Colossians 4 - Finish What God Began: Fulfilling Your Ministry - Sermon 30th November 2025

G'day. Thanks for joining the Heights Church podcast today. We hope you enjoy our message.

If you're in the Sydney area, be sure to join us at the Heights Church at Gostom

Road, Hornsfield Heights, Summary Australia.

So the Bible reading today is from Colossians 4, verses 2-6, and then 16 and 17.

Colossians 4:2–6

And it says this, Devote yourselves to prayer,

being watchful and thankful, and pray for us too, that God may open a door for

our message so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ for which I am in chains.

Pray that I may proclaim it clearly as I should. Be wise in the way you act towards outsiders.

Make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of

grace, seasoned with salt so that you may know how to answer everyone.

And then down to verse 16.

After this letter has been read to you, see that it is also read in the church

of the Laodiceans and that you in turn read the letter from Laodicea.

Tell Archippus, see to it that you complete the ministry you have received in

the Lord. This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks, Phil, for that message in that Bible reading because basically at the

end of the day, I should just sit down because God speaks through his word.

And you know that, I know that. And if we allow God's word to touch our heart

and dress our heart, the thoughts and intentions of our heart,

well, God's word will change through the Holy Spirit would work through it.

I've just had over the years the privilege of presenting how I think God's word

might apply to us as a congregation.

But I prayerfully pray,

exhort you in some way to pray, to read God's word yourself and to ask God,

what does it mean for me individually in my circumstances of my life?

But as we enter the heights into a new season, our passage this morning from

Colossians, as we finish our mini series on Colossians chapter four,

hits the nail on the head, particularly in this time of transition,

whether it's change of leadership or change in a particular direction or change

in our community life and community connection.

I don't know what's going to happen in the future. God certainly does, that's for sure.

And the words Paul had to the Colossian church offers guidance and encouragement

for not only you and I, but also the church as a whole.

And I'm mainly going to focus on, which is an amazing thing,

the last verse, verse 17.

Which says, Paul issues this powerful challenge and change to tell Agrippus,

see to it that you complete the ministry you have received in the Lord.

So who was Archie other than my dog?

In Philemon, he's called a fellow soldier, which implies that he was actively

involved in spreading the gospel message, the good news about Jesus,

about how he died for you, died for me.

He rose again to newness of life, so you can as well.

And he possibly endured hardship because of that message, because of his faith.

And he's mentioned alongside Philemon and Agrippa, so that he might have been,

I think, probably part of a household church, part of a connect group.

But in some sense, it doesn't really matter who he was, because though it's

addressed to one man, it's a charge to us as the whole church, as a church.

It's a call for every believer at the Heights Church to recognize that you have

a ministry, you have a role to play in the mission of this church,

and Paul's charge is that you will faithfully fulfill the ministry.

Hey, it's easy to pull back in times of transition. It's easy to sit on the

sidelines. It's easy to focus on what others are doing.

And sadly, some people see it as an opportunity to go church shopping.

But Colossians invites you, the Heights Church, to step forward and ask,

what is the ministry that I've received from the Lord?

And am I fulfilling it? Am I moving forward with it? So the first thing is that

we need to recognize is that the ministry is from the Lord.

This charge to Archie doesn't refer to a formal title or a position,

but to the responsibility that Jesus has given to him and the responsibility

that Jesus has given to you.

Each of you at the Heights Church has a ministry. Do you know that?

Your ministry isn't whether you're on a roster or not.

Ministry isn't whether you've signed up and you're part of the tech team,

part of the singing team.

Your ministry is what God has led you to be in.

The ministry is from him, however he has led you to be involved in his ministry of the gospel.

Not because Chris or I or council have handed you a job description.

It's not because someone made a call to you to say, see whether you can help

out. It's not because you graduated from Fuse and now you're into Fuse leadership.

Or it's not because you find some particular ministry fun or personally satisfying.

Although those things might be true. You might've got that phone call.

You might've graduated from Fuse.

You might find the ministry that you're in personally satisfying.

And I hope it is satisfying and I hope it is fulfilling.

But predominantly, the ministry that you have is because God has given you that

ministry and gifted you for that ministry.

And that's so important to think about that in times of transition.

The temptation is to treat ministry as optional or based on preference or convenience or opinion.

But ministry is not about what is easy or popular.

Ministry is about faithfulness to Jesus because he has given you the ministry.

Church, your role in the body is not random.

Your presence here is not accidental. Whether you've been part of the Heights

for many years or you've just joined recently, or maybe this is the first time

you've been here this morning, you're here for a reason.

You're here for a purpose, and you have been given a ministry and that ministry is from the Lord.

