Strengthened by Fellowship

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When I was a kid, I was fascinated by codes and ciphers and things like that. I remember watching the History Channel documentaries back when they used to actually talk about history, about how the allies in World War II learned how to break the German and the Japanese codes and learned how to work around them. I was fascinated by that stuff.

Now, notice I said fascinated by it, not good at it. I’m not claiming to be a math expert. I made it through Algebra II by the skin of my teeth in high school and probably couldn’t tell you anything I learned in that class.

But I loved the idea of codes and all of that. And so I was really excited one day in school when our teacher said we were going to work on an exercise like that. And she told us to break up in teams and get with a partner.

And she went around handing out sheets of paper, a page of symbols on it that we were supposed to work together to decode. And I thought, this is going to be fun. Already some of y’all are thinking he has weird ideas of what fun is.

but I thought it was going to be fun. We learned a couple things about it that first of all, there were spaces in there. It was spaced just like normal English would be.

That made it easier. And she told us ahead of time that each symbol represented the same letter every time it was used. All right, so basically we are working with the simplest kind of code possible.

And we’re sitting there thinking, we’ve got to start cold. How do we decipher what this says? Okay, we’re going to start looking for any place where we see a letter or a symbol used by itself.

There are two common English words that are one letter each, and that’s I and A. So if we see one of those one letter, one symbol words spaced and then a two symbol word, whatever that one symbol is, that’s probably I because you’ve got I am. It’s more likely.

And so we did that kind of thing and through process of elimination and some trial and error and knowing some things like the most commonly used letter in English is the letter E. We spent all our working on this, my partner and I. But a few minutes into it, my friend looked at me and said, how are some of the dumb kids finished already?

No, okay, they said it, not me. How are they finished already? I don’t know, let’s just keep working.

We were the last ones done. It took us all hour to decipher that paragraph, but we did it. You know what would have been helpful to know?

That the teacher meant to give each pair one of the pages with the paragraph of symbols and another sheet with the key. That would have been helpful to know. A key that says this symbol means this letter.

I don’t know how that was any kind of educational exercise, but you’re supposed to work. Maybe they were teaching us about teamwork. All right.

One has the code, one has the key, and you’re supposed to work together and figure it out. That would have been really helpful at the beginning of the hour to know. We deciphered the paragraph, but it would have been really helpful to know that there was help available, right?

And situations like that in life. That’s just as I was thinking about this message this week, that was just the first instance that came to mind. I could also tell you about how I was trying to put together bunk beds for the girls.

And Charles said, I can help you. No, I don’t need your help. Sometimes it’s better for our marriage if I do projects by myself.

And I’d even tell you, you don’t know this, but I even told, she’s saying yes. I even told my mother-in-law, I said, this was last week, I said, I might need you to need her downstairs. I love my wife, but we sometimes have different ideas about how things go together.

You know, I had to admit at one point, Charla, I do need you to come up here and hold this while I rearranged this. I didn’t want to admit it, but it was helpful. It was beneficial to have help.

There are a lot of circumstances in life where help is necessary. There’s a lot of circumstances in life where we just flat out can’t do something without help. Most of us realize that we need help from time to time.

Eventually. Men, right? Eventually, we may break down and admit that we need the help.

So it’s a mystery. It’s a mystery why so often people want to pursue spiritual growth without the help that God has provided. God has provided help for us to grow spiritually.

So why in the world would we want to go it alone? Why would we want to try to grow all by ourselves? Try to just do it ourselves.

We can’t do it ourselves. Matter of fact, it’s the work of God in us. But God has put us together with others to encourage and to challenge and to strengthen.

And tonight as we come to the end of Colossians, Paul talks about that a little bit. Talks about that help that God has provided for us to be able to grow spiritually. Don’t try to do it like you’ve just got the code and you’re trying to do it all yourself when He’s given you the page of help.

