We're going to Colossians chapter 1. If you're visiting with us today, welcome to our service. And you can get a pew Bible in front of you. It's the red Bible and it's page 1046, 1046. And we preach the Word of God here. That's what we do. We preach Christ and all we do is explain the scriptures and we apply it to our life by the Spirit of God. And so that's what we're going to do here. this morning. What's the craziest job that you've ever interviewed for? You ever gone to an interview or maybe even just saw a job description and looked at it and you thought, what are they asking me to do? I thought I'd tell you a little story this morning about my wife. Is that okay? Okay, just kidding. I already asked her. When she was in college, she was sitting in the dining room, dining common there. And this is up in Wisconsin. And she saw an advertisement for working somewhere. And she thought, well, I need a job, so maybe I could go there. And it was a farm, good old farm in Wisconsin. If you're from Wisconsin. Anyone from Wisconsin? Okay, so that's how they say it up there, Wisconsin. So she got in her black Honda, asked one of her friends to go just for safety, you know, and so they go to this farm, and you know, the sprawling fields, and the big barn, and they get out of their black Honda there. You know, she's a Michigan girl, you know, city girl. She's going to this farm. And she thought to herself, you know, well, she likes the country air and she likes to run. She was a cross country girl. So it's like, you know, this would be a great time just to work outside and just enjoy it. And she got out of the car and she smelled the fresh country air. What did it smell like? That's right, like manure. That was a little bit of a wake up call, wasn't it? And she went with her friend up to the barn and there's this Wisconsin, you know, farmer comes out, don't you know? And you know, this is my, this is my barn here, eh? You know, that's how they talk up there, with their, through their nose like that. want to come with. They don't do the meat, want to come with to my barn. So they take her to the barn there and there's about a hundred cows, 75 to 100 cows in there and big old cows and her friends right there and for moral support. And he says, let me show you how to do this. So, you know, he gets under the cow and starts wiping off the udders and put an iodine on and all this. And he says, you got to be careful. Sometimes they kick, you know, they can kick you. So be careful about that. And so, He says, OK, why don't you go ahead and try? And so Dana, of course, was very gracious and said, actually, my friend wants to try first. So she did. So her friend went. And sure enough, her friend's trying to do this. She wasn't there for the job. She was just helping Dana. And sure enough, the cow kicked over the iodine. And Dana goes, I don't think I want this job. So she went back and got a job babysitting through college. Well, we're going to look at a job today. Actually, it's a job that God calls all of us to, but it's also the job that Paul describes that he had. It was his job. It was Paul's personal job description given to him from God. We're going to look in Colossians chapter 1, verses 24 through 29. If you read the verses previous to that, if you remember from two weeks ago, we saw the glorious truth that we can be reconciled to God. through Jesus Christ and the work that he's done for us. If you look at the end of verse 23, we see that Paul transitions now, and now speaking about the ministry that he has, and that is telling people that they can be reconciled to God. Look at the end of verse 23. It says, Colossians chapter 1, 23 says, I, Paul, became a minister. And I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of his body, which is the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God, which was given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God. The mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to his saints. To them God willed to make known. what is known, what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. And to this end, I also labor, striving according to His working, which works in me mightily. Let's pray. Father, we come to your Word here. We ask that your Spirit will help us to understand it. God, I pray that you'll open our eyes. Maybe there's someone in here today who doesn't know you. They've never been reconciled to you. Maybe today will be the day where they see the glorious truth of your Word and come in saving faith to Christ. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, in Colossians there, we see Paul's description of his ministry. In some sense, you might say it's a job description that Paul gives. What's the title that Paul gives himself there? I mean, he had a lot of titles he could have given, right? He could have been the apostle to the Gentiles. I mean, the apostle to the Gentiles, right? Not just apostle. He could have been prophet of God. God spoke to him. He could have been the man of God, right? But no. What does he say at the end of verse 23? I, Paul, became a what? A minister. Look at the beginning of verse 25. Paul says, I became a minister. This word minister means servant. It's the Greek word diakonos. And Paul says, he goes on to say, I became a minister, a diakonos, a servant, according to the stewardship. The word stewardship here was a word that was used to describe a servant who had responsibilities. And so, remember Joseph, he was a steward of Potiphar's house. And so Paul says, man, I'm a steward, I'm a servant, I have responsibilities. And