Colossians, Part 5: The Power, the Purpose, the Pursuit
Type: Wednesday Evening Service
Series: Colossians
Sermon: Part 5 - The Power, the Purpose, the Pursuit
🗣️ Speaker: Pastor Jeff Booth
Suffering can have purpose when it's connected to advancing the gospel and serving others. The mystery that was once hidden has now been revealed—that Christ dwells within believers, offering intimacy, identity, and assurance of future glory. True spiritual maturity comes through intentional discipleship, faithfulness in our calling, and laboring together with God's power rather than relying solely on human effort or passivity.
ℹ️ Tip: The video is set to start at the beginning of the sermon, but you can scrub the playhead to any part of the service. ℹ️
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It's awesome to be in God's house tonight.
Amen.
Sweet presence.
We're going to continue on in our series in Colossians.
I just want to say thank you to Pastor Scott for Just knocking it out of the park last Wednesday night.
Come on, let him know you love him.
Did a great job.
Appreciate him.
So thankful to be a part of this this dream team. including all of you.
It's a blessing to be a part of just an amazing team of pastors and leaders here.
We're going to look at Colossians chapter 1, verses 24 to 29.
And if you don't mind, I know you just sat down, but can we stand for the reading of God's word tonight?
Do something maybe a little different.
And I'm going to read all of these verses, 24 to 29.
It says, now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake.
And in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body.
That is the church. of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you.
I don't I hope you would catch through here.
Almost everything Paul says is about other people.
It's about the church, it's about you.
Everything that he's going through, everything that He's saying everything he's doing is for others.
I hope we catch that tonight.
He says this over and over again.
Verse 26 uh Verse 25, the stewardship from God that was given to me for you to make the word of God fully known.
The mystery hidden for ages and generations, but now revealed to his saints.
Verse 27.
To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Verse 28.
Him we proclaim Warning everyone, somebody say warning, warning everyone, teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present everyone Mature in the head.
Mature.
When I talk about that.
Mature in Christ, verse 29.
For this I toil struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.
Let me pray.
Father, thank you for your word.
It's alive.
I know your word will go forth and accomplish everything that you desire and send it forth to do.
Lord, we thank you that it's going to go forth into good soil and it's going to bear fruit.
Lord, we thank you for that tonight.
Anoint these lips of clay one more time.
Help me to have a clear mind and a clear heart to declare and communicate exactly your desires tonight.
In Jesus' name.
Everyone said amen.
God bless you.
You can be seated.
Paul writes in verse 24, I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake.
Come on, if you want to I'll play Pastor Tom's trick on you.
If you want to suffer, stand up.
Ain't nobody gonna stand up for that, right?
We don't want to suffer.
We don't like pain.
I don't like to go to the dentist I don't like to go to the doctor.
I remember when Terry and I first got married.
I had not been to the dentist for 12 years.
Oh She said, I do, but on the honeymoon said, you're going to go to the dentist.
I went to the dentist and had 12 cavities.
And that dentist was he was a demon, I think.
He was painful.
But we don't like pain.
We don't have we don't like to go through struggle, hello?
We don't want to face that.
Paul is talking about this, and Paul is Saying I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and where is he at?
Is he not imprisoned?
Has he not suffered beatings?
Has he not suffered great persecution?
He says, I rejoice in the midst of my sufferings I don't think that's the American mentality when we go through stuff.
Somebody says something, something against our post on Facebook, and we get all bent out of shape.
We're upset about that.
Paul said, I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake.
And he wants us to understand first tonight, redeem suffering has a purpose.
I'm going to say it again.
Redeemed suffering has a purpose.
Suffering for the gospel is something different.
Paul reframes suffering as purposeful.
There's something valuable in it, not pointless, but purposeful.
There's a purpose and even an eternal plan for our suffering.
Paul knows that his suffering is not punishment.
Sometimes I think when we go through rough times and maybe we go through difficult times in life and we go through what we would consider to be suffering or pain, we think that God is punishing us.
We think that we made so many mistakes.
We think that we've sinned so much that God says it's time to punish you.
