← ArchiveSunday, September 28, 2014DateSeptember 28, 2014Speaker—TextColossians 1Passages in this sermonColossians 10:54Matthew 28:165:141 Corinthians 9:169:30Acts 712:07Romans 15:1513:481 Timothy 214:192 Timothy 114:19Colossians 11820:31Ephesians 2:823:42TranscriptMachine transcribed. Click any line to jump there.0:00don't you let's love the Bethel music I'm telling you man it's awesome I think we need to get a CD done here pretty soon I don't know about y'all I could use some of that music driving around town fighting that traffic and stuff don't sound like y'all want to have some CD music like that0:27sound I thought I'd have gotten an amen out of that it won't cost you anything maybe a hundred thousand dollars or so something like that I don't know but man we need to get some of that music on print on a CD so that we can have that stuff driving around town and stuff thank you brother Greg thank you miss Kim for blowing out there that girl can play piano and sing she can do everything else amen turn with me to Colossians chapter 1 we're finishing up the purpose series today0:54thank you so much for your kind remarks thank you for uh the emails that I've received from you that uh that God spoke to your heart through some of these uh particular sermon series in this purpose series of the purposes of the church a reminder of what the church is called to be and what the church is called to do and thank you so much for your kind remarks and I want to thank those of you that didn't like it didn't send me an email we appreciate that as well you kept your comments1:23to yourself and I sure appreciate that it hurts my feelings when you send me these ugly emails but no I don't get many of those just occasionally usually coming from my wife usually but anyway if you brought your Bible I hope you did turn with me to Colossians chapter 1 beginning with the 21st verse and we'll read down through the second uh chapter and verse 3 once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your mind because of your evil behavior but now he has reconciled you by1:50Christ physical body through the death to the present you holy in the sight without blemish and free from accusation if you continue your established your faith if you can continue in your face established and firm not move from the hope held out in the gospel this is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven of which I Paul says Paul says I have become2:18a servant I would underline that if I was you Paul is declaring who he is a doulos a servant of God verse 24 now I rejoice in what was suffered for you and I feel I feel up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ affliction for the sake of his body which is the church I have become its2:43servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations but is now disclosed to the saints to them God has chosen to make known among the gentiles the glorious riches of his mystery which is Christ in you the hope of3:10glory another one of those lines those nuggets that Paul would write to the churches Christ in you the hope of glory verse 28 we proclaim him admonishing him teaching admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom so that we may present every perfect everyone perfect in Christ to this in I labor3:32struggling with all his energy which so powerfully works in me chapter 2 verse 1 I want you to know how much I'm struggling for you and for those who those at Laodicea and for all who have not met me personally my purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and unit you know excuse me it united in3:57love I'll get it out in a second united in love so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding in order that they may know the mystery of God namely Christ in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge let's ask God to bless our time together in this word father God let4:22the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight we give you all the praise all the glory all the honor for what you're about to do in our midst today in Jesus name we pray and the church said amen when we think of ministry we often think about some kind of program or plan that we are signing up for we sign up for different areas of ministry which we want you to do that4:48we want you to continue to do that but that's what we often think when we see the word ministry something for us to sign up for we tend to think of disciple making as based on an American culture it's not it's based on God's word it's not about us it's all about him and it's all about his word being proclaimed Matthew 28 16 through 20 is not about missions but it will produce missions it's not about5:14evangelism but it will produce evangelism it is a result of our obedience to Christ now I want you to gather in here close because I'm going to say some real straightforward things to you for you to consider today most of us in the American culture American church North American church especially we promote our worship experiences time out I want us to continue to do that we want to continue to5:39promote the worship gathering where we gather as the body of believers to worship in spirit and truth celebrate his name we want to do that however we hardly ever talk about making disciples of all the nations do we not we proclaim that oh we want to go make disciples but do we really go about making disciples making disciples of all the nation is not up for discussion nor is it up for debate