Colossians part 6…March 8th 2015
Chapter 1:24-29
1st Cor. 12:1-11…Romans 12:3-8
As a Christian or a believer God has given us gifts.
Every Christian not just a selected few has received spiritual gifts.
Regardless of who you are or what you think of yourself if you have received Jesus Christ as
your Savior…
You received spiritual gifts into your life.
With those gifts comes great responsibility.
God doesn’t give gifts so that we can do like we do with a lot of other gifts we receive…where
we take them out of the box and put them on a shelf…
Or leave them in the box and stuff it in an attic.
God gives us gifts and we are responsible to use them and responsible for how we use them.
To possess a gift of the Spirit means you are in possession of something that belongs to
God.
We possess the gift but we do not own the gift.
We are to use the gift and manage it for God’s glory.
Not everyone is gifted to do the same thing but we are responsible to use it in the same way…
To glorify God and minister to those in the body of Christ and those in need.
In the church one of the things that I hear at times is I am not connected.
So we come up with all kinds of ideas and plans to connect people.
I firmly believe the answer to connection is found in spiritual gifts.
For a person to find their place in ministry they first have to discover their gift.
If the gift is speaking then they should speak for the glory of God.
If the gift is serving then they should serve to the glory of God.
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It is very important to God, to you, to the church and to others that you seek to find what
your spiritual gift or gifts are.
Once we are saved we are called into ministry and we are to minister according to our gift or gift
mix.
It is not a choice whether we minister or not it is a serious responsibility.
Everyone in this room that has been saved is a God called, God gifted, God assigned minister.
Now let’s go back to Colossians and apply this then what Paul writes will make better
sense.
I want to focus today not so much on ministry but on ministers.
As we come to close of verse 23 keep in mind Paul has been combating false teachings in the
church at Colosse.
The false teachers were denying the deity of Jesus Christ… meaning they were denying that
Jesus was God.
And they were denying that Jesus alone could reconcile a person back to God.
Paul has refuted all that and when he finishes he closes his remarks by saying…
At the end of verse 23 I Paul became a minister.
Paul is giving his credentials here so they know he is authorized to speak on behalf of God.
But as I read this I see so much in his words that I feel is very important.
Became a minister does not mean Paul got tired of what he was doing and woke up one day
and said I think I will become a minister of the Gospel.
Looks like fun and all you do is talk for 30 minutes once a week and play golf the rest of the
week I think I will just become a minister.
That is not what he is saying.
The actual translation is… I was made a minister.
Paul says that twice once in verse 23 and once in verse 25.
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I was made a minister.
He saying he did not just decide to be a minister…
He was made to be a minister.
It means he didn’t choose to be a minister of the Gospel.
Matter fact he hated the gospel of Jesus Christ.
He was killing Christians and trying to destroy the work of the Lord.
What made him a minister?
He was made a minister because of the intervention of God in his life.
What made him a minister was a sovereign call of God.
The story of how he was made a minister is found in Acts 9 but we see Paul testifying to it
in Acts 26.
Paul says…I was on my way to Damascus with the authority and the commission of the chief
priests…
We know from the actual account in Acts 9 that he was going there to arrest and if need be to kill
Christians.
Paul says at midday I saw on the way a light from heaven brighter than the sun shining all
around me and those who were with me.
And when we had all fallen to the ground I heard a voice saying to me Saul, Saul why are you
persecuting Me?
It is hard for you to kick against the goads.
And I said who are you Lord? And the Lord said I am Jesus whom you are persecuting, get up
and stand on your feet for this purpose…
Listen to this….
For this purpose I have appeared to you to make you a minister.
Paul is saying one minute I was on the road as a killer of ministers…
And then suddenly God made me into a killer minister.
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Paul is saying I was made a minister by God slamming me down on the road and shining a bright
light into my eyes that blinded me.
In other words he was knocked off his high horse by a sovereign Lord with sovereign power and
made a minister.
Didn’t apply for it…wasn’t looking for it
Didn’t deserve it…and really didn’t know what to do with it.
