Welcome to this weekend's InTouch Podcast with Charles Stanley. As you grow older, it's common to look back and wonder where the time has gone. Let's continue the study of Colossians to find motivation to end well. We don't have anything to do with how we begin because we are born into this world and somebody else takes care of us and teaches us, but there comes a point in our life where we begin to make choices. And it's where we begin to make choices that makes the difference of how we are going to end. So I want you to turn, if you will, to Colossians chapter 4, and I want us to begin reading this last portion of Colossians now, beginning in verse 7 and reading through verse 18. And when you first read this, you're going to wonder, what in the world does that have to do with how I'm ending my life? Because it sounds like a roll call of the friends of the apostle Paul.
And that's true. That part of that is here, but there's more to it than that and I want you to follow along in verse 7. As to all my affairs, remember now that Paul is in prison in Rome. As to all of my affairs, Tychicus, our beloved brother and faithful servant and fellow bondservant in the Lord, will bring you information. For I have sent him to you for this very purpose, that you may know about our circumstances and that he may encourage your hearts. And with him, Onesimus, our faithful and beloved brother, who is one of your number, they will inform you about the whole situation here. Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner, sends you his greetings, and also Barnabas' cousin, Mark, about whom you received instructions.
If he comes to you, welcome him. And also Jesus, who is called Justus, these are the only fellow workers for the kingdom of God who are from the circumcision, and they have proved to be an encouragement to me. Epaphras, who is one of your number, a bond slave of Jesus Christ, sends you his greetings, always laboring earnestly for you in his prayers that you may stand perfect and fully assured in all the will of God. For I bear him witness that he has a deep concern for you and for those who are in Laodicea and Hierapolis. Luke, the beloved physician, sends you his greetings and also Demas. Greet the brethren who are in Laodicea and also Nymphon, the church that is in her house. And when this letter is read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans, and you for your part read my letter that is coming from Laodicea. And say to Archippus, take heed to the ministry which you have received in the Lord that you may fulfill it. I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand.
Remember my imprisonment. Grace be with you. What is Paul saying?
Well, the question is, what is God saying to you and me? In this passage of Scripture, and I want us to look at this under the theme, the challenge to end well. The challenge to end well, that is, many people begin life rather well, but not many folks end it well. And isn't it interesting that some of the people that you and I see coming along in life that we think, my, what a wonderful future they have before them, and they're successful and all the rest, and lots of prestige, a prominence, a wealth, a position, or whatever it may be in their business, and yet they don't end so well.
All kinds of things happen to many people who begin well, but somehow they don't end well. And if I should ask you this morning, why do you suppose God has left you here after having saved you? Some of you have been around a long time since you've been saved, and some of you have just been saved recently. Why do you suppose God has left you here all these years? Why didn't He just take you on to heaven?
Think of all the hardship and the heartache and the burdens you would have missed, and all this time you would have been in heaven just enjoying yourself with Jesus. Why do you suppose He's left you here? Well, one primary reason, because He has a purpose for your life. And you see, if you're going to end life well, and you're going to live your life to the fullest, you have to find out, what am I doing here in the first place? That is, why did God leave me here after He saved me, and why hasn't God taken me on? And some of you have been close to death at some point in your life, and you would say, well, the Lord just saved me out of the teeth of death, and the doctor said there was no way and no chance for me, and here I am, I've lived 20 years longer. Why do you suppose God left you here all that long? To enjoy yourself, make money, spend money, have a good time? Is that why God left you here, or did He have some higher purpose for you being here?
He certainly does. And I want us to look at that in this passage of Scripture under the theme of the challenge to end well. Now, let me say first of all an explanation of this challenge to end well. The truth is that God has given to all of us everything we need to fulfill God's purpose for our life. That's what this whole book has been about. And some of you have heard probably almost all of these messages, and the whole theme of this book is our sufficiency in Christ. That is, Christ Jesus living within us makes us sufficient to meet every single circumstance and situation of life. So the truth that I want us to see this morning first of all here in this passage is that every single believer has a ministry.
Now, listen to me carefully. Every believer has a ministry. Now, a ministry is a place of service. It may not be in a church building, but it is a place of service.
It is a position of service. It may not be a high position in the eyes of the world, but in God's eyes, it is a position, a place of service. The truth is that God issues at least four calls in every person's life. There is the call to receive Christ as Savior. There is the call to discipleship, which is the call to learn the ways of God, and to learn the Word of God and to implore in your life. There is the call to sanctification. That is a call to holy, righteous, obedient living. Then there's the call to ministry.
