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Remember Who(se) You Are (Part Six) “A Mystery Revealed” Colossians 1:24-29 |
February 12, 2006 Pastor Tom Marcum |
Are you familiar with the names “Penn and Teller?” Penn and Teller are professional illusionists who have been dazzling people with unusual tricks and stunts for the past 25 years. Part of their appeal lies in the fact that after they have tricked you into thinking that you’ve just witnessed something that can’t possibly have happened, they then tell you exactly how they did the trick.
This past November, Penn and Teller, had a 2-hour special on prime time TV, the highlight of which was making an 800-ton submarine disappear without a trace. Filmed in the crystal clear waters of the Caribbean the illusion played out like this.
A submarine was submerged in about 60 feet of water and 100 scuba diving eyewitnesses, each with a video camera, sat on the ocean floor completely encircling the massive submarine. Teller, who remains mute throughout all of their performances, was sitting, silently atop the submarine in a business suit. As the eyewitnesses begun to film the submarine from every conceivable angle, a screen of bubbles began to slowly rise up from the ocean floor engulfing the submarine and as the volume of bubbles increased, the submarine became more and more obscured until it finally disappeared from view altogether. All you could see at this point was a wall of bubbles…where once there had been a submarine…but even the wall of bubbles was still completely surrounded by cameras.
After about a minute the volume of bubbles began to slowly decrease and once they had decreased to the point that you could actually see through them, sure enough, the submarine was gone. Completely gone. The only thing left was Teller, who appeared to be looking for his missing submarine. One hundred eyewitnesses, pointing one hundred video cameras at one 800 ton submarine—and now all that was left was 100 very perplexed eyewitnesses.
At this point Penn appeared on the screen. He was standing on a boat dock and he said, “If you want to remain in the dark and don’t want to understand this mystery, turn off your TV right now because in 10 seconds I’m going to make the mystery go away and explain to you exactly how we did this.” And then he counted down from 10 and as he reached the 3-second mark the camera began to slowly turn away from Penn out to the ocean where a very unusual sight came into view—an 800-ton submarine suspended 100’ in the air, beneath 4 massive military helicopters that had just lifted it straight up and out of the water.
Mystery revealed.
So, what in the world do a couple of zany illusionists have to do with the weekly journey that we’re taking through the book of Colossians, these days? The answer is—mystery. Or, more specifically, a mystery revealed. Our text today lifts the veil to reveal the incredible truth behind the most amazing mystery of all; a truth that is at the very heart of God’s plan for your life and God’s plan for mine.
Our text is Colossians 1:24-29. Let’s read straight through the text and then we’ll work our way back through it, making some strategic stops along the way. As we read, keep your eye out for that word, “mystery.” Beginning at verse 24 we read:
(24) “Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church. (25) I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness—(26) the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints. (27) 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.
(28) We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. (29) To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me.”
Mystery Revealed—Christ in You
Paul is writing here about the ministry to which God has called him. He’s describing the work that God has given him to do. And those of you who have studied the scriptures know that the scope of Paul’s ministry was fairly broad—apostle, church planter, evangelist, missionary, pastor, preacher and teacher. And here he’s speaking to the preaching/teaching aspect of his ministry. More specifically, he’s describing the content of the message that God has called him to declare and in verses 26-27 he describes his message as a “mystery.” Let’s talk for a moment about that word, “mystery.”
In the New Testament, the word “mystery,” is used to describe a truth that cannot be figured out solely by human logic and reason, but rather can only be understood when God chooses to make it known. In other words, a “mystery” is a truth that would remain hidden from us forever, had God not chosen to lift the veil and let us in on it. And that’s exactly the point that Paul is making in verses 26-27 when he speaks of, “…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…”
A treasure of inestimable value…a treasure bursting with “glorious riches”…has been kept hidden for ages and God has now chosen to reveal it to us. And He reveals it in just three words—“Christ in you.”
“Christ in you.” Through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ actually takes up residence and comes to dwell, not merely among his people, but actually in His people. Christ in you.
If you’ve missed the previous weeks of this study, the full weight of that announcement may not have settled on you yet. But, folks, if you’ve been with us as we have worked through the preceding 23 verses of this chapter and pondered the scope of all that God has told us about the identity and supremacy of Christ, it is nothing short of mind-boggling to imagine that Christ would come and live in us.
In his commentary on the book of Colossians, Maxie Dunham weaves insights from the first 23 verses of the book into this reflection on the meaning of “Christ in you.” He writes, “The clue to the whole Christian experience, the core of the Gospel, is that Christ, by whom and through whom all things were created, who is before all things and in all things, in whom God was pleased for all His fullness to dwell, the firstborn over all creation, the image of the invisible God; this Christ who has primacy over all things, in whom all things hold together, who is the head of the church—this Christ, who will stand at the end of time and be the final judge and triumphal Lord—(this Christ) lives in us by the Holy Spirit.”