That is not, your suffering is not God's punishment on you.
Hello, somebody.
It's a fiery trial.
It's a difficult time, but it is not God's punishment on you.
The suffering and trial and Difficulty that you're going through, others are watching, and others can benefit by the way you walk through your suffering and your difficulty.
Suffering is in this life is not God's punishment on you.
Jesus said this, he said, in this world, you're gonna have what?
Trouble There's going to be trials.
There's going to be difficulties.
But he says, be of good cheer.
Paul rejoicing in his sufferings.
Jesus saying, be of good cheer when you're going through this stuff. because I've already overcome the world and because I'm victorious, you're victorious.
You're going to get through it.
You're going to go through some fire.
You're going to through some challenges.
You're going to have some difficult times, but I'm going to get you through it.
Look at your neighbor and say, God's going to get you through it.
Just hold on.
See, in the New Testament, I love all the one-anothers.
Love one another, pray for one another, encourage one another, bear one another's burdens.
All of these one-anothers But we rarely talk about suffering for one another.
I've never heard anybody preach on that.
But we need to understand that that is One we can add to that list of one another's, that when we suffer, there is a benefit to the body of Christ, and there is a benefit to others who are watching us in the midst of what's going on.
Paul continues by making the statement. filling up what is lacking in verse 24.
Paul writes these words, he does not mean that Christ's sacrifice was incomplete.
That's not what he's saying at all.
It means now that Paul is actually participating in the ongoing cost of advancing the gospel message.
So whenever you When you suffer reproach or persecution or backlash from people because of your walk with Jesus, understand that it's not you that they're after, it's Jesus that they're after.
I remember when I was years ago I worked at a uh a utility company.
I was a meter eater.
I worked in the engine engineering department for a while, but I love the meter eating department because you just get out and walk around town in your shorts and when you're done you're done.
You can go home and you get good exercise.
I was in the best shape of my life when I was a meter eater.
Uh now I just lost what I was gonna say.
I'll find it here in a minute.
It has something to do.
Oh, but I remember I used to wear these Christian shirts And they start the bosses started to get on me, telling me I couldn't wear them.
And they they said, you're not gonna be able to wear those when you're out representing us.
And well then tell him to take his Bud Light shirt off.
Now maybe that wasn't the right attitude.
But I I wanted to make say you can't you can't just you can't You can't do that.
And my father-in-law was a boss at that time, but because he was a boss, that's actually how I got fired from the job.
But anyway.
People were coming against me because I was just trying to stay.
It wasn't me that they were after.
They didn't want Jesus that I was representing.
Are you hearing me?
When people give you backlash, understand That it's not really you that they're after, it's the Jesus in you that they just don't want anything to do with.
They are repulsed by.
Paul recognized that the beatings that he received. the stonings that he received, the suffering that he was subjected to, the imprisonment and all of this was because of man's animosities.
Against Jesus.
So that now he was suffering for Christ's sake.
He was in prison for Christ's sake.
He was taking all the sufferings, the beatings, like Jesus, and he would the reproaches of Christ, the feelings that man had in their natural heart. heart against Jesus, he was willingly accepting that for the cause of Christ.
The hatred that man had against Jesus, Paul was privileged to bear it.
Sometimes I think we just we just shut our mouths and we stop being bold for Jesus because people say certain things to us and we just stop being bold Lovingly bold.
We used to have this statement when I was in youth ministry, lovingly harass kids.
Lovingly harass them to Jesus.
Just love on them.
Don't stop, even when they reject, keep sowing love into the are you hearing me tonight?
We can't just back down because the world doesn't want to hear what we have to say and what we want to present to them and what we want to give to them James 1 verse 2 says, Count it all joy when you fall into diverse temptations and trials.
Hmm, is that your attitude when you go through trouble?
When your marriage isn't on the rocks?
When the finances are all in an upheaval, when your kids are going a direction you didn't you didn't teach them to go, when things just aren't going right.
Are y'all with me tonight?
Our attitude needs to be that we take joy in the midst of it because Christ has overcome.
And 1 Peter 4.
12, I love this one.
