Tag: sacrifice

The Necessary Ingredients for Effective Gospel Ministry (Colossians 4:7-18)

On By Jarrett Ray FletcherIn Colossians, Devotionals, Imago Dei ClassLeave a comment

Last words are meant to be lasting words, yet so often I am guilty of skimming over them in the Bible. I find this temptation in the conclusion of Paul’s letter to the Colossians as well. He lists several names and gives salutatory commands that may seem to amount to “Tell Barnabas I said hey.” Yet when we slow down and consider all that he’s saying in this passage, there’s a beautiful lesson to be learned. That lesson is the example of effective gospel ministry.

Paul’s ministry of the gospel was effective. It bore much fruit. You and I are more than likely believers today because of Paul’s ministry. Yet we know from the book of Acts and his epistles that he never ministered alone. There were several men and women that God called to minister alongside Paul, whether it was through joining him on mission trips, helping him escape assassination attempts, or working alongside him to plant and encourage churches.

In other words, Paul’s ministry wasn’t effective just because he was a great communicator or a strong leader. It was effective because of the things and people that made up his ministry of the gospel. We see these people and these things in full color in Colossians 4:7-18. I call them the necessary ingredients to effective gospel ministry. Here’s seven of them.

1. Gospel ministry requires the family of God laboring together (4:7-8).

    Paul begins this section, “Tychicus will tell you all about my activities. He is a beloved brother and faithful minister and fellow servantin the Lord” (v. 7).[1] Notice that he refers to Tychicus by name and calls him first a beloved brother and then a fellow servant. The church of Jesus Christ is not primarily a team or a staff, but a family, and we labor together to fulfill the family mission of making disciples among the nations. We are not called to minister individually, but together! If the apostle Paul needed partners in the gospel, how much more do we?

    2. Gospel ministry requires intentional encouragement (4:8).

    Paul tells the Colossians his purpose in sending Tychicus to them: “that you may know how we are” and “that he may encourage your hearts” (v. 8). These are two separate purposes, but they are closely related. We recently had a missionary from South Asia come and give our church a report on the work there. By letting us know “how they are,” he greatly encouraged our hearts that God is still at work among the nations.

    However, I do think Paul is sending Tychicus to encourage the Colossians directly. The gift of encouragement is to the church what a rush of oxygen is to a struggling fire. That’s why Paul commands the Thessalonians to “encourage one another and build each other up” (1 Thess 5:11). We know this intuitively. If you’ve spent any time trying to improve in some skill or area of life and someone takes note and encourages you in it, it strengthens you to continue what you’re doing. So it is with gospel ministry. We must intentionally encourage one another to keep laboring for Christ’s kingdom.

    3. Gospel ministry requires intercessory prayer (4:12-13).

    Paul names another man in v. 12, Epaphras, and describes him as “always struggling on your behalf in his prayers.” He goes on to say that Epaphras “has worked hard for you and for those in Laodicea and in Hierapolis” (v. 13). Epaphras could have visited and worked in these churches, but within the context of v. 12, Paul likely has the work of prayer in view. Epaphras is a prayer warrior for these three churches. His work is regularly taking them and their needs before the throne of heaven.

    Effective gospel ministry in a church requires intentional prayer of every member. As Spurgeon once said, a prayerless church member is like a decaying tooth in the mouth that does not contribute to the work of the church. Each member should pray for the ministry and health of the church. It is necessary work, and it is good work, but it is work. In other words, it doesn’t just happen naturally. We must make time for it, and commit to it. Let us be members who, like Epaphras, work hard by praying for our churches and their ministry of the gospel.

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    Romans 5:8- The Demonstration of God’s Love

    On By Jarrett Ray FletcherIn Miscellaneous5 Comments

    Tonight I have the privilege of preaching at a homeless shelter in Atlanta that our church supports. As I have wrestled with what to share, I have settled on one of my favorite verses, Romans 5:8. My plan is to break this verse down and explain the gospel as clearly as possible. I’ve included a rough draft of what I plan to say below. If you have the chance to read, I hope that it is helpful to you, too!

    Romans 5:8, “But God demonstrated his love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

    This is one of my favorite verses in all of the Bible. Though its just one sentence, it captures the meaning of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. It contains the primary theme of God’s Word. It is the key to understanding every book of the Bible. Yet not only is it the key to understanding the Bible, but all of life itself. This one verse has in it the power of life. The power of hope. The power of eternity. Have I convinced you that its important? I hope so!

    During my time tonight, I want to stick with this one verse. I want to consider it from every angle. Backwards and forwards. Every word, every phrase. And I want to apply its meaning to our lives. There is not a single person here who doesn’t need to hear what this verse is saying to us. So I ask you- please listen!

    Let’s dive in.

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    A Merciful God Who Doesn’t Clear the Guilty

    On By Jarrett Ray FletcherIn Miscellaneous4 Comments

    Throughout the Bible, there is a seeming paradox: God is holy and just, but He is also loving and forgiving. God declares these things to be true about Himself in Exodus 34. He tells Moses that He is a “merciful and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love” (Exodus 34:6). But He also says that He will by no means clear the guilty (Exodus 34:7). We are left with the question: how can God be gracious, loving, and merciful, while also being a just, holy, fair judge of the guilty?

