Colossians 1:24-29 - Rejoicing in the Struggle Part 1
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Introduction:
No one likes to struggle. I don’t think there are many statements more true than this one - especially in our society. Today, the word struggle is almost a curse word. We do everything in our power in modern America to make sure that we keep struggle as a minimum.
The old Staples commercials were the epitome of this ideal of easy in America. The thought of something being difficult in our culture seems to be one of the greatest fears we have!
Yet, despite our attempts to keep from struggle, they seem to hit us in the face day after day.
Financial struggles, relational struggles, health struggles, mental struggles, spiritual struggles, and many others seem to fly in our face.
COVID has proven to be a gigantic obstacle for many in this area of discussion. As we have discussed before, the amount of suicides, drug overdoses, and mental health disorders have skyrocketed throughout the pandemic.
The question we come to in a world that continues to struggle despite the vain attempts to avoid them is:
Knowing that struggles are going to come no matter what we do…How can we rejoice despite our struggles?
Today, Paul is going to encourage us regarding rejoicing in the struggle. He understood struggle far more than we ever could. Lets jump in and see what he has to say about this relevant issue for us today.
Join me as we read God’s Word:
24 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,
25 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,
26 the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints.
27 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.
28 Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ.
29 For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.
Let us pray.
Prayer
Today we are going to discuss the first three ways Paul teaches us in regards to rejoicing in our struggles. The first is...
I. You Can Rejoice in the Struggle By... Focusing on the Ministry (24-25)
I. You Can Rejoice in the Struggle By... Focusing on the Ministry (24-25)
24 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, 25 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,
Paul has just given an exhortation to the believers at Colossae to stand firm on the truth of the Gospel. He then goes on to discuss how he has had to stand firm and suffer on their behalf. Remember - he is currently in prison for spreading the Gospel!
Paul states that he rejoices in his sufferings. He had similar language in the book of Philippians as he spoke of joy time and time again throughout the epistle. This seems to be a bit off base doesn’t it? Who rejoices in their sufferings?
As we discussed in the introduction to this message - instead of rejoicing, most people do their best to flee from suffering.
Paul shows us here that those who have a high view of God rejoice in their sufferings.
Our view of God should be so high that any persecution we receive on His behalf should actually serve to encourage us. We see this shown in an incredible way in the early church as they suffered for Christ (Acts 5:40-41).
40 and when they had called in the apostles, they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. 41 Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name.
How amazing is that statement my friends? They rejoice because they were flogged for Christ!
Before getting into suffering for godliness, I think we must address suffering for ungodliness as well for a few moments.
Obviously some of our suffering is self-inflicted. Bad decisions regarding relationships, job choices, financial decisions, purchasing decisions, and life decisions can lead to negative consequences because of a sin issue in our own lives. These need to be repented of and the consequences may still come despite your turning from your sin. These types of sufferings are extremely difficult to handle as they are not externally caused but instead caused by own failings.
But remember, our God is a merciful God and will take what is evil and turn it into good (Genesis 50:20).
Chuck Colson was one such man who understood the mercy of God in a mighty way despite suffering some earthy consequences from his bad decisions. I am currently finishing a biography of his by Owen Strachan called The Colson Way.
This man was notoriously known as the axe man for President Nixon. He ended up serving some time in jail due to his connection with this administration and the Watergate scandal. The consequences of his bad decisions led to a bad outcome - prison. Yet, God took this and saved his soul. Even prior to his trial he ended up becoming a born again believer.
Later, after being released from prison, he eventually started a ministry called Prison Fellowship that reaches throughout the world to minister to prisoners with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Although he did suffer the consequence of prison and the social stigmas that would follow him even after it was over, God used it to restore and mature this broken man. And God used it to bring glory to His name.
Getting back to our scripture today, we see that suffering is to be embraced when it is for Christ.