who is he serving? What does he say there? Who is he serving in verse 24 and 25? I rejoice in my sufferings for you. And he says, I fill up my flesh, what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ for the sake of his body, which is the church. Verse 25, of which I became a minister, a diakonos, according to the stewardship from God, which was given to me for you. Paul was a servant of Christ for the church to the world. And you could say it like this. This was Paul's job title. Christ's servant for the church. In fact, over and over again in the scriptures you see Paul doing that. Ephesians chapter 1, or Ephesians chapter 3 verse 7, Paul says, I became a minister, a diakonos, according to the gift of the grace of God given to me. Look in Colossians chapter 1 verse 7. You can see here Paul describes one of his fellow brothers, Epaphras. And Epaphras was sent by Paul to plant churches here in the Lycus Valley, which is where Colossae was. And in Colossians 1, 7, it says, Epaphras, a dear fellow servant, and this is the word doulos, the Greek word doulos, which means slave. So he's saying, Epaphras is a slave, and I'm a fellow slave, who is also a faithful minister. That's the word servant, diakonos. So it's the same word he used in verse 23 and 25. He's a servant of Christ, so he's Christ's servant, and it's on your behalf. It's for the church. And so Epaphras was a servant of Christ for the church. Paul was a servant, Epaphras was a servant, but also the man that was taking this letter to the church was a servant as well. Look in Colossians 4, verse 7. A man named Tychicus. And Tychicus was sent by Paul to read this letter in the church of Colossae. And verse 7 of chapter 4 says, Tychicus, a beloved brother, a faithful diakonos, and a fellow servant, that's doulos, slave, in the Lord. He will tell you the news about me. And so he's saying, listen, these men are servants of mine. Now you say, what's the big deal? I mean, So Paul's a servant, they're servants, and that's great, right? Well, I think in our modern society, we've cheapened the word servant, right? Because back at this time, nobody wanted to be called a servant. We have people that are called the Minister of the Health and Human Services, or this man is a senator, he's an important person, and he's a public servant. Well, back then, you wouldn't want to be called a servant, because a servant had no rights. They were the lowest person in that society. They had no rights, no respect, and little freedom. You didn't own things, you were the one that was owned. Therefore, to call yourself a servant back in that day was an attack upon your pride, upon your status. So when Paul uses words like doula, slave, and diakonos, servant, it's even more impactful Because listen, a man that was coming with Tychicus was a man named Onesimus. Remember who Onesimus was? He actually was a slave. He actually was owned by a master. Onesimus was coming with Tychicus to this city here of Colossae. If you look down in Colossians chapter 4, verse 9, we see this. And at some point along the way, Onesimus, he ran away from his master, and he got saved, and he met Paul. And at some point also, Philemon, who was his master, got saved, and he joined the church of Colossae there. And so Paul writes a letter called the Book of Philippians. You can turn six books over in your Bible and you can find the Book of Philippians. But you see that book in there. And so here you have Tychicus taking Paul's letter, the Book of Colossians, to this church. And here you have Onesimus going along with Tychicus taking a book, or I should say a letter, to his former master Philemon. And so we picture this. Here's Tychicus coming before the church. He has the letter from Paul and he's reading it. He's saying, listen, I'm a, I'm a slave. Paul says, I'm a slave. Tychicus is a slave. Paphras is a slave. And then he reads Colossians chapter four, verse nine. Now think about this, here's all these people he's saying are slaves, they're the important people in the church. And think about it, maybe Onesimus is standing in the corner over there and everyone's going, okay, isn't that the slave? In Colossians 4 and 9 it says, with Onesimus, a faithful and beloved brother who is one of you, they will make known to you the things that are happening here. Notice he's not called a servant, he's called a brother. Think about that impact upon that. I mean, now in our society, we think, well, what's the big deal? But that's huge then. I mean, he's taken the leadership and he said, you're slaves, you're the lowest. And he took the slave and he said, you're a brother. You're just like everyone else. And he's calling all of us as well, to that same status, and that is to serve, to serve the church. We're to follow this pattern, the pattern of Paul, which was ultimately the pattern of Jesus Christ. First Peter 4.10 says, as each one, as every person in the church, you've received a gift, that's the grace of God in your life, a specific work of grace. Minister that, diakonos it to one another, to those in the church, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. So we, every one of us in here, we have a job And our job title is servant, servant for the church, servant of Christ. And so we are called to be servants. So first, as Christ's servant, we must be sacrificial. We must be sacrificial. Look at Colossians chapter one, verse 24. If you guys want to click that for me up there, that'd be great. Thank you. Colossians 1 verse 24 says, Paul says, I now rejoice in my sufferings for you