God says go6:04make disciples he didn't say if you feel like it if you think you might can figure it out he said go make disciples of all the nations it's not up for discussion it is not up for debate God does not bless something for his glory he blesses it because it's his plan to bless it if we want the church to be6:33blessed we want to ask God to bless it it's all because of his divine sovereign plan we believe in the sovereign God of the universe for all things we also need to believe that God has got a ministry plan for each and every one of us the farmer doesn't stand in the barn and say now that I've cast the seed and I've fertiled the ground and got it ready and the rains have come and I wanted the harvest to come6:57into the barn no he goes out and gets the harvest into the barn amen you see it's not going to just get into the barn people are not going to just come because you got a fantastic interim preaching right now they're not going to come because Dan Moran is the interim they're not going to come because we got spectacular music of which we do we're not going to come because we got a phenomenal children's program or we got a phenomenal youth program they're going to come because you invite them to be a part of this7:27faith family so evangelism and disciple making and ministry is not an option 47 million children are born every year they have no access to a gospel Bible there's over 7 billion people on this planet right now 7 billion people 2 billion of them have never heard the name of Jesus and right now unless something drastically changes7:52they have not have that they do not have an access to hear the name of Jesus we don't have to have a vocational calling to go make disciples of all the nations we do have a mandate and a model and a method in which we do that show the word say the word and share the word that would be the three s's and the three m's8:17of ministry go make disciples baptize and teach those are all four command verses by the way command verbs all of those verbs are commands their action go make disciples baptize and teach teach those the ministry is a topic that which is dear and near to the heart of the apostle paul and it was a frequent theme of his letters he constantly he constantly used the sense of that god's god would8:45call him into ministry he had no idea as he was a persecutor of the church that he would end up in ministry until that unbelievable experience on the damascus road if you want to read the recount of that is it's and he goes on to write in first timothy verse 1 chapter 1 verse 12 and 13 he says i think christ jesus our lord who has strengthened me because he considered me faithful putting me into service i love that line9:11he put me into service he says put me into service even though i was formerly a blasphemer and a person a persecutor and a violent aggressor he felt compelled to carry out the ministry even to the church at corinth he said in first corinthians chapter 9 verse 16 for i preach the gospel i have nothing to boast about of for i am under compulsion for woe is me if i do not preach the gospel i think we9:36ought to rivet that into our souls woe is us if we do not preach the gospel you say well dan i'm not a preacher you are a proclaimer of jesus christ if you have jesus christ as your personal savior lord ministry is not an option you have a mandate you have a model in the person of jesus christ and we have a method in which we do that paul often spoke of his ministry when needed to establish authority and10:04credibility his aim was the passage in the correction of the colossians letter was in part to against the false teachers of the world and essential paul defended the authority to speak the word of god otherwise the false teachers would run rampant so he had to challenge them paul gave complete detail of the divine character of his ministry he recites all aspect of ministry the source the spirit the10:29suffering of ministry and the scope of manages subject of ministry the style of ministry the strength of his ministry that he had been called to the calling was not his permanent it was not his ultimate career track he his ultimate career track was his calling but his early career track was what the persecutor of the church he said i'm gonna do away with this thing call the way i'm going to kill10:51christians that is what my calling was now remember his original name those of you bible scholars out out there but maybe some of you don't know this but his original name was not paul of tarsus it was what saul of tarsus and his job was his job his career path was to do away zealous was he about persecuting11:12the church now he uh he appeared he he was of the upper echelon in judaism his credentials were very impressive he was a hebrew of hebrews a pharisee among pharisee he was zealous persecutor of the church although he was from tarsus he was raised in jerusalem and folks he was extremely educated so11:38if you think those that are uneducated that are coming against the new testament church let me tell you something the educated come against the new testament church just like the uneducated do paul was an example of that saul of tarsus was an educated man and he wanted to do away with the new testament church the new testament readers first meet him in the jew under his jewish name at stephen's death that's where they met him if you want to look that up is acts chapter 7 fully enraged to put the12:07church to death was his