Ready for Leadership

turn me on until I get up here, but we don't get the feedback. All right. Well, good morning. My name is Ken Strowmire and it is a pleasure and a privilege to be with you this morning. Um, Pastor DJ, as you just heard, is in the Philippines. Um, so I get the honor of closing out our series on Rooted and Ready. Um, so it's interesting and I share this um because if you were here for the last time, you see that I wander quite often and um usually I prepare these sermons like you know two weeks in advance um cuz I'm not up here every week. I have the privilege of doing that. And then God decides to change my message. So, you will see me refer to my notes because um as late as last night, he was telling me new things. And so, uh usually when he talks, I listen. Um so, we'll we'll try. But let's uh let's start with a word of prayer. The father, we thank you for allowing us to be here together this morning. We ask that you bless those who couldn't be with us this morning. Um and ask that you guide pastors DJ and Chad as they are in the Philippines. Uh we pray we praise you, Father, for the birth of Adeline Rose Guerrero and that mom and baby are recovering well. Father, we ask now that your words would be spoken through me this morning as we worship you through your word. Amen. Uh so turn in your Bibles to Colossians 4 12 and 13. If you didn't bring your Bible, there's one in the seat pocket in front of you. Um, as Pastor DJ says, take it, use it, mark it up, and bring it back the next time you come. If you're using one of those Bibles, Colossians 4:12 is on page 1086. If you're using your own Bible, you're on your own. 10:45 >> 10:45 >> 10:45 in that one. I just found out between services that some of the Bibles are different than the page numbers that I have. But um so I had to watch the last two weeks online because my wife and I were on vacation in Hawaii. Um and we we joined the Wy Ki Beach Chaplain on Wy Ki Beach for Sunday services. It's um it's an amazing experience worshiping God on the beach as you're looking out at what they referred to as the world's largest baptismal, the Pacific Ocean, and just getting to fellowship with with other believers. Um, so now I'm not sure that every church in Hawaii has this same dress code, but where I was where we were at, they all wore Hawaiian shirts. Um, they were barefoot and in shorts. I'm not going to do that to you, but I did wear this shirt in honor of their greetings to you. Um, I spent some time talking to the pastor after this last weekend. He is the uh chaplain for all of the joint arms services there in Hawaii and he comes to the beach and shares once a month and we got the privilege of listening to him. Uh, one of the other things that it seems to be a prerequisite to to be a pastor with this group is the ability to sing. Both weeks that we were there, the pastor broke out in song halfway through his sermon. I will not do that. I will save you that. Anyway, as a review, I'm going to read the scriptures associated with each message in this series, rooted and ready. So, please stand with me while I read these verses and they will show up behind me. Um, week one was word rooted in worship. Colossians 3:16-1 17. Let the message about the Messiah dwell richly among you, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom and singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Week Week [clears throat] 2 was rooted in community. Colossians 3:12-15. Therefore, God's chosen ones, holy and loved, put on heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, accepting one another, and forgiving one another. If anyone has a complaint against another, just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive. Above all, put on love, the perfect bond of unity, and let the peace of the Messiah to which you were also called in one body control your hearts. Be thankful. Week three, rooted in disciplehip. Colossians 2:6 and 8. Therefore, as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, overflowing with gratitude. Be careful that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit based on human tradition, based on the elemental forces of the world, and not based on Christ. Week four, ready for mission. Colossians 4 5 and 6. Act wisely toward outsiders, making the most of the time. Your speech should always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you should answer each person. And that brings us to this week, week five, rooted or ready for leadership. Colossians 4 12:13 and 17. Hippaparus who is one of you, a slave of Christ Jesus, greets you. He is always contending for you in his prayers so that you can stand mature and fully assured in everything God wills. For I testify about him that he works hard for you, for those in Leodysia, and for those in Hiereropoulos. Verse 17. and tell Archipus, "Pay attention to the ministry you have received in the Lord so that you can accomplish it." While rooted in leadership gives you a simple out, doesn't it? You can say, "Well, Ken, I'm just not gifted in leadership. So, I don't have to listen to this." Well, I have two responses to that. The first response is, you don't know. God might be calling you to leadership. You just don't know it yet. The second response is, I agree with you. Not all of us. I'm sorry. You guys can can have a seat. I saw my wife sit down and you guys are all standing. I said, "Oh, yeah. I should tell you we can have a seat. I want to