Mission Together

SERMON MANUSCRIPT

Sermon Audio

Mission Together

Sermon Manuscript

[Read Colossians 4:2-18]

Our congregation is about to enter an interesting season in the life of the church—a pastoral vacancy. Many of you have been around this congregation long enough to have experienced this a few times. However, it doesn’t matter how experienced you are with pastoral vacancies, they are still an interesting season in the life of the church. I use the word “interesting” intentionally. Some may want me to use words like difficult or anxious or unknown to describe this season, and some of those words may describe moments, but I don’t think they need to describe the entire season of pastoral vacancy. 

The official word for what many churches experience during a vacancy is “liminal space”—the awkward period of time when you’ve left something behind and have not landed in a new place—some people describe it as that place between letting go of one trapeze rope and grabbing hold of the next one, when you’re hanging in mid-air. Because I am a sports guy, I prefer to call it the Neutral Zone. It’s a time that can be categorized by fears, worries, and anxieties because it feels like there are so many unknowns. Who is going to be the next pastor? What are they going to be like? What is going to happen in between? And a whole host of other unknowns and unanswered questions. I’ll even admit that this has been a hard week for me as I’ve wondered about many of those same questions. It’s extremely difficult for me to step away from a congregation I’ve loved, who’s loved me and my family, and whom we’ve given our lives to for the past seven years.

Yet, as I’ve studied this morning’s passage, and prepared this morning’s sermon, I’ve been reminded by God and His Word that this doesn’t have to be a season—shouldn’t be a season—that is categorized by all those worries and fears. It should be an interesting season where a congregation learns a lot about itself and the ministry God has given them in the world. 

Here’s why that’s the case: the church was never designed to rise and fall because of a single person—including the pastor. One of the core focuses of my ministry in this congregation has been to work diligently to spread out the work of the church to the church—and not have it all centered on the pastor, or to have the focus on the pastor, or dependent on the pastor. I didn’t focus on this because I was lazy and didn’t want to do the work. I focused on this because a healthy church is not centered around a single pastor. A healthy church functions like the Body of Christ, each member using their unique gifts to build up and strengthen the rest of the Body of Christ. Of course, things will change in the absence of a pastor, but the ministry of this congregation will continue through the people God has placed in this congregation. That’s the way God has designed this to work. 

Now, I didn’t plan this out when choosing to preach through Colossians, but providentially, if I had chosen a passage to preach on for my final sermon, this would have been way up the list. I think there’s a lot of great wisdom for this congregation to remember during the upcoming vacancy. 

Paul begins by saying, “Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.” (Colossians 4:2, ESV). May this reminder be a central focus during the period of vacancy. One of the notes I came across in regard to this passage says, “It implies a persistent, unflagging commitment, not just sporadic prayer.” This is very close to the command to pray continuously. I actually love that it says to continue steadfastly in prayer, because it seems to add the nuance that it’s difficult to pray this way. It’s much easier to pray sporadically on and off, but it’s very hard to pray continuously. It requires a level of perseverance—steadfastness.

Notice that it says that you need to be watchful in your prayer. Most commentators believe this is talking about being watchful over the temptation to not pray continuously—not being watchful of things to pray for. It’s the idea that you need to be aware that you will not naturally pray continuously—you will naturally slide into sporadic, occasional prayer. So, you need to be on the watch for it. You need to pay attention and be diligent not to fall into this trap. Be in prayer continuously. 

One of the best books I’ve ever read on prayer is “Prayer” by Ole Hallesby and he has a powerful line where he says, “Only those who are helpless can pray.” (18). He also says, “As far as I can see, prayer has been ordained only for the helpless. It is the last resort of the helpless. Indeed, the very last way out. We try everything before we finally resort to prayer.” (18). Why this is so powerful is that it points to one of the main causes of prayerlessness in our lives: We don’t actually believe we’re helpless. We think we’ve got things under control. We can handle it on our own. So, we don’t pray, or only pray when we finally realize our helplessness. But the reality is that we are helpless all the time, which is why we should be praying all the time. 

This is also part of the uneasy feeling during a pastoral vacancy. Having a pastor helps a congregation feel like they are no longer “helpless” and when the pastor leaves, they begin to feel very helpless in a variety of ways. You can respond in two ways. You can respond to that helpless feeling by trying to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and do it all on your own or in your own strength OR you can respond by acknowledging your helplessness and turning to an all-powerful, all knowing God for help in prayer. I love how simply Ole Hallesby puts it, “Prayer therefore consists simply in telling God day by day in what ways we feel that we are helpless.” (26).

