A Blueprint For Gospel Ministry

Good morning.

Our scripture reading for today is Colossians chapter 1, verse 24, through chapter 2, verse 5.

Colossians 1:24

My name is Kelsey Meyer, and I serve in Harbor Kids, and it is my joy to read this morning's word with you.

Again, the scripture is Colossians chapter 1, verse 24, through chapter 2, verse 5.

Colossians 1:24

Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, of which I became a minister, according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations, but now revealed to his saints.

To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ.

For this I toil, struggling with all his energy, that he powerfully works within me.

For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea, and for all who have not seen me face to face, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of 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.

I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments.

For though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ.

This is the word of the Lord.

Amen.

Thank you, Kelsey.

Well, good morning and welcome to Harbor.

My name is Trevor.

I'm one of the pastors here, and I'm super excited to be diving into God's word with you this morning.

But before we do, I want to take a moment to celebrate an important moment in the life of Harbor Church.

Probably should have done this last week, but last week marks the one year mark since we started gathering as a core team right here in the space a year ago.

So yeah.

That might not seem like a huge deal, but there are a lot of churches that start and don't make it to their first birthday.

So uh we're doing really well.

Praise God for his grace to us.

Super excited about that.

But if you've been joining us since we started core team, if you're here that first Sunday and you've been with us ever since, would you please raise your hand for a quick moment?

Yeah, could we give these people a round of applause for me again?

I know we just did that, but I know none of you joined this team for recognition.

You did not think to yourself, you know what, a year from now, I really want to be celebrated from the stage.

I'd really love it if they clapped for me.

That's why I'm joining this team.

None of you did that.

Uh, you joined this team because you love Jesus, you love Sarpee County, and you want to see his name great in the communities here in this part of Omaha, Nebraska.

Uh, but the reality is, every single one of you could have stayed where you were at.

You could have been comfortable doing what you were doing with maybe lower commitment and maybe easier relationships and less at stake for your family.

But each and every one of you made a sacrifice to say, I'm going to uh inconvenience myself, I'm gonna consider the costs, and I'm going to step out in faith to be a part of something new.

And Harbor exists because you were faithful to say yes to Jesus and to Sarpee County.

And I just want you to know, as one of your pastors, that I am so, so thankful for you.

It's a joy to be part of the Harbor Church community, and I'm so grateful for what we get the privilege of building together here in Sarpee County.

So thank you.

And uh, if you're new to Harbor or you've only been around a couple of months, we are so glad you're here, and we sincerely hope that you would take steps to get involved in the church community.

We really believe that the church is a people and not a place, and what God is really doing in Sarpee County happens more throughout the week than it does here on Sunday morning.

So we'd love for you to be a part of that mission and are so glad that you've chosen to join us this morning.

But uh we are currently on week three of a sermon series that we are preaching through the book of Colossians, and we're calling It's All About Jesus.

And this morning I've titled my sermon, A Blueprint for Gospel Ministry.

To get it started, I realize we've already done this more than in the history of Harbor, uh, but please go ahead and raise your hand a third time if you have ever heard of the high jump.

How many of you, by show of hands, have heard of the high jump?

Most of you, okay, that's good.

You're an American.

Great job.

Uh how many of you, by show of hands, have heard of the Fosbury flop?

Okay, only like 15.

Okay.

Uh well, uh the high jump has been a part of the modern Olympic Games since their uh inception in 1896.

But like most things, the technique for the high jump has changed dramatically over the course of the last hundred plus years.

When the high jump was first introduced, people basically stood by the bar sideways and jumped over like a broad jump, up and over, flat footed.

Then over time, people figured out that you could actually jump higher if you got a running start.

So then what people would do is they would run at the bar and they would turn sideways at the last minute and they would scissor kick up and over.

Then people figured out that uh actually, instead of scissor kicking, if you rotate your body, you could get more distance over the ball as well.