And for each other, we are the page of help that He’s provided. If you would stand with me when you get, I guess I should tell you where, if you’re not already aware. We’re going to be in Colossians chapter 4.

And when you find it, Colossians chapter 4, if you’d stand with me, if you’re able to, as we read together from God’s Word. We’re going to start in verse 16. It says, now when this epistle is read among you, See that it is read also in the church of the Laodiceans.

I’m sorry, I started way later than I intended to. Verse 7. Let’s start at verse 7.

Tychicus, a beloved brother, faithful minister and fellow servant in the Lord, I will tell you all the news about me. I am sending him to you for this very purpose that he may know your circumstances and comfort your hearts. With Onesimus, a faithful and beloved brother who is one of you, they will make known to you all things which are happening here.

Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner, greets you with Mark, the cousin of Barnabas, about whom you received instructions. If he comes to you, welcome him. And Jesus, who is called Justice.

These are my only fellow workers for the kingdom of God who are of the circumcision. They have proved to be a comfort to me. Epaphras, who is one of you, a bondservant of Christ, greets you always, laboring fervently for you in prayers, that you may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God.

For I bear him witness that he has a great zeal for you. and those who are in Laodicea and those in Hierapolis. Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas greet you.

Greet the brethren who are in Laodicea and Nymphos and the church that is in his house. Now when this epistle is read among you, see that it is read also in the church of the Laodiceans and that you likewise read the epistle from Laodicea and say to Archippus, take heed to the ministry which you have received in the Lord that you may fulfill it. This salutation by my own hand, Paul.

Remember my chains. grace be with you. Amen.

And you may be seated. Now, one thing I want to point out before we move on too far. Sometimes people will say the epistle to the Laodiceans, is there another letter?

Is there another book of the Bible that’s been left out that we’re not aware of? There even was a late forgery from, I think, the third or fourth century that said, oh, this is the epistle of the Laodiceans. And some people argued that it should be included in Scripture.

That’s not necessarily the title. That would have been a letter written to the church at Laodicea. And from context, I think it may have been the book of Philemon.

So don’t think there are extra books out there that should be in Scripture that are not. Some scholars think it might be Ephesians. I tend to think because of the commonalities of some of the people he’s talking about here that he may be talking about what we know as the book of Philemon.

So what we have here is a list of closing salutations and a few instructions to go along with it. And they might seem unimportant at first glance. As we’ve been going through the book of Colossians, I almost stopped at verse 6 with you last week and said we were done with Colossians.

But reading over this again, I realized that it can’t be that unimportant if Paul, who was writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, took up such a large chunk of the letter to give all this information. It’s more than half. This end stuff is more than half of chapter 4.

That’s a pretty significant percentage of the letter. and it’s packed with instructions for the church at Colossae, for the believers, for them, for things that they needed to know, for things that they needed to do. And anytime we see something in Scripture that says something they need to know and something they need to do, even though he’s not writing directly to us, we can learn from it.

And there are principles in it that we can apply to our lives. And one of the things that jumps out at me from this text as we look at what was going on in Paul’s life, what was going on in the life of the Colossian church, what was going on with all the people that he writes about, one of the things that jumps out at me is that he’s telling us that these early believers didn’t just carry on in isolation. They didn’t just sit off by themselves and do their thing in far-flung corners of the Roman Empire and try to go through the Christian life all by themselves.

As we see here, whether they are with Paul, whether they are with the Colossians, whether they are coming, whether they are going, there is a network of believers that is cooperating together, that is working together for their mutual spiritual growth and for their mutual benefit. They drew strength from the fellowship that they had together. They were each other’s help.

God had put them together so that each of their ministries would be helped and would be strengthened. So that each of their spiritual lives would be helped and would be strengthened. And Paul talks about that.

He talks about some of the help that they provided to each other and could provide to each other. And it’s a reminder to you and me that God has put us together for fellowship so that we could be strengthened through that fellowship. Now what are some of the ways that we do that?

