Most of you think the Apostle Paul was a great man. He was a great missionary. But you know what made the Apostle Paul great? He never worked alone. The Apostle Paul was great because he had tons of helpers. Now, when you write a book about God, you would think you would only put in important things, right? Things that everybody needs to know. The first part of Ephesians chapter 4 tells us some important things. But they're not what he's going to talk about in chapter 4. It's just kind of an ending of chapter 3, the first part of chapter 4. And we like to hear these kind of things. Masters treat your bond for servants justly, fairly, knowing that you have a master. Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful with thanksgiving. We like those kind of things. Then he gets down here and he starts talking about people. If you were to write a book about God so everybody would know what God is like, would you just put a list of people in? Well, I mean, most people skip over the last section of Colossians chapter 4. And I'm going to read one verse first of Ephesians 4.16. The necessity of helpers. Coming to church isn't just something we're supposed to do to praise God or to pray with other people. It is to serve. Everybody should come to church to serve. In Ephesians 4, verse 16, God said through Paul, when he's talking about the church, "...from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effect of working by which every part Does it share? And why? Because it causes the growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. You don't realize coming to church, you can have a major impact on people's lives. God has given you some abilities. Maybe, okay, maybe you're one of these people that God gives money to, but greater than money, he gives you generosity. A lot of people have money, they're not generous. We had a lady in our church, our piano was an old one, and since I play the piano, and I'm deaf anyway, but I'm playing away, and she thought it was off-tune too much. So what did she do? She hands me a thousand dollars and says, go buy a keyboard. She could have handed me three and I could have done that, but she gave me a thousand, so I had to buy a nice keyboard. What was she? God gave her a giving gift. She saw a need in the church. Now, if she didn't come to church, she just stayed home like everybody else watching TV, she never would have exercised that. Sometimes I was talking to a pastor yesterday, and I said something, I don't remember what I said. And he says to me, I really needed that. We were in a Bible study at his church, his Bible study. He's a young guy in his 40s. And we talked afterwards and I just said something, and it changed something in him. Coming to church is for that reason. You say something to somebody, they say something to you, you hear something from them and they can pray for you or you can pray for them. If God has gifted you in prayer, and there are gifts of prayer, there are people that pray and pray and pray. Everybody prays, but some people really pray. And they pray for everybody by name. They pray for everybody for what they think that person needs. Now, if you don't attend the church, you don't know who needs what. You could just say, God bless everybody. I'm sorry, God's not impressed. Because that shows no real interest. And that shows no real concern. That's just what it is. So the church, Ephesians says. It's knit together as every joint supplies something and they're working their part causing the growth of the body for edifying itself. Okay, if I want to have a muscular frame at 76, what do I care? But anyway, if I wanted to have a muscular frame, I would get down to push-ups every day and I would get a jump rope and jump 1,000 jumps, and I would run for 40 miles. I got a man that's a year older than me. He runs five miles a day. I couldn't run five miles in a week. I can get 800 yards, maybe. That's the best I can do, and I'm done. With that body can be improved by exercise, the church bodies improved by people serving each other. Not in big things, even. When I was pastor here, the service station up here, the Chevron station, had my phone number. If somebody came into the station and said they needed gas, they would call me up. I'd say, Jim, what? Someone needs gas? What am I going to say? So? So what do I do? You go up and you give them gas. The Assembly of God pastor that used to be here in town, he'd do the same thing to me. That annoyed me a little more. But he would call me up and say, Jim, these people need gas. Can I send them down? Send them over to the station. I'll take care of it. What does that do for people? That builds people up. That strengthens people. Even the unsafe people in town would know if somebody needed something, they could give me a call, and I would take care of that. That does something for God that makes God look good. Because I'm claiming to be a Christian, and if I keep turning everybody down, they're going to go, huh. And it's the same in a church. Let's say you needed $3,000. Well, I'll put you this way. When we resigned, when I retired and resigned from this fellowship, and then we got Mike