So they would back up, they would have a running start, and then they do what's called the straddle and roll, where they try to get their body up and over the bar, and then they're straddling it and throw the other side of their body off the other side.

And most people who had success at the high jump had success using that final method, the straddle and the roll.

And by the 1960s, the straddle and roll had become the default method, the blueprint for the high jump in the Olympic Games, until this guy named Dick Fosbury came around.

Uh Dick was a, as a high school at Medford, Oregon, could not master that technique.

No matter what he did, he could not figure out how to straddle and roll over the bar.

So Dick decided that he was going to come up with his own technique for the high jump.

And instead of starting feet first and trying to follow his body afterwards, he decided he was going to shift the approach entirely.

And instead of going head on, he would move to the side and he would run up and turn sideways and he'd flip his head over the bar and then he'd flop the rest of his body over following, which is why it's called the Fosberry flop.

Well, an interesting thing happened.

He started using this technique, and throughout high school, he improved his high jump by over a foot.

Now, I don't know if you know much about athletic competition, but that is a huge difference.

Like I would have loved to improve anything by that much when I was in high school, but to improve by a huge foot is a really big deal.

And it earned him a scholarship to Oregon State University.

And while he was there, he continued to perfect his technique.

But, surprise, people still thought it was weird.

People made fun of him, nobody thought he was going to be successful until the 1968 Summer Olympic Games in Mexico City, Mexico, when Dick Fosbury used his flop neck technique to not only win gold, but to set a new world record.

When interviewed after his performance, Dick Fosbury simply smiled and said, Well, I think quite a few kids are going to be trying it my way now.

Well, it turns out he was right.

Because for the last 58 years, none of you have heard of the Fosbury flop because it has become the gold standard of how to high jump in today's Olympic Games.

You could say that it's become the blueprint for the high jump.

It is the standard, the example that everybody else follows if they want to be a successful high jumper.

Well, in today's text, the Apostle Paul gives us a blueprint as well.

Not for the high jump, but for ministry.

See, as the person called by God to take the good news of the gospel to non-Jewish people, Paul is writing a letter to the church at Colossae, a group of Christians that he has never met before, and he's writing to introduce himself as an apostle.

An eyewitness to the resurrection of Jesus, who sent by Jesus to tell other people about the good news of Jesus.

And he wants to establish some credibility with them.

So he kind of presents to them his ministry.

And uh his ministry, you could say, has become a blueprint for ministry everywhere.

And the reason is because ministry isn't just for the professionals.

Ministry is for ordinary everyday Christians as well.

You see, throughout the scriptures, the word used for ministry is simply the word for service.

And so ministry, in a most basic sense, is simply a service that we do for other people.

Even just think of something as simple as the ministry of defense, Harry Potter fans.

Uh it's a service to defend a group of people in that particular way.

Uh and the same thing that what's true is that every single one of us do some kind of ministry every single day.

But as Christians, we just don't just do any kind of ministry.

We do what you might call gospel ministry.

We might call uh gospel ministry a way of serving others that proclaims, applies, and conforms to the good news of Jesus Christ.

The good news of the gospel is that God saves sinners through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And to do gospel ministry means that the person and work of Jesus inform and transform everything you do in the way that you go about serving other people.

And when you become a Christian, the scriptures are incredibly clear.

You become a gospel minister.

Someone who proclaims the gospel, telling people about what God has done for them in Christ, somebody who applies the gospel, showing other people how the good news of Jesus should shape and change who they are, and somebody who conforms to the gospel, becoming a living example of Jesus Christ through your everyday life.

And your ministry, you could kind of think of simply your circle of influence, right?

You might have formal areas of ministry where you sign up to serve in a local church, but you also have informal areas of ministry, which is just the way you relate to and inhabit your everyday life.

So if you're an employee, your ministry might be your workplace.

If you're a student, your ministry might be in the classroom.

