Christ is presented as the means of membership and the strength of ministry within the church. The sermon explains that alienation from God, characterized by wicked thoughts and actions, is overcome through reconciliation by Christ's blood, leading to a future presentation before God. This reconciliation provides present peace and a guaranteed future, with the quality of this presentation depending on continued faithfulness. Furthermore, Christ's sufficiency empowers believers for ministry, enabling them to meet social, physical, emotional, and spiritual demands through His might working within them.
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I'm real happy I don't have to worry about the preacher's time. I was telling the folk this morning, just before we turned to Philemon for our study of the day, or of the morning, that when I opened my eyes this morning, awakened by my radio clock, I think it's my wife's radio clock, if everybody had their own, I awakened to the strains of when Irish eyes are smiling. I said to my wife, I wonder what they're playing that for. When I was at supper, Mrs.
Willie reminded me that that number had gotten converted. In England we used to sing some new words to that tune. Does anybody know them? You know them. Very good. Mrs. Willie knows them. I know them. My wife's never played it. Let's hear just the tune, and we're going to give you a double treat tonight. He found me with a burden, and he lifted it from me. He found me full of sorrow, and he turned it into glee. He found me in the darkness, and he caused the light to shine. Can you wonder why I love him, and call him friend of mine?
Mrs. Frames, come on up here, please. Mrs. Willie, come on up here. Now, you never heard anything like this in your life, and you're going to be very great. Come on, Mrs. Willie. We don't have to worry about the preacher starting to come on, Mrs. Willie. Please. That's fine. See it anyhow in your life. Just forget me and sing and have a good time. Now I want you to listen to the words, whether you get them from Mrs. Raleigh or from me, it doesn't really matter, so you can sing it too, all right?
Now I'm wondering, have you found a key there for us? Thank you. There's a note. Come on, sing it. He found me with a burden and He lifted it from me. He found me full of sorrow and He changed it into glee. He found me in the darkness and he caused the light to shine. Can you wonder why I love him and call him friends of mine?
Stay here, stay here. Stay here. Now you think you can join in and sing it? See what you can do with it. Come on, let's have it now. He found me with a burden, and he laid it for me. Found me full of sorrow. me full of sorrow, and he changed it into glee. He found me in the darkness, and he made the light to shine.
Can you wonder why I love him? and call him rest of mine. Thank you very much. Now I'm going to ask the two gentlemen who have the outlines for tonight if they will be kind enough to take care of these two sides and you should be getting page two tonight. I brought it along last night but we didn't get to it. And if we don't hurry along tonight, we won't have time for pages three and four.
You can, while the outlines are coming, turn to the epistle to the Colossians and chapter one, and we're going to read from verse twenty. Colossians chapter one and verse twenty, and please do get an outline. You'll notice it is marked page two and if I can remind you of page one we observed that first of all the name of Christ is brought before the church it is associated with greetings to the saints and it's associated with gratitude to God gratitude for two things on the one hand fruit and on the other hand fellowship the fruit is of two kinds fruit on the inside, faith, hope and love, fruit on the outside, wisdom, walk and work.
And then, having expressed his gratitude for fruit, he then expresses his gratitude for fellowship. And just as the fruit was of two kinds, so the fellowship is of two kinds, it's fellowship with the saints and fellowship with the Son. Now that is the first section in which the name of Christ is brought before the church. And then beginning at verse fifteen and going through verse nineteen we have the majesty of Christ displayed to the church and it is displayed to the church in his person of God, in his power in the universe. which he created, he controls, and he continues, and it is displayed in his position over the church.
And he is the head of the church, which is his body, the firstborn from the dead, he is to the church the source of its life, that he in all things may stand first. And we notice a relationship there, a relationship between the head and the body. We notice a reserve there or a reservoir there. The first born from the dead, he is to the church the source of its life. And then we notice a responsibility that he, in all things, may stand first. And we ended last night by asking ourselves, does the Lord Jesus really stand first in my life?
Now we come to the third heading, the sufficiency of Christ exercise in the church. And this is the long section, which is not surprising, seeing that it deals with the adequacy and sufficiency of the person of Christ. And we're going to see how sufficient he is in a fourfold way. Two of them are on this outline and two of them on page three. In the first place we're going to see that he's the means of membership in the church and then that he is the strength of ministry in the church. I won't tell you what the other two are until tomorrow night if the Lord will.
