Sermon: Stewarding the Gospel

Let me say what a great privilege it is to, uh, preach at the service, to be a part of it.

Sorry for being a bit emotional.

Uh, this is one of the greatest joys of my ministry to be part of the ordination of my son to preach at this service.

It's the answer to years of prayers, um, years of ministry in Minnesota and Iron Center, and, uh, so grateful to be with you. Thank you, Jason. And the session here of University Reform Church for allowing me this privilege. Turn with me in your bibles to the book of Colossians. Colossians chapter one.

We're gonna read together verses 24 through 29,

and we're gonna focus especially on verses 28 and 29. But we'll begin at verse 24. Colossians chapter one.

Here. Now God's word. 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 to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations, but now revealed to his saints. 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. Him we proclaim warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present, everyone mature in Christ for this cyto, struggling with all his energy, that he powerfully works within me. Join together in prayer. Father in heaven, we pray that as we reflect for a few minutes upon this text of scripture,

that God, you will show to us what faithful gospel stewardship looks like and that we might hear your word, father, whether we are a pastor or whether we're involved in some other kind of gospel ministry that should help us, father, to take these words to heart and then respond faithfully and obediently to you. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, dear people of God, this text is perhaps, um, unique in the writings of the Apostle Paul. Uh,

so often Paul in his letters, gives us a doc doctrinal exposition like we might find in the book of Romans or the book of Galatians, or Paul gives us a, uh, pastoral exhortation like we find in one and two Timothy, or in the Book of Titus or Paul sometimes gives us an ethical appeal like we might find in the book of one Corinthians. But what's unique about this text of scripture is that here Paul talks about himself and his ministry.

He describes what his ministry to the Colossian church was like. And so he reminds us in this text that he was a preacher. So he says here that he made the word of God known or he proclaimed God's word. He also reminds us that he was a pastor. So three times in this text he says it was for the sake of the church that he proclaimed God's word. He had a deep, deep love for the bride of Christ. But then Paul also reminds us of this verse 25.

He says, I became a minister according to the stewardship from God. In other words, Paul says, I am a steward or I was a steward of the gospel. A steward you'll know is somebody who is entrusted with something. So when you're a steward, what you are given is not yours. It belongs to somebody else. They give it to you and they, they give it to you with this mission that you are to use it on their behalf. And then you are held accountable for how you use it. Paul,

for example, writing about his own ministry in one Corinthians four says, it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy. You have to give an account when you steward something. And I love Paul's description here of himself as a steward because it reminds us that all of us, if we are involved in any kind of Christian ministry, we might be an elder, a deacon, a Sunday school teacher, a youth group leader, a Christian parents that all of us have been entrusted with something.

We've been entrusted with the gospel and we are to steward the gospel Well, but of course that is especially true if you have been called a full-time gospel ministry, as many of you here tonight have. And as Nathan, you are being called to of all the hats that you wear, husband, father, brother, son, friend, mentor, and we could go on. You're also now being called to be a steward. God has given you a gospel to Harold to preach from the

pulpit herald by the hospital bed in the classroom in counseling, and you're called to be faithful or to be trustworthy without gospel. So I want to give tonight four characteristics that Paul writes about here of faithful gospel stewardship. Here's number one, every faithful gospel steward needs to proclaim Christ. This is what Paul says in verse 28. The first three verses there, he says Him, we proclaim, this was Paul's priority. This was Paul's passion.

This was the exclamation point of Paul's ministry to proclaim Christ. And you can see the priority for Paul in this simply by how he said it. Here, our English version captures well how the original language puts it him, we proclaim. Paul could have said, we proclaim him, but he didn't put it that way. He puts Jesus up front and center. The very first word of the verse, him we proclaim making Christ known was Paul's singular passion.

And this was the need of the Colossian church, the church troubled by false teachers who were adding all kinds of things to the gospel of Christ. They were drifting away from Jesus. Some had painted the gospel as Jesus plus circumcision. Others had said, it's Jesus plus don't eat this food or that food. Others said, salvation is found in secret knowledge. Others in aesthetic practices don't handle, don't touch, don't taste.

And you see what happened is every time they added something to Jesus and the gospel,

they were actually really taking away from Jesus. And each time you add something to Christ, you're, you're really pulling away from Christ diminishing Christ. You're saying Christ is not enough. And Paul says, no, him the Lord Jesus, him, we proclaim nothing added to Christ, nothing less than Christ. Christ alone, Christ all sufficient.

And this is not, you know, simply the need of the Colossian church centuries ago. But this is the need of the church today, isn't it? Proclaim Christ unbelieving people of course need Christ, but every Christian needs Christ. It doesn't matter if you've been a Christian for 40 years or you've been a Christian for four days. What you need more than anything is Christ. You need the gospel. You need Christ. I need Christ.

