Colossians 4:7-18
Thank you for your singing. One of the ways we do that here at Community Bible Church is by supporting missionaries and we have 14 missionaries that we support financially and they’re spread all over the world and they’re helping us send the light not only here in Manchester but where they serve. So, thank you for faithfully praying for them and supporting them and one of the great ways to connect with missionaries is to get to know them personally.
So, I trust you’ll be here next Sunday and get to know David and Susan Swatsky. All right, we’ve been looking at the book of Colossians and we’re going to finish up Paul’s letter to the church at Colossae this morning. So, I want to read the closing verses here.
This is 12 through 18. You can follow along as I read the closing verses that Paul wrote. Epaphras, who is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends greetings.
He’s always wrestling in prayer for you that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured. I vouch for him that he is working hard for you and for those at Laodicea and Hierapolis. Our dear friend Luke the doctor and Demas send greetings.
Give my greetings to the brothers in Laodicea, and to Nympha and the church in her house. After this letter has been read to you, see to it that is also read in the church of the Laodiceans and that you in turn read the letter from Laodicea. Tell Archippus, see to it that you complete the ministry you’ve received in the Lord.
I, Paul, write this greeting in my own hand. Remember my chains. Grace be with you.
Well, Colossians chapter 4, we’re looking at verses 12 through 18. Now, the subtitle in my Bible simply says final greetings. So, it’s the Apostle Paul, and he’s finishing this letter that he wrote to the church at Colossae because Epaphras, the pastor, traveled 1,200 miles to visit Paul, the Apostle Paul who’s under house arrest in Rome.
And what motivated that visit was that there was some false doctrine, false teaching going on in the church. And Epaphras wants to talk to the Apostle Paul. And so, Paul, who had never been to Colossae, writes this letter to correct doctrinal error and to encourage the believers there.
And so, I think Paul, the Apostle Paul, was probably an outgoing people person. I don’t know that for sure. If you read the book of Romans, there’s this long list of names that he lists as sending greetings.
And so, this morning, we’re going to look at 10 names that are found in the text here. And just some of them you might be familiar with. Some of them, this is the only time they’re mentioned in scripture, and we don’t know hardly anything about them.
But then I want to look at four principles that we can learn from this text here this morning. And so, we can dive into these names. I recall about 40 years ago, probably about 40 years ago, I was starting our previous ministry and was meeting the folks there.
And I remember a young lady came up to me and introduced herself and said, well, I’m going to be your part-time secretary. And so that’s great. And what’s your name? And she said, my name is Phoebe.
And I said, oh, I’ve never heard that name before, Phoebe. And her response to me was, well, have you ever read the book of Romans? And in Romans chapter 16, verse 1, Paul’s sending greetings to Phoebe. Like, oh, I guess I have heard that name before.
Well, there’s some very unusual names here, and we’re going to briefly look at them this morning. So, we’ll run through these names rather quickly, and then we’ll get to the four principles that we want to think about. So, here’s Paul, final greetings.
Tychicus will tell you all the news about me. This is verse 7. He is a dear brother, a faithful minister, a fellow servant in the Lord. I’m sending him to you for the express purpose that you may know about our circumstances and that he may encourage your hearts.
So, here’s a fellow by the name of Tychicus. He’s actually mentioned five times in the New Testament. The first time he’s mentioned is in Acts chapter 20, verse 4. He accompanied the apostle Paul on his third missionary journey.
And so, notice the descriptive phrases here. He’s a dear brother, a faithful minister, a fellow servant. And now Tychicus, along with Onesimus, and we’re going to meet in verse 9, they are taking the letter that Paul wrote, and they’re bringing it back to Colossae.
So, part of their responsibility now is to make that 1,200 mile journey from Rome to Colossae to give that letter to the church at Colossae. I think Onesimus is also taking a letter back to a slave owner by the name of Philemon. If you notice that little book in the New Testament, it’s the book of Philemon.
So, Philemon was a slave owner. Onesimus was a runaway slave. He came across the apostle Paul, and the apostle Paul led him to faith in Christ.