So you need to ask yourself a question, what has God entrusted me to?

How does he want me to serve people in this place, in this season of the church?

We are all in this together, one family, one body, one spirit, all in it together.

This is what happens within church ministries.

Quite often you'll appoint a pastor and the pastor will have one or two,

maybe three strengths and a whole lot of weaknesses.

If you're trying to find a pastor with 12, 15 strengths and no weaknesses, good luck.

But here's the thing. It's not just a pastor. You'll have one or two strengths

and a whole lot of weaknesses.

And my catch cry is to maximize our strengths and minimize our weaknesses.

So what we need to do then as a body is to find out where everybody's strong at.

And hopefully all the weaknesses will be offset with all the strengths so that

we'll be a big, strong church.

And the time when there's weaknesses left over with no one able to do that,

well, then we'll scaffold people.

That's an educational term, isn't it?

Then we'll scaffold people so that they can do the things that they're required

to do, even though it might be

a weakness and it might draw every bit of energy from them that they can.

They'll keep on doing that. We need to be a church here at the heights that's

unified and yet diversified.

We need to be a a church that's humble and not full of pride,

a church that is about servanthood and not self-centeredness.

And if we get everybody's strengths and you're not afraid to say,

I'm strong at something, put me up. I'm stand up. I'll do that.

But I can't do that. You don't want me, and Wong, if you're listening,

you don't want me to run children's ministry.

I'm not a good children's. When I was at Artarman, I think I mentioned it before,

I went into a year two class. I taught you to scripture one year,

one year only, never do it again.

The first day this person came up to me, this young guy came up to me and said, I hate you.

I'd only been there for five seconds. I didn't have a heart to say,

well, I'm not so fond of you too either.

But that's not one of my strengths. I've got a lot of strengths,

but that's not one of them.

But there are people in this church who speak to children like God speaking to them.

That's great. And I'm glad that you put your hand up for that.

The ministry is what you have received from the Lord, and it is for the Lord.

It's not for our church. It's not to build our community up.

It's not to make us all feel good. It's not for this big kumbaya experience of the Heights Church.

See, Paul's instructions to Archie was given publicly to the church. And it's significant.

It's significant that his ministry isn't something he did in isolation.

It's not something we do in isolation. It's lived out within a community.

It matters to the body of Christ.

It's from the Lord and for the Lord. And the for the Lord is the body of Christ here on this earth.

The Heights Church, your ministry is not a small, It's not insignificant.

It's not about just fulfilling a need or ticking a block or filling a position.

It's your offering to Jesus. It's for him.

What you do in your ministry, how you step up, is worship to Jesus.

It is your offering. I wanted to play the offering. I can't sing every single

song that happens, but that offering song is it.

It's about giving your life, even when you're tired, even when you're discouraged,

even when you're disconnected.

And it's easy to feel like you're just by yourself.

But we need to be a church that makes a real difference to each other,

who step up and do something for the Lord.

We see that in the hall of faith in Hebrews. We have all of these people who

over the centuries stood up and stepped out in faith for God.

And they might have thought that they were doing it by themselves and for themselves.

And you get all these people who just made a difference and not only a difference,

made a significant impact in the whole history of the gospel and God's story

right throughout the centuries.

Like Abram, who stood out and just went, I'm going to walk out.

I'm going to walk out to the unknown. Who knows where he's going to? He didn't know.

And yet he made, that was the start of Israel. That's the start of a new beginning.

And you had these people who just made a difference and stood up.

And their ministry, they didn't even know probably it was a ministry to other

people, but they just did it.

And so right at the end of this hall of faith, it says, since your encouragement

to the people who are reading it, Since you're surrounded by a great cloud of

witnesses, let us persevere to the end.

Isn't that amazing? They didn't know that they were part of the great cloud

of witnesses that we're drawing energy from.

And as you minister throughout the heights, people are drawing energy from you.

Let's be people who encourage. Let's be people who see others who are serving.

It matters. It matters that we see them.

It matters that we keep on encouraging them to keep on going and express to

them that God is using you because your ministry is not for me.

It is for the Lord, and I'm blessed through Jesus because of you in what you do.

The third thing is that your ministry is to be fulfilled in the Lord.

Final part of Paul's charge is a commandment to complete the ministry.

Not just start it. Not just dabble in it.

Not just sort of think, oh, well, this season's good, and then I'm going to

be off doing this, this, this, and this, and this, and I'll come back to ministry later on.

No, it's for you to fulfill whatever God has called you to do because you're doing it for him.