Don't count it a strange thing.
That's an American thing.
When trouble comes our way, we think that's strange.
Why would we go through a fiery trial?
Because we're supposed to be blessed.
I remember one of the churches I was in years ago, people come in and I knew they had trouble in their family.
I knew they go in, they'd walk in.
I'm blessed and highly favored of the Lord.
Everything's good.
You're a liar.
Yeah, you're favored of the Lord.
But be real about it, man.
You're going through some stuff.
And you can have joy in the midst of it, but don't be surprised and counter the strange thing when you go through a fiery trial, which is to try you As though this was something strange.
Rejoice in the midst of it.
Look at your neighbor and say, rejoice.
Jesus even said this in Matthew chapter 5.
Blessed are you when men shall Revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake For my sake and for the gospels, for great is your reward in heaven, for so persecuted they the prophets that were before you Kingdom impact often comes through personal sacrifice and personal suffering.
I think of the church in Iran, and for years it's been it's it's the fastest growing church in the world.
And they've been great, you know the persecution and all that they are enduring.
And the world is watching.
Believers are watching.
And their suffering is benefiting the church, and actually their suffering and the bloodshed is actually causing a harvest of souls.
See, you can't stop the kingdom of God.
You can persecute and normally under persecution is when the church explodes.
It's not always in the good times, but it's when there's oppression and persecution upon the church.
We may not be suffering as they are, but you do suffer.
I remember growing up And my dad loved the Lord for a while, but then he saw, I'm be honest, he just saw some things in the church that were wrong, and they were wrong.
There was some misconduct going on, and and he just turned his back on God.
And he got very I don't know what the word is, but he he was very mean to my mother.
My mom stayed faithful to the Lord, never had us, didn't want us to say anything evil about our dad.
Even though he was being very evil at times.
He was repulsed at the church.
I remember one time he told me, don't ever ask me to come back and visit your church again.
I won't come back.
He just despised the church because of he let things that he saw that were real He allowed those things to get into his heart and he walked away.
But I watched my mom live a life of love towards him.
And the words that she said to us. on how we are to treat him, to love him, and to be kind to him.
Are y'all with me tonight?
She was suffering.
There was financial suffering because he left.
There was all kinds of suffering that took place that she endured, and we can watch her life as she honored God in every way she possibly could.
That was a benefit to us.
I wasn't turned against God and against the church, even though I knew some of that stuff was happening.
My hope was in the Lord, not in that pastor or that denomination.
Are y'all with me?
See, you may be going through a situation where your spouse is not living for the Lord and you're suffering right now.
And the way that you walk through that with joy, the way that you walk through that with The strength of the Lord, the Holy Spirit guiding you.
Kids are watching, others are watching.
Some of you are going through health matters and other situations where you really are suffering.
And I'm telling you, the way you walk, I've mentioned this before.
There's a couple ladies here in the church that Terry and I observed their lives, and they've gone through some really hard things.
And they are such a blessing.
The way they live benefits us.
It encourages us to keep our faith rooted in the Lord when things are not going the way we think the auto goes.
Somebody say amen.
So through the power of the Holy Spirit, may we all learn that when we go through times of suffering, it's gonna be hard to say and hard to do, we learn to suffer well.
We learn to suffer well for the glory of God.
Paul continues writing, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you. to make the word of God fully known.
I want to point that out again.
Paul says this stewardship was given to him for you, for your benefit.
Understand tonight that your gift, your calling, your anointing, it's not for your self-gratification.
It's for others to build the church up. to bring us into a place of maturity.
Yes, you will be blessed by the gifts and the anointing God puts on your life, but it's given to you for the sake of God of others.
Paul is saying here, number two, is ministry is a divine stewardship.
Ministry is a divine stewardship.
Ministry is not a career.
I remember Several years ago I was uh my name was considered for a a position at another church in another state, and uh and I didn't get the position.
And I was a little disappointed, but I wasn't devastated.
Because I always knew that whenever God says no, whenever He shuts the door, He has the right door.
And I'm not going to say it's the best door.
It's not a better door.