And now the apostle Paul also writes this little epistle to Philemon and basically says, hey, would you accept Onesimus back as a brother in Christ? And by the way, if he’s stolen anything from you, if there’s a financial obligation, we will take care of that. And so, here’s Tychicus, and we’ve kind of dovetailed into the second name that’s here, verse 9. He’s coming with Onesimus, our faithful and dear brother who is one of you. They will tell you everything that is happening here.
So, they’re going to go back to the church. They’re going to give an update on what’s going on with the apostle Paul and deliver this letter. Well, we come to verse 10.
There’s a third name here. My fellow prisoner Aristarchus sends you his greetings as does Mark, the cousin of Barnabas. So, here’s Aristarchus.
He’s a fellow worker with Paul. He’s first mentioned in the book of Acts. So, if you read Dr. Luke’s record of the early church in the book of Acts, we can read about the first mention of Aristarchus.
And here’s what happened in Acts chapter 19. Paul is in Ephesus, and the gospel made inroads. And if you want to get people upset, start impacting their pocketbooks.
Because there was a business in Athens, and there were silversmiths who made little medals of a god by the name of Artemis. So, you know, the rocket that just went off, Artemis, is the same name. She was a Greek goddess.
And what was happening in Athens as people were coming to know Christ, the sails of the idol Artemis went down and people were furious. And they were after the apostle Paul. And so there was a kind of a flash mob scene in, I said Athens, that’s actually Ephesus.
And so, a silversmith by the name of Demetrius, who made silver shrines of Artemis, is getting all the workers together and they’re like, we need to go after this guy, Apostle Paul. They can’t find him. And so, it says in verse 29, the whole city was in an uproar.
The people seized Gaius and Aristarchus, and they brought them up. For two hours they’re in this amphitheater and they’re all chanting, great is Artemis, great is this goddess. And finally, somebody stands up and kind of calms things down and they let Aristarchus go.
But that’s the same fellow who obviously now is with the Apostle Paul in Rome. And then Mark is mentioned in verse 10. My fellow prisoner Aristarchus sends you his greetings as does Mark, the cousin of Barnabas.
This is the individual who wrote the Gospel of Mark. His name was called John Mark. He accompanied Paul on his first missionary journey.
And then we don’t know exactly what happened, but halfway through that first missionary journey, John Mark left. John Mark kind of bailed on the Apostle Paul. And so, when it came time for the second missionary journey, Paul says, let’s go back and visit the churches that we already have visited.
Paul’s talking to Barnabas and Barnabas says, yeah let’s take my cousin John Mark. And Paul says, we’re not taking John Mark. They had a strong disagreement.
And Paul says, no, he bailed on us the first time and Barnabas wants to take John Mark. And so, they came up with a compromise. Does it surprise you that sometimes Christians disagree on things? It shouldn’t.
They had a strong disagreement. So, what happened is that Paul took Silas and Barnabas took John Mark. And now rather than just a few people going out on one missionary trip, they both went their separate ways.
And there was two missionary trips. Well, this is the same fellow, John Mark, and he’s with Paul. By the way, somehow John Mark and Paul reconciled because at the end of Second Timothy chapter 4 verse 11, Paul’s very last letter, he writes and he says, greet John Mark for me.
He is helpful for me in the ministry. So, something turned around there and John Mark became very helpful to the Apostle Paul. Well, let’s keep plowing through these names here.
Verse 11, Jesus who is called Justice also sends his greetings. These are the only Jews among my co-workers for the kingdom of God. They’ve proved a comfort for you.
So, Justice was a Jewish Christian, a co-worker of Paul who encouraged Paul. It’s the only time he’s mentioned here in the New Testament. Verse 12, Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, sends his greetings.
He’s always wrestling in prayer for you. So, here’s the pastor of the church at Colossae, Epaphras, the one who made the 1,200 mile visit to visit Paul. And now Paul’s sending greetings back to the church from Epaphras.
And he says, Epaphras is always praying for you. He’s wrestling in prayer for you. When Diane and I went to our first church in Strongsville, Ohio as assistant pastor, about the third Sunday I was there, a fellow who was our music leader, his name was Dan, came up to me.