and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ for the sake of his body, the church. And Paul describes right here that he has suffered for the church. What we see here is Paul saying, I'm willingly going to give up my rights and my freedom and my comforts for the sake of the church. I'm gonna serve the church sacrificially. Now think about Paul, where is he writing this letter from? Where is he writing it from? He's in prison, right? And think about this, 25% of his ministry was in prison. And Paul suffered, didn't he? Listen to this. I'll just read a couple passages for you. 1 Corinthians 4.11. This is Paul saying, let me just tell you a little bit about my suffering. To this present hour, we were both hungry and thirsty. We're poorly clothed. I mean, you're in a prison. You only get what people bring to you. We're roughly treated. We're homeless. 2 Corinthians 11, 23, I've worked much harder. I've been imprisoned frequently. I've been flogged more severely. I've been exposed to death again and again. Verse 24 of that same passage. Five times I received from the Jews 40 lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. I spent a night and a day in the open sea. I've been constantly on the move. I've been in danger from rivers. I've been in danger from bandits. I've been in danger from my own countrymen. I've been in danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the country, danger at sea, danger with false brothers. I've labored. I've toiled. I've gone without sleep. I've known hunger and thirst and gone without food. I've been cold. I've been naked. Besides everything else, I have faced the burden of the church. That's suffering, wouldn't you say? I mean, think about that. Paul, though, willingly did that, didn't he? Why? Because he loved the church. He loved people. He wanted to see people come into the church when they accepted Christ as their savior, and he wanted to see people grow in the church. And he loved Jesus. And he did it with joy. Notice in verse 24 he says, I now rejoice in my sufferings. I mean, how is that possible? Because you're rejoicing not in the actual suffering, you're rejoicing in what it produces. You're suffering because you love God and it helps people know about God. And he says in verse 24 there, he goes, I fill up, which means to complete. And what is he completing? He says he's completing in the afflictions of Christ. What does that mean? Well, it does not mean that this is somehow adding to the work of atonement on the cross. It doesn't mean that he's adding to the work of Jesus' work on the cross. Look at Colossians 1.20, and you can see that right there. I mean, we could show you many verses, but in that verse, it says, he, that's Jesus, that's in the past, He made peace through the blood of the cross. So it's done. I mean, peace It's been established. Jesus did it on the cross and that work is done. That's why when Jesus was on the cross, what did he say? He said, it is finished. Right? What was finished? Finished. The atoning work that he had to provide for our justification and our forgiveness and our redemption and reconciliation to God. So that work was done. So this does not mean that he's filling up in Christ's sufferings on the cross. So what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ? Well, we're going to quickly just go through this. If you will go with me to John chapter 15. And this is when Jesus is speaking with his disciples, and this is the night before he's going to die. And he is prophesying to them about what is going to happen to them. So they're about to see him be taken away, to be beaten, mocked, whipped, and then killed. And basically what he's gonna tell them here is, you're gonna see that, and just so you know, remember, it's actually gonna happen to you too. And so he says in John 15, 18, Jesus says, if the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I choose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Look at verse 20. Remember the word that I said to you, a servant, there we go, that's what we're called to be, servants, a servant. is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, what will they do? They will persecute you." And so Jesus promises that this would continue on. The affliction upon Jesus would be the affliction upon the church, upon the people of the church, and specifically there the disciples. Go to Acts chapter 9. And the book of Acts really speaks of the persecution upon the church. And one of the men leading that was a man named Saul, who later his name was changed to Paul, and he's the one that wrote the book of Colossians. And in chapter 9 we see Paul converts to Christianity. Christ appears to him and speaks to him. In verse 3 it says, He came near Damascus and suddenly a light shone around him from heaven. And he fell to the ground and he heard a voice saying, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Now think about that. It's Jesus speaking to Paul and he says, why are you persecuting me? And you say, well, wait a second, isn't Jesus in heaven? Isn't he a physical presence in heaven? Well, yeah. So Paul is persecuting Jesus. How is that possible? Well, it's possible because we as a church are the body of Christ. He is the head. So when you persecute the church, who are you persecuting? Christ as well. So the affliction that we face is the affliction that Christ faces as well. In fact, if you look down at verse 15, Jesus promises that Paul will face the same affliction too. In verse 15 it says, So go back to Colossians chapter 1, you'll see there, In verse 24, when he's