a God given responsibility to tap me on the shoulder, and if I'm unrepentant, I'm out. And that's the way it ought to be. The pastor doesn't have the right or he doesn't have the authority to do whatever he wants and to teach whatever he wants. And so Paul is telling the congregation in Colossi, and this is a good exhortation for every one of us. I have a responsibility as an overseer to oversee the flock. But here's a passage that says you as a congregation have a responsibility to pay attention to what I'm saying. not only to heed the things that are in harmony with God's word, but also to challenge me if I step out of line. If I sort of dwindle off, if I sort of diminish in my time and studying the word, if I'm not fulfilling the God given responsibilities that I have as a shepherd in this flock, it's your responsibility to say to me, take heed to your ministry that I'll fulfill it. So it's a two way street and this is God's design for the local church. Turn to Hebrews, chapter three, Hebrews, chapter three and verse 13. but exhort one another daily while it is called today, lest any one of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. No believer is above exhortation. I need to be exhorted. I need to be challenged. And so does so to every one of you. And this is the way God's body is to function. The pastor is one member of the congregation. The office is important, but the person isn't. And we need to be exhorting one another. This isn't just among the congregation, but this is the congregation to the pastor, the pastor, to the congregation, to every member among all the members of the body. We need to challenge one another because sin is very deceitful and hearts can become hardened over time. And that's why Paul needed to challenge Timothy to stir up that gift that was in him. Maybe he was becoming feeble and timid and fearful, and he needed to stir it up and not be ashamed of the testimony of the Lord. And perhaps Archippus, for one reason or another, may not have been fulfilling his responsibilities. And so Paul writes to the congregation to challenge the pastor to be diligent in fulfilling those responsibilities, to be filled with Christ day in and day out. To be saturated with the word of God and to be yielded to the Holy Spirit so that God can work through that man as he teaches God's word and the sheep can be fed. And so we have a responsibility, one to another. And, you know, one word of exhortation can mean a lot to a person. A fearful Timothy can be emboldened. to stand up and take courage in Christ. A discouraged octopus can be challenged to be faithful and fulfilling his responsibilities. And so there are some good lessons for us, as Paul writes to the Colossians and challenges them to exhort their pastor. And in all of this, we can learn to take heed to our own ministries. You have a ministry. God designed you. He saved you. He made you as a functioning member of the body of Christ. And he placed you either as an elbow or a finger or an ear or a toe or a foot. He is by design, by birth, he has placed you in the body as it has pleased him. He has equipped you to function in the body. And he expects every one of us to fulfill our ministry. to be filled with Christ in such a way, to be yielded to the Holy Spirit in such a way that the Spirit can use us and fill us with the life and power and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, so that we're all doing and functioning the way God designed. And the end result of that is Christ is all in all. And it is truly a body of Christ. And we can go from this place filled and fulfilled, complete in Christ and knowing it and resting in it and walking in the power of the Lord, walking in the works that God has foreordained before the foundation of the earth that we should walk in. And as we live that sort of life out there in the world, it is just naturally going to open doors for us to share the good news of Christ. But it requires that we fulfill our ministries. That we are filled with him, filled with his power in his life. Ministering for him in the local assembly, filled with the fullness of God, manifesting Christ, exhorting one another daily, because sooner or later, every one of us is going to start fizzling out. We need to be challenged and encouraged. And as we do. God's glorious purpose for our individual lives and the local assembly is accomplished. And when we're filled with the fullness of God and we carry out the ministry that God has designed, and when we're filled with and empowered by the Holy Spirit, the end result of anything good that ever comes from any one of us individually or all of us put together corporately, if anything good comes of it at all, God gets all the glory. It's the fullness of him. The church ought to be filled with the fullness of him who fills it with himself. And so we need to take heed to our ministries, whatever it is. God expects us to do it in the power of the Holy Spirit and for his glory that Christ might be magnified. Let's pray. Our God and our heavenly father, we thank and praise you today for your goodness and grace and mercy. We thank you, Lord, that in grace You reach down and drew us to yourself and saved us and made us members of the body of Christ. And wonder of wonders, the living God chose to dwell and reside in us. that we might be filled with him and his life to manifest it to those around us. Father, help us to fulfill our ministry. Help us, Lord, to be faithful to the end, that we might, at the end of our days, be able to look back over our lives and say, as the Apostle Paul did, I have finished my course. I have kept the faith. Lord, may that be our goal and our prayer request. In Jesus' name, amen.