And there's nothing better to preach than Christ is there. Paul says, verse 27, Christ is the hope of glory. He's the certainty. He is the hope of eternal life now and the glory to come. Paul writes about the preeminence of Christ back in chapter one. He is the image of the invisible God To see, Jesus's see the Father. He's the first born of all creation. Paul's not saying there that Jesus was created, but rather he has preeminence over all creation by him.

All things were created. He is before all things. And in Him, all things hold together. He is eternal, he is supreme. He is the sustainer of all things. He is the head of the body. The church we're dependent. It's a church as Christians upon him for life. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead. By the resurrection of Christ, he has become the source of new life. And in him, the fullness of God was pleased to dwell

the God man and through Christ to reconcile all things to himself. He is a reconciliation and he is our peace.

So who else is there to proclaim? But Christ? So let let Jesus be the center of every sermon, pointing him. Point to him as the only hope. Minister in such a way that he increases you decrease, be good steward and proclaim Christ. Second mark of faithful gospel stewardship is to minister, to present the church, mature in Christ. And Paul says that here Him, we proclaim warning everyone, teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present,

everyone mature in Christ. This is the aim of gospel stewardship for the false teachers and the church at Cossa maturity. A perfection for them was discovering some kind of secret knowledge that only a few had. You know, you just find this secret key and then you'll be perfect, then you'll be mature. And for the Apostle Paul, maturity is growth in grace and godliness. It's to become more like Christ. It's to be mature as Paul says in Christ.

And Paul says this is true for everyone. He repeats that here. It's interesting how he says this. We are warn everyone, we teach everyone that we may present, everyone mature in Christ. You kind of scratch your head and say, you know why? Why does Paul just keep saying the same thing? Everyone, everyone, everyone. The reason why is to emphasize that maturity is not just for a select few who have the secret knowledge, but maturity in Christ is where everyone,

where all of us need to be headed. This is our aim in gospel ministry for the young, for the old, for all the gens out there, right? The greatest generation, gen X, gen Z, gen alpha, everyone. And Paul describes this process of maturity. He says, we warn everyone and we teach everyone with all wisdom at times. There needs to be rebuke at other times there needs to be instruction. Sounds very similar, doesn't it? To what Paul said to Timothy about the effectiveness and the sufficiency of

God's word. That the word is useful for teaching reproof and correction and training and righteousness so that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. Mature. Nathan, as I've thought about my ministry over the years in this call to present the church, mature in Christ, I thought to myself this is, this is sort of like, um, getting the bride ready to meet the bridegroom. So the bride, the bride of Christ.

My task is to get the bride of Christ ready to meet the great bridegroom, the Lord Jesus. And it's always struck me. I just had this a couple of weeks ago when I'm at a wedding rehearsal and they're talking about the next day when the wedding's gonna occur. And often there'll be something at the end of the rehearsal where they say, you know, um, ladies, um, bride and bridesmaids, this is when you need to be at the church.

You need to be there at eight o'clock in the morning

like wedding's until four o'clock. You know, there's this vast amount of time of preparing, getting ready, beautifying themselves and all of that. But it's this long period of time of getting ready for the wedding. There's a wedding of universal proportions coming when our bride groom the Lord, Jesus comes for his bride. Until that day you get the bride ready, help prepare the bride so that she might be presented in full

maturity for her groom when he comes. So we minister to present the church, mature in Christ, we proclaim him. Third, we press on as verse 29. For this, we toil struggling. So this ministry of presenting the church mature for this, we toil struggling. This is Paul's realism about the gospel ministry. He doesn't put anything flattering on here, does he? He says it's toil, it's hard work. The work of the ministry is not always glorious.

Often it's a grind. Paul says, we struggle doing this. The word is agon. We, you can hear the English there. We struggle, we agonize, we toil, we agonize. And you see, if we would be faithful stewards of the gospel, whatever our gospel ministry is, we have to realize that because when times are hard, when we want to give up, we're reminded of this. And this helps us to press on to keep going. Oh, that's right. This is not always gonna be easy. Paul said that.

Paul reminds us of that. Another way of saying it perhaps is that the ministry of the gospel involves a certain amount of suffering. And that suffering comes because we are dealing with the lives and souls of people. And eternity hangs in the balance. When you preach, when you counsel, when you teach, when you minister, ministering to the souls of men and women and boys and girls. And that is hard, hard thing to do. Paul even said it about his own ministry in this text,

I rejoice in my afflictions or sufferings for your sake. And in my flesh, I'm filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body. I was not saying there that somehow the atonement of Christ and the suffering of Christ was deficient. So Paul didn't have to fill up what Christ failed to do. That you know, Jesus got 80% of the way and Paul wrapped it up. That's not what happens in gospel ministry.