speaking here of the afflictions of Christ, he's saying, I'm going to fill up. In other words, I am going to suffer, right? And I am suffering. It's what God promised the disciples and the church. And he promised that to me. And so that his suffering is fulfilling the promise of Christ that the church would suffer. And he's saying, really, that the affliction that you face as a church is the affliction of Christ. And he's not saying that that suffering brings salvation. That suffering brings the gospel to the world. I mean, isn't that amazing to think about? And truly, someone once said that the blood of the church is the seed of the gospel, isn't it? And when you think about it right now, we have brothers and sisters around the world who are suffering for the gospel. And we heard about a little bit of that this morning with the lociers, didn't we? We had a great time this morning. I hope you'll come back tonight. But you think about it, people right now, they're believers right now who are being mocked, who are being slandered, whipped, imprisoned as servants of Christ for the church. And as I look at our church, as I look at Calvary Baptist, I look at us and we definitely don't sacrifice to that degree, do we? Do we? But we do have many men and women in here that sacrifice. And I was thinking through different individuals. And the problem is, is that there's just too many people to name. But I mean, I see people all the time who are serving the Lord. I was in the deacon's meeting this past Monday, and I'm sitting in the deacon's meeting and just looking at all these men. So here are men who are called deacons, that's the word diakonos, so they are servants to the church. And you know what's really encouraging? Is these men really truly are serving our church. I mean, I look around the room, I saw men who are teaching children, they're teaching adults, they're leading community groups, they're in people's homes, they're praying for people, they're coming to your Sunday class. A lot of these men in there are also part of the pulpit committee, so they come on Monday night, then they go again on another night of the week, sometimes twice a week. I mean, these people, they're serving in so many different ways, and so these men are serving. You know what? God has called all of us to follow that type of example, and that is to joyfully sacrifice our lives for the good of the church. So we're to sacrifice. Those are the qualities. Well, we're here in the job interview, OK? Now, you might not have thought that this morning you're coming to a job interview, but that's what you have right now, OK? So we went through the qualities, and now we're going to go through the responsibilities. So this little paper you have in front of you is a job description. Are you ready to take the job yet? You might be like, I heard that description about Paul suffering. I don't know. Well, stick to the end. We'll find out the whole story. So your responsibilities include going to your assigned mission field. Look at verse 25. Paul says, "...of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God." God had assigned Paul a mission field, didn't he? We heard that when Jesus told Paul that you are a chosen vessel of mine to tell my name before the Gentiles and kings. So Paul said, God says, hey, listen, I have a place for you to go. I have people I want you to minister to. And so as servants of Christ, he has a stewardship for us. He has people that he wants us to go and reach for Christ. I mean, every one of you in here has a different group of people in a different place than other people. And God has assigned that to you. And that assignment is for the purpose of making known the word of God. Look at verse 25, of which I became a servant, a minister according to the stewardship from God, which was given to me for you to fulfill, or you could say it this way, to make known. The Word of God. And God gave Paul his word, and it was Paul's desire to serve the church by making known the Word of God to as many people as possible. What does that look like? What does it look like to make known the Word of God? Well, he goes through that in the next couple of verses. Look at verse 26. And he says that there's a mystery. The idea of mystery isn't something that we have to discover. We don't know what it's about. And it's actually something that has once been hidden, but has now been revealed. And so it was hidden from the Old Testament saints, but to the New Testament saints, it's been revealed in the scriptures. And so you see that in verse 26, when it says the mystery, which has been hidden from ages and from generations, Verse 26, So what is that mystery? Verse 27, And here's the mystery. which is Christ, that's the mystery, Christ in you, the hope of glory. And notice that phrase, the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles. Now that's an amazing phrase right there. And honestly, you could do a whole series on that one phrase right there. We don't have time for that, but I do wanna do this. Let's go to the book of Ephesians, if you will, Ephesians chapter three, and just explore a couple of verses to help us to understand what he's speaking of when he speaks of the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you. And Ephesians actually has many parallel passages to Colossians. So if you're trying to understand something in one of those books, it's always good to see what the parallel is in the other book. And so Colossians chapter 3 speaks of this mystery, Colossians 3 verse 5, this mystery, which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men