If you're a coach, your ministry might be your team, or if you're a church member, your ministry might be your harbor group or kids or hospitality or serving on the band or another another area of formal ministry.

Or if, like most of us, you wear multiple hats, then you might have multiple areas of ministry.

Areas that are formal and areas that are more informal.

But regardless of uh what area of ministry you serve in, whether it's formal or informal, you're called to serve in a way that proclaims, applies, and conforms to the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Now, Paul did this particularly well, and he kind of sets a precedence for Christians everywhere.

And so uh if you're a Christian, you're a gospel minister.

That's our big idea this morning.

If you are a Christian, you are a gospel minister.

And as we work our way through a text this morning, we're going to see uh Paul's blueprint blueprint for gospel ministry, which is the pattern of gospel ministry, the purpose of gospel ministry, and the priority of gospel ministry.

So if you have your Bible, go ahead and grab it, turn with me to Colossians chapter 1, verse 24, and we will start by looking at the pattern for gospel ministry.

Colossians 1:24

Okay, Colossians 1, 24.

Paul says, Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body that is the church.

So the first thing that the Apostle Paul wants the Colossian Christians to understand is that gospel ministry is hard work.

It requires sacrifice and grit, and it often comes with opposition and hardship and sometimes hospit hostility from other people.

Now, some of those um sufferings might be just natural, it might be financial, it might be health-related, it might just be uh family or parenting or circumstances.

Uh, but some of that suffering is actually oppositional.

It's hostility from non-Christians who do not like Jesus and do not like the church.

It might come in the form of persecution or apathy or indifference, ways in which other people make life hard for you simply because you're a Christian.

But in any case, no matter how you slice it, Paul wants you to understand that as a gospel minister, suffering kind of comes with the territory.

If you've ever tried to disciple another person, you know how this is true.

Right?

You invest time and energy and often money into them, and you're trying to give them a picture for who they could become in Christ, and you're scheduling early morning appointments, and you're gathering every week, and they might show up, not show up, or they might flake out, or they might backslide, or they might be resistant to actual spiritual growth.

And so if you've discipled somebody, you know that to some degree, suffering and hardship just come with a territory.

But in verse 28, Paul says, Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is the church.

And so Paul is saying, there is no suffering too difficult and no sacrifice too great, because he knows that God is using his affliction for the good of the church, and he is happy to take on any kind of suffering, any kind of hardship that is necessary if it's going to ultimately bless and benefit God's people.

What's particularly interesting about this particular passage is that really peculiar phrase.

Now, how can that be?

The testimony of Scripture is incredibly clear that the death and resurrection of Jesus is sufficient to forgive sin and make somebody right with God.

So, how in the world can his afflictions be lacking?

If we can't do anything to add to or take away from what Christ has accomplished on the cross, how could it be lacking in anything in any particular way?

Well, commentators have lots of different opinions on this particular verse, uh, too many for me to actually be able to share with you.

Uh, but I think the best one, the best explanation is simply that Christ's death isn't lacking in saving power, it's lacking in visible presentation.

In other words, Christ's death is sufficient to save sinners, but it's lacking in its ongoing public display.

It's so far removed from the average person's everyday life that it can kind of be hard to relate to.

We might conceptually get it, but it doesn't personally relate to a person's everyday life.

Let me show you what I mean here.

And when I was in middle school, I learned about the American Revolution.

I learned about the Boston Tea Party and Paul Revere's Midnight Ride, the lanterns that were hung in the Old North Church and the Battle of Bunker Hill.

And all of that was true, regardless of whether or not I had ever experienced it myself.

Uh, but I didn't really care.

It didn't mean anything to me.

I didn't know where Boston was.

I didn't know who any of the revolutionaries was.

I could hardly fathom anything that I was being taught at that particular time.

And so I kind of just shrugged it off as maybe important, but not really something that I should care about.

Until I took a random trip with my brother to Boston, I think in 2012.

