I was just in Harbin and also in Nanjing. I enjoyed the trip very much but my heart is very burdened for china and I’m so thrilled to hear today that Steven will be returning there. I will be praying for him and Mrs. Waters as well. Nothing makes me more excited than to see one of my students become a missionary because I’m really still a missionary. My wife and I are still missionaries with BEE World where we go to train leadership in different parts of the world.
▶Today I want to speak to you about three men who had influenced my life. These men are normally very unknown people. As you read your names today I really wonder who they are. It’s not unusual for us to forget names from time and to time. I remember the man who won me to Christ in a dirt road in a youth camp. I appreciate him very much but I do not remember his name. Also I remember a very strange time in the history of the life of Mrs. Waters and me. We were listening to a man speak in Colorado. He had been wounded in World War 2 through the throat and he can only speak in a whisper.
My wife and I were with the Navigator, a Christian group and we were praying what God ought to do with our lives. We were thinking about being a missionary but we were not yet sure.
▶This man is speaking in Isaiah 6 where we had the call of Isaiah and he said, “Here am I send me”. At the end of the sermon the man said, “Is there anyone here who would be willing to do what you were doing in United States but do it in a foreign culture”. I quickly stood to my feet and then I remembered I’m married. So I look to see at Mrs. Waters, we were only married for 6 months, and she was looking at me with big eyes and I looked at her with big eyes and we both shook our head and said, “Yes”.
And from that time on we had decided to become missionaries. We spend 27 years in the Philippines and we are still missionaries today. Even though I do not remember that man’s name, I remember the impact he had in my life.
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▶Today I want to share with you
-a forgotten servant who thought me how to do ministry.
-I also want to share with you secondly an obscure spiritual warrior who challenged me.
-And third, I want to share with you a man whose ministry determines where I would go and how I would go, that ministry does not depend upon success and finances.
▶1. The first man is found in Colossians 4:12 and 13.
“12 Epaphras, who is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends greetings. He is always wrestling in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured. 13 I vouch for him that he is working hard for you and for those at Laodicea and Hierapolis.”
This man was called to face great challenges as the pastor at Colosse. The book of Colossians was written to combat growing heresy. This heresy had a deceptive philosophy; it claims that you could overcome sin by a Sadducee-ism; it taught that you were supposed to worship angels; it claimed that it had secret knowledge beyond the Bible and it attacks the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Epaphras combated this heresy by first exulting God as the very God. He exulted Christ as the creator. He exulted Christ as preexistent, existing before time. He exulted the Christ as holding the whole universe in His hand, he exulted Christ as the head of the church. He exulted Christ as the first to be resurrected. He exulted Christ as the God-man perfect deity and perfect humanity. He exulted Christ as the only reconciler between God and man. He was a pastor who was preaching Christ as the center of everything.
Colossions 4:12, 13 tells us that first he is a bond servant. This means he was a servant leader. He was also a man of prayer. The Bible says he 'wrestled' in prayer. The Greek word means to 'agonize'. He is battled spiritually in prayer. Also the Bible tells us that he was a slave servant who taught his people to stand firm. He was a guide as a pastor, he upheld them in prayer, he encouraged them to stand fast, to fight against false doctrine and Paul testified that Epaphra was a hard worker. He was very zealous for his work. Epaphras represent as a kind of man and woman who serves night and day, this is much like Pastor Brian and Pastor Steven. Your pastors serve you every day. They are your mentors and your guides and your counsellors. They invest in your lives, they pray for you, and they keep us from false doctrine.
This is what a true servant leader is. He taught me the meaning of hard work mixed with blessing to be faithful to the will of God and this is the important thing. Ministry costs a great deal. Ministry is very expensive, it costs your life, it costs your time, it costs your finances, and it costs everything that you are to do ministry in the right way. So our first man is Epaphras, remember him as an example of a true pastor. (I will have something more to say about him in a moment.)
▶2. The second man is Archippus, he is found at Colossian 4:17,
“Tell Archippus see to it that you complete the work that you have received in the Lord.
If Epaphras was with Paul when he was in prison, Archippus was the assistant pastor who is filling in Colosse while Epaphras was gone.
Archippus is a fellow soldier. He devoted himself to the service of the gospel but the spiritual battle was hot and maybe he was weary and he was fatigue. And Paul said to him do not quit stay with that which God has called you to do. So do not give up under any circumstances, finish the work that God has given you to do.
Many time we as Christians are tempted to stop and to quit when thing gets hard. Archippus is the perfect example of someone who stayed true to the word of God even in the face of hardship. And I would say to you stay true to the word of God in hardship. When you are tempted to give up remember Archippus. When things gets difficult, remember Archippus. When financed become little remember Archippus,.When people turns against you remember Archippus. Remember him when hardship comes and finish your Christian life well. Don’t give up. So remember Epaphras as the perfect pastor, remember Archippus as the example of not giving up. And that lead us to our third man.