Now let's read from verse twenty in chapter one and once again we're going to read using the marks of punctuation. Are you getting used to this now? This is how we emphasize every word or every phrase because each is important. I think we'll read from verse twenty through verse twenty three. That's not a long reading. We're going to read further than that a little bit later on. But let this suffice for now. Verses twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two and twenty-three, using the marks of punctuation. And having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him, whether they be things in earth, and you, Yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, if
ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, which ye have heard, whereof I, Paul, am made a minister. Now I realize, again, there's just a semicolon there, but that's where we're going to stop for the moment. And would you right away look at your outline, please, and I think that you will recognize these words out of the reading. The Lord Jesus we are suggesting is the means of membership in the church.
Now there are lots of people who have strange ideas about how you become a member of the church. There are people who think that you've got to have your name on the church role. Then there are people who believe you've got to be confirmed. There are those who believe that you've got to be baptized. And so there is quite a lot of confusion about this business. Now the fact is that to belong to become a member of the Anglican Church, you may well have to be confirmed. To become a member of the Baptist Church, you may well have to be baptized.
In order to become a member of this church or that church, conforming with some church ritual may be demanded. But... To be a member of the true church, which doesn't even carry a label, you don't have to be confirmed, you don't have to be baptized, you don't have to subject yourself to any church right. What you have to do is throw open your heart's door, receive the Savior into your heart and be born again, and that very moment you become a member of the true church.
And it doesn't matter what you may call yourself after that, an Anglican or a Presbyterian or a Baptist or Brethren, whatever it may be, the label doesn't matter. We sing sometimes in our worship service. We thank thee we are one with every saint that loves thy name. Membership in the true church is by him. The Lord Jesus is the means of membership in the church. Now here are the three words. Number one, alienation. Did you notice that in the reading? And you, verse twenty one, that was sometime alienating an enemy's in your mind by wicked works.
My, that's a horrible description. Alienated. We've got to come back to that. The second one is reconciliation. Look at verse twenty, and having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself. By him, you'll notice. He is the means of membership in the church. Look at verse twenty one, yet now have he. reconciled. There's reconciliation, and we're going to come back to that too in a moment or two. Now the third word is presentation.
And if you look at verse twenty-two it says, in the body of his flesh, through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable in his sight, if ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven." Alienation? Now I've suggested on the outline that that was the cause of our past predicament. Perhaps you were a very religious person.
not converted but religion a religious maybe you were a very pious person maybe you even used to read the bible and certainly regularly go to church do you realize this was still true of you alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works that is a description of every man and woman, boy and girl outside of Christ. If there's somebody here tonight and you're not saved, it matters not how religious or pious you may be, how often you may go to church.
Alienation from God is your condition. That's a very sad state of affairs. It's an affair, it's a state of affairs, that is manifested in the mind, in thinking. It's a state of affairs that is manifested in acting and indeed in being. Did you notice in the verse here it says, Enemies in your mind. We've talked about the mind before. The Bible has a lot to say about the mind. It talks about being earthly minded. When you ought to be heavenly minded, It speaks about minding earthly things.
It speaks about minding other things than the things of God, thinking about these, being taken up with these, and allowing them to become a consuming passion. Only God knows what we were guilty of thinking, and He has described it as constituting a state of enmity with himself. I've reminded some of you before, in the words of Al-Gibbs, you are not what you think you are, but what you think you are. That's exactly what the Bible says. As he thinketh in his heart, so is he.
Remember that little adage, I tried to get across to some of you a while ago. You sow a thought, and you reap a what? An action. You sow an action, and you reap a what? a habit. You sow a habit, you reap a character, you sow a character, and you reap a destiny, and it all begins with the way that you think. What hope is there for you if you are an enemy of God in your mind? This is wrong thinking. But then it also says, and you that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, and how this is, wrong and evil performance, action, acting.
If you think wrong things, you'll soon be doing wrong things, because that's the way it works. First we ponder, then we perform. First we think, and then we do. And the result of being an enmity we've got in the mind is that we produce wicked works. St. Augustine once said that all of our righteousnesses by nature are but splendid sins. The Bible says all your righteousnesses are as filthy rags. No wonder God has used the word alienated.