We spent the entire weekend just roaming around Boston, seeing all the old historic sites, walking what's called the Freedom Trail, and enjoying an incredible city.

And while I was there, I actually stood in the harbor where revolutionaries, uh colonists, took tea and threw it over the ships into the water.

I had the opportunity to walk the very same streets where Paul Revere rode.

I had the opportunity to stand in the old North Church and see where Paul Revere actually hung those particular lanterns.

And when I did, something interesting began to happen.

All of those things I was suddenly indifferent about and could care less about suddenly took on a whole new meaning for me.

The abstract became tangible, the past became present, and the distant became personal.

It was no longer just history, it was living history.

And that's what Paul is saying here.

See, the central focus of Paul's ministry is the gospel.

And it goes something like this In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and on that earth he put a garden.

And in that garden, he put people, our first parents, Adam and Eve, who were meant to live with God forever.

But Adam and Eve rebelled against God, bringing sin and death into the world.

And when they did, something terrible began to happen.

God's good world began to unravel because of sin.

It fractured mankind's relationship with God, with one another, and the created order.

And since that day, our world has been plunged into suffering and death, the suffering of division, the suffering of disease, the suffering of natural disasters, the suffering of death itself.

And since that day, mankind has been doing anything and everything we can to deny death and to procure life.

But the fact of the matter is that there's no amount of exercise, there's no amount of debiting, there's no amount, no amount of hair color, there's no amount of uh nutrition that can prolong or give us life.

None of it is enough to reverse the effects of sin.

Suffering and death remains in our world, and there's absolutely nothing that we can do about it.

Because as long as sin remains, suffering and death will remain as well.

So, what does God do?

God sends his only son, Jesus Christ, to do for us what we could not do for ourselves, to suffer and die on the cross in our place for our sins, so that through his suffering we could be saved, and that through his death we might have life.

But Jesus didn't stay dead.

Three days later, God raised him from the dead, defeating the enemies of sin and death.

And one day soon, very soon, Jesus is coming again to make all things new.

And when he does, there will be no more sin, there will be no more suffering, and there will be no more death.

The old will be gone and the new will come.

That is the good news of the gospel, and that is what gospel ministry is ultimately all about.

But the good news can sometimes feel a little bit distant.

It can sometimes feel a little irrelevant or hard to relate to.

And Paul knows this, and that's why he rejoices in his sufferings.

See, because Paul knows that his suffering makes Christ's suffering more relatable.

By suffering for the gospel, Paul becomes a living example by taking what is otherwise abstract and conceptual and modeling for us what it looks like to be concrete and personal.

He becomes a living example of what God has done for us in Christ.

And that's why Paul says in verse 25, of which, referring to Christ's afflictions, I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations, but now revealed to his saints.

And that's Paul's way of saying that.

Apostle, God has given him the responsibility to make the good news of Jesus known to everyone everywhere.

And he's saying that he is willing to suffer immensely if that's what it takes for other people to get it.

That's how important it is for him, for people to know Jesus.

And that is the pattern of Paul's ministry.

Proclaiming the good news of what Jesus has done and just demonstrating that good news through his own suffering, if need be.

Now that doesn't mean that we should seek out suffering.

But it also doesn't mean that we should avoid suffering either.

We should instead see suffering as an opportunity for the gospel.

Because when we endure suffering for the sake of our witness, we like Paul become living examples of what God has done for people in Christ.

Now, some of you this morning are going through some really hard stuff.

And if we're honest, you're not really ready to hear a sermon about how God wants to use your suffering for his glory and the world's good.

Kind of still raw, it's kind of still fresh.

And I just want you to know that wherever you're at in your spiritual journey, whatever you might be facing today is totally okay.

We want to walk alongside you, we want to care for you, we want to see you renewed in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And so if you're not at a place where you're ready to see your suffering as a platform for the gospel, that's okay.

Just turn to your neighbor and say, This is for you.