There are a few ways that are outlined, a few things that they did for each other that are outlined in this passage that I think apply to us as well. Now these are not the only areas where fellowship is good for us. Certainly not the only ways that the only areas that fellowship was good for them.

But these are some of the ways that the fellowship we have together as brothers and sisters in Christ can strengthen us as we learn from their example. If we look at verses 7 and 8 and then again in verse 11, He talks about comfort. And part of the role of the church, part of the role of our Christian fellowship is to comfort those who are suffering.

Paul and the church at Colossae, the Colossian believers, they were both facing problems. We look at Bible characters and we think they were so close to God they had no problems, right? Sometimes we think that way. But these were real people and they had problems just like you and I do.

Maybe different problems, but they had problems just like we do. Paul was in prison. Paul was in prison.

Paul wasn’t in prison for anything he had done wrong. As a matter of fact, Paul was in prison for things he had done right. I mean, we kind of get an attitude with God when we suffer for things we’ve done wrong.

And yet he’s suffering for something he’s done right. And I’m sure that was difficult to take at times. Now, Paul seems overall to have had a good attitude about it.

He said, hey, if I’m here, I have a captive audience to preach the gospel. So I’m going to preach the gospel. If they kill me, I get to go be with Jesus.

If they keep me in prison, hey, I get to tell people about Jesus. If they turn me loose, I get to go tell more people about Jesus. He had a good attitude about it.

But even when we have a good attitude and we understand what God’s doing, sometimes our circumstances can be difficult to deal with. And even the godliest, most positive people suffer sometimes. Paul was in prison.

The believers at Colossae, they were under attack from heretics. Maybe not physical attack. But he spends the first half of the book talking about who Jesus Christ is because there were so many people circulating with false ideas.

about who Jesus Christ is. They were dealing with the headaches and the irritation of the gospel being undermined. And in both cases, they were comforted by the presence of fellow believers who understood their circumstances and walked alongside them through it.

In verse 8, he talks about how Tychicus was going to come to them and tell them all the news about him. Tychicus came from an area around Colossae, maybe even from the same city. But he understood their issues.

He understood the things that they were dealing with. And so when he came there, Paul said, let Tychicus know your circumstances. In verse 8, he tells him that.

Let him know your circumstances. Because he can bring you comfort. He can comfort you.

He’s somebody who’s been there. He’s somebody who understands. Paul was encouraged by the presence of some fellow Jewish converts.

Not that he didn’t love his Gentile brothers. Obviously, he’s writing to a group of them. But in verse 11, he talks about, well, starting in verse 10, He talks about Aristarchus.

He talks about Mark. In verse 11, he talks about Jesus who is called Justice. And he says, they’re my only fellow workers for the kingdom who are of the circumcision, and they have proved a great comfort to me.

Now, it’s not that he didn’t love the Gentile believers that were around him, but these fellow Jewish converts, just like Paul, would have understood some of the things that Paul was specifically going through. Because it wasn’t just the Greeks and Romans who hated Paul. Paul was in many cases hated by his own people.

Paul was hated by people that he loved. He wrote in the book of Romans how if it were possible, Paul said, if there was any way that this was possible, that my going to hell would ensure Israel would be saved, I would do it. He loved his fellow Jews that much, and yet they had rejected him.

Paul needed somebody else who understood that. And so he said these men, Aristarchus and Mark and Justice, they understood, and it brought him tremendous comfort. Now a lot of us have spent the last year or so in more isolation than we’re used to and that’s a hard thing I mean, I I have less room to talk about this than than many of you in what was it last may they said we’re going to start opening the Restaurants and we came out.

We were just we were done. I we couldn’t stay cooped up with all the kids in the house anymore Some of you have for your safety Have have stayed pretty well in isolation and it’s been a if our couple of months, six weeks or so was any indication, doing it for a year was a major challenge. And I’m sure it was discouraging.

I can’t imagine trying to live the Christian life in that kind of isolation all the time and not having others to turn to. At least many of you, you had the connection from church that was already there. And so there were people you could call on the phone.

