Grace Evangelical Free Church // Wyoming, MN

Colossians 2:1-5 –

1 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, 2 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, 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 4 I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments. 5 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. 

In our passage for this morning, Paul continues to describe how hard he worked to bring the Word of God to bear in the lives of others.  He did so because he loved them and because he believed with all he had that God’s Word is so precious and powerful and transformative that sharing it with the world is worth every ounce of energy he had.  

He also did so because he knew that where God’s Word is taught in truth and received in faith, there is the treasure of encouragement, love, assurance, joy, and unity.  Conversely, he did so because he also knew that wherever competing claims have taken hold, there is the misery of discouragement, division, doubt, corrosion, ignorance, and death.    

The big idea of the sermon is that hard work for the things of God is a feature, not a flaw of a godly life.  Predictably, the main takeaway is to learn to understand and love God and His Word such that we’re compelled to work hard at living it out for the sake of the world.  

Moms, this isn’t anything like an ordinary Mother’s Day message, but I think you’ll find a good deal of clarity and hope for the hard work of your mothering in this passage and message.

I wonder, what is the hardest you’ve ever worked?  Have you ever felt like you were truly at the end of yourself on a physical level; like you worked so hard, you were on the verge of collapse?  

Similarly, what’s the longest you’ve worked the hardest for?  Have you ever worked really hard for days, months, or years for something?

And probably most importantly, what kinds of things have you determined are worth working your hardest for?  What have you found to be valuable enough to work at with significant sacrifice and to the point of exhaustion?

For the most part, our current cultural mindset seems to be that the main things worth working hard at are avoiding hard work and worldliness.  But that’s a different sermon for a different day.  My point here is to draw your attention to the Apostle Paul’s hard work, and especially what he worked hard for.  

Previously, we saw that Paul toiled and struggled to bring the gospel to everyone (1:29).  In our passage, he picks up where he left off.  You may remember that the Greek word translated “toil” indicates working to near exhaustion.  And if you remember that, you probably also remember that the Greek word for “struggle” is even more severe still.  To struggle in that sense is to work past exhaustion to the point of agony.  

Consider then Paul’s new modifier, “For I want you to know how great a struggle I have…”.  He worked past the point of exhaustion, past the point of agony, to the point of great/excruciating agony.  

As I mentioned last week, that included ~10,000 miles of foot and water travel, preaching, teaching, debating, counseling, negotiating, rebuking, disciplining, encouraging, writing, tentmaking (he was bi-vocational), and all without a home base, without much sleep, often without food and water, with constant persecution and regular imprisonments, and all of that continually for ~30 years.  

We know from this letter (beginning right at the beginning and all the way to the end) that his primary work for others was prayer.  His great struggle took the form of nearly constant prayer for his readers.  

Twice already, Paul has made it clear that God strengthened him for that work, but that wasn’t apart from Paul’s great struggle.

We’ll come back to who and what it was that Paul greatly struggled for in a bit, but for now, two things…

First, not everything is worth working this hard for, but there most certainly are things that are.  We all need to have a category for things worth working towards until we have nothing left.  As long as we live in this fallen, broken, cursed, and largely disordered world, and as long as we live under the dominion mandate, the Great Commandment, and the Great Commission, there will be things we need to pour ourselves out for (“as a drink offering” (Philippians 2:17)), both physically and spiritually.  

In this world, God’s design is leisure for work, not work for leisure.  The rhythm of creation is 6 days of labor and one day of rest.  And while we aim at “bearing [good, gospel, God-prescribed] fruit in every good work,” the expectation is inefficiency, difficulty, and injustice, no matter our work (Genesis 3:17-19).  In other words, most of us would do well to do a bit of recalibrating concerning our understanding of the role of hard work in the life of a Christian.  It is a feature, not a flaw of a godly life.

Moms, on this Mother’s Day, you know this better than most.  Good mothering is among the hardest work there is.  There are few things more demanding, more constant, and with more at stake.  But know this as well, there are few things more worthy of your best efforts and hardest work.  If you are working hard as a mom, according to God’s design, you are working hard at one of the most important and significant tasks available to mankind.  Do not let the world or your own inner voice tell you otherwise.  

That leads to the second thing I want you to notice from the beginning of v.1.  For Paul, greatly struggling toward his God-given charge was both success and reward.  This will become clearer as we make our way through the passage and letter, but a well-lived life works hard at the things of God and rejoices in the certainty of God’s pleasure in us as we do.  

As you all know, moms, your best efforts and hardest work can often feel like two steps forward and three steps back.  And that can feel like failure.  But the results are up to God, not you.  You cannot save or sanctify your kids no matter how many prayers you pray, passages you read over them, verses you have them memorize, or how consistently you disciple and discipline them.  

Again, moms, learn from Paul that your task and your success is faithfulness in giving to your kids that which God has called you to.  Work hard at those things (repent of not doing so if need be and rest in the forgiveness that is already yours in Christ).  But as you do so, in the strength God provides, rest and rejoice in the knowledge that you do so in God’s pleasure.   

What’s true of motherhood is true of every aspect of a godly life. Our job and success, Grace, is working hard to live lives of faithfulness to God’s design, not to produce a particular result.  Like Paul, work hard—really hard—for the gospel-good of others.  And then rest well—really well—in the mighty hand and sweet pleasure of God in Christ.  

Paul greatly struggled on behalf of a group of people, and he wanted them to know it.  I find that fascinating and not a little counter-intuitive.  

“For I want you to know how great a struggle I have…”.

The first thought that comes to my mind when I read that is Matthew 6:1-4.

“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.  2 Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

Jesus told his followers to do good for others “in secret.”  But in our passage, Paul was announcing his good work.  He even went beyond simply telling his readers that he was struggling for them.  He also told them how great the struggle was. 

Why was that and why is it not a violation of Jesus’ charge?  

Simply and encouragingly, Jesus’ prohibition was not against talking about our good works.  It was about doing so for self-glory; for the praise of others.  But that was certainly not what Paul was after.  He did not want his readers to know of his great struggle on their behalf so they would think much of him.  He wanted them to know so that they would see how much he thought of God and join him in his hard work.  He wanted them to recognize the severity of his suffering on their behalf so his rejoicing in it would reveal how much greater God is than comfort.  And he wanted them to follow in his example. 

As a new Christian I remember feeling weird about reading my Bible in front of other people.  I was concerned they’d think I was doing so to show off.  Maybe I would have been.  But I also remember seeing my brother-in-law read his Bible in the middle of a crowded room a few times and thinking what a good example it was.  This is like that.  

Paul greatly struggled on behalf of a group of people and he wanted them to know it so they would do likewise.  Let us follow his example.  Let us give ourselves to the things of God, let us work really hard at them, let us rejoice in the opportunity to honor God in our faithfulness no matter the cost, and let us invite others to join us in it all; not so they think much of us, but so they think much of the God who is worthy.  

So, who was this group of people Paul was greatly struggling for?  

Really quickly, let’s take a minute to get our heads around the situation represented in v.1.  Paul toiled, struggled, and greatly struggled—worked to the point of agonizing exhaustion; spent nearly all his energy—for a group of people and he wanted them to know it.  He was after something on behalf of others such that he poured himself out for them.  Before we consider what he was after on their behalf, let’s consider who he was after it for.  

And to get our heads around that, let me ask you who you would do that for?  Is there anyone?  Few people are willing to work as hard as Paul did even for their own gain.  Far fewer still are willing to do so for the gain of others.  But if you were willing to work like that on behalf of someone else, who would it be?

Again, on Mother’s Day, we have a church filled with godly women who are living answers to that question.  Moms, thanks for providing us with the example of working to the point of pain and exhaustion on behalf of your kids.  Grace is also filled with husbands and fathers who do so on behalf of their wives and kids.  There are still more people here who have laid their lives down in very real ways to serve our missionaries.  

As exemplary as many of you are in this regard, there’s a common thread in most of it.  For the most part, if we’re willing to work that hard for someone, it’s for someone we know and love.  That is, of course, a very good thing.  It is a clear demonstration of God’s glory and goodness whenever we lay our lives down for someone like that.

But that’s not mainly who Paul was greatly struggling for; it was not for his family or friends or other close relational connection.  Who, then, was he suffering for?

1 “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…“

He was struggling for strangers.  He was struggling this greatly, primarily for people he’d never even met!  Remember, he’d never been to Colossae or Laodicea (~ 9 miles away).  

V.5 gives us a bit more context into who he was struggling so greatly for, “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.”

It’s interesting that Paul chose to use the word “see” (“…rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith…”) for people he hadn’t seen, but the point is straightforward: Though largely strangers, these were fellow believers in Jesus.  Paul was working really hard for faithful brothers and sisters in Christ, even though he didn’t know them.  

In a lot of ways, that’s the heart of missions week.  It’s meant to cultivate a similar gospel-produced love in us for stranger saints around the world, such that we might give at great cost to ourselves for their gospel-gain.  That’s the heart of being a good church in this community.  I’d guess combined, we might know 20% of the people who live within a 10 mile radius of Grace Church, but we want to work really hard to lovingly bring God’s Word to bear on the other 80%, according to Paul’s example.  

God is that glorious.  The Word of God is that critical.  The gospel is that good of news.  The love of God is that compelling.  The strength of God is that powerful.  The grace of God is that essential.  That for the sake of the good of strangers, we work past the point of exhaustion to agony.    

Finally, to what end was Paul greatly struggling for a group of people he loved, even though he’d never met and was far away from?  What was he after on their behalf?  What form did his love for them take? 

As I said earlier, not everything, not even every good thing, is worth working to the point of agonizing exhaustion for.  But if not for ok and good things, what did Paul greatly struggle for on behalf of the Colossians, Laodiceans, and many he’d never seen?  He explicitly names four things in our passage.  

The first thing explicitly named by Paul, for which he greatly struggled on behalf of stranger saints, was “that their hearts would be encouraged.”

This means what you probably think it means.  To be a Christian at the time of Paul’s letter to the Colossians was just about anything but easy, comfortable, or encouraging.  At best it meant people thinking you were strange.  At worst it meant being disowned by your family and your life being in danger.  

For the early Church, outside of the love from within the Church, virtually everything on earth was in a discouragement conspiracy against them.  Paul told his readers that he was giving all of himself to work against that; to work for their encouragement; to lift up their countenance; to bring them comfort.  

He did so by earnest prayer, by teaching truth, by sharing stories of the faithfulness of the Church around the world, by taking up offerings for those in need, and by being a good example of living in light of the treasure Jesus is.  

Let’s consider how we might do this for one another and all the saints, Grace.  What can you do to encourage the hearts of the weary among us?  What could you work really hard at to bring comfort to the hurting?

We have several members who are homebound for health reasons.  Consider writing or calling or visiting them regularly.  Or all three.

There are also many among us who have experienced significant loss recently.  Consider how you might work hard to encourage them.  What costly thing might you do to bring the peace of Christ to them?  Could you invite them over for dinner and serve their favorite meal?  Could you take the time to share with them of a particular comfort you’ve found in the Lord?  Could you sit and pray with them, listening well as they grieve?

And there are many among us who feel beat down and discouraged.  Who have fallen into doubt or sin.  Who feel alone or isolated.  Are you willing to greatly struggle on their behalf?  If so, how?  Would you be vulnerable enough to share your own sins and struggles?  Would you write out the promises of God they might cling to?  Would you commit to texting them steadily at times you know they’re prone to temptation and discouragement?  Would you fast and pray for the women who would love to be moms, but aren’t yet?  Would you offer to babysit, for free for those who are moms but are feeling overwhelmed in their motherhood?

Paul gives us an example of all of those things and more.  Let us follow his example, in the same power, and with the same treasure.  

In a similar way, the second explicit thing Paul worked so hard for was to see the saints “being knit together in love.”

2 … being knit together in love…

He worked to help believers understand and experience God’s love for them and to cultivate in them love for one another.  As that happened, Paul knew they’d be knit together (built up in unity, affection, mission, provision, etc.) as well.  

The fullness of our building on Sunday mornings is a good opportunity to put this into practice.  It is easy in our flesh to think mainly in terms of how hard parking is or how awkward it is to have to sit so close to strangers or how disconnected it feels to have to sit on the fellowship hall side.  It is easy in our flesh to think in terms of getting here early to stake out our spot.  It is easy in our flesh to stay home or look for a more convenient place to worship on Sundays.  But those things are almost certainly rooted in something other than love for others and will almost certainly do far more to tear apart than to knit together.

Consistent with Paul’s example, let us instead work hard to make Sunday mornings as much of a blessing as possible for others, and especially newer members and guests.  Let us be glad to park further away and give up our seats if necessary.  Perhaps one of you might start a valet ministry for the senior saints among us. 

Further still, and even more consistent with Paul’s example still, consider doing all you can to build up our missionaries in every way you can.  What if you were to call one of them and ask what their biggest gospel dream is and start working hard to help them in it?  Imagine how much knitting together that would mean for your hearts.

When we give ourselves to selfish ambition—that is, to looking out for our own interests and satisfying the desires of our flesh—we will tear one another apart.  But when we love one another—that is, when we are eager to give ourselves to get that which is best for one another—we will be increasingly knit together.  

This is certainly true in the Church and it is equally true in the home.  Moms, you have the opportunity in your every decision to love your flesh or your family.  And from that decision, you have the opportunity to tear apart or knit together.  Once again, I’m so thankful that so many of you love so well, so often.  It is a blessing beyond measure to be a member in and a pastor of a church that has so many displays of knitting-together love.  (And even more so to have a savior who paid for our sins of failing to do so.)

Interestingly, Paul speaks of being encouraged and knit together in love before full assurance of understanding (next point).  I’m certain that there are 50 things to unpack in that, but I just want to briefly name one.  

Grace, if you want to know Christ, His will for you, and the certainty of your salvation in Him, you cannot be consumed with selfishness, conflict, and isolation.  There is a kind of understanding and assurance that are unavailable to those who are discouraged, divided, and without love.  We need each other to know the fullness of the knowledge, wisdom, and assurance in Christ!  

That leads to the third thing Paul considered worthy of working at, to the point of exhausting agony, on behalf of stranger-saints.  He did so that they might “2 … reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ, 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

In the beginning of his letter to them, Paul shared his prayer for them, “That you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding” (1:9) “increasing in the knowledge of God” (1:10).  He referred to it as “the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (1:27).  He continued by explaining to them that He not only prayed that over them, but also worked really hard to bring it to them.  

Paul earnestly, wanted them to know the will of God for their lives; to know how to live as God intended.  He wanted them to be able to live, not with doubt or confusion, but with the kind of clarity and full assurance that could weather any storm and recognize and reject any false teaching.  He wanted them to know how incalculably and unparalleledly valuable those things are (“all the riches!!!”).  

And above all, Paul knew that Jesus is the beginning and end of wisdom and knowledge.  He knew that to get Jesus wrong is to get everything else wrong.  And so he worked really, really, really hard to share the understanding and knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ, with the stranger saints.  

Moms, give your kids Jesus.  Give them the truth about Him.  Teach them that God’s Word as the only sure revelation of Jesus.  Show them how to look for and depend upon the truths of Jesus revealed in God’s Word.  Help them to learn and love a life marked by trusting in and following Jesus.  Teach them the nature and assurance of salvation that is in Christ’s work alone.  Don’t just tell them these things, model them.  And above all, show them how to fight in faith to do all of this because Jesus is the greatest treasure.      

Let me quickly remind you of something concerning this point.  It’s beautifully captured in Psalm 67, “May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us, that your way may be known on earth, your saving power among all the nations.”  

The simple point I want to make is that while knowledge of God’s way and salvation are worthy of working with all we have, for as long as it takes, to give to others, no amount of our work can give those things to others.  They (knowledge of His way and saving power in Psalm 67; full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery in Colossians 2) come only according to the gracious blessing of God.  God will make His face to shine upon us or we will not get those things no matter how hard anyone works to give them to us.  God often uses the hard, evangelistic, missional, pastoral, work of His people to give those things to others, but it is always God who gives them.

Once again, remember that, moms.  Remember that, Church.  And as you do, remember to work hardest in prayer as you seek those things for your kids and friends and neighbors and strangers.

Finally, Paul worked really hard not only so that his readers would know true things, but also to prevent them from being deceived by lies.  

4 I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments. 

The primary aim of Paul’s letter was to help his readers persevere in their faith in the face of persecution and false teaching.  The primary persevering power he offered them was the glorious truth of God’s grace in Jesus.    

But he also addressed a few of the false teachings that confronted his readers.  We’ll come to them later in the chapter, but for now see clearly that one aspect of gaining knowledge of the truth of Christ is forsaking all false claims.  And one aspect of the hard work we need to give ourselves to is helping others recognize the severe consequences of living by lies, no matter how plausible they sound. 

The big idea of the sermon is that hard work for the things of God is a feature, not a flaw of a godly life.  

Having said that, and certainly meant it, it’s important to remind you all that working hard at the things of God, in a manner pleasing to God, is the fruit of our salvation, not the cause of it.  Indeed, it is not by (hard) works that we are saved, but by grace through faith in Jesus (Ephesians 2:8-9).  And yet, we are saved to do the good works given to us by God (Ephesians 2:10).

8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. 

Predictably, then, the main takeaway is to learn to understand and love and trust God’s Word such that we’re compelled by the transforming power of the Spirit in us to work hard at living it out for the sake of the world.  

Let us work hard, therefore, Grace, moms, especially at encouraging one another, knitting one another together in love, helping one another gain all the riches of full assurance of understanding and knowledge of Christ, and to avoid every ungodly way of thinking.  And let us work hard to bring all of those things to the whole world through Christ, for the glory of the triune God.  He is worthy.  He alone is worthy.  

Colossians 1:24-29 –

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. 

Last Sunday, for missions week, I preached a high-level overview of this passage.  My main aim was to help you see the kind of perspective Paul had that enabled him to rejoice in his missionary sufferings.  His answer, in simplest terms and consistent with the theme of missions week, is that while the sufferings he suffered were significant, they were far lesser than the greater good of bringing the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world.  

In other words, Paul was able to rejoice in his sufferings because although the cost was high, the reward was far greater.  The loss of worldly comfort was a price worth paying for the gain of living in the will of God and love for His people.  It was better, he reasoned, to die to the pleasures of the world than to live apart from the eternal pleasure of God and the saints.  

In that way, much of what I pointed out last week focused on how the claims of this passage support that glorious reality in relation to missions and how they relate to a well-stewarded missions ministry.  

For the next couple of weeks, then, we are going to circle back through the passage in order to consider more closely and practically what it means for the ministry to which we’ve been called.  Last week, the focus was on doing that internationally.  This morning we’re going to consider the heart and marks of a well-stewarded local ministry.  To be even more specific, I’m going to make the case that this passage is a charge to all of us (to all Christians) to make it our life’s chief ambition to bring the glorious riches of the gospel to bear on everyone we meet.  That’s the big idea and the main takeaway.  

Without getting too deep into the weeds, before getting into the meat of this sermon, it’s important for me to acknowledge/remind you of a few things concerning the context of this passage.  

The question, then, is: How do I get from there to here?  Am I being faithful to this passage in claiming that it is a charge for us to heed and example to follow, both in missions (last week) and local ministry (this week)?

I think I am being faithful to the text for two main reasons: (1) Paul’s command in 1 Corinthians 11 and (2) His words in v.28.

In 1 Corinthians 11:1, Paul commands his readers to “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.”  The NIV translates it like this, “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.”  Paul meant his readers (which includes us) to look to his life and do what he did, love what he loved, and say what he said, because he did, loved, and said what Jesus did, loved, and said.  

