The Cross Marks the Minister, Part 2 | Christ, His Cross, His Church

Colossians 1:24-29

Mark number three: He shepherds diligently. If every single member, every single person, every man, every woman, we’re to preach Christ to that person, admonishing them and teaching them with all wisdom, desiring to see them made complete in Christ, grow into maturity in Christ. Steadfastness, stability, strength, maturity, godliness, holiness; well, what does that require of us as ministers?

 When I say, us as ministers, I’m, I’m, gonna use all of us, must say all of us as ministers. What does that require of us as church members? Paul talks about this in terms of being an apostle; mean, meaning, he’s a, he’s a preacher, he’s a pastor, he’s a shepherd. He’s got a very unique role. None of us are apostles. There are no living apostles today. It’s Paul and the twelve. That’s it.

 But in his Apostolic leadership, in his Apostolic example, it sets the example for every pastor, teacher, today. Sets the example for every evangelist, today. Ephesians 4:11, Christ gave to the church gifted men gifted offices to fill particular offices. Apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor and teacher. The evangelist, pastors and teachers still with us. Apostles and prophets their ministry is done. It is here written in the word of God.

 So we have everything that we need from their ministry here codified, written in Scripture. The evangelists, the pastors, and the teachers, they take that word from the apostles and prophets and continue to do the work of building in the church. So, in Paul the Apostle, the evangelists, and pastors, and the teachers, they see what shepherding requires, what diligent shepherding looks like.

 And you know what, every single church member ought to look at their pastors, and evangelists, and teachers, and see what their ministry requires. What diligent ministry requires. So it all funnels down to every single one of us, every single member of the church ministering to every single member of the church. Paul modifies the verb there.

 We proclaim, it’s one of the biblical words for preaching there, and he modifies that verb with two participles which hit really two sides of the preaching task, admonishing and teaching, a warning and teaching. Admonishing and teaching. To admonish, that’s the verb, noutheteo, which is basically to press the truth to the conscience to apply the truth in such a way that it commands people to stop sinning or to avoid sinning, and then to get on the path of repentance and righteousness. That’s admonishment. So it means exhorting people, warning people.

 To teach: the common verb, didasko, means to instruct. It’s the idea of imparting information, but also helping people to know how to put that information into practice. So not just being a disseminator of knowledge, and facts, and dumping, you know, like an ex, you know, an expository dump truck, that just dumps a bunch of exegetical facts on the church, but actually helping people to know how to do this. What the implications are for the lives. What’s required of them.

 Together, those two participles admonishing, teaching, they not only clarify what Christian proclamation really is, they also help us to understand what shepherding diligently really requires. Admonishment requires teaching. Teaching is not just about imparting information, disseminating knowledge. The proclamation of the word of Christ demands a life change. It presses the conscience. It calls from mind renewal and gospel transformation.

 That’s why Paul adds there “with all wisdom.” Because shepherding requires not just a, a, sledgehammer. It also requires, at times, a scalpel. And sometimes it requires an arm around the shoulder. Sometimes it requires weeping and prayer. Shepherding requires a right and wise application of knowledge to each man, to each woman, for the purpose of their maturity and their growth in Christ.

 Now “proclaiming Christ by warning every man, by teaching every man with all wisdom.” This is what each minister is responsible for, and to a large degree, what each one concern, whether he’s, whether or not he’s being diligent. Everybody knows whether or not they’re being diligent in this task. The final clause is a purpose clause that reveals the goal of proclaiming Christ, namely, that we present every man complete, every woman complete, mature in Christ.

 That’s about the reception of the ministry of the word, which happens in the heart of every individual. And, it’s, that’s beyond us. We can’t control that. Can’t manufacture that. That’s the Spirit’s work. That’s the individual’s responsibility before God, By presenting every man mature in Christ, every woman mature in Christ. That goal reveals the true nature of shepherding and the spiritual level of attention required for diligent shepherding. It’s what occupies the minds of our elders, the mind of Don and his elders, every single faithful pastor, shepherd, elder.

 I, I, see some in this room, and I know that’s exactly how they think. It’s what keeps him up at night. It’s what robs them of sleep. It’s what gives them great joy, too, to see people actually changing and growing, getting stronger. Some time ago, a good friend and fellow pastor directed my attention to John Owen, who’s one of my favorite pastors and theologians of the Puritan era.

 And he directed me to an article that John Owen wrote called The Especial Duty of Pastors and Churches, full of very practical shepherding wisdom from John Owen. One point stood out to me, among so many good points, is that shepherding with diligence and wisdom requires constant and fervent prayer for people. Without prayer, Owen says, “No man can or doth preach to them as he ought, nor perform any other duty of his office.”