We think wrong things, we do wrong things, and because of that we are wrong in essence. Enemies is the word. So here we have it, alienated because of our thinking, because of our acting, and because of our being, enemies of God. Oh, I'm glad that that situation has changed for so many others. Most of us here, maybe every one of us, I don't know, from the youngest to the eldest, I don't know. We have some boy and a girl here. Maybe they're safe, I hope if they're not, they'll come and see me afterwards.
Maybe there is some grown-up that has stolen into the meeting somewhere and you're still alienated in spite of all that looks so wonderful about you. And in spite of the fact that you're admired by your neighbours, and acquaintances and friends. If you're without Christ, you're alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked words. Let's not hope that somehow God's going to forget all this and it'll all be okay in a coming day. It won't. It's only to as many as we see the Lord Jesus that he gives power to become the children of God and when that happens we are no longer alienated he's the means then of membership in the church and he takes those who are alienated and he brings about a reconciliation now again if you read these verses you'll find that we are reconciled to the Father we are reconciled to the Father by the Son and we are reconciled to the Father by the
Son through the blood by which he's made peace. Oh, there are those who dismiss the gospel because we sing about the blood and we preach about the blood and we talk about the blood. They call it in derogatory fashion a gospel of gore. Would you find me the preacher that doesn't preach the blood? And I'll show you a man that doesn't have a life-changing message. I'll show you a man whose congregations do not get right with God. It can only be through the blood.
So we who have known alienation now have experienced reconciliation. We can look up into the face of God the Father and call him Father. Abba. or Father, our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. It isn't true that all men are children of God, you know. The Lord Jesus once pointed at a bunch of men and said, Me, of your Father the devil. How then can all men be children of God? We are only children of God who have received the Lord Jesus in intelligent and deliberate fashion into our hearts.
And I realize I'm repeating myself there, but I have no apology to offer. If you're not saved, this is what you need to grasp, you need to know, and you need to do something about it. So we have alienation, and we said that that was the cause of our past predicament. Now we've talked about reconciliation, and I've made a little note here on the outline, this is the reason for our present peace. And having made peace, by the blood or through the blood of his cross. And what wonderful peace it is. We think about it. Peace, peace, wonderful peace. And we've all known what it is in the midst of struggles to experience peace, in the midst of temptation to experience peace, in the midst of conflict to experience a remarkable and strange serenity.
That's what comes of being reconciled after having once been alienated. But the other word is this word presentation and the cause of our past predicament, which was alienation, and the reason for our present peace, which is reconciliation, gives way to the guarantee of our future presentation. The certainty of it is found in verse twenty-two. He's reconciled, as it says, in the body of his flesh, through death, to present us. To present us. Now that's going to happen. That's the fact. Every one of us is going to be presented to the Father by the Lord Jesus in a coming day.
Now there are people who believe in a partial rapture. that only part of the church, faithful people in the church are going to be caught away and others are going to be left behind for great tribulation. I don't believe the Bible teaches that because our translation in that day is going to be because of the work of the Lord Jesus. There may be something wrong with the measure of my faithfulness, but there's nothing inadequate about His work. So when the bride is taken, it'll be a whole bride. The whole church is going to be called away. Some people believe the church is going to go through the tribulation. That can't happen. It cannot possibly happen.
It's more than likely that ninety-nine percent of the church is already in the glory. How then can the church... go through the tribulation. God isn't even going to leave behind an unfaithful few. When the trumpet of the Lord shall sound, every believer will hear it. When the voice of the archangel sounds, every believer will hear it. And when that magnetic attraction takes place at the rapture, every believer will be caught away. I'm glad it doesn't depend upon our being faithful. We'd never be quite sure that when Jesus came back again, that we were going to be caught away. But now we can sing, when the trumpet of the Lord shall sound and time shall be no more, and the morning breaks eternal bright and fair, and the saint of earth shall gather over on the other shore, and the roll is called up.
Yonder, what's next? I'll be there. Not I think I'll be there, or I hope I'll be there, but I surely will. Why? because I've been reconciled by the Lord Jesus to the Father and through his blood, and I'm going to be caught away and presented along with you to the Father. That's the fact of it. But there is also here the quality of it. Now then, if we want to be presented holy, unblameable, and unreprovable in His sight, we've got to meet these conditions. We've got to be presented. But you know, there'll be believers who will suffer loss. At the judgment seat of Christ, they'll answer for unfaithfulness for the time that they wasted.