to come, my wife and I moved out of the parsonage so they could get up here, I don't know where we got the travel trailer. Somebody's travel trailer. And we lived in a travel trailer. I had no money to buy a house. We didn't even make enough in Social Security to rent a house. In Ukiah, you're talking, if it's $1,300, they want $4,000 for income before they'll let you rent. Some are up to $4,000. So we had no money. It didn't have anything saved up. We lived in a parsonage. Church paid us. So it came time to move. For a few friends in the church, we got $12,000. We moved to Ukiah. Cheapest trailer I could find was $20,000. Not a problem for me and God. I'll give you $12,000. They said, okay. Okay, so I got my trailer for $12,000. God works through his people. Let's say I wouldn't go, let's say we retired and wouldn't go to any church anywhere and I need the help, where am I going to go? I can ask strangers, I can go to a church and ask strangers. But a church has people in it that will do things for each other if they know you need it. And maybe you're the one that could do something for somebody. Maybe they just need somebody to listen to them. People don't need a lot. It's a great gift of listening. You know, I have friends And we'll sit and talk, and they're always looking out the window. Drives me insane. Are they disinterested? Or if we go to a restaurant, they're always watching the girls. Come on, guy, we're all 70 years old. Knock it off. Just let's talk to me. But you know they're not talking to you. They know they're not interested. If you have a gift of listening, you'd be surprised how many people you could help and how many people would love you within the church. We're not talking great gifts, we're just talking normal things. God gives everybody the ability in a fellowship to help people in the fellowship, to draw them, to edify them in love. So, this is what he did in Ephesians 4, but we're not going to look at that. We're going to look at the people he listed in Colossians chapter 4, verse 7. Tychius, a beloved brother, faithful minister, fellow servant of the Lord, will tell you all of the news about me. I am sending him to you for this very purpose, that he may know your circumstance and comfort your heart." Now, this was a man who constantly moved with Paul. Paul went to one town, this man, and would go with him. He went along with Timothy, and Gaius, and Artaxerxes, He was always called a beloved brother and a faithful minister. The first part, Paul was talking to beloved brother because he was a Jewish person. He only had a few Jewish guys that worked with him. And Paul was Jewish. I mean, people sometimes wonder, why do all the black people meet together in black churches? They get along well with each other. That's why white people meet in white churches. Paul was a Jew. He liked to be around Jewish people. There's nothing wrong with that. And he makes a statement about that in this. But he was a beloved brother, a Jewish man like Paul. But here's what he said about this man. He was faithful. So if you're in a church, people know you as a Christian. Is that how they would say you are? Now the only way they can use that term, that's a real faithful brother or sister. They only can say that if they see actions to prove that. And that's what they said about this guy. He was not only a faithful servant or a faithful minister, in Ephesians it says that, But he was a fellow servant in the Lord. Paul says, he's just like me. He's a servant, and we're buddies. Now, if you're going on, he went on a ship ride with Paul, the one that sunk, and these guys were part of that stuff. And they had this thing. Now, in church sometimes I hear somebody get up and pray, and I've heard other people say about one guy we have that prays, he's just hot-dogging, just showing off. Well, he's not. He loves to pray, and he prays. I had a girl one time in this church tell me about another guy in this church that was greedy. Greedy? I says, He did a job for a man. The man owed him $6,000. The man didn't pay. The man calls him back up to come back and work on something, and he did. That's not greedy. Greedy is, you owe me $6,000, I'm not coming back, and we're going to take you to court and ruin your credit. Anything else you need, I can take care of it. That's a greedy person. They didn't know the person in the fellowship well enough to know what their life was like, to understand what the person was like. So you need to spend time together before you really know somebody. But these guys, Paul, they spent every day together, witnessing and speaking and doing things. So he brings up Tychius, a beloved brother, faithful minister, fellow servant. I'm sending him to you. What was he doing for Paul? He was an errand boy. I want you to think about this. He was going to take a letter down to Klossy. He's an errand boy. Somebody's telling him to go deliver this and then talk to these people and let me know how it's going. Would you think that's a very important spiritual gift and ability? Yes, it is. Somebody had it. They didn't have phones. They didn't have all that stuff. So people had to go talk to people. And