The Bold Secret to an Exciting Faith*

What’s the bold secret to experiencing a more exciting and fulfilling Christian life? In this message, Pastor Chris Teien shares how prioritizing your God-given ministry can ignite bold faith and deeper joy. Rooted in Colossians 1:24–29, you’ll discover how living on mission—even in ordinary places—unleashes spiritual power and eternal impact.

Link: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2285086/episodes/16335650

Key Points:

1. Bold Faith to Serve – Paul’s example reminds us that suffering and serving go hand-in-hand as we depend on Christ’s power (Colossians 1:24–25).

2, Bold Faith to Share – The mystery once hidden is now revealed: Christ lives in us. We are called to share this hope with others (Colossians 1:26–27).

3. Bold Faith to Do the Perfect Work – God empowers us to help others grow to maturity in Christ, even when we don’t immediately see results (Colossians 1:28–29).

Personal Stories from Pastor Chris:
 Chris shares a candid moment about missing an opportunity to witness while delivering shelves, along with a powerful historical illustration about Adoniram Judson’s long-term gospel impact in Burma.

Notable Quotes:

• “Your workplace might be the best place to meet people who need Jesus.”
• “If your Christian life feels boring, try doing ministry—you might find it gets exciting fast.”
• “You may sacrifice without success because someone will succeed after you.”

Actionable Takeaways:

• Heart-level reflection: Ask God to renew your sense of purpose in everyday life and ministry.
• Daily-life application: Look for ministry opportunities where you already are—at work, home, or online.
• Spiritual step or challenge: Boldly share Christ and disciple others, even when you don’t see immediate fruit.
• Practical next step: Start praying, planning, and preparing to invest in someone’s spiritual growth this week.

Scripture References:

• Colossians 1:24–29 – Paul’s ministry mindset and the mystery of Christ in us.
• Ephesians 2:10 – You are God’s masterpiece, created for good works.
• Philippians 3:12–14 – Keep pressing on toward spiritual maturity.
• 2 Timothy 3:16–17 – God’s Word equips us to train and disciple others.

Keywords: faith, ministry, Colossians 1, Adoniram Judson, discipleship, boldness, purpose, serving, sharing Christ, Christian growth

Challenge:
 This week, step out in bold faith and ask God to show you how to serve, share, and help someone grow in Christ—right where you are.

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18m0526de The Bold Secret to Unleashing your Faith

The WELL Faith Podcast offers encouraging, Bible-based messages from Pastor Chris Teien and guests. New sermons are released every Sunday. Replay episodes are marked with an asterisk. Find us online at ChrisTeien.com and Rockwell.Church in Virginia, MN. Email comments to wellfaith24@gmail.com