It's going, we shall give an account, the Bible says, of the deeds done in the body. But if We continue in the faith, grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel. We're not only going to be presented, but we are going to be presented holy and unblameable and unreprovable in his sight. That's what he's called an abundant entrance. There are going to be lots of surprises in the glory, you know. I was talking about Billy Graham in our morning class this morning, and sometimes I thought about the faithfulness of that man and the many who've been one to Christ through his instrumentality.
But I have an idea that in a coming day, probably before he steps up for his reward, there'll be others step up first, who will faithfully, some on beds of pain and sickness, some who never leave their wheelchairs. They have consistently and earnestly and daily prayed for him. And the reason why God has honored his ministry is because he has an army of faithful and earnest and consistent prayers. And he has a wife who supports him in the work. Somebody interviewed Mrs. Graham once and asked her about her relationship with her husband.
and said to her, do you ever at all think about divorce? She said, no. Murder sometimes, but not divorce. But you know, it's required in a steward that a man be found faithful. And as surely as we are, our entrance, which is certain, is going to be an abundant entrance. Some of us are going to stand back, who've been in the public eye, and watch others who did all of their work for God behind the scenes. But their faithfulness was so much greater than ours that there can be no doubt at all about the fact that their reward is going to be correspondingly greater.
So there's the fact of the presentation here, and there's the quality of the presentation. And the way we live for God or don't live for God is what affects the quality and not the fact. So the Lord Jesus is the means of membership in the church. Now he is also the strength of ministry in the church. Take a look at the end of that verse twenty-three and now let me read to you. And I have seven minutes. I don't want to go over time tonight. It says, I, Paul, am made a minister. Now in verse twenty-four he mentions sufferings and affliction. I rejoice, he said, in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh, for his body's sake, which is the church, whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you to fulfill the Word of God.
Look at verse twenty-nine for the sake of time. Whereunto I also labour... driving according to his working which worketh in me mightily, for I would that ye knew what great conflict I have for you, and for them at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh. I, Paul, am made a minister. And you know, Paul says here, he's the one who works in me, and works in me mightily. Paul would never have been able to carry on his ministry if the Lord Jesus, who is the means of membership in the church, had not been in a very real way to him, the strength of ministry in the church.
I have two sons, one of them who shall remain nameless for the night. I was told, along with the rest of his class, that tomorrow is show and tell. What I want you to do, said the teacher, is come prepared to tell the other boys and girls what your father works at and describe the job that he does. One little boy got up and he said, my daddy works at a baker's. And then he proceeded to tell the children how he mixed the dough and he did this and he did that and then the next boy got up and he said, my daddy works at a printer's. And so he told how he sorted out the letters and put them all in racks and how he did this and did that and eventually produced the printed page.
When he came to my offspring, he said, my daddy doesn't work. He's a preacher. I suppose I was like the two boys talking on the street corner. One said, my dad's a doctor. I can be sick for nothing. The other one said, my dad's a preacher. I can be good for nothing. Everybody knows about PKs, preachers, kids. But the fact is, you know, lots of people have strange ideas about ministers of the gospel. They really do. They think that, you know, a couple of times on Sunday, once in the week, it's a very easy job.
And I suppose there are some men who occupy pulpits, and they don't pay a very great price, and because they're natural orators, maybe it isn't very difficult for them. But the true minister of the gospel, the true servant of God, pays a price in his ministry. And if it were not for the fact that God, that the person of the Lord Jesus was his sufficiency, he would quit. He'd give up because the demands are too great. Look at your outline. Did you notice these in the reading? I emphasized them as I read them to you. There are social demands. There are physical demands, there are emotional demands, and there are spiritual demands.
I, Paul, am made a minister. Now, that word does not mean a man with his collar back to front. It simply means a servant. And when God puts a man into the ministry, he's expected to be willing to serve. All men he comes into contact with. Now that's where the social demands come in. Everybody knows that their day has gone by when the doctor would respond to a two a.m. call in the morning and appear post-haste at your front door. Now he says, what's your temperature? Hundred and six, take two aspirins and come to my office in the morning.
That's how it works in these days. The doctor used to be the kind of man you could bring him out in the middle of the night, but not anymore. But the preacher hasn't changed. The next time I get a call at one o'clock in the morning and have to dress and jump into my car and respond to it, won't be the first time by a long chalk. The next time Mr. Pell has to do that, won't be the first time. Every servant of God who seeks to be faithful to the Lord has to be available. I am made a minister, a servant. And that means that his privacy... oftentimes is non-existent.