24 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,
What kind of suffering is Paul referring to here? Paul had suffered countless sufferings. He had been flogged, shipwrecked, stoned, among others. Currently he is in prison for sharing the Gospel! As he writes this letter he is suffering for their sake. He did all of this so that Christ may be glorified and so that unbelievers could hear about Jesus and experience a saving faith.
The next phrase has been a difficult phrase for many commentators. He states that in his flesh, he is filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of the church.
This is where we see Paul rejoicing in his suffering because he is focused on his ministry. He is focused on the church and the salvation of others and the glorification of Christ rather than his imprisonment.
But how does Paul add to the afflictions of Christ?
First off, we see that this does not mean that Christ’s death on the cross was insufficient. Jesus let us know that the work was completed right before He died on the cross as He said…John 19:30
30 When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
Hebrews 1:3 as well as many other Scriptures also add to this understanding:
3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,
Christ made complete purification for sins and now is at the right hand of the Father. Nothing further is needed to forgive sins. The work of Christ is completely sufficient for the forgiveness of sins. No works done by us add to the salvific work of Christ.
Second, we see that the Greek word for affliction, thlipsis (thleep-sees), is never actually used in the New Testament in regards to the suffering of Christ.
So what does Paul mean when when he says that he is filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of the church?
Paul wants the church in Colossae to know that he suffers persecution that is intended for Christ. He does not add to the salvific work of Christ. But he does bear on his body the marks and blows intended for Christ.
17 From now on let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus.
He suffered for Christ and he suffered for the body of Christ - namely the church. Commentator Sam Storms teaches that Paul played no role in the propitiation (meaning appeasement of the wrath of God) but instead played a role in the presentation of the Gospel. Paul, through his sufferings, presented the Gospel in real form to the Colossians through his sacrificial suffering for the sake of the church.
25 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,
Moving forward to verse 25, Paul recalls his personal calling to be a minister. This Greek word for minister here means servant. Those who minister to God’s church should be servant leaders. It is not my job as a pastor to rule in dictatorial fashion. Pastors are to lead as Christ led. Sacrificial yet bold. Loving yet full of truth. Paul did just this.
Pastor Travis of Good Shepherd Baptist - the church that helped start our church here at CrossPointe - tells a story about him going to Adrian Rodgers church a couple of decades ago. The late Pastor Rodgers was a huge personality and force in the SBC at the time and his church was large and his influence was broad. He said that Pastor Rodgers was walking in front of him and there was a candy wrapper in the parking lot in front of Rodgers. Rodgers stooped down, picked it up, and threw it in the trash on the way in the building. That is how pastors should be. Never too good or important to serve the church body.
The next word we see here is stewardship. He is given stewardship from God for the church in Colossae. This word means household management or administration. He was to help manage and administrate over the church along with Epaphras. As we will see in a couple of weeks, he took this very seriously as he addressed false teachings.
As we come to the end of verse 25, I love the last phrase here. To make the word of God fully known. Fully known. Brothers and sisters, this is a desire of mine for you all as well. I want to preach and proclaim the Word of God so that we can fully know it. I realize that we won’t ever know everything on this side of eternity. But I want us to have a firm grasp on the major doctrines of Scripture. I want us to have a high view of God and His Word. I want us to seek to know Christ by knowing His Word.
Each of us can rejoice even in the midst of our struggles by focusing on the ministry - focusing on serving the Lord Jesus Christ. We can also rejoice in the struggle by...
Scripture References: Genesis 3, Acts 5:40-41, Genesis 50:20, John 19:30, Hebrews 1:3, Galatians 6:17
II. You Can Rejoice in the Struggle By… Focusing on the Mystery (26-27)
II. You Can Rejoice in the Struggle By… Focusing on the Mystery (26-27)
26 the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. 27 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.
Everyone likes a good mystery right? There are a bunch of clues to follow in order to find out the answer to the mystery. My wife and I were able to do a mystery dinner theater thing one time and it was a load of fun to try to figure out “who done it” as they say.
Well, there is a mystery that is seen throughout the Old Testament.