Transcript

Chris T 0:16

Bold faith, exciting faith, the kind of faith that you really want. Some people say, What's the secret to having an exciting faith? I've been a Christian for a while. I read through the Bible. I know a lot of Bible facts, and my Christian life just doesn't seem to be all that exciting. What's the bold secret to having an exciting faith? And that is to do your ministry. The bold secret to unleashing your faith, prioritize your ministry. Now that makes it sound like you need to go through a bunch of training, or you need to go to Bible college and get a degree, or you have to come out with some, know how to present some seminar or something, but actually none of that. If you would just pray for people and come alongside them and help them to grow in their Christian life, God has given us all a ministry. So there's a minister or ministers in a church that are supposed to lead stuff and encourage and equip and things like that. But every one of you in Christ is called to have a ministry. What is your ministry? So it can be obviously sharing your faith with others. It could be a men's ministry, women's ministry, mom's ministry, children's ministry, ministry to seniors, ministry to all sorts of different people and different things. But we're all called to share the gospel. So prioritize your ministry. If you don't know what your ministry is, you should pray about it and ask God what it is that you can do and then bloom where you're planted. So many times people say, well, if I didn't live here, if I lived there, then I would do more ministry. If I didn't have to do this work here, then I could do ministry. But actually, your most successful, your most integral part that you can do ministry is actually where you work, because that's where a bunch of people are that need to be ministered to, or maybe your neighborhood or whatever, but your workplace might be the best place to meet people that need Jesus and to come alongside them and to help them learn about Jesus and to grow in their faith. On Facebook, there was, I'm part of these Bible discussion groups, and someone asked the question, I think it was yesterday, if you were going to prison for the rest of your life, which Bible would you take? And I thought to myself, huh, am I going to prison with a bunch of people or am I going to prison to be in solitary confinement? Because if I'm going to prison with a bunch of people, then I guess I'm taking the New Living Translation, New Believers Full Bible, because there's a ton of discipleship material in it. If I'm just going to be in solitary confinement for the rest of my life, I guess I'll take my NIV 1984 Thompson Chain Reference Bible that I've been using for the last 20-some years. Anyway, interesting question. What Bible are you taking to prison? So hopefully I'm not going to prison anytime soon. But if I do, I guess I'll be taking that Bible that I just mentioned. Paul was in prison when he wrote these epistles. Paul was in prison when he wrote these letters and he was doing ministry and he was serving. And we're going to read the passage in just a minute from Colossians 1, verses 24 through 29. The Holy Spirit was inspiring Paul, giving him the words to say and everything. Did Paul know that what he was writing was going to become like half the New Testament or even more than half of the New Testament? Did Paul realize the weight of his words and what God was doing through him as he was held captive, thinking that he wasn't probably accomplishing much? You know, I'm trapped in prison. I want to proclaim Christ to Caesar. I want to do this part, but my part is so little. My part doesn't seem significant. But then we know that Paul, what Paul did in his writing of the epistles, the letters that he wrote, was huge. So let's look at Colossians 1, 24 through 29. Paul writes, I'm glad when I suffer for you in my body, for I am participating in the sufferings of Christ as I continue for his body, the church. God has given me the responsibility of serving his church by proclaiming his entire message to you. This message was kept secret for centuries and generations past, but now it has been revealed to God's people. For God wanted them to know that the riches and glory of Christ are for you, Gentiles, too. And this is the secret. Christ lives in you. This gives you assurance of sharing his glory. So we tell others about Christ, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all the wisdom God has given us. We want to present them to God, perfect in their relationship to Christ. That's why I work and struggle so hard, depending on Christ's mighty power that works within me. So bold faith for your ministry comes through God empowering you and for you to minister to other people, for you to invest in the lives of other people. There's so many ways you can do that. You can do that face to face, you can do that online, you can do that while you're chatting or texting or whatever. There's lots of different ways that you can do that, and you should. You can recommend resources. You can hand out Bibles and give access to right now media. There's lots of great resources out there. You can start a blog and post things about what God has done in your life and encourage people. Many things that can be done to do your ministry. What is your ministry? Helping people is a great ministry. I think it's great when kids, especially kids or people go on missions trips and they do service and they help people, but service doesn't necessarily spread the gospel. So if you go into a town and go to someone's house and paint it, that's kind of ministry. If you share Christ with that person while you're painting it, that's true ministry. Just painting the house isn't necessarily life-changing eternal ministry. When you go clean up trash, if you get to represent Christ and share Christ with other people, then