It's the best door.
Are y'all with me?
We look at no and we think we're so no no God wants you in the right place not in a place in the right place and so a board member came to me just came to my office and and he said Jeff I just want to let you know brother that I know you're really, you're really devastated about this, and I wasn't.
I looked at him kind of like, I'm not.
Life goes on.
You know, God's going to take care of us.
And he said, I know that this would be a good step in your career.
And I know that this would be a really big financial boost to you at this time.
And I'm listening to him, and I said, man, with all due respect, you just don't understand.
This is not a career move.
This is a calling.
I'm simply trying to follow the call of God on my life.
And God said it's not that.
So He has something else for me.
I'm good with that.
But you need to understand ministry is not a career.
And if you go into it as a career, you jacked up.
And it it's just that's not the right view to have of it.
It's a calling.
You need to be called of God to go into full-time ministry.
But we are all ministers in this room.
Look at your neighbor and say, you're a minister.
You may not be a pastor on staff at a church, but you have a role of ministering.
You are responsible first and foremost to minister to your immediate family, and then it grows outward.
From there, Paul sees himself as a manager of something that belongs to God.
As ministers, we must always recognize that we are stewards of the calling.
And a place of ministry where God has positioned us.
We are under-shepherds of his church.
We serve him.
We work for him.
He doesn't work for me.
He doesn't work for us.
We work for him, for his glory and for his honor.
I'm not building my ministry or my kingdom.
I'm co-partnering with the King of Glory for his kingdom that his purposes be accomplished.
If you teach a class here or you host a connect group or you serve in some other way here uh connected to OAG, you need to understand that it belongs to God and you are steward of it.
And He's watching how you handle it.
Your faithfulness In handling what he has given you to handle.
Paul makes known the purpose of this stewardship that he has, but we all have a measure of it, and it's this: to make the word of God fully known.
When you're teaching a class, the Lord wants to help you make his word clear to people that they would understand it so they could live it out, so they could receive it and walk Faithfully with him and mature in the faith.
This is our responsibility.
Your connect group, your class setting, wherever you share the word, the goal is to make his word fully known clearly for others to receive it.
Once again, understand that you don't own your calling.
You steward it.
God gave it, but you and I have a responsibility to steward it properly for his glory, not your glory.
God has allowed me to serve and lead the worship ministry, the creative arts department of OAG.
It's not mine.
One day I won't be here.
Hello?
It's quiet in this place tonight.
This is not mine.
These are Men and women and people who serve that God has entrusted me to lead.
Hello?
And I am here to help serve our pastor and the the rest of the staff to accomplish God's desires in this country. community and even beyond.
That's what we're here to do.
Every so often I have the honor of speaking at a conference or a uh For some reason, this this old man speaks at a lot of youth events.
And uh a lot of it is with worship leaders, and a lot of it is some of it is is leadership teaching.
And uh what I find oftentimes people want a platform and they miss the calling Because we have in America we uh there's something like this is like really special if you're a worship leader or you have a microphone in your hand or or you stand behind one of these.
You know what I'm saying?
It's like we have we've made something out of it.
I hope I'm okay to say it.
Hello?
And it's really important that the young people understand that to have a calling, you're not going to be rewarded on the size of your platform when you get to heaven.
Okay, it's going to be about your faithfulness and obedience to do what God asks of you.
Now we'll say this.
If you're faithful with little, God often expands that.
But just because somebody is on a big stage doesn't mean that they're faithful or obedient to what God called them to do.
Their gift could have made room for them.
Not a calling.
I hope I'm not confusing you.
I don't want to do that.
But we need to understand that the size of the stage doesn't dictate your your your reward in heaven.
Hello?
There's a calling that is that is greater.
Faithfulness is greater than the platform.
Abiding in Christ is key.
Intimacy with the Father is of most importance.
In order to have something to say, we must have to hear what the Father wants to say to us, we have to be in the prayer closet before we can come out on the platform and give a word from the Lord.
There are many great communicators who are not Christ's followers.
And there are many gifted singers and musicians.
I watched some of them last night at one of the the village squares.
