COLOSSIANS 1:24-2:5

Come on forward. One of the things that we've done in this series so far is just have a normal, everyday person who's not on staff here, who's part of the family here to come and read the Word. So Steve's gonna do that. Steve, welcome. Thank you.

Well, I am an everyday person, but I also have the privilege of serving as an elder here at Whitewater. And my wife Barbara and I have been part of this church body for about the last four and a half years. I have a son, his wife, and six grandchildren that have been blessed by this church and very grateful for that. And it's my privilege to share the word of God with you guys this morning.

We've been in the book of Colossians has been a fantastic study thus far and looking forward to today. Beginning in Colossians, chapter 1, verse 24, where it talks about Paul's labor for the church.

Now I rejoice in and what was suffering for you? And I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regards to Christ's afflictions. For the sake of his body, which is the church, I have become its servant. By the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints. To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery which is Christ in you the hope of glory.

We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom so that we may be present everyone perfect, fully mature in Christ. To this end, I labor, struggling with all his energy which so powerfully works in me.

I want you to know how much I am struggling for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not met me personally. My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding in order that we may know the mystery of God, namely Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine sounding arguments. For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit and delight to see how orderly you are and how firm your faith in Christ is. Amen.

You can be seated.

Well, good morning, church. Good morning. If we've not met, my name is Josh and I'm super glad you're here today. And I want you to know I say this often. You just walked into a room full of People who are broken and sinful and desperately in need of grace and who haven't figured it all out yet.

In fact, that's why we're here. That's why we're here seeking Jesus together, pursuing Christ in community, studying the Word, always trying to abide in him so that we can become more and more like Him. And so if you feel that same way, like you don't have it all figured out, you're in good company. Maybe you're just here to seek God today, too. Also, if you are here for the first time, or maybe you've been here for a while, but you've never taken a step here further than just coming to a service, I want to invite you to more because God has in mind that we would be active participants in his church.

God has in mind that we would be connected in community. And so if you're ready to take a step today, the very best first step you can take is to go to the information desk in the foyer after the service, meet our team there. They'd love to help you get connected in community and find your people. They'd love to help you find a place that you can serve and share your gifts with, with the family here or answer any questions that you have. So please stop by and say hello.

Many of you know that my family and I just got back after being gone for a few weeks. We had some vacation time and then I had the rich pleasure of getting to teach at a school called TCMI just outside of Vienna, Austria. And it's a ministry school there where students from Central and Eastern Europe, parts of Asia and the Middle east, come to get postgraduate teaching. And it's a beautiful combination and collision of denominations and backgrounds and languages. And it was awesome for us to be a part of it, and we're so blessed by it.

It made an indelible mark on us to hear about how God is working all across the world in places like Kazakhstan and Turkey and Slovakia and Moldova and Ukraine and Albania and. And Estonia, places I didn't know where they were on the map. And we got to meet people from there who are working in the trenches for the gospel to spread there. It was beautiful. I want to give a shout out to Russ for preaching the last few weeks.

Yeah. And especially over the last two weeks, he set up this new series in the Book of Colossians. And I hope you've taken him up on this challenge to be in the Word, studying the Word together, the challenge of a 15 minute challenge a day to be reading through all four chapters of the Book of Colossians, a five minute challenge each day to just read a chapter of the Book of Colossians each day, or a one minute challenge, which is just to study what we're studying each week. And if we are going to be the kind of people we say we're going to be, which is people of the word, we have to be in the Word and the word has to be in us. And so if you haven't started yet, it's not too late to hop in and study through the Book of Colossians.

With us, A quick review of where we've been. The Book of Colossians is this jam packed four chapters. What we call a book is actually a letter that Paul writes, the Apostle Paul. It's written about three, 30 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus. So you can kind of put that into context in your mind.

And Paul writes this letter from Rome where he is under house arrest for preaching the Gospel. And house arrest for him looks like being chained to a Roman soldier 24 hours a day. Sounds exciting, right? And even as he's living this reality, he is determined that he is going to feed and encourage the churches that have been planted by the preaching of the Gospel. Now, Paul writes to three young churches, Colossae, Laodicea and Hierapolis.

And these are churches that were planted by a guy named Epaphras. He actually brought the Gospel back home after he heard it from Paul in a city called Ephesus. And as these fledgling churches are learning how to live out their faith, there are several things that are competing with the Gospel and muddying the waters to distract them from the Gospel that Paul's been teaching. Now some are pushing Jewish legalism. They demand strict rules about food and circumcision, about festivals and the Sabbath.

