For the Cause - "Christ we proclaim!" (Part 1)
Notes
Transcript
Colossians 1:24-2:3
24 Now I rejoice in my sufferings for you, and I am completing in my flesh what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for his body, that is, the church.
25 I have become its servant, according to God’s commission that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known,
26 the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints.
27 God wanted to make known among the Gentiles the glorious wealth of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
28 We proclaim him, warning and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ.
29 I labor for this, striving with his strength that works powerfully in me.
1 For I want you to know how greatly I am struggling for you, for those in Laodicea, and for all who have not seen me in person.
2 I want their hearts to be encouraged and joined together in love, so that they may have all the riches of complete understanding and have the knowledge of God’s mystery—Christ.
3 In him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
Today’s message is really part one of a single message from this text. In preparing for this text I felt as though it would be good to break it up, because there is so much good stuff for us to cover. So this Sunday and next Sunday we’re going to look to Colossians 1:24 through Colossians 2:3. My endeavor is to take a look at the Apostle Paul’s ministry and the way he passionately spent himself for the cause of Christ, and to extrapolate from his life...
Six Ways to Live Your Life for the Cause of Christ
Six Ways to Live Your Life for the Cause of Christ
To be clear, these are really six application points that we infer from what we see to be true in the Apostle Paul. I want to acknowledge at the very outset that you and I are not the Apostle Paul, but we do have a commission from Christ: to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to observe everything He has commanded.
So although the text today in the CSB Bible has the heading “Paul’s Ministry,” I don’t want today to be simply a Bible study on the life of Paul, as nice as that would be. Instead, I want to proclaim Christ, and I want the burning desire of your heart (when you leave this place today and next Sunday) to join chorus with mine and with the Apostle’s to say... “Christ we Proclaim!” Whatever the cost, whatever it takes, I’ll live my life for the cause of Christ.
For the cause // SEBTS HYMN // GETTYS // v28
For the cause of Christ the King
We give our lives, an offering
'Til all the earth resounds
With ceaseless praise
To the Son
For the cause of Christ we go
With joy to reap, with faith to sow
As many see
And many put their trust in the Son
Christ we proclaim
The Name above every name
For all creation
Every nation
God's salvation
Through the Son!
~~~
Let it be my life's refrain
To live is Christ, to die is gain
Deny myself, take up my cross
And follow the Son
Christ we proclaim
The Name above every name
For all creation
Every nation
God's salvation
Through the Son!
Pray
How do you view the Christian life? If, when you died, you ended up just turning back into earthworm food, and the Bible turned out to be wrong, would you be able to say, “it was a good life anyway?” Now don’t misunderstand, Christianity is full of joy, and living God’s way can bring peace to your soul, but if God is merely a delusion, what is the point of all your pain, sorrow and suffering?
Paul said if the resurrection is not true that we are of all people most to be pitied. Think of it - if the Bible is not true, and there is no God, then we are missing out on the only opportunity we’d have to get all the pleasure and enjoyment out of life that we could because it would all be over the moment we die.
Is your life a pitiful life if the resurrection of Jesus weren’t true? Or do you have it pretty good? Do you face relatively, if any trials, suffering or persecution?
For the Christian, it is expected to be normal to face trials, suffering and persecution. Let’s take a quick tour of some other places in the New Testament where Christians are told they should expect suffering - so that when we come back to Colossians 1:24 we are not as taken back by what Paul says...
3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,
17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.
29 For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake,
Paul said, Timothy was exhorting and encouraging the believers in the faith so that...
3 that no one be moved by these afflictions. For you yourselves know that we are destined for this.
Jesus said,
11 “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.
12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
James wrote,
2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,
Peter also chimed in...
6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials,
13 But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.
The last verse helps us draw out some of the meaning of our text in Colossians and guides us to the first way to live your life for the cause of Christ… I’d argue that firstly, you must
1) Make Christ visible to others by enduring your sufferings with joy.
1) Make Christ visible to others by enduring your sufferings with joy.
24 Now I rejoice in my sufferings for you, and I am completing in my flesh what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for his body, that is, the church.
The first time you read this text, there are a couple of ways it can shock you. I tried to preemptively address one of those ways by reminding us this morning about how normal Christian living involves suffering. So we were not surprised to hear Paul say “I rejoice in my sufferings.”
But Paul says his suffering is for the sake of the Colossian believers, and more amazingly that he is claiming to fill up (in his own bodily suffering) what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the church.
Sometimes Christians are quite unfamiliar with this way of thinking, so let’s just clarify at the outset what Paul is not saying. He is not saying that his suffering in any way makes up for any lack in the atoning suffering of Christ on the cross. We know too much about the rest of what Paul has written to go there. In fact, in just a few verses Paul will say:
13 And when you were dead in trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive with him and forgave us all our trespasses.
14 He erased the certificate of debt, with its obligations, that was against us and opposed to us, and has taken it away by nailing it to the cross.
