The Believer's Struggle

Colossians 1:24–2:5 ESV

Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me. For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments. For though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ.

Scripture: Colossians 1:24-2:5

Sermon Title: The Believer’s Struggle

           Our passage today connects back to what we heard in the beginning of this chapter. There we heard Paul express his gratitude to God for how the gospel had really set in among these people, how it was growing, and that they would live a life pleasing to and worthy of the Lord. The main verb, or action word, related to Paul was “praying;” he prayed for these believers. Today, as you can probably guess, a different verb comes out. In the NIV, we’ll hear two words that tie together—

“suffering,” in verse 24, and then in verse 29 and in chapter 2 verse 1, “struggling.”

           Brothers and sisters in Christ, when I was at Dordt, if you weren’t on a sports’ team, you were required to complete a certain amount of health and physical education courses. One of the ones I chose was a weightlifting course. Our professor, the strength and conditioning coach for the football team, put together an individualized program for each of us, and throughout that semester we had to come to the weight room and work out.

I remember seeing a sign on the wall which summarized the words of motivational speaker and entrepreneur Jim Rohn. The sign said something to the extent, “There are two kinds of pain: the pain of discipline and the pain of regret.” Whether the person reading those words was a Dordt athlete, trying to put on as much muscle as they could, or just a normal student or community member trying to get in shape or be fit, that encouraged us to endure the pain of disciplining our bodies with training, to not give up even when it gets hard or hurts.

           To be a great athlete, raw, natural talent only takes you so far. You’ve got to put in the work—you have to practice and train and study. You need both a good mind and a strong body. If you watched the Olympics, that was on display. There are always certain sports that a person can look at it and say, “That doesn’t look too hard, anyone could do that.” Yet even those athletes have trained more than we can even imagine. But if you watch long-distance running, swimming, or biking; in the winter Olympics, cross-country skiing and speedskating events, those athletes are in pain when they compete. Most, if not all, of their breathing is so labored as they near the end. They collapse shortly after the finish line. They need ice and all sorts of good recovery practices. If they’re in multiple competitions, they need time between them. They suffer and struggle to compete; their bodies are capable, they’ve prepared, but it’s not easy. I imagine some kind of message similar to those words in the Dordt weight room echo in many of their minds. They do this, they put themselves through all this, because they would rather be disciplined in their efforts than regret not doing it at all.  

           We start there this morning, because the word we find translated “struggling” at the end of chapter 1 and beginning of chapter 2, is a word related to physical exertion. Elsewhere in the New Testament, it’s translated opposition, fight, and race. In 1 Corinthians 9:25 this word is translated as one who competes in athletic events. As far as I know, no one has determined whether Paul was a great athlete, but he applies some of that imagery—what a disciplined athlete goes through—to his work as a missionary.

           Let’s look at our first point this morning: why was Paul struggling and suffering? Going back to chapter 1 verse 24 as well as chapter 2 verse 1, he was struggling for the Colossians and the Laodiceans. Those were believers in a nearby city. The end of chapter 4 tells us this letter was to also be passed onto them. The answer to why he’s struggling and suffering, though, is “for the sake of [Christ’s] body, which is the church.” Paul was a servant by God’s commissioning “to present to [them] the word of God in its fullness…We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ.” How does he do this? Only because Christ gives him energy; God enables him to do this.

           Paul’s calling was to go and minister to people across the ancient world. The church had its roots, its base, in Jerusalem, but even then, Jesus and the Twelve disciples had taken it around Judea, Samaria, and Galilee. Paul came along persecuting the church, which scattered the believers. They were displaced. They left their homelands to go elsewhere. But when Jesus converted Paul, what did the Lord tell Ananias? Acts 9:15 and 16, “…‘Go! This man [Paul/Saul] is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.’” It doesn’t seem too big of a stretch to say God was giving Paul what he deserved. He had sown persecution and suffering, so now he would minister in suffering. His life became full of that. From Jerusalem “to the ends of the earth” that he traveled to and preached in, he was threatened, beaten, stoned, left for dead, he went back to Jerusalem knowing he’d be arrested and may never be free again. Paul gave up his comfort, his freedom, his power, by following Christ and taking up God’s call.

           What does he mean in verse 24, though, that “…[He] fills up in [his] flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions”? Theologian Norman Geisler offers this comment, “By this he did not mean that Christ’s suffering on the cross was insufficient. He was speaking not of salvation but of service. Christ’s suffering alone procures salvation. But it is a believer’s privilege to suffer for Christ.” There is no greater calling, no greater life’s purpose than sharing about Jesus. How can I or we name it as the greatest thing? Because that is the greatest act of love we can do for others—to reveal him who offers all that’s necessary for salvation. When we looked at Nahum a little while back, we also heard about Jonah. In Jonah’s case, God told him specifically where he wanted him to go and exactly what he wanted him to do. Paul fits that mold. Whatever it took, whatever came against him, he had to do this. He was in service to others for the Lord. Any struggle or suffering was worth it—not so that he could boast, but he did this with the help of God.