with him was he going to send Onesimus. Now you've probably heard about him because he's in Philemon. He was a slave. He ran away. And of Onesimus, he says, here's a faithful and beloved brother who is one of you. And they, these two men, will make known to you all the things that are happening here. Onesimus was part of Paul's missionary team. He was a guy that got saved in prison. Well, Paul was in prison. I mean, think about that for a minute. You're in prison, and what are you supposed to be doing? Witnessing. Telling people about Jesus. Onesimus was the guy that was in prison. He was a faithful and beloved brother. That's how he's looked at now. In his history of him, therefore, Paul wrote a letter to the man who owned him. He was a slave who ran away. Therefore, though I might be very bold in Christ, he's writing a letter to this man who owns the slave after he got saved. Command you what is fitting. Yet for love's sake, I'd rather appeal to you, being such a one as Paul, the age and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ. I appeal to you for my son Onesimus. Whom I have begotten while I was in my chains. That's one way to say he got saved in prison. That's all he's saying there. Who once was unprofitable to you, but now is profitable to you and to me. I'm sending him back, you therefore receive him. That is my own heart. The guy got saved, he's still a slave, so he had to go back to his master. Those are the laws. He says, my own heart whom I wish to keep with me that on your behalf he might minister to me in my change for the gospel. But without your consent, I wanted to do nothing that your good deed might not be by compulsion, as it were, but voluntarily. Perhaps he departed for a while for this purpose that you might receive him forever, no longer as a slave, but more than a slave, a beloved brother. So Paul gives a story to him. Maybe he just ran away so he could get saved. Now he can come back a brother. But I'd kind of rather keep him. Why did he want to keep him? Because in the group, he said, he's helpful to me. Even the Apostle Paul didn't like being alone. He traveled with a lot of guys. And they kept him company. He liked that. He loved that. He needed that. The rest of us do. What's the number one problem right now in the world, they say? Loneliness. How can you be lonely? You're on Facebook, you're on Instagram, you're on everything all day long. But there's nothing like face-to-face being with people. You can call all the people in the world, you can text them, you can do whatever you want. We go more and out of text, we don't even bother calling. It's the way our world is, but we're lonely. Well, we shouldn't be in the church. You might be the person than part of this fellowship that keeps other people from being lonely. You don't know your effect on people. Because most people just don't tell you. And sometimes you should say to somebody, hey, thanks for the words you're giving me. Really, just to know you love me. I like that. That's how this thing should happen in church. So this Onesimus got saved and Paul put him to work and sent him back home. Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner, greets you. Now he's in prison with Paul. He was on the same boat Paul was in with Mark, the cousin of Barnabas, about whom you received instructions. If he comes, you welcome him. And Jesus, who is called Justice. These are my only fellow workers, Jewish ones, for the kingdom of God, who are of the circumcision. They have proved to be a comfort to me. So what did these guys do? They worked with him, but they comforted him. When you come to church, does anybody comfort you? Do you receive comfort by seeing somebody? Or just by knowing somebody's here? Or just by being with them? That should be part of a fellowship. And so this guy, he's listed because he suffered with Paul. He was a prisoner. And so he brought him up as a man for people to know about. And he also mentions Mark, which is interesting if you know anything about Paul. Mark was a guy that he wouldn't let go on the next missionary trip. But we're not going to look at Mark. We're going to go to Ephesians chapter 4 verse 12 and look at Epaphras. Epaphras had a ministry that every church needs. Epaphras, who was one of you, a bond servant, a slave of Christ, greets you, always laboring fervently for you in prayers. So you might see somebody in church and go, they don't seem to ever do anything. They don't sing, they don't dance, they don't pray, they don't teach, they don't mow the grass. They don't do anything. That's Epaphras. He was too busy praying to do anything else. You really don't understand in this fellowship, you have prayer warriors. You have people that pray for you. You have people that care that much about you. Paphos was part of Paul's team. He was the praying heart. And he was praying for the Bible says, Paul says here, he's always laboring fervently for you in prayers, that you may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God. For I bear him witness that he has a great zeal for you and those who are in Laodicea and Hierakopolis." There were three churches he was praying