He was not, of course, calling everyone to imitate him as an imprisoned, apostolic, missionary.  Nor was he calling people to perfectly follow his perfect example of the perfect example of Jesus.  But he was claiming that by God’s grace, his life was a good example of godliness for others to follow.  

In my estimation, following the Paul’s example boils down to living continually out of three main convictions, no matter our context: (1) Treasuring Jesus above all, (2) Expressing that through whole-life, glad-hearted, Spirit-empowered obedience to God, and (3) Doing so especially by proclaiming and applying the gospel everywhere and among everyone, no matter the earthly cost.  

In that way, although this paragraph in Colossians was written from prison, to a church he’d never been to, it flowed out of the same convictions that led him to spend 2+ years investing in churches in Tarsus, Ephesus, Rome, Corinth, and a few other cities as well.  

For us to obey 1 Corinthians 11:1 in light of this paragraph, then, ultimately means learning to live out of the same core convictions that Paul was living out when he wrote it (which is a local ministry for most of us).

The second reason I think this passage is rightly applied to our local ministry is found in v.28.  Throughout most of our passage (vs.24-27, 29), Paul described his ministry in first person terms (I/me).  But in v.28 he switched to the third person (we).  “Him [Jesus] we proclaim…that we may present everyone mature in Christ.”  

Timothy, Epaphras, Tychicus, Onesimus, Aristarchus, Mark, Justus, Luke, Demas, and Nympha are all explicitly mentioned in this letter as significant ministry partners (part of the “we” of v.29).  Each of those individuals played different ministry roles for the sake of the Church.  Paul charged Timothy, for instance, to follow the example he set in this paragraph as a pastor of a local church (in Ephesus).  More to the point, what was missions work for Paul, was at the same time, local church ministry for Epaphras (who was from Colossae).  

Therefore, just as those who were with Paul shared his convictions and followed his example in whatever context God put them in, so too should we.  Grace, may we all treasure Jesus above all, express that through whole-life, glad-hearted, Spirit-empowered obedience to God, and do so especially by proclaiming and applying the gospel everywhere and among everyone, no matter the earthly cost.  

Let’s say I’ve convinced you of the need to pursue those convictions, and apply them according to Paul’s example (which I’ve prayed all week would be the case).  What, specifically, does that mean?

At the heart of the example Paul set is a commitment to stewarding his God-given ministry well.  Don’t miss that.  I think the culture of Grace Church is such that we all eagerly nod our heads when told of our need to treasure Jesus above all.  But what does that look like lived-out?  Certainly, it has a good deal to do with our appetites, affections, longings (which Paul talks about elsewhere).  But it also has a good deal to do with the way we live our lives.  It makes little sense to say we treasure Jesus apart from living that out in concrete ways.  

Paul’s point in v.25 is that the primary way he did so was by being a good steward of the ministry entrusted to him, “…I became a minister [of the Church] according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you…”

In other words, I think the center of Colossians 1:24-29 is an example of what it means to treasure Jesus in our daily lives; namely, by being good stewards of the ministry entrusted to us by God.  My main charge, then, is to do just that, Grace—treasure Jesus by giving your whole life to being a good steward of your God-given ministry.

If we’re going to follow his example, then, we need to begin with clarity on the two main terms of this clause—minister and steward.  

The term “minister” is an important one for Paul and an often misunderstood one for us.  It is the same word used for “Deacon” when we speak of the office of deacon (1 Timothy 3:8-13).  The literal translation is “servant”.  God made Paul a minister of the Church in that He made him a servant of the Church.  Paul’s main charge was not to get from the Church, but to give to it. 

O, that we might all come to think and act like that.  We’re so programed to think of the church as existing to serve us (which, of course, it does in some ways) instead of the other way around.  Indeed, it is far more blessed to give (to serve, to minister) than to receive.  Grace, how are you guilty of thinking of the church mainly as your servant?

The other key term, “steward,” is an unusual one.  I can’t think of the last time I heard it outside of the Bible.  It’s roughly synonymous with “manager”.  To be a steward is to be responsible to oversee, or be an administrator of, or to manage the affairs of another.  Paul was called by God to spend his life as a servant-manager of the Church.  

In that way, neither the Church, nor his service of it belonged to Paul.  Both belonged to God.  Consequently, being a good steward of his servanthood meant a glad-hearted submission to God’s design and purposes for the Church.  It was not Paul’s to tinker with however he saw fit.  Stewarding his ministry well meant laying his life down to give the church all and only what God called him to give.

And so it is for us, Grace.  We are to give our lives in service of the Church according to the design and wishes of God.  But what is God’s design and what are His wishes?  Again, that’s what makes this passage so helpful for us—in it, Paul models much of that for us.  We don’t have to wonder.  We just have to watch and listen.  

Briefly, where do I get the idea that all Christians are given a ministry to steward as well?  The Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20) calls all disciples to make disciples who make disciples.  Romans and 1 Corinthians 12 explicitly states that all Christians are called (and expected) to continually build up (serve, minister to) the church.  Ephesians 4:11-12 describes the role of church leaders as “equipping the saints for the work of ministry [service of the church].”  And one of the clearest and most parallel examples is 1 Peter 4:10 which says, “As each has received a gift [a spiritual gift from God], use it to serve [same word as Paul uses of himself in our passage, minister] one another, as good stewards [again, same word] of God’s varied grace.”  

All Christians, then, are charged with the same charge as Paul: to be good stewards of the ministry we’ve been given.  To treasure Jesus above all, to express that through whole-life, glad-hearted, Spirit-empowered obedience to God, and to do so especially by proclaiming and applying the gospel everywhere and among everyone, no matter the earthly cost.  That’s the heart of a well-stewarded ministry.  

Do you know that you too have been given a ministry?  Do you know that you are to steward it well?  Do you function in light of the fact that the God-given aim of your life is to be a good steward of your God-given ministry?  Do you know what it means to do so?  

Thanks be to God, in this passage Paul provides us with many answers, much help, and a powerful example.  Consider with me, then, four aspects of a well-stewarded ministry—the marks of a well-stewarded ministry.  

The first aspect of a well-stewarded ministry from Paul’s example is found in v.25.  Paul explained, “I became a minister [of the Church] according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known…”.

We steward our ministry poorly when we use it to inculcate others in our own thoughts or ideas or withhold any of God’s counsel.  

We’ve all seen and felt the destructive power of man-made ministries, haven’t we?  The very definition of a cult is a ministry centered around the teaching of a person.  

Similarly, we’ve all experienced the corrosive nature of poorly-stewarded ministries that share some, but not all of God’s word.  You’ve heard someone on TV talking about how much “god” has blessed them, but without any indication of what god.    

You’ve heard people say, “God is a loving God.”  That’s true enough, but apart from defining the term and explaining that it’s one of God’s many attributes, people are as likely (maybe even more likely) to believe a lie about that truth as they are the truth about it.  

Of course, we can’t share all of God’s Word in every encounter, but a well-stewarded ministry always knows, loves, and works at sharing the whole counsel of God, not just a piece of it.  God’s word, not our word.  Fully known, not partially known.  Paul emphasized that and landed that plane in v.28.

28 Him [Jesus] we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. 

If we are to make God’s Word fully known and everyone mature in it, we must warn and teach.  Teach and warn.  

Good ministry stewardship begins by warning the world that while God is impeccably holy and just, they are “alienated [from God] and hostile in mind [towards God], doing evil deeds [against God],” such that they are at enmity with God.  They are dead in their trespasses and sins.  They will suffer the eternal, conscious torment they deserve if they die in this condition.  

Good ministry stewardship shares these things “with all wisdom,” Paul explained and modeled, but it always shares them.  

But a well-stewarded ministry doesn’t stop there.  It warns and it teaches.  It warns against the consequences of sin and rebellion against God.  And it also teaches the promises in God’s Word of redemption, reconciliation, and restoration (more on that in the next point).

And it teaches the rest of the counsel of God concerning all of God’s attributes and all of God’s expectations/requirements for His creatures, all of what Jesus commanded (Matthew 28:20), and all of what all of that means for life and godliness.  And a well-stewarded ministry teaches all of that, beginning to end.  

We must steward our ministry of warning and teaching until God’s Word is fully known and we are able to present everyone mature in Christ (28).  

You must give yourselves to this, Grace.  You must warn and teach.  Everyone is called to do this on some level.  It’s part of what it means to be a member of a church.  It’s what it means to evangelize the world.  It’s part of what it means to be a parent.  It’s part of what it means to be a friend and a coworker and a coach. 

If you are to follow God’s command and Paul’s example, you will learn God’s Word and you will share what you learn.  You will steward your God-given ministry by giving what you have of God’s Word, even as you continually seek more to give.  

But we don’t do this on our own.  You steward your ministry well by giving what you have and making use of the varied gifts of the church.  That’s why we have Sunday school and Berea.  That’s why we preach the word and have elders.  That’s why we have G2g, Abide, SiS, and MM.  That’s why being an active member is so important—none of us have all we need to be good stewards of all of God’s Word.  

Although a well-stewarded ministry makes God’s Word fully known, it focuses on one aspect in particular—the mystery of Christ in you.

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.

God determined to save a people for Himself before there were people (2 Timothy 1:9).  There were promises and breadcrumbs leading toward their fulfillment from the beginning, but for ages and generations the fullness of God’s plan was hidden and mysterious.  

The mystery is that there is salvation for the whole world (Ephesians 3:6) through Jesus.  

The mystery is that at just the right time, God sent His Son into the world, to be a perfect example for the world, to do what the world could not do (perfectly honor the Father), and then to die in place of sinners, defeating death and atoning for sin, rising from the dead on the third day, ascending into heaven, and advocating for all the faithful from God’s right hand.  

The mystery is that instead of gaining or maintaining God’s favor through perfect obedience to God (which we couldn’t do, including having a well-stewarded ministry) or atoning for our own sins by the blood of bulls and goats (which they couldn’t do), Jesus did on our behalf.  And not only that, but then credited all of His merit to our account (which is Christ in you).  

First, middle, and last: Christ in you!   Above all and before all: Christ in you!  Under and around: Christ in you!  To the Church and the world: Christ in you!  Until the end of time: Christ in you!  

That’s the mystery that a well-stewarded ministry proclaims.  And it is full of a glory that is beyond all riches.  It is the greatest news of all time.  And it will come out of all who treasure Jesus above all.

How quickly do you get to Jesus in your conversations with the people in your life?  How central is He to the discussions you have with those who do not treasure Him?  How central is He in your discussions here?  Do you have stories ready to share about His kindness, grace, mercy, and blessing in your life?  Do you have His promises ready to share that you are clinging to and finding joy in?  Ultimately, how much do you treasure Him?  Is He like pennies or diamonds in your affections and discussions?  

Grace, a well-stewarded ministry treasures Jesus above all, expresses that through whole-life, glad-hearted, Spirit-empowered obedience to God, and does so especially by proclaiming and applying the gospel everywhere and among everyone, no matter the earthly cost.  

The third key aspect of a well-stewarded ministry is one that works very hard in God’s strength.  Paul explained that this was the case for him in v.29.  

29 For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.

“Paul’s language in this verse is brutally compelling.  The Greek word translated ‘toil’ was used for work that left one so weary it was as if the person had taken a beating.  It denotes labor to exhaustion.  ‘Struggling,’ a stronger term than ‘toil,’ was the Greek word from which we derive the English word agony…The words together describe the tremendous energy of Paul’s…ministry” (Hughs, PTW, 251).

Work hard, Grace.  Work hard to tell people about Jesus and make God’s Word fully known.  We’re not made to be dominated by leisure or idleness.  We’re not made for Netflix and putting practice, online shopping or social media scrolling, sports watching or hobbies.  There is a place for those things in the Christian life.  In fact, in some ways they are built into the rhythm of Creatin (six days of work and one day of rest).  But they are never meant to be at the center of our efforts, the highest of our affections, or the aim of our lives.  

God made us, above all, to work hard at inviting others to join us in treasuring Jesus above all.  

We should go to bed tired at the end of a day of ministry in our homes, neighborhoods, and at church.  We should make it our aim to hit the finish line of life fully spent.  

But we need to do all of that hard work in God’s strength.  Work hard, in God’s strength.  But what does that mean?  I think it means two things in particular.  It means continually acknowledging before God and man that every ounce of energy, every ability, every breath, every bit of work you do is from God.  The first thing it means to steward your ministry well by working hard in God’s strength is to acknowledge that there is no other strength.  It’s a recognition that if God does not empower you, you have no power.  It’s a posture of humility and gratitude.  

The second thing it means is that there really is supernatural power at work whenever we give ourselves to God’s commands.  When we live according to God’s design 1+1 often = 3 (or 4 or 5).

I experience this most noticeably in the way of evangelism and ministry to new Christians.  I don’t know how to explain it other than that something like a spiritual version of 5-hour Energy flows through me during and after an evangelistic encounter.  Whatever fatigue I had going into it, vanishes during and after.  It must be a glimpse of the fullness of life that Jesus came to bring (John 10:10).  The same thing happens to me almost every time I am able to spend time with a new Christian who is eager to fully know the Word of God.

Is your life characterized by working hard?  Are you working hard primarily to treasure Jesus and share Him with others—as one stewarding a God-given ministry?   Is there a straight line between the things that fill up your day and the ministry God has given you?  As you work, are you continually conscious of the fact that it is God who is enabling you to do so?  Do you regularly experience God’s energy working powerfully in you?  

If you are a Christian, your primary God-given ambition in life ought to be being a good steward of the ministry entrusted to you by God.  And doing so means working hard in the strength of God.  

The fourth and final characteristic of a well-stewarded ministry is actually the first exemplified by Paul in this passage.  I wanted to end with it because we spent a lot of time on it last week (I won’t rehash everything we already covered), but also because it serves as kind of litmus test for how well we are stewarding our ministries.  

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, 

Paul’s ministry was characterized by “sufferings” (plural, continual), but he rejoiced in them.  

Suffering on account of faithfulness in ministry will certainly ebb and flow.  There will be times of more and less suffering as we call on people to join us in treasuring Jesus, warning and teaching them the Word of God.  But it is a fact that there will be suffering for all who truly give themselves to stewarding their God-given ministries well.  

In evangelism, in bringing the gospel to those who have not heard or do not yet believe, there will be rejection, scoffing, and even anger.  I remember a conversation I had with a man at the farmer’s market a while ago.  It was odd.  For some reason he kept misunderstanding me and finding a way to take offense at it.  Other times, I’ve shared the gospel with unbelieving believers and they were frustrated and offended that I’d suggest they weren’t already Christians.  Some of you have shared with me of coworkers who were annoyed with you or bosses who told you to knock it off.  Others have shared of family members who were downright angry and hostile.  

In being a good steward of the ministry God has given you to believers, it will lead to times of frustration, mistrust, even anger and abandonment.  It happened to Jesus, to Paul, and it will almost certainly happen to everyone who’s main ambition is calling the Church to treasure Christ above all.  

So, are you stewarding your ministry well by sharing your faith with non-Christians and investing in the saints, calling them to treasure Jesus with you?  One way to tell—one litmus test—is whether or not there is suffering in your life for it.

Even more revealing still, are you rejoicing in your suffering?  Do you count it as all joy that you are considered worthy of sharing in the sufferings of Jesus and in filling up what is lacking in His afflictions for the sake of His people?  It’s one level of stewardship to simply follow some of Paul’s ministry example and obey some of Jesus’ ministry commands (one talent buried).  It’s another level to do so with the kind of boldness, clarity, and completeness that leads to suffering (five talents invested).  And it’s another level still to rejoice in the suffering your faithfulness causes (ten talents invested).  

Where any of those levels of stewardship are present, praise God, it is His kindness that has drawn you into that kind of obedience and joy.  Praise God and press in.  Ask Him to continue to cause you to invest better and better.

Once again and in conclusion, I think the main question all of this puts before us is whether or not we see our lives as primarily aimed at glorifying God by stewarding the gospel ministry entrusted to us by God, in the power of God, within the local church.  Do you believe that (according to God’s Word and the example of Paul) your chief end is to help everyone around you treasure Christ with you?  And if so, is that primarily how you function?  Is that the lens through which you view your schooling and teaching and working and parenting and marriage and leisure and time at church and away from church and how you spend your money?  

Too often we approach life and ministry like we’re on a basketball team and we barely know it.  The result is that some of us show up to practice and some don’t.  Some miss because we didn’t even know there was practice and others simply because we had “better” things to do.  And when we do show up, we all have different reasons for doing so.  Some of us are trying to get exercise, some trying to get a girl/guy, some trying to show off, some hoping for a scholarship, some just because our friends are there, and some because our parents made us.  And when it comes to the games, we have different definitions of victory/success.  For some it’s padding the stat sheet.  We don’t even care whether the team wins or loses as long as we get ours.  For others, victory means doing the least possible.  For others it means winning at all costs.  We couldn’t care less what it takes or who we hurt.  

This passage is a call to something much different; to something much greater.  It is an example of a life well-lived and a ministry well-stewarded.  

Grace, with God’s help and one another’s, may we live differently.  May we give ourselves to that which God has given to us—lives dedicated to well-stewarded ministries.  That is, may we all follow Paul’s example and treasure Jesus above all, may we express that through whole-life, glad-hearted, Spirit-empowered obedience to God, and may we do so especially by proclaiming and applying the gospel everywhere and among everyone, no matter the earthly cost.  

Colossians 1:24-2:2 –

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. 

2 1 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, 2 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…

Welcome to the start of missions week.  I’m exceedingly thankful for the culture-shaping effect it has had on our church over the years.  One of the most tangible ways I’ve seen that play out is in the fact that missions is normal at Grace.  No one wonders whether or not missions ought to be a part of our church-life.  We all know and love the reality that as long as there are people around the world who have not heard the good news of Jesus, who have not yet tasted and seen that He alone can satisfy our souls, we must go to them or support those who have.

But if we’re being honest, we’ll admit that missions is a scary and costly and intimidating.  With that in mind, Kyle introduced me to the theme of missions week this year with the following thoughts…

“How many of us fall short in our sending and our going because we see it too much as a loss of something? A loss of money, loss of time, loss of comfort, a loss of fulfillment, or a loss of safety and security? Yes, missions is loss, but it is a loss of that which is lesser, and a gain of that which is greater. Greater joy. Greater purpose. Greater satisfaction” (Kyle Puelston).

Grace, I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that all of life is one choice after another between lesser or greater.  Likewise, I don’t think it’s misleading to say that sanctification is God’s work of giving us increasing appetite for all things greater.  

Our main problem is that sin has made it so that we often can’t tell the greater from the lesser and even when we can, we often don’t prefer it, and even when we do, we are often unwilling to pay the cost to get it.  

And here’s the key for us to grasp this morning: As long as that’s the case, missions will never find its proper place in our own lives or in the life of our church.  

Missions week this year is a call to die to that which is lesser in order that we might live for that which is greater.  It’s a plea to ask the Lord to help us increasingly die to all the sinful and even “fine” things in our life, that we might come alive to the greatest things—to Jesus and all that He has commanded.  

Through Paul’s example, we are given a crystal-clear picture of what that looks like.

The big ideas of this sermon are that God commands missions, missions is hard, and we’ll never do the hard work of missions if we aren’t convinced that it is greater.  The main takeaway is that we’d work hard to learn, love, and live the greater, no matter the cost (that we’d read our Bibles, pray for the Spirit’s transforming power, and spur one another on in missions).

Again, there are three components to the big idea of this sermon: (1) God commands missions, (2) Missions is hard, and (3) We’ll never do the hard work of missions if we aren’t convinced that it is greater.  Paul most certainly understood and believed and lived in light of those biblical truths.  To help you see that, and then apply it, consider with me six high-level observations from our passage.