There were people you could visit with in your front yard. You did things like that. For so many people though, they say, I don’t need church.

I don’t need to go. I don’t need. Some of you may be watching online and I’m not picking on you for that.

I know that a lot of our people who watch it online wish they could be here or are here when they can be and wish they could be here more often. I don’t fault you for not being here tonight. Please understand when I say that.

What I’m talking about is the mindset that says, you know what, we can do this online now. I don’t have to be part of church anymore. It’s easy.

I’ll get up and I’ll watch it on TV. My grandmother for years and years was that way. I’ll watch Charles Stanley on Sunday morning.

That’ll be fine. It’s not enough. It’s not enough.

Or to say even I’ll go to church, but I’m going to go to a big church where I can slip in unnoticed. I’m going to come in right as it starts, leave right as it’s over. I don’t want anybody to notice me.

I mean, if you do that when you’re visiting a church, that’s one thing. But say I’m just going to do that so I don’t have to engage with anybody. It’s not good for us.

Because sometimes we’re going to be in times of suffering and we need the comfort of fellow believers. We need that fellowship. And if their example teaches us anything, it’s that the church is supposed to comfort those who are suffering.

Now, admittedly, churches have not always done a great job of this, right? Probably all of us have a story that’s happened to us or at least a story of somebody we know who’s gone through difficult times and felt like the church turned their backs on them. And I think we can agree as well that just because a church doesn’t do well at something that God told us to do doesn’t mean that God doesn’t expect us to.

And so it’s part of our job to comfort one another when we’re suffering. That we can only do that if we have genuine fellowship, if we have a genuine connection to each other. We see in verses 9 and 10 that they set the example here of restoring those who are struggling.

Because he mentions in verses 9 and 10 a couple of men who probably would have been looked down on, at least by a large swath of the Christian community. Look at verse 9 with me. He mentions Onesimus, and he calls him a faithful and beloved brother who is one of you.

Onesimus was from the area around Colossae. So was Philemon. And in the book of Philemon, we learn that Onesimus was an escaped slave.

Now, the Bible does not condone slavery. It acknowledged that it was there and it gave slaves rights for the first time. But Onesimus was an escaped slave who probably did more than escape from the context of Paul’s letter to Philemon.

It sounds like Onesimus may have betrayed Philemon’s trust in some way. Maybe he stole from I don’t know exactly what he did. But we know that Onesimus escaped.

He wound up in Rome where he met Paul and he became a Christian. And he was transformed. And Paul wrote to Philemon and says, take him back.

You two are brothers in Christ. You need to work this out. I know you’re mad at him. I know he’s done you wrong.

But by the way, if he owes you anything, just take it out of what you’re indebted to me for. I love that. And so he wrote to Philemon and says, you need to take Onesimus back.

And then he writes to these other people at Colossae and says, Onesimus is a faithful and beloved brother. He’s one of you. I don’t think that means just that he was from the same part of Asia Minor as they were.

I think it also means he is one of you. He is a brother. He is serving the Lord just as you are.

And so Paul is writing to these people and he’s writing defending this man who has a past and saying, but that’s not who he is anymore because Jesus Christ has changed him. And so you need to recognize him for who Christ has made him out to be. And then you get to verse 10.

He talks about Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner, greets you with Mark, the cousin of Barnabas. And then we see in parentheses, about whom you received instructions. It’s like Paul leans in and whispers, I told you about him.

If he comes to you, you welcome him. You treat him nicely. You receive him as a brother and as a servant of God.

Now, why would he do that? He’s talking about John Mark, who is the human author of our gospel of Mark. And Acts chapter 15 records how Mark had abandoned Paul and Barnabas on the mission field.

I don’t know exactly what happened, but he just decided, no, I’ve had it. I’m going home. Then when they left on another mission trip, Barnabas said, you know, John Mark’s grown up a little bit.

