Colossians 1:24-2:5

Pastor Josh takes us through the next portion of Colossians, looking at how as Christians we will face struggles but we can have hope through it all.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:28

Morning through the the book of Colossians uh or the letter to the Colossians and it's an interesting little uh section that we read in this because it talks a lot about suffering, talks a lot about struggles, uh talks a lot about difficulty. And I think for many of us, myself included, we like it easy, we like an easy way out, we like a shortcut. If there's a job needing done, if I can find a shortcut or the easiest way to do it, I will do it, uh, even if it's maybe not the best way. Just recently we were actually painting uh the hallway uh in our house, and there's a little part above the stairs that we couldn't reach just by standing and painting. And really, the proper, best way to have done it would be to set ladders up properly and safely uh and to paint so that we could reach it, get right into the corners and make it look nice. Instead of that, I thought a shorter, easier way would just be to tape the paintbrush to a long pole and paint the edges off this pole, and it worked, it did the job. Uh, if you look closely, it maybe doesn't look too great. But we always look for the shortcuts, we always look for the easy way to do something. We spend a lot of our lives trying to make things easier, and really we end up doing anything we can to reduce the friction in our lives, and that's not a bad thing. But I think sometimes then when we face difficulties, it feels like a trendsetters and we wonder what on earth is going on here? Because we don't like waiting, we don't like tension, we don't like pain, we don't like discomfort. And very often I find, or especially when you look at scripture, it's those moments that God uses most in our lives. Very often what God allows first in our lives is the discomfort because he uses it to form us. Maybe it's a season that doesn't resolve as quickly as you would like. Maybe it's a stretch situation that you're in that strength that stretches your faith in God. Maybe God's asked you to do something or placed a calling on your life to do a role or a task that's weighing you down and feels a lot heavier than you expected. You see, that's where the tension, I think, as a Christian comes in. Because we love a God who saves, and he does that and we love him for it. But we're less enthusiastic sometimes about a God who forms. We want deliverance without the wilderness, we want resurrection without the cross, we want growth without the growing pains. And so this morning, as you've seen in the title of my sermon, just for this time, we're going to sit in that slightly uncomfortable space and talk about the struggles that we face as Christians. And there's three things in this passage that Paul talks about that he's specifically facing at that time, which is either suffering or it's a struggle that he faces. And we're going to look at that this morning. Not because struggle is good, but because God is faithful in it. Often God works most in our discomfort. Often, after that time of discomfort or struggle, we see actually that God had a purpose to it. There's a story told of two men. One was an evil man, in fact, so evil, that really his purpose in life was to go out and to imprison Christians and to kill them. He saw his purpose in that. He thought that's what his life was all about. The other man was a Christian man, he was obedient to God. But the evil man was going about his life, imprisoning Christians, killing Christians, until one day God intervened powerfully in his life and transformed them in a moment. And then in a vision, God speaks to this Christian man and he says, I would like you to go and pray for this once evil man. Imagine being the Christian in that instance. He's thinking to himself, God, are you being serious? He says that to him, surely. You don't mean that, man. Do you know what he does? Do you know what he did do? Do you know how much danger I would be in going and praying for him? It would be scary. It would be a struggle. It would be uncomfortable to say the least. And God says, No, I want you to go and pray for him. And he's obedient to the discomfort God places him in. And he goes and he prays for him. And that once evil man goes on to be used powerfully by God after that man prays for him. That man was called the Apostle Paul. You can read that story in Acts chapter 9. Ananias was the Christian who prayed for him. He was obedient in his discomfort. And in that uncomfortable moment, God moved and worked powerfully in the life of Paul. You see, I think sometimes we fall into the trap that this Christian life is supposed to be all sunshine and roses. But many of us in this room have lived long enough the Christian life to know that that's not the case. Paul himself in this passage shows us three times he uses the word struggle or suffer. But there's three struggles in this passage that we're going to look at this morning that cannot and should not be avoided in the Christian life. Because if we're following Jesus properly, if we're living lives, the book of Colossians says earlier, walking in a manner worthy of the Lord, these are struggles that will come upon us naturally, that we will face. And really, I think Paul's writing about them because it's not something that we should be surprised about. It's not something that should shock us, but we should be ready for it. So the first one this morning, the first struggle that he faces, is that he's suffering for sharing the gospel. He's suffering for sharing the gospel. It says this in verse 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, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you to make the word of God fully known. Paul says, I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake. This phrase stands out because it's not normal. When have you ever heard of someone say that they're enjoying their suffering? Paul's suffering isn't just normal either. Paul is literally imprisoned in Rome as he's writing this letter. Imprisoned back then was a grim place. He was suffering for the task that he was taking on. But Paul isn't rejoicing in the suffering itself, but he's rejoicing in the reason for it. He writes that I rejoice in my suffering for your sake. And he goes on to say, for the sake of his body, the church. You see, Paul knew that he was suffering on behalf of something bigger than himself. He was suffering for the church or the body of believers, the people of God. He goes on even to say, In my flesh I'm filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions, for the sake of his body, the church. In that, sometimes we people get it wrong and they think that Paul's saying that Jesus' suffering on the cross didn't atone for our sins. That's not what he's saying. What Paul's saying in that passage is that on behalf of Jesus, his body, the church, he is suffering. And he's joining with Jesus in that suffering that he endured as part of Jesus' ministry. He's not talking about Jesus on the