see how long you can stand. >> [clears throat] >> The second is I agree not all of us are called to leadership. However, we are all called to ministry. So, I'm going to change the title a little bit. Instead of calling it rooted in leadership, I'm going to say let's be rooted in ministry. And we'll talk about what that means in a little bit. Um, but I want to change the order of these messages on you and there's a slide for that. But we're going to start with rooted in disciplehip. Rooted in disciplehip is where everything really starts. Um, we're going to change that. We're going to start with rooted in disciplehip and we're going to say um we're going to look at a scripture that pastor DJ taught through earlier in I think last year Matthew 28 18 to20 says G then Jesus came near and said to them all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go there therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you and remember I am with you always to the end of the age. Jesus tells us to make disciples, bring them into the family and teach them how to live. Uh, and I think that evangelism is the first part of that disciplehip. How can you teach them how to live, how to believe if they're not part of the family? And that's where evangelism brings those people into the family and starts the disciplehip process. Oh, and it says observe. Observe does not mean look at it and say, "Oo, that's pretty." Observe means see it and do it. Observe those commandments. Keep those commandments. Do what he asks of you. All right. So, just wanted to get that out. Well, let's look at how Paul introduced these ideas. Remember I told you I was going to change the order of things. And in the book of Colossians, um, again, I know that, um, chapters, designations, and those types of stuff are put in there by man, but the letter flows the way the letter flows. And the first thing he does in chapter two is talk about disciplehip. His first topic is disciplehip. And then as he moves along in the letter, it comes up in chapter 3 that we're to be in community, part of the family, and then in worship. And then chapter 4 of Colossians talks about the mission and the ministry of the believer. And we're going to talk about a little bit of that. Um but today we we were introduced to Epapris. Chapter 4:12 introduced us to Epapharis. He was actually introduced in chapter 1 as the one who brought the gospel to the Colossum Colossian church to the people of Colasse. He's the one that brought the the word of God to Colasse. He probably wasn't a direct disciple of Paul. Um I think Paul met him as he went to Paul who was in prison at this time to tell him about the ministry that was happening in Colossians in Colasse. So he wasn't a direct disciple. Um and I think that also because Timothy and Phileiman were direct disciples and he calls them his children in the faith. So somebody somebody else told Epapaffris about the gospel and then somebody maybe the same person maybe a group of people trained Epaparis on how to live a holy life and how to make other disciples. They made him a disciple and ready to go on mission. And that mission was back to Colasse. So a couple weeks ago, DJ kind of geeked out on grammar. Well, I think that math should have its own time. Okay. So, we're going to talk a little bit about math today. And um I want to tell a little bit about my story to show you how this works. Um I was introduced to the gospel in college through a a group uh called Master Plan Ministries. Now, Master Plan Ministries was at that time just on Fort Lewis College in in Durango. Here's a picture of that group when we first started. Um, it's unfortunate that I'm up on the corner there. If you could see my whole head, you would see that I actually had hair at that time. But these guys brought me to to know Jesus um actually on the basketball court. Um, it's where I met them. That's where I saw they had something different. That's where I developed they developed a friendship with me and told me the difference was Jesus in their life. So once I came to know the Lord, I was plugged into a um new believers Bible study that met once a week for a 2 to 3 months. At the same time, I was meeting with the college director and he was talking to me about everything from um scheduling, you know, u time management to theology and how to live a holy life. That was my sophomore year in college. By my junior year in college, I was leading those Bible studies for new believers. I was giving talks at our retreats and I was discipling others to do the same thing. So, master plans ministry their their kind of methodology if you will they called it spiritual multiplication. In other words, you take two discip you take one me or you and I disciple two people and those two people go and disciple two more people. And if you do that over 10 iterations, you have over a thousand new disciples ready to make more disciples. Um, which means, by the way, you're involved in the world's most important and multi-level marketing program. God's design to save the world uses you and me in multiplication as we develop other disciples. So, in our little group of master plan ministries, that group there, and oh, by my the way, my um future bride is in that photo, too. She's not standing next to me. I don't know why. I do know why. She she didn't know me at that time. Um, four couples went into missions work directly. A couple of those are still in missions today. In