Hello and welcome to the 5MC, come on in and take a load off. Here’s Thursday looking us in the face and we’re just a short 12 days from Christmas. I guess if you’re a fan of that song, the 12 days of Christmas, you should start singing it today. By the way, my favorite version is by far the Muppet one. I love Miss Piggy’s contributions. Speaking of Christmas songs, I heard the old Elvis tune “If Everyday was like Christmas” the other day and it made me ponder. I think it would be safe to say that most people celebrate Christmas in general as a secular holiday. Most people aren’t truly celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ and the resulting salvation He provided as they decorate their house with snowmen, santas and reindeer. So then how do you explain the ‘feeling’? The feeling that Elvis is singing about. There is definitely a different feeling to the world at Christmas. People love Christmas whether they love Jesus or not. I know people that are not believers that are some of the biggest fans of Christmas. I revel in the power of God, that He can keep this time of the year at the forefront to the world and change the way the world feels. As Elvis says, if every day were indeed like Christmas, ‘what a wonderful world it would be.’
It makes me recall one of the greatest war stories ever, the story of Christmas Day 1914. Only the goodness and peace of God can create a story like this. Here’s a quick synopsis of the story from history.com
“At the first light of dawn on Christmas Day, some German soldiers emerged from their trenches and approached the Allied lines across no-man’s-land, calling out “Merry Christmas” in their enemies’ native tongues. At first, the Allied soldiers feared it was a trick, but seeing the Germans unarmed they climbed out of their trenches and shook hands with the enemy soldiers. The men exchanged presents of cigarettes and plum puddings and sang carols and songs. There was even a documented case of soldiers from opposing sides playing a good-natured game of soccer.
Some soldiers used this short-lived ceasefire for a more somber task: the retrieval of the bodies of fellow combatants who had fallen within the no-man’s land between the lines.
The so-called Christmas Truce of 1914 came only five months after the outbreak of war in Europe and was one of the last examples of the outdated notion of chivalry between enemies in warfare. It was never repeated—future attempts at holiday ceasefires were quashed by officers’ threats of disciplinary action—but it served as heartening proof, however brief, that beneath the brutal clash of weapons, the soldiers’ essential humanity endured.”
Wow, one of the best Christmas stories ever.
Well, today we have the blessed privilege of starting a new book in the Word of God, the book of Colossians. Colossians was written to the church at Colosse by Paul in about 62AD. This is known as one of the “prison epistles” as Paul wrote it along with three others while imprisoned in Rome. The four are Colossians, Ephesians, Philemon and Philippians. What's really cool about the prison epistles is their distribution. I mean, Paul is in prison, he can write them but how do they get where they need to go? In all four letters, Paul mentions the courier within the letter. The letter to the Ephesians was carried by Tychicus, he was the pastor at Ephesus. The letter to the Philippians was carried by Epaphroditus who was also the pastor in Philippi. (Also note that in 2nd chapter of Philippians Paul mentioned that Epaphroditus was very ill and almost died while visiting Paul in Rome.) Epaphras carried the letter to the Colossians as he was apparently the leader of the church in Colosse. And finally, Onesimus carried the letter back to his master that he had fled from, Philemon. Very cool. I picture these four guys carefully taking these handwritten letters from Paul and protecting them with their lives as they walked them back to their brothers and sisters in Christ to share the precious messages they contained. I’m sure they had no idea that we would be reading those letters today, almost 2000 years later. Amazing what God did to grant us the blessings of His Holy Words.
Today we’ll key in on one verse of 1st Colossians at the very end of the chapter. Colossians 1:29. But to get the best context we’ll need to look also at the verse right before it. (By the way, that’s the best way to counter mis-quoting God’s Words, always read the verse before and the verse after it.)
“Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.” Col 1:28-29
So Paul is pretty clear here on what God has called him to do in verse 28. Proclaim Christ, warn everyone of false teachings and teach everyone with the wisdom of God to therefore mature everyone in their walk with Christ in preparation for the day that Christ returns to claim His church. But notice verse 29 and how Paul is going to achieve this mission.
“For this I toil, struggling with all His energy that He powerfully works within me.” There are a few words in there that really speak to me. A few words that reflect a different walk than what many of us see or experience today. Words of action. Words of effort. Words of exertion.
Paul says for this he toils. The word toil can be defined as to “work extremely hard or incessantly in exhausting physical labor.” Then Paul uses the word struggling. Struggling can be defined as ‘to strive to achieve or attain something in the face of difficulty or resistance. It’s funny that the second word of the definition is striving because several other translations use the word striving in place of struggling. Striving is a very descriptive verb and the root means “to struggle or fight vigorously or to agonize over something in order to obtain a goal.” Strong verbs used here.