Okay.

But for those who have ears to hear, can I encourage you to see your present suffering as a platform for the gospel?

Might your suffering be an opportunity for the gospel in disguise?

Might the unhealthy dynamics at work be an opportunity to model the kind of holiness that defies fallen logic?

Could the opposition from family be an opportunity to extend a supernatural forgiveness that is only possible in Christ?

Or what if your recent diagnosis is an opportunity to demonstrate the eternal hope that suffering can never take away?

It's not a popular approach to ministry.

If you look out at our world today, you would think that the best approach to ministry is lots of advertising, an excellent worship gathering, lots of loud music, and your own LP album.

But the pattern of ministry throughout centuries, whether it's pastors or missionaries or everyday disciples, has been a blueprint of making Jesus known through suffering.

And on the flip side, if you're not yet a believer, if you have not trusted Jesus Christ for your salvation, might the challenges you're facing in life right now be an invitation from the Holy Spirit to find in Jesus a kind of hope that you will not find anywhere else in the world.

Because the pattern of gospel ministry is making Jesus known through suffering.

Now let's talk about the purpose of gospel ministry.

Look at me at verse 28.

Says, Him, that's Jesus, we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present everyone mature in Christ.

For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that I powerfully works within me.

For I want you to know how great a struggle I had for you, and for those at Laodicea, and for all who have not seen me face to face.

Notice the verbs that Paul uses here.

He says in verse uh twenty nine, toil.

Also verse 29, struggle.

Two verse one, a great struggle.

Uh that word for toil is the word for strenuous effort.

It's kind of good old-fashioned, hard-nosed, back-breaking blue-collar work that you would kind of use to like dig a trench or plow a field if you had to do it by hand.

It's talking about hard, laborious work.

And that word for struggle means to agonize.

It's like an athlete, it's like Texas Longhorns at the end of the fourth quarter last night against Ohio State, right?

Agonizing to try and overcome that 23-3 deficit so they can win that ballgame.

They're struggling, they're agonizing over victory, or like a warrior on a battlefield, knowing that if they give up, they die and their side loses.

There's this real sense of anguish and agony and burden and longing to fight with everything you have and to not give up no matter what.

Now, Paul seems to have kind of missed the whole like celebrity pastor circuit, right?

There's no jets, there's no limos, there's no like five-piece suits.

Like somebody must have forgotten to tell Paul that he could live his best life now.

Because he's toiling, he's laboring, he's struggling, he's giving everything he has, sleepless nights, long hours, cultural opposition, hard conversations, whatever it takes for the Colossians.

But for what purpose?

Well, verse 28 that he may present everyone mature in Christ.

The word for mature there means end or goal.

It's like a seed that grows into a tree that produces fruit.

The seed is fine, the tree is good, but ultimately it's the fruit that really matters, right?

It's when you plant a seed that it produces a tree that produces fruit, the fruit is the end goal.

The fruit is the completion or the objective of why the seed is planted to begin with.

And the end goal of the Christian life, the fruit that we are after, is not just to believe in Jesus, it's to become like Jesus as well.

In theological terms, we call this spiritual formation.

It's the process by which faith in Christ actually shapes and changes our daily lives.

That believing in Jesus changes who we become.

And so the great aim of Paul's ministry is to help people both believe in Christ and to become like Christ.

He is absolutely passionate about preaching the gospel.

He talks about in other places in the scriptures how he is eager to go places where Christ is not known so he can proclaim the good news and people can be saved.

But Paul is not content to stop at mere salvation.

Paul longs to see people converted to Christ and he labors to see them mature in Christ as well.

That is his purpose and his aim, his end goal.

And then in verse two and four, Paul kind of shows us four fruits of spiritual maturity.

They are that they would be encouraged, verse two, they'd be knit together in love, verse two, they'd have full assurance of faith, verse two, and they'd have full understanding of God's mystery, which is Christ, also, verse two.