▶3. The third man id found in Jeremiah 5:5. The bible reads, “Should you dare seek great things for yourself, seek them not for I will bring disaster declared the Lord. But wherever you go I will let you scape with your life”.
Let me give you a little background on Baruch. He has a brother by the name Saraias, Saraias lived in the palace with the king of Judah. He was living in luxury, he had plenty to eat, he had a nice home, beautiful cloths, everything that a man could want but Jerusalem was about to be destroyed and Baruch was discouraged. He was Jeremiah’s assistant. Guess what Jeremiah’s life was like? (Let me give you some illustrations of what he faced).
Jeremiah was opposed by his hometown, he was opposed by relatives, he was opposed by the priests, he was opposed by the people and the prophets, he was forbidden to marry, he was beaten several times, he tried to resign because he was so discouraged, he was put to jail, he was thrown into a muddy well and left to die, he was called a traitor by his friends, he was taken in chains after the fall of Jerusalem, he spent his last days in Egypt and was probably murdered, this is the man that Baruch served with.
Baruch was the secretary to Jeremiah. Baruch wrote down the book of Jeremiah we would not have the book of Jeremiah. If it were not for the secretary of Baruch but he was discouraged and God said to him "do you seek great things? and God said seek them not."
I would like to say to you as I say to myself
"Are you seeking great things in your life?
Are you seeking comfort in your life?
Are you seeking the things that the world can give?
Are you seeking what somebody else has, maybe a relative?"
I say in the basis on the word of God, seek them not.
Seek to please God alone, seek God‘s will for your life alone.
Don’t worry about what is going on with the world today, difficulty will some even more than we will see today. But if you stay true to the will of God your life will be preserved. We learned from Epaphras about being a good pastor, a good minister. We learned from Archippus not to quit and we learned from discrete man of the name Baruch to seek only God’s will. Nothing that his brother did survived. But the book of Jeremiah will last forever and forever. You seek great things for yourself, seek them not.
▶Let me share one illustration with you.
In 1987 my wife and I lost our mission board. Our mission dissolved and we lost all of our finances so we came back to the United States and we took up secular jobs. I started the small church and was a night watchman. Mrs. Waters started a business in cleaning houses. Our two daughters were suffering with the first stages of tuberculosis and had to be treated by doctors. We started two churches in the Philippines and we needed to send $ 1000 a month back to the Philippines so those churches could survive, $ 500 for one church and $ 500 for another church. So before we could eat we always sent a thousand dollars back to the Philippines. It was a very hard time in our lives.
So, I started looking for a better job because I thought God does not want me to be a missionary anymore. I was trained for 3 months to join a corporation and take a job with them. After three months they hired me but before I could work with them I had to meet the president of the company. I went into his big office, I sat down in the chair then he said, “I know that you have a small church that you pastor on Sunday but he said I want you to know one thing this company owns your soul”. I shook my head, NO.
I drove home that night and I begin to weep and cry. I came to the garage apartment where we were staying and I walked up the stairs and into the kitchen. Mrs. Waters were cooking dinner. I fell down on my knees and I began to cry, my two daughters came running in and Mrs. Waters knelt with me and we were all crying. Mrs. Waters said, “What’s wrong?” I said this company hired me and they offered me 100,000 dollars a year. Remember we’re very poor $100,000 sounds good. My children were sick and I wanted to care for them but I felt it was not God’s will for me to take the job because God owns my soul. So I said to my two daughters and to my wife, “I think God want me to go back to the Philippines but I will not go unless you approved all three of you”.
My oldest daughter said yes, my youngest daughter said yes, and Mrs. Waters said yes. So we packed all things, we sold everything else. What we could put in the car we put it to the car and we started out trying to raise funds. In six months we were able to raise our support again.
One of the things that happened, very quickly I tell you. Do you remember I said we have to send 1,000 dollars to the Philippines?
When we left Denver Colorado which was the place where we were, we have $25 in our packet. My first place to preach was in Nebraska, I preached twice there. The next morning the pastor gave me an enveloped I never opened an enveloped in front of the pastor. So we left to go the next preaching place and Mrs. Waters said let me see the envelope. She opened it we have $1,250. We stopped; we sent 1,000 dollars to the Philippines and with 250 dollars, we went to the next church. and God always provided for us from that time on. Do you seek some great things? Seek it not.
Let me challenge you in closing. You have two Epaphras here in your church. Pray for your pastors. Pray for your pastors to stay true to God's word.
Do you know someone who is an Archippus, who is discouraged maybe thinking of quitting? Pray for them by name for one month and then let them know you’ve been praying for them for one month and see what they’ll say. Do you know a Baruch? If you do pray for him. If you’re seeking for great things, pray for him to only seek God’s will. Do you know someone who is thinking of quitting the ministry because the finances are few? Pray for them for one month and then tell them you’re praying for them and see what happens.
Let’s pray…
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