as it has been revealed. So we saw that in verse 26, there's a revelation. Well, what's the revelation? Well, by the spirit to his holy apostles and prophets. And so the holy apostles and prophets, they were inspired to write scripture. So what he's talking about there, he's saying the Holy Spirit inspired these men to write scripture. So how do we know about the mystery? It's because of the scriptures, the Bible. And so what is the mystery in verse number six? It says that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs. They should, in other words, they can have the inheritance with Christ of the same body and partakers of his promise in Christ through the gospel, the good news. So when they trust in the good news, they can have the inheritance of Christ. They can share in the inheritance of Christ. Go to Ephesians chapter one, flip over there two chapters. In Ephesians chapter one, we see this again. And like I said, we're not gonna really go through and explain all this. I'll just show this to you. But Ephesians 1.11, in him, in other words, when you have Jesus, when you receive Jesus Christ, and he is yours, in him also we have obtained an inheritance. So you get the benefit of what comes with him. That's the inheritance of Christ. Verse 13, in him you trusted after you heard the word of truth. So you heard the word of truth, the gospel, which is that Jesus died, rose again, right? in the gospel of your salvation in whom you having believed. And so this is how you receive the inheritance. It's not by works, not something you'd be good enough for. He says you get the inheritance of being with Jesus forever and everything that Jesus has and really a personal relationship with Jesus by just believing in the gospel. And you are sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. And so remember, we're talking about Christ in you. So here he's speaking of that. He gives us his spirit, the spirit of Jesus Christ comes and he guarantees us in verse 14, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchase possession. So the Holy Spirit is within us. And who's the purchase possession? We are. Jesus purchased us with His blood, and so the Holy Spirit is within us. And that song they just sang right there is what it's talking about. We're looking forward to the day when either Christ will come back, or we will die in the purchased possession. We'll get what we desire, and that is the inheritance. And we're guaranteed that through the Spirit of God within us. In verse 18, he says that you may know what is the hope of his calling, the hope, the expectation. Remember the hope of glory, the hope for glory, you could actually say it. So the hope of his calling, what are the riches of the glory? There's the same phrase in Colossians, of his inheritance to the saints. So go back to Colossians chapter 1 now. And consider that in Colossians 1, 12, we see that Paul prayed, what? He prayed, you'd be thankful because of what you receive. What have we received? The inheritance. And he goes on after verse 12 and say, Jesus owns the rights to the inheritance. He's the firstborn. He has the rights. He's not, he wasn't actually physically born. Well, he was as a baby, but he wasn't born of God. But he had to own the rights to that, and we talked about that a couple weeks ago. But down in verse 27 now we see how he applies that inheritance to us. In verse 27 we see that to them God willed to make known what are the riches, And there's the riches of glory, and that's of the inheritance, right? So that's talking about the inheritance that we receive in Christ, of this mystery among the Gentiles, so it's for all people. And actually, interestingly, in Colossians, it says it's for slave and free, so everyone's equal in Christ, which is so radical for that time, for that age. I mean, there was no such thing as that back then. But knowing Jesus, it's for all people, Jews, Gentiles, slave, free. Which is this? Christ in you, the hope of glory. And so that's the mystery. The mystery really is this. It's Jesus Christ. And it's not just a factual thing. You know, there's a Messiah. He was God. He died for us. But actually it's that it's personal. It's Christ in you. It's that you can have a personal relationship with him. The mystery is that Christ is yours and he bestows upon you all the riches that are his. And He gives you the hope of glory. What does that mean? Really, you could say it this way, the hope for glory, for glory. And that is that we can have the expectation and the guarantee that we will receive the full glorification of that inheritance that Christ promised us. Now, for many years, I've worked with children and teens. And I'll hear people sometimes get in front of children and they'll say something like, you know, you need to, boys and girls, you need to ask Jesus into your heart. And sometimes a child will say, you know, you know, maybe they'll come up to a leader and talk to them and say, well, how does Jesus get in your heart? Okay, and so sometimes it can be confusing. I'm gonna let you on a little mystery of my own, and that is this, is that I'm not a big fan of saying that, okay? I don't think you should probably say that to children, partly because they get confused, right? Because they think very literal. They're thinking Jesus is shrinking down to size, and somehow he's coming like the ant, you know? I've not seen the movie, but the Ant-Man or whatever that is, probably shouldn't have said that. But anyways, he comes inside you, and how does that work, okay? Well, I