Almost from the moment of his conversion, Paul spent his entire life serving as a missionary.  That is, he gave himself to traveling around the known world, telling everyone he could about the good news of God’s grace in Jesus Christ.  He did so across every geographical, cultural, linguistic, political and, economic boundary there was at that time.  

In the course of nearly 30 years of missions work, Paul traveled across two continents, somewhere in the vicinity of 10,000 miles, personally sharing the gospel with hundreds, if not thousands of people.  

And in that time, he suffered much.  He suffered to the point that it’s probably nearly impossible for most of us to imagine it, his perseverance in it, or even his lack of complaining about it.  

But more than merely making it through and keeping his complaints to himself, Paul explicitly tells us (in v.24), “Now I rejoice in my sufferings…”  He did the hard work, kept doing the hard work for three decades, and saw his hardships not as a flaw of his ministry, but as a feature, as opportunities to rejoice.  

That ought to cause two questions to spring immediately to mind: (1) What suffering, and (2) Why rejoice in it?

What suffering?  It’d be a significant understatement to simply say, “a lot.”  By the time Paul wrote his letter to the Colossians and claimed to be rejoicing in his suffering (you can read about a good deal of it in 2 Corinthians 11:23-2), he’d already been beaten, lashed, stoned, shipwrecked, sleepless, homeless, famished, and betrayed.   

Most immediately, in the context of this letter, Paul was suffering imprisonment, in “chains” (4:18), for declaring “the mystery of Christ” (4:3).  And all of those things, multiple times (including shipwrecked).

Again, needless to say, that level and length of suffering goes far beyond what any of us can even imagine.  

If that’s the nature of his suffering, how/why in the world would he rejoice in it?  You do know that sounds a bit crazy, right?  

Paul seems to be living out what James commanded: “Count it all joy…when you meet trials of various kinds.”  I’ve always found that to be the most counterintuitive passage in the whole Bible.  (I know there are others that should seem more that way, but they just don’t.)   On the surface, trials and joy seem to me to be the definition of opposite ends of the spectrum.  Nearly every part of my rational brain is convinced that to move away from one is to move toward the other; that they cannot coexist.

The theme of missions week, the opening words of our passage, and Paul’s entire Christian life, are a direct assault on that line of thinking.  But again, why?  How?  

The short version is that in all of these things, Paul told his readers that he was willingly dying to his old self and life, to his old desires and motivations, to his old priorities and privileges, and to his old thinking and reasoning.  And he told them that he was doing so for the sake of living for something much, much (incalculably) greater.  Everything he once held dear and built his life upon, had become to him as rubbish compared to the opportunity to know Jesus, obey Jesus, and proclaim the good news of Jesus to the world.  

The remaining six observations are the meat on that bone.  They are the alternate calculus which reckons suffering as joy instead of ruin.  They are the greater that makes it worth dying to all lesser.  They are the things that an above the sun exchange rate values above all earthly comfort.  They are the answer to the question of how a man or woman of God can rejoice in their trials of obedience.

The second observation, and the first explanation for Paul’s rejoicing in his suffering, is found in the very next clause in v.24, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake…” [that is, according to the end of the verse,] …for the sake of [Jesus’] body, that is, the church…” (also, “for you” according to v.25).

In other words, Paul knew that the suffering he endured for telling people about Jesus was for the benefit of all God’s people.  It was a benefit for those who had not yet heard the gospel in that they might hear, believe, and be saved.  And it was a benefit for those already trusting in Jesus in that, as we’ll see from 1:28 on, it resulted in their spiritual maturity.  

In his second letter to the church at Corinth (2 Corinthians 4:8-11), he says it like this…

We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 10 always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our bodies. 11 For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. 12 So death is at work in us, but life in you.

It’s one thing to suffer for doing something good.  There is real motivation in simply doing what is right regardless of the cost.  But when the Spirit is in us, it’s something different (something much greater) when we know that it is to the significant benefit of others, and especially to the people of God.  The suffering is still hard, but there’s join in paying its price for the sake of others.

It’s hard to stay up all night with a sick kid, but there’s real joy in seeing the peace it brings them.

It can be hard to sit with someone who’s been through a great loss, but the Spirit turns that into real joy when it results in helping to bear their burdens.

And it’s hard to take the gospel to the ends of the earth (to pay the price of missions), but there’s real joy in doing so for the sake of the salvation and sanctification of the world!  

There is loss and death in all of these things, but in Christ, it is not death to die.  It is life and gain! 

The next observation and reason for Paul’s rejoicing is even more powerful still.  One more time, look at 1:24.

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…

I remember reading this for the first time and thinking it sounded like Paul was claiming that Jesus’ suffering was not sufficient or that he needed to add to what Jesus had done.  Most emphatically, that’s not what Paul meant.

He was simply testifying to the truthfulness of Jesus’ own teaching,  

Matthew 10:16-22Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. 17 Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to courts and flog you in their synagogues, 18 and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them and the Gentiles… 21 Brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death, 22 and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. 

Jesus promised His followers that there would be more suffering to come after His death and resurrection.  Paul willingly took on as much on as his obedience required.  

But more than that, more than merely following Jesus’ example in faithfully enduring mistreatment, he followed the example of Jesus who, “for the joy that was before Him endured the cross” (Hebrews 12:2). 

It’s one thing to suffer for doing good.  It’s something different to do so according to Jesus’ example and consistent with His promise.  That’s the kind of suffering, worth suffering.  That’s the kind the Spirit allows God’s people to rejoice in.  That’s the kind of comfort worth dying to, to gain that kind of life and joy. 

With each of these, we must ask ourselves, is that how I see things?  Is that the standard by which I measure my life?  Do I think and feel and live according to the value-standards of God’s economy or the world’s?

Fourth, Paul was willing to suffer as a missionary because his missionary work was given to him directly from God.  You can read the story in Acts 9, but in our passage, we find this neat summary, “I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you” (1:25).

In that way, Paul didn’t have to wonder what he was meant to give his life to.  In that way, he didn’t have to figure out whether his suffering was right or wrong.  In that way, he didn’t have to calculate what was lesser and what was greater.  God directed him in all those ways.  

Grace, it’s one thing to suffer for doing good.  It’s something different to do so according to God’s clear commissioning.  Accepting that commissioning cost Paul dearly, but it paid 10,000x what it cost.  And that 10,000x gain is what caused Paul to rejoice in the 1x loss.  The math is different when God’s Word is your standard and God’s glory in the good of the nations is your goal.  

The fifth thing I want you all to see is found in the middle of 1:25. There we find the content of Paul’s commission.  We find the answer to the question, “What, specifically, was Paul’s God-given ministry?”

Essentially, it was to “make the Word of God fully known” (1:25).  Not partially known.  Not mostly known.  Not nearly entirely known.  Fully known!  He was to hold none of it back.  He was to share everything, everyone needed for life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3).  

I find it particularly remarkable that much of our passage for this morning describes the content of the Word of God Paul was to minister to the world; the content of the message he was to suffer for sharing and to rejoice in his suffering.  The clearer we are on these things (on the heart of the gospel), the easier it is to see why Paul rejoiced in the suffering that resulted from sharing them. 

Again, it’s one thing to suffer for doing the good work of missions, but it’s something different to do so knowing what a gift it is to all who hear and believe; to know the glory of the message and mission; to know the world-wide scope of the mission; to know how high the stakes are for those who do not hear and believe; to know the One from whom, and to whom, and for whom, and about whom the message was given—Jesus Christ.  There is joy in suffering for the sake of delivering a message of that kind.  

Think about it in the most basic terms, Grace.  Imagine someone you love having contracted a terminal disease.  Imagine also that you have the cure.  What wouldn’t you be willing to gladly endure to get it to them?  You’d be glad to have to walk 100 miles with it.  You’d be happy for the chance to fight off bandits.  It’d be your joy to get fired from your job.   You’d rejoice at the loss of all lesser things in order to bring the far greater thing of life to the one you love.  This is that x10,000 yet again.  The news is that good!

If all of that were not enough, there’s one more remarkable aspect of Paul’s rejoicing-in-suffering missionary work.  He was able to rejoice in sharing it, despite the cost, because of the miraculous way in which God strengthened him to do it.  

Paul suffered not only in the way of persecution, he also suffered in the way of hard, hard labor.  On a simple, under-the-sun, level, his missionary work was a continual and great physical struggle.  All those miles.  All that hunger.  All that sun beating down on him.  All those sleepless nights.  All those conversations.  All that planning.  

At the beginning of chapter 2, he said it like this, “For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you…”

But it wasn’t the hard nature of the task itself that caused Paul to rejoice.  It was the fact that God gave him the strength he needed for it.  Emphatically, it was not in his own strength that he endured or rejoiced.  No one is strong enough to do what Paul did, much less maintain a spirit of rejoicing in it.  

Rather, he said, “29  I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.”

That is an echo of what he said back in v.11, asking God to empower the Colossians just as God had empowered him, “being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy.”

It’s one thing to suffer for doing good, just because you know it’s good, but it’s something altogether different to do so while feeling the power of God coursing through your mind and muscles.  It’s easy to die to the lesser good of growing stronger yourself when it results in coming alive to the omnipotent strength of God!  That is the source of much joy.  

That brings us all the way back to the questions:  Why rejoice in his suffering?  Because as hard as the suffering was, it came with things immeasurably greater: The good of the Church, the chance to follow Jesus’ example, the privilege of living out the commissioning given to him by God, and the opportunity to share a message of rescue and redemption, a message of uncovered mystery, riches, glory, hope, and maturity in Jesus!  

In other words, Paul rejoiced in his suffering because he knew without a doubt that all of his suffering and more was a loss that paled in comparison to all that he gained through it.  Paul’s life and teaching help us to see that any amount of temporary suffering that comes from sharing the gospel with the world (from faithful missionary work), is entirely nothing in comparison to the eternal gain that comes with it.  

It’s certainly interesting to see Paul’s perspective on missions and the role it played in his life, but where does all of that leave us?  What implications does it have for us today?

In answer, and to close, I want to come back to where we began.  The big ideas of this sermon are that God commands missions, missions is hard, and we’ll never do the hard work of missions if we aren’t convinced that it is greater.  

God commands missions.  This might sound like it goes without saying.  And as I said earlier, I’m overwhelmingly thankful for the work of the missions team over the years to make it seem that way.  But we need to say it: God still commands missions for all followers of Jesus.  

Matthew 28:18-20 Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” 

Disciples make disciples of all nations.  That’s missions.  

Missions is hard.  This too probably seems like it goes without saying, but it must be said.  If it weren’t, there’d certainly be a lot more missionaries.  

The hardships come in many forms, from outright physical suffering, to the emotional toll it takes to leave behind family, friends, and comfort, to the spiritual warfare the demons are sure to make on you.  

As you heard Marty share in Berea, it can mean constant shifting of your home, separation from your kids, continual adaptation of strategy, loneliness, doubt, years of apparent fruitfulness, feeling disconnected, pressure to quit, pressure to leave, fear of being kicked out, pressure to keep supporters informed and onboard, etc.  

To engage in missions is to suffer loss, even great loss, even death.  It is hard.

Finally, then, we’ll never do the hard work of missions in a manner pleasing to God if we aren’t convinced that it is, indeed greater, far, far, far, far, far greater; that the loss we suffer for it (no matter how great the loss really is) is so much less than the gain we get (and give) as to make it appear trivial in comparison. 

And it is, Grace.  For all the same reasons it was for Paul, I promise it is for you and me too.  

We die to our comfort and selfishness (lesser) so that we might live for the joy of the salvation and sanctification of others when we go or send in missions (greater).

We die to our independence (lesser) that we might live for the joy of the glory of God when we do missions consistently with the example of Jesus (greater).  

We die to our self-made thrones and illusions of self-governance (lesser) so we might live for the joy of doing missions according to the commissioning given to us by Jesus (greater).

We die to our worldly agenda (lesser) that we might live for the joy of making the Word of God fully known in missions; when we give ourselves to revealing the long-hidden mystery, of glorious riches, of God’s plan to save the whole world, of Christ in all who receive Him in faith, of the warning of eternal damnation, of teaching all that Jesus has commanded, and of the certain and complete maturity of all the saints (greater).  

And we die to our pride (lesser) so that we might live for the joy of doing all things in the power of God (greater). 

These things happen as the Spirit is pleased to bless our making use of the ordinary means of grace.  Read your Bibles to see all these greater things for yourself.  Pray for the Spirit’s revealing and transforming work.  And spur one another in in putting to death all lesser things, and in living to all greater things.  

Take part in all we offer for missions week.  Be glad to skip some lesser thing for this greater thing.  Talk to someone on the missions team about how you can participate more fully in missions through Grace.  Reach out to our missionaries and ask them to share one way you can pray for them and practically support them.  Give generously to the $4,000 the Smiths still need to head back to the Middle East.  Identify the lesser things in your life that are keeping you from engaging missions as you ought and find help to turn from them.  

“How many of us fall short in our sending and our going because we see it too much as a loss of something? A loss of money, loss of time, loss of comfort, a loss of fulfillment, or a loss of safety and security? Yes, missions is loss, but it is a loss of that which is lesser, and a gain of that which is greater. Greater joy. Greater purpose. Greater satisfaction” (Kyle Puelston).

Grace, in Christ, in all ways, and especially missions, may we die to that which is lesser that we might live eternally to that which is greater?!

Colossians 1:21-23 –

21 And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, 23 if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.

We are continuing our journey with the Colossian believers through Paul’s letter to them. I say it this way because this was a real letter to real people written by a real man. This is not simply a theological—let alone philosophical—exercise in analyzing abstract concepts. The Colossians are our brothers and sisters, we will see them in glory someday soon. There is a gospel history to our faith today – enduring faithful saints long before us. Praise God for the great cloud of witnesses that have endured before us! The real words to real people is true for the Bible as a whole, it is not just some book. These are the words of the Living God written in a real time and preserved for us, so that as the author of Hebrews says: “all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.”

My aim this morning: Remind you of the great hope we have in Christ who has reconciled us to God the Father and will present us holy and blameless. Therefore, we joyfully persevere in Him, through Him, and for Him for our utmost joy and His utmost glory today into infinity.

The reality of this letter is that it is not just written for those who are navigating hardships. Yes, the Colossian church was facing hardship in unique ways, but I imagine that some believers were coasting, not wanting to draw attention to their lives, or they were seeking comfort, maybe a justified holy comfort. This letter, friends, is for anyone who claims Christ is their treasure, to stir their faith daily in the sufficiency and joy in Christ. Often it is not just hardship that draws us away from Jesus, but the comfort, the ease, the ordinary days of this life, especially in the West. We drift if we are not careful. In fact, there are many warnings throughout the Bible of wandering away from God, we are to be diligent in our faith. To simplify all of this: whether hardship or ease is your current posture, this letter is meant for you to proclaim to your soul that Jesus is awesome so that you press on to the end. 

With that in front of us, let’s walk through Paul’s words starting with how vs 21 & 22 are connected and vital to understanding vs 23.

“And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him.”

Once alienated, cut off from the joy in God (v. 21). Alienated (apellotriomenous) meaning “transferred to another owner”. We belonged to sin, self, and Satan before Christ saved us since we were in Adam as all mankind is. In Adam, we are born alienated from God. Our very nature opposes Him. As individuals, we willingly embrace that alienation through sin (thought, word, and action), some of us more subtle than others, but until the light of Christ shone in our hearts, we loved being separated from God. Paul tells us this alienation affected our mind: “hostile in mind” meaning we were an enemy of God in our minds, and it affected our behavior, thus “doing evil deeds” meaning out of the heart the body acts. Not just guilt, but misdirected desires. Choosing broken cisterns over the fountain of living waters (Jeremiah 2:13), this phrase points us to the core problem of sin which is seeking joy in everything else other than where is can be found which is Jesus. We are alienated not only from God’s presence, but from God as our delight, treasure, and joy…alienated from life. Therefore, we are joyless, lifeless, hostile people in our sin. Can you just notice the ‘once’ for a moment. We can see there is something else coming…once you were like that…BUT GOD….transferred us from this alienation.

This same term was used by Paul earlier in verse 13 “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son…”

So, now we are reconciled, restored to God as our treasure through Jesus to present you holy into the joy of your Master. For those who have been adopted or adopted someone, you understand this in a unique way.

Verse 22: “Now He has reconciled…” God’s answer to your alienation is reconciliation, accomplished at the cross. Friends, this is the initiative of God. He did not meet us halfway in our separation, but He came all the way to meet us down in the pit of our own sin and guilt. He does this “in his body of flesh by his death.” This emphasis by Paul reminds us of a real Savior, real body, real blood, real cross for a real redemption. Christ didn’t just make salvation possible, He secured your salvation and your reconciliation. Not just peace with God, but access to God as your supreme joy. The result of this reconciliation is “to present you holy, blameless, and above reproach before him…”, presented as acceptable before God, clothed in Christ’s perfection. This salvation includes transformation. It is not just escaping from righteous judgment, but becoming holy like Christ. The Apostle Peter tells us Christ died to bring you to God fulfilling the goal of salvation which is seeing and savoring God forever (1 Peter 3:18). This is key before we move onto the striking word we find in vs 23.

 “if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast…”

The Bible does not contradict itself. Since Christ purchased your salvation, He will keep those He shed His blood for…not a drop is wasted. We believe that we are saved by grace alone through faith alone – we do not do anything to earn or keep our salvation. The ‘If’ is a warning, friends. Throughout the Scriptures, the Lord warns His people as a loving act. The “If” statements of God bring clarity to our responsibility in hearing the gospel and treasuring Christ as He also does a work in our hearts and minds at the same time. Here are a few instances:

Genesis 2: “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

Deuteronomy 28: ““And if you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth…“But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord your God or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you.”

2 Chronicles 7: “When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people, 14 if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” Then in Ch 15: “The Lord is with you while you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will forsake you.”

Isaiah 1: “If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; 20 but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

In the NT, this pattern continues way before Colossians. 

Jesus in John 14: ““If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Jesus, then follows this with the hope of the Helper coming…so that we would work to keep His commands out of love and duty, not to earn the free gift of salvation.

John 15: “If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. 7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. “

Paul in Romans: “For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” (ch 8)

Lastly, the author of Hebrews: “Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. 13 But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. 14 For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.”

This “if” describes the evidence of true faith as it is attached to what true faith produces outwardly. True faith endures because it is a gift to have eyes to see the best treasure, most satisfying treasure. It is the beautiful combination of you working out your salvation, laboring to be more like Christ and the LORD working in you to both work and will in His delight to make you more like Christ who purchased you, not with perishable things like silver or gold but with the precious blood of His beloved Son, Jesus. 

So, Paul says, if indeed you continue in the faith. Those truly reconciled must truly persevere. Paul’s focus in this statement is for those who claim to treasure Jesus, continuing in the truth of the gospel. Friends, continue in the faith, don’t move away from the hope of the gospel which you heard. In fact, repeat the gospel to yourself as the best news. This stirs our hearts to continue in godly conduct. Not that we are saved by our godly conduct, but as evidence of our new hearts and minds that find the commands of God joyful to follow. It is even more important for Christians to continue in the truth of the gospel because we are saved by grace through faith. This is what Paul means by walk worthy of your calling – live a life, not of perfection, but of continually running to the throne of grace with a humble heart and bold proclamation that Christ is your treasure, hope, and joy. 

If the gospel through the Scriptures teach the final perseverance of the saints, which they do, it teaches at the same time that the saints are those who finally persevere in Christ. Continuance is the test of reality. The elect, God’s people in Christ, will persevere because God preserves them by capturing and sustaining their hearts. Listen to two prophets in the OT: Ezekiel 11:19 – “19And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh…” 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.” Jeremiah 31:33 – “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” 

Or the great and final prophet, Jesus: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God…. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” 

Later the Apostle Paul gives this great hope of the work of God to the Romans: “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him… For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.”