 He goes on to say, “he that doth constantly, diligently, fervently pray for them, will have a testimony in himself of his own sincerity and the discharge of all other duties, nor can he voluntarily admit or neglect any of them.” Why? Because what you pray for, you work for. Owen tells us what to pray for; being diligent to proclaim Christ to every man, he says, pray for the success of the word of God. Pray for help against temptations that afflict the Church. Pray about the spiritual state, the condition of each and every member.

 He goes on to say this. “There may be those who are spiritually sick and diseased, tempted, afflicted, be misted, wandering out of the way, surprised in sins and miscarriages, disconsolate or sad, troubled in spirit in a peculiar manner. The resemblance of them all ought to abide with ministers, and to be continually called over in daily prayers and supplications.”

 Owen goes on to describe the kind of every man ministry the apostle speaks of in Colossians 1:28, which is ready, willing, able to confront, relieve, refresh, those that are tempted, tossed, wearied with fears and grounds of disconsolation in times of trial and desertion. This kind of ministry requires, as Owen says, “skill, understanding, and experience in the whole nature of the work of the spirit of God on the souls of men, of the conflict between the flesh and the spirit; of the methods and wiles of Satan; of the wiles of principalities and powers of wicked spirits in high places; of the nature, and effects, and ends of divine desertions – with wisdom to make application out of such principles, or fit medicines and remedies unto every sore and distemper. This skill or understanding and experience comes,” he says, “by diligent study of the scriptures, and meditation thereon, fervent prayer, experience of spiritual things, temptations in their own souls, with a prudent observation of the manner of God’s dealing with others, and the ways of the opposition made to the work of his grace in them.”

That’s a familiarity, an experiential familiarity with the gospel in your own life, in order that you may help others in their life. This kind of shepherding requires us, as Owen says, “to be ready and willing to attend to the special cases that are brought to us in the good and wise providence of God, and not,” not, “to look on them as unnecessary diversions.”

Studying Luke’s Gospel and get for us as a church, we’ve been going through this since 2015, but we’ve been studying it a long time. You know what I see in Luke’s Gospel? I see Christ ministering to weary souls. I see Christ tired, exhausted. But he cares. He addresses every concern, every leper that comes he touches, every, every, lame, diseased person brought before him, he reaches down, talks to them, administers his grace, the power of his healing.

 Man, that’s a, for every single one of us. That’s not just the, that’s just not the pastor’s job is to follow Christ in that. As every one of us, it’s our job to follow Christ. Nothing can be so high in your agenda, you set aside the, the, need of the weary, the need of those who need your help, need your shepherding, need your confrontation, need your counsel, need your love, need your encouragement, need your prayers.

 Obviously, it’s every pastor’s job, every elder’s job, every deacon’s ministry, but this is every Christian’s responsibility. It’s a joyful responsibility. It’s every member’s charge to care for one another. The privilege and stewardship of the church, its ministers, its own to its own members, “building itself up in love” as, Ephesians 4:16 says.

 That’s what we’re all to be doing. How would Christ place an obligation on a single pastor or a few elders in a church of 100 or 200 or whatever the 100 is? How would he put on them the burden of every single minister without employing and enlisting the work of every single minister? Jesus says, “Come to me, you are weary and heavy laden, and I’ll give you rest and take my yoke upon you. For my yoke is easy, my burden is light, and you’ll find rest for your souls.”

 They say many hands make light work, right? A church must get with its elders, not just sit on the bus like passengers staring out the window, or worse, disrupting the bus, shooting spitballs at each other, throwing the seats out the window, and don’t do any of that. Think in terms of one of those pedal bikes you see at resort areas where everybody’s pedaling. That’s what church is to be. We together, move together and make this whole thing work together. We minister to one another.

 The Colossians 1:28 mandate isn’t just for the pastor. It’s not just for the elders. It’s for every single one of us to do that together. It’s our joy. It’s our privilege. In today’s mega churches with multiple thousands of bus riders, we have to question whether Paul’s expectation of an everyman complete in Christ ministry is feasible or even conceivable in such a context. If not, in a mega church setting, what adjustment should be made? Should we adjust Paul’s expectation? Should we say, you know what, it’s an outmoded.

 Paul said all this stuff back in a time when it’s just house churches, whole lot easier. In today’s changing world, we’re just mega church people. We’re mega people. Should we update the outmoded model of shepherding, as Andy Stanley has suggested? Just abandoned the image of the shepherd all together? Cast the pastor instead, in terms of a visionary leader, an attractional speaker, a CEO, whatever?

 Well, I’d recommend against tampering with God’s love of the shepherding image. He describes himself, in Ezekiel 34 as a shepherd. God sent Jesus Christ to be our Good Shepherd, John 10, “who laid down his life of the flock,” and his ministers are charged to follow his example of shepherding diligently.