1st Tim. 1:12 Paul says more about it…
I thank Jesus Christ our Lord who has strengthened me because He considered me faithful,
putting me into the ministry even though I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and
violent aggressor yet I was shown mercy and the grace of our Lord was more than abundant.
Ministry is a gift of grace and God’s mercy that is bestowed upon a person.
I want to stay here on this for a minute and look at some others God made a minister.
Ex. 3 there is Moses working doing his thing and suddenly a bush caught on fire and Moses goes
over to the bush and looks to see why the bush kept on burning.
And God spoke to him out of the bush and said Moses, Moses and he said here I am.
God told him I have come down to deliver My people out of the hand of the Egyptians and to
bring them up out of that land to a large and good land…you can read the rest later…
God had a burden so God devised a plan and to carry out the plan God chose a man and equipped
the man.
In this we see more than just the calling or the making of a minister.
God made him to be a minister and then gave him his assignment.
God still has a plan today and God still calls a person to fulfill that plan.
This tells me a person does not choose the ministry that God desires for them.
God chooses it.
The person just chooses to be either obedient or disobedient.
God calls, God assigns and God equips.
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Paul said I am made a minister.
This means he was God called, God assigned and God equipped.
All of us need to get this it is important because at times we find ourselves in tight spots in the
ministry.
You need to remember you are God called, God assigned and God equipped.
I want us to look at and understand the word minister.
The word minister comes from the Greek word diakonos.
The word diakonos simply means a servant.
A minister is someone who serves as a common servant.
When we think of a servant we may get the idea of a waiter with a towel on his or her arm
waiting a table.
But it goes beyond that it refers to the busboy the one who cleans the table and washes the
dishes. I mean no disrespect for anyone in that position.
Paul begins many of his writings by identifying himself as the servant of Jesus Christ.
So minister is a word that doesn’t speak of an elevated position but a position of lowliness and
humility.
Matter of fact Paul in Cor. talks about the fact that God’s wisdom is seen through human folly…
And God’s power is seen through human weakness.
To me this means…
The deeper the selflessness of the servant the greater potential they have for their ministry.
There is a choice that every minister has to make and that choice is between popular and
powerful.
The difference is to be popular you strive to please people…
To be powerful you strive to please God.
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Sometimes the powerful are not popular because powerful means you may look silly and weak
in the eyes of the world.
Sometimes to be popular a person has to compromise…
And sometimes to be powerful you may come across as looking silly and foolish.
A true minister should be a humble submissive servant to the Lord.
Sometimes not always popular but at all times powerful.
Paul is saying he was made a humble submissive servant…
I am going to skip over for now verse 24 go to verse 25…
There Paul says of which I became or was made a minister according to the stewardship from
God which was given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God.
Look at the word stewardship.
The word stewardship is the same word as dispensation which means law or rule.
It means to rule a house it means to be a steward of someone else’s possessions.
Simply put it means to rule for the owner of the house.
Stewardship always refers to someone who has been given great responsibility.
A steward doesn’t own anything he simply manages something for someone else.
Stewardship always involves tremendous responsibility.
1 Cor. 4:2 says…it is required of a steward that a man be found faithful.
When you were saved you were made a minster of God, God gave you spiritual gifts…
God has called you to be a good steward of those gifts and to minister those gifts as there are
those in need of what God has entrusted you with.
As a child of God you have been God called, God assigned and God equipped with what you
need to carry out that call.
We have a divine responsibility to that
call and assignment.
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A responsibility not just to the lost but for our own benefit, the benefit of other believer and the
benefit of the body of Christ.
Paul told Timothy to guard that which had been entrusted to him.
Guard it because he had been made a minister and given a stewardship.
Hebrews 13:17 tell us why we need to guard it and use our gifts with responsibility…
We will give an account for our stewardship and how we used or didn’t use our gifts.
We need to be listening to and then responding to God like Paul did and say what is it You
would have me to do?
God has called us all into ministry we all have an assignment and God has equipped us all for
our call.
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