But can I tell you there's not always the anointed, called, and assigned people.
You understand what I'm saying?
There are some great musicians, but many are called and few are chosen.
There's a song that I hope would illustrate the point a little bit, the position we should take as leaders. when we are talking about stewarding the area that God has given us.
It's a song called What a God and the lyric says this if the highest place I reach is at your feet, then I've done it all.
If the best thing that I've seen is your glory, then I've seen it all.
Your love has changed my life, forever satisfied God.
You are my everything.
That must be our pursuit.
He must be our pursuit as we minister to people.
That when we spend time with him and we hear from him, we have something to give to others.
So spend time at the feet of Jesus.
Seek him.
Worship him, ask of him, and listen to his voice.
Paul goes on to say, point three, the mystery hidden for the age is now revealed.
I'm gonna have to hurry.
God's plan was hidden, but it's now revealed.
The gospel was once concealed but is now fully disclosed in and through the life of Jesus Christ.
A mystery is not a riddle.
A mystery is simply a truth that can only be known by revelation, not by intuition.
We are living in an age of revelation.
The mystery is revealed.
The cat is out of the bag, so to speak.
The mystery is known now.
It reminds us that there are aspects to God's plan that were not clearly revealed in the Old Testament.
The specific mystery Paul refers to deals with many aspects of the work of Jesus. in his people, but especially the plan of the church to make the body out of Jew and Gentile.
The mystery is this that God had designed to grant the Gentiles the same privileges with the Jews, to make them a people who were not. his people.
This is what Paul means by the mystery.
You and I have access to what generations upon generations long to know and understand.
Somebody say it's been revealed.
It's been revealed.
Don't treat lightly what was once hidden, but is now revealed for every tribe, tongue, and nation.
Verse 27 Paul continues, to them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mis mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Number four, the core of the gospel, really the crux of it, is Christ in you.
The wonder and glory of the abiding indwelling.
Jesus was not clearly revealed in the Old Testament, the Old Covenant, especially that he would abide in the Gentiles.
So this aspect of the work of Jesus and his people was a mystery that wasn't revealed until the time of Jesus and the apostles.
The great mystery referred to is the breaking down of that partition wall between the Jew and Gentile and preaching the gospel to the Gentile. world.
Ephesians 3, 6 says this.
The Gentiles should be fellow heirs, co-heirs, and of the same body, and partakers together of his promise in Christ by the gospel.
Anybody in here born in Israel?
We all Gentiles in this place?
We should say, Thank the Lord that this mystery has been revealed.
That the good news is for us too, that we have been grafted in and we have been made whole. been saved because of Jesus.
That's the good news tonight.
I don't believe most Christians really get this.
Most Christians don't fully understand and comprehend this because I think if we did we would Live differently because we're not talking about just Christ with you.
We know that Jesus said that He would be with us to the end, He would abide with us, but it's Christ in you Christ in you, we hold this treasure in vessels of clay.
It's not just Jesus hanging out with us from time to time wherever we go and we decide how much of him we want to bring into our lives.
It's about Christ living in us.
No more I live, but Christ lives through me.
Are you all with me tonight?
Christ living through me to the fullest.
Three things the hope of glory speaks of.
Number one, intimacy.
His presence is within us.
Identity, who you are now.
We are sons and daughters of the Most High God.
I was reading through the scripture today and this part about my identity and who I am.
I was spending time in prayer and all of a sudden my prayer got a little more bolder.
I was taking a little more authority in my prayer life today because I realized just a little bit more who I am in Christ.
And that he's in me, and no weapon formed against me can prosper.
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
If God be for me, who can be against me?
There was something that was rising up in me.
I begin to talk about to God about a lot of things and asking him to enter. intervene and then the Lord would say, now you begin to take authority over it.
You begin to speak.
Hello, somebody.
You begin to speak to mountains.
You begin to declare and decree.
Because he's in us.
He's not just hanging out with us, though he will never leave us.
He is in us.
He dwells in this Temple of flesh.
Third, assurance, future glory.
Our future glory is guaranteed.
Somebody say amen.