It’s believed that Paul wrote his letters in Greek. The Greek language is one of the most descriptive languages and has a highly defined verb system. Paul did not randomly choose his words. Not only were His Words “God-breathed” (2 Tim 3:16) but Paul was also a very educated individual. He received an excellent education at one of the top schools of the day, being instructed by Gamaliel himself, a well respected scholar. (Acts 22:3) Paul had a firm grasp of vocabulary and being led by the Holy Spirit, his words have tremendous power.
Reflect on those 2 words, toil and struggle. Paul isn’t just sitting in the AC preaching. He isn’t just teaching a Bible class once a week. He isn’t sitting under a shade tree reading God’s Word. He is active. He is endlessly working hard. He is engaged in physically exhausting labor. He is fighting vigorously and agonizing over getting out the Word of God and teaching believers so that they can mature in Christ. It makes me reflect on what I do physically to get out the Word of God and serve Him.
Serving God in Maui at Lahaina Baptist Church was much different than serving God back here in Fort Worth, Texas. God called us to Maui and we went. We didn’t ask a lot of questions or qualifiers, we just went. We didn’t know what to expect and what we found there was surprising compared to what we knew here. I’ll never forget one of our first encounters while meeting with Pastor Jay at the church. During the meeting Margie and I took a bathroom break and we noticed that the church was low on toilet paper. I was going to refill it so I asked the Pastor where the supply was at. He just looked at me and said, oh, I guess I’ll need to go buy some. This was the first sign that we were not in Kansas anymore. The Pastor of the church, the one that was called to give out the Word of God was taking time out of his day to drive across the island to Costco to buy toilet paper. Where is the help? Marge & I hopped in the car that day and took a trip across Maui to buy TP. We had actively served at 2 large churches in Fort Worth for the last 13 years and I had never been asked to go and buy toilet paper for the church. I’m sure we had janitorial services that were well paid to do that. I had honestly never ever given it a thought.
That started a long insightful journey serving God in Maui. I started to notice that the weeds around the church were getting pretty tall. Remember this is Maui so the grass stays green and grows ALL year long. Keeping the church lawn cut and trimmed was a big job. I asked Pastor Jay about when the yard crew came. He chuckled, as I quickly deduced the answer to my question. No janitorial service, no yard crew. I went and bought a gas powered weed-trimmer and blower (the church didn’t have either) and got to work. It was the same with cleaning around the church. There was no cleaning crew, you cleaned the toilets, swept the floors, cleaned the windows and vacuumed the sanctuary. It seemed so odd to us to see these things that somehow automatically got done back home, go undone here.
The church had a rather weathered, rundown outside playground that was needing to be replaced. A couple of men that produce Christian movies attended the church one Sunday and generously gifted the church some money for a new playground. Around the playground was a white safety fence for the kids. At one time the playground was exposed to the main road running through Lahaina, but since a road project had built up the road, you couldn’t get to the road anymore, so we no longer needed the fence. We decided to take it down and expand the new playground. I recruited some of the youth and we got after it. Well, go figure the posts were buried in about 4 feet of concrete. We got the fence panels out pretty easy but the posts were really tough. We started by digging out around the entire post until we could drag it out, concrete and all. Now this was some seriously exhausting physical labor like Paul is speaking of. Lahaina in Hawaiian means “relentless sun” and it’s the hottest place on all of Maui. Regardless of the time of the year you could expect it to be in the mid to high 80’s. Let me tell you there was a lot of sweating and grunting going on with me and the kids. It was at the moment we coined a phrase within the youth group. “Sweatin’ for Jesus.” As we would work on those posts we would talk about what it means to really work for Jesus. What it meant to “sweat for and work hard for God.” This kinda became a mantra with the youth and I would always ask them, when was the last time you broke a sweat for Jesus? It was a call to action. A call to really roll up your sleeves and see serving God as not just sitting in classroom listening to somebody talk, but to get active. This is what Paul is talking about here. I bet Paul did a lot of sweating for Jesus.
As far as those posts, we finally got smart. I drove across the island to the only Home Depot in Kahului and bought a heavy duty tow strap. We dug out about a foot around the posts to loosen it up and then I attached one end of the strap to the post and the other to my pickup and we pulled those suckers out of the ground. What a day that was. I had again assembled several of the youth and every time one of those poles would pop out of the ground concrete and all, we would cheer. What a great time that was sweating for the Lord.
The end of the verse is so important as well. As we are called to sometimes engage in physically exhausting labor where does the energy and power come from? Well, if your doing it for the Lord, He will provide the divine power and the energy. Wow, what a promise.
Today it’s a challenge for me to break a sweat for Jesus. Our church has a yard crew and I’m not needed to man a weed-eater. They have a cleaning crew and I no longer need to mop the floors. They have all the supplies brought in, so I no longer drive across the island twice a month to buy all the needed supplies. But there are opportunities out there and I need to find them. There is something special about serving God with your hands in way that stretches you physically. It’s serving God with everything you have.
God bless your walk today and when God presents you the opportunity to break a sweat for His kingdom, may you leap at the opportunity.
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