And they believe that salvation comes through becoming a Jew first for the Gentiles, being a Jew, first following all the Jewish stuff and then tacking Jesus on top of that. Now some are promoting what's called mysticism. And they claim these spiritual, special spiritual visions and experiences are necessary for salvation. And they're only for some who've cracked the code. They believe in the connection, like deep spiritual connection with and even worship of angels, which we'll talk about in a few weeks.

And like I said, they think that this is only for an elite group of people who have cracked the code and that God or that God has given this special experience to. Now third is this form of early Gnosticism. That word starts with a G. It's Got a silent G. The Greek word there, that's the root, is the word gnosis. And that just means knowledge. And they believe that through special knowledge, through special revelation, they would have access to special knowledge for an elite group of people, and that salvation comes through that.

Now, all three of these influences claim special experiences, practices and knowledge are required for salvation. And all three of them are saying that salvation is only for this elite group. These influences are the core of what Paul is addressing in his letters to these churches. And when you know what you're looking for, you can see it all throughout the chapters. These things are pulling believers away from the simple, powerful gospel that Paul teaches everywhere he goes.

That the life, death and resurrection of Jesus is, was, and will always be enough. It's enough. There's no special status, no secret knowledge or practices, no Jesus plus something else. There's only Christ's sacrifice on the cross. It's sufficient.

His resurrection from the dead, it's sufficient. So Paul's writing these churches to remind them of the true north, get them back on track. And all of this is important to us because it's the immediate context in which this is written, and it should change our lenses as we read through these pages and help us understand the book. So in verse one, verses one through 23 of chapter one, Paul sets up two major things. First, he says, I have heard about what's going on there.

Paul has never even been there. He's never even met these people. He has heard this through the grapevine in prison. Imagine the encouragement that is to him that these churches are growing. And he has heard of it.

And he says, I am praying desperately for you that you would get to experience the fullness of everything that is available to you in Christ. And second, what we looked at last week, what we talked about this morning already, speaking of Christ, let me just remind you, Paul says that he is everything you need. He is above all things. He created all things. He holds all things together.

And everything in the heavens and on the earth, every power, authority, every dominion, every government, everything is under his feet. And he describes the reality and the outcome of that reality in Colossians 1, starting in verse 21, he says, once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you wholly in his sight without blemish and free from accusation. Some people just needed that one bit and they can go home today. You are holy without blemish, free from accusation and Then in the next verse, he gives the terms.

He puts the word, if. Don't miss this. If you continue in your faith, establish and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the Gospel. This is the Gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant. Paul is saying, this is only available to you if you don't get off track.

Do not give in to the prevailing cultural ideas. The one true gospel message is the path. It remains the path. Nothing added to it. It's enough.

Now, with all that in place, let's dive into our text for today and see one of Paul's famously long run on sentences. Paul's amazing at this in the Greek, all of these 11 verses that Steve just read, they're all one sentence with a bunch of commas and no breaths. Like, I imagine Paul going and then going on to his next sentence, going to pull it apart into pieces and see what we can learn from it. He says in verse 24, now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake. And in my flesh I'm filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is the church.

Two things to point out in this first verse. First, Paul says he rejoices in his sufferings for their sake. He is chained to a guard. How could he be rejoicing in these sufferings? Well, Jesus gives us the best analogy for this in John 16:21.

He says, When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come. But when she's delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish for joy that a human being has been born into the world. Paul's rejoicing because new churches and new Christians are being born into new places. And though it's cost him a tremendous amount personally of suffering, for him, it's worth it. In fact, it's joy.

In Communist Romania during the 40s, 50s and 60s, pastors were imprisoned regularly for proclaiming the gospel. And one of those pastors was a man named Richard Wormbrand, and he wrote a book called Tortured for Christ. And Wurmbrand shares about his time in prison. This is what he says. He says it was strictly forbidden to preach to other prisoners.

It was understood that whoever was caught doing this received a severe beating. A number of us decided to pay the price for the privilege of preaching, so we accepted their terms. It was a deal, he says. We preached and they beat us.

We were happy preaching and they were happy beating us. So Everyone was happy. The following scene happened more times than I can remember. He says a brother was preaching to the other prisoners when the guards suddenly burst in, surprising him. Halfway through his sentence, they hauled him down the corridor to their beating room.