for. People in three churches. We had a friend of ours, Norma, used to be a member of this church and moved to Colorado with family. What was she, 92 when she died? What's that? 89. I should never make her older than that. She told me one time, until I turn 80, I'm not old. So I got another four years. I'm just a young guy. What did Norma do in this church? For one, Norma prayed for me every day for 12 years. Nobody saw her. Nobody would know that. But I knew that because she told me, Pastor Jim, I pray for you every day. An 80-year-old woman. You don't know how much God did through her prayers for me. I don't even know that. Only God knows what she asked and what he accomplished through what she asked. You've got people in this church like that. You could be one of them. You might be a person who loves to pray. If that's true, then be like this man. Labor always fervently in prayers. You don't have to do anything else. Somebody can ask you, why don't you come up here and do something? Nah, I'm busy praying. I'm sorry, I don't have time. Don't ever take that as a small thing, praying for people. Luke now, he's a beloved physician. He was the Dr. Luke in Demas. Demas was a guy that ran away from Paul in time. He was on Paul's team. I want you to understand one thing about Demas. He left Paul. Deserted him, Paul said. So you have to understand not everybody in a church serving God is going to hang in there like they should. Some are going to walk away. Some are going to desert. Even Paul couldn't keep, the guy that could give a handkerchief to me if I had a cold and I'd be healed. If I give you my handkerchief, you'll get a cold probably. You're not going to get healed. But Paul, he could bless a handkerchief and hand it to you and it would heal you. But he still couldn't make everybody live right in his group. Demas, and I say to Agrippus, take heed to the ministry which you have received in the Lord, that you may fulfill it. Encouraging people to go on. We need each other. He's called a fellow soldier later on, but he's given a little little help here. It says, take heed to your ministry you've received. Fulfill it. Don't give up. Years ago, we've had several members of our churches become missionaries overseas. One of them was a boy named Kim and his family. And Kim went to school for New Tribes Mission to go to New Guinea. And partway into it, he gives me a call. He said, Pastor Jim, I think I'm going to go do something else. I think I'm going to quit this. So what do you say to a kid? I wasn't much older than him. But so I told him the truth. Kim, you never finish anything, do you? Everything you start, you quit. You never go on. You need to buckle up and finish the course. 40 years later, Kim is teaching in the New Tribes School. Because I encouraged him not to give up, and I didn't tell him, oh, hey, I understand, man. Life's tough, you know. What? You have a history of giving up. Don't give up. And he took that, and he didn't give up. He spent 40 years in New Guinea, and then he taught in the school afterwards. Just from one person saying something to him that he needed. Take heed to your ministries you have received in the Lord. Fulfill it. Encouraging people. You know, somebody might come, you know, I just don't understand this. I don't understand anything in the Bible. What do you do with that? Well, you need to do more than well try harder. You can do well. Let me come and sit with you. Let's talk about it. Let's see how you think and see how you read. Let me see how you understand things. Encouraging people. Everybody needs a church full of encouragers. Just don't lie to people when you're encouraging them. Somebody might get up and sing a song, and you can say, that was great. Don't say that if it wasn't. You can say, you tried. But don't lie to people, because then they think it's true, and then everybody, when they come up to sing, everybody's going, oh, great, we're going to listen to this again. You hurt people with that. And churches, we're here to encourage and to benefit. So be truthful if somebody asks you. Otherwise you get in a lot of trouble. I remember one time a guy came to church and his wife was wearing a very low cut dress. And my wife talked to her after that about that was not Christian attire. She said, well, I asked my husband before I left the house, and he said it was okay. Alright, what husband do you know that's wife's showing her breasts and he's going to say, that's okay, good dress. Well, he lied to her. He knew better, but he didn't tell her the truth. And because he didn't tell her the truth, there was all kinds of trouble in this church afterwards because of that. Encourage people, but encourage them with truth. Hey, I see you're trying harder. I love to listen to you sing worship. Not because your voice is any good, but I just love the fact that you just enjoy singing to the Lord. You know you don't sing well when everybody moves away from you during worship. That's their problem, not yours. The Bible says, make a joyful noise unto the Lord all the earth. Like Albert. Yeah, that's Albert. If you get to win, you'll live up to be 105. So, these are