fact, Master Plan Ministries has grown from that one campus in Durango, Colorado to multiple campuses across small campuses. That was their idea. They wanted to go to small campuses across Colorado and New Mexico. They are also um sending [snorts] missionaries overseas to work on campuses overseas. Um and outside of the the college ministry, they have two mountain cabins, mountain resort um retreat areas that are are available to use. Um they have a men's retreat. They have a hunting retreat. It's in Durango. You can't have Durango without a hunting retreat, right? Um but so their idea was disciples making disciples. That's the the idea behind it. Now is that new to them? That's what Apaparus was doing, right? Apaparus after being trained, he returned home and started the mission in Colasse. Colossians 1:4 and 6 tells us what that looked like. Paul wrote, "Since we heard from Apapaffris of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven of which you previously heard from Apaparis, in the word of truth, the gospel which has come to you, just as in all the world also it is consistently or constantly bearing fruit and multiplying just as it has been doing in you also since the day you heard and understood the grace of God in truth. Epaparus went home and made disciples who were making disciples. Now, what does that look like? Um, if you look at point three, take heed and fulfill it. In verse 17, we're introduced to one of Epapas's disciples. His name was Archipropus. And he gets a an admonishment to take heed and fulfill it. Take heed to the ministry which you have received in the Lord that you may fulfill it. So I read that and I'm thinking, well, did he did Archipus go on to fulfill the ministry? Well, fortunately there he's mentioned in another letter that was prever preserved for us in the Bible. He's mentioned in Phileiman. And in Phileiman, Paul calls him a fellow soldier. Paul calls him a fellow soldier. Means he's out doing the ministry that he was called to do. Right? So, I like to to look at this and I really like Paul's analogy when he uses the the military terms. Um, I'm not in the military, but my job is kind of military adjacent. We run the same way. We do a lot of the same things. Um, statistically only about 10% of our armed forces are combat related. In other words, they're trained for combat. Only about 10%. Well, sorry, here's math again. That means 90% are not combat related. What are they doing? Well, if you look back in history, most of the time what we call the Department of War here in the United States was called the Ministry of War, was called the Ministry of Defense. The Ministry is the overarching umbrella that helped those on mission, those that are combat ready, that supported those that were on mission. Now, does that mean that um there's not others that aren't considered combat ready on the front lines? Absolutely not. Consider the medics that are out on the front lines. They're not combat related. They're there to support them. So you think about that. 90% the 10% that are out doing missions. The rest of us are in ministry are doing the ministry. Well, now remember I told you in this picture that there's there was four couples that went to to full-time missions. What about the rest of us? Um Laura and I served at the college ministry for a couple years. We were on mission. Felt that wasn't where our calling was. Our calling was in the local church. Um so we we moved away from that. But that tells you what the rest of us are doing. We are doing ministry. We are supporting those couples that are still out doing missions. We're supporting the family, those of us that are here in the local body. We're supporting that group. So what is the ministry? Well, the first ministry obviously is the salvation of the world through the power of the risen savior. 1 Corinthians 12 4-7 says, "Now there are a variety of gifts but one spirit. There are varieties of service but the same Lord and there are varieties of activities but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the spirit for the common good." And I would suggest to you that common good is the salvation of the world. That's the common good. But it's also that ministry is the caring for the family, the caring of God's family. Those of us that that know him. Ephesians 4:11 through13 says, "And he Jesus gave some as apostles and some as prophets and some as evangelists and some as pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints [snorts] for the work of ministry for building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the full knowledge of the Son of God, to the mature man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. So here we have obviously Jesus gave some as apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers the leaders. Um but why do we have leaders? For the equipping of the saints. That's y'all. um for ministry, for doing the same thing, building up other people, building up the family, supporting the family. So if you're not part of the family, the first step is believing. Believing that you have sinned and fall short of God's holiness. believing that God declared the punishment for sin as death, which is eternal separation from him and an eternity of suffering outside his presence. Believing that God loved you so much that he sent his son Jesus to die on the cross to [snorts] atone for your sins. And believing in this, you put your trust in Jesus and you become part