So what does this language of completing what is lacking mean?
I’m indebted to theologians like Piper, Garland and Vincent for this helpful clarification:
There is a way to understand the phrase “complete what is lacking” as “making up for a group or person’s absence by representing them”
For example
17 I rejoice at the coming of Stephanas and Fortunatus and Achaicus, because they have made up for your absence,
and
30 for he nearly died for the work of Christ, risking his life to complete what was lacking in your service to me.
This last verse fits our passage in Colossians very well because the same root verb “fill up” appears with the noun “lack.”
“Paul is not complaining that the Philippians have failed to supply anything material. What is lacking is their personal presence with Paul, which Epaphroditus, as their representative, supplied.
This same meaning applies in our text in Colossians. What is lacking for the Colossians is Christ’s bodily presence. Paul’s physical suffering as a member of Christ’s body represents Christ’s continuing suffering for the world through his servants.”
Let’s see if I can illustrate this with a story I read in a sermon about this concept...
One of the least likely men to attend the Itinerant Evangelists’ Conference in Amsterdam sponsored by the Billy Graham Association was a Masai Warrior named Joseph. But his story won him a hearing with Dr. Graham himself.
One day Joseph, who was walking along one of these hot, dirty African roads, met someone who shared the gospel of Jesus Christ with him. Then and there he accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior. The power of the Spirit began transforming his life; he was filled with such excitement and joy that the first thing he wanted to do was return to his own village and share that same Good News with the members of his local tribe.
Joseph began going from door-to-door, telling everyone he met about the cross [suffering!] of Jesus and the salvation it offered, expecting to see their faces light up the way his had. To his amazement the villagers not only didn’t care, they became violent. The men of the village seized him and held him to the ground while the women beat him with strands of barbed wire. He was dragged from the village and left to die alone in the bush.
Joseph somehow managed to crawl to a water hole, and there, after days of passing in and out of consciousness, he found the strength to get up. He wondered about the hostile reception he had received from people he had known all his life. He decided he must have left something out or told the story of Jesus incorrectly. After rehearsing the message he had first heard, he decided to go back and share his faith once more.
Joseph limped into the circle of huts and began to proclaim Jesus. “He died for you, so that you might find forgiveness and come to know the living God” he pleaded. Again he was grabbed by the men of the village and held while the women beat him reopening wounds that had just begun to heal. Once more they dragged him unconscious from the village and left him to die.
To have survived the first beating was truly remarkable. To live through the second was a miracle. Again, days later, Joseph awoke in the wilderness, bruised, scarred — and determined to go back.
He returned to the small village and this time, they attacked him before he had a chance to open his mouth. As they flogged him for the third and probably the last time, he again spoke to them of Jesus Christ, the Lord. Before he passed out, the last thing he saw was that the women who were beating him began to weep.
This time he awoke in his own bed. The ones who had so severely beaten him were now trying to save his life and nurse him back to health. The entire village had come to Christ.
This is one vivid example of what Paul meant when he said, “I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body.”
The application for us is that...
As we go about living our lives for the cause of Christ, we too have the great privilege of making Christ visible to our neighbors in St. Mary’s County. We are the body of Christ. And insofar as we are enduring affliction or rejoicing when we suffering for the cause of the spread of His name, we display Jesus to the world.
But secondly, Colossians 1:25-26 teaches us that we should
2) Make Christ known to others by explaining God’s word in full.
2) Make Christ known to others by explaining God’s word in full.
Paul says,
25 I have become its servant, according to God’s commission that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known,
26 the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints.
Let’s quickly remind ourselves that Paul was unique! Paul had received a direct commission from God by grace to make God’s word fully known.
You’ll recall that during the commission itself, Jesus asked Saul why he was persecuting him? - i.e. why is my Body, the CHURCH suffering because of what you are doing? (Acts. 9:4)
And Jesus also told Saul/Paul that he himself would be appointed to suffer (Acts 9:16)
But Paul had been given the mission - a stewardship entrusted to him by God to reach the Gentiles.
13 Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry
The mystery once hidden for ages and generations had been revealed to Paul, and he endeavored to make it fully known to all the believers - both Jews and Gentiles…
25 Lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in.
Paul then went on to say: “in this way all Israel will be saved.”
Then in the addendum to Romans he explains that the mystery has been made known to all nations to bring about the obedience of faith.
25 Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages
26 but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith—
The full counsel of God and the revelation of the mystery of God as summed up in all of Paul’s writings is that God had, from the beginning, intended to incorporate the Gentiles into the same nourishing root of the Jewish Olive Tree by faith.
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
And at the center of that glorious plan of salvation was Christ Jesus. Christ was the one who united both Jew and Gentile into one body through faith.