that's ministry. Just showing up somewhere and saying we love Jesus and we're picking up your trash, that might not be full ministry. So you just really need to think about it. The best thing that you can do is pray about it. If you don't know what to do with your life, if you're graduating from school and you don't know what you're doing with your life, you should pray about it and say, God, here I am, I'm available. What is it that you want me to do with my life? Or if you're at work and you don't know what else to do, you do your job, you can't advance anymore, you've done all you can do, you're just sitting there bored with life. You should pray about it and say, God, what is it that you want me to do while I'm here? What is it that you want me to do with these people? What is it that you want me to do in this stage of my life? How can I serve you? How who can I pray for? Who can I share Christ with? Who can I encourage? Who can I do something for? Those things are huge. So, number one, bold faith to serve. Bold faith to serve. Paul was a servant. Paul knew that he was serving people and serving the Lord. He said, I'm glad when I suffer for you in my body, for I'm participating in the sufferings of Christ that continue for his body, the church. That anytime you're serving the Lord, that you're gonna suffer. It's hard. People misunderstand you, people talk against you, people persecute you, you're in a spiritual battle. When you really want to do significant things for Christ, you're totally not gonna feel like it. You're totally not gonna want to do it so many times. It's so much easier when you're in a group, by the way. If you can find somebody to come alongside of you, two or three people that are committed and saying, we're gonna serve, we're gonna share, we're gonna pray, we're gonna do this together, it is so much better than just doing it on your own. But you can do it on your own. The Holy Spirit can help you, Christ will help you. But Christ suffered. He was persecuted. He said, if you're gonna come after me, you're gonna be persecuted too. Count on it. Life's gonna be difficult if you're truly gonna follow me and serve me. And I think that's the kind of suffering that was going on here is that Paul's suffering. He's in prison. He's not able to do what he wants to do. He probably doesn't have everything he wants. He's got something wrong with his eyes or his hands or something like that. And at the end of some of his letters, he says, see, I wrote this with my own hand, what large letters I write. Thorn in the flesh, all these difficulties. Suffering, but he's still serving. He doesn't say, I just, I'm in so much pain, I can't serve. So, matter of fact, somebody showed up today to serve with back pain, and they still came. They didn't go, oh, I can't because my back hurts. Said they served. They served with the pain and served with the difficulty, and I think that glorifies God. I think God sees your difficulty. I think he sees that you lack time, you lack resources, you lack motivation, you got kids pulling you every direction, your work wants you to do all these things, and you're just totally worn out, and then you stand up and you show up and you serve, and I think that really glorifies the Lord, and he honors that. God has given me the responsibility of serving his church by proclaiming his entire message to you. So that was Paul's number one responsibility. What was it? It was to proclaim the gospel, to proclaim Christ's message, to do all that he could to proclaim Christ to people, to talk to Christ about people. And I read this yesterday, and I felt so guilty because I talk about Christ at church all the time. I talk about the gospel a lot, and sometimes I just blow it. I mean, I had some shelves in my garage that I sold that I dropped off and everything like that. And I walked in and I started talking to these people, and they're elderly older people, and they're like super chatty. And I thought to myself, after I left, I'm like, what a great opportunity to talk about Christ. I should have just, they looked like they wanted somebody to talk to, and I should have talked to them about Jesus. I used the church trailer so they knew it said River Rock Church and everything, but I didn't say anything about Jesus. Instead, we talked about their border collie and their Jack Russell Terrier. And I walked away and I'm like, I love dogs, but I love Jesus more, and I might have totally blown it. I should have proclaimed Christ in that opportunity that I had. And so many times I walk away. Some people, and I agree, some people say, Well, you should wait until you're prompted by the Spirit to do that. And it's like, you should do it when you're prompted by the Spirit. Like maybe you should pull over and talk to somebody if you're prompted by the Spirit, but you should always be sharing Christ, like dropping seeds everywhere, sharing Christ. The farmer, some of the farmers got their seed planted before all the rain came. And then the rain came and the heat came and the rain came and the heat came, and their corn's already starting to come up. And they're off to a great start because they planted their seed in time. And storms come, rains come, difficulty comes. Are we planting seed everywhere we go? Are we dropping seed? Are we dropping tracks? Are we sharing Bibles? Are we sharing Christ's word? Are we living for Christ? Do people even know that we're a Christian? But bold faith to serve. God has given Paul, God has given Timothy, God has given Epaphras, God has given you and me the responsibility of serving his church by proclaiming his entire message and by sharing the gospel. Do we have bold faith to serve? I guarantee you, if your Christian life is boring and you start to serve the Lord and think about, today I'm alive, why am I here? I should use my time today to advance the kingdom, to