just things I want you to consider as you read the end of Colossians chapter 4. That's not wasted words. It's people who are Practicing what Jesus said we should do when we're in church. We should be encouraging, strengthening, helping, whatever it takes other people within the fellowship. Instead of saying, well, you know, you could do better. Okay, help them do better. Or saying, you know, that was a dumb thing to say. Well, then show them what they should say. There's a thousand things we do wrong. As a pastor, you get to hear all kinds of things you do wrong. One time a guy came up to me in a school or meeting. I was in the East Coast. We lived in Maine. And he said to me, what do you think, what's your views on drinking alcohol? So I told him what the Bible, what I think the Bible teaches. After I finished, about half an hour later, the then chancellor, who used to be the president, but you get a new name when somebody else... Anyway, they call him the chancellor. He looks cool. He comes and talks to me. He says, what's this I hear about what you think about drinking? Where did you hear that? I know where he heard it, because I just talked to the kid. I didn't even know who the kid was. I didn't know why he had to tell the president. So anyway, he went and told him. So he explained to me what he thought I should do. And I says, look, I have to do what I believe God tells me is right. If you can show me I'm wrong, OK, I'll go with that. If you can't, then I cannot violate my conscience and teach something that I don't really believe just because you say it's true. He says, yeah. He says, well, I understand it, but do it anyway. People always criticize you. I never saw the kid again. I don't know what his deal was. The president and I, we got along fine until the day he died. We had no problems. People are in there to encourage you. If you think somebody's believing something wrong, talk to them about it. Don't tell somebody else about it. Talk to them about it and try to explain them. If you can't explain it, then find out how to do it. But your responsibility as believers in this church is you come here to help. Everybody here can use your help. I speak at a rescue, a homeless mission thing. And what I look for when I look for people, I don't get a lot of time. I get at least 20 minutes, half. And they're eating breakfast, and I'm talking to them about Jesus. You know what I'm looking for? Who's interested? I'm looking for people that acknowledge what I've said to see if I've helped them. We did a Mother's Day thing last week, I think it was. And as I'm walking out, one of the handicapped guys, he's probably in his 50s, is homeless in a wheelchair. He says to me, when's Mother's Day? He listened. I said, it's Sunday. And that's what I look for. You look for someone to be helped. So you're here to do that. So when you try to help somebody by being nice, and it might be awkward, they might say something to you someday. You know, remember back in 1942, you said this to me? One of my son's best friends, when he was 13, I said something to him. I don't remember what it was. He tells me every time I see him. He's my son, 40. He's in his 40s now. This kid remembers something I said when he was 13 years old. You can say something to somebody today that would make a change in their life. You might never know it. But you have done God's work as you met together as a group. So I just want to encourage you to use your God-given abilities. Maybe it's the ability to listen. Maybe it's the ability to pray. Maybe it's the ability to give money. Maybe it's the ability to just say, hi, it's nice to see you today. We had a man here for years, Jerry Russell. Jerry Russell? Jerry Moore. Remember Jerry Moore? Jerry Moore was the greeter. He did nothing in this church but greet people when they came in and when they went out. And I've had people tell me the only reason they came to this church was because of Jerry. The reason they were here every week because Jerry was greeting people. People look at a greeter and greeters are very important. Happy people are important that greet other people. So maybe that's your gift. You just have the ability to talk to perfect strangers. Hey, glad to see you today. And you mean it. You know, don't fake it. I'm glad to see you today. Hey, you're looking good. Where are you from? Who cares? Now, you want to know people. That's a gift. Not everybody could be a greeter. Not everybody could stand out there and welcome people, could you? But some people got gifted to do that. And that, in our church here then, was a man that other people came back because of him. So I always love that. Because that's how God's church works. It's people that are all working together to bless people. For whom the whole body joined and knit together by every joint supplies according to the effective working by which every part does its share causes the growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love." So you've got a great job to do. Think about it this week. Think about it next week. Think about it every week. Don't just come to hear somebody's talking head. Come here to help each other.