So the more our lives are shaped and changed by Jesus, the more we should grow in encouragement and love, assurance and understanding of the gospel.

When we see these fruits, we can be confident that we're looking at a person who is maturing in Christ.

But the point is, Paul will do whatever it takes, aside from sin, to help people mature in Christ.

In 1508, a young man named Michelangelo Bonarodi was commissioned by Pope Julius II to paint the ceiling of his papal headquarters.

For the next four years, uh Michelangelo painted for up to 15 hours a day from a rickety scaffolding that was about 60 feet off the ground, so about where the ceiling is here at liberty.

And he would often do so without eating for hours and days on end.

He stood on his feet, literally bent over backwards like this, painting the ceiling as lead-based paint and acidic plaster fell into his eyes.

In the summer, it was so hot and so sweltering in Rome that it would create a thick dust and he would inhale all these toxic fumes from the lead and the plaster that he was painting on.

It was what you would call toil and struggle.

And he toiled and he struggled so significantly that he ended up permanently disfigured.

He's visually impaired for a time and he ended up kind of a little crazy.

He grew suspicious and thought that people were trying to sabotage him by getting him to paint the chapel because it took such a toll on his body.

But at the end of those four years, he presented to the Pope an absolute masterpiece we know now as the Sistine Chapel.

I was actually going to show you a picture of this, but uh I looked it up, and after about 3.5 seconds, I realized that it is not kid friendly.

So no Sistine Chapel for you.

But the point is that gospel ministry is to Paul what the Sistine Chapel was to Michelangelo.

Both men understood that a worthy goal requires sustained labor.

And the more worthy the goal, the more willing we should be to put in the effort to attain it.

And for Paul, presenting to God mature believers in Christ is the great purpose of gospel ministry.

And according to Paul, there is simply no other cause on the planet more worthy of our toil and our struggle.

Now here's what that means.

Practically, for us as pastors, that means that our job is not complete until we have helped to become fully formed in the image and likeness of Jesus.

Harbor Church is not a perfect church.

Never has been, never will be, because we are not perfect pastors.

But everything that we do is aimed at presenting you and ourselves as pastors mature in Christ.

From the way that we've structured our gatherings, to the way that we've structured our groups, from the way we do connections and church memberships, to our concern about church leadership and our emphasis on church membership.

It is all strategically designed to help us as a congregation mature in Jesus Christ.

We looked at what the Bible had to say about why the church exists, which is to make mature disciple-making disciples of Jesus.

And we asked ourselves, what structures, what processes, and what rhythms might best move us as a congregation towards maturity in Christ.

Not just for you, but for us.

We toil and struggle for you because we long for you to become like Jesus.

And we toil and struggle for ourselves because we're not fully like Jesus yet either.

And we long to grow alongside you into mature disciples of Jesus Christ.

So, because your spiritual formation is our greatest concern.

We do everything we can to help you and to help ourselves mature in Christ.

But that's not just our calling as pastors, that's your calling as Christians as well.

If you're a Christian, you're a gospel minister, and that means that this purpose is your purpose.

Whether you lead a harbor group or you just attend, whether you serve in kids' ministry or you're just part of the gathering, whether you lead worship or you're just singing songs as a member of the congregation, whether you set up for the gathering and do security or you serve in some other area of ministry.

Your job as a disciple is to use your area of influence, both formal and informal, in the church and outside the church to help people believe in and become like Jesus.

If I could give you some imagery, I want you to think of yourself as a paintbrush or a chisel in God's hand.

And you are the instrument by which he has chosen to shape and change other people's lives.

God, the grand artist, working in other people's lives through you as an instrument of his redemption.

And the great aim of your life, the great purpose should be to present yourself and other people mature in Christ.

It takes toil, it takes struggle, it takes blood and sweat and tears, but it's worth it.

And even though that might seem overwhelming, I want you to know that you can do it.