Yet, this passage is speaking about more than just coming to God in prayer for our own comfort and peace, but also continuously praying that the gospel would spread. We read, “At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison— that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.” (Colossians 4:3–4, ESV). On the one hand, this is deeply connected to what we were just talking about. Paul realizes that he is helpless in changing hearts and causing them to receive and believe the Gospel. So, where do you turn in your helplessness? To God. So, Paul tells the church that they need to be praying that God would open a door for the Word of God to spread and that he would be able to present the gospel clearly to his listeners. 

I think this is another important reminder for this church in the interim period.  I want you to continue steadfastly in prayer throughout the interim, not only for peace and comfort, but also that God would open wide a door for the gospel in Beaver Dam during the interim. It’s this reminder that the ministry of this congregation is not put on hold while you wait for the next pastor because the ministry of this congregation comes from the congregation. So, be praying that God would continue to open doors and continue to do a powerful work in Beaver Dam in this time. 

That’s also why our passage shifts away from Paul’s ministry to the congregation itself. We read, “Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.” (Colossians 4:5–6, ESV). This is turning away from the focus on Paul’s ministry to the ministry of the people in Colossae. He’s telling each member of the congregation to recognize that they are living out their faith in the world, surrounded by people who do not know the gospel, and that they are to interact with these non-believers with wisdom, focus, grace, and winsomeness. Once again, this is a reminder that the ministry of the church—the evangelism of the church—is not about one, single person. It’s about the church—every member—living their faith out in the world, taking every opportunity to share the gospel, learning how to interact and respond to questions and criticisms, doing it with grace, but also in an effective way that draws people in. 

I also want to make sure we don’t miss another aspect of this. He begins this by saying, “Walk in wisdom toward outsiders…” (Colossians 4:5, ESV). This is an interesting way to word this. Some may think he’s telling Christians to be weary of “outsiders” and to make sure you’re not tempted and drawn away from the faith. While that can be a concern, that’s not exactly what he’s talking about. What he means is that we should live godly lives in the midst of the world. Especially when this was written—but no less today—there were tons of slanderous and false accusations being leveled against Christians, trying to prevent people from following Jesus. Paul is telling them that not only are they to know how to verbally respond to those slanderous attacks, but the way they live their lives should be a response to those attacks AND their lives should lay a groundwork that helps with the spread of the gospel. 

This entire conversation reminded me of a really good book I read a couple years ago. It was called Evangelism in the Early Church, by Michael Green. In the book he’s trying to figure out how in the world the gospel spread like wildfire in the first and second centuries. Unsurprisingly, he ends up saying much of what Paul is saying in this passage. I love this line from the book, “The ordinary people of the Church saw it as their job: Christianity was supremely a lay movement, spread by informal missionaries.” (Loc. 5996). To tie everything together, he also says, “It was, then, with the Scriptures and prayer as their main weapons, backed up by their love, their burning zeal to share their faith with others, and the sheer quality of their living and dying, that the early Christians set out to evangelize the world.” (Loc. 5613). The gospel spread like wildfire because everyday Christians prayed for the spread of the gospel, and then lived out that gospel in their daily lives, and took every opportunity to share that gospel with those who were not saved. The church was built, not by pastors, but by the congregations. 

I realize that people begin to hear this and get kinda nervous or begin feeling guilty. We all know that if you want to make someone feel guilty all you need to do is ask them when was the last time they shared the gospel with someone. Yet, we know feeling guilty doesn’t accomplish anything. People start to feel nervous about this because they feel like they have no idea what to do. They feel helpless…which should cause us to do what? To pray to the God who is not helpless. Our helplessness should not prevent us from doing the work God has called us to do. Rather, it should cause us to continually rely on God through prayer, as we do the work he’s called us to do. 

With that said, I do want to share a couple ways the early church shared the gospel that helps people realize that it’s not as complicated as we’ve made it over the years. We talked about this first one repeatedly as we went through the Gospel of John. Green writes, “But what could the first generation believers do to share with others who had not been present the new life they enjoyed in Christ? They could bear their witness; that is all. They had two things to say. First, that they had believed, and had found the claims of the divine Teacher to be true in their own lives and experience. Second, they could give the evidence on which they had committed themselves.” (Loc. 1665). Sharing your witness with non-believer doesn’t have to include much more than simply talking about the fact that you believe in Jesus, why you believed in Jesus, and how you’ve seen Jesus work in your life. That’s not actually that hard. It’s also not very intimidating to do because it’s not confrontational or anything like that. You’re just simply telling them about what you believe and have experienced through Christ. 