After what seemed an endless beating, they brought him back and threw him in, bloody and bruised, on the prison floor. Slowly he picked up his battered body, painfully straightened his clothing and said, now, brothers, where did I leave off? When I was interrupted and he continued his gospel message, he went on to say this. He said, we had the grace to preach in prison. Our sermons were not like those in church, but spoken through bars and with bleeding lips.

Many officers of the secret police came to confess their sins and ask for prayers. One torturer came to us trembling. He sat down and said, when I beat you, you didn't curse me. I saw in your eyes a kindness that I could not explain. What is it?

We told him about Jesus. He confessed his sins and received forgiveness. See, Worm, Brand and Paul, they get it. They found joy in the results of whatever cost came through their suffering. For them, it was worth it.

The second thing here is probably the most confusing phrase in the whole book of Colossians. Paul says, I'm filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is the church. first glance, this almost looks like heresy, like Paul is preaching heresy. As if Jesus suffering isn't enough and Paul has to pick up where Jesus left off and fix the rest. But that would contradict everything that Paul preaches all throughout.

So what does he actually mean? Think of it this way. Christ finished the work of salvation, but the message of that finished work still needs to be spread. That's what's lacking. The only thing lacking is the delivery of the good news of what Christ has done out to the world.

Paul isn't adding to Jesus saving work or his sanctifying work. He's suffering to declare the work of Jesus to others. Let's keep reading. I'm going to combine two translations here because I think it's more accurate to the Greek. It's two words that you might have different in your translation.

It's the NIV and the ESV together. He says, I've become its servant. I think that's the most accurate word there. By the stewardship. Those are the two words God gave me to present to you.

The word of God in its fullness. That is the mystery that's been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord's people. So this word servant is the word diakonos. That's where we get our word deacon. It actually means a helper, a table waiter, an errand runner.

Think about this. This is what Paul calls himself. The man who wrote almost a quarter of the New Testament and launched the greatest missionary campaign the global church has ever seen. He calls himself a servant, an errand boy for Jesus. That's beautiful humility.

And then he says he serves by the stewardship God gave him. See, Paul knows this message is not his message. He's just the mail carrier for the King. He's delivering with borrowed authority. He recognizes that he's stewarding something that is not his.

And what is that message? He says it's the mystery of the Gospel. He says it was once hidden, but now it's revealed. See, in contrast to the mystics and the Gnostics who claimed salvation was for an elite group with secret knowledge or experience, Paul says the mystery is out. The lid has been taken off of this thing and God has made the Gospel clear and available to anyone who would believe.

He continues in verse 27, to them, God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery. What mystery? Christ in you, the hope of glory. See, Paul is pointing out that the Gospel is not just for the Jews, but also for the Gentiles. And it doesn't come from revelation to a few.

God has made the mystery known to everyone. And what are the riches of the glory of this mystery? He says it is Christ in you, the hope of glory. That's an incredible sentence. You just sat there with dull looks on your face.

He said, christ in you, the hope of glory. All up to this moment. Think about this. In the Bible, all up to this moment, it has all been about God with us. In Genesis, Adam and Eve walk with God in the garden.

All throughout the Old Testament, God says, if you will honor me and be my people, I will be your God and I will be with you. Jesus comes to the earth and he is Emmanuel, which means God with. Then later In John 13, Jesus tells his disciples, I will be with you for only a little longer. But now, now there is this brand new mysterious reality that's for all believers. Now, after the resurrection of Jesus, the Holy Spirit is available to not just live with us or on us, but in us.

This is explosive church. This changes everything. The Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit is in us who have made Jesus our Lord and Savior. Paul says it this way in Ephesians 1:13. He says in him, you also in Christ.

You also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him when were sealed with the promise of the Holy Spirit. This isn't just good news. This is foundational truth that changes the way that we live. Christ lives in you. That means his power is in you.

His presence, his righteousness has taken up residence in your life. You don't deserve that. I don't deserve that. And this is what's on offer. You've been sealed and marked as his, like a royal decree sealed with the signet ring of the king.

You've been stamped with the authority of heaven. Paul says it this way in Galatians 2:20. He says, I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live. But Christ lives in me the life I now live in the. The life I now live in the body I live by faith and in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

So if you're a believer, then Christ is in you. And him being in you is your hope of glory. What does that mean? Eternal restoration, reconciliation and life with Jesus. Romans 6:5.

