Colossians 1:29 – 2:5
This is Colossians chapter 2 and we’re going to read the first five verses from Paul to the church at Colossae. Here’s what he writes, I want you to know how hard I am contending for you and for all those that lay out of Sea and for all who have not met me personally. My goal is that they may be encouraged in heart, united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments, for though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit, and delight to see how disciplined you are and how firm your faith in Christ is.
Well, we are going through the book of Colossians. We’re going section by section, verse by verse. This morning we’re going to be in Colossians chapter 2 and the first five verses.
But what I’d like to do, just to kind of get us thinking again of the context, to remind you that Paul’s writing from prison. Paul’s in Rome and he’s under house arrest. He’s awaiting trial.
He doesn’t know if he’s going to live or die. And he gets a visitor. The visitor is Epaphras, who’s the pastor of the church at Colossae, 1300 miles away.
Probably took him three months to travel to see the apostle, Paul. What drove him there is that he was concerned about the church. He was concerned about some false teachers that were teaching the wrong way of salvation, that were teaching that Jesus is not who Jesus is.
And so, Paul writes this letter to correct their thinking, their doctrine on who Jesus is and the way of salvation, and to encourage these new believers. Paul’s writing to people that he’s never met before. Paul’s not visited the church at Colossae, but he’s still praying for them and encouraging them.
Insights into Pastoral Ministry
And so, this morning in these five or six verses we want to look at this morning, I’ve entitled this Insights into Pastoral Ministry. Do you ever wonder what it’s like to be a pastor? Some of you maybe have. Our oldest of eight grandchildren, Shane, he’s just turned 13 and he comes to Awana and Youth Group here on Wednesdays.
And a couple weeks ago he asked me, he says, like, Grandpa, like, how do you get paid as a pastor? How does this work? I said, well, people put money in an offering plate, and that’s how we pay our light bill, our insurance bill. That’s how we support, actually we’re supporting 14 missionary families, not their total support, but supporting 14 missionary families, and the pastor gets paid out of that. Oh, so he’s trying to put it together.
Quite frankly, there’s a lot of misconceptions about the life of a pastor, and we’re going to get some insight here from Colossians chapter 2, but I feel like I probably have some unique insight because I grew up in a pastor’s home. My dad was in the ministry for 60 years, pastoring churches, and he traveled to a lot of mission fields and encouraging missionaries. And then I’ve been in pastoral ministry, this is year number 46.
So, I think I’ve got a little bit of insight into what pastoral ministry is all about. Now, here’s what I remember from growing up in a pastor’s home, and of course, this is a long time ago, this is like 60 years ago, but I remember this is back when church schedules, it was almost like the more times you came to church, the more spiritual you were. We were at church all the time.
Of course, I had to be there because we’re the pastor’s family. We were there Sunday morning, then in the afternoon we had something called training union, and that was like at 4:30. Then we had a service in the evening, and then we had a Wednesday night service and other activities. I remember my dad being gone a lot.
You know, Sunday was a busy day. He got involved in teaching something called Baptist Bible Institute, and it was like a Bible college. And he would go there on Monday nights and teach at this Baptist Bible Institute.
Wednesdays we were at church. He was just gone a lot in the evenings. I remember as a young kid, a couple of our vacations getting cut short because someone in the congregation had died.
My dad felt, you know, that he needed to be there to do the funeral service, and so a little bit of disappointment in me and my brother. It’s like, oh, our vacation’s over. Yeah, yeah.
Insight into pastoral ministry. Now, you might say this is a great message for maybe a pastor’s meeting or a pastor’s conference, so here’s how I want you to apply this. I’ll give it to you ahead of time.
You know what the Bible says? If you know Jesus, we’re all ministers. Second Corinthians 5 tells us we’re ministers of reconciliation. Ephesians chapter 4 says God’s given gifts to, what, equip people.
That’s the church body for, what, the work of the ministry. So, I’m going to give you some principles of pastoral ministry, but they’re really applied to all of our lives because Scripture tells us we’re all in ministry. So, let’s start with the first one here.
i. Ministry is hard
It’ll be up on the screen. Here’s number one. Ministry is hard.
Ministry is hard. Notice what Paul writes here. He’s saying his goal is to present everybody fully mature in Christ.
That’s verse 28 of chapter 1. Listen to the language he uses. To this end I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me. The New King James Version says to this end I labor.