And he said, hey, Pastor Ron, would you like to join the wrestling team? I’m like, a wrestling team? This church has a wrestling team? I’ve never heard of that. He said, no, no. Haven’t you read Colossians chapter 4, verse 12? Epaphras, he’s wrestling in prayer for you.
This is a group of guys that get together and pray for the church and pray for each other. Like, oh, that wrestling team. Well, Paul says, Epaphras is praying for you.
And he’s praying, what’s this prayer? That you’ll stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured. What a great way to pray. That other people will know God’s will for their life.
It’s a great way to pray for our kids, that they’ll mature in their faith and they’ll stand firm in their faith. Well, that’s Epaphras. Verse 14, our dear friend Luke, the doctor, and Demas send greetings.
So, here’s Luke, who wrote the Gospel of Luke. He was a medical doctor, and he sends greetings to the church from Rome. By the way, when you think about who wrote most of the New Testament, if you go by number of books, letters, by far the Apostle Paul.
If you go by volume, by content, words, Dr. Luke writes more than anybody else. He wrote the Gospel of Mark, and he wrote the Book of Acts. And by volume, he’s the most prolific writer of the New Testament.
If you go by number of books, it’s the Apostle Paul. Well, he mentions Demas. Demas sends greetings.
He was a co-worker with the Apostle Paul. But if you know your New Testament, you realize that Demas is mentioned elsewhere in the New Testament, in Paul’s last letter. And Paul says, Demas has forsaken me.
He was a faithful worker for Paul in the ministry, but something happened in Demas’s life, and he walked away from the faith. Second Timothy chapter four, do your best to come to me quickly, Paul writing to Timothy, for Demas, because he has loved this world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica. So, Demas, who was a faithful follower of Jesus, ended up kind of turning his back on the faith.
Why? Because of the attraction of the world. That’s why 1st John says, do not love the world. Not talking about the physical world.
What he’s talking about is the world system that is anti-God, opposed to God, opposed to truth. And here Demas, who once faithfully served, walks away from the faith and chases after the world. I love what Paul wrote in Second Timothy.
He’s at the end of his life. He’s going to die soon in a Roman prison. He says, I’ve kept the faith.
I finished the course. I finished well. And there’s laid up for me a crown in heaven, a reward that God rewards people for their faithfulness.
And I trust that’s your prayer as well, that you’ll finish well in your walk with God. Well, just a couple other names. Verse 15, give my greens to the brothers and sisters at Laodicea and to Nympha and the church in her house.
Nympha and the church in her house. So, there’s a church in Laodicea and it met in Nympha’s home. So, for the first 300 years of church history, believers did not meet in church buildings.
They met in homes. And then about 300 A.D., they started to meet in larger venues and larger setting. But for the first 300 years, every church met in home.
And so, here’s Nympha who has the home that hosts the church in Laodicea. Here’s the last one. Tell Archippus, see to it that you complete the ministry you have received of the Lord.
See to it that you complete the ministry. And so, here’s another faithful worker, the Apostle Paul. And Paul’s encouraging him to keep the faith and don’t be discouraged.
Keep on serving the Lord. Well, this morning we want to think about what are some truths that we can learn from those names. And as I mentioned, Paul writes all scriptures profitable for something.
There’s a reason God put this in here. And so, I want to think about four truths, four principles that we can learn from these greetings, final greetings of Paul in these 10 names. And here’s the first one.
i. Ministry involves teamwork
First one is this, that ministry involves teamwork. Ministry involves teamwork. Paul’s not going at this alone.
Paul has some fellow workers. Paul has some co-workers. Paul has a ministry team.
Paul has people praying for him. Paul has people partially supporting him, although Paul was Bi-vocational for most of his ministry, he was a tent maker. But Paul had a team of people that helped him and supported him in the work.
And that’s the way ministry is designed to work. That ministry is not some solo performance by a pastor in front of people on a Sunday morning. No, ministry involves teamwork.
That’s why the Apostle Paul writes in Ephesians chapter four about spiritual gifts, that every believer, I believe it happens at the moment of salvation, God also gives us a spiritual gift that we are to discover, develop, and deploy. What? To build up the body of Christ. There’s like four different passages that talk about this.