don't know. But it can be misunderstood by children. But also saying that phrase, Jesus in you, or ask Jesus into your heart, I should say, or Christ in you is how we could say it another way. It's actually inaccurate to use it in that way. So we must make sure that we use it in an appropriate way. And sometimes people go to the extreme of, well, we don't even want to say that. We don't even want to say Jesus Christ is in us, you know, because I don't want people to get confused by that. But we must use it in an accurate way. So how do we use it in an accurate way? What does it mean that Christ is in you? Well, first of all, it's not talking about the means of salvation. To say it in that way, to say, well, you need to ask Jesus into your heart, that's actually not the way a person gets saved, is asking Jesus into your heart. Christ in you, Jesus in you, actually is the application of Christ's work in your inner person by His Spirit. So let me say that again. Jesus in you or Christ in you speaks of the application of Christ's work upon your inner person by His Spirit. When I believed in Jesus, I looked back at what He did, right? The time in history when He lived a perfect life, He was righteous, when He died and He rose again. And I believe in that. So I believe that Christ did that for me. And when I believe Christ does something in me, and that is that He, through His Spirit, applies to my heart His work. And so he gives me his righteousness. I'm dead to sin. I'm risen again to new life. Now, some of you are like, I am completely lost, okay? Well, good news for you because chapter two and three, we're gonna talk about this and we're gonna talk about how it applies to your life. So that's really good. But let me give you that for instance here. Galatians chapter 2 verse 20, I've been crucified with Christ. So Christ was crucified, right? But I've been crucified with Christ. In other words, Christ, through his spirit, applied the work of crucifixion to my inner person. But it says no longer it's I who live, but it's Christ in me. Christ's spirit lives in me. And so how is that? It's through his spirit and his spirit applies the work of Christ's work to my inner person. And so now I have fellowship with Jesus because his spirit was within me and I have a relationship with him. Okay, some of you are like, we went a little deep there, okay? We'll come back to the surface, come back to the job interview here, okay? And we'll see if you want this job. Your responsibilities include going to your assigned mission field, making known the word of God. And the third thing here is counseling and teaching every person about Jesus. I mean, really all that we just said right there can be somewhat confusing maybe, but the job is simple. Our job is simple. We're just going to tell people about Jesus, making known the word of God. And how do we do that? Verse 28. What does it say? How do we make known Christ? Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom. Preaching includes what I'm doing right now, but it's more than that. It's actually the word preaching means to proclaim. proclaiming Christ. It's speaking of Christ. And notice what Paul does here. He actually switches from the singular, I rejoice, I minister, to the plural. And now he says, we preach. That's interesting, isn't it? Why do you think he did that? Why does he go from here's what I've done, now here's what we do. And I think Paul here is including the Colossian church in this exhortation to proclaim Christ. I think there's two possible reasons for this. One is that it is the job of every person in the church to support the preaching of God's word. I mean, think about this. This is what we're doing right now. This is the heartbeat of our church, right? This is who we are. There's a lot of things we do, but we preach Christ. We proclaim Jesus Christ through the word, and we support that. And one way we do that is we attend, right? We feast on the word. Hopefully you have your Bible. Hopefully you have a pen. Hopefully you're studying, you're learning, you're growing. But also we pray. I mean, hopefully you're praying for the preaching of God's word. Hopefully you're praying for our missionaries like the Zimmers and the Loeshers. And as they proclaim Christ, Then also, we give. We give. I mean, one of the reasons that we have a budget, right, is to support this right here and what's happening in those classrooms there, the preaching and teaching of God's Word. But I think number two, also, I believe the other reason is because we are all to be participating in the proclamation of Christ. Maybe not in this forum, maybe not up here, but you are to go to every person, everyone, and proclaim Christ. In fact, that's what he says there, right? Warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom. It's really interesting, those two words. You see, with warning there's the negative, and with teaching you see kind of the positive. And that's kind of how teaching is, right? There's a negative and there's a positive. And the word warning there is very interesting. Because actually, it's the Greek word noutheo. And you're like, why does that even matter? Well, much of my training that I've had in biblical counseling has been with organizations that call their counseling nouthetic counseling. And the idea behind that word is this, is that euthetic means to correct wrong thinking, which really is the source of our problems, right? The Bible says our heart is deceitful above all things. It's desperately wicked. Who can know it, right? And so we have to have the Word