Our hope is not external, it's internal.
It's Christ in you.
You carry his glory right now with you.
Paul continues by writing, Him we proclaim.
That we may present everyone mature in Christ.
And I may want to take a little more time with these last two points.
The mission is to proclaim and produce maturity.
I'll say this with as much love as I can muster tonight, but the church in America needs to grow up spiritually.
We truly have We have a lot of growing up to do spiritually.
If we're honest with ourselves, we're behind the curve when it comes to spiritual maturity.
Many who have been part of a local church and claim Jesus as their Lord.
There's just immaturity going on.
And I'm not at all talking about us tonight.
It's those people over there at that other church.
See, when you stop serving, you stop growing.
When you no longer have a prayer closet, you stop growing.
When you stop giving.
You stop growing.
You don't stay in the same place.
You start moving backwards.
See, when the Word of God just sits on the coffee table and collects dust and it's just decorative piece You've stopped growing and you're not maturing in the faith.
See, when you no longer involve yourself in making disciples, you start to stagnate.
And you become self-centered.
Once again, it's those people over there.
I'm just talking to you about them, okay?
It hits home with me.
Growth takes place when we pour out of ourselves what has been poured in.
Growth takes place when we pour into others.
Maturity takes place when you're challenged in your faith.
By serving others and making disciples.
We gotta know him for ourselves.
See, I remember When I was in Omaha, there was a dude in the church that was there for over 20 years.
He was there long before I came.
And I ended up getting him on the worship team.
Stevie would have loved it.
He had a pink Chevelle electric guitar with lips all over it that were actually his wife's lips.
And the first Sunday he played at, I thought I was going to get fired, but Pastor kept me.
But he told me one time, I've been at church over 20 years, and I had been there a number of years, and he said, I'm finally getting it.
I'm finally understanding the gospel.
I'm like, how can that be?
Well, I don't think he was plugged into anything.
He just came and left.
Came late to the service, left early, didn't plug in.
Hello, somebody.
Wasn't accountable to others.
I'll leave that alone.
See, we've got a lot of ground to make up with our kids.
I know Pastor is in a family matters series, and this is going to be a great series for us.
It's a great start we've already had But we're behind with our kids.
Barna and Lifeway Research give statistics Of up to 65% of our high schoolers when they leave our home and go to college, some 65% stop going to church and there there are some that do come back but many never come back.
They walk away.
There's something wrong with that.
We've not been teaching and raising our you can't just allow Forty-five, an hour and a half on a Wednesday night for a youth pastor to do what we are supposed to be doing in our homes every day.
We should hopefully be supporting and reinforcing biblical truths in your life.
They shouldn't be getting it all here.
You should be getting something here.
But we have to take authority in our homes in raising our children to know the truth.
I saw this interview the other day with a national I'm not going to say the guy's name, you know who he is, but he uh he was in the outrage because in a local high school they had made a room for uh Muslim a Muslim prayer room, is Islamic prayer room in this high school And this guy was just going and I was like yelling at the screen like yeah shouldn't be doing that what about our kids you know and and my blood pressure's raising and and he's giving all these arguments against it and then The Muslim man spoke.
And can I tell you, Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.
No one comes to the Father but through Christ.
It's the only way.
But the Muslim man was speaking truth.
He said, maybe we aren't your enemy.
Maybe we aren't your problem.
Maybe we have taught our kids and ingrained in them and they're living it out and your kids are not picking up what you're laying down and they're not believing what you've been teaching them.
Because maybe you've not been living it.
Maybe you're just telling them things and you're not discipling them.
Are y'all with me tonight?
And I had to say, you know what, the man has he has some truth there We have to raise our kids to know Jesus in an intimate way that when they leave our home and go off to college, They are forged in the fire of the faith and they remain faithful.
And they, if anything, they are stronger on the university campus when they get there.
I knew I wasn't gonna get an amen for that, but it's the truth.
We have to raise our kids up to know Jesus intimately.
We have to involve the Holy Spirit's help in forming our kids to have a deep relationship with the Lord, to know his word, and to express experience his word for themselves.