do something for Jesus. Everybody knows enough about football to know the basic premise of the game, and basically it's to advance the football down the field. Sometimes you kick it and it flies in the air, sometimes you pass it and it goes down further, sometimes you run it. But each success is advancing it one yard or ten yards or ninety yards down the field. And in your Christian life, what if you could just find ways to advance people knowing about Christ and the gospel, you know, just a little more? One question answered, one scripture shared, people interested. If you could just advance the Christian faith football down the field just a little bit each time, you'd be making progress. It would be good. Bold faith to serve. Pray for that bold faith to serve. Ephesians 2.10 says, We're God's master, we are God's masterpiece. So that means that you are God's masterpiece. You might not feel like it sometimes, but the Bible says it, so we believe it. You are God's masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus so we can do the good things He planned for us long ago. That's so weird to think about that. Christ planned for us to do things long ago. He's a purpose for our life. What is your purpose? Are you fulfilling your purpose? You can fulfill your purpose in so many different ways. My friend is a coach over in the neighboring town over there. And he first got involved when his kids were playing sports, but now his kids, his last kid's graduating, and he's still going to continue to be a football coach there. And so he's a pastor and he's the coach. And together the ministry and the opportunities to make a difference as a coach intersect, and he's actually able to impact lives and influence people and make a difference because he sees that opportunity that he has for coaching. So, what is it that you have? Whatever the opportunities that you have, try to make ministry part of it, see it as God's plan, and then try to proclaim Christ and see if people come to Christ's bold faith to serve God, to serve people. I wanted to share this story last week and I ran out of time, but I think that so many times we think that our serving doesn't matter. We think that when we serve, it's not making a difference. So we constantly share Christ and we don't see people praying to receive Christ. We constantly try to teach kids the Bible, but we don't see it always coming out in their behavior and their life. We do so many things, we don't always see the fruit. And so last time we were together, I wanted to share the story of Adeniram Judson, so I will now. The American missionary Adeniram Judson arrived in Burma, or Myanmar, in 1812 and died there 38 years later in 1850. During that time he suffered much for the cause of the gospel. He was imprisoned, tortured, and kept in shackles. After the death of his first wife Anne, to whom he was devoted, for several months he was so depressed that he sat daily beside her tomb. Three years later, he wrote, God is to me the great unknown. I believe in him, but I cannot find him. But Adeniram's faith sustained him, and he threw himself into the tasks to which he believed God had called him. He worked feverishly on his translation of the Bible. The New Testament had now been printed, and he finished the Old Testament in early 1834. Statistics are unclear, but there were only somewhere between twelve and twenty-five professing Christians in the country when he died. And there were not churches to speak of. At the 150th anniversary of the translation of the Bible into the Burmese language, Paul Borthwick was addressing a group that was celebrating Judson's work. Just before he got up to speak, he noticed in small print on the first page the words, quote, translated by Reverend A. Judson. So Borthwick turned to his interpreter, a Burmese man named Matthew Kia Wyn, and asked him, Matthew, what do you know of this man? Matthew began to weep as he said, We know him. We know how he loved the Burmese people, how he suffered for the gospel because of us, out of love for us. He died a pauper, but he left the Bible for us. When he died, there were a few believers, but today there are over 600,000 of us, and every single one of us traces our spiritual heritage to one man, the Reverend Adonairam Judson. But Adonairam Judson never saw it. And that will be the case for some of us. We may be called to invest our lives in ministries for which we do not see much immediate fruit, trusting that the God of all grace, who oversees our work, will ensure that our labor is not in vain. Adonairam Judson said, If you succeed without sacrifice, it is because someone has suffered before you. If you sacrifice without success, it is because someone will succeed after. Number two, bold faith to share. This message was kept secret for centuries and generations past, but now it has been revealed to God's people, for God wanted them to know that the riches and glory of Christ are for you, Gentiles, too. And this is the secret. Christ lives in you. This gives you assurance of sharing in his glory. So the secret that wasn't revealed until after Christ is that the Gentiles would be able to receive the same inheritance, the same kind of love, the same kind of benefits, the same standing with Christ as the Jews. In the Old Testament, we see that the Jews were God's chosen people, that the Israelites were God's chosen people and they were special, and that we see after Christ came that it was for the Jews and the Gentiles. So the secret was that Gentiles, you and I, could be in Christ and have the same standing as the Jews, to be right up there with full inheritance in God's glory. And the other secret is that God lives in us, that Christ lives in us through the power of his Holy Spirit. And we are to share. So we are to share that secret. We are to share Christ. We get to share in Christ's glory. But