I’m striving. The word there, work and labor means to feel fatigued, to be weary, striving. That’s the Greek word from which we get the word agony.
Paul lets us know that ministry is hard. We read his autobiography briefly, I think last Sunday, and Paul says, yeah, I’ve been in prison often, shipwrecked, and been stoned and left for dead in Lystra, been beaten three or four times, and he goes on to list all of the difficult things in his ministry, and then he says, besides all of this, verse 28, 2nd Corinthians 11, I feel daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. Don’t read it during the service, but there’s an insert in your bulletin from one of our missionary families, the Woodard family, giving us an update.
They’re currently in Papua New Guinea, and you want to realize how difficult ministry is, you know, read that letter, and they’re asking for prayer. Ministry is hard. Now, for 40 plus years, and I understand this, it’s a little bit of sarcasm, but I’ve had to deal with a joke being in the ministry, and you’ve probably heard this before, you can fill in the blank, how hard can this job be because you only work, fill in the blank, one day a week? One day, how hard can that be, one day a week? Well, let me just share some insights, and I’m not sharing this for sympathy in any way.
This is from an organization called CLIMB, Christian Leadership Insight for Ministry and Business. This is from November of last year, and here’s what they say. They studied ministers.
The work of a pastor involves intense, emotional, spiritual, and organizational demands that few other professions share. According to a recent survey, listen to this, one-third of all pastors have considered leaving the ministry in the past year. One-third of all pastors in the last year said, there was a time in the last year I felt like I want to leave.
You might say, well, did you ever feel that way? And I’ve shared this story before, and the answer is yes. First, I graduated from Grand Rapids Seminary. My first ministry assignment was associate pastor at a church suburb in Cleveland, and I went in with great excitement and enthusiasm, and I had these preconceived ideas of what ministry was going to be like, and I thought, I’m going to get over there, and the pastor and I are going to pray together and strategize and do ministry, and none of that happened.
And quite frankly, there’s a little bit of a personality conflict between the pastor and me. I remember in my position, he wanted me to be at every activity that the church had, and at the beginning of the month, there would be 13 straight nights where I was gone from the home. At that point, we had our first child, and I went to him and said, hey, this isn’t working for me, and basically said, well, this is the way it is, and then I decided, well, not for me.
I’m not going to sacrifice my family. And there was a time in that time period where I thought, you know, I think I’m maybe done. I worked as a professional painter when I was in seminary.
I knew I could make a living as a painter, and so kind of like Peter wanted to go back to fishing, like, I’ll just go back and paint. God led us to a weekend, two or three days at Maranatha Bible and Missionary Conference, and in God’s plan, we were there for a couple days. I was thinking about leaving the ministry, and God just ministered to us through the minister there and the program there in two or three days, and God kind of gave me a course correction to keep on going.
That was 41 years ago. But ministry is hard. So, this Climb Study says, why would so many pastors consider leaving the ministry? Again, I’m just going to quote here, the decision to leave a deeply held vocation is rarely due to a single event.
It is instead the result of compounding pressures that erode a minister’s sense of well-being and satisfaction. These challenges range from internal demands of the job to external pressures from the congregation and the wider culture. Here’s another factor, ministerial stress and burnout.
The stress associated with a pastor role is the most frequently cited reason for considering resignation, noted by over one-half of the ministers who contemplate leaving. Pastors frequently operate in a state of 24-7 availability where duties bleed into personal time due to the expectation of immediate crisis response. This heavy workload means that 90% of ministers report working more than 50 hours a week.
The emotional toil of constantly counseling, comforting, and managing the spiritual lives of others leads to exhaustion and a decline of personal well-being. Here’s another factor, church conflict and criticism, and that’s very common in the ministry. And so, I remember hearing this at an ordination service years ago, and here’s a fellow that’s new going into the ministry, he says, you have to have three things.
You have to have a teachable head, you have to keep learning, you have to have a tender heart, and you have to have a tough hide. Criticism. I remember sitting in a room with six people on one side of the table, six people on the other side of the table, and there was a controversy about what style of music was going to be at this church, what style of music we were going to have.
And six people demanding this way, or we’re leaving. Six people say, no, we need to go this direction, or we’re leaving. And I’m straight in the middle.
