The gospel ministry proclaims the all-sufficient Christ
Him we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. 29 To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me.
To the Colossians, as well as to many others, Paul and his associates were proclaiming Christ. This was not just Paul’s calling, it was his life. Even in his imprisonment he made use of every opportunity, both in person and by his letters, to make known far and wide the riches that believers possess in Christ. Paul’s proclamation of Christ took the form of both counseling and teaching. To counsel means to warn and encourage. As he preached Christ, Paul actually pleaded with people to be reconciled to God. He presented the gospel in a warm and affectionate way, with an obvious personal concern for individual souls.
With that same deep emotion, he warned against false teaching and error. The apostle’s teaching was centered in Christ. His great aim was to hold Christ up before his listeners and readers and to fill their hearts and lives with Christ. As the Lord’s apostle, he carried out all of this counseling and teaching in a wise, open, and practical way. This was in sharp contrast to the devious and underhanded methods of his opponents.
Paul preached Christ with the great aim of bringing immortal souls to know and believe in Jesus and be saved. Nor did he neglect the spiritual growth of those who had already been brought to faith. He wanted to “present everyone perfect in Christ.” Christians are still sinners. They will not reach perfection in their faith and lives here on earth, so they need to press on and strive constantly to grow toward full maturity in Christ. They need to work to maintain their faith and to grow in their Christian living. To help them achieve this growing and maturing, believers need constant, thorough instruction in God’s Word. In his ministry Paul provided such instruction.
Providing such encouragement and instruction from God’s Word to help believers grow and mature in faith and Christian living is also an essential task of the ministry today. Soul-winning must be followed up by soul-nourishing and soul-conservation. If this is not done or if believers themselves do not regularly use the opportunities that the church provides for them to hear and study God’s Word, their faith will deteriorate and may finally die altogether.
As an instrument in the Lord’s hands to rescue souls from hell and to help them grow toward spiritual maturity, Paul eagerly threw himself into the work of his ministry. Constrained by the love of Christ and aware of the dangers threatening the faith of the Colossians and other believers, Paul toiled and labored in his ministry to the point of weariness and exhaustion. Like an athlete straining his entire being in a contest, Paul exerted himself to the limits of his physical strength to fulfill his ministry. He worked, he prayed and studied, he planned, he counseled, he wrote, he preached and taught, he bore witness with his life, he endured affliction.
How could one man accomplish so much? Paul says that as he struggled, the strength and energy that Christ gave him worked powerfully within him. From the Lord who had called him into the ministry, Paul received the strength to carry out his ministry. By the Lord’s strength, Paul would leave no stone unturned, no effort unexpended, no battle unfought to win immortal souls for Christ and to help those who were already believers to grow and mature in faith. Day after day, moment by moment, the Spirit was at work in and for Paul.
Those who serve in the public ministry today can also draw on the inexhaustible strength of that Lord whom they serve to give them the ability and the faithfulness they need to carry out their ministry. Let us all pray that the Lord will continue to raise up and call into the public ministry faithful servants who, like Paul, will willingly spend themselves for the Lord and his church. And may we on our part always appreciate such a ministry as it is carried out among us and always support that ministry by hearing the public preaching and teaching of the gospel and by honoring those who serve us in the gospel ministry.