“Christ in you.” This is the hidden treasure that God has now made known to us. And our first glimpse of the “glorious riches” found in this treasure is seen in these words at the end of verse 27, “the hope of glory.” “Christ in you—the hope of glory.” What that means, folks, is that…
…our confidence in the completion of our salvation;
…our confidence that God will finish the work He has started in us;
…our confidence that God will one day in the future welcome us into our eternal home with Him in heaven is built upon the abiding presence of Christ who has already come to live in us, today.
Folks, what an incredible blessing this is for us not just some day in the future but in the daily living of our lives right here and right now. We can live each and every day with a spirit of confidence and certainty, because our “hope” for “glory”—that is, the completion of God’s good work in us does not depend upon our ability to hold on to God but upon the ability of Christ who lives in us to carry us home to our Father.
Commissioned to Spread the Good News
So, this is the message that God gave Paul to declare to all people. In fact, in verse 25 he says that God gave him a “commission”… “to present the word of God in its fullness…”
That word, “commission,” conveys two basic ideas.
--It means, on the one hand, that Paul felt incredibly privileged to have been given such a glorious assignment. What a blessing to be commissioned by God to spread the Good News of Christ in you.
--It also means that Paul received this “commission” as a sacred trust. He was accountable to God to be a good steward of this assignment. This privilege brought an awesome responsibility to be faithful to his calling.
And he was faithful. And all of these generations later you and I have now become the blessed recipients of this mystery revealed. The good news of Christ in us. The good news that God does not save us to bind us to a bunch of religious rules and regulations, but rather that God saves us to set us free to discover the joy of moving through each and every day of our lives in a personal relationship with God through the abiding presence of His own Son in us. And those who have received the good news are immediately commissioned to share the good news. And that means that what was true for Paul is also true for those of us who rightly understand that nature of this commission.
What an incredible privilege God has given us in calling us to share, with those who don’t yet know about it, something as precious as the life-changing, destiny-determining reality of “Christ in you.” At the same time, this incredible privilege places into our hands the awesome responsibility to be found faithful in our calling.
Commissioned to Suffer
And we ought not have any delusions about this being an easy calling. It is not. In fact, Paul’s word to us is that faithfulness in this calling will undoubtedly lead to suffering. Listen, again, to what he says in verse 24. “Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church.”
Paul gives us 3 great insights here into the suffering that accompanies faithful service to God.
First, we suffer for the sake of others. Paul says here that he suffered, “for you” and “for the sake of…the church.” Folks, that’s an important word for us to hear, because we can find great encouragement to continue steadfast and faithful to our calling even through the most difficult of times as we trust that God is accomplishing Kingdom purposes through our difficulties…that God is blessing others through our suffering.
Second, our sufferings continue and expand the ministry of Christ. That’s the point that Paul is making in the middle of verse 24 when he says, “...I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions…” Paul is not suggesting here that Jesus’ death on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins was somehow lacking so that we need to add some of our own suffering to make his suffering complete. That’s not the point. What’s “still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions…” is our willingness to suffer to continue the ministry that Christ began. In his commentary on Colossians, Curtis Vaughan says it like this, “The church is built up by repeated acts of self-denial in successive individuals and successive generations.” Our faithfulness in service, even at the cost of personal sacrifice and suffering, continues the ministry of Christ.
Finally, the third insight that Paul gives us here is that the suffering that comes from faithful service to God is a source of joy. Paul says here that, “I rejoice in what was suffered for you…” Now, notice that he didn’t say that suffering was fun. Paul’s not a masochist. But what Paul discovered is that the sufferings he endured because of his faithful service to God were, in fact, a source of deep, profound and thoroughly satisfying joy.
--Joy in the knowledge that our suffering is being used by God to bless someone else.
--Joy in the knowledge that our suffering binds us to every other believer who has faithfully served God down through the ages.
--Joy in the knowledge that our suffering identifies us, in a very special way, with our Lord who suffered for us even to the point of death.
Empowered by Christ
And as hard as this word about suffering is for us to hear it’s so important for us to hear it, because if we run from the suffering we will miss one of the very best parts of this revealed mystery. And that is that what God calls us to do, He also empowers us to do by the power of Christ in us.
That’s Paul’s point in verse 29 where he says, “To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me.” Faithful service to God is hard. It’s a struggle. And it will wear us out and expose our weaknesses. But we don’t labor in our own strength. What God calls us to do, He also empowers us to do by the power of Christ in us. And for that reason we are most effective in our service to God not when we are at our best, but when we are most dependent upon Him. As Paul says in Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Christ who gives me His strength.”
Folks, a mystery hidden for ages and generations has now been revealed to us. Don’t miss it. And the mystery is this—God’s passionate desire for you is not that you will experience religion…experience ritual…or, experience rules and regulations. God’s passionate desire for you is that you will experience Him through the presence of Christ in you. Don’t settle for anything less.
© Copyright 2006 Pastor Tom Marcum