Because in verse 29, it says this amazing thing that God's energy is powerfully working within you.

God Himself, God the Holy Spirit, resides in you if you are in Christ, giving you all the resources and all the energy and all the power and all the tools that you need to become mature.

And he's giving you everything you need to help those around you grow to maturity as well.

And so we're called to toil and struggle, but we don't toil and struggle alone.

We toil and struggle together as a church community on Sunday mornings and in harbor groups and through the power of the Holy Spirit, the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead, we have everything we need to pursue that purpose together.

And so, in a very real sense, it's not merely us struggling to mature ourselves and one another.

It is God maturing our congregation through us as we depend on the Holy Spirit together, day in and day out.

And if you're not yet a Christian, again, I want you to know that we want so much more for you than just your conversion to Christ.

We do want you to turn from your sin and trust in Jesus for salvation, yes.

But we want the total transformation of your life as well.

Your life would become so unrecognizable through faith in Jesus Christ that your buddies would look at you and they'd say, Man, what happened to you?

You're different.

And you would say, I don't know, it must be Jesus.

Because Jesus has such a radical, transforming work on a person's life.

The Bible says that Christians are God's workmanship, and we want nothing more than to see God turn you into a masterpiece through Christ.

Because the purpose of gospel ministry is to present one another mature in Christ.

Now let's turn to our last point, which is the priority of gospel ministry.

Look at me at verse four and five.

They're kind of like TV commercials, right?

Almost every TVU commercial is offering you something at face value that looks like it's gonna deliver something else, right?

It's like pretty much every medication commercial ever, you know.

It's like you watch and you're like, oh, that medication comes with like a cute girl and a puppy.

And you're like, really, it's about like diarrhea or something.

You know, it's like totally unrelated to what it is they're selling you.

Commercials have this way of trying to convey something to get you to buy their product in the hopes that you'll feel a certain way about something.

They're essentially making plausible arguments, and plausible arguments come in all shapes and sizes.

It's religious and secular and personal and corporate and generational and national.

But regardless of what kind of plausible argument you are looking to, they all have two things in common.

They lead people away from Jesus, and they pedal some kind of counterfeit gospel in some way.

Some artificial and superficial form of good news that ultimately cannot deliver.

I'll give you a couple examples.

There's probably hundreds.

I'll give you four that are pretty common in our day, two that are religious and two that are irreligious.

But a couple examples of plausible religious arguments are moral therapeutic deism.

So this idea that God exists to make you happy, all you need to do is try to be a good person.

Eh, wrong, not true.

See, the Bible's teaching the Bible teaches that you exist for God and you will never be happy until you live your life entirely for Him.

Another one is what we might call new age spiritualism.

This is this idea of like manifesting your dreams and becoming one with the universe and live in harmony with this ethereal universal thing that's out there.

Which sounds good in a sense, but could just be the same old lie that Adam and Eve believe.

That if you participate in a certain practice, you can be like God, controlling your own destiny, dictating your own way of life.

Other examples that uh are religious arguments might be scientism.

Scientism is uh the lie that God does not exist, and science explains everything.

Again, sounds true on face value, but it's not.

Science is really great at explaining what happens in the natural world.

It can do absolutely nothing to explain what happens in the supernatural world.

Uh, it doesn't do a very good job of explaining things like morality and meaning, identity, and human dignity.

It either has to deny its basic premises or it has to steal from Christianity and to hold those things as if they are true.

It's a little bit like a metal detector.

A metal detector is great at finding metal.

You know what it's not great at finding?

Plastic.

Science is really good at finding things in the natural world, not so great at finding things beyond the natural world.

And so it ultimately falls flat.

Another one is expressive individualism, that you are the author of your own story.

You get to create meaning for yourself and decide what your identity is going to be, pursuing your dreams and expressing your authentic self, that's what really matters.

But again, this is a resounding no.