He has to be available. And then there's the word sufferings and afflictions here, physical demands. When you get further down there's that word labour and striving. If you think about these you'll find there are not only physical demands here but emotional demands too. And this is because the preacher not only has to be available, but he becomes automatically available. Because sometimes this ministry, which certainly isn't all preaching, is a very strenuous thing. I don't know whether you realize that it takes a great toll for a man to sleep in thirty different beds in a course of three months.
To stay in thirty different homes, to travel to thirty different cities and to preach in thirty different pulpits and have to be entertained by thirty different kinds of people, it is demanding. It is physically demanding. That's why lots of preachers have ulcers and other things. I hope you pray for our perigranating preachers. That means traveling preachers. Because it's a tough road to home. Since I moved to Parker the Palm seven years ago, God's been very gracious to me.
I've seen more of the inside of my home during these last seven years than in forty-seven years of ministry. And that's one of the reasons why, among many others, I appreciate Parker the Palms. I get to stay home more. But you know what that does? That makes me pray the more earnestly for those men on the prayer list, those home workers whom I know are still traveling from here to there and sometimes stay away from home like I used to do for three months at a stretch. Don't let anything persuade you, these men don't pay a price. They surely do. But there are spiritual demands and this is the greatest price of all.
Notice that expression, what great conflict I have for you. What great conflict. You know, this is not only true of what we call the full-time preacher, but it's true of the godly elder. It's true of that faithful believer who insists on doing the will of God even though it means he has to be cognizant of the needs of all of those people around him. This doesn't just apply, you know, to the full-time preacher. I mentioned him because I want to stir you up to pray for these home workers as you pray for the foreign missionaries. But the fact is that every one of us is called into the ministry.
When God gave gifts to the church, He gave them for the edifying of the saints unto the work of the ministry. So tonight I want you to go home with a little better opinion of yourself. You're in the ministry. And you didn't realize that. Now I hope tonight you won't get scared off because being in the ministry means you not only have to be available and you become available, but you also become accountable because you're going to have to give an account to God. And here the Apostle Paul speaks of great conflict. It was a spiritual price he had to pay.
I think I mentioned to some of you about an elder in the Brantford meeting in Ontario. We lived in Brantford for five years. And there was a man who was an elder in that assembly. He would call me up and say, Ernest, are you doing anything very important, or could you drop it and join me? I knew what he wanted. No, he was not going to tell me what happened at the elders meeting the night before. I did there what I've done here at the park, and that is chosen not to sit with the elders, because I feel as an evangelist one has to have a rather different, be in a rather different situation.
Mr. Willie came to me when I had been here only a matter of a few weeks and talked to me about eldership. But you know, I felt that there has to be a liaison somewhere along the line. But you know, this man used to call me when his heart was breaking, and I knew he wanted me to pray with him. And I would drive over to his home, and we would drop on our knees beside his old sati, and there we would pray. And oh, time and time again, I've seen that man's shoulders shake with sobbing. I've seen the tears actually running down his cheeks and dripping off his chin. He was praying for the saints.
He was agonizing for the people of God. He was going through a season of great conflict. You know, that man died a youngish man of a heart attack because of the price that he paid in the ministry. Christ is the strength of ministry in the church. But you know what helps? The prayers of the Lord's people. I hope you not only pray for these workers I've mentioned, I hope you have the elders of your assembly, maybe this one, if you're a visitor, maybe somewhere in Canada, somewhere in the northern part of the United States. Do you regularly pray for your elders?
I know you blame them when things go wrong. But do you pray for them? If you don't pray for them, don't you ever blame them? You blame yourself for not upbearing them. Shall we pray? Lord Jesus, once again, we praise thee that there is a sense in which our hearts truly appreciate thine adequacy and sufficiency. We don't take advantage of it as much as we should. But we know, Lord Jesus, that you have everything we need for accomplishing thy work and doing thy will and bringing about thy glory.
And since such a reservoir of sufficiency is available to us, may we tap it. May we, Lord, draw upon it so that we might be able to fit into your plan for our lives, whatever it may be. and for thy sake be able to minister to others, in spite of the social demands, and the physical demands, and the emotional demands, and the spiritual demands. It is he that worketh in me, said Paul, mightily. May that be our experience, too, we pray, for thy names. Amen.