Introduction
Today we celebrate with our students the commencement of a new stage in their lives. Particularly for those who are graduating from college, what comes next? Do they enter the job pool and will they find meaningful employment? For the really younger ones who have finished elementary school and commence the difficult teen-age years of high school, we pray for you and your parents as you both make many adjustments particularly in your personal relationships. And what about those who move from high school into university? For some of you - perhaps for many of you - what a difficult decision it is to discern what course or career to pursue. Agriculture, or arts? Education or engineering? Mathematics, or medicine, or music? Wise decision depends much on self-knowledge. Who are you and what are you good at? What are your dreams and what fires your imagination? If you can't add obviously you should not become a mathematician. And if you can't carry a tune, how can you become a musician? The irony is that we may not know enough about ourselves at the time when we have to decide! At age 16 or 17? Parents can help, and friends too, but we should accept the main responsibility for our choices. In the end, when we turn 65 and look back at our lives, what really counts is not so much what we studied at university, but how we were willing to obey the Lord Jesus, and serve him in whatever capacity. When I came to Christ I was already a pre-med student. Initially I wanted to be an engineer, or a nuclear physicist but my mother said I should become a doctor. I was young (university at 15) and there was no doctor in the entire Magalit clan! So I agreed. Let me say that I thoroughly enjoyed both pre-med and medical school and fully intended to become a doctor, a Christian doctor of course. Instead, I have now been a full time Christian worker for nearly 42 years. Whatever professional training or career we pursue, let us be available to God and serve him in the church and in the world. Many of us will not be called out of our training to do something else, like I was, but all of us are called to Christian ministry. Some day, as part of our Teaching Sessions we will elucidate the relationships between work, livelihood or occupation, calling or vocation, ministry or Christian service, spiritual gifting, and mission.

Colossians 1:28, 29
For today we learn as church what our task is, what the heart of our task is. We take Paul's excellent summary of his own ministry in Colossians 1:28, 29, and apply that to ourselves. Paul uses four action words to describe his comprehensive task. We proclaim. We warn. We teach. We present. Or, more fully: Christ we proclaim, we warn everyone, we teach everyone so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. How are the four action words related to each other?

The first verb is the main one: Christ we proclaim. The next two participles explain how Christ is proclaimed: by warning everyone, and by teaching everyone. The final action word is the goal of the whole thing: so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ.

Christ we proclaim
Our good news is Jesus! The mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations has now been disclosed to the believers, the Saints (v.26). God wanted the Gentiles - the majority of believers in Colossae and elsewhere in Paul's churches were Gentiles - to understand his wonderful and glorious mystery, which is that Christ lives in his people - within them - and he is our hope of sharing in God's glory.

Our good news is not economic recovery. It is not social change producing peace and prosperity. It is not good government and justice in the land. All these things are good and are consequences that can follow if our preaching of Christ is faithful. But our good news is Jesus. The Christ whom Paul has just described in verses 15 through 20: Lord of the cosmos, and Lord of the church. He created everything, he upholds the universe, and all things exist for his sake. He is the image of the invisible God, and the fullness of the Godhead dwells in him in bodily form. He is the reconciler of the fallen universe and particularly of the church, which is his body. I remember reading a newspaper columnist who declared that Christ did not come to redeem but to teach. What a tiny and puny Christ this columnist wants to promote. A product of his tiny and puny imagination. Certainly not the Christ of the Scriptures, Lord of the cosmos and Lord of the church! Our message is Christ. Christ we proclaim, in his unsearchable riches! What a glorious privilege to preach Christ. All my adult life, actually since I was 16, I have proclaimed Christ! That's the main thing we do: We proclaim Christ! How do we do it?

Warning everyone, teaching everyone
By warning everyone and teaching everyone. Warning is translated as admonishing in NIV but I think warning is better. Warning and teaching are two sides of the same activity. We warn people of the consequences of rejecting the truth about Jesus. A fake Christ leads to false salvation! If we're wrong about Jesus, we are grossly wrong. Jesus is the only name given under heaven among men by which we can be saved (Acts 4:12). So the apostles declared. Follow another name and you end in perdition. Jesus is the only Mediator between God and men; the one who gave his life to ransom us, paying the price to set us free from sin, from death, and from Satan (1 Tim 2:3-6). Recognize another mediator and that mediator does not bring you to God. Jesus himself said: I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me. Bypass Jesus and you end up somewhere but not with the Father.