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    The Never-Changing God

    On By Jarrett Ray FletcherIn TheologyLeave a comment

    Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. (Hebrews 13:8)

    Our God NEVER changes. One may think, “great, how is that of use to me?” It is of great importance to us! Think of the ways that Jesus responded to the crowds in the first chapters of Mark: there were three different instances when Jesus was almost crushed by crowds of people. He even had to tell his disciples to prepare a boat that He could get in if the crowds started to crush Him (yes, that many people were running to Him!) When He went home to sleep that night, the scriptures say that the entire town was at His house! Yet, He skipped his meal, stayed and ministered to and loved on the people so much that his own family remarked that he was “out of his mind.” So, if He never changes, He still has this disposition, and He still reacts this way to those who run to Him.

    Here is solid comfort. Our human nature cannot be relied on, but we can rely on God! However unstable I may be, however fickle my friends may prove, God does not change. If He changed as we do; if He willed one thing today and another tomorrow, if He were controlled by His mood, who could reveal their secrets to Him? However, we can bring Him praise and worship, because He is ever the same! His purpose is fixed, His will is stable, His Word is sure. Here then is a Rock on which we may fix our feet, while the mighty oceans of life try to sweep us away. (My translation of A.W Pinks Attributes, pp 692 Kindle)

    Think about it. His character is permanent. He could never change for the better, for that would imply that there was something about Him that needed improving before, and thus, He wouldn’t be a perfect God. He has always been, and forever will be, the same, perfect, God. The permanence of His character guarantees the fulfillment of His promises:

    “For the mountains may depart
        and the hills be removed,
    but my steadfast love shall not depart from you,
        and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,
        says the Lord, who has compassion on you.”               Isaiah 54:10

    His promises are true. His hatred of sin endures forever. His love for His children never changes. His satisfaction with the sacrifice His Son paid for our sins will never change…Aren’t you glad that our God never changes?

    Father’s Day…Please Don’t Forget Our Heavenly Father!

    On By Jarrett Ray FletcherIn MiscellaneousLeave a comment

    Image

    Today people all around the country wake up to face father’s day with many different circumstances. Some wake up fatherless, and they have been so every since they could remember. Some wake up with a father who has left them, been absent, abused them, or just not cared about them. Some arise to face their first father’s day without their father, and to the people facing all these different circumstances, my heart goes out to you.

    Some of us wake up to a kind, loving, father; and if that is you, make sure you tell him how much you love him. Over and over again. My father has been one of the biggest influences in my life, and I have been very blessed to have such a loving, caring, God-fearing man to lead me the first twenty years of my life. Dads like these are not the norm in our culture anymore, so if you have one, thank them and tell them you love them over 15 times today-the challenge is on! In our culture today, 43% of kids grow up fatherless. And to those without, I can’t understand how that has impacted you or how it must feel, but I want to draw the attention of both ends of the spectrum to our perfect heavenly father.

    He is perfect. He created us to have perfect union and relationship with him, but it was broken by sin in the Garden of Eden. However, this did not surprise our all-knowing Father. He loved us so much that he was willing to give up his ONLY son that we may be given back the ability to have a relationship with him. He did this because he is perfectly just and holy yet completely loving and merciful. We can now be restored to an incredible love relationship with him…all because we meant enough to him that he was willing to give up the one thing that he loved the most. My friends, this Father is waiting for you!

    This father’s day, make a commitment to live under his perfect fatherhood. He wants to show you what a perfect father is like. He looks down on us thinking, “You mean so much to me. I gave up my only Son and delivered him be tortured, spit on, and hung on a tree, and I had to turn my back on Him, the hardest and most painful thing that I have ever done, all so I could have a relationship with you. Please, come to me, I am the perfect Father, and I will love you and care for you, for all of your days.” If you are reading this post this morning, this is what God is saying to you! He watched his Son be brutally crucified and poured his wrath out on Jesus so that WE could have a relationship with him, free from the bonds of sin and death! He so desperately desires for you to believe in his Son and his sacrifice for your sins so that he can show you what it is like to live with a perfect father! He wants to love, care, help, provide, support, give, and simply do life with you. Its why he created you!

    Some of us have great earthly fathers, and some of us don’t, but our heavenly Father is so much more loving and caring than any of the best earthly fathers could ever be! If you have a great earthly father, well, you also have access to one that is much greater than him, and if you have no earthly father, or one with some issues, you have access to a perfect heavenly Father that will love you and care for you much more than any man ever will.

    So thank and love on your earthly fathers, but please, please remember your heavenly Father! No dad in all the earth could sacrifice what our heavenly father sacrificed for us! And he did it because he loves us perfectly and desperately desires to have a relationship with us. We are his passion. So pray to him today, read his Word today. Start a new relationship with him, or make the choice to go deeper into the one you already have. Earthly fathers who don’t make time to spend with their children cause their relationship to crumble, and likewise we can cause our relationship with our heavenly father to regress if we don’t make the time to spend with Him!

    He delights when we come to Him, He is so passionate about us that when we cut our eyes toward Him his heart beats faster and faster. He so desperately wants to show us how great of a Father he really is as we walk with him throughout our life. Look at the picture above; This is exactly how he wants to do all of life with us, right by our side, holding our hand, comforting us and leading us! How beautiful a Father we have access to!

    Spend time with him today, thanking him, telling him how much you love him and appreciate what he has done for you. Surrender to Him by asking Him to Father you!

    Happy Father’s Day Everyone!