Let’s take him with us. Paul said, I’m not taking him. He ran out on us last time.

I’m not taking him. And Paul and Barnabas argued so strongly over this that they ended up going their separate ways. Not that they hated each other, but Barnabas said, I’m going to go work with John Mark.

Paul said, I’m going to go work with Silas, somebody who will actually stick with me, and get some things done. Well, now at this point, John Mark had evidently demonstrated that just because he made a mistake in the past, it doesn’t mean that God can’t use him. And Paul recognizes him as somebody.

. . Paul, who said, you have no future in ministry, Paul said, if this guy comes to you, you welcome him.

He’s worth hearing. He’s worth spending time with. Here was Paul saying that there was still a place for these men to serve the Lord.

And that the church, he encouraged the church to receive them accordingly. Now I’ve heard the saying since I was too little to understand what it meant. Now I understand what it means.

But the saying was that Christians are the only army in the world that shoots its wounded. Unfortunately, that’s true in many cases. that we should be a place and a group of people that restore those who are struggling, those who have a past, those who have made mistakes, those who haven’t always been where they ought to be.

But if we recognize the work of God in them now, we should celebrate that. We should glorify God for what He’s doing, and we should recognize them as the faithful servants they are now. I want to be very clear, especially since these things go out on the Internet.

I want to be very clear what I’m talking about here. There are certain circumstances where somebody can make a mistake that they have disqualified themselves from certain ministries. You hurt a child, you never again get to work in children’s ministry.

Sorry. Doesn’t mean God can’t use you somewhere. But these churches where somebody abuses a child and they just send them somewhere else to work in the church, no, absolutely not.

And I think if God has really transformed you, you ought to be the first to recognize that. I’ll say too, you’re caught embezzling, you don’t get to be the church treasurer anymore. If you’ve repented, you can serve God in other ways.

If you have an affair, you don’t get to be a pastor anymore. I just think there are some things that for the safety of those we work with and for the example it sets, there are some lines. But we as churches oftentimes will treat people like they are worthless altogether in ministry.

Like they’re worthless to the kingdom of God because of what they’ve done. You know what? God can change anybody.

And these two men are proof of it. Here was Paul saying there’s still a place for them to serve. And the church ought to be the place that rejoices when God transforms somebody and when God brings them back to what they ought to be.

We ought to be the ones rejoicing in that and restoring them after they’ve struggled. We see in verses 12 through 13 how these men were encouraging those who were growing. Paul describes the ministry of Epaphras, for example.

Epaphras was somebody who desired the spiritual growth of the people in Colossae, and he talks about the people in Laodicea and the people in Heropolis. He had an intense interest in these people and in their spiritual growth. What he wanted for them was, it says in verse 12, that you may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God.

Epaphras was somebody who looked at these people and said, all I want in life is to know that you all know God’s will and you know how to do it and you’re able to go and do it. I want you to grow to that point where you know what God’s calling you to do and He’s given you all the tools and He’s given you all the talents necessary and for us just to turn you loose and you go do it. That was Epaphras’ passion.

And he’s so concerned with it that verse 12 says he was always laboring fervently for you in prayers. This was somebody who was praying constantly. We’re not talking about offering prayers once a day here.

Yes, I prayed for you every day and that’s important. But this is somebody who was praying all the time for these people. Every time he thought about it, he was praying for these people that they would grow and that they would come to a knowledge and a fulfillment of the will of God in their lives.

This was the kind of man who made it his ministry to invest in others so that they could grow to be everything that God wanted them to be. Our churches ought to be filled with Epaphroses. And it’s not necessarily hard.

We just need to notice what God is doing in other people’s lives and care about it and pray for it and encourage it where we can. That was his ministry to invest in others so that they could grow and be all that God wanted them to be. And you may think, well, I can’t do that.

You really can’t. You don’t have to be a Bible expert to encourage somebody. You don’t have to have a degree in theology or years and years of ministry under your belt.