1st Corinthians 12, first Peter four, Ephesians chapter four, talks about the list of these gifts. And so, as Paul writes in Ephesians chapter four, he says, from Christ the whole body grows and builds itself up in love, I love this phrase, as each part does its work. And so, the body of Christ functions when we know what our role is, what our giftedness is, and then we deploy that giftedness to build up the body of Christ.
So, as I thought about that, I started thinking about the teamwork that it takes for community Bible church to function. And I know I’m probably going to miss something here, but I just started to make a list. I’m not talking names here.
1. with fellow laborers
I’m just talking about responsibilities and boards and committees. So, here’s the teamwork of community Bible church to function and minister. We have a pastor; we have a church board of five deacons as well.
We have a treasurer, assistant treasurer, song leader, instrumentalist, greeters, head usher, tech team for sound and audio visual, missions committee, social committee, Sunday school teachers, deaconesses, someone that does the PowerPoint, volunteer that types and prepares the church bulletin, church decorators, someone who cleans the church, youth leaders, nursery workers, junior church workers, Sunday school superintendent, assistant Sunday school superintendent, security team, building maintenance person, music minister, lawn maintenance person that was here until quarter to nine, lawn mowing, I’m not going to mention any names here. You know who that person is. Awana workers, beyond Awana workers, cooking ministry, financial givers, prayer warriors, Monday night Bible study leader, Wednesday night Bible study leader, Thursday night Bible study leader, nominating committee.
There might be a few others I left out. And the church functions by lots of people finding their role and serving. And so, ministry involves teamwork.
And I am so thankful for the teamwork that’s here at Community Bible Church. And this is why we’re partnering with missionaries. So, ministry involves teamwork, not only with other people, but here’s the key, it also involves teamwork with God. 2nd Corinthians 3:9, Paul says, we are laborers together with God.
2. with God
And so, what I want you to realize, whatever ministry you’re in, whatever ministry God’s called you to do, whether it’s teaching, whether it’s music ministry, whether it’s working with youth, whatever it is, you better not try to do it on your own strength. I learned this the hard way. We need to partner with God, don’t we? And say, God, I can’t do this on my own.
I like what the apostle Paul wrote. He says, when I’m weak, I’m strong. Why did he say that? He says that because when you feel like weak, when you feel like I can’t do this, guess who we rely on then? We rely on God and his strength and his power.
And so don’t ever try to do ministry. I don’t care if it’s Awana, beyond Awana, Sunday school class, nursery, whatever, make sure you’re partnering with God and make sure you’re asking him to use you and to give you the strength and wisdom to fulfill the ministry that he has called you to do. Well, here’s the second truth, and we need to hustle here a little bit.
ii. Prison ministry is fertile ground for the gospel
So final greetings, ministry involves teamwork. Second one is this, prison ministry is fertile ground for the gospel. Prison ministry is fertile ground for the gospel.
I know this firsthand because for many years, a team of people from our previous church would go to the Cassidy Lake prison, north of Chelsea, and it was a minimum-security prison, and they allowed groups to come in and lead Bible studies. A little later on, it changed dramatically. They kind of shut down the minimum-security prison, and then they made it a boot camp and it was extreme difference there in the mentality of what was going on there.
But for years, groups of people would come in and do ministry and have Bible studies. I remember one friend of ours, his name was Domingo Hermosillo, and he faithfully went for years and years. And I’d ask him, well, how did the prison ministry go yesterday? And he’d often say, you know what? We had four prisoners that put their faith in Jesus on Saturday.
And that was a regular occurrence that they would go in there and they would share the gospel, and people in prison would come to know Jesus. And so, what happened when Paul was in prison? So, he’s under house arrest here in Rome. He writes four letters, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and the letter to Philemon.
But what does he write in his letter to the church of Philippi? I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel. As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I’m in chains for Christ. So, Paul’s under house arrest.
He has Roman soldiers that are guarding him. And rather than feeling sorry for himself, what’s he do? Oh, I’ve got a captive audience here. He shares Christ with them.