Right after the fall of man, God makes a promise in Genesis 3:15:
15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
We call this the proto-evangelium - meaning first Gospel. It was a promise of a deliverer to right the wrong that Adam and Eve’s sin had caused.
Moving forward, we see Abraham told by God that all of the nations of the earth would be blessed through his offspring (Genesis 22:18). This is a mystery because it seems like only Israel, for the most part, is blessed by God as they are God’s chosen people in the Old Testament.
This mystery grows even more deeply in Ezekiel 36:26:
26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
How is God going to do this? What does this mean?
Isaiah 53 speaks of a suffering servant who would take on man’s sin.
This suffering servant would provide salvation to the ends of the earth per Isaiah 49:6:
6 he says: “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”
All of these and many, many more speak of a mystery to be revealed.
Praise be to God that today we have an answer to this mystery. We know “who done it!” Jesus Christ done it! Pardon my West Virginia sounding English!
The mystery is that Jesus Christ would take on our sin, thereby defeating the dividing wall of hostility between man and God (Ephesians 2:14).
We were enemies of God, like we discussed last week. But Jesus Christ took on our sin and took on the wrath of God for sin in His body. Now we are forgiven if we only repent of our sins and place our faith in Jesus Christ alone for salvation. This is such wonderful news.
And the next part of this mystery is found in these verses in Colossians chapter 1 as well.
26 the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. 27 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.
In order to understand these two verses more thoroughly, I have come up with three R’s that relate to understanding this mystery.
The Reconciler of the Mystery - Christ Provides Salvation.
The Reach of the Mystery - To All of the World.
The Result of the Mystery - The Hope of Glory - The Indwelling Holy Spirit Who Seals the Believer and Guarantees Eternal Life with Christ.
Brothers and sisters, as we go through the struggles in this life, we can focus on this wonderful revealed mystery in our lives to help us rejoice even in the midst of our sufferings. We have been reconciled to God through Christ. We who were once far off have been brought near to Christ through His sacrificial death on the cross. And the result of this is not only eternal life which is amazing - but we have God with us always - indwelling us as born-again believers through His Holy Spirit. We can rejoice that God walks with us everywhere we go.
Lastly we can rejoice in the struggle by...
Scripture References: Genesis 3:15, Genesis 22:18, Ezekiel 36:26, Isaiah 53, Isaiah 49:6, Ephesians 2:14
III. You Can Rejoice in the Struggle By… Focusing on Maturity (28-29)
III. You Can Rejoice in the Struggle By… Focusing on Maturity (28-29)
28 Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. 29 For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.
Paul uses some key words in verses 28 and 29. The goal of all of these words is to present everyone mature in Christ. What does it mean to be mature in Christ?
First off, we need to understand what the Greek word for mature means here. The word is teleios (tell-ee-ose) which means complete, perfect, genuine, whole, or mature. This is actually the same Greek word that Jesus used in Matthew 5:48 that we mentioned last week.
48 You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
When used, this word oftentimes means perfect and complete. In this context we see that the goal of Christian growth is to get to that point. Yet we also know that while on earth this will not come to fruition. We should continue growing toward being like Christ - but we need to always remember that we won’t be transformed and perfected until after death.
As true believers, we will, after death, be presented perfectly through the blood of Christ and His imputed righteousness. But how do we grow in maturity as we walk on earth?
Paul shows us some steps on how to encourage maturity.
HOW TO ENCOURAGE MATURITY
The Word of God Must Be Proclaimed in Two Ways:
1. Negatively
2. Positively (for slide)
- Warning (Greek noutheteō (new-tha-tay-o) - meaning to admonish, to correct, to reprove, to instruct, and to encourage.
- This is something that does not happen as much as it needs to in our churches. This is the difficult part of ministry. This is where ministry steps on toes. This is what is happening when I preach and people start shifting in their seats a bit! It isn’t the cuddly type of proclaiming. It is calling out sin and instructing and encouraging people to get back on track. It is convicting preaching. As difficult as this type of preaching is, we need to be taught under such preaching. We cannot grow unless our sin is dealt with.