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like His. But the reality, the beauty of this reality, it doesn't just stop there. Not only is Christ in you, but you are in Christ. Paul says in second Corinthians, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old is gone, the new is here.

And then it gets another layer deeper. Colossians 3. 3. We'll read this in just a few weeks. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ, in God the Father.

Like. Let your brain expand to this for just a moment. Christ is in you. You are in Christ, sealed with the Holy Spirit. And your life is now hidden inside of Christ, in God the Father, to the point that you no longer live, but Christ lives in you.

Clear right. This is exactly. This is exactly what Jesus prayed for in John 17. He's praying with his disciples, and he says, my prayer is not for them alone, for the disciples. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message.

That's us. That all of them may be one. Father, just as you are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one. I in them, and you in me.

Why so that they may be brought to complete unity. And then the world will know that you sent me and you have loved them, us, even as you have loved me. If you are a Christian, that's your reality. You are sealed by the Holy Spirit and this is mind blowing. You are one in complete unity with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

You don't just have a new identity because of Christ. Like, hey, I'm Josh, I know Jesus, so I get the seats in the front. This is not just an identity with Christ. Your identity is Christ. You are in Christ.

Christ is in you. The Holy Spirit is doing the sanctifying work of forming your physical, mortal body more and more into the likeness of Jesus. This is why we exist. This is resurrection life happening in you. Now that old Josh is dead, he's dead and gone.

And in his place is Christ. That's awesome. We should celebrate it. And yes, that means that we get to spend eternity in heaven with God. But don't you dare miss why Jesus and Paul say this matters.

Why is he in us at all? The whole point of all of this is so that the world may know that God sent Jesus and so that others may know of the message of the Gospel and others may get to experience this reality too. See, Paul fully understands this. And we continue. As we continue in Colossians, he brings us all the way down to answering this question.

Okay, now what? What do I do with all this information? Verse 28, him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present everyone mature in Christ. Maturity is not getting older in Christ. It is actually growing in likeness to Christ.

For this I toil. This is why I am working, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me. Paul says, if you are in Christ and Christ is in you, if the power of the Holy Spirit dwells richly inside you, the same very power, by the way, that raised Christ from the dead. If you are hidden with Christ in God the Father. There is only one response to this.

We must warn and teach others about this absolutely incredible reality. And Paul says he's toiling and struggling to make Christ known. Not to an elite group of people, but to everyone. But notice this really interesting language. Paul isn't struggling and toiling in his strength.

He says, for this I toil, struggling with all his energy. That's Christ that he powerfully works within me. My first car was a 1984 Toyota pickup truck. Two door, two wheel drive, no power, anything. It had 228,000 miles on it.

When I Got it. Okay. It has no electric windows, no power steering, no power brakes, and a manual transmission. If you're over the age of 50, you know what I'm talking about. Okay.

For everybody under the age of 30, there's a thing called a manual transmission. Okay? You push in the clutch and actually shift gear gears, all right? You gotta do some of the work. No power brakes means your foot is the power for the brakes.

Okay. More like a bicycle rather than a car. No power steering means it's a lot of work to steer the thing, especially if you're sitting still in a parking lot and you need to turn tight unless you're rolling forward. It's a lot of work. No power windows means there's this thing that you crank like this and the window comes down, and if you want it to go back up, you don't push a button, you crank this thing back up.

It is way more work. It was way more work to drive and function that car than it is to drive the car that I own today. However, there's this thing inside of that truck called an engine, and that's what actually does the real work. I just turned the key and started things. Okay?

This is similar to what Paul is saying here. He's saying, I am toiling and striving, but I just turn the key and show up. And Christ is doing the real work. It's his energy, it's his power that animates us. We just have to keep showing up.

Shift the gears, push the gas, push the brake, steer the truck. Now, I could preach another whole sermon just on that. I will someday. But we got to finish our text for today. Paul says him, we proclaim warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom.

That's a lot. Everyone, All. Everyone. Everyone that we may present everyone mature in Christ. What does that look like?

Why Paul? Well, he addresses that in Ephesians 4 so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. And until we can say that we have attained the whole measure of the fullness of Christ, until we can say that everyone in our home and everyone, everyone in our neighborhood, everyone in our workplace, everyone in our school, our city, and everyone on the earth has attained to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ, our work is not done. The work of Christians isn't just showing up to church. It's not singing nice songs and nodding in agreement while I say Nice things.