Christ lives in us. He lives in us through his word. He lives in us through his Holy Spirit. He lives in us so that we can make a difference. Hopefully, when the Holy Spirit convicts you of sin that you're doing, that you confess that and get on the right track. Hopefully you realize from a theological standpoint how the grace of God covers your sin, how the grace of Christ covers your sin, and no matter who you are or where you've been or what you've done, that there can be forgiveness and you can walk forward in Christ, that there isn't anything that keeps you stuck, that disqualifies you, that kicks you off the team as you continue to pursue Christ. My friend out in California, Bill Gio Benetti from Neighborhood Church in Reading, California, has written a bunch of great books on grace. And if you want me to show you where you can find those, there's one of them on Audible, actually. I think it's Grace Breakthrough or something like that. But if you struggle with that, if you struggle with forgiveness, you struggle with legalism, which is actually something I'll talk about in a couple weeks. But if you struggle with understanding what Christ has done for you and how he's forgiven you and how you can walk in him no matter what you've done or where you've been or the sin that you've gotten yourself into, those are some great books to read or to listen to. Bold faith to share. Alright, number three, bold faith to do the perfect work. The perfect work. What is the perfect work? It's helping people become perfect in Christ. So we tell others about Christ, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all the wisdom God has given us. We want to present them to God perfect in their relationship to Christ. And that's why I work and struggle so hard, depending on Christ's mighty power that works within me. So we tell people about Christ, we help them to grow in Christ. We warn them. 2 Timothy 3.16, all scripture is God breathed, useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the man of God or woman of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. So there's warnings. There's things not to do, there's things to do. We come alongside people with love but firmness and say, this is God's way. This is the way that it's supposed to be done. This is what God has given us. Sometimes I feel like I'm, I want to be caring and stuff, but sometimes I feel like I'm I'm too nice. I don't want to be a jerk, but I should I should warn people and tell them what the Bible says. I should tell them what God says, I should stand up and not just shrink back because it's uncomfortable or because I'm afraid I'm gonna hurt somebody's feelings. Because what if I go through all of life hurting, afraid to hurt someone's feelings, but they never come to Christ? Bold to do the perfect work. And your bulletin on the back of the sheep is another thing from the New Believers New Testament. Talks about how God saved us for a purpose, and the purpose is to glorify God and to help others. So you can read that. That's in the New Believers New Testament. But just think about if you could get together with people and help them to grow in their Christian life. What if you got together weekly and one week talked about assurance of salvation? Another week talked about developing a devotional life, then talk to them another week about how to be involved in church, then power for living through the Holy Spirit. Another week you could talk about prayer and then obedient living, then you could talk about dealing with temptation, how to know God's will and discerning God's guidance. Another week you could talk about how to develop a testimony, and another week you could talk about victorious Christian living. There's so many things that you could get together and invest in and talk about for people's lives so that you would work struggling with all of Christ's power working within you to present people to God mature in Christ. Now, one of the things we have to know though is that you will never be totally mature in Christ. You will never know at all. You will never be totally complete as far as your knowledge and ability in Christ, because we're all growing, and God promises to complete the work he's beginning us, that we're going to be like Christ. But as we go through this life, we struggle, and even Paul realized that he hadn't measured up. He says in Philippians 3.12, I don't mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection, but I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead. I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us. I graduated from high school and I like, I don't know everything. I don't even remember some of the stuff I learned. And maybe I should go to college. And then I went to college, I went to two different I went to two different Bible colleges and I walked out and I thought to myself, I don't know everything. I thought I would know more by now. I realized that we're all in a process of lifelong learning, that you and I need to keep learning. And like Carolina asked us to pray that we would have a purposeful summer. So I was selecting my reading audio book and reading list for the summer. What am I gonna read? How am I gonna grow? What's my plan to grow closer to the Lord this summer? And hopefully you will do the same thing. So next week we're gonna talk about the power of delight. Let me pray. Lord Jesus, I say a lot of things and I pray that they would stick. I pray that people would walk out of here and ask you, what's my ministry? How should I serve you? What can I do to make a difference in the world today, this week? How can I share you? How can I help people mature in you, Lord? And we pray that we would do this and that you would be glorified and that you'd bless us for it, and that we would see eternal fruit, significant fruit of all of our labors in Jesus' name. Amen.