And some of those prisoners, or prison guards rather, come to faith in Jesus. And so, at the end of the letter to the Philippian church, all God’s people here send you greetings, especially those who belong to Caesar’s household. Oh, there were some people in Caesar’s household in Rome that came to faith in Jesus.
Prison ministry is fertile ground for the gospel. I often share my correspondence with my friend Steve. Steve committed murder 35 years ago.
Steve comes to know Christ. Steve somehow contacts me, and I make a visit to the prison that he’s in. And Steve had come to know faith, come to faith in Jesus.
It wasn’t a, you know, conversion that was a jail conversion to get out of jail. No, he’s been walking with Jesus for like 35 years now. And probably about four times a year we exchange letters. Steve will never get out of prison, he will die in prison, but Steve knows Jesus. Steve is a light in the prison system.
He shares his faith. He works a little side job there and four times a year we get a check made out to Community Bible Church from the Michigan Department of Prison System. And Steve considers Community Bible Church his church family.
He’ll never come into our doors. When he turned 70 about a year ago, we got a card and all of us signed it and sent it to him and said we were praying for him. Here’s his latest letter.
This is from March 29th. I’m just going to read part of it. He says a group of us from church meet for Bible study every night for an hour.
Perhaps the newest venture is being a part of a prison fellowship program. This program meets twice a week for two hours each. Chuck Colson’s ministry, so he’s involved in the prison fellowship ministry.
Last night we had a worship service which was led by a group from Bay City. The praise team was saying elevation music. Men were in tears and I found myself on my knees as we were led into the Lord’s presence.
Very powerful indeed. Please extend my greetings to Diane and Community Bible Church. Here’s what he says.
I look forward to the day I can worship with you in person. Well, that might be heaven but someday you’ll meet Steve and then he closes. He is risen.
Prison ministry is fertile ground for the gospel. Here’s another letter. This is from our missionaries Martin and Linda Valcarcel.
They ministered in Spain for many, many years and now they’re in their golden years and they’re serving the Lord in Decatur, Alabama and they’re still ministering for Christ. Martin was diagnosed with cancer about a year ago and given not very many months to live. Martin is still around and faithfully serving the Lord.
Here’s their April newsletter. Let me just share part of it. We know that many of you are concerned and praying for my dear husband Martin.
God has blessed him with extended time beyond what was the prognosis for his life. He continues on doing what’s been his life’s work, preaching and teaching the Word of God. Part of that is a jail ministry that they go to every Monday.
His wife writes this Monday, past Monday, everything was ready for his class in the jail. Before we left, he turned to me and said, I don’t know how much longer I can do this. I replied, you will know when that time is and it will be okay.
How about I go with you today? So, we drove to the jail and met Bruce there who gets, goes to get the men. I sang two hymns and then the men read a portion of scripture. They listened intently to the Bible study as Martin shared and a simple invitation was given for those who wanted to trust in Christ as their Savior.
Three of the men responded and then prayed with my husband. What a beautiful moment. Before returning back to their cells, some of the men came up to hug my husband.
Others shook his hand with deep appreciation. From now on Martin wants to go, wants me to go with him to be his helper as he becomes weaker. Here’s one of our missionaries, Martin Valcarcel, who doesn’t quite frankly have very long to live and yet as long as he’s able, he’s going into that prison every Monday night because there’s men and women there that need to hear the gospel.
Well prison ministry is fertile ground for the gospel and if that’s something that kind of tugs at your heart, there are lots of different Christian ministries that are involved in prison ministry and one that I’m very familiar with. It’s simply a correspondence ministry and so it’s a great way to get God’s truth into the prison system. All right number three here, final greetings number three, three truths.
iii. Encouragement is an essential component of ministry
Here’s number three. Encouragement is an essential component of ministry. Encouragement is an essential part of ministry.
So, here’s Tychicus and he’s going back to Colossae and he has this letter from the apostle Paul and it says, I’m sending him to you for the express purpose that you might know about our circumstances and that he may what? Encourage your hearts. Encourage your hearts. So, one of the purposes of coming together as a body of Christ in a worship service or a bible study or whatever is to what? Encourage one another.
Hebrews 3:13 says, encourage one another daily. Daily. Hebrews 10:25, don’t forsake the assembling of yourselves together but come together and what? Exhort and encourage one another.