He's going to fulfill it so it's really in some ways a call to persevere to

remain faithful to what god god has called you to do and that is the challenge

of our church here isn't it as you step out into a new season remain faithful

to what god has called you to do,

when it's hard when circumstances changed i mentioned last week in the quarterly

business meeting if you weren't there shame on you that i wouldn't have left

the heights church if i didn't think the Heights Church was in a great place to move on.

Heights is really healthy. You are great people.

You step up financially whenever a financial need happens, but forget the financial need part.

You step up when ministry needs to happen. It's awesome.

You've been such an encouragement for me to keep on going, even through COVID.

And all the stuff that went on, I keep on going, keep on going,

keep on going, keep on persevering. Why?

It's because of you, because you stood up and kept on going.

Does that mean that because you're a great, healthy place to be,

that there won't be challenges as you move forward that's going to encourage

you and Satan's going to get hold of you and go, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop?

He will. He might even get you to say, hey, why don't you go and check out other

churches and but not be part of this church, even though this is your home church,

this is your place that you want to be. Don't.

Keep on going. Keep on persevering. Stay together, not just individually, but together.

Be people who ask each other, how's it going? How's ministry going?

How can I support you? Don't give up.

Keep on doing what really matters in this church and keep on striving for the

Lord, especially needed in times of transition, when roles shift and others take shape.

And it's easy to focus on the changing circumstances around.

It's easy to say, oh, a small group of people have been stood up and done all these things.

And what about everybody else? It's easy to do that.

It's easy to be the some people says, or some people say, this happens,

this happens, this happens.

Be a person who says something to everybody else. Let's keep on going.

Let's be people who keep on charging for ministry. How can I support you?

What can I do? The Heights is a good place.

And it will be met and I believe can meet the challenges ahead,

but it will take perseverance.

And our church, here we go for the last time, our church will not rise above our passion for prayer.

It will not. Be people who pray individually for each other,

be people who pray for the church, and be people who join together and pray.

So here's my last word to the Heights Church.

Each of you has a ministry. The Heights has a ministry and the church as a whole has a ministry.

And to do a full circle back to my first sermon series that I did in Thessalonians,

you are a city on the hill and people will see you just as they saw the Thessalonian church.

It's a mission of faith, hope, and love. This is what Paul wrote to the Thessalonians.

We always thank God for all of you and continually mention you in our prayers.

We remember before our God and Father the work produced by faith,

the labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in the Lord Jesus Christ.

For we know, brothers and sisters, loved by God, he has chosen you because the

gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power,

with the Holy Spirit and deep conviction.

You know how we lived among you for your sake. I have lived among you for your

sake. I've tried to do that.

You became imitators of us, so Paul says, and of the Lord.

And you welcomed the message that in the midst of severe suffering with the

joy that God has given through the Holy Spirit, you became a model to all of

the believers in Hornsby, in Sydney,

in Galston, wherever you have touched.

It says Macedonia and Archaea, but anyway, we'll get there. The Lord's message

rang out from you Not only in Macedonia and Achaia Not only in Hornsby and Sydney

But your faith has become known

everywhere In your family With your neighbours With those you work with.

Faith, hope and love.

So here's the invitation and the challenge, isn't it? See to it that you fulfill

your ministry you have received in the Lord.

Don't pull back. Don't disappear.

Don't underestimate what God is going to do in and through you.

Instead, lean in. How's that for a carot term? Lean in.

Stay faithful. Encourage one another. Serve Jesus wholeheartedly.

Whatever your gift is, whether it's hospitality or prayer or leadership,

creativity teaching generosity encouragement or service it is from the lord

and it is for the lord and it's going to be fulfilled in the lord my final prayer.

Devote yourselves to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart.

Pray for us, or pray for me too, that God will give us many opportunities to

speak about his mysterious plan concerning Christ.

That's why I'm here in chains. I pray that God, that I will proclaim this message

as clearly as I should, live wisely among those who are not believers and make

the most of every opportunity.

And here's the big thing. Let your conversations be with grace or gracious and

attractive so that you have the right response to everyone. Isn't that amazing?

You have been chosen by God, by his grace, not by what you have done or the

ministry that you're involved in, but by his love and by his mercy.

And every single person who walks through this door has been chosen to be in

this room so that you might speak to others,

not in judgmental ways, but rather in ways that expresses that they too have been loved by God,

that they too can accept Jesus as their saviour and walk with Jesus as their

saviour and be happy and satisfied in life under Jesus.

Let's do that. Every person who walks through here, it doesn't mean you accept ungodliness.

It doesn't mean you accept everybody's lifestyle choices, but you accept everybody

as Jesus has, as people who are loved by him, who are under his grace and under his thanksgiving.

The Heights Church, you are loved, you are called, and you are needed. Amen.