Our work as ambassadors of Christ every day, in every place, in every sphere of influence God has given us is to proclaim the good news of the Gospel of Jesus by making disciples who are maturing into the likeness of Christ, not in our power, but in his. And the only reason you're not out of your minds up out of your seats cheering is because you're scared to death.

Paul finishes this incredible run on sentence with this Colossians 2. 1. I want you to know how hard I am contending for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not met me personally. My goal is that 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 know the mystery of God, namely Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine sounding arguments.

For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit. And I delight to see how disciplined you are and how firm your faith in Christ is. Paul says you want to have special knowledge. It's all found in Christ. You want to have a special spiritual experience, it's all found in Christ.

There is no mystery, it's all been revealed in. In Christ. Paul says, don't get lost in the latest nonsense of the day, what he calls fine sounding arguments. In Greek this literally means persuasive speech, plausible or convincing ideas. For them it's mysticism, Jewish legalism and Gnosticism.

Today's fine sounding arguments are everywhere. Be true to yourself. All paths lead to God. You want to find your deepest truth? Look inside yourself and you will find it.

And whatever you find there, pursue that. Just be a good person. The rest will all shake out. Surely God wouldn't put good people in hell. God just wants you to be happy.

You can't talk to your neighbors about that. They will get weird and they will not look at you and they'll close their blinds and they'll go in their garage before you come out. You don't know the answers to this. You're not good enough. You're not strong enough.

They're going to ask you questions you don't know the answer to. And all these things claim to be wiser wisdom and truer truth, but they are all drugs to numb and blind our need for Christ and to numb and blind our recognition of everyone else's need for Christ. Lies. It's nonsense. So if you actually believe this, if you Actually believe this?

What are you going to do about it? We're not just saved to be saved. We are saved so that the life of Christ might be revealed in us and proclaimed through us. If Christ is in you, then the gospel must come out of you. Church let me land with this question.

Who is one person in your life who doesn't yet know the hope, the truth, the grace, and the love that you've experienced in Christ? At Whitewater, we've said that we want to be a church that makes more and better disciples of Jesus. And so who is your one more? Who's your one more? Our student ministry has been using this language for a long time.

They've called it their one life. We're joining them because this isn't just for students. This is for every believer in Christ. We each have a role to play in reaching at least one more. And so if you don't know who your one more is, that's your challenge.

That's your challenge this week. Get on your knees and pray and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you that one person, not that he wants you to do all the heavy lifting and all the work for, it's his work. His engine is what animates us. This is the one person that actually God has already gone ahead of you and prepared the way for you to present the gospel to them. We need to identify our one more.

How many more people could be walking in freedom and enjoying this sweet, eternal life in Christ if we would just know and pursue our one more? And if you know you're one more, but you're sitting back and instead of toiling and working, instead of turning the key, you're just crossing your fingers and going, I hope my neighbor of 27 years will eventually ask me of the hope that I have in Christ. It's not coming. Church. It's dependent on you.

Dependent on you. Your challenge is to believe that the same power that raised Christ from the dead is actually alive and at work in you, animating you forward in his strength. Church. Let's be a people who are not distracted, deceived, delayed, or blind. Let's be a people who proclaim him, who warn everyone, Paul says, who teach everyone.

Let's be a people who. Who burn bright not for our fame or our comfort, but so that the world may know that Jesus is alive, that he is Lord, that salvation is found in no one else, that we might get to heaven. And there are many more people there because of Whitewater Crossing Christian Church. And these people in this room listening Online. May that be true of us.

You know what drives our willingness or unwillingness to share the love of God with others? It's whether or not we recognize the fact that he loved us first. It's actually an overflow of his love for us and our gratitude for his love that fuels us and drives us to love others. How? By sharing the truth with them so that they can experience this love too.

If we're unwilling to do this, it proves that either we do not love them or we don't actually love him first. John 4 talks about this. It says, this is how God showed His love among us. He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him. This is love.

Not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Don't miss this. This is how we know that we live in him and he in us. Remember, that's the reality he has given us of His Spirit and we have seen and testify that the Father has sent His Son to be the Savior of the world. That's how you know you're in him and he's in you.

That you don't only see, but you testify. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. Jesus says this terrifying thing. He says, if you do not confess Me before men, I will not confess you before My Father.

This is the love that brings us here. This is the love that has pursued us, that we are pursuing and that we need to help others pursue. It's the love that we celebrate every week in communion when we gather together.