Colossians 1:24-2:5

The Church Needs To Mature

Colossians 1:24 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,

As Christians we rejoice in our sufferings for several reasons, and we just recently talked about how our sufferings are opportunities for individual growth and hope.

But here, Paul also mentions that he rejoices in his sufferings for a different reason: to fill up what was missing in Christ’s afflictions, and not for personal growth, but for the growth of others, for the church.

This begs a couple of question right off the bat. First of all, what does he mean by “that which is lacking in Christ’s afflictions”? Second, how could Paul’s suffering help the church?

Lets deal with the first question first: what does he mean by Christ’s afflictions lacking something? Well, here’s what it doesn’t mean: it doesn’t mean that Christ failed in any capacity in what he accomplished on Earth. It doesn’t mean that Christ’s affliction were pretty good, but they needed to be a little bit better in order to accomplish what he set out to do and so now its up to Paul and us to fill the gap.

It DOES mean that Christ had plans for what was going to happen after he finished his mission on Earth. It DOES mean that there is still work that needs to be done, and that Paul, and you and I, are going to be participating in that work.

You see, we tend to think of our own responsibility as not that important, if not completely irrelevant. We think of the Garden of Eden as a museum, and Adam and Eve just had to keep it the way it was and avoid messing anything up. In reality, that would have been a failure. God told them to fill it, multiply and be fruitful, work the ground and be mini Creators kind of like God was. They were supposed to be mini versions of Him.

Now, we also think of ourselves as Christians after Jesus as just waiting around until he comes back, but that would be a failure as well. Christ came and accomplished our salvation, but that salvation was still going to play itself out as the ripples from the cross swept across all of time.

In reality, after Christ accomplished his work, he looked at his disciples and told them to finish it in Matthew 28.

After Jesus perfectly accomplished everything that he intended to accomplish, he told his disciples that their job was to make disciples and to bring them into maturity.

Just like how Adam and Eve were supposed to be fruitful and fill the Earth after God created it, the disciples of Jesus are supposed to be fruitful and fill the Earth after Jesus recreated it.

The goal isn’t to sit around and try not to mess anything up like we’re living in a museum, but to be proactive and make disciples and then bring those disciples up into maturity.

The Word of God Brings About Maturity

But how are we supposed to finish the work of Christ? How do we even get started on something like that?

Colossians 1:25–26 (ESV)

Colossians 1:25–26 ESV

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.

The way that Paul was going to “fill up what was lacking in Christ’s afflictions” was going to be making the Word of God known to all people.

This is actually a good time for a fun fact that some may not know: do you ever wonder why we don’t add new books of the Bible, or why we have these books in the New Testament and not other ones? It’s because the books that we have in the New Testament are all written down by Apostles, men who were specifically sent out by Jesus to teach the world about himself and interpret the Word of God. So for one generation following the death of Jesus, we had a period of time where God entrusted the Apostles with the task of finishing the revelation of God to the world. Scripture is complete now, and we know everything that we will ever need to know.

The truth about God remained clouded and mysterious from Adam until Jesus showed up, and then Christ made everything known and sent his Apostles into the world to finish the teaching that he had given them.

So the maturity that we are looking for is found in Christ, and Christ is found primarily in the Word that has been made fully known to us.

Kind of like Paul, we have also received a similar call to make the word of God known to everyone. Even though we are not Apostles, our collective job as the church is to bring about the knowledge of Jesus Christ through the Word to everyone. Our job is to make disciples and to mature them as we help them to understand the mystery revealed in the Word of God.

And what is the primary message of this Word to us? What mystery has been made known?

Colossians 1:27–28 ESV

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.

The mystery is that Christ is in you! The mystery is that we have been unified to Christ, and so we have a relationship with God through him. Our relationship with God isn’t because of our own merit and likeability, our relationship with God is because of the grace of Jesus Christ being unified to sinners.

And as we understand this mystery further through the Word, we grow in our maturity as disciples.

And what does that look like?

It is Ultimately God Working Out Our Maturity