Even the most famous verse in the Bible includes both teaching and warning. To teach the truth includes warning against the consequences of rejecting it. John 3:16 is crystal clear. Only those who believe in the Son have eternal life. Those who reject the Son will perish. They will die. They are dead already - spiritually dead - because they are separated from God. It is sin that separates us from God. The Savior from sin has come. If we reject him, turn away from him, we die in our sins. If we do not believe, we are condemned already, says John (John 3:18). We warn everyone and we teach everyone. The NIV is disappointing; it does not repeat the word "everyone". We could miss Paul's emphasis of dealing with every person. Ultimately the proclamation of Christ comes down to one person at a time. Every person must be challenged to make a personal response. We should all learn how to do this. Personal evangelism, or personal work it is called. Some of us will be better at this than others of us. But all of us need to learn how to do it. I need to do better myself because I love to preach the gospel to a group of people but I am not so good one-on-one.

Paul reminds us: we warn everyone, and we teach everyone. The final action word is present.

Present everyone perfect in Christ
The goal of proclaiming Christ, of warning everyone and teaching everyone, is so that we may present every believer perfect in Christ. Present everyone to God as a mature, complete and perfect person. That perfection is found only in Christ, in union with the Lord of the cosmos and the Lord of the church. We will be like him - perfect in love and in holiness! The goal is not decisions but disciples. The most famous evangelist of our time - Dr. Billy Graham - calls his magazine, "Decision." How appropriate. We need to warn everyone and teach everyone of the vital necessity to decide for or against Jesus. One cannot take a neutral stand. Jesus himself said: he who is not for me is against me (Luke 11:23). Only Jesus can make that claim. Decide! Nevertheless let us be clear that our goal is not decisions but disciples. The evangelistic appeal is a challenge, an invitation to discipleship. Some say that disciples are a higher class of believers. That is not New Testament teaching. If you are not a disciple, you are not a believer either. The evangelist may be tempted to water down or dilute his gospel, to gloss over the need to repent and to count the cost of commitment. Jesus himself warned the crowd that only those who count the cost of commitment can become his disciples (Luke 14:25-33). Of course the task of perfecting is a lifelong process. However the process begins when we decide to follow Jesus, to be his disciple.

Is this work of perfecting, or presenting everyone perfect in Christ, demanding? That is an understatement! Paul uses two more action words to describe his effort. I toil, he says, I struggle. I toil, or I labor paints the picture of back-breaking work, physically demanding, such as making tents, which Paul knew. A modern equivalent would be the work of a stevedore or kargador at the pier - loading and unloading all kinds of heavy stuff. I struggle is literally I agonize; the picture is of a wrestler or gladiator who needs all his wits and his skill to win. Every nerve, every muscle strained to the limit in order for the combatant to win. To lose may mean to die! Let me tell you that preparing for a table tennis tournament may require a similar effort. I toil, I struggle, says Paul. Of course the physical pictures are but metaphors of what Paul was prepared to do in order to fulfill his ministry. A ministry characterized by much pain and suffering, as in his litany in 2 Cor 11:23-29. His sufferings included the conflict with false teachers, his anxiety over the health of the churches (2 Cor11:28), imprisonment and beatings, being shipwrecked, and so on. He speaks of filling up his quota of sufferings for the sake of the church (Col 1:24). All these he was willing to go through that he might proclaim Christ, warning everyone, and teaching everyone, that he might present everyone perfect in Christ. What a picture of great personal effort! But, he says, all the energy comes from Christ! I toil and I struggle, but it is Christ who powerfully works within me! What a tough model for ministry the apostle Paul sets before us! But it is the same Christ who also works powerfully within us. Let us yield to him all we are and have. "All for Jesus, all for Jesus, all my being's ransomed powers. All my thoughts and words and doings, all my days and all my hours…" Amen.