I remember meeting with some board members, and they just wanted to kind of have a personal meeting with me. And it was half the board, and I said, well, is this about church issues? They said, not really, we just want to chat with you. Okay, I met with them.
Walk into the room, sit down, and here they have those yellow legal pads. And for an hour and a half, I said, now don’t take this personal. But ministry is hard, that’s why it takes a calling.
Here’s another factor why some guys feel like they want to resign. Isolation. The leadership position itself creates a sense of isolation, which 43% of ministers considering leaving the ministry identified as a major factor.
The minister is expected to be a confidant and spiritual guide, but the nature of the role makes forming genuine reciprocal friendships difficult. This is sad. Studies show that 70% of pastors do not have someone they consider a close friend.
Do you know they used to teach that in seminary? My dad went to Grace Seminary in Winona Lake, Indiana back in the 50s, and they actually taught now when you get to a church as the pastor, you can’t really have close friends because the congregation will perceive that you’re playing favorites. How would you like someone to say in your life, well, don’t have any close friends. You just have to be isolated.
And so, the first insight into pastoral ministry is that ministry is hard. I want you to know I’m not contemplating leaving the ministry. You guys have been a great encouragement to us.
Yeah, when we got back from our trip from Florida, which we rarely get away, get back home on Sunday night, I think it was two weeks ago, and there in our kitchen, some flowers. Little note. Welcome back.
Thank you, whoever did that. Let’s go to number two. Ministry is hard.
ii. Ministry must be done through God’s enablement
Here’s the second insight Paul gives us. Ministry must be done through God’s enablement, through God’s enablement. Here again, verse 29, notice what Paul says, to this end I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me.
So, what’s Paul saying here? Hey, you can’t just get up and do it in your own strength, but ministry, whatever ministry you’re called to, has to be done through the power of God in your life. There’s all sorts of verses that refer to that. Zechariah 4:6, not by might, not by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord.
The disciples in Matthew chapter 17, someone came to them and they were demon possessed and wanted the disciples to cast out the demon and they couldn’t do it. And they came to Jesus and said, why couldn’t we do that? And Jesus says, because this only happens through prayer and fasting. You need spiritual power, spiritual enablement.
So, Paul writes to the Philippian church these words, therefore, my dear friends, continue to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, not work for your salvation, it’s a gift. You just have to receive the gift of eternal life. But then he says, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.
Paul from prison, Philippians 4:13, I can do all things not in my own strength, through Christ who strengthens me. And so, ministry must be done through God’s power and God’s enablement, not relying on our own self-sufficiency. Third one, last one, we’ll begin to wrap this up.
iii. Ministry must have specific goals
Here’s number three. Ministry must have specific goals. Ministry must have specific goals.
So, this is the rest of the passage here, because Paul’s writing to these believers in Colossae, and he’s got a certain target, a certain goal that he wants to accomplish. Not necessarily attendance goals, not necessarily financial goals. That’s kind of our American culture of how we define success, even in church ministry.
It’s bodies, bucks, and building, how big things are. No, Paul had some very different targets, different goals, and he speaks to it very clearly beginning in verse 2, Colossians 2:2. My goal is, you can’t miss it. So, I’m writing this letter to you, and here’s my goal.
1. Encouragement
Here’s my target. My goal is that they, the Colossian believers, may be encouraged in heart. And so, here’s goal number one.
Paul says in his ministry and in our ministry, it’s the goal to encourage. It literally means to pour courage into someone. There’s all sorts of scripture verses that speak to that.
I love Hebrews 3:13. It says, encourage one another daily. Daily. We need to do this every day, don’t we? Just to encourage someone, it starts with our own family, doesn’t it? How can you encourage your spouse today? How can I encourage my kids today? And then it should overflow to other areas of our life, our church family, and our neighborhood.
Encouragement. The author of Hebrews speaks to this in Hebrews chapter 10, verse 25. He says, let’s see how we can spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another.
The author of Hebrews says, don’t stop meeting together, but encourage one another. Now, in our world today, we have live stream, don’t we? And most churches live stream their service. And my wife will verify this.
Usually sometime during the week, I check out like four or five other churches and watch their live stream. Maybe not the whole thing, but I’m just kind of curious, you know, what other churches are doing and what they’re sharing, what they’re speaking about. And live stream is good.