SO by way of application for us today... when we give our lives for the cause of Christ, we should also strive explain God’s word in full - in such a way that Christ is the central key to unlocking the mystery that had been hidden in plain sight for ages and generations. It was once a complete mystery, but Paul has SPILLED THE BEANS and now we can’t un-know what we know!
Tim Keller shares the illustration of how it’s like when you watch the movie, “The Sixth Sense” for the second time. Once you know that Bruce Willis is dead, it unlocks the entire movie.
Or, Jonathan Leeman talks about how if you know Darth Vader is Luke’s father, it changes the way you watch Episode I.
The same is true for the Bible - when you understand the revealed mystery, you can’t read the Old Testament without seeing Christ as it’s entire goal and purpose. So let’s be people that explain the word of God fully, with eyes unveiled to the glory of Jesus as the one who reconciled Jew and Gentile into one body.
CHRIST IS THE MYSTERY REVEALED. And that is why thirdly, we should
3) Make Christ glorious to others by expecting promise fulfillment.
3) Make Christ glorious to others by expecting promise fulfillment.
To the SAINTS.... God willed
27 to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Gentiles had been excluded from the Old Testament covenant community. They were strangers to the covenant promises and completely without hope in the world. The disciples even asked Jesus right before he ascended if he was about to restore the kingdom of God to Israel. They were thinking national Israel. There still wasn’t a full understanding of the Kingdom mystery that the gospel was for all people.
So Jesus reorients their thinking to show that the promised Holy Spirit will empower them to share the good news of Jesus to all nations of the earth. Consequently, the book of Acts tells us how the gospel went out beginning in Jerusalem with the first Jewish believers (at Pentecost). The same gospel then proceeded to include the Gentiles through Peter and his vision, with Cornelius… to Judea and Samaria.
45 And the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles.
Notice what amazed the Jewish Christians: That the Holy Spirit indwelt even the GENTILES. This was the beginning of the unveiling of the mystery. CHRIST IN YOU!
The special promises to the chosen people of God was the promise of God’s presence with them in a special way. That he would be their God and they would be his people. And now in this new unfolding epoch in salvation history, the Gentiles are experiencing the promised presence of God dwelling in them through his Spirit. And notice the important trinitarian language Paul uses to describe this indwelling.
9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.
10 But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
He says first in verse 9 that the Spirit of GOD dwells in the Roman Jewish and Gentile believers. Then he says that anyone who doesn’t have the Spirit of CHRIST does not belong to him. Then he says, like Colossians that if CHRIST is in you, although your natural body is dead because of sin, the SPIRIT is life because of righteousness. In other words, the Spirit of God is one and the same with the Spirit of Christ, and the Holy Spirit is in fact one and the same with Christ himself who now dwells in you.
But in Colossians, Christ in YOU is further explained as the hope of GLORY. Once again, to understand more fully what the hope of glory is, let’s take a further look at Romans 8 beginning in verse 18...
18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.
20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope
21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.
23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.
24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees?
25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.
27 And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.
Believer, when Christ comes to dwell in you, your certain hope is a glorified body, eternal life, and freedom from your bondage to corruption.
And by way of application today… we bring glory to Christ when we live in such a way that we fully expect that promise to be fulfilled.
This brings us full circle to where we began. Part of what it means to be a believer is to see your life so united with Christ, that you willingly and joyfully share in his sufferings BECAUSE OF YOUR SURE AND CERTAIN HOPE of your own resurrected and glorified body because of your union with him.
5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
Conclusion
So we’ve seen three of the six ways we can live our lives for the cause of Christ. Next week we’ll see three more. For now, let’s be reminded that this text is about Paul sharing his unique ministry that God gave him, and we don’t pretend to be the apostle. But as we leave from here, we can certainly join our voice with his and say “Christ we proclaim!”
We want our life’s refrain to be simply this ->
To live is Christ, to die is gain.
That pretty well sums it up doesn’t it?
As we live our lives we make Christ visible to the watching world in how we joyfully endure our own sufferings and we make him known to the world by explaining the whole word of God to them with Jesus as the central focus.
As we consider our own mortality and even as we die, we make Christ glorious by expecting with certain hope the fulfilment of all the promises of Scripture, which can be summed up in one word: GAIN.
4) Make Christ central to others by exhorting everyone toward maturity.
4) Make Christ central to others by exhorting everyone toward maturity.
28 We proclaim him, warning and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ.
5) Make Christ praiseworthy to others by exerting yourself with God’s energy.
5) Make Christ praiseworthy to others by exerting yourself with God’s energy.
29 I labor for this, striving with his strength that works powerfully in me.
6) Make Christ valuable to others by engaging in Christian community.
6) Make Christ valuable to others by engaging in Christian community.
1 For I want you to know how greatly I am struggling for you, for those in Laodicea, and for all who have not seen me in person.
2 I want their hearts to be encouraged and joined together in love, so that they may have all the riches of complete understanding and have the knowledge of God’s mystery—Christ.
3 In him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.