goal until that famous day on the damascus road where he was a where a transformation took place in his life and a course direction changed his life to be fully engaged in promoting the ministry to the churches and promoting the gospel of jesus christ as his savior as his savior12:30and lord you see folks i want you to see that paul is writing to a church that he loved deeply but he had to remind them that we are all called to ministry of the gospel of jesus christ if you are saved by his grace in this room today you are called to the ministry of gospel of jesus christ you say well dan i don't12:53have any spiritual gifts we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna figure out what that spiritual gift is is there's a unique approach to doing that is called shape it was written by rick warner at saddleback church and shape has an unbelievable uh mechanism to teach every one of us every person old and young alike in this room has a motivational spiritual gift that drives them and we need to find out what that is13:20so that we can plant you and put you into a vocational it's one thing to come and discover his glory and come discover who god is in a corporate worship service but we need to be fully developed as followers of christ so that we can be deployed for ministry paul often stressed the marvelous fact that god had chosen him for the ministry to the church at rome he writes he writes this word this in romans chapter 15 verse 15 and following he says i have written very boldly to you on some points13:48so that as to remind you again because of the grace that was given to me from god to be a minister of christ jesus to the gentiles ministering as a priest the gospel of god that my offering of the gentiles might become acceptable sanctified by the holy spirit then he goes on to write his young friend timothy14:12in the ministry he writes them in first timothy chapter two and first and second timothy chapter one he says there is one god one mediator also between god and man the man christ jesus by the way have you ever noticed how paul always this is free by the way god paul always usually when he was speaking of christ the savior he always said the deity first christ jesus instead of his given name14:39jesus christ he always used that as to keep him elevated of who he has surrendered to he says the man christ jesus who himself as a ransom for all the testimony bore at the proper time and for this i was appointed a preacher and an apostle and i'm telling the truth i am not lying as the teacher of the gentiles15:01in faith and faith and truth he is writing to young timothy hey i'm not lying my calling yes is to the gentiles a hebrew of all hebrews a jewish educated man called to minister to the hebrews all christians have been called to serve in ministry one way or another god has given us the capacity to do so15:28a god sought god is sovereign in calling men to salvation so is he in calling us into service folks as one old baptist preacher said you're not saved to sit you're saved to serve i thought i'd get more than just one amen to that you are not called and saved to sit we are called to serve the lord thy15:53god with all our heart with all our soul with all our might you want to see this church electrified for the community you want to see this church be a a threat to the world out there get busy serving you say well i don't know what to do come by the church office we got a wonderful staff they will find you something to do amen we have plenty to do a sovereign god is calling men to salvation he's also16:23calling us to serve the holy spirit gives us spiritual gifts which enables us for the service in which one could be called according to the sovereign will of the universe i was told today that we have a need for some of you to serve now let me ask you this question how many of you in this room have or have had children raise your hand how many of you in this room have have or have had children16:52thank you so much for volunteering for children's ministry and a preschool work we sure appreciate that brad we got that on film don't we yes we took pictures of all your hands up so we know who you are right please folks y'all gathering here real close and let me hear my heart before i give you the message that's the next generation of church life we don't need any of y'all serving in senior adult17:15ministry we got them covered amen we've already dug the hole for some of them just kidding we love those senior adults i was with them a couple weeks ago best cooks in town be honest with you it was amazing night with them oh man they want to see the next generation of church life be exploded they're excited about the days ahead yes they are but let me tell you we need some of you to say you17:45know what i've been sitting even though i'm saved and i need to go serve in children's ministry in preschool ministry and you say wait a minute wait a minute how do you do that we got a mechanism for that we got a method for that we got a madness to that we will train you on that we will do all the necessary background checks we don't want some of you crazies out there taking care of our kids right but let me18:11tell you something we need some of you who aren't crazy who can meet the background check to say i am willing to give a sunday of my life for the next generation of church life i don't get it i don't understand that why we have to beg people to serve in children's ministry i just don't get