 So, I’d suggest that the adjustment needs to happen, not in the word of God, not in the expectation set by the Apostle Paul, but needs to happen in the heart of every modern believer, to repent of the modern form of the theology of glory. To embrace this ancient, time tested, biblically faithful theology of the cross, that requires us to shepherd diligently.

 I’d suggest we need to abandon the modern mega church model altogether. Tear down the Asherah poles and the Baal altars of tractional preaching, plexiglass pulpits, attractional ministry, hipster jeans, and combination of the, to the culture of the self, needs to stop. Full stop. Seeker churches for baby boomers, hipster churches for Gen. Xers, sin affirming churches to attract the Gen Y Millennials, the Gen Z-ers.

 Any ministry approach that attracts, and accommodates, adjust to every new generation is a worldly ministry, and a compromising ministry, and it’s not a ministry at all. What the boomers, the hipsters, the Gen. Xers, Gen. Yers, Gen. Zers, what they really need is the proclamation of Christ in you, the hope of glory. That’s what we need. “Admonishing every man, teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may represent every man complete in Christ.” That’s shepherding diligently.

Number four, number four: striving purposefully. Striving purposefully. Look at verse 29. “For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.” When we hear what’s required of, in diligent shepherding, it’s not surprising it’s going to require some toil, sweat. The verb, Kopiao, refers to working hard, working to the point of physical weariness, working to the point of emotional exhaustion, and then struggling. The verb, agonizomai, means striving, fighting, and it’s a purposeful striving, by the way, it’s intentional. It’s deliberate. It’s not just flailing about like somebody drowning on the deep end.

 Paul says something similar in 1 Corinthians 9:26. “I don’t run aimlessly. I don’t box, as one beating the air.” This is in gym training. Paul is in the ring. He’s fighting for his life. He’s on the battlefield. He’s getting shot at, and he’s trying to protect people who are being shot.

 So, “I discipline my body,” he said. I keep it under control. Literally, I enslave my body. Why so severe, Paul, lighten up. No! I’m striving for the prize. I’m running to win. Winning, gaining the prize is the purposeful goal he begins to describe in the second chapter. Take a look at it there. “I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea, for all who haven’t seen me face to face, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love.”

 The agonizing labor that Paul put forth, the energizing power of Jesus Christ that he experienced by the Spirit, all being directed toward this singular goal; middle of verse 2, “that all the riches full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

 That’s what he wants for people. That’s the goal. That’s, that’s, why he’s willing to sweat and bleed and go through pain and suffering. He wants them to know, “Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” He wants them to, to, go through that treasury, opening treasure box after treasure box, and discovering for themselves the great joy and the wealth of the riches of glory that they have in Christ. If they do that, they’ll have no other needs, no other wants. A thousand problems are solved with this one thing: Worship Christ.

 The message of Christ and his cross is the power of God and the wisdom of God, 1 Corinthians 1:24, Paul is not their salvation. He knows that Christ is. So, the more the Christians know of him, the more they understand of him, the better use they learn to make of all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, the greater their assurance. And that’s a purpose worth striving for, the assurance of our fellow Christians.

 Well, we’ve covered four marks of Christian ministry so far: Suffering joyfully, stewarding faithfully, shepherding diligently, striving purposefully. One more, mark number five: Safeguarding constantly. Safeguarding constantly. Christian ministry is about constant safeguarding. Safeguarding the flock. Protecting the flock. Why?

 Because the strategy of the enemy, he uses a number of different tactics, but it is always the same strategy, and it’s to turn Christians away from Christ, to get them distracted with other interests. To flood their minds with 1000 distractions and 1000 worries. Things that they might love more, things they might become attracted to, to a greater degree. He wants them to, not stay attached to the head, who is Christ.

 The Christian ministry is about safeguarding. The warning in verse 4, chapter 2, Paul says, I, “I say this in order so that no one may delude you with plausible arguments.” Plausible arguments, persuasive, fine sounding arguments. Like what? Well, in chapter 2, look at verse 8: Plausible, credible, credible arguments from, “philosophy and empty deceit according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world,” as mentioning some of that last night in talking about the wisdom of this world and things that sound plausible to the world.

 All the great thinkers of our time and all the provocateurs, all the, all the pundits, all those who were debating, getting into whatever the issue is. It’s all philosophy according to human tradition, according to the elemental things of the world, things that are just like, I mean, the, the, more you go through them, the more you realize there’s nothing here. This is the ABC’s. Thank you for explaining Critical Race Theory to me. Thank you for cultural Marxism. Thank you for all that.

 I, I, appreciate understanding that. But now that I’ve got it, let’s move on. It’s really actually, it’s actually, not that hard to figure out. Once you start to learn the, the, lingo, learn the terminology, you’re like, okay, got it. You’re trying to divide people, create classes of people, oppressors and oppressed, and people who are victims and victimizers, and they just want to divide the world and turn them all against each other. Okay, now that I’ve got that, I don’t need to read any more books on it. Let’s move on.