We persevere because Christ remains more satisfying than anything we could turn to in this life. Apostasy, falling away from faith, happens when people drift not just intellectually, but affectionally, meaning they stop delighting in Christ and His gospel because they never truly did.

So, Paul uses these two great words, stable which is to be rooted in a deep satisfaction in Christ and steadfast which is holding fast because there is nowhere better to go. This isn’t a new thought by Paul, he said at the beginning of this letter, “We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4 since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, 5 because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, 6 which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing—as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth… we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10 so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; 11 being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy.” Later, he will say, “Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, 7 rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.”

This language of being established is heard from Peter, “And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.” 

The disciples say to Jesus as should we, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life…” [John 6:68]

So, fight for joy in Christ for perseverance because Christ is our foundation, He established our hearts in Him, and keeps us. Endurance is not sustained by duty alone, but by delight. Have you tasted and seen that the Lord is good? Then why go elsewhere?

I love this from J.I. Packer: “It would not be difficult to point out at least twenty or thirty distinct passages in the Epistles where believers are plainly taught to use active exertion in their Christian life. They are told to strive, to fight, to run, to work, to put off sin, to put on righteousness, and to make every effort to grow in grace.”

Hear the words of Jesus: “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” 

“I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” 

This is the same message from Paul. Stay on the foundation which is stable and steadfast, for you are not stable in your faith…but Christ is! Christ is the solid rock on which we stand, all other ground is sinking sand! Seek Christ daily, for apart from Him you can do nothing.

“…not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.”

“Hope” is not wishful thinking, it is confident joy in what is coming because of what you know today. We trust in Christ and His promises. I trust Him to bring me to glory, therefore I trust that He will strengthen me to persevere today. God preserves us by continually showing us that Christ is better through ordinary means of grace. Through His Word which reveals Christ’s glory. In the Gospel which fuels joy. In His Church, to stir up our affection for Him and therefore a love for His people. By His Spirit to awaken delight in the things of eternity. Therefore, my brothers and sisters, don’t drift from the gospel. Drink deeply from it, stay satisfied through it. Those who truly taste His worth for their own souls will never finally walk away because their faith is a gift from the One is who secured us.

The hope of the gospel is Paul’s hope, our hope. “If Christ is for us, who can be against us? If God did not spare His own son, but gave Him for us, how will He not also give us all things [to keep us in Him]?…”…”In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.”

The gospel is not just truth to believe, it is beauty to behold and enjoy – what greater message!? We don’t just cling to the gospel because it is true but because it is infinitely satisfying. It is our ballast in the storm of life and a shock to my soul when I start to drift and become comfortable in this world. 

So, my brothers and sisters, we press onward toward the prize that is ours in Christ Jesus. For the weary, if your joy feels weak, don’t run from Christ, run to Him. Even a flicker of joy in Christ is evidence of His preserving grace. For those drifting, the danger is not just leaving truth, it is settling for lesser joys. Come back to the only One who truly satisfies today. For those who have yet to turn to Jesus, you are still alienated from the only lasting joy. Look to Christ who offers not just forgiveness, but fullness of joy in God

To all of us, remember your past alienation for it will deepen your gratitude in Jesus and fuel enduring affection for Him. Your greatest gift in salvation was not escape from hell, but God Himself. The pursuit of holiness, becoming more like Jesus should not be drudgery. It is instead a means of fitness for joy in God which is the aim of our life!

We do this along with the rich history of our other brothers and sisters who did the same. The Colossian church does not exist any longer. In fact, some time after 60 AD a massive earthquake devastated the region and Colossae never recovered. But God took His gospel into the small house churches in Colossae, it took root through Epaphras and was strengthened by Paul the Apostle in believers of the region. It rapidly moved along Roman roads and trade routes into key cities like Ephesus, Antioch, and Rome by the late first century. By the 300s, after the conversion of Constantine and the Edict of Milan, Christianity spread broadly across Europe. Missionaries carried it into places like Ireland through Patrick in the 400s, and later across northern Europe through medieval and Reformation movements. In the 1600s, the gospel crossed the Atlantic with English Puritans to what we know as New England as they sought religious freedom and saw missions opportunities to share the gospel with people in this new land. The gospel spread through the First Great Awakening in the 1730s–40s under preaching from faithful men like Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield. As settlers moved west in the late 1700s and early 1800s, the gospel advanced through frontier revivals like the Second Great Awakening, carried by circuit-riding preachers across places like Kentucky and Ohio and then further West. As people believed, churches were planted. By the mid-1800s, the message reached the Upper Midwest as immigrants—especially Scandinavians—brought Lutheran and evangelical faith into Minnesota. Missionaries, church planters, and settlers established congregations throughout the region. Eventually reaching north along the MN/Wisconsin border. Faithful believers still saw the need to reach every community with the gospel and establish faithful churches. In 1997, Kost Free and Lakes Free cast a vision for a church in Wyoming, MN. Now, 30 years later, there is a faithful gathering of saints who proclaim the gospel, treasure the gospel, and long to see the gospel be proclaimed in our communities faithfully again and to the ends of the earth so that some day all peoples will be gathered around the Risen King to worship Him and enjoy Him forever. 

This is a legacy, family. Jesus said He would build His Church and He has, He will. And, our King has commanded us to go help others to treasure Jesus as we do and His commands are not a burden because He has strengthened our hearts according to the riches of grace in Christ. So, the author of Hebrews again:

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. 4 In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, 13 and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. 14 Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. 15 See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God…”

Don’t shift from the only hope in Christ who established your hearts in faith to the praise of His glorious, abounding grace.

Colossians 1:21-23 –

21 And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, 23 if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.

Having spent the past several weeks on 1:15-20, we’re about to begin a new section of Paul’s letter.  Before we get there, though, let me give you a quick recap of what we’ve covered so far.  

After a brief introduction (1:1-2), Paul wrote out his prayer of gratitude to God for His gifts of faith and faithfulness in the lives of the Colossian Christians (1:3-8).  From there, Paul shared with the Colossians his main prayer for them; namely, that God would grant them all they needed to live lives “fully pleasing to Him [to God]” (1:9-14).  And then, again as we’ve been considering for some time, Paul rooted all of that (along with all that’s to come), in the preeminence of Jesus.  He wrote at length of Jesus’ supremacy over Creation and Recreation (1:15-20).  

Ultimately, Paul called the Colossian Christians to persevere in faith through persecution and false teaching, and, most importantly, he told them how to do so.  He charged them to keep their eyes fixed on Jesus, the Preeminent One, who holds all things in His hands.  His great burden was that they’d make sure Jesus, not themselves or their problems, was at the center of the story they were living out of. 

Beginning in v.21 (our passage for this morning), then, Paul moved from declaring transcendent truths about Jesus back to applying them to his readers.  He moved from second person pronouns (He) back to third (you).  

Lord willing, we’re going to spend two weeks on this passage.  This Sunday, I’m going to focus on vs.21-22 and the great exchange it describes.  Then, next Sunday, Pastor Colin is going to focus on v.23 and the call to perseverance in faith.  

There’s a past, present, and future component to this passage.  Consequently, there’s a past, present, and future big idea for this week as well: All people are born with a sinful nature (past), our only hope is to be reconciled by Jesus (present), and all who are reconciled will be made holy (future).  And the main takeaways are to fight for humility, share the gospel, and hope in future grace.  

I’ve shared this story with a number of you, but it bears repeating here.  One evening at the Farmer’s Market a woman came up to me holding the “Gospel for Kids” booklet we hand out.  She thought it was important to let me know that someone put a book at our church table that said of kids, “Because we do not love God as we should, we deserve to be punished.”  She found that to be entirely false and offensive.  What’s more, she assumed I’d agree and be glad she brought it to my attention.  

In a profound way, I really believe that much of the enflamed social and political turmoil we’re currently experiencing is captured in that brief encounter; that is, over the question of mankind’s essential nature.  Whether she could articulate it or not, the division between us was directly tied to our answer to the question: Are humans naturally good or bad?  

I’ve recently read two clarifying books on this idea.  Carl Truman’s “The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self” and Thomas Sowell’s “A Conflict of Visions” both recognize this problem and its profound impact on our culture.  Although Truman writes from a Christian perspective and Sowell from a secular one, both persuasively argue for the same basic conclusion: Mankind is fallen in nature and needs help restraining his self-interest.  

With Sowell, I’d suggest there’s more than sufficient empirical evidence to support the claim that we’re born with sinful natures (he phrases it differently; doesn’t call it “sinful”).  But at the end of the day, Truman is right in that it really comes down to whether or not we believe the Bible accurately describes the human condition.  

We can debate definitions and evidence.  What we can’t debate though is what God’s Word says about the matter.  What Paul says in v.21 is echoed over and over and over and over throughout the entire Bible.  

Of the Colossians, which is to say of every person since Adam’s Fall, Paul said exactly what we find consistently taught from Genesis 3 on, “you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds…” (21).

And to remind you of the rest of the Bible’s teaching on this matter, consider just a few of the many verses.…

Genesis 6:5 The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

Ecclesiastes 7:20 Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.

Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

Romans 3:23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…

1 John 1:8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

I could go on, but the point remains: If you believe the Bible is God’s word and that it means what it says, then there’s simply no way to deny that alienation from, hostility towards, and evil against God is our natural condition.  

For Paul to claim that of the Colossians, for him to declare that they were alienated from God, is to claim that they were living in opposition to the very reason for which they were made—fellowship with God.  To be alienated from God means being separated or estranged from Him.  It is to be at enmity with God.  It is a tragic declaration that they had been entirely severed from their very purpose in life.  

The next two clauses, “hostile in mind” and “doing evil deeds,” give the reasons for and result of their alienation.  

That they were hostile in mind means their thoughts were opposed to God.  It means they believed lies and hated the truth.  It means they were confused and conceited in their thinking.  It means they didn’t know God, His will for them, or even themselves.  It means the things they were thinking made God angry.

And that they were doing evil deeds means their actions flowed out of their busted, rebellious thoughts.  The did what they ought not to have done and refused to do what they should have.  They chose folly over wisdom and death over life.  They did what God hates and not what He loves.

During my teenage years, had you asked me if I’d go to heaven or hell when I died, I’d most emphatically have answered, “heaven.”  If you pressed me for my rationale, I’m most emphatically have answered, “because hell is for truly evil people.”  In v.21, Paul teaches that I was right and wrong.  I was right to think hell is for truly evil people.  I was wrong to assume I wasn’t among them.  

We really need to come to grips with that idea, Grace.  If we’re honest, it doesn’t really seem like that, does it?  Do you really think of yourself as having been (or being) hostile in mind and evil in deeds?  Do the unbelievers in your life truly seem wicked?  Non-Christians, if you’re being honest, this seems pretty offensive even, doesn’t it?

Of course, there are some who do more evil than others (sometimes, much, much more).  Paul certainly wasn’t denying that.  But his point was that starting there means missing the point.  The problem with my teenage thinking was that it was exclusively on a horizontal plane.  I was only comparing myself to other people.  But Paul calls his readers to think on a different plane, a vertical plane.  He wasn’t telling the Colossians Christians that they were alienated from God because of the way they stacked up against other Colossians, but because of the way they stacked up against God.  In relation to God, everything looks very different.  

It is true that 99.99% of us do less evil than someone.  Probably most of us do less evil than the majority of the rest of the world.  Again, however, even the briefest glimpse of the holiness of God will cause the best among us to join Isaiah’s cry, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts” (Isaiah 6”5)!

In other words, Paul’s claim that the Colossians (and all people) were hostile in mind and evil in actions, did not mean that they were (we are) as bad as they could be.  But he did mean that they had fallen infinitely short of the glory of the holy God.  And He did mean that their rebellion against God had completely alienated them from Him.  They were guilty before God and under His just judgment, not because of how they compared to one another, but because of how they compared to God’s holy nature and commands.  

Evil thoughts and actions, whole-being rebellion, leads to and results from our whole-being alienation from God.  

Paul echoes the same basic sentiment in his letter to the Ephesian church (4:17-19), “in the futility of their minds. 18 They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. [sinful, alienation-resulting thoughts] 19 They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity [sinful, alienation-resulting actions].”

Again, the first point Paul wanted the Colossians to get is that they, along with everyone around them, were born into sin and therein had been alienated from God.  

Before moving on to the next point, let me offer a few brief pastoral words on this one.  

First, our corrupted natures, hostile thinking, and evil actions not only lead to our alienation from God, they also perpetuate it.  The more we think wrongly, the more we will act wrongly, and the more we will pull away from God.  The point, Grace, even as Christians, is an earnest plea for all of us to turn away from sin.  Do not be OK with a mind that thinks things or a body that does things that are antithetical to God. It is true that we will be killing sin in us or it will be killing us (John Owen).  

Second—please hear this one, Grace—as you look around and see the world upside down in so many ways, as you look around and see people everywhere who are clearly hostile in mind and evil in deed, remember, remember, remember that you too were once among them.  Before you scoff or whine or bark, remember who you once were.  That doesn’t lead to indifference to or silence regarding their sin, but it ought to first lead to a loving, humble longing for them to experience the same grace that you did in your sin.  

Finally, third, there is nothing worse than being alienated from God.  Paul wrote this letter to people in a really tough spot, but part of why he reminded them of what they once were, was to give them perspective.  Just as Christ’s preeminence overshadows all our trials, so too does our past alienation from God (in the opposite direction).  Fellowship with Jesus is better than deliverance from every trial, even as alienation from God is worse than any trial we might endure.  Remember, if God can deliver you from a far worse trial, the worst trial of all, then He can certainly handle whatever you have going on in your life, no matter how hard it is.   

The question that leaves us with is: Now what?  Given the fact that every mere man or woman born since Adam has been born alienated from and hostile to God, we’re right to wonder if that’s the end of it.  Is it as simple as: We’re born that way and we die that way and the consequences are what they are?  Or is there some way to escape our alienation and hostility?

The first five words of v.21 answer this question for us.  “And you who were once…”  What they once were (alienated, hostile, and evil), they are no longer.  They found some way of escape.  

That, of course, begs another question: How did they get unalienated, unhostile, and unevil?  There really are only three possible ways: Deny the Bible’s teaching, attempt to fix it ourselves, or have someone else fix it for us.  

As I mentioned last Sunday, in a very real way, all human history has been one long and entirely unsuccessful attempt by man at the first two—denying the need for getting unalienated and trying to save ourselves from it.  Before looking more closely at the third option (which is the one Paul celebrated with the Colossians), I’d like to unpack the first two a bit more this morning.  

Perhaps the most famous attempt to deny the reality of our alienation comes from German philosopher, Fredrich Nietzche.  He claimed: “God is dead, and we have killed him.”  He did so as a provocative way of pronouncing his belief that scientists and philosophers had successfully demonstrated the irrationality of belief in God.  

Consequently, he also believed that left philosophers like him with the responsibility of rethinking everything in the vacuum left by “God’s demise”—ethics, morality, human nature, justice, society, etc.  Indeed, he spent much of his life attempting to work out what it means to live unshackled from the constraints of a sovereign God.  

And right at the heart of his rethinking and reimagining the world was a declaration of freedom from all guilt and condemnation—since we can’t be guilty in any ultimate sense if there’s no one we’re ultimately accountable to. 

Despite Nietzsche’s (along with the rest of the Moderns’) delusions of novelty and grandeur, that kind of hubris, that kind of prideful attempt to deny the undeniable, that kind of hostility of mind, had been going on all along.  

Psalm 10:4 In the pride of his face the wicked does not seek him; all his thoughts are, “There is no God.” 

Psalm 14:1 The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” 

Psalm 36:1 Transgression speaks to the wicked deep in his heart; there is no fear of God before his eyes. 

And in another letter (Romans 1:21-22), Paul wrote of all of Nietzsche’s predecessors, “although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools.”

The foolish, prideful, wicked, hostile and utterly futile denial of our guilt before God has been one of mankind’s two main attempts to respond to the alienation from God from the beginning.

But Grace, whenever and wherever this tactic is applied, it always fails—like denying gravity, like denying the inevitability of our kids eventually launching into adulthood, like denying teeth-rotting, diabetes-producing effect of eating a pack of Nerds Clusters a day just because they’re so good and on sale for a dollar at Mike’s Cheap Foods in Forest lake.  The truth is, denying reality only makes it hit harder when it comes.

Mankind’s second main attempt to respond to our undeniable alienation from God is just as old and just as useless as the first.  We cannot save ourselves from our enmity with God any more than we can deny it.  And yet, from the beginning, we’ve tried.  

There are many, many passages in the Bible we could turn to, to see the perpetual and impotent impulse of man to try to save himself from his ruin, but in my estimation one stands out among the rest.  I know of no more poignant and powerful description of the irresistibleness and ridiculousness of man’s rescue attempts than Isaiah 44:13-20.  

13 The carpenter … 14 … cuts down cedars, or he chooses a cypress tree or an oak and lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest. He plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it. 15 Then it becomes fuel for a man. He takes a part of it and warms himself; he kindles a fire and bakes bread. 

So far, so good, right?  All of that is reasonable and well within God’s good design for man’s dominion of the earth.  Well, predictably and tragically, that’s not where it ends.

15 Also he makes a god and worships it; he makes it an idol and falls down before it. 16 Half of it he burns in the fire. Over the half he eats meat; he roasts it and is satisfied. Also he warms himself and says, “Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire!” 17 And the rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, and falls down to it and worships it. He prays to it and says, “Deliver me, for you are my god!” 

18 They know not, nor do they discern, for he has shut their eyes, so that they cannot see, and their hearts, so that they cannot understand. 19 No one considers, nor is there knowledge or discernment to say, “Half of it I burned in the fire; I also baked bread on its coals; I roasted meat and have eaten. And shall I make the rest of it an abomination? Shall I fall down before a block of wood?” 20 He feeds on ashes; a deluded heart has led him astray, and he cannot deliver himself or say, “Is there not a lie in my right hand?”

It’s hard to imagine Paul not having this passage in mind when he wrote Colossians 1:21.  

The fullness and futility of man’s hostility of mind and evilness of deed are on display every time we try to save ourselves.  

I imagine that the carpenter of this passage looks more ridiculous to you than you look to yourself in your attempts, but I promise you, you look just as ridiculous when you attempt to clean yourself up enough instead of turning to Jesus for rescue from pornography; when you attempt to bargain with God instead of turning to Jesus for rescue from your addiction; when you attempt to love your kids more instead of turning to Jesus for rescue from your unforgiveness of your spouse; when you attempt to do more at church instead of turning to Jesus for rescue from your immoral relationship with your boyfriend/girlfriend. 

Likewise, I imagine the god of the carpenter of this passage looks more uselessness to you than your fake god, but I promise you that your self-made god of savings or insurance or a relationship or sports or comfort or vacations or accomplishments or schooling or a job or a ministry or whatever, is just as useless.  

Grace, I know you know, but I also know you don’t know (“I believe.  Help my unbelief”): Being made in God’s image means we can’t truly deny our alienation, and being fallen and finite means we are powerless to do anything about it.  But if neither of those things can help us, what’s left? 

If those are our only options, then we’re in trouble; big, big trouble.  But thanks be to God, the Bible’s central message and promise is that there is a third option: That God Himself would redeem us.  

God loved the Colossians in such a way that He sent His only Son to save them from their hostile thinking, evil actions, and ultimately their alienation from God.  

Although they were lost and powerless, 22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death…

The news gets greater when we realize that, just as the problem wasn’t unique to the Colossians, neither was the solution.  In Romans 5:6 (NASB), Paul says it like this: “For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.” 