of the family. Um, if you're not part of the family, but you'd like to know more about that, see me or or someone around you after service. We'd be more than happy to talk to you about that. If you already call Jesus your savior and lord, your mission is to tell those around you about him and help them grow. Jesus said, "Make disciples and teach them to observe all that he commanded." Um, as as the pastor on the beach said last week, you are either making disciples or you are making excuses. Which one are you? Now, making disciples, some of us help with the kids at church, right? Some of us have our own children at home. We got a bunch of little disciples running around. That takes a lot of effort to to change those little monsters into disciples, right? And others are children or adults. We still have ministry in their lives, but we're to help the rest of the family, help the rest of God's family grow. Um, some of you may be called to the front line of service to lead the local church or to go plant another one. The next step for you would be the residency program through cross church. For all of us, we are called to be rooted in ministry or making Christ known. We are called to be part of ministry. Our next step is to be rooted in disciplehip. Pastor DJ will be introducing a Tuesday night Bible study which is designed for that. If you've looked at the Bible study, there's not a Tuesday night Bible study because he's going to be introducing that disciplehip class for Tuesday night. So I would suggest that you all take a look at that and let's not be a family of excuse makers. Let's be a family of disciple makers. As I close this message, I'd like to read Paul's prayer for the Colossians from chapter 1 9-14. And it says, 'For this reason also, since the day we heard this, we haven't stopped praying for you. We are asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding so that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work, and growing in the knowledge of God. May you be strengthened with all power according to his glorious might for all endurance and patience with joy. Giving thanks to the Father who has enabled you to share in the saints inheritance in the light. He has rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the son of he loves. We have redemption, the forgiveness of sins in him. So if you go up back up to verse 9 and 10, it says, "Be filled with all the knowledge of his will and his wisdom so that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work, and growing in the knowledge of God." But we don't have to do that on our own. It's not something we can do on our own. Verse 10, verse 11 says, "May you be strengthened with all power according to his glorious might and all endurance and patience with joy who has enabled us to share in the saints. It's God who enables us. We don't have to try to do it on our own. It's God who has called us to ministry. and he hasn't just called us. He said, "I'll give you the strength to do it." So, I'd like to invite the worship team up as we pray and prepare for communion. Father, hear us. Help us. Strengthen us for the ministry you have prepared for us. And now prepare our hearts for a time of communion around the Lord's supper. A time to reflect on all you've done for us and what is still to come. Father, as we prepare ourselves for this time, we take a few moments to reflect on our relationship with you, to seek forgiveness, and to make our hearts more open for communion with you. Let's take a few moments. [snorts] Father, we thank you again for saving us from ourselves and sealing us in your son, Jesus. Sealing us for ministry and a future in your presence. Amen. I'd like to add another rooted to our service um to our to our messages and that is rooted in communion. Rooted in communion with the father through his son Jesus Christ. Communion is a relationship. It means sharing thoughts and feelings in a very close way. So for believers, this is Bible reading and prayer. As you read the Bible, you see God's heart. You hear God's heart, and prayer shares your heart back to him. If you're a believer in Jesus Christ, this time of communion is for you. If not, we ask that you don't participate and ask us about how to resolve this issue. Um the cups with bread and juice are on the table in the back. If you did not get one, um, grab one now. Matthew chapter 26 verse 26 says, "Now while they were eating, Jesus took some bread and after a blessing, he broke it and giving it to the disciples, he said, take, eat. This is my body. Please take and eat the wafer as you reflect on who Jesus is. Matthew chapter 6, sorry, Matthew chap 26 27 and 28. I'm sorry, 26 and 27. And when he had taken the cup and given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many, for the forgiveness of sins." Please drink the juice as we reflect on what Jesus accomplished through his death and resurrection. In that same chapter, verse 29, Jesus continued saying, "But I say to you, I will not drink of this cup. I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now until the that day which I drink it new with you in my father's kingdom." Father, I thank you for sending your son to die on the cross for our sins, to suffer unwared punishment, to give us unmmerited grace and mercy, to grant us access to you, our creator and God through his sacrifice, and to grant access to your kingdom. Amen. Please stand and join the worship team for a final song.