that how many of y'all love kids raise your hand great thank you for signing up18:36that's twice i got you down twice now we're going to be passing a note around at some point get your name address and phone number we need for you to help us train the next generation of church life it's not a matter of it's not a matter of saying yes to the preacher it's a matter of being obedient to18:58god our calling as believers is a spiritual stewardship spiritual stewardship now look at the theme verse that i've given you colossians 1 verse 18 he is also head of the body the church and he is the beginning19:20the firstborn from the dead so that he himself might come to have first place in everything how many of you in this room today will declare that jesus christ is head of this church one of the things that i do as i come in19:44as an intentional interim is i want to know the organizational chart of the staff and how the hierarchy is and how this all works and how all these pieces of the puzzle as a transfer transitional pastor i need to know who does what where does the deacons fit in and what's this kind of stuff how does this all lay out and i've always been i've always been dumbfounded looking at organizational church charts especially church organizational charts and they'll find it says20:11the pastor's up here and then you got a deacons you got all these staff and you got under ministry assistants and all this and it all breaks down and all their different job descriptions and all that kind of stuff and i always want to say no no time out christ is head of the church the pastor gets his example from him christ is the head of church if that might be the case then colossians 118 should not be put in scripture he is also head of the body the church and he is the beginning the20:38firstborn from the dead so that he himself might have first place in everything when we get that out of order when we get this situation out of order we get it because it becomes our church and not his church when we face people who doubt the motives and the calling on our lives we need to go back to the21:02account of the apostle paul i think that he gives us today in this passage three purposes of ministry number one for those of you that got to fill in some blanks here we go number one we must share the gospel everywhere we must share the gospel everywhere how do we share the gospel we share the gospel by sharing our21:25own story if you're saved by his grace every one of you have a story on the back of your sermon outline you'll see there's some place for you to take some additional notes i challenge you this week and some of you have already done this in a long hadn't done it in a long time maybe you've never done it before but i challenge you to see if you can fill up all those blanks with your story of salvation21:53we don't need to know we don't want to know if you had blue hair or white hair or gray hair or black hair some of you keep going to get it colored and changed and all that kind of stuff or maybe some of your hair's turned loose and some of it's turning gray i don't know doesn't matter if you had a blue dress on or you had a suit and tie on doesn't matter about that can you write down your conversion experience and then i want you to shrink that down in a two to22:18three minute talk meaning you can read it in two to three minutes that means you could share it two to three minutes you see we need to learn how to share our story some of us need to get back to the fundamentals i know i do every year i rewrite my i write my story out once again i write it down i said dan why are you kidding me every year i write my story you know why i remind myself of what my savior did for me so i want to challenge you to take that and write your story that's how we share22:47everywhere you see i think you ought to be able to share your story in the walmart line he said well i don't know any lost people go to walmart you'll find them there i promise you they are there or go to publics or go to some go to the ball games i guarantee you you'll find a lost person at a youth football game amen or one who is hiding their salvation by the actions in which they're taking23:16amen you see we need to learn how to share our story we can't share a story if we don't know it so write your story speak the truth of the gospel of jesus christ speak the truth meaning you need to know the scriptures that go along with your personal story my personal story starts with ephesians chapter 2 verse 8 for by grace you've been saved through faith23:42that not of yourselves it is the gift of god god gave me the gift of eternal life my name was written on church role but it wasn't written on heaven's role i was a lost church member and i came to faith in christ because god's grace reached down from the halls of heaven and gave me the gift of eternal life you ought to be able to share your story speak the truth of the gospel and show his love by serving24:04others we have such a society in this world especially in north america that we want everything we need to learn how to give more than we ever want show his love by serving others so we must share the gospel everywhere verse 21 you are alienated from god24:29which were enemies in your mind because of your evil behavior but he has now reconciled you by christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight without blemish and free and free folks let me tell you something this old boy from trustful