You don’t have to have musical talent. You don’t have to be comfortable speaking in front of people to encourage others in their spiritual growth. You just have to care and notice and pray.

And then we see in verses 16 and 17, I’m trying to move through this quickly. I feel like I could spend a lot of time on each of these points tonight. We see an example here of them motivating those who are serving.

See, there were people who were already doing the work. There were people who were already doing the things that God was calling them to do, both in their spiritual growth and in their ministry. And Paul was saying, we ought to cheer them on.

We ought to tell them, keep going. We ought to challenge them to go deeper. He was passing on to them the ministry of teaching and sharing God’s Word for starters.

He says in verse 16, when this epistle is read among you, see that it is read also in the church of the Laodiceans and that you likewise read the epistle from Laodicea. He said, as you receive this, and by the way, this is God’s Word revealed through Paul. As you receive this Word, as you receive this letter of Scripture, read it and study it and pass it on.

You make sure the church at Laodicea gets it and understands. And you take what I’ve sent to them and you read it and you study it. These were people who were already familiarizing themselves with the Scriptures, but he’s saying, keep going.

Make sure you soak up everything that God’s Word has to say to you. And then there’s a very specific challenge that he gives in here. In verse 17, he tells the church, say to Archippus, take heed to the ministry which you have received in the Lord that you may fulfill it.

He says, when you see Archippus, I have to double check the name so I don’t say the wrong one. There are several names through here. When you see Archippus, I want you to remind him, pay attention to the calling that God has put on your life.

Pay attention to what God’s called you to do and make sure you go and do it. Sometimes we need that encouragement, don’t we? Sometimes we need somebody to say, I know you’re serving.

I know you’re doing stuff. I know you’re working. But make sure that you’re paying attention to what God is telling you.

Sometimes we’ll take the assignments that sound good, right? We’ll take the assignments that sound easy. Like at Fall Festival, I was all about signing up to work with snacks.

I didn’t get that job, but I wanted to sign up for that snack ministry. Sometimes we will take the assignments that sound easy or fun, or sometimes we’ll take assignments out of a sense of obligation. Well, nobody else is going to do it, so I guess I better.

Sometimes we will do good things for not so good reasons. We can be serving, and we can be working, and we can still not be fulfilling the call of God on our lives. Now here’s somebody who’s involved in all this ministry going on.

He said when you see him you encourage him You challenge him you tell him pay attention to what god is calling you to do and make sure you go and do that I’ve needed that reminder at times Especially when I was starting out before I pastored. I started out as pulpit supply traveling around to a bunch of little churches And there’d be times when I might not go out that often and I remember a friend of mine asking me didn’t God call you to preach? well yeah what are you doing about it?

oh good question excellent question Paul told them to challenge Archippus to carry out his ministry folks we should be doing that as well and I don’t mean I don’t mean that we should be trying to think the word escapes me I know what I’m trying to say I’m not saying that we ought to nag each other all the time that we should be right in the middle of everybody else’s business I’m not saying that we should make people feel like oh if I go to church they’re just going to harass me about doing this or that. I’m talking about genuinely caring about one another and saying, hey, what is it that God’s doing in your life? To be there to encourage each other and say you’re doing well at what you’re doing, but is God calling you to do something deeper?

Is He calling you to go further? We should encourage each other and motivate each other as we move forward to serve Him in a deeper way. We are living in a day and age right now where more and more people than ever before are questioning the purpose of the church.

They’re questioning the purpose of what we’re doing here tonight. And I’ve said before, this is not about filling a building so that we can feel good about ourselves so we can tell the other church, well, we ran this many last week. It’s not because God takes attendance and He’s going to stomp on you if you’re not here tonight.

We come together for the simple reason that it glorifies God and it’s good for us. He put us together so that our fellowship could work to our spiritual benefit. it.

We were put together by Jesus to help one another become more like Jesus. And in talking about how that works, I could give you so many more things tonight. Because so many of the letters in the New Te

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