That’s what Paul meant back in 1:13-14 when he wrote, “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

Indeed, Grace, “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ” (Ephesians 2:13).  In Christ, through His blood, we are reconciled, delivered, redeemed, forgiven, and no longer alienated.  

Be amazed.  Marvel.  Rejoice.  Trust.

Ephesians 2:8-9 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

This is the effect of the preeminence of Jesus on those who will trust in Him.  

Concerning this redemption Paul wrote of…two more things.  First, there is significant glory in the timing of Paul’s declaration.  The Colossians had recently experienced redemption as a result of something that happened many years earlier.  Their salvation had been entirely accomplished on the cross.  There was nothing more to be done.  The grace of God in Christ is so strong that it spans decades.  

Do you see that, Grace?  Do you see how remarkable it is that Jesus was able to save a people that had never met Him by something He did ~30 years earlier?  That’s amazing grace.  

And that leads to the second thing.  What was true ~30 years after Jesus’ death is no less true today!  With no attenuation, with no degrading at all, the entirely sufficient, amazing, redeeming grace of God is available right now, some 2000! years later.  Faith is still the conduit that brings to us the full measure of redemption that was accomplished “in his body of flesh by his death.”  

If you will trust in Jesus today, you will immediately experience the same flood of the fullness of the redemption accomplished by Jesus that Paul commended to the Colossians so long ago.  Trust in Him, Grace.  

All by itself, all of that is a big deal.  That we were hostile in mind, evil in deed, and entirely alienated from God, but God redeemed us from our sin and ended our enmity with Him through Jesus death, is good news indeed.  It’s certainly way beyond what we deserve.  But if that were it, it’s not entirely clear where that’d leave us.  

There’s a big difference between merely being out of trouble with God and being in His good graces.

Every married person has experienced this on some level.  When your spouse sins against you—especially if it’s in a particularly egregious way—forgiveness can often come before renewed trust.  Likewise, if you commit a crime serious enough to warrant jail time, on the other side of your sentence you’re free from prosecution, but that doesn’t mean the store you stole from will/should hire you back.  

The question, then, is: What’s the nature of Jesus’ reconciliating work?  Does it merely free us from condemnation, leaving us potentially vulnerable to repeat our offense and renew our alienation?  Or, does it accomplish something more still?

21 And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him…

Grace, this is a promise of the highest form of redemption.  Not only (as I mentioned at the beginning) does it bring an awesome measure of present, reconciling grace, but it also brings unlimited future, reconciliating grace.  

In a different sermon, there’s a lot more to be said here.  But the main thing I want to draw your attention to in conclusion this morning is that through faith in Jesus we are immediately declared holy, blameless, and above reproach.  That is, Jesus’ holiness, blamelessness, and irreproachability are instantly credited to our account as soon as we place our trust in Him.  We remain hostile in mind and evil in deed to some degree, but the Father receives us as entirely righteous because we are given the righteousness of Christ.  We immediately become His beloved sons and daughters through Jesus.

But that’s not all.  Embedded in Paul’s final words in v.22 is an even greater promise.  Jesus’ past death on the cross graciously reconciles us now without any righteousness of our own.  But that same cross-grace of God also begins to transform us now, gradually filling us with a holiness, blamelessness, and irreproachableness of our own, so that at the time of Jesus’ future return, He will have made us fully holy, blameless, and irreproachable.   

Ephesians 5:25-27 Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

What an exchange, Grace Church!  Just think of it.  Just think of what hope and help that would bring if we were to truly live in light of it.  

My hope and prayer all week has been that God’s Spirit would be pleased to do what I’m certain my words cannot: Fill us all with the humility and gratitude this grace warrants, all the love and courage it takes to share this good news with those still hostile, evil and alienated, and all the wonder and hope it calls for regarding the promise of unlimited future grace.  

Despite my best efforts, my words are not enough to help you see the glory that is here.  My countenance isn’t consistent with the amazingness of this news.  My prayers this week were insufficient for the need we have.  My preparation wasn’t thorough enough for the depth of the text.  My own trust in these promises falls short of what they deserve.  

At the same time, you didn’t prepare well enough, you didn’t listen closely enough, your own personal preferences overshadowed some of what you should have rejoiced in, and you care more about who wins the Masters (or whatever) than the promises of God.

The point I’m trying to make is that we, like the Colossians, still have some measure of hostility of mind, evilness of deed, and experiential alienation from God in us; but God, being rich in mercy and abounding in steadfast love, can and has and will do for us, what we are incapable of doing ourselves.  He has done it in Jesus.   He will do it still in Jesus.  He will, on the day of Jesus’ glorious return, present us holy and blameless and above reproach before him…

Let us, therefore, be humble, share this good news, and live in the awesome and certain hope of the grace that is ours forever and ever.

Colossians 1:15-20 –

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

Easter Sunday is the most important holiday on the Church calendar.  For centuries, it has been a time set aside by the Church to celebrate and proclaim Jesus’ resurrection from the dead; not as a fairy tale or as a sentimental wish, but as a real, historical fact; one that shook heaven and earth; one that is the highpoint of all human history.  It is not an exaggeration to say that the eternal destiny of every person on earth, including every person in this room, hinges on our response to this news.

Of this, the Apostle Paul has some strong words,

1 Corinthians 15:13-20  If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. 15 We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

20 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.

We are here today because we believe Jesus really is risen from the dead, and that He really is the savior of all who believe (1 Timothy 4:10), and that He really is, right now, seated at the right hand of God interceding on our behalf (Colossians 3:1), and that He really will return one day to judge the living and the dead (2 Timothy 4:1), and that we will join Him in His resurrection (2 Corinthians 4:14), and that all of that is worth celebrating in the highest!   

To pour gas on that fire, we’re going to continue making our way through Paul’s letter to the Colossians.  In God’s kindness, we’ve come to the second half of 1:18, “He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.”  What a testimony to God’s presence and love it is that this is our passage for Easter Sunday. 

As we work our way through these few verses, we’ll see the big idea is that just as Jesus is preeminent over all Creation (over the making and governing of all that has been made), so too is He preeminent over all redemption and recreation (over saving and restoring all that has been broken).  Said another way, the combination of Jesus’ work in creating the heavens and the earth and His resurrection from the dead shows that all things are from Him and through Him and for Him; and that is really good news for all who believe.  The main takeaway for us, then, is to praise God and trust in the resurrected Jesus for every aspect of our lives and eternal lives.    

Christ is risen, Grace Church!  

If you’re just joining us, I’ve been preaching on the various aspects of Colossians 1:15-20 for a number of weeks now.  That whole section in Paul’s letter is about the preeminence—the stand-alone superiority, majesty, sovereignty, glory—of Jesus.  In a clear and clean way, Paul divides the preeminence of Jesus between His work in the Creation (vs.15-18a) and redemption/recreation (18b-20) of the world.  

If we are going to really rejoice in the glory and receive the help contained in these few verses—which, of course, we very much want, right, Grace?—then we need to begin by seeing the four parallels Paul makes between Jesus’ work in Creation and in Recreation.  

First, in the beginning of v.15 (in the section on Jesus’ preeminence over Creation), Paul wrote that Jesus “is the image of the invisible God.”  The recreation parallel is in v.19, where he wrote that in Jesus “all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.”  Can you see that in both, Paul’s point is that Jesus is God incarnate?

Second, in the second half of v.15 (Creation), Paul said of Jesus that He “is the firstborn of all creation.”  And then in v.18 (recreation) he wrote that Jesus is “the firstborn from the dead.”  There is a parallel between Jesus being firstborn at the making and remaking of heaven and earth.

Third, in v.17a (Creation) Paul wrote that Jesus “is before all things.”  We find the parallel in v.18b (recreation), “He is the beginning.”  

And finally, fourth, in v.16 (Creation) he wrote that in Jesus “all things were created.”  And in v. 20 (recreation) he wrote that in Jesus “all things” will be reconciled. 

Why do we need to start there?  What’s the point of the parallels?  The point is that just as Jesus is preeminent over Creation, so too is He preeminent over redemption and recreation.  Just as Jesus is the author of all created things, so too is He the author of the salvation of all things.  Just as His life is the source of all life, so too is His resurrection the source of all new life.  Just as He ordered all things in the beginning, so too will He reorder all things in the end.  

For the Colossian Church (those to whom the letter was originally written), drawing their attention to those awesome parallels served two main purposes.  (1) It helped them grow even more firm in their resolve that salvation is in Jesus alone.  That fact definitively answered many of the questions put before them by false teachers.  (2) At the same time, Paul also meant it to help them grow even more firm in their resolve that Jesus is entirely sufficient to protect them from those persecuting them.  And that fact definitively answered their questions concerning how they would be able to endure the persecution they were facing.  

In other words, in drawing the parallels between Jesus’ preeminence over Creation and redemption, Paul poetically pointed the Colossians to the unmatched glory of Jesus and directly addressed their two main problems.  What a gift that was for them (and, as we’re about to see, is for us).  

With that in the way of a backdrop, let’s back up a bit and look more closely at the specifics of this passage.  Insodoing, we’ll get a fuller sense of Paul’s argument and, Lord willing, it will result in hearts full of resurrection worship and lives full of resurrection obedience!

For the remainder of this sermon, then, we’re going to look a bit closer at each of those parallels as they appear inside the four main recreation claims Paul makes of Jesus in our passage: (1) Jesus is the firstborn from the dead, (2) In the man Jesus, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, (3) In Jesus all things are reconciled to God, and (4) In all of this, the preeminence of Jesus is put on spectacular display.  

As remarkable as those things are, let me be clear on something: Neither Paul’s aim nor mine is to simply fill your head with Easter facts.  For both of us, it is to help you see how those facts are the only sure foundation for a life, even an eternal life, of satisfaction, peace, meaning, and worship.  Or, more immediately, it is to help today be filled with the kind of celebration and joy that can only come from genuine hope in the real and resurrected and reigning Jesus’.  Let’s make our Easter celebrations centered around these things, Grace.  If these things are true, and the certainly are, what could possibly be more worthy of celebrating?!  

Once again, the first claim Paul makes in our passage for this morning is that Jesus “is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead.”

As I mentioned earlier, in both Creation and recreation, Jesus is the cause.  That Jesus is “before” Creation (Genesis 1-2) means Creation was by and through Him.  It came after Him and out of Him.  That’s awesome.  And in the same way, that He is the “beginning” of recreation (according to our passage) means that all new life, all salvation, is by and through Him, after and out of Him as well.  That’s even more awesome.  

Do you see that, Grace?  Do you see how amazing that is?  Do you see how essential that is for a true and full celebration of Easter?  For just 10 seconds, consider the power and wisdom it must take to call something into existence from nothing (the original work of Creation).  Jesus had that, Paul wrote.  But not only that, He also had the power and wisdom to save sinners and undo all that our sin has distorted, broken, and killed.  Easter is a celebration of Jesus as the beginning, the Maker and Remaker of heaven and earth.  

But that’s not all.  There’s more power, wisdom, and glory in Jesus that Paul wanted the Colossians (and us) to see and celebrate.  He is the “beginning” and the “firstborn”.  That He is the “firstborn of all creation” and the “firstborn from the dead” both mean that Jesus is not only the source of creation and recreation, but that He is also supreme, superior, and sovereign over everything that has been made and redeemed.  And that means Creation and recreation are not only by and through Him, but that they are also for Him!  It’s not just that He is the cause of both, but also that He is the aim of both.  By God’s design, Jesus is the firstborn of both so that (as we’ll see more clearly in just a bit) all things might marvel at Him in His glory!  Praise God for this, Grace.  What hope!  What unmatched majesty!  What a cause for celebration!  

On this Easter Sunday, out of this same claim, that Jesus “is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead,” consider with me two more of the greatest pieces of news of all time.  

First, in order for Jesus to be firstborn from the dead, He first had to be dead.  That might not sound like good news, but it most certainly is.  

As we just saw, by and through Jesus, God created the heavens and the earth, and all things therein very good.  And as we also just saw, all things, and especially mankind, were made by God for His glory; that is, God made everything that has been made to be fully and eternally satisfied and in fellowship with Him.  

However, instead of looking to God, the One thing that can truly and lastingly satisfy, our first parents quickly looked to other things.  Insodoing, they sinned against and fell short of the glory of God, taking upon themselves the God-promised, just penalty for their sin—physical, spiritual, and eternal death.  From the time of Adam and Eve, therefore, death reigned.  Since their Fall, all mankind has been born into their sin, and into their death. 

And yet, it is an inescapable fact that even in our sin, we bear God’s image.  And it is an inescapable fact that all divine image bearers know two things: There is a God and we are guilty before Him.  Consequently, in a very real way, all human history has been one long and entirely unsuccessful attempt by man to either unshackle or save himself from this judgment.  Through innumerable man-made philosophies (unshackle) and religions (save), through unimaginable hours and effort, through incalculable cost and consternation, not a single person has moved a single step closer to escaping the death sentence issued to us by God.  Indeed, no mere man ever could.  

But what was impossible for us, was not impossible for God.  Because He is the Son of God, the second person of the Holy Trinity, Jesus was without sin and able to absorb the full wrath of the Father for it.  Because He became man, Jesus was able to die and do so as an acceptable sacrifice for mankind.  

And in love, that’s exactly what He did.  That’s what happened on Good Friday—He handed Himself over to be crucified for the sins of the world.  On the cross, the Father poured out the full measure of His wrath upon Jesus and then Jesus died the death of a sinner.  But Jesus didn’t stay dead and the Father didn’t stay angry.  On the third day, by the power and in the pleasure of God, with atonement having been fully made, Jesus rose from the dead and therein became the “beginning, the firstborn from the dead.”

And that leads to the second piece of greatest news.  Grace, for Jesus to be firstborn, there must be a secondborn.  For Him to be the first to be resurrected from the dead, there must be others after Him.  Indeed, there are!  Paul’s main point is that Jesus accomplished for us what we were unable to accomplish for ourselves.  He died, so we would live.  He rose, so we would follow.  

2 Corinthians 4:14-15 He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence. 15 For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.

Easter, then, is not just the chance to celebrate Jesus’ resurrection, it is the chance to join Him in it, to become the secondborn from the dead!  

And the ever-growing good news is that we can, not by doing enough good things to earn His favor or by somehow making ourselves acceptable to Him, but by simply placing our trust in Him; by acknowledging that He alone is sufficient, that we have sinned and deserve the death that Jesus didn’t, but died, and that He alone could raise us from the dead and reconcile us to God.

That’s a different kind of Easter celebration, isn’t it Grace?   

I mentioned earlier that Paul makes four main claims in vs.18b-20.  We just spent a good deal of time on the first—that Jesus rose from the dead so that we would too.  The second is like it.  It too is a description of Jesus’ unfathomable glory and grace.  It too is great help for celebrating Easter as we ought.  

Paul’s second main claim is that in Jesus…

19 … all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell…

Paul wrote that in relation to Jesus’ work in recreation.  And again, that parallels his statement in relation to the Creation, that Jesus “is the image of the invisible God” (v.15).  The point for both is that Jesus was only able to Create and recreate because He is truly man and truly God.  Only God can create something out of nothing—physical and spiritual things in the beginning or physical and spiritual life in the new beginning.  

Grace Church, that in Jesus all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, is a truth so glorious that it is impossible to overstate it.  If your hope is in Jesus, you will spend all of eternity enthusiastically, though unsuccessfully attempting to plumb the depths of this.  

Jesus is truly and eternally God.  In Him is all the fullness of God’s nature; His glory and power and holiness and love and mercy and grace and justice and wisdom and majesty.  Praise Him for this.  Trust Him in this. Make this the heart of your celebration today. 

That leads us nicely and neatly to Paul’s third main point.

(1) Jesus suffered, died, and rose from the dead so that many would join Him, (2) He was able to do so only because He is truly God, and the ultimate and final result will be that (3)…

20 … through [Jesus, God will] reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.”

That sounds awesome, doesn’t it?  All things reconciled in heaven and earth!?  But what does it really mean?

On the surface, it kind of sounds like some form of universalism, like everything and everyone will be saved in Jesus, doesn’t it?  Although it might sound like that, the clear teaching of the NT, especially in Paul’s writings, is that only those who place their faith in Jesus will be rescued from their sin.

Ephesians 2:8 by grace you have been saved through faith. 

Romans 10:9-13 if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. … 11 For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” … 13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

But if Paul didn’t mean that everyone will be saved, what did he mean that God will “reconcile to Himself all things…on earth or in heaven, making peace…” through Jesus?

At the very least he meant that one day everything will be put in its proper place.  One day every crooked line will be made straight and every injustice will be righted.  One day every created thing will properly acknowledge God as God and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord of all.  

It is an unmistakable and unimaginably glorious promise—especially as we consider the difficulties the Colossians faced and the vast amounts of pain and suffering and disorder and rebellion in the world today—that one day it will all be made right; that every evil and rebellious thing will be driven away forever, never to return again; that every rock and plant and animal and star and cell will be brought into perfect conformity with God’s good design; that one day all who are hoping in Jesus will be fully and forever rid of every ounce of pain and sadness and difficulty and inefficiency and bentness and brokenness and lesser appetite; that everyone who joins Jesus in His resurrection will know only perfect rightness and peace and all in the presence of the all-satisfying God who made us for Himself.  

In the end, it’s remarkable Easter news indeed, that even as all things in heaven and on earth were made by, through, and for Jesus, so too will all things be reconciled to Jesus (which is the fourth and final parallel).  

But how did Jesus do that reconciling and peace-making work?

Although I mentioned this earlier, Paul says it explicitly here.  All things, one way or another, will be reconciled and at peace, 

20 … by the blood of [Jesus’] cross.”

From the very beginning, God declared that blood is required for sin.  Not one iota of sin will be unpaid for or paid for by anything other than blood.  Right at the heart of the gospel is the reality that there are only two possible sources of sin-paying blood.  We will either pay for it with our own, eternally, or we will accept the blood-sacrifice that Jesus offered on our behalf on the cross.  We learn from the insufficiency of the millions of gallons of animal blood offered in the OT and the countless offerings made to pagan “gods” that there are no other options.

While there is a future component to the reconciliation and peace-making purchased by Jesus’ cross-blood, the grammar of Paul’s promise makes it clear that it is certain.  Jesus’ death and resurrection definitively accomplished it.  Because of the blood of His cross, it can’t not be that all things will be reconciled to God.  It’s not 99.9999999%, it’s 100% certain.  He did it.  It’s done.  

Again, what awesome news that is, Grace Church.  What hope it is for all our trials.  What a reason to celebrate!  

The fourth and final point Paul makes is actually closer to the beginning of this passage than the end.  However, it is the point of the whole passage and so I wanted to save it for last.  

It’s found at the very end of v.18.  There, Paul tells us the ultimate reason for everything else.  Why did God Create all things by, through, and for Jesus?   Why is it in Jesus that all created things hold together?  Why is Jesus the head of the Church?  Why is He the firstborn from the dead?  Why is God pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Jesus and for Jesus to be the very image of the invisible God?  Why is it through Jesus that all things are reconciled to God?  Why did Jesus die on a cross and rise from the dead?

18 … that in everything he might be preeminent.

The divine aim in all of that is that Jesus would be exalted above all.  God’s plan in creation, redemption, and recreation is that the name of Jesus would be lifted above every name, that all would see Him as supreme, first, and highest.  All of our worship, then, is to be directed at the godhead through Jesus.  That’s what Easter is really about.  That’s what we’re meant to celebrate above all.  Our salvation is an amazing expression of God’s grace for sure, but the best part of it is that we are saved into fellowship with the Preeminent One.  Our salvation is, Easter is, above all, the opportunity to have the Greatest Treasure, Jesus, as our greatest treasure.  