Paul is simply saying that if the master suffered, so will the servants of the master, and that when we suffer in the gospel, it's simply an overflow of Christ's sufferings. Paul says, I can rejoice in those sufferings. I love the church so much that I can rejoice even when I have to suffer for the sake of the church.

What kind of suffering might you do in the gospel ministry? Well, you will have to suffer with the church. You will weep with those who weep. You will bear the burdens of God's people. Perhaps it's a young couple who's lost their baby and miscarriage, or sit down with a woman who's just discovered that her husband has un been unfaithful, or a couple that's just received a cancer diagnosis. Or a young person who cries out to you. God,

why don't you take these feelings away? And we could go on and on with example, after example of suffering with the church. You may have to suffer for the church, the discouragement that comes sometimes in the ministry of realizing all of your preaching and teaching that you've done. People just haven't made it very far in the kind of sin patterns that they're stuck in. Say what? What have I accomplished? What happened?

What's God done? Or you may have to see a church through a period of division. So you suffer for the church. You also suffer in prayer. This was the mark of e Apris who first brought the gospel actually to the church at Cossa. Paul can write about him in the fourth chapter. He's always struggling on your behalf in his prayers that you may stand, mature and fully assured in all the will of God. So you're called to struggle on your knees for the church called to

wrestle with God for the people of God, for their sanctification, their growth and godliness, reconciliation in marriages, healing from sickness, comfort and death, obedience and temptation, truth against falsehood and on and on. A week ago. You're gonna have to toil, you're gonna have to struggle. Do that for the sake of Christ's bride, Rusan. And then finally, Paul reminds us that another final mark of faithful gospel stewardship

is to rely upon the spirit's power. And that's where Paul ends here. He says, for this Ito struggling with, with all his energy that he powerfully works within me, what an encouragement that is. While saying, I didn't do ministry by myself, but my toil, my struggles suffering. All of that happened as I relied upon the spirit of God, his energy, his power, his strength, his his energy at work within me. Paul says, well, strength as a steward of the gospel wasn't simply a natural trance

transfer of his abilities as a pharisee to being a gospel pastor. You know, gifted man over here now, gifted man over here. But it was the power and gifting of Jesus himself through the spirit, he was transformed, he's equipped, he was enabled to become a steward. And of course, any talents or gifts that we receive, they all come from God. He gets the glory. Ethan, I think about your calling to ministry, um, probably started in high school. I,

I'd actually say it maybe started when you were like two years old when you would stand on the steps of the parsonage in Minnesota and you would preach to your stuffed animals when it began. But carried on through college, built up, grown, grew in seminary, internships, filling pulpits, serving South Charlotte. And now all of that confirmed by a call to university reform church,

your calling, your gifts, your abilities, all of it comes from God. And every day of your ministry, you must lean on his energy and spirit as you toil and labor.

Tim Keller, a number of years ago, wrote an article that has spoken to me off and on throughout my ministry. The article was called Ministry can be Dangerous to Your Spiritual Health. Now how can that be? How can ministry be dangerous to your spiritual health? And Keller says, by its very nature, Christian leadership involves extolling the glory and beauty of God above all else. It means pointing others to God's worth and beauty.

Even when your own heart is numb to any sense of divine love and glory, someone who ministers to others, then how will you survive when that happens? Keller says two things. The first and right thing to do is to watch your heart. And so he says, be a man of prayer. Be in the word because in those times, you will find your heart warming to God's reality. Prayer can fan into flame that reality, allowing you to speak to others out of your daily sustenance in Christ.

So pray be in the Word. But then he says, the second thing and the wrong thing to do is to not rely on prayer in the word, but to rely on your gifts and abilities. And this is where this article spoke to me because what he said is when you do that, when you just riding on your talent, you're riding on your gifts, you're riding on your abilities, he said, a crash will come because there'll be a time when the ministry isn't fruitful, when things aren't going well, and you'll say,

what's what's happened? And often that can lead to some kind of collapse. And so has Paul said, rely on the power of the Holy Spirit with all of his energy, that he powerfully works within me. The man of prayer stay in the word and remain humble by leaning on the Lord.

So four marks of faithful gospel stewardship proclaim Christ, nothing more, nothing less Christ alone and work to present the church mature and press on even when it's hard to rely on the holy Spirit's power. Nathan, your calling to be a faithful steward of the gospel so that one day God will find you trustworthy, faithful.