Sometimes we come to church and we sit through a service and we say, well I didn’t get much out of that and that could be the case but maybe God has you here because I guarantee you the persons, people sitting around you need encouragement. I’ve said dozens and dozens of times, I’ve never had anyone making a point with me and coming to my office and saying, Pastor Ron, I’m just way too encouraged. And people, they’re just like overly encouraging me.
So would you like, tell them to back off. No. And we all need encouragement.
We all come here and we think, well everybody’s got it together. We don’t. And so, we need to encourage one another and that’s what Tychicus was going to do, not only take this letter but he wanted to encourage that body of believers, Satan’s tools.
Verse 5, they all start with the letter D. He likes to divide. He likes to put doubt into our minds. He likes despair.
He likes denial. He likes us discouraged. He likes us discouraged.
That’s how he works. And so, we need encouragement and we need to encourage one another regularly. I love that passage in 1st Thessalonians 4 where Paul talks about the rapture and what’s going to happen and he’s writing to believers who have lost loved ones and he says, hey, if they are in Christ, guess what? You’re going to see them again someday.
And that passage finishes therefore, encourage one another with these words. And I’ve stood by at this point hundreds of gravesides and encouraged folks who are grieving the loss of a loved one like Mike and Shannon Porter are today. And I’m able to tell them, if you know Jesus and they know Jesus, this is just a temporary goodbye.
This is just a temporary farewell. You will be reunited with them someday and let that truth encourage your hearts. Well, last one here and we’re done.
iv. Prayer empowers ministry
Principle number four from this text is this, that prayer empowers ministry. Prayer empowers ministry. So, remember I said that we don’t do this alone.
We have teamwork and we partner with God. And so, what needs to happen in that partnership is that we need to be praying. And this is Epaphras.
We read it in verse 12. He’s the pastor of the church at Colossae. And Paul says, he is always praying for you.
I want you to know that I pray for you. I want you to know I’m early here early on Sunday morning. I walk through the auditorium and I pray.
I pray for every, whoever’s going to be here, whoever’s seated here, that God would work in their hearts. Because prayer is like the gasoline in the engine. And that’s what, how God takes his word and touches people’s hearts and lives.
Pentecost, remember Pentecost, Jesus, after 40 days of post-resurrection appearances, Jesus goes to the Mount of Olives. He ascends up to heaven and he tells the disciples to wait. And so, they wait for 10 days.
They’re waiting in the upper room. There’s 120 of them. You know what they’re doing in Acts chapter 1? They are praying.
They have a 10-day prayer meeting. And then Acts chapter 2, Peter gets up. Pentecost happens.
Peter preaches. 3,000 people come to faith in Christ. How did that happen? You could read Peter’s sermon.
It wasn’t anything spectacular. It’s just saying, this Jesus who you crucified is the Messiah. And you need to repent and you need to come to faith in him.
But what empowered that? It was that prayer meeting and those 10 days of disciples waiting. And so, a prayer empowers ministry. And as you go through the book of Acts, you come to Acts chapter 2, verse 42, and four things that the early church devoted themselves to, the apostles teaching, to fellowship, to breaking of bread, and to prayer.
That was the focus of the early church. So, it was Charles Spurgeon that said, I’d rather teach one man to pray than 10 men to preach. Because there is power in prayer.
And James says, the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous person is what? Powerful and effective. So, I don’t know who you’re praying for this morning, but I want to tell you, don’t ever stop praying. Don’t ever stop praying for your family.
Don’t ever stop praying for your kids. Don’t ever stop praying for your ministry, your church, because there is power in prayer. Well, ministry involves teamwork.
And thankful for the team here at Community Bible Church. Prison is fertile ground for the gospel. Because when you hit bottom and have nowhere else to go, then people say, I think I need some help here.
I need Jesus. And encouragement is an essential part of ministry. And my prayer and hope is that when we gather here on Sunday mornings, or whenever the body of Christ gathers at Community Bible Church, that you will leave here encouraged.
Encouraged in the truth of God’s word and his promises. And then lastly, prayer empowers ministry.