Sweaty Preaching

"We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ. For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me." - Colossians 1:28-29

It is my opinion that spiritual immaturity is an epidemic in today's evangelical world. It seems that more than ever before believers are content to remain spiritual babies. Unfortunately, it seems that many churches are satisfied with allowing this to happen. I have heard of few places where serious Biblical and theological discipleship is taking place, and that concerns me.

As we can see from Colossians 1, it was never Paul's intention for believers to remain spiritually immature. His desire was to see each believer become complete or mature in Christ. In fact, for Paul it went much further than a desire. He believed it was his calling. He states a few versus earlier in verse 25 that he was called to be a minister "that I might fully carry out the preaching of the word of God." What does it mean to fully carry out the preaching of the word? I believe that he answers this question in the following versus, but for the sake of summary here is a short list of what Paul says about this kind of preaching:
1) That we proclaim Christ, the hope of glory (salvation)
2) That we admonish every man (counsel in life)
3) That we teach every man (doctrinal instruct)

Paul's calling as a minister was to accomplish those three things and I believe that it is the calling of every minister. Looking at these things from Colossians, how often do we preach an incomplete message? How often do we sacrifice our calling on the altar of our own personal agenda? The challenge for all of us is to fully carry out the preaching of the word. This means that we are to not only preach the way to salvation, but to disciple our people!

You might say, "if we preach doctrinal instruction then the 'lost' will be lost in the message." Do we think so little of God's word that we don't believe it can accomplish all three of the Colossians list at once? Have we become so vane in our preaching that we rely more on our words to direct the purpose of the message instead of allowing God's word to take its own path?

No, I don't believe we are thinking those things. I think that sometimes we just don't want to put in the work it takes to fully preach. Preaching this way is not an easy thing. Paul says that he labors and strives to accomplish this task. The Greek word used here is agonizomenos, and in this context Paul is literally saying that he is agonizing like an athlete in an arena to preach this way. He is working with every ounce of energy that he has and sweating out of every pore in order to preach Christ, to counsel for life and to disciple the people!

The epidemic of spiritual immaturity must be stopped. Will you move to stop it among those who you influence? The challenge from God's word is for us to realize that our calling is not over at a person's salvation, but that we are to fully carry out the preaching of the word of God. Yes, it is hard work but it is passed time for us to begin to get sweaty in our preaching!

Stretching the Glue

Many may ask the question, "what is the purpose of salvation?" When asked this question, a room full of Christians would probably give many different answers. Some may say "we are saved for God's glory," others might say "to spread the Gospel," and still others would say "to preserve the truth of God's Word." As the body of Christ sometimes we can be so divided and unbalanced. I have no doubts in the unifying power of Jesus Christ as the glue that holds all believers together. However, as sinful humanity we often find ourselves trying to stretch that glue in our own direction to fit our own agenda, or as some would call it, our "passion."

So what is the answer to this timeless question? I believe it is found in the first chapter of Romans as Paul writes, "we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentile's for His name's sake." The truth is that we are saved by the grace of God for obedience in the faith. This may seem like a simple truth, but so many times it is passed over for our personal "passions" and so the glue-stretching begins.

The realization of being given grace for the purpose of our obedience is one that is all inclusive. Yes, living a life that brings glory to God is obedience, spreading the Gospel of our Lord is obedience, and preserving the truth of God's Word is obedience. What we sometimes fail to see through our passion filled eyes is that all of these work together. They are not mutually exclusive, nor should they be treated as such. I often wonder what the Body of Christ would be able to accomplish if instead of stretching the glue as far as we can with our own agenda/passion; we rested in the glue of Jesus Christ and moved as one unified Body toward obedience.