Listen to what he says. For by grace you've been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works lest anyone should boast. Then he says, for we are his workmanship, persons of notable excellence, we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works, that we might walk within those good works. That is, those good works which were foreordained that we walk within them. So that the Bible says that God has saved us in order that you and I may glorify him by the life that we live, by the work that we do, by the service that we give.
Now, there are two primary reasons for that. One of them is that in this matter of working and serving the Lord, we mature in the process. Secondly, God is glorified in the process of our service. And thirdly, the needs of other people are met by our service, because to serve God is to serve others. So serving God is giving ourselves away to the will of God and doing so in behalf of those people about us who are in need. Now the second thing I want you to notice here about this whole matter of ministry, and let me say this at this point. Ministry does not mean standing behind the pulpit or leading the choir or teaching a Sunday school class necessarily. Those are just three of thousands and thousands of ministries that God has for his people. So don't sit there and think, well, haven't been to school, can't preach, can't teach, can't sing.
None of that has anything to do with what I'm talking about. What he's saying is simply this, that God has given to all of us a gift. And what I want you to remember is this, that those gifts are an opportunity for you and me to serve the Lord. Now I hear people once in a while who talk about an opportunity to serve God by serving others as a chore.
It's almost as if it's a handicap. And I can remember hearing pastors at times saying, well, the Lord called me to preach and I fought it and I fought it and I fought it. Well, you know, it never crossed my mind to fight against God's will to preach the gospel.
I was scared to death. I had a lot of reasons in my own mind why I thought I wouldn't do a very good job of it. But I wouldn't think about telling God, no, I'm not going to do it. The truth is that the opportunity to serve God is just that. It is a gracious gift from God. So when the Lord gives you an opportunity to serve someone else and in serving him in the process of doing so, if you think that's a chore, if you think that's some big liability placed on you, then, my friend, you need to think again. God gives us by grace the opportunities of serving him.
A third thing I want you to notice about that is this, that God designs our areas of service to fit our personality, to fit our gifts, to fit our abilities and our talents. It would be unlike God completely to call you to do something that he's not equipped you to do. Anything God calls you to do, he equips you to do. Anything God calls you to do, he will enable you to do. Anything God calls you to do, he assumes responsibility for the resources needed to carry it out. That's why he says, he that calleth thee will also do it. My response and my responsibility is to respond to the call. My responsibility is to obey what he says.
He's responsible for the gifts, the talents, the abilities and the resources. So whatever God has called you to do, he has already fitted you to do it. He's already designed the place of opportunity and the place of service because he knows your personality. He knows whether you're aggressive or laid back. He knows whether you are type A behavior, as the medical field would say, or type B. It doesn't make any difference to God.
He's got it all worked out perfectly to fit exactly what you're capable of doing. So when you tell God, oh, Lord, I couldn't do that, you realize that's casting a dispersion upon God. God, if you'd have been smart, you want to call me to do that, you knew I couldn't do it. That's really what we're saying. When we say no to service, when God calls us to do something for him and we tell him we can't, what we're really saying is we won't. It's really an act of rebellion. When God tells you to do something and you don't do it, it's an act of rebellion. When God tells you to share with someone about Jesus Christ or to go cook a meal for these folks or give this fellow up here a coat or pay this guy's rent or just sit with him in the court, it doesn't make any difference what he does.
If we refuse to do it, we are rebelling against God and refusing to fulfill the ministry which God has given us at that moment in that particular place. Now, the idea to come to church and listen to sermons and just get enough to help you to survive through next week is not what the Bible is all about. What the Bible is all about is that we meet on Sunday to worship the living God and to be instructed and challenged and edified in the things of the Spirit of God, learning the principles of Scripture in order to go back into the world and to pour out upon them what God has poured into our life. Now, you see, the world says, you know, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. God says Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. And the reason God puts it that way is for the simple reason that God sees Sunday as the first day, not what's left over at the end of the week. And that is exactly the way most people spend their lives. They spend their energy, their time, their efforts and their interest in the first five or six days of the week. And then God gets what's left over on Sunday, the day of rest.
And if there's any energy left, we may wobble in the church and we hope we'll get there in time. That's the way the world looks at church. And that's the way many people who are Christians think about their week and their work. God doesn't see your work that way.
You see, another thing I want you to notice here is that ministry is a priority in the mind of God. Now, if you should ask the average person, their idea is that their primary responsibility is their work. Five days a week, eight hours a day, they've got to give it to the employer. That's number one responsibility.