2. Positively
- Teaching (Greek didaskō (di-dask-o) - Teaching truth is a proactive and positive way. This Greek word refers to the expository preaching of the Word of God.
- This is the open teaching of the Word of God proactively. Note that Paul started by breaking down the bad thinking and problems and then built on teaching the positive doctrines. We must clear our lives of faulty thinking that is congruent with culture before we can build our lives on the truth. That is why it necessary to repent of your sins in order to become a true believer. We don’t just add Christ to our lives - we completely hand over our lives and turn from our sin and then turn to Christ.
- Sadly, many pastors won’t preach the hard things. They shy away from teaching on things that are controversial in our culture today. They focus on positive teaching and never negative teaching. This is why we focus on expositional book-by-book preaching through the Bible at CrossPointe. It keeps us from skipping over the hard parts of Scripture. We must address it as it comes. Many churches today embrace cherry-picked topical sermons that are Biblically weak and culturally strong. These are the kinds that attract a large crowd because they are not convicting or life-changing. And this weak preaching leads to a growth deficiency among their churches. This type of weak preaching also leads to a deficiency is wisdom which is addressed in verses 28-29.
28 Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. 29 For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.
Paul encourages us to learn with all wisdom. Wisdom is using knowledge in the right way. We can teach all kinds of truths to our congregation, but it may or may not lead to wisdom. True wisdom comes from knowing the whole counsel of the Word of God. We must not cherry-pick only the easy sections or allow modern pastors to take certain verses out of context to fit their own agenda. We must find true wisdom through the whole counsel of God.
Finally we get to verse 29 where Paul lets us know where we get the ability to rejoice in our struggles and continue ministering for the Lord. All of our strength and energy comes from Christ. Note that Paul doesn’t finish this section saying that he does all of this work because of his natural abilities and talents. Or he does all this work because of superior linguistic skills and intelligence. Yes, God does gift people with different abilities. But it is only through the power of Christ that we can do what He has called us to. And it is only by the power of Christ that we can do what He has called us to while still rejoicing in the struggle.
This word struggle is agōnizomai (ah-go-neese-a-may) which is where we get the English word agonize. It is usually used as the straining, contending, or agonizing of an athlete who is competing. It is a fight and struggle. It is striving even when you feel like giving up. Paul even uses the word toil right before this. It is hard work.
Living the Christian life is hard work my friends. There are plenty of struggles that come along with following Christ. You may be slandered, persecuted, left out, cast aside, or demeaned. Your mind might be sorrowful and hurting but your spirit can still rejoice even in the midst of the struggle.
Scripture References: Matthew 5:48, Galatians 5:22-23
Conclusion:
As we come to a close there is an important question that I’m sure you are asking yourself.
In light of all of the struggles that I am facing, how is this possible? How is it possible to maintain rejoicing when things are a struggle?
Because of the work of Jesus Christ in you. He gifts us with the fruit of the Spirit that we see in Galatians 5:22-23
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
One of these is joy - which is the root word for the word rejoice. We are able to rejoice even in our struggles because we have hope for tomorrow. We know who empowers us. We know that He will not leave us for forsake us.
So as life throws us curve ball after curve ball - rejoice in your Savior by...
Focusing on ministry - focus on what Christ is doing through you. Rejoice that He is still working even today.
Focusing on the mystery - continually remind yourself of salvation in Jesus Christ. We work from a position of victory - despite how things might look or how we feel.
Focusing on maturity - take a step back and see how the struggles lead to growth in your walk with Christ. And then focus on serving Him by proclaiming His Word to others to help them grow in maturity and wisdom.
Focusing on the Ministry
Focusing on the Mystery
Focusing on Maturity
Let us pray.
Prayer
If you would like to learn more about salvation through Jesus Christ or want to obey Jesus by obeying the first commandment of a believer in going through the waters of baptism - please let me know.
Have a blessed week.