I'm not banging on you as a parent or myself.
I'm not trying to do, I'm not trying to throw you under the bus.
But maybe we prayed for safety more than we've prayed for a spirit of wisdom and revelation and for strength and endurance to fight the good fight.
And teaching them the way to go.
Paul speaks of a threefold ministry model that we can apply in our home and everywhere that we minister.
First of all, proclaiming, declaring the truth, verbally teaching and sharing the truth.
Secondly, warning, bringing correction in error.
That's what he's doing in the church here. uh in the book of colossies he's bringing some correction to them and third teaching building understanding This is not just for a pastor who's on a church staff, but it's for all of us.
Somebody say all of us.
See the goal for our families is this, not church attendance.
That's great.
If you love Jesus, you ought to be in church every time the doors are open.
Every time the doors are open, you should be in the house of God.
It's not about having an emotional worship experience though.
You might encounter an emotional worship experience because we are emotional beings and we encounter the living God when we come together. to worship, but it's not about church attendance, it's not about a worship experience, it's about growing in maturity in Christ.
See, real discipleship produces transformation.
Not just inspiration.
We don't want to just inspire people and you leave and it kind of floats away.
We want to see transformation take place in the hearts of lives. of people associated here and in this region.
Maturity in Christ is revealed in our personal transformation.
What's that look like?
People can see more of Jesus in you than they can see of you.
The fruit of the Spirit is flowing in your life that there is you despise sin.
It doesn't mean that you don't sin anymore, but you are repulsed by sin.
Hello?
Hmm Finally, kingdom work requires effort plus God's energy.
Effort and God's energy.
Paul says in verse 29, I toil struggling with all his energy.
Did you get that?
I toil struggling with his energy.
It's key tonight.
As I said earlier, we're all ministers and carriers of the hope of glory, but I'm speaking for a minute from the position of pastoral ministry.
Many years ago as a youth pastor, we were at a church that kind of started growing really good and and uh even back in the day the secretaries called us the dream team because m most of the staff was in our early thirties. and we had all grown up together and we were just being blessed by God breathing on the house and it was growing and uh finally got up to about eighteen hundred people.
Our our youth ministry doubled in four years and it was just fun to be a part. of what God was doing.
And and I don't want to I sound like I might be banging on board members tonight, but a board member came in one day and uh he said, my goodness.
You could come into this church and you could walk up and down the halls and you could never find a pastor.
Matter of fact, you could shoot a shotgun and not hit anybody.
Ain't nobody here.
And he was what you would call a full gospel businessman kind of guy.
He was I think he was the head of full gospel in our county And I'm sitting listening to him and I'm thinking, okay, brother, I don't know if you're aware of this, but kids don't come to the church looking for me.
We got they they're at the schools, they're at dances, they're at ball games, they're at events.
We try to connect with them there.
We do have our Wednesday night service.
Yes, yes, yes, all of that.
But We're actually in the community reaching out to them.
We actually have hospital visitation that we got to take care of.
We got shut-ins we go and minister to.
Matter of fact, we got that big event coming up.
We used to do an event where there'd be thousands of people from the community that would come up onto our property for this event.
And there was a lot of work.
There was a lot of stuff we did outside the church.
It was a lot of work.
But there was work going on and God's strength empowering us.
Are y'all getting this?
It's a combination of co-laboring with the Lord.
And there's going to be effort when we when we do marriage counseling, my wife and I would always tell people that love is spelled W-O-R-K Because you're gonna have to work on your finance, you have to work on who's doing the laundry, you're gonna have to work on all these things.
The goosebumps and the giggles and all that, it's gonna go away pretty quick.
You know, somebody's got to take trash out.
Somebody got clean the floors.
Marriage is work.
Can I tell you ministry is work?
People don't just drive by.
Well, I guess we have had that happen a couple times.
People just drive by and come in.
It's usually you have to be out in the community ministering to people.
You have to engage with people where they are.
It takes intentionality.
It takes work to see that come to pass.
As we desire to reach the lost in our community, it's going to take that type of planning and work Coupled with the power of God.