They'll say, well, if I don't do it, I'll get fired. And so they have a day on Saturday to do whatever they please. And then Sunday, maybe, my friend, you know what God's view of this is? Sunday is number one. Sunday is the priority day.
Sunday is the day to get ready to go out and to do what? To carry out your job? No, to minister to the people around you while you're working at a secular vocation to make enough money to keep on ministering.
That's God's viewpoint. The idea that you have given yourself to some corporation, some job, some vocation to spend and invest your life is totally unscriptural. We give our lives to the Lord Jesus Christ to serve him by serving others. And we get as a job of getting the vocation to make enough money so we can serve the Lord and be a good witness and a good testimony.
Now, what a difference that making your thinking about going to work. Now, I'm going to work to make enough money so I can serve the Lord Jesus Christ. You say, well, but I don't have a chance to minister because I work 10 hours a day.
You know what that means? You've got 10 hours there to serve God, 10 hours of ministry, 12 hours of ministry. The truth is, listen, as long as we were around somebody else and even when we are by ourselves, we can either be ministering to the Lord in prayer and praising and worshiping him or when we're with other people serving them in some fashion. It may be a warm handshake. It may be a good hug to somebody who's suffering. It may be standing beside them in the funeral home.
It may be walking up to them at their desk and you see them there perturbed or frustrated and anxious and simply say, may I help you in some fashion? There are lots of ways to serve God. You see, we got the idea you serve God by doing something religious. The truth is, listen, you can't separate your spiritual life from any facet of your life. The truth is, here is your spiritual life and everything fits into it and should get influenced by it and saturated by it and permeated by it. You are a believer. You have the mind of Christ. So ministry is priority.
But I wonder how many of you think about it that way. Listen, Saturday and Sunday are days to get over work. That's not what God said. If we understand God's perspective that Sunday is the first day of the week.
This is when we get ready to go out and expend ourselves and come back and worship the Lord and be charged up with the things of the Spirit of God again to go out to give ourselves away. You say, how long is that going to last until Jesus comes? Well, let me ask you this. Let's go back to the question. Why did he leave you here? God has left you here to serve the living almighty Jehovah God. That's why you're here. And once you get your thinking right, your job and your vocation, your work suddenly takes on a whole different perspective. That's God's blessing to me to make enough money so I can give my life away to Jesus Christ and serve him.
And some people have more time in which they can do that than others. So when we talk about how we're going to end, we need to find out what in the world we're here for. We're here to serve the living God created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which he foreordained that we walk in them.
That's not even a choice. That's a lifestyle. That's why we're here.
Now, when you think about that, you think about why God has left you here and what he's up to. The question is, are you going to fulfill that? And you see, most people are living to have fun. Most people are living to find peace and joy and happiness. And it is amazing what people try to do to find happiness. Listen, happiness is the outcome and the overflow of a relationship with Jesus Christ. Not doing, going, buying, being or having.
None of that's it. And that's why so many folks live their lives and come to the end of life and look back over their life and think, where has it all gone? And many people today who are in heaven or hell intended to live a lot longer than they did.
They didn't make any plans for to die early in life. They had plans to live and enjoy themselves. And I want to ask you, what are you living for? What's your goal in life? Do you have any real purpose for living? God says we ought to be living to worship and to serve the living God. All of us have a ministry.
That doesn't mean that everybody's found theirs, but everybody has one. We come to this passage of scripture that looks like a whole list of Paul's friends. But if you get the truth of this message, your life can take on a whole new meaning and purpose. And you're going to begin to understand how God can use you in wonderful ways. You see, everybody's ministry is not the same because we're not all equipped to do the same thing. But God has equipped us according to his willingness purpose. What you have to find out is how does God want you to invest your life?
How can you serve him? And there are no unimportant and important ministries. That is, whatever God has given you to do is very important. It may be in significant eyes of the world, but not in the eyes of God. And the very idea that a person says, well, I don't have a ministry. Yes, you've got one. You may not have found out what it is.
You may not have asked what it is. You may not be exercising your ministry. You do have a ministry. And it's time you found out what it is and get involved in giving yourself away in that ministry. Created in Christ Jesus under good works, which we were for ordained to walk in. What a selfish, self-centered life delivered only for myself when there's a world of hurting people and a God who loved me enough to give me the privilege of helping someone else. Thank you for listening to The Challenge to End Well. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.