alabama i'm free i am loose as a goose in jesus christ i am free i've been set free because i said yes to jesus christ25:01so we must share the gospel everywhere secondly we must we should be willing to suffer for one another some of us in this room we need to suffer for others we know people in this room that are going through trials and tribulation going through some situations in their life how do we suffer for one another we meet them where they are we meet them where they are folks let me tell you25:28something this is not this is not a hotel for holiness bethel church is not a hotel for holiness it's a hospital for hurting people amen and we need to help people where they are meet them but we won't we don't need them wallowing around in that area we need to help them grow that's the development process we need to discover who god is in our life and help them discover who god is in their life and25:54then develop them as fully devoted followers of christ so we need to meet them where they are we need to walk them with them through the trials sometimes we want to meet them we want to drag them to the altar and leave them there folks it's time for us to walk with them meet them where they are walk with them during their sufferings look what it says in verse 24 now i rejoice that i that i what uh joyous in what was suffered for you and i feel up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard of26:20classification for the sake of his body which is the church i have become a servant by the commission god gave me to present you the word folks we need to be servants presenting the word helping people walking with them in through the trials and tribulations paul was rejoicing during this period and he's also realized that he had a responsibility we can stand up and rejoice that we brought somebody to faith in christ but we got to walk with them help them get infused in the new26:49testament church we must share the gospel everywhere we must we should be willing to suffer with for one another and third and finally we must be willing to commit to instruct and intercede must be willing to commit to instruct and intercede look with me in verse 28 we proclaim in him admonishing and the teaching everyone with all wisdom so that we may present everyone perfect in christ27:17to this end i labor struggling with all his energy which so powerfully works in me i want you to know how much i'm struggling for you for those at laodicea and for all who have not met me personally my purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding in order that they may know the mysteries of god namely christ in whom27:46all are are hidden all the treasures and wisdom and knowledge christ in us the hope of glory is what he's saying we need to be able to walk with them we need to be able to instruct them we need to be able to intercede some of you do not have the spiritual gift of teaching we get that my wife does not have the spiritual gift of teaching she does teach but to stand up and publicly proclaim and teach that is a28:12not a motivational spiritual gift that she has but she has the incredible gift of interceding and service if you want a meal cook she's your girl if you want somebody to pray for you she's your girl i mean she's got a pages of people that she goes through every day interceding on their behalf paul is saying we must be committed to instruct we also must be committed to intercede on behalf of28:41others if we don't do anything on my watch we're gonna pray for one another amen we're gonna raise the bar raise the level of excitement of energy and we're gonna raise the bar of excellence when it comes to being a prayer praying church and i know you're already a praying church but we're gonna take it to another level how do we do that how do we intercede and how do we teach well we need to become mentors29:04some of you older folks it's been sitting on the sidelines it's time for you to get back in the game some of you midian adult folks it's time for you to get back in the game some of our young married couples need someone that they can go to are you mentoring someone brad and i were talking about this this morning just before we came in today i i mentor five young pastors i had the joy of minister29:31ministering to them and spending time with them it's not that i'm smarter than them i learn something every time i'm around them but they need somebody to flesh out this thing called church work they need this idea what is that what is it all about folks let me tell you something the greatest thing that ever happened to me in my life was dr cliff files the pharmacist who mentored me 32 years ago junior hills29:53one of my mentors constantly pour life into me other pastors gary hollingsworth they've mentored me they pour life into me so that i could pour life into others folks let me tell you something it's not all about getting it's about giving and some of you in this room need to be a mentor some of these students in this room need to have a mentor they can go to we need to be committed to disciple making30:20we need to be committed to teach people how to fish not just go fish for them that's the easy part going and fishing for them we need to teach them how to fish and we need to committed to pray and need to committed to pray with them and for them being encouragement being endearment to them being enricher being enlightened being in power paul could pray mightily because he was in the center30:44of