Let us make this greatest news the center and sufficient heart of our celebration today, Grace.  And let us continually God and trust in the resurrected Jesus for every aspect of our lives and eternal lives.    

Christ is risen!

In His kind providence, God brought us to this particular passage on Easter Sunday and He put Easter Sunday on the first Sunday of the month this year.  That means, as Pastor Colin mentioned at the beginning of our service, that we get to take part in the meal that Jesus instituted for us on the night before He was crucified for us.  

Colossians 1:15-20 –

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

Imagine at the same time the hardest trial and the best news you could get concerning it.  At the time Paul wrote this letter to the Colossian church, the world seemed fairly neatly divided between those who didn’t know what to do with Christians and those who wanted to see them crushed.  I’ve met men and women around the world who are in terrible situations because of their faith in Jesus, having lost virtually every earthly good.  Some of you have known or are experiencing now, significant suffering.  

There’s no way for us to fathom the amount of damage and suffering sin has caused in the world.  How many times have you wished for some measure of relief from it?  How many times have you prayed for help or healing or deliverance?  

Again, I wonder, though, what’s the most you’ve dared to hope for in your suffering?  What’s the best news you’ve imagined receiving in it?  

Whatever your answer, Paul’s letter promises something better, something infinitely better.  Above all, he promised the Colossian Christians, along with all who are trusting in Jesus, that Jesus successfully gave His life to defeat sin and death and to bring about the complete restoration of all that sin has taken and broken.  He promised a hope of glory and grace—past, present, and future.

The past glory/grace was about their union with Jesus and the deliverance, redemption, and forgiveness that come with it, the moment they put their faith in Jesus. 

The future glory/grace is about sharing in the inheritance of Jesus and a time when all things will be right.  

But Paul was also realistic about the fact that they needed present glory/grace as well.  That, under the Spirit’s inspiration, he offered in two main forms.  The second, which we’ll come to later in the letter, was in the form of instructions for the Christian life in the here and now.  And the first, which we’ve been pressing into for the past few weeks, is a description of Jesus’ preeminence over all created things.  

Last week, we considered Jesus’ preeminence over God’s original work of Creation (Genesis 1-2).  Next week, on Easter Sunday, we’ll consider His preeminence over the coming recreation and His resurrection that proved it.  This week, we’re going to consider His preeminence over all created things today.  

The big idea of all three weeks is that there is great help in hardship when we know the hardship is caused by things made by Jesus, governed by Jesus, and that will be brought to perfect justice and conformity by Jesus.  Understandably, then, the big idea of this sermon is that Jesus sovereignly reigns over every renegade thing that causes our difficulty, both inside and outside the Church.  The main takeaway is to find and trust in Jesus’ promises concerning His sovereign grace through all that causes our suffering.  

Jesus is preeminent over everything that has been made.  And one way that shows up is in the facts that, “17 …in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church.”

This morning, then, with the Lord’s help, we’re going to marvel together that Jesus is the preeminent sustainer of everything that has been made and of the Church.  First one first.

Again, v.17 says that in Jesus all things hold together, but what does that mean?  I remember coming across three helpful categories in this regard years ago.  All things hold together in Jesus in that He preserves, concurs with, and governs all created things, continually.

Why do you look like you every single day?  Why does water freeze and boil at basically the same temperatures continually?  Why do oak trees grow and lose leaves every year?  Why do objects fall at the same speed every time?

Perhaps more to the point, why do created things remain intact at all?  Why don’t we simply dissolve into mist or just cease to exist at any given moment?  

The short answer to all of those questions is that Jesus continually preserves His creation according to the order with which He designed it.   

Hebrews 1:3, says it like this, “[Jesus] upholds the universe by the word of his power…”

One of the more powerful ways I’ve heard this said is that for us to cease to exist, Jesus wouldn’t need to do something (like send a consuming fire from heaven), He’d simply need to stop doing something.   We hold together, consistent with our nature, because (and only because) He is continually, actively working to that end; not a deistic, impersonal preservation, but an active, loving, personal, purposeful one.  

At the very least, that ought to bring about praise and peace in us no matter what this season of our lives holds.  

It ought to bring praise in that it is an awesome display of the omnipotence of God.  It is a glorious manifestation of the complete authority given to Jesus by the Father (Matthew 28:18).  

We are right to look around and marvel at the fact that it is not the studs in the walls that are really holding the roof up in this room, but Jesus.  

He is, right now, keeping the earth beneath us, maintaining the chemical reaction that turned the limestone, clay, sand, and water into the rock-hard cement that’s under our feet, holding fast the fibers of the wood in the walls and trusses, and keeping the molecules together in our shingles to prevent rain from getting in.  

He’s doing the same thing for every body of every person in this room.  He’s doing it for the sun and the lakes.  He’s preserving the vibrating particles that allow us to hear the piano and one another when we speak and sing.  

Jesus holding all things together, preserving them in the properties He created, is the only reason that science and engineering work.  

And for all of that (and the trillions of other ways He’s preserving His creation continually), we must worship Him.   

I’ve long wondered if this is why there’s so much power released in splitting atoms.  I don’t mean to say that humans have found a way to break Jesus’ hold on things or to overcome His preservation of them.  I only mean to say that it seems entirely consistent with this idea that something that requires magnification of at least 50 million times to see, has so much power in it.  It’s a way of revealing the power of Jesus’ preservation (kind of the opposite side of the coin of the visible universe being 93 billion light-years across as a means of displaying the vastness of God’s presence and glory).  Either way, praise Him for His preserving power, Grace.  

There is praise, and there is peace in this knowledge, no matter our circumstances, in that it is Jesus who is knowingly and willingly holding together whatever it is that is causing us hardship.  For some that’s a terrible thought, but for those of us who believe Jesus’ promises concerning His use of every trial for the highest good and glory, it is the surest source of the greatest peace.  

Jesus could cause the source of your pain to cease to exist immediately by merely being silent.  Knowing that He’s chosen to keep upholding it by the word of His power, and that He loves you (1 John 4:19), and that He has promised to cause all things to work together for your good (Romans 8:28), means that He must have something really good for you in the hardship.  

That’s what Paul wanted the Colossians to understand and the peace he wanted them to experience when he wrote of Jesus’ preservation (holding together) of the source of their suffering.  And that’s what I want for you all.     

More than merely preserving all things, though, that all things hold together in Jesus also means that He is working concurrently with all things, at all times, in all that is done.

Essentially, that means that in every action of every created thing, Jesus is working along with it.  

Biblically, we see this in God’s working in the falling of snow and hail (Job 38:22-23).   We see it in His concurrence with the grass and plants of the earth (Psalm 104:14).  We see it in the falling of the sunlight and rain (Matthew 5:45). We see it the feeding and flying of the birds of the air (Matthew 10:29).  We see it in the way dice roll (Proverbs 16:33).  We see it in the affairs (Psalm 22:28) and limits (Acts 17:26) of the nations.  

One of the clearest verses for me, speaking of God’s concurrence in our work is Philippians 2:12-13, “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”  We work and God works at the same time.  Both are real and both shape the outcome.

And while I could go on and on listing the things the Bible explicitly says take place in concurrence with Jesus, the main point is that it is in Him that all things (including us) “live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).  

Again, that Jesus works in concurrence with all created things simply means that in everything, Jesus is working and His creation is working together.

This was good news for the Colossians and it is good news for us.  Jesus is always, always, always with us.  He is never far.  His hand is in all that we do, and especially in our response to our suffering.  And, He is always working alongside the causes of our suffering.  

While that might sound strange, and while there’s a bit more explanation needed (which we’ll come back to in a few minutes), the main point is that there is great comfort for everyone hoping in Jesus, in the knowledge that all things are in Jesus’ hands.  He is never surprised by the actions of His creation.  He is never scrambling around, playing catch-up with the hard things happening in the world.  He really does hold all things (good and bad, animate and inanimate, visible and invisible, things in heaven and on earth) together.  Rightly understood, there is tremendous praise and peace in that.

The idea that in Jesus all things hold together, and that He upholds the universe by the word of His power, describes Jesus’ preservation, concurrence, and finally, His governance of all things.   There is a close relationship between concurrence and government, but there is also an important distinction.  Concurrence simply means that God works with His creation to do all that is done.  Government means that He does so by directing all things to accomplish His purposes.  

In Daniel 4:35 we read of God that, “He does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand…”.  

Ephesians 1:11 speaks to this, declaring that God “works all things according to the counsel of His will…”. 

Similarly, Psalm 135:6 tells us that “Whatever the Lord pleases, He does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all the deeps.”

Again, this is not to deny our agency or the reality of our choices or our responsibility for them.  And it is certainly not to suggest that God does evil or makes us do the evil that we do.  But it is to say that God is continually working all things—even the evil things done in the world—according to the counsel of His will.  

If you know the story of Joseph and his mistreatment at the hands of his brothers, then you know the grand conclusion, “What you intended for evil, God intended for good” (Genesis 50:20).  And if you know the story of Good Friday, you know that the men who crucified Jesus did evil, but from it God worked the greatest good of all time.  That is why Peter would proclaim to the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem, “this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men” (Acts 2:23).  Because they really did evil.  But it is also why He would immediately explain that through their evil actions, “God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it” (Acts 2:24).

So what does all of this (Jesus’ perpetual preservation, concurrence and governance) mean for the Colossians’ suffering and what does it mean for ours?  On the surface, it sounds like a bit of a mixed bag, doesn’t it?  If Jesus is working in and through all things to accomplish His purposes, that means He is somehow tied to our suffering.  Again, as we just saw, He is.  But He is involved for good.  For all who hope in Jesus, hardship is an instrument in the Redeemer’s hands.  Even the evil choices of others are Jesus’ tools for our sanctification.  

It is precisely because He holds all things together that He is able to guarantee that “for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).    

It is precisely because He holds all things together that we are right to “rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame…” (Romans 5:3-5).  And to “Count it all joy… when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (James 1:2-4).

It is precisely because He holds all things together that we can be sure that “the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18).  And that “after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you” (1 Peter 5:10).  

It is precisely because He preserves, concurs, and governs all things that He is able to guarantee that “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it” (1 Corinthians 10:13).

The Colossians were suffering persecution and being tormented with false doctrine at the hands of wicked men.  But by reminding them that all those wicked men were being held together by Jesus, he was giving them all the help they needed to navigate those trials in faith, and in a manner pleasing to God.  

And so it is for us, Grace.  As you contemplate your suffering, know for certain that Jesus is working every ounce of it for His greatest glory and your greatest good as He holds every aspect of it together.  

Interestingly and importantly, all of this was as true on Good Friday as on Palm and Easter Sundays.  It was every bit as true in Jesus’ crucifixion as it was in His triumphal entry and resurrection from the dead.  In Him all the palm branches that were placed on the road and waving in His honor held together.   His crucifiers were held together by Him, along with the fibers of the tree He hung on and the molecules of the nails that held Him there.  And the tomb that released Him in His resurrection did so because it was being held together by Him!  

Imagine that!!!  If there is great good in Him holding together the objects of His suffering (which was far worse than anything any of us will experience), there is no doubt of the great good He is working through His holding together the objects of our suffering as well. 

In preparing for this sermon, I came across a poem by Joseph Mary Plunket.  He wrote it to try to capture some of the glory and grace of this passage.  He gives us a lens with which to see the world in light of the facts that all things were created by, through, and for Jesus and that in Him alone all things hold together.

I see His blood upon the rose
And in the stars the glory of His eyes,
His body gleams amid eternal snows,
His tears fall from the skies.

I see His face in every flower,
The thunder and the singing of the birds
Are but His voice and carven by His power
Rocks are His written words.

All pathways by His feet are worn,
His strong heart stirs the ever-beating sea
His crown of thorns is twined with every thorn,
His cross is every tree. 

Do not fret, Grace.  Grieve, but not as one without hope.  Weep, but don’t despair.  Be angry at the sin and injustices and sufferings in this world, but not apart from the knowledge that all is being and will be made right by Him who holds all things together.  

Jesus is preeminent over all creation—over the original Creation of all things and over the ongoing governance of all things.  Within that, we see in v.18 and throughout the NT, that He is also preeminent over the Church.  

18 And he is the head of the body, the church.

In Ephesians 1:20–23 Paul says it this way, God the Father “seated [Jesus] at his right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. 22 And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.”

This is truly remarkable, Grace.  Our highest authority is Jesus, who is our head.  He holds His Church together, even as He holds the universe together.  This is true of the Church universal and the church local.  

The Church universal is just another way of describing all true believers (everyone who has truly placed their faith in Jesus) of all time.  As soon as a person becomes a Christian, they become a part of the one true Church, of which Jesus is the, creator, authority, and sustainer.    

He is the creator of the universal church in that no one comes to faith apart from Him.  Jesus declared that He is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6).

He is the authority of the universal Church in that it is in Him alone in which all authority lies.  It is to Him alone, therefore, that we submit in all things.  And all because it is to Him alone that the Father “put all things under His feet and gave Him as head over all things to the Church” (Ephesians 1:22).  

And He is the sustainer of the universal Church in that He will lose none who come to faith in Him (John 18:9).   

Everyone who comes to Jesus (who comes into the Church universal), does so because Jesus called them.  Coming to Jesus means submitting to Him as Lord of all.  And all who come to Jesus will be kept by Jesus, for He loses none.  

What’s more, Jesus determined to save a people from every tribe, tongue, and nation (Revelation 7:9) through His Church universal.  He has commissioned us to proclaim the good news of His suffering, death, and resurrection to the whole world, calling the world to receive Him in faith and inviting them into the eternal fellowship of the saints.  

That He is holding the Church together as Her head means that this mission will not fail.  “I will build my church” Jesus promised, “and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18).  

What a glorious picture of Jesus this is, as the One in whom all things hold together, including the Church.  Do not fret, Grace.  If your hope is in Jesus, if you are trusting in Him alone for the forgiveness of your sins, then “neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39), even as nothing will be able to stop His glorious return, His final subduing of every rebel power, and His recreation of the heavens and earth for all His people to dwell with Him forever in glory!

As remarkable as that is, it’s just as remarkable that He is the sustainer and head of every local church as well.  

For the Colossians, this was good news indeed.  It meant Jesus was reigning over and holding together their small fellowship of saints.  It meant there was nothing that they would experience that Jesus wasn’t with them in and directing to His great purposes.  It meant that as real as their struggles were, they were not outside of Jesus reign.  It meant that although there were enemies without and within, they existed and moved according to the pleasure of Jesus.  It meant that as hard as the Colossians were working to remain true to the faith and to proclaim it in the midst of hostility, Jesus was working harder and better and more victoriously on their behalf.  

How much time and tears have been wasted by the people of God forgetting this truth or failing to trust in it?  Conversely, how much help and hope and relief and joy is in that knowledge practiced, Grace?  

Had the church in Colossae believed that fully, it likely would not have caused their persecutors and false teachers to simply give up. But it would have given them all they needed to endure in faith.

And so it is for us, Grace.  As we wrestle with our own trials, individually and together, we must do so in full assurance that Jesus is preeminent over it all.  He is the head of us, our gathering, and our ministry.  He is head of our growth and whatever way we respond to it.  He loves us and cares for us more than any of us love or care for us.  He is, right now and always, working for our good in ways we cannot duplicate or even fully comprehend.  

As we remember our 30th Anniversary celebration from this past summer, we heard of a lot of ups and downs.  We heard of many times in which the early leaders couldn’t imagine a path forward and contemplated closing the church.  But through all of that, Jesus held Grace Church together, exactly as Paul told the Colossians He would, some 2000 years ago.   And He continues to do so today.  

Imagine, once again, at the same time the hardest trial and the best news you could get concerning it.  Whatever your trial and whatever your answer, the promise given to us in this passage in this letter is far greater—In Jesus all things, including each of our lives and the church that binds us together, are being held together.  He is preserving us, working with us in all we do, and directing all our efforts to His perfect purposes.   

And so, as we celebrate Palm Sunday, on our way to Good Friday and Easter Sunday, remember that in all things Jesus is preeminent.  Remember, as Paul wrote in another letter, to another church, “God [the Father] has highly exalted [Jesus] and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:11).

Colossians 1:15-20 –

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

The ongoing questions Paul’s letter to the Colossians forces careful readers to consider are: (1) What hardships are you facing in life, and (2) What help is there for them (or where are you turning to for help)?  For the Colossian Christians, the ongoing answer to the first question was persecution and false teaching.  And Paul’s ongoing answer for the second question is the preeminence of Jesus.  

A proper understanding of and trust in who Jesus is and what He’s done (His preeminence in nature and practice) is always the main help we have and need, Paul wrote.

We saw at the end of the last section of the letter (1:12-14) what Jesus did: Suffered, died, and rose from the dead in order to redeem us, that the Father might qualify us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light, deliver us from the domain of darkness, transfer us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, and forgive us of our sins.

We’ll see what He did again at the end of this passage (1:20): He died on the cross to reconcile us (and all things) to Himself.  

That’s what He did in His preeminence.  The rest of the passage, once again, speaks to who Jesus is as preeminent.  

Last week, we saw that He is preeminent in that He is the image of the invisible God.  And because of that we have great help in every hardship.  Specifically, (1) We can be sure that He is always with us for our good in our trials and (2) We can be sure that in the New Heavens and Earth we will see Him with eyes sanctified precisely to enable us to behold Him in His glory forever and ever.

For the next three weeks, we are going to continue to consider who Jesus is as a means of growing in worship and help in trials.  Specifically, we’ll see from this passage that Jesus’ preeminence was at the center of God’s work in Creation (this morning), is at the center of God’s ongoing work in sustaining creation (next week), and will be at the center of the coming recreation (Easter Sunday).  

The big idea of this sermon is that whatever form the hardships in your life take, you must know that Jesus is supreme over every aspect of every object of the difficulty.  As the means and aim of all Creation, there is nothing causing you pain that Jesus is not over.  There is great help in that knowledge for all who are hoping in Jesus.  The main takeaway, then, is to learn to live out of that story—the greatest and truest story, with the greatest Hero, the greatest ending, and the greatest Author.  

In my experience, it is a common tendency for Christians to draw bold lines around the work of the persons of the godhead. For instance, it is normal to think exclusively of the Spirit when it comes to the ongoing power we have for ministry today, of the Son when it comes to securing our salvation, and of the Father when it comes to the Creation of the heavens and earth.

Of course, there’s some truth to this—God’s Word does speak primarily of the Father’s work in Creation, the Son alone died on the cross, and only the Spirit indwells believers—but the Bible consistently teaches that all three persons of the godhead are all involved in all that God does.

Our passage for this morning is an example of that in an important sense. If we miss it, we miss another awesome aspect of the preeminence of Jesus and help for our troubles; namely, in His involvement with and relationship to the Creation work of God. As we just noted, God the Father is the primary mover in Creation, but He did so, as we’re about to see, by, through, and for Jesus.
But what does that mean and how does it help in times of suffering?

The second phrase Paul uses to describe the preeminence of Jesus in v.15 (the first is that He is the “image of the invisible God”) is that: “He is…the first born of all creation.”

That might not sound at first like an expression of Jesus’ preeminence.  In fact, the idea of Jesus being the “firstborn of all creation” ought to sound at least a little strange.  It sounds a little like His involvement in Creation includes being created.  And it sounds like His uniqueness is only that He was the first to be created and born.  If that’s what Paul meant, it doesn’t seem all that impressive and, worse yet, it opens a giant can of worms.  

That’s how certain groups like the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons read it.  And that’s part of what they use to deny the Trinity.  

Biblically, “firstborn” can certainly mean the first to be born in a family.  That is a big deal and a real honor.  It included an extra inheritance and the primary responsibility to keep the family unified in the next generation.  There are many, many examples of that.  

But is that the case?  Is that what Paul had in mind?  