of God. correct our thinking. That's what counseling is. It's not really counseling. We sometimes think it's for the really bad people. We all need counseling. In fact, the truth is we should all be counseling each other with the Word of God. And counseling basically is this. It just helps a person correct his wrong thinking as he applies Christ to his everyday life. In fact, look over in Colossians chapter 3. This is interesting if you see Colossians 3.16. It says, let the word of Christ, so there's God's word, dwell in you richly with all wisdom, so there's the wisdom we saw back in 128, teaching, that's the same word you find over there in 128, and admonishing, there's the word, right there. So we're to be doing this with each other. We're to take the word of God that he's teaching us, we're to be counseling each other, in some sense warning each other of wrong thinking and also of the right thinking, which is what Christ wants us to, how he wants us to follow him. And so what are we, what's the content of our preaching? When we, when we're up here preaching, when we go out and we talk to people, I mean, what should be the main thing in our life? What does it say? We preach what? Him we preach, which is Christ, right? We're to preach Christ. And I'm going to say, I think that's why in this pulpit, I appreciate the fact that Pastor Dean for many years did not get up here and preach politics. Right? I mean, a lot of people in here love politics or his hobby horse, you know, or his little thing he had. Right? And really that's the commitment of this pulpit right here. We're not going to get up and speak about Donald Trump, how much we love him or hate him. Right? We're not going to get up and speak about, here's the political issue that we preach Jesus. Right? Someone come up to me in the coffee shop the other day when I was talking to someone, they said, hey, you guys solving the problems of the world? I thought to myself, actually? Jesus already solved them. We don't need to solve them, right? And the point is that we preach Jesus Christ because he is the answer. He's the answer for the warning and he is the answer for the teaching. It's been great to have our missionaries, hasn't it? One thing that's really neat about them is they're just regular people, aren't they? Right? They're just regular people. I mean, hearing Walter and Carol this morning, it's like, she's going in there. She has a medical background. She's going to the hospital. What's she doing? She's helping people, right? And then she's like, what, can I pray for you? Remember, she said this morning, there's some people that are there in the hospital that come that are Muslim. And she goes in there and she says, hey, before we have surgery, can I pray for you? And she's just living her life, right? loving these people. And then as they talk about Jesus, she's able to talk, or as they're interested in her life, she's able to talk to them about Jesus. I think last week was interesting, just listening to John Zimmer. He gets over there and he's like, no one wants to talk to us, right? Remember that? It's like, Sunday night he said that, no one wants to talk to us. He's walking around and he's like, well, I need some wood for my house. So go get a mill. And so you're just milling some wood. And then someone says, hey, can I have some wood? And he goes, yeah, let's do a Bible study. I'm not going to talk about religion or anything. I'm just going to talk about the Bible." And he's like, oh, okay, that sounds great. And that person does a Bible study, and they're like, oh, Jesus is the answer. I want to be saved. He starts doing Bible studies, and he starts putting stuff on his roof for solar panels, and someone goes, hey, how do you do that? Can you teach me to do that? He goes, oh, yeah, let's do a Bible study, and I'll teach you how to do it. Oh, okay. They start doing that. People start getting saved. Wow. And it's like, hey, you know what? I'm gonna go to the outer islands and tell those people about Christ. And he goes to the government and says, hey, can we do this? And they go, you know, we don't want people talking about religion. He's like, well, I'm just gonna talk about the Bible. I'm not gonna take any of the books, just the Bible, just the Bible and talk about that. And they go, no, no, we don't want that. And then they say, but you do have that solar panel thing. Like, can you show the outer islands how to do that? He's like, yeah, but can I do a Bible study? He's like, oh yeah, do whatever you wanna do. What? And here he is, he's like, oh, the children need to be educated. The education system isn't that good. Well, let's do a school. Let's do this. Let's teach them the Bible. Let's teach them about Jesus. And people are being saved. And what are they doing? It's part of their regular life, isn't it? That's what the locers do. It's part of their regular life. They're not superhumans. They're just obeying, as servants of Christ, what Christ has called them. That is to sacrificially give themselves with joy to the proclamation of Jesus Christ. And so what is? Now our goal, what is our goal? Verse 28 is our goal, that we may present every man perfect or mature or spiritually mature in Christ. So the last part of your job description here is this, as a servant for the church, you are to be helping everyone you meet be more like Jesus. That's pretty simple, isn't it? every person you meet to be more like Jesus. And this is your goal. And this is why you proclaim. through the lost and unbelieving, you wanna see them come to Christ for