The second one is often overlooked, but is very powerful. Green writes, “Third, it is very noticeable that the home provided the most natural context for gossiping the gospel…The sheer informality and relaxed atmosphere of the home, not to mention the hospitality which must often have gone with it, all helped to make this form of evangelism particularly successful.” (Loc. 270, 5003). Hospitality was another key to sharing and spreading the gospel. Simply having people over to your house for a meal and having a conversation with them about life. As you have a conversation, you’re able to talk about a wide variety of things—including what you believe and why you believe it. It’s a powerful way to share and spread the gospel. 

The point is that ministry is not about a single person—but about a body of people working together—continues throughout the end of the book. We see Paul begin to list person after person after person at the end of the letter. He talks about eleven different people in this passage. I wish I could spend the time diving into each of them and their unique ministry and their history—or even future—but we don’t have the time for that this morning. Rather, I want to focus on the main point of this final section. GK Beale does a great job summarizing this portion by saying, “Paul emphasizes his sincere pastoral concern for the Colossians by reminding them that not only he but also his coworkers have pastoral concern for them and they should show the same concern to others.” (Beale, 349). Paul's not just giving a list of names here, but he’s showing the Colossians how much they are cared for—not only by him—but by all of these other people working on their behalf. 

It’s this powerful reminder for the Colossian church—and ours—that not only is the church not about a single person, it’s also not about a single church. In this final section Paul writes, “And when this letter has been read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans; and see that you also read the letter from Laodicea.” (Colossians 4:16, ESV). Earlier, we were also reminded that there was another church in the valley at Hierapolis. These churches weren’t disconnected from each other. Not only did they share pastors and workers between them—like Epaphras—they also shared letters between them. This letter was to be read in Laodicea and there was a letter to Laodicea that was supposed to be read by the Colossians—most likely another one written by Paul that we don’t have. These churches were connected to one another and supported one another and encouraged one another. 

I think this is another important reminder in the midst of the upcoming vacancy—and the beauty of being part of a denomination. Faith Community Church is not alone in this. Not only do we have members from the surrounding churches who are willing to fill the pulpit and bring God’s Word for us. We also have retired pastors who are interested in helping during the interim period. On top of that, we are connected to Classis Wisconsin and they are committed to caring for you and providing support in this vacancy. The surrounding churches in Randolph, Fox Lake, Waupun, and Horicon are committed to supporting you in this vacancy. There are denominational staff who have already helped provide resources and support and will continue to provide those resources and support. We’re part of a body that is much, much larger than this single congregation and we’re all in this together—which is a beautiful thing.

I want to end with what I think is the central message of this passage. It’s with Paul’s words to Archippus—poor Archippus who gets called out by name in this letter. We read, “And say to Archippus, “See that you fulfill the ministry that you have received in the Lord.”” (Colossians 4:17, ESV). We don’t know why Paul felt it necessary to call out Archippus in front of the congregation. It could have been because the congregation was undermining his ministry and he needed to be publicly lifted up by the Apostle. It could have also been because he was being lazy, and had settled, and was no longer fulfilling the ministry the Lord had given him and Paul thought it was worth a public rebuke to get him back up and going. Whatever the reason, the message is very clear. God has given you a ministry and you are to fulfill that ministry.

I think that is not just true of Archippus, but to every single member of this congregation. God has given you a ministry. That ministry looks different for every one of us and it depends on the gifts that God has given you. But either way, He has given you a ministry. That ministry may be like a pastor or elder—preaching and teaching and shepherding. It may be that of a deacon—caring for the physical needs of the congregation. It may be a ministry of musical gifting. It may be a ministry of caring for the poor in the community. It may be a ministry to children. It may be a ministry of prayer. It may be a ministry that occurs through your. Workplace. I could go on and on and on and on. The point is, God has given you a ministry. What is that ministry? Are you fulfilling it? If not, make sure you are fulfilling the ministry God has given you because the ministry of the church is the ministry of its members.

The church doesn’t rise and fall based on a single person—unless that person is Jesus Christ—and thank God he has promised, “I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” (Matthew 16:18, ESV). Keep your eyes on Him in this interim period. Continually be in prayer to him. And fulfill the ministry he has given you. And through all of that He will build his church.