Certainly not!  He makes that crystal clear in the following verses when he says that Jesus is before Creation and that all Creation was by, through, and for Him.  

If that’s not what Paul meant, then what did He mean?

Throughout the Bible, the term “firstborn” also refers to someone who is first in importance.  Psalm 89 gives us a sense of this in a remarkable way.

Psalm 89:27-29  I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth. 28 My steadfast love I will keep for him forever, and my covenant will stand firm for him. 29 I will establish his offspring forever and his throne as the days of the heavens.

The Psalmist, Ethan the Ezrahite, wrote in God’s voice of King David, in what is considered a Messianic psalm.  In other words, these few verses in Psalm 89 are ultimately about Jesus being the firstborn in the same sense as Paul means it in our passage.    

I read a similar use of “firstborn” in John’s Gospel in my quite time this week.  John the Baptist was questioned by the Jews concerning his ministry.  In response, of Jesus, he declared, “After me comes a man who ranks before me, because he was before me” (John 1:30).  John was the firstborn of the cousins (physically born before Jesus), but Jesus was the firstborn over the cousins (greater in significance, importance, worth, power).  

That’s the same connection that Paul made in our passage.  Jesus is the “firstborn of all creation” in the same way that He is “before all things” in Creation (v.17); namely in that He is preeminent, in first place over Creation.

The next verse in Colossians, v.16, unpacks that idea further—it explains some of what Paul meant by Jesus’ firstborn-Creation-preeminence.  But before we get there, Grace, let’s pause to marvel at this and check our suffering-story and that of the Colossian Christians against it.  

That Jesus is over all Creation (again, that’s what it means that He is firstborn of all Creation), means, at the very least, that those persecuting and spreading false teaching among the Colossians, as well as whatever aspect of Creation is troubling you—be it renegade cells in your body or people in your life or even demons from hell—are under Jesus.  He is over them all!  

There’s more to the story than that, but there isn’t less.  And if your story doesn’t include that reality, if the way you are processing your hardship doesn’t have that as the center and backdrop, then you’ll never navigate your suffering as you ought, you are missing out on great help, and God is not glorified as He deserves in your response.  

That Jesus is the firstborn of all Creation must dominate every aspect of how you think about and respond to your suffering.  And the more it does, the more help it will be, and the more God will be honored.  That’s what Paul first commended to the Colossians and it’s what I first commend to you.     

That’s quite a bit of help already.  But Paul was not done.  He further unpacked Jesus’ preeminence in Creation.  Look with me at v.16 to see more of what that means, and therein find even more help for your trials.  

15 He is … the firstborn of all creation. 16 For [Why is He preeminent over all Creation?  What does it mean that He is preeminent over all Creation?  What is His relationship to Creation?  Jesus is firstborn of all creation, He is supreme, sovereign, preeminent, because…] by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.

In v.16, we see that everything that was made, was made by and through Jesus (and also for Jesus, which we’ll consider next).  That’s remarkable.  That gives greater clarity and color to the meaning of Jesus as firstborn and preeminent over Creation.  It’s remarkable, but it’s not unique to Paul (see also 1 Corinthians 8:6).  

In John 1:3 we’re told that “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.”  Likewise, Hebrews 1:2 says that it was “through [Jesus that the Father] created the world.”

Grace it’s nearly impossible to overstate the significance of this.  Look around.  Everything you see was made by Jesus.  Everything that exists outside of the godhead was made through Jesus.  God spoke all things into existence and Jesus is the Word of God!

But how do you communicate something so significant when ordinary words and conventions just aren’t enough?  

I doubt I’ll ever forget Paul Tripp’s attempt at doing so in describing the problem with the human heart.  The fact is that we are desperately and terminally selfish.  But how do you say that in a way that conveys the gravity of the situation?  He attempted to do so by asking, “Do you know what your problem is?”  And answering, “I want.  I want.  I want.  I want.  I want.  I want…..” and he went on for what felt like minutes.  

Paul, the author of our letter, did that often as well.  How do you describe the incalculable love of God?  Consider his description of God’s love for us and what it takes to grasp it in Ephesians 3(:16-19).  

14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Paul could have simply written to the Ephesian Christians and said, “It’s important for you to know that God loves you.”  That’s the heart of what he did write.  But he knew that they needed to know and experience and live in light of God’s love above everything else.  And he also knew that God’s love is so great that they’d never grasp it without God’s help.  

And so, instead of simply saying “God loves you” and leaving it at that, Paul revealed that he fell to his knees in prayer, pleading with God to provide for them all they needed to understand and experience His love for them.  He went on to describe the nature of the God to whom he prayed—the Father of every man.  He explained the only reason God would answer his prayer—because of the unlimited wealth of His glory.  He revealed the only way the Ephesians could handle what he was seeking on their behalf—if God first granted them, by His Spirit, strength and power beyond anything they’d experienced.  He named the critical prerequisite for knowing and experiencing the depths of God’s love in them—Christ dwelling in them through their faith.  In that, he made it a triune prayer, invoking each person of the godhead on their behalf.  He wrote of their need not only to know and experience God’s love, but to be rooted and grounded in it.  Then he revealed that God’s love occupies an extra dimension and asked God to grant them access to it—breadth, length, height, and depth.  He acknowledged that God’s love is so vast that it surpasses knowledge.  And, finally, he asked God to fill them with the fullness—to make them full, full—of His love.  

Again, his only point was that God loved them.  But he knew enough about God’s love and the Ephesians need for it, that simply stating it was not enough.  

Well, he did something very similar in our passage.  Paul knew the depth of the trials the Colossians were experiencing.  And he knew that what they needed most was to know and experience the preeminence of Jesus over their trials.  But he also knew that simply saying, “Don’t worry, Jesus is in control,” while certainly true, did not capture the scope or glory of what that meant.  

Therefore, he explained some of the nature of Jesus’ “control” and where it came from.  As we just saw, it starts with the fact that Jesus is the firstborn (sovereign over) everything causing them problems.  But Paul didn’t stop there.  There is more glory to Jesus’ “control” over the things plaguing the Colossians, and therefore, more help for them in it.  He went on then to explain that He is firstborn because all Creation is by and through Jesus.  But he didn’t stop there either.  So that his readers wouldn’t miss it and the help that comes with it, he also rattled off eight dimensions of Creation that were made by and through Jesus!

In the beginning there was only God—Father, Son, and Spirit.  And then, at the appointed time, God determined to Create a universe outside of Himself.  The Father spoke by and through His Son and all that has been made was made.  Everything…

On earth.  Every man, woman, and child, every ray of the sun, every cell, every ant, tree, and flower, every bug, every large rainbow trout, every person, every physical thing.   

In heaven.  Angels, demons, seraphim, cherubim, Satan himself, every spiritual thing.  

Visible.  Everything you can see.  

Invisible.  Everything you can’t see. 

Thrones.  Every position of power on earth. 

Dominions.  Every position of power in heaven.

Rulers.  Every person of power on earth.

Authorities.  Every being of power in heaven.  

It’s not certain, but Paul seems to be oscillating back and forth between the physical and spiritual in order to highlight the all-encompassing nature of Jesus’ involvement in the Creation of all created things.  

Either way, although Paul’s point was not to exhaustively name every distinct aspect of Creation, it was meant to poetically express the totality of Jesus sovereignty over the totality of all that has been made. 

Think about what that means for your trials, Grace Church.  That’s what Paul wanted the Colossians to do.  

Are the things troubling you in heaven or earth?  Are they visible or invisible?  Are they physical or spiritual?  Are they powerful people or nations or forces?  If so (and of course they are for there’s nothing outside of those things), then they were made by and through Jesus.  He is sovereign over them.  

What, then, do you need to fear?  What, then, can they do to you outside of Jesus’ authority (which He always and only uses for the good of those whose faith is in Him)?

This knowledge does not, of course, take away your trials, it doesn’t cancel out the hardships in your life, but it does allow you to endure them with a much bigger story than “this hard. no like. must avoid. at all cost.”

For the Colossians and us, the pain of others’ sin against us, our sickness or that of someone we love, the teasing of other kids, the disobedience of our own kids or the inability to have them, the troubled marriage or the divorce or the singleness, even the temptation of demons are bad; sometimes really bad.  But the knowledge that working an incomprehensible good in every one of those is the Firstborn over all creation, the One by and through whom all of those things were made, the One who created everything on earth and in heaven, visible and invisible, thrones and dominions, rulers and authorities, is infinitely better.  

We all live out of a story.  The question this passage puts in front of us is: Inside what story are you experiencing and interpreting your suffering?  Even more significant is the question: Is the Firstborn of all creation the center of your story?  If He isn’t, hard things will just be hard; perhaps even to the point of despair.  But if He is, they will still be hard, but dimmed to near invisibility by the unmatched light of the glory of Jesus, the firstborn.

For the Colossians, with this understanding, they could endure their persecution in the knowledge that no one was persecuting them who was not made by and through Jesus.  Their persecutors belonged to Jesus and were under His sovereign rule.  And with this understanding, they would reject the false teaching, for no matter its appeal or promise, it was as the foulest pile of rot compared to the glory of the Maker of heaven and earth.  

It is a gift to us that the Colossians had both some kind of physical or emotional struggle (in their persecution) as well as a theological one (in the false doctrine that was being presented to them).  

If it were only theological, someone who’s pain is primarily physical (some disease or sickness or the physical abuse of someone) might think, “False teaching?  Strange doctrine?  Some philosophy?  That’s your suffering?!  It must be nice.  That’s nothing compared to the excruciating pain I’m in day after day.

Or, if the Colossians’ pain were only physical, someone with emotional scars from past sin (theirs or others’) might say, “I’ll take a beating any day of the week.  At least that’s done when it’s done.  I’m haunted 24 hours a day with an emotional pain that is nearly suffocating.”

Or if the Colossians’ pain were only emotional, someone with a theological trial might think, “I’m sure it’s rough to suffer in your mind and heart regarding the things of this earth.  I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.  But if that’s all you have, you can’t imagine how much greater it is to be tormented day after day with the fear that I am not truly saved and that I will suffer forever in hell when I die.”  

That the Colossians suffered all three and Paul’s first and main answer was the same for all three simultaneously acknowledges the unique challenges of the theological, emotional, and physical pain we experience and the supremacy and sufficiency of Jesus, the Firstborn, over them all.  

And so the question is: Is the Jesus you believe in that big?  Is He that glorious?  Is He that preeminent?  Is He that supreme?  Is He truly that much greater than anything you might suffer?  Is He the maker of all things?  He is!  The only question is whether or not we realize it enough to find the help that’s in it.

There’s one more point Paul makes that we simply can’t miss.  We want all the help we can get, right?  The harder your situation, the more each drop of help means to you.  But this is no mere drop of help.  It’s a gushing canyon of help.  It’s just two words, but it’s the Niagara Falls of help.  Look with me at the last two words of v.16.  

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.

Before the act of Creation, before God made all things by and through Jesus, it was determined that all Creation would be for Jesus.  He is the point and the aim.  

“Some translate the word ‘for’ as toward, which makes the sense even more dramatic: ‘All things were created by him and toward him.’  Everything began with him and will end with him.  All things sprang forth at his command, and all things will return to him at his command.  He is the beginning and he is the end—the Alpha and Omega.  One day everything will give him glory!” (Hughes, PTW, 232).

The main thing for us to see is that everyone is living for something.  It’s in our nature to be aimed at something.  We can’t not.  As some of you know, there are countless things we might live for that falsely promise satisfaction—relationships, career, sports, accomplishments, money, quiet, pleasure, etc.  And as the rest of you know, one of the most discouraging places to be in life is not having a sense of purpose—of not even having a place that might provide satisfaction.  But Paul tells us that Jesus is our purpose.  All created things exist for Him.  

We are part of Jesus’ Creation.  Therefore, we will only find true significance inside the One aim that makes us significant: Jesus.  

In that way, when we are faced with trials, there is great help in knowing that for everyone whose hope is in Jesus, they are not pointless.  They are not meaningless.  They are never in vain.  They are a means of God’s sanctifying grace (), or an opportunity to glorify God in our navigation of them (), or the loving discipline of the Lord (), or a powerful witness to the lost (), or some other great good.  We know that for certain because of the two words at the end of v.16.  All things were created “for Him.”  

Just as every bug and snake and flower peddle and mountain and valley and river and ocean and all the things no one has ever heard of that Mr. Dave brings up in The Fact are for Jesus, so too are all of us and all our trials and all the people and things who cause them.  The more the Colossians could appropriate and appreciate that, the more help they would receive in their sufferings; even as that is still the case for us.  

In conclusion, as I mentioned in the beginning, this sermon is part 1 of 3 concerning Jesus’ supremacy over Creation.  This morning, we saw that He is supreme over the original work of Creation.  Next week, in part 2, we’ll see that He is supreme over the ongoing work of sustaining and governing creation.  And then, on Easter Sunday, we’ll see that because of His resurrection from the dead, He is supreme over the recreation to come.  

The big idea of this passage is that whatever form the hardships in your life take, you must know that whoever or whatever it is that is causing your trouble (whether on earth or in heaven, visible or invisible, thrones or dominions, rulers or authorities) it was created by, through, and for Jesus.  There is nothing causing you pain that Jesus is not sovereign over.  There is great help in that knowledge for all who are hoping in Jesus.  Let us learn, then, Grace Church, to learn to live entirely out of that story—the greatest and truest story, with the greatest Hero, the greatest ending, and the greatest Author.  

And so, let us end with the great doxology of Romans 11.

Romans 11:36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. 

Colossians 1:15-20 –

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

I want to thank Darrel very much for preaching last Sunday.  I was able to listen to his sermon on the way home from the conference that Pastor Colin and I attended.  It was clear, biblical, hopeful, immediately applicable, and Christ-centered—all the ingredients of a good sermon.  I prayed that you all would have been as encouraged by it as I was.  In particular, I prayed that the things he commended to us would be our mind and heart whenever suffering comes our way (which, providentially, fits very well with this sermon).  Thank you, Darrel.  You served us well.

And now, welcome back to Colossians.  More specifically, welcome back to Colossians 1:15-20.  More specifically still, welcome back to the heart of the letter and Paul’s answer to the question of how the Colossian Christians (and all followers of Christ) are to navigate hardship (persecution and false teaching for the Colossians). 

His answer is to make sure that nothing other than the preeminence of Jesus (the supremacy of Jesus; the reality that Jesus has first place in everything; that Jesus is all and in all) is at the center of the story we tell ourselves whenever trials—whatever their form—befall us.  

At the same time—and this really is the key, Grace Church—in order to make sure the preeminence of Jesus is truly and helpfully at the center of the story we tell ourselves in times of trial, Paul knew that we must know, in real, concrete terms what it means that Jesus is preeminent; how Jesus is preeminent; what forms Jesus’ preeminence takes.  

In other words, it does us no good to believe lies about Jesus’ preeminence.  And it is not enough to know true things about Jesus’ preeminence in vague or abstract ways.  To find real help through real suffering, we need to know the specifics of Jesus’ glorious preeminence.  We need that now every bit as much as the Colossians needed it then.  

As I mentioned in my last sermon on Colossians, we’re going to consider the various aspects of Jesus’ preeminent nature (mentioned in this passage), slowly over the next several weeks.  We’ll begin looking at them this morning with the first aspect named by Paul and the big idea of this sermon: Jesus is preeminent in that He is the image of the invisible God.  The main takeaway is to learn look unto Jesus when life is hard by remembering that He is with us and that one day we will see Him face to face.  

There are two main questions that drive this sermon: (1) What does it mean that Jesus is the image of the invisible God?  And (2) How does knowing that help us in our suffering?  

In answer to the first question, there are three key points: God is spirit and spirit is invisible, God made Himself visible at times throughout the OT, and Jesus is the ultimate revelation of God.  

In the famous passage recounting Jesus’ interaction with the Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus taught several significant truths.  Among them is the fact that “God is spirit” (John 4:24).  By that He meant that God the Father is non-physical.  He has no body or parts.  He has no size or dimensions.  

That God is spirit means that He is not a being.  He is being.  

Scholars have called this “pure being” or “the fullness or essence of being” (Grudem, ST, 187).  

This is why God’s most holy name is “I AM” (Exodus 3:14).  

And He is not optional being, but necessary being.  He can’t not be.  And all other being comes from Him.  

And yet, spiritual being is undetectable by ordinary senses.  Like wind, spirit is very real and able to bring about very real effects, but it is also invisible.  The Father is spirit and He is invisible.  That is a key aspect of His nature and our experience of it.  

Before we move on, Grace Church, if this aspect of God’s nature does not stir you to worship, you do not yet understand it.  For millennia, philosophers and theologians have pondered the question of what constitutes “being” (the fancy word is “ontology”).  The greatest human minds recognize the significance of the question, even if they are incompetent to truly grasp it.  God is the answer to the question.  He is spirit.  He is being.  He is the purest and highest form of reality.  He is the only non-derivative reality.  

That’s staggering.  That’s amazing.  That is worthy of our praise.  That is part of what makes Jesus’ preeminent and His preeminence help in times of trouble.  

I invite you to pause and pray, asking God the Father to fill you with the awe and peace that will come as you recognize that He is more fully real and present right here, right now than anything you can see with your eyes.  

While it is staggering, amazing, and worthy of praise, the fact that it makes Him undetectable by ordinary senses makes us wonder how we can even know there is a God, much less how we might interact with Him or have a relationship with Him, much less find help from Him when life is hard.  

There are two answers to this question.  First, God made us with spirits.  While that’s a different sermon for a different day, it’s important to note that there is “some communication from God to us of a spiritual nature” (Grudem, ST, 188)—His spirit to ours.  In other words, and this is all I’ll say about it, as Romans 1 teaches, even though the fact that God is spirit means we can’t perceive him with ordinary senses, we are made with more than ordinary senses such that everyone knows there is a God through conscience and creation—through His effects in us and around us.  

The second answer, which I’ll say more about since it’s more relevant to this sermon, is that God has, at times, made Himself detectible by our senses.  He has chosen to allow people to hear and feel and even see Him through created means.    

Have you ever heard the term “theophany”?  It’s a combination of two words, “God” and “appearance”.  Combined, as I imagine you can imagine, they refer to an appearance of God.  Theophanies are all over in the OT.  God made Himself felt, heard, and seen to His creatures through various aspects of His creation (wind, fire, light, etc.).  Let me share a few examples.

The first is found right at the beginning of the Bible.  In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve, still in the Garden of Eden, “heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, ‘Where are you?’”

As we just saw, God is spirit.  Which means, again as we just saw, that He has no body to walk with, much less rustle leaves or grass as He walked (“the sound of the Lord walking in the garden”).  Likewise, He has no mouth with which to speak (“He called to the man and said…”).  And yet Adam and Eve heard and saw God because God made Himself audible and visible through ordinary (even fallen) eyes and ears by means of the things He made (grass and twigs and pebbles and vibrating molecules/atoms?).

Another early OT theophany is found in Exodus 3.  There we Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law when, unexpectedly, he encountered “the angel of the Lord” (which is God Himself).  God “appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush.”  And there, “the Lord saw that [Moses] turned aside to see [Him].”  God “called to him out of the bush, ‘Moses, Moses!’ … ‘I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’”

The invisible, God of spirit made Himself seen and heard for the benefit of His chosen spokesman.    

A bit later in Exodus (24:7), God appeared to all the Israelites.  This time, “the appearance of the glory of the LORD was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel.”

Maybe the most famous OT theophany is found in Isaiah 6:1. There, Isaiah “saw the [invisible, spiritual] Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple.”

