Commitment. Colossians 1:24-2:5.
I am so excited about being in Fiji. (This is my first Sunday in Fiji of a three-year appointment at this stage.)
This weekend that has just gone; the officers of the Fiji Division along with Territorial staff have engaged in teaching on the 'we commit statements' which are a Territorial initiative about how The Salvation Army does mission.
I tried to find a good illustration about commitment. This is not as easy as you might think.
While I was sitting at Auckland Airport waiting for the flight it dawned on me that someone you really want to know is committed to their role are the pilots who are taking you to Fiji.
Imagine how you would feel if you sat down and the plane was taxing out to the runway and the Pilot came on the intercom and introduced themselves and said something like: “On today’s flight today we think we might be able to reach Nadi; well we’ll give it a go.” Or “We will be flying through cloud, I had a bit of trouble getting my instrument rating and hope that I can remember how to work the instruments, I’m pretty sure that the navigation systems will be okay.”
When flying you want a man or woman who is focused, intentional and knows everything there is to know about their role and their plane plus some.
In regard to those who get things done, they are intentional, committed some are even heroic!
I have a few heroes, one of my heroes of the faith is Paul. Paul is really one of the greats of the Church, from an early age committed to God and through encountering the risen Saviour, his life changed, and he became committed to Jesus. Paul was intentional about his new mission to be a leader in The Church.
Paul was initially described as a hard man, who was present at the stoning of Steven, who persecuted the infant Church. Because Paul was a hardnosed religious man who had been trained in the way of Jewish believers and believed that what he been instructed in was right and that Jesus was a fraud and that his followers needed to be stamped out.
In the passage that we have just heard from Colossians 1 and 2 we hear from this former hard man, this enemy of the early Christians rejoicing in his suffering for the Church at Colosse. He says, “I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body which is the Church.” Paul had obviously had a change of heart from making the Church suffer, from wanting to destroy the early believers, to be a man who stood in the gap and suffered on behalf of the Church, suffered on behalf of believers. In this passage of scripture, he describes that he is suffering for the believers he was writing to in Colosse and for the Church at Laodicea. Paul was intentional about his mission to be a leader in the Church.
Paul this great apostle and now encourager of the early Church was sold out, fully intentional and committed to live for Jesus. His Damascus road encounter (Acts 8) with the risen Jesus was enough to turn his whole view of religion, of life, of the world on its head. In encountering Jesus, Paul’s way of thinking had been changed, he was radically different to the man he had been before meeting Jesus. In this passage from Colossians, he describes how he is “a servant … commissioned by God to present the word of God in its fullness”, not only that, but this “mystery has been kept hidden for ages and generations.” Here he is talking about Jesus. After encountering Jesus, Paul’s world changed so much that he went from being a man who would have only mixed with is own people, because he would have seen all non-Jewish people as unclean, to a man who reached out and shared his life with all peoples. Pau was now intentional and committed to his new mission, to be a leader in the Church.
So, all his former religious teaching had set Paul up with knowledge. Enough knowledge to know once he had had this life-changing encounter with Jesus that there was so much more to Jesus than he previously believed. That Jesus was the mystery hidden for ages, that Jesus was now disclosed to the saints, to those who had encountered him. That Jesus was now disclosed to the saints, to those who had encountered him, that in Jesus are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Paul then writes to the people of Colosse to encourage and help make the faith in Christ firm. If we look back at verses 15-17, we see Paul describe Jesus as, “… the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers, or authorities, all things were created by him and for him.” He is before all things and in him all things hold together.
Today here in Suva we have all come to The Salvation Army for different reasons. We are today celebrating, the commissioning of a new Divisional Youth Secretary. We have been able to celebrate the promotion of Captains to Major, people who have completed 15 years of service, which is a significant achievement. Some of you are here because this is your regular place of worship on a Sunday and I look forward to getting to know you in the coming months. Some of you are here for the first time, maybe you just came along to check out The Salvation Army this morning. We all have our reasons for being here. I’m here due to a series of things that happened to get me here. The most significant of which is that when I was sixteen years old, I had an encounter with Jesus that turned my life upside down. Now that was forty years ago but from that point I made a commitment to follow Jesus as Lord of my life, I didn’t come into this commitment, into this relationship with all the knowledge that I now have, but because of the impact of the Spirit of God, my whole world changed. I became intentional about following Jesus.
Paul, as we know, is one of the most significant influences on the Church, Paul was a man who shared his faith with all he encountered Jews and Gentiles. What about us? Are there Paul’s among us? Do you recall that moment you made your decision to follow Jesus? Do you look back at that moment like I do at times and ask God like I do to “[relight] the lamp of my first love that burned with Holy fear?” (Keith Green, Oh Lord you’re Beautiful, 1980).
Days get hard, we have those days, there are temptations, there are bills to be paid, sometimes we miss the bus, the day at work drags on, the result is different from our expectation, someone is not well, fierce winds and rains come. Paul knew the people he was writing to were like you and I, two thousand years later his words, “they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may have the full riches of understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely Christ.” These words still ring true we all need to know Christ Jesus. Why? Because without true understanding of who Jesus is, without commitment to him, we lose focus on the truths of God’s love and His desire to see us be all that we can be. Jesus came that we can have life in all its abundance, (John 10.10). With the everyday ups and downs of life we can drift from this understanding and lose focus.
What can our personal commitments look like? For those of us in ministry, it can look like every day serving those around us, being Jesus' hands and feet in any given situation. But what if like I was once; you are working in your trade or profession, you are between jobs, retired or a student, running the household, what can you do with your commitment to Jesus, how do you live that commitment out? Commitment is a personal choice; without it we walk outside of God’s desire for us to live life in its fullness. A great way for us to live committed lives is to daily act upon what we know God wants for us. To live lives that reflect something of the character of Jesus, to engage daily in a truth that God has delivered to us, whether it is stepping into a situation where we are required to serve, to taking time to encourage someone who needs it, to being the one who stands up for what is right and just when the crowd are heading in a different direction, to just being patient when you want to rush, to taking our concerns to God instead of worrying.
As we go through this day, through this week, in life we can aim to take what we know of God’s love for us of what we know of Jesus, something that we know to be his true and commit to build on it. As we read his word and listen to his still small voice and respond we see change for the better around us. We are able o reach out and see lives changed, situations of need met in Jesus name. In life as followers of Jesus remaining focused on and intentional about our commitment, Jesus is key to seeing God’s love at work through and around us. The best thing about this is that we don’t have to do this through our own strength. As Paul points out he is energised by Christ’s energy, he still struggled in his mission but was energised by the energy of God which worked so powerfully in him. (1:20). As we are committed to and intentional God works in us and through us.
So today what do we choose? To be committed and intentional or settle for something less? To live a life that is intentionally focused on what God had done, is doing and will do for and through us or something a bit less focused; just a bit unintentional? We all have to answer; will I be intentional or unintentional; Committed or not; in God’s will or outside of it?
Conclude with an altar call to be intentional for Jesus, to make a decision of commitment to Jesus. Reintroduce the mercy seat.