god's will the times when you don't feel like praying that's when we need to pray all the more that's when we need to pray all the more god has given to us an opportunity to fulfill his mission look at the last slide on the screen i want to just read this together worship helps us to focus on god's glory fellowship helps us to face life's problem disciple making fortifies our faith ministry leads us to31:13release our talents and evangelism directs us to fulfill our mission church let me tell you something we're all about ministry we're all about mission we're all about disciple making but the choice is31:31ours to make if you want to see the purpose of the new testament church become prevalent in your own personal lives surrender to his lordship today and say i surrender all i'm here signed up ready for service in your work let's pray with heads bowed and eyes closed maybe you're here today and you're32:01saying dan i am excited about this journey maybe you're here today and you say dan i i'm willing and ready and able i want to be a part of this ministry i want to be a part of making disciples of all the nations maybe god has spoken to your heart in this room today maybe you're here today and you've never32:25met jesus christ as your personal savior lord today is a day of salvation for you although this was not what we would quote unquote called an evangelistic message christ was lifted up in this room today and where he is lifted up he draws men unto himself but maybe you're here today and you say dan i've never truly invited jesus christ into my life if you're that person god just spoke to my heart maybe you're one of these people in that room today that you say dan if i don't i've never truly invited him32:54into my life would you slip up your hand and say dan i i've never invited jesus christ into my life would you slip your hand up right where you are and write back down i'm going to assume then every one of us in this room are born again believers if that be the case if you are truly saved by his grace and you know that beyond a shadow of doubt if you died today you would spend eternity in heaven with the lord jesus christ would you slip up your hand and say pastor i know that i know that i know that i am33:24saved by his grace slip your hand up and write back down i know beyond a shadow of doubt thank you very much some of you could not raise your hand or did not i'm going to either assume two things one of things you don't know or you just chose not to raise your hand that's okay thank you for being honest but if you raised your hand in this room god has identified you as one of his children if you raise your hand in this room33:54you've been called to serve it's not an option it's not up for discussion it's not up for debate now i can tell you it's your choice whether you follow obedience of god's call and command in your life you have that will that free will to do that you can say no to god you're not saying no to me or34:23brad or any other staff in this place you're not saying no to us you're saying if god's called you if god has saved you and you're not actively involved in some kind of ministry you say we don't have that many ministries we'll make some we'll find some we'll plug you in we'll get you in the rotation basis of something that's organized or maybe you're here and you say dan i'm just so34:48tired i'm getting so old i want to be a part of our prayer interceding ministry i want to be a part of loving our kids if you're here today and you're saved by his grace and you're not actively involved you say i'm not in i'm just i'm a bystander i've been sitting would you with heads bowed eyes closed no one's looking around but me no one would you slip up your hand so i can pray for you and ask god35:17to just give you a new burst of energy god bless you thank you for being honest yes sir i see it who else slip your hand up right where you are right back down god bless you anywhere else father god you saw the hands of these they were bold that took courage to say that they're not actively involved and they're willing to do that now god you never called35:44a silent disciple you've always called us publicly to pronounce what you've done privately in our hearts and god today right here in this room today as as greg leads us in this great old hymn i surrender all god i pray that they'll stand up and step out and surrender to your lordship in this room today and god if there's some in this room that couldn't raise their hand but maybe they need to just come36:14to this altar that's okay as well god but god we need right now a movement amongst this congregation not for me not for the staff not for the deacons no lord we need it for you we want to we want to show you a display of your glory in our lives we want us to display the goodness in our lives and and the calling you have on our lives god we want the world to know that bethel church is alive and well36:43and the best days are ahead and we're surrendering to your lordship today we love you and we thank you for what you're about to do in this place in jesus name we pray we stand we sing a great old hymn of the faith i surrender all if you're here today and god right you raised your hand or you're here today god spoke into your heart this altar is open i'm here for you other deacons and other servant leaders will be here to pray with37:09you you come right now who will be first slip out that's right come onMore sermons on Colossians →