Ezekiel (1:26-27) saw God seated on something like a throne “with a human appearance. 27 And upward from what had the appearance of his waist [Ezekiel] saw as it were gleaming metal, like the appearance of fire enclosed all around. And downward from what had the appearance of his waist [he] saw as it were the appearance of fire, and there was brightness around him.

There are, once again, many more such examples throughout the OT.  The point for us to see is that although God is spirit and spirit is invisible, God made Himself visible and hearable because He loves His people, made us for a relationship with Him, and was continually working out His plan to reconcile us to Himself and make Himself “forever visible” to us.   

Again, Grace, this is, rightly understood a truly awesome aspect of God’s nature and work.  That is worthy of our praise.  That is part of what makes Jesus’ preeminent and His preeminence help in times of trouble.  

Having sinned and rebelled against God, all we deserve is His judgment.  Mere silence or undetectability would be a gift.  Once again, then, let us pause and pray, asking God to help us appropriately appreciate His kindness in spreading breadcrumbs of grace through the theophanies, throughout human history, all pointing to and preparing us for the great and ultimate Theophany to come.

The third, final, and most explicit aspect of the answer of what it means that Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God, is that Jesus is the ultimate Theophany of God!  He is the true and full revelation of God.  

Grace (another bit of theology), do you know that all three persons of the godhead—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—eternally existed as spirit prior to Creation?  Likewise, do you know that Father, Son, and Spirit remained that way from Creation until Jesus was conceived.  And do you know that at the incarnation, and eternally forward, the second person of the Holy Trinity, the Son of God, Jesus experienced the hypostatic union of human and divine nature, of body and spirit?

Conceived by the Holy Spirit in the virgin Mary, the true and great Theophany was born!  Each previous theophany revealed some aspect of Jesus’ nature.  And they all pointed to, were shadows of, and subtly promised something fuller; Someone much fuller.  

At the beginning of his Gospel (1:1, 14), John said it this way, “In the beginning was the Word [Jesus, the Son of God, entirely spirit], and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God…14 And [then!]the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

Grace, as I hope you know, that is no small thing!  The God of all spirit became a God of flesh!  

Hebrews 1:3 says it like this, “[Jesus] is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature…”

Indeed, as Paul wrote at the end of our passage (in v.19), in Jesus “all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.”  And he’s even more specific in 2:9, “…in [Jesus] the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily…”

The invisible God became visible.  Spirit, took on physicality, body, parts, size, dimension, and limitations.  He became detectible by ordinary senses.  For the first time, mankind really could see, hear, smell, and touch God.  

Jesus is the ultimate revelation of God, the great Theophany. 

We might think that all the earth would gather to Him in awe and wonder.  Certainly, it should have.  God again came to dwell among man.  What a glorious day, right?

I wonder, have you ever thought that if you could only see and hear from Jesus, things would be better/easier?  Does it seem to you that if only your ordinary senses could detect Him right now, you’d follow Him more faithfully?  As you contemplate your struggles in your life and faith, do you imagine that being in the presence of the image of the invisible God is all you’d need?

Grace, as awesome as the incarnation is, it has always been the case that mere senses are not enough.  

Jesus’ closest followers, His very disciples, chosen by Him, were able to interact with Him just as we are able to interact with one another.  Even more so, they lived with Him, traveled with Him, ate and drank with Him, and received inside instruction from Him.  They were literally in the presence of the image of the invisible God.  They were able to see Him.  They heard Him speak the eternal, powerful, good, beautiful, and true words of God—the words God promised will never return void (Isaiah 55:11).  

And yet, they were usually more confused than amazed.  Over and over they failed to grasp what they witnessed and heard to the point that Jesus questioned them, “Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear” (Mark 8:18).  

And so, the deeper problem of the human heart was revealed.  

As we consider why Paul offered this revelation as help to a suffering people, we are right to first remember Isaiah’s promise concerning the ultimate revelation of God, “[He would have] no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. 3 He [would be] despised and rejected by men, [and] a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men [would] hide their faces he [would be] despised, and [mankind would esteem] him not.”

Indeed, as Jesus Himself promised of Himself, “[I] must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation” (Luke 17:24).

In just a moment, we’re going to turn our attention to the second and final question of this sermon (how does knowing that Jesus is the image of God help in our suffering?), but hear now the simple fact that apart from some additional grace of God (beyond merely making Himself accessible by ordinary senses), it won’t help at all.  

In just a minute, I’m going to name (and commend to you) two ways that Paul meant this revelation to strengthen the Colossian believers through their trials.  And yet, I promise they won’t help at all if we don’t first recognize that simply being able to see and hear God as we see and hear one another is not enough.

That God, in love, sent His Son into the world to save the world, is no small measure of grace.  However, until we are born again, until our spirits are made alive by God, “we cannot see the kingdom [or King] of God” (John 3:3).  Apart from God’s regenerating grace, being in the presence of the image of the invisible God (as Isaiah and Jesus said,) will be as thoroughly unimpressive and underwhelming and unhelpful to us as not being in His presence.  Seeing and hearing Jesus with our ordinary eyes and ears will not make a bit of difference if we aren’t first given spiritual eyes and ears to go with it.  

And so, we pray.  We ask God to give us eyes to see and ears to hear.  We ask Him to lift the veil that sin and Satan have put over our eyes keeping us from seeing the “light of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:4).  We pray that God would help us to recognize Jesus for who He really is, “the image of the invisible God,” God made flesh, “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature,” and the One in whom “all the fulness of God was pleased to dwell…bodily”  

And as He hears and answers our prayers, we will know, inescapably, of our need to turn from our sin and trust in Him for forgiveness.  And as He gives repentance and forgiveness, we will be in a place for this aspect of the preeminence of Jesus to strengthen us in our every trial.  

How, then, does knowing that Jesus is the image of God (in all the ways we just considered) help in our suffering?

Are you burdened?  Are you heavy laden?  Are there elements of your life that feel overwhelming; perhaps even crushing?  Are you being persecuted and bombarded with false, heretical teaching?  Are you suffering?

If so, and if God has cause you to be born again into a new and living hope in Jesus, and if (as Paul said earlier,) you have been “delivered from the domain of darkness and transferred into the kingdom of His beloved Son, [having been redeemed and forgiven of your sins],” then the preeminence of Jesus, expressed in part through His divine image-bearing, is help indeed.  

Above all, that Jesus is the image of God is the fulfillment and guarantee of two promises that are sweet indeed for all who are suffering.   

First, God has always covenantally promised to be present with His people.  There were times (as was the case in the theophanies I mentioned earlier) when that was apparent to all.  But there were other times, the majority of the time for the majority of His people, perhaps, in which it was unapparent.  

In the incarnation, however, in Jesus becoming the image of the invisible God, God proved, once and for all the truthfulness of His promise to be with His people.  Jesus is Immanuel, God with us!

Jesus’ life on earth was a living demonstration of God’s perfect keeping of His promise of continual presence with His faithful followers.  Jesus echoed this in His final earthly words, “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).  

Guys, you know how helpful it is to “have a guy,” right?  

If you are in legal trouble, you want to know that you have a good lawyer.  If you are in medical trouble, you want to know that there’s a good doctor set to take care of you.  If you are in relational trouble, you want to have a good friend with you.  If you are in car trouble, you want to be in the shop of a good mechanic.  

We want to be in the presence of someone well-equipped to help us with whatever difficulty we have (anyone know a good transmission guy?).  

But more than any “guy,” we need the help of the One who is the image of God.  Grace, whatever your trial, if your trust is in Jesus, God is with you in your trial to bless you and keep you.  The Colossians needed to know that there was nothing they’d encounter apart from God, no matter how difficult.  And we need to know that there is nothing we will encounter apart from God, no matter how difficult.  God is always with us—and especially in times of trial!  That Jesus was born as the image of the invisible God proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt.  

As I’ve told most of you, I fell through the ice as a kid while ice fishing on Lake Erie.  I didn’t have a lot of time to think as I flailed around, but I do know that I was desperate in that moment for someone to be with me and help me get out of the mess.  I knew that my life depended on it.  

A million times more than the presence and help of my cousin (as great as that was), there is great help, right now, in reminding ourselves of Jesus’ perfect presence in our hardships.

And so we pray, asking God to make us aware of His perfect and unwavering fulfillment of His promise.   Ask God, right now, whatever you are going through, Christian, to remind you that you really, truly are not alone in it.  

That is part of what makes Jesus’ preeminent and His preeminence help in times of trouble.  

Finally, the second promise that was guaranteed in the incarnation of the image of the invisible God is of a future grace. It is certainly helpful to know that we always have an omnicompetent Helper with us in every time of trouble—present grace.   But it is, perhaps, even more helpful to know that even if the worst comes, it merely shortens our journey and hastens us home to the time in which God’s greatest promise will be fulfilled: that we will see Him face to face forever!

In 1 Corinthians 13:11–12 Paul tells his readers (of Jesus) that,  “For now we see in a mirror dimly…”  That’s the first promise and it really is good news.  Jesus is with us in a real and helpful way, but for now we can only experience that in part, dimly.  But that will not always be the case.  One day, with glorified eyes and ears, perfectly tuned to behold the limitless glory of Jesus, we will see Him “face to face…”.

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

Imagine standing in His presence, fully aware of His presence, with your will so free that nothing separates you from grasping how awesome that is.  That Jesus is the image of the invisible God is the unbreakable promise that it will be so forever and ever.  

Revelation 1:7 Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him…

O, Grace, what help it is in our present trials to know that the preeminence of Jesus as the incarnate image of God did not end with His 30 years on earth.  What a promise it is that all who hope in Him now will do so forever.  What a day it will be when we can see the beauty of the image of the invisible God ourselves!  

Pray and ask God to fill you with knowledge of and hope and longing for that day, such that you are able to see your present trials in light of that unimaginable glory. 

That is part of what makes Jesus’ preeminent and His preeminence help in times of trouble.  

Jesus is preeminent in that He is the image of the invisible God.  The main takeaway is to learn look unto Jesus when life is hard by remembering that He is with us and that one day we will see Him face to face.  

Romans 8:18-39 –

18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that 
is to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of 
God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, 
in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the 
freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been 
groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, 
who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the 
redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. 
For who hopes for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, 
but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. 27 And he who searches 
hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according 
to the will of God. 28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, 
for those who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also 
predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn 
among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called 
he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did 
not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give 
us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 
Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the 
love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, 
or sword? 36 As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure 
that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 
39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love 
of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I have entitled this sermon “Your Extraordinary Hope in Suffering”.  By Extraordinary I mean “unusually great”.   All of you, at one time or another, and many of you right now, are experiencing sufferings and trials of many kinds.  You may be gripped by physical illness and weakness;  you may be facing an onslaught of discouragement or temptation from the evil one;  you may live in relationships with problems that seem insurmountable;  the evil one may remind you again and again of your past failures;  you may be grieved in your heart because of the evil you see in the world;   you may be suffering because you are a follower of Christ;  there is no end to the kinds of suffering you may be experiencing.  

Suffering is hard, but shouldn’t surprise us.  Jesus prepared us for this.  And Jesus Himself suffered.  He suffered for us.  He set an example for how we can respond to suffering.  And He calls us to endure suffering in faith. 

Hebrews 12:1–3 says:  1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. 

Jesus calls us to follow Him, enduring suffering with joy, and as we will learn today, Jesus calls us to not lose hope in our suffering.

But, sometimes our suffering overwhelms us.   Sometimes we lose sight of any glimmer of hope.  My desire today is to point you to the Extraordinary hope that is yours in Christ!  If you are a Christian, your hope in Christ is unusually great.  There is nothing ordinary about our hope—it’s the kind of hope that pulls us through suffering.  Its greater than we can begin to imagine.   I want you to see it, and to savor it, and to live in light of it.  God doesn’t promise to always remove the suffering, but He does promise to sustain you with hope as He carries you through it!   In no way do I want to minimize the suffering you are facing; instead, it is my desire for you to understand that the hope that is yours is far greater!

Our text of Scripture this morning is Romans 8:18-39.  Today I want to highlight from this text 3 reasons for your Extraordinary hope in suffering, and I want you to see 3 key questions and answers that fortify that hope!  But let me be clear first and foremost:  this hope is for the person that Christ has saved, the person that is born again, who has been justified by faith, and who has (objective) peace with God.  This hope is anchored in and built upon the person of Jesus Christ who redeemed us through His shed blood, and whose righteousness is ours by faith.  

If you are here this morning and you are not trusting in Jesus for your salvation, I urge you to run to Him today, put your faith in Him, that you too may have this Extraordinary hope.

There is one thing that must be said before we look at reason #1, and it’s this:  Romans 5:3-5 teaches us that “we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us”.  God is present and at work in our suffering.  And He promises to be doing good things in the lives of His children in the midst of suffering.  In fact, our hope is refined in the furnace of afflictions.  Suffering leads us to put our hope in Christ!  Our hope isn’t tied to our circumstances in life.  Our hope isn’t tied to other people and their opinions of us in life.  Suffering leads us to see that our hope is tied to and built upon Jesus Christ.  In fact, in suffering we learn to identify with Christ and His sufferings!  In Romans 8:16-17 we learn that “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him”.  For Jesus, suffering came before glory!  It’s that way for us too.  So, in our flesh we may fight against suffering, we may not want to accept suffering, we might lose sight of anything good in our suffering, we may be overwhelmed by our suffering, but with the help of the Holy Spirit we can accept and even rejoice in our suffering because of reason #1.

If we suffer with Christ, we will also share in His glory.  And that glory will make any suffering in this lifetime seem pale in comparison.  What does the glory that will be revealed to us when Christ comes again look like?  In short, that glory will be the most beautiful and satisfying thing you will ever see!  John Piper says, “God’s glory is the radiance of his holiness, the radiance of his manifold, infinitely worthy and valuable perfections”.  And when Christ comes again, His glory will be fully revealed to us!  God will give us eyes to see and savor Him in all of His breathtaking beauty in an unhindered way.  I Cor. 13:12 says it best:  “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.  Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known”.   

In this lifetime we wait for glory.  We long for it.  In fact, verse 23 says “we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.”  The Holy Spirit was with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, but still, Jesus experienced deep agony as He was preparing for the Cross.  Yet, He was able to pray “not my will, but yours be done”.  Jesus endured suffering.  Jesus trusted and obeyed His Father’s will, strengthened by the Holy Spirit.  In fact, for the joy set before Him, He endured the cross.  I think it was the joy of doing His Father’s will.  As believers, it’s important to know that real genuine life giving hope doesn’t mean we aren’t honest about our sufferings.  It is when we are honest about our sufferings that we are more prepared to run to Jesus for help, and He will give us the kind of help to endure and persevere in the faith.

That is the promise given to us in 1 Corinthians 10:13 says:  No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.  God promises to help us endure, or to persevere in the Faith.  We don’t stop believing when suffering comes.  But we must be honest about the hardship in such a way that we run to Christ for help.  There we find help to cling to that certain and sure promise of glory—and eternity spent in the presence of Jesus.

Verses 24-25 then says this: “For in this hope we were saved.  Now hope that is seen is not hope.  For who hopes for what he sees?  But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience”.  What is hope?

Hope is a certain and confident expectation that God’s glory will be revealed to us when Christ comes again.  Again, as verse 18 says “…I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us”.  Paul is not minimizing the sufferings in this lifetime.  Paul understood suffering.  He suffered plenty in his lifetime.  Instead, he is saying that seeing and savoring the glory of God for all eternity is infinitely better!  He says this so you will persevere in your faith, giving you courage and patience in what can be sometimes “long sufferings”.  

Let me attempt to illustrate present sufferings in contrast to future glory.  Present sufferings might be compared to the excruciating pains of a woman in labor. Not pleasant.  I remember thinking that what Shelli experienced in her labor was more excruciating than anything else I have ever seen.  But the gift of a child makes all those labor pains a price worth paying!  I witnessed Shelli cry out in labor pains for a season (a long season), but there were inexpressible tears of joy with Josh and Jess in her arms.      

Our present sufferings don’t begin to compare with the glory that will be revealed to us when Christ comes again!  There is a great hope for you in suffering!

How?  One of the ways is this:  “For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”  Do you ever find yourself in a situation where you don’t know how to pray?  Have you ever been in a situation where you are so overwhelmed by your trial that you don’t even have the strength to pray?  Be encouraged, the Holy Spirit is interceding for you!  This reveals that our hope, ultimately, isn’t tied to us hanging on to God but God hanging on to us!  The Spirit searches our hearts, and He knows what we need.  The Spirit also knows God’s will for us perfectly.  And He intercedes on our behalf!  

Do you grasp the weightiness of that?  We get encouraged when our brothers and sisters pray for us, and rightly so.  How much more should we be encouraged in our sufferings when we know that the Holy Spirit intercedes for us according to God’s perfect will!  And God the Father always gives what the Holy Spirit asks for, because the Holy Spirit is always praying according to the Father’s will!

You are not left alone!  The Holy Spirit is with you.  He knows you far better than you know yourself.  He also knows your Heavenly Father perfectly, and He is actively and faithfully praying for you in perfect agreement with God’s will.  

Not everything that happens to you is good.  We will share in Christ’s glory if we share in His sufferings.  The English definition of the word “suffering “ is a state of ongoing pain, distress, or hardship”.  But God is so wise and powerful that He can use that pain, distress, and hardship to bring about good in your life through it!  What is that good that He will bring about?  Verse 29 says “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers”.  How confident can we be in God’s ability to use sufferings to conform us to the image and likeness of Jesus?  How certain can we be that God will make all things work together for our good?  Verse 30 says:  “And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified”.   The word “glorified”, grammatically, means it’s a past completed action.  However, though we are not yet glorified—because that will happen when Christ comes again—it’s  as good as done because God said He will do it!  

God is up to something good in your life!  Even in suffering!  He is at work to form the character of Christ into the character of your life, more and more.  God is so wise and good that He can take hard times and use them to bring you to greater maturity in Christ.  Your suffering is not pointless!  Do you believe that?  Can you rest in the care of your Lord and Savior?  Can you be content in Christ, even in the midst of your trial?  You can be absolutely certain, that no matter what is happening in your life, even if what you are facing isn’t good—even if what you are experiencing brings pain, distress, and hardship—your life won’t be defined by your pain, but by your sovereign Lord who is infinitely wise and loving and good and is at work doing GOOD things in you and through you.  Faith is living in light of that truth even if you don’t see it physically and even if you don’t feel it emotionally.  

We must fight to live in light of Christ and His promises!  Jerry Bridges has said:  

“Trust is not a passive state of mind. It is a vigorous act of the soul by which we choose to lay hold on the promises of God and cling to them despite the adversity that at times seeks to overwhelms us.”

We have talked about 3 reasons for Extraordinary hope in suffering.  Now let’s talk about…

Question #1:  If God is for us, who can be against us? (Rom. 8:31-32).  The answer is, no one.  Absolutely no one.

Answer #1:  He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?  That is the character and the promise of God.  The gift of Jesus to meet our greatest need is proof that God is a lavish giver of good, really good gifts.  Yes, we are forgiven.  We have the hope of glory.  We also live in this age with the promise of His faithful presence with us.  The Spirit is constantly with us, comforting, enabling, transforming, and keeping.   

Question #2:  Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? Who is to condemn? (Rom. 8:33-34)

Answer #2:  It is God who justifies.  Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.  Today, we know that God is for us, not against us.  And if God is for us, no one can be against us.

Question #3:  Who/What shall separate us from the love of Christ? (Rom. 8:35-39)

Answer #3:  Nothing!  We are more than conquerors through him who loved us!

Romans 8:35–39:  35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

The Gospel makes it abundantly clear that we really do have an unusually great hope in Christ who will transform us through our sufferings and take us to glory!  You can be absolutely certain of this!

Don’t lose sight of your God given Extraordinary hope in the midst of suffering!