           Let’s move to our next point, which takes up the title of our sermon, what is the believer’s struggle? By that I mean, what is our struggle? We shouldn’t take what Paul was called to and what he went through as a blanket statement. If we, personally or corporately, don’t face violent persecution—as the early church did, as Paul and Peter and John, and, of course, as Jesus did—if we don’t face violent persecution like them or like believers in other parts of the world today, that doesn’t mean we have to question the legitimacy of our faith and salvation. But we shouldn’t be surprised if there is struggle and hardship and suffering in our lives of faith and in our churches.

           We are living in an interesting time in our country, and what many would probably identify as home. For many of us, we’ve had an expectation for much of our lives that the culture around us respected Christianity and the church, respected and observed the things of God. We’ve thought all Christians and all churches have differences, but we’re on the same page enough. With all that, we felt we had such a place of privilege in society that would not change.

Yet over the last several decades, things that some assumed were untouchable have been chipped away. Things like prayer in schools, things like businesses and stores and restaurants being closed on Sundays, a time when it felt like everyone attended weekly worship, the illegality of abortion wasn’t to be questioned, matters around marriage and sexuality—those have always been this way and always will be. Yet times have changed, people have changed, culture and assumptions have changed—some rather slowly, others very quickly. I think more and more people connect other changes or what get termed the loss of certain rights to a matter of faith when it’s probably more a matter of change. We don’t like change. Maybe we don’t want any more change. We don’t want to give up another piece of things that we thought were ours and would stand the test of time.

           Some look at all this, maybe even some of us, and we claim: we’re being persecuted. Are we, though? Are we Christians in Baldwin and the rest of St. Croix County, Wisconsin, United States of America, truly being persecuted? The changing or shifting of cultural acceptances and ideals does make Christians stand out more, but are we actually being harmed? Are things being done to eradicate us and our ability to worship? Currently, I would say no. There’s a difference between hardship and persecution. It’s more accurate to say we are facing hardship.

Looking at Scripture, that’s not a bad thing. Our struggle as believer’s is not to get rid of hardship, but our struggle as believers is to understand how to address it. Because we’re people who like to do something, one way to address struggle is what we find in Ephesians 6:11 through 13. Paul writes, “Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.”

We as individual Christians and we as the body, the church, need to be prepared for a battle and an enemy that we can’t necessarily see. We’re not seeing clearly enough when we just name politicians or certain pastors or groups of people, and we declare them to be what’s wrong. No, if the world around us is going away from God—who is really behind that? It’s the evil one. What we’re called to do is to stand firm in the Lord against not just people, not just pawns, but against the devil and his forces. We’re to stand with God’s truth, his righteousness, his gospel, the faith we have, the helmet of salvation, and the Holy Spirit through the Word of God. We fight lies and rebellion by living graciously in the truth of what God has already given us.   

Another way to look at this is with Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 1. “For just as the sufferings of Christ flow into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.”

When we face trials, sufferings, and hardships of faith, the answer is not just to seek pity or get angry. We must remember where our comfort and strength are. There are other believers, who have been through this before, and God has cared for them and sustained them. The greatest of those is our Savior—when we face hardship, remember so did he, and he endured it, even unto death. He didn’t turn away; he called on his Father, not someone else. You and I are to do the same and point others to him as well. The answer to a broken world is not just to get scream and try fixing all the things we think are bad. We must turn to the one who reconciles all things to himself.

Finally, what are we holding onto in this struggle? The answer shouldn’t surprise any of us: it’s Christ. Chapter 2 verses 2 through 4, “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 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.”

           One of the things we haven’t covered yet is what you might find scholars refer to as the Colossian heresy. It’s evident that these believers were facing people who tried to teach them and lead them a different way, that there was more for them to know and without knowing it, they weren’t really believers. Why has Paul been so detailed about the person and work of Christ? So that these Christians would not be deceived. What they had been taught as the core of their faith and inheritance—what matters most is Christ. The key to unlocking wisdom and understanding from God about life, salvation, about everything is Jesus Christ. There’s nowhere else to look!

           I’m not going to rehash every detail, but we’ve heard Paul’s message about Jesus as the Redeemer. His death reconciles us and makes us holy to God. We’ve heard about his supremacy, his preeminence, over creation, the church, and the life to come. Jesus Christ is the God-sent Savior and Lord. Next week, we’ll get even more into this from the Jewish practice of circumcision and religious traditions—what’s really necessary to be saved. But for now, what matters most, what believers must not lose sight of, whether going through a time of comfort and ease or persecution or hardship is Christ and not just him out there doing stuff, but “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

           I began this message talking about two pains—the pain of discipline and the pain of regret. What motivates an athlete, what pushes them to keep going in training or competition despite what they’re enduring is how they can do it. The Christian athlete, but even more, the Christian life has a different motivation. Genuine believers know what satisfies, what gives hope, what comforts, strengthens, causes us to persevere is the One who lives in us. We can’t serve God and ourselves. We can’t go through life putting ourselves first, thinking we know best, doing things our way—that is our nature, though—to try that, to be independent.

Yet those cherished words in Romans 8, “…In all things God works for the good of those,” are not followed by “those who do their best, who follow their heart, who lean on their own strength, who fight for their ideals.” No, “…In all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.” Brothers and sisters, our struggles are not ours to face or handle alone. They are real, yet we depend on the one in whom we have believed. Amen.