forgiveness. You want to see them experience the same thing you're experiencing, right? That is the forgiveness from God, that is the reconciliation with God, the fellowship with God. And for those believers that are around you, those fellow Christians, you want every word you say and every deed you do to help that person in their daily walk with the Lord become more like Jesus. And so then you start filtering your mind, your thoughts, as the Holy Spirit is controlling your thoughts and your mind, you start, Filtering that with questions like this, like, okay, wait, how can I help this person be more like Jesus Christ? Okay, am I gonna say this right now? Is this gonna help this person know Jesus more? Is it gonna help this person love Jesus more? And the picture of this verse is this, is that you'll stand before Jesus someday. And he'll say to you, hey, what was your goal in life? And you said, Lord, man, I wanted to bring glory to you. And I really just wanted people to be more like Jesus. And he says, well, how did it go? How'd you do? And you go, here they are right here. There's my children. I prayed for them. I prayed for them. I did everything intentionally that I could to put the Word of God in their soul, and to love them, and care for them, and to train them up. There's my parents. Now, I obeyed them, and I prayed for them, and I loved them. I wanted to obey them in the Lord. I really wanted to have everything I do to help them become more like Jesus. There's my neighbors right here. I told them the gospel. They got saved. You see the idea? It's like we're standing before Christ and it's like, where's the fruit of it? And we're looking at it right there. We can present every man mature in Christ. And as pastors, though, I would say that we have a greater responsibility because we will say, Lord, here's your church. Here's your church. So pray for your pastors. And by this time, by this time, you may be thinking to yourself, Don't think I really want this job. Servant, that's going to take humility. Sacrificial, that's going to be painful. Joyful, is that even possible? Going to my assigned field, well, I'm going to have to take initiative, I'm going to have to be intentional. Making Christ known with the Word of God, counseling and teaching people about Jesus, well, that's going to take a change in my priorities. Helping everyone I meet be more like Jesus, well, that's going to take patience and love. I don't think I can do this. This sounds like a lot of hard work. Well, I've got news for you. It is. It's a lot of hard work. Look at Paul. He says that. He says, verse 29, to this end, I also labor, striving. Labor speaks of working to the point of exhaustion. Striving is the image of a runner straining with all his might to finish the race. Wow, it's a lot of hard work, isn't it? I mean, in some sense, in our American society, we're like, oh, how can I have the least amount of work, you know? We've gone from going to the TV to clicking it, right, to going to remote, you know? Now you can even just speak it. In fact, I have a remote where you can just push the button, you can just tell the remote what you want it to do, you know? I think it's called like Amazon Prime or something like that. You just tell it and it goes right there. It's like, I could be so lazy, you know? And now when you have kids, your kids can just do it for you. But the point is, is that it's a lot of hard work, isn't it? So how are you able to do this? Well, I got good news, because the last part here is that there are resources for you. And that is Christ is within you, right? Through His Spirit. His Spirit is within you. Verse 29, to this end, I also labor, striving according to His working, which works in me mightily. And He, in this passage, is Jesus Christ. He is working in me. And remember, He's with you. And His union with you gives you the strength and the energy within you to serve humbly, to joyfully sacrifice, to obediently go to your mission field, to change your priorities, to proclaim, to lovingly and patiently help people to become more like Jesus. And you can do it because Jesus Christ is within you. It's Christ in you, the hope for glory. And of course, the last question in any interview is what? What's the last question? Anyone done an interview before? What do they ask on the way out the door? How much do I get paid? Right? Anyone done an interview in here? So how much do you get paid for this? Well, you get the hope for glory. You get the rich inheritance of Jesus. Not because of what you've done, but because of what Christ has done for you on the cross and in you through his spirit. What a great truth, isn't it? God has called us to be servants. Let me ask this question. I'm presenting to you, God is presenting to you this job. Are you willing to take it? Here's a resume, or I should say, here's a job description right here. It's a job description. And this morning, what I'm gonna challenge you to do right now is in your heart to consider this right now. And maybe you've already thought through these things before, but just fresh and anew say, God, make me your servant. I want to be this right here. I look forward to the day when I can have the full inheritance of Jesus. Let's pray. Father, we're so thankful for the revelation of your word that we can know the truth that Christ is in us. and that he forgives us and he reconciles us to you, we can have a relationship with you. God, will you open the minds and hearts of people in here today, and may our hearts right now respond, respond in humility as servants of Christ.