 Those who want to keep you, your minds in that world, they’re trying to distract you from Christ. What about verse 16, persuasive arguments about, “questions of food and drink, or with regard to” celebratory occasions, such as, “a festival or a new moon, or a Sabbath.” It’s talking about lifestyle. Is there a prescribed lifestyle for us as Christians?

 In one sense, yeah. Holiness. We’re to pursue godliness. We’re to get rid of anything in our life that, that, prevents us from those goals. But does that have to do with food and drink? No. Those things are incidental. Festivals, new moon, sabbaths, binding people’s conscience to how they, how they do, these things, that’s what was going on in Colossae. Verse 23, Fine sounding arguments regarding “things that have an appearance of wisdom and promoting self-made religion, asceticism, severity to the body, but they’re of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.”

 Listen, there is so much to bind up people into legalistic living and severe treatment of the body. Asceticism, all that stuff, it has no, sweep it all the way. You know, if people who indulge in that, engage in that, and, and, and, restrict themselves so much, you know what they’re doing, they’re trying to do sanctification in the flesh. They’re trying to battle the flesh with the flesh.

 And you know what happens after years of doing that? They’re absolutely weary at the end of it and they go headlong into sin and destruction. They develop such deep habits of drinking, and immorality, and everything, because they’ve, they’ve, just been trying to suppress the flesh and control it, but never actually being sanctified. They don’t have the spirit of God. They have the spirit of the world.

 Paul wants to protect the Colossian believers, Laodiceans, and the church in Hierapolis. He wants to protect them. He wants to protect us, all those he hasn’t seen face to face from all of these distractions. It would pull us away from simplicity of faith in Christ. So, the final mark of Christian ministry, once again, like all these marks, is not only for vocational pastors and elders. They are for all Christians to practice to one degree or another, with and their practice with one another.

 The final mark is polemical. It’s protective. It’s the sharp end of the staff and safeguarding constantly. Peter said in 1 Peter 5:8 to 9 he said, “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. So, resist him, firm in your faith, knowing the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.”

 That’s how we encourage one another. That’s how we protect one another. We safeguard one another. That’s Paul interest, Paul’s interest, here as well, verses 4 to 7 chapter two, “I say this in order so that no one may delude you with plausible arguments. For though I am absent in the body, yet I am with you in spirit, I rejoice to see your good order, the firmness of your faith in Christ,” stable, steadfast, deeply planted, deeply convicted, never moving, never changing, but always fixed on Christ.

 Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk that way. You received him in simplicity of faith. You received him with a clear-eyed vision of who he is, what he’s like, how glorious he is, what he represents, reconciliation to God. So, if you received him that way, keep on that way. Did that not give you joy, at that time? Did that not fill your heart with delight, to know your sins are forgiven. To know your, your, walking toward Christ, following him into everlasting glory, and then walk that way.

 As you receive Christ Jesus Lord, so walk in him, being rooted, built up in him, established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. All those concerns, notice them; good order, firmness of faith, rooted in Christ, built up in Christ, established in the faith, holding fast to what has been taught. Paul rejoices in those things. The good discipline, the stability, the growth to maturity, which results in abundant outpouring of what? Gratitude.

 You want to see a healthy Christian, one who is marked by the cross itself. Look for gratitude in his life. When you don’t see gratitude, when you hear a lot of complaining, a lot of self-centered complaint and grumbling, a lot of drawing attention to one’s own concerns, and lot in life, and difficulties, and trials, and all, you don’t hear gratitude. You know the difference. This is how the cross marks the minister. He suffers, stewards, shepherds, strives, safeguards for the sake of Christ and his church, for the sake of a local church, for the sake of a local congregation.

 The true minister, the cross suffers joyfully, stewards faithfully, shepherds diligently, strives purposefully, and safeguards constantly. Beloved, except no substitutes. Flee from the wolves who want to make merchandise out of you, who care nothing about your soul, but everything about your wallet, everything about your being their fans, and their followers. They want to boast in you, over you. Flee from them. Get out from underneath the impotent influence of hirelings. Those who were just in the job because of the comfort of it.

 As I said, air-conditioned office. Not bad. Even on my worst day, I tell my fellow elders, well, hey, it’s a tough day, but no one’s shooting at me. Hirelings, that’s all they want, really, easy life. Comfortable life. Their, their, ministry is impotent. It’s prayerless. It’s, it’s, faithless. It’s got nothing to it. They are unsaved people. Many unsaved people in pulpits. Get yourselves out of that. Get yourself and your loved ones into a church where a cross marks the minister and the marks are deep.