It will take energy and effort, but most importantly, it will take being empowered by God and his spirit to accomplish his will and his desires.
Paul is communicating that he works hard for the gospel.
And he struggles, but the source is God working in him.
Are y'all getting this tonight?
Sometimes we tend to go to extremes on each of the end of the spectrum.
Sometimes we want to just be all God.
God, I'm just sitting here, you just waiting on you to do it.
I'm praying and just when you gonna do it?
And that's passivity.
We're co-labours.
We're to work with him.
We can go to the other extreme and we're working ourselves to death and we're not tapping into his power and his strength.
We're not moving with his spirit.
We're kind of doing our own thing and that turns into burnout and losing the fire.
It's having a good ministry work ethic combined with the wind of the Spirit, the power of God. working in and through us.
I've been on a few different staffs and I've said this before.
Pastor Sheena, this is amazing staff that is here at Oxford Assembly.
And uh it truly is a dream team.
And Pastor Sheena, I've said this, she is the hardest working children's pastor I know.
There's nothing she won't do.
There's nothing she won't nobody there's not a person she wouldn't help.
I was in Lakeland the other night with my wife visiting our family and uh I saw on our little thing there's one of the kids in the church here had a wreck down there and so I'm like I'm down here you want me Sheena was already on her way down She was already in a vehicle all on her way down to Lakeland to minister to these kids and get them back home.
We have an amazing staff here.
I told Pastor Tom earlier today, I said, you are the Larry Bird of pastors.
And he's he says what?
And and I said you are the Larry Bird.
Larry Bird had this mentality that if he was in the gym after after the team worked out and he shot 500 jump shots And he left, it would drive him nuts because he knew Magic Johnson was probably shooting 700.
So he'd get back in the gym and shoot a couple hundred more.
He was always thinking the other guy is working harder than him.
I'm telling you what This pastor, I've never seen anybody study and prepare like this guy prepares.
I'm not I'm not working on a raise or anything like that.
I'm just telling you the truth I told him today, iron sharpens iron.
Man, you're pushing me.
This is good stuff.
We have an amazing team, but can I tell you, stuff just doesn't happen on Sundays.
There's a lot of work that goes into Sunday.
There's a lot of work that goes into these evenings.
Our first Wednesday worship, it doesn't just it doesn't just we turn the lights on and show up and there's a lot of work and preparation.
God blesses preparation.
He blesses that.
Understand, it's not all God that leads to passivity.
It's not all you because that leads to burnout.
It's us laboring with God.
So to apply what Paul is saying to our lives tonight, understand you're not called to strive alone.
God is working with you and for you.
The same power that was working in Paul is working in you tonight.
If the team would come.
The big idea we can learn from Paul tonight is this: suffering has purpose.
If you're going through a difficult time right now.
Can I tell you, your suffering has purpose?
Calling is stewardship.
The mystery has been revealed.
Christ lives in us and the goal is maturity.
The power is his working through you.
Would you stand with me tonight?
Can you just lift your hands heavenward and just thank the Lord for his word and just Ask the Lord to touch you right where you are.
If you're a prayer team members, nobody came earlier, maybe they want to come now.
If you just prepare yourself and just play worthy of it all.
If you need prayer before we go These team members are here with you tonight.
Understand that what God put inside of you is greater than the fiery test that you might be going through right now.
I thank you for your word.
I pray you'd help us as sons and daughters, Lord God, to walk in the identity that you have given us.
And Father, I ask in the name of Jesus that you would help us to grow in those areas where we're weak, Lord. those areas that need to be shored up.
Lord, help us to to come to a place of maturity.
Thank you for what you were doing in this house in our lives as a body of believers.
Thank you, Lord God, for your blessings upon us.
Help us to be good stewards of the ministry that you've called us to.
All throughout this campus, different areas of ministry.
Thank you, Lord God, for where you have called us.
Help us, Lord, to be strengthened by you.
To come to a place of maturity.
God, we give you praise tonight.
In the mighty name of Jesus.
If you need prayer, you're welcome to come at this time.
We're going to begin to worship the Lord.