The Bible teaches that you are not the author of your own story.

God is.

And submitting to him is ultimately what matters most.

Now, there could be a number of others.

I came up with this like 10 others that I was going to share with you, but didn't want to exhaust you, so I cut some of those out.

But uh, there's those are some of the most prominent ones in our day.

And Christians were as in danger in Paul's day of being deluded by plausible arguments as we are in our day.

And so we must make it our priority to protect the church from these kinds of false teaching.

Paul says in verse 5 that when we do that, we experience good order and firmness of faith.

And when we don't do that, when we let plausible arguments run wild in our church community, it ultimately creates disorder and erodes our faith.

And so what do we do?

Well, Paul's solution isn't necessarily to categorize every false teaching, though he's going to categorize some of them later in chapter two.

Paul's solution actually seems to be mature, pursue maturity in Christ.

He says, I say these things about maturing in Christ because he doesn't want anybody to be led by false teaching.

So it would seem that maturity is the antidote to heresy.

It's by growing mature in Christ that we're able to recognize plausible arguments and denounce them for what they really are.

Are you probably familiar with the old anecdote that federal agents don't learn to spot counterfeit money by studying counterfeit money?

They actually learn to spot counterfeit money by studying the genuine things that are so familiar with it that the spots are the fakes are easy to spot.

Well, in a similar way, Paul's saying that the gospel should be so ingrained in us, so central to our approach to ministry, that we become experts in spotting and deconstructing plausible arguments.

And that way our church remains healthy and our faith grows strong.

Because our job as members is to keep counterfeit gospels out of the church's treasury by identifying and disregarding the fakes.

So when someone in your group introduces a false teaching, don't do the politically correct thing where you just smile at them and nod, even though you're heart, you're like, that's wrong.

Be gracious and courageous enough to have a conversation about it, to bring it to their attention.

When a friend is dabbling with worldviews and ideologies that aren't Christian, don't tolerate and affirm them.

Expose those false teachings for what they are and seek to have a meaningful dialogue with them to help them come to the truth.

When a believer falls back into sinful patterns or worldly ways of thinking, don't dismiss that as immaturity or misunderstanding.

Help them really grow in the gospel so that they don't get deluded by plausible arguments.

Because the priority of gospel ministry is to protect the church from false teaching.

And that's something that each and every one of us have a responsibility for.

Now, most of you are never gonna become paid masters, uh paid pastors.

You're never going to serve in full-time vocational ministry.

But I want you to see this morning that if you are a Christian, you are a gospel minister.

And that means that as we seek to serve one another in the church, and as we seek to serve Sarpee County, we need to do so in a way that proclaims, applies, and conforms to the person and work of Jesus Christ.

And as we grow in that together, it's going to change our relationship to suffering.

It's going to help us grow to maturity in Christ.

And it's going to protect the church from false teaching.

Now I'm super encouraged by where we're at as a church.

We're a year in, we're off to a good start, and I'm so thankful for the maturity that's occurring here in Harbor, for the way that we're laboring together.

And I want to encourage us, let's continue to toil and struggle for the gospel.

It's a labor, but it's a labor of love, and it's something that we get the privilege of doing together.

So let's pray.

Lord, we thank you for our time in your word, for Paul's faithful gospel ministry, which serves as an example for us of what it looks like to be gospel ministers.

Lord, I pray that we would take on that identity for ourselves as gospel ministers, proclaiming, applying, and conforming to the good news of Jesus and everything we say and do.

I pray, Lord, that we would be a people who are eager to use our circumstances to serve one another, who uh have our sights set on maturity and nothing less, and who are courageous enough, Lord, to spot false teaching and protect one another from it.

I thank you, Lord, for that we have all the resources we need from you in the Holy Spirit.

And I pray, Lord, as we continue to grow as a church community, would you cause your power to work vigorously within us as we labor together in the gospel?

In Jesus' name, Amen.