And I will also say, we live stream our service. I do check weekly just to see, you know, is anybody watching? Last week we reached a kind of a high, I think it’s because Alex gave her testimony, but there were 72 views last Sunday. That’s double what we normally get.
But having said that, that’s good for shut-ins, that’s good if you’re sick, but we need the body to be present because you can be encouraged watching live stream, but you can’t encourage somebody else because you’re not here. And so, encouragement. Paul is looking to encourage the body of Christ.
How do you do that? Well, through God’s Word, God’s promises. At Sharon’s funeral last night, I said, you know, my goal is to encourage you. Here’s some promises from God’s Word that’s going to give you hope and encouragement, especially at a time of the loss of a loved one.
Because if you know Jesus, you’re going to see this person again someday. And Paul writes to the Thessalonian believers about the rapture and the fact that when Christ returns, believers will be caught up and will be reunited. There’ll be a meeting in the air and we’ll be in heaven forever and ever.
And he says, encourage one another with these words. That’s our ultimate goal. It’s not in this world; it’s something that is out of this world.
Encourage through God’s Word, through the promises of God’s Word. You can encourage someone just by listening. James says, I want everyone to be slow to speak, slow to wrath, quick to listen.
Most of us, myself included, are not good listeners. A lot of us, we’re talking to somebody and we’re kind of half hearing them and kind of planning what we’re going to say. You can greatly encourage somebody just by being an empathetic listener, asking them some questions.
Many times, I’ve had people in my office and they share their problem and I just kind of listen to them and ask them questions and pray with them. They’re like, thank you, that was so helpful. I didn’t do anything, just listened, prayed with them.
Encouragement. Our words can encourage. Proverbs says, death and life are in the power of the tongue.
And so, we have this powerful tool called our mouth and words can either, what, lift up or tear down. The Bible says once we become a believer, we should use our words exclusively to, what, build up other people. So, we encourage them through our words.
2. Unity
We encourage through acts of kindness. We encourage through praying for others. Paul’s first goal here is encouragement, but he has a second goal and it’s unity.
Look at it in verse 2. My goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love. And so, not only encouragement, but unity. We’re all one.
We’re all part of the body of Christ. Now, St. Augustine gave a famous quote. Here it is.
In essentials unity, there’s five key fundamental doctrines of the faith that we need to agree on. They’re essential to salvation and who Jesus is and the substitutionary atonement of Christ on the cross for our sins, the fact that he’s coming again, the infallible word of God. There’s these core values that we must agree on to have unity.
So, in essentials unity, in non-essential liberty, there’s other areas of the Bible, interpretations, especially in eschatology. We can agree to disagree the doctrine of last things. When is Christ coming back? There’s a seven-year tribulation period.
Some say he’s coming back before the tribulation, the rapture. Some say it’s midway through the tribulation. Some say it’s at the end of the tribulation.
There’s another view called the pre-wrath rapture. Yeah, we can disagree on those. And then in all things charity.
And so, unity. Paul speaks to us in Ephesians 4:3 through 6, make every effort to keep the unity of a spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body, one spirit, just you are called the one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all.
And so, Paul’s goal is unity. You know what Jesus prayed for right before he went to the cross? His high priestly prayer? It’s found in John chapter 17 verse 3, this long prayer that Jesus prayed right before he goes to the cross. Not verse 3, it’s down in verse 21, 20 and 21.
My prayer is not for them alone. He’s praying for his disciples. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message.
Guess who that is? That’s us who believe through the scriptures and the message of the Bible. Here’s the prayer request, that all of them may be one. Jesus’ prayer was for unity within the body of Christ.
3. Know Christ
Well, Paul’s goal was encouragement. Paul’s goal was unity. Back to Colossians chapter 2, Paul’s goal was for them to know Christ.
That’s found in verses 2 and 3. My goal is that they may be encouraged in heart, united in love, so that this will produce the full riches of complete understanding in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely Christ. I want you to know Christ. And then it says, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
Knowledge in Jesus is all the treasures of what? Wisdom. The whole section of the Bible is wisdom literature. The book of Proverbs, that’s a great book to read through.
I think there’s 31 chapters and 31 days in a month. Read through the book of Proverbs. There’s great wisdom there.
Knowledge and wisdom. So, to know Christ, how do you get to know someone? You get to know someone by spending time with them. How do you get to know somebody? How do you get to know Jesus? Well, it’s kind of simple.
God speaks to us through his word, and we speak to him through prayer. So, it’s reading God’s word, that’s how he speaks to us, and it’s praying. I’ve had people sit in my offices; God told me to do so-and-so. And I said, well, let me tell you this, that wasn’t God, because God never tells us to do anything that is contrary to what’s in this book. So, I don’t know who told you that, what voice you were listening to, but we know Christ by reading his word.
Reading the gospel is a great place to start. Matthew, by spending time and speaking to him in prayer. And God wants to know what’s on our hearts.
4. Spiritual discernment
And he can take whatever our thoughts are. Sometimes we’re hurt, and God wants to hear our thoughts and our prayers. Lastly, and then we’re done this morning, here’s the fourth target, the fourth goal, is spiritual discernment.
So, remember in Colossae, there was these false teachers that were teaching wrong about who Jesus is, wrong about the way of salvation. And so, he says, I tell you this to know Christ better and to encourage you, I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments. That’s an interesting word.
It’s used only here in the New Testament. Don’t be led astray by false teachers, fine-sounding arguments. For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit and delighted to see how disciplined you are and how firm you are in the faith.
And so, Paul says, I want you to have some spiritual discernment. You know, in the banking industry, the best thing they tell you how to detect a counterfeit is to study the real thing and make sure you know what that $100 bill looks like or whatever denomination that you’re looking at. And that’s true.
Applications
The best thing to be able to have spiritual discernment is to know the truth. John 8:32, you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. Well, quickly here, let me just conclude with a couple of obvious expectations and applications rather.
We are all to be functioning members of the body of Christ… Therefore, we are all ministers!
So here we go as we finish. Number one, if you’re in ministry, and we all are, if nothing else, you’re ministering to your family, you’re ministering to your spouse, you’re ministering to hopefully a ministry in the church. We’re all ministers.
1. Don’t expect ministry to be easy
Don’t expect ministry to be easy. There’s always going to be challenges. There’s always perhaps going to be some criticism.
And so, one of the ways that we can help with that is that we need to encourage one another as we do ministry. And so, encourage a Sunday school teacher, encourage a junior church worker, encourage the nursery workers, encourage the tech crew, encourage youth workers, encourage those that are working in Awana, those that are working in beyond Awana, those that minister in music, board members, encourage them. And that’s part of our job.
But don’t expect ministry to be easy. But I love 1st Thessalonians 5:24, faithful is he who calls you who also will do it. And so, if God’s called you to a ministry, he will make sure to encourage you and be faithful to you to help you complete what he’s called you to do.
2. Always minister in dependence on God and His power
Secondly, always minister in dependence on God and his power. And I know this sometimes gets forgotten, but you know, if you’re even teaching a Sunday school lesson, giving a lesson to the kids on Wednesday night at Awana, you can’t do that in our own strength. We want to depend on God to move and to speak through us.
And so, we’re depending on his power. Remember the story of Samson, one of the saddest verses in the Bible. The secret to Samson’s power wasn’t his hair.
That was just the outward symbol. It was dependence on God and his power and his strengths. And then one day Delilah tricked him and deceived him and had him wrapped up and said, the Philistines are on you.
And Samson goes to try to break those ropes, and he doesn’t realize that the spirit of God has left him. He has no power. Samson ends up in the temple to Dagon, the Philistine gods.
His last act was to ask God to give him one more burst of physical power. And he was chained between those two pillars in that temple, and he tore those pillars down, and the whole building collapsed and killed everyone. But Samson forgot that God’s power was no longer with him.
That was true for the nation of Israel. The Shekinah glory had left them. And so, we always have to minister in dependence on God and his power.
3. Minister with specific goals in mind
And then the last one is to minister with specific goals in mind. So, when you do ministry, one of the things I’ve learned is that you have to know your audience, don’t you? Like, who am I speaking to? Who am I ministering to? Am I ministering to people who have been in church all their life, to Christians? Am I speaking to people who don’t know the Lord, don’t know anything about the Scriptures? And so, we need to know our audience, but we need to have specific goals in mind. Paul’s were encouragement, unity, knowing Jesus, and being united in love.
Well, that’s a little insight into personal or pastoral ministry. I hope that encourages you as we minister together here through the body of Christ.