cross. So Paul is suffering and he's rejoicing in it because it's on behalf of the church, God's people. But why is he suffering? You see, he goes on to tell us that God gave him a role. And through that role, he has found that he's suffering, that he's been imprisoned. And that role he writes just at the end of verse 25. To make the word of God fully known. That was Paul's task. Was to go around sharing the good news of the gospel, to make the word of God fully known. He's talking about the gospel. So we see that Paul is suffering for sharing the gospel. What is the gospel? Gospel literally means good news. Paul, his life is transformed as we heard earlier. He was once an evil man who sought out to kill Christians. In a moment, his life is transformed. So now he's going around to share the gospel, the good news. The news that Jesus Christ came to earth to die on a cross in his place and in our place. Because of our sin, his sin as well. There was a debt to God that we owe that we couldn't pay on our behalf. And it caused a separation between man and God. Jesus Christ went to that cross, took on with him that cross our sin, and he paid the price that we owe to God. He cleared the debt for us and he died there on that cross. The cross that we deserve for our sin. Three days later he rose again to show that not even death is impossible for God. And so the good news is now that when we place our faith, our trust in Jesus as our Savior, God no longer sees us as our sinful selves, but he sees us as the righteousness, as the goodness of Jesus Christ, this one who is sinless. That means that when we breathe our last here on earth, we get to go and be with God for the rest of eternity in heaven, in paradise. But it also means that here and now God is working and moving in our lives. That's the good news of the gospel that Paul is sharing, that he's going out of his way and suffering for to share. And he's doing it on behalf of the church, on behalf of the body of Christ. Paul is letting the people of Colossae know that he is suffering for sharing the gospel, and that is to be expected. Paul doesn't write this in any special way or trying to make it stand out, but he just mentions it. He mentions that he's suffering on behalf of the body of Christ, the church, and that is to be expected. He mentions how Jesus suffered in his ministry and really how this is a continuation of that. And so if this suffering is to be expected, especially in the gospel, why then do we get surprised when we face opposition? When we invite someone to church and they say no to come in with us, we give up after the first attempt. Or we get shocked or we get offended. Or maybe we tell someone or a Christian and they make fun of us. Or they have a go at us or they try and argue it with us. And so we stop sharing our faith with them. And ultimately it leads us down a long line till eventually we're hiding our faith. Because we're scared to tell people of this good news of the gospel because of how people might react to us. See, this is something that has happened from the beginning of the church, and Paul's writing that he's saying that we shouldn't be surprised by this, and it's not going to change. There will always be people who don't get it, unfortunately. There will always be people who have a goatus for being Christians, for our faith in Jesus Christ. To be honest, in this country we have it a lot easier than Christians around the world. You just have to look at what other Christians are facing right now in terms of their persecution and their suffering for the gospel. In this letter, Paul, by his writing, shows us that he is suffering for sharing the gospel. This isn't something new. And this will happen if we're following Jesus obediently. This will happen if we're trying to share the gospel obediently to God in the way we should. We shouldn't be surprised by it. Paul is just one example of a Christian who spent his life sharing the gospel and is now suffering for it. So he's suffering for sharing the gospel. Secondly, this morning, he's struggling for discipleship. He's struggling for discipleship. It says in verse 28, Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy, that he powerfully works in me. Paul tells us that it's Jesus that he preaches and Jesus alone. He's not preaching himself, he's not preaching his opinions, but he's preaching Jesus. And he tells us that he teaches people, and the aim of that is to present everyone mature in Christ, a mature Christian, will on in their faith. We call that discipleship. And he's talking about how he's doing that for other people, but he's actually talking about how he's been discipled himself as well. And the phrases that he uses when he says, For this I toil, and that he's struggling. Really, the original word for that means contextually to labor, to work hard. Paul's saying, I'm working hard for the discipleship of others. I'm struggling and laboring to be discipled myself. He's saying that he's toiling, he's struggling to bring other people and himself to maturity in Christ. We call it discipleship. And he tells us that he labors for that, along with Christ working within him. This is a challenge to me when I read it and realized what he means. Because there's no such thing then as a lazy Christian. Because it takes work, it takes commitment to grow as a Christian. Yes, God works in us and grows within us, helping us become mature in Christ. But we can't just sit back and say, God, you do all the work. There's an element where we need to grow ourselves in that as well. There's an element where we need to work hard, we need to labor, we need to toil for that, to become better disciples ourselves and to disciple other people. We need to become better disciples, and that takes commitment. It takes commitment to sit down and read the Bible, to study the Bible, to understand what it says. It takes commitment to carve out time in your life, to spend time in prayer, growing in that relationship between you and God. It takes commitment to come to church on a Sunday when there's so many other things going on in your life, to come on a Wednesday night. It takes commitment and hard work to serve the church. Serving the church is not supposed to be easy. We need to work hard and labor to disciple others as well. Paul talks about how he's discipling others and he's toiling for it, he's struggling for that. It's hard work sometimes building relationships with other Christians. To spur one another on, to build each other up. It doesn't come easy. It doesn't come easy to disciple ourselves. The business of life gets in the way. And all of a sudden we've missed one Sunday, we've missed two Sundays, and months have gone by. It takes work and it's difficult to pray continuously when it feels like your prayers aren't being heard. To be persevering in prayer, to be waiting on God for an answer. And ultimately it leads us to becoming lazy in our own discipleship. It doesn't come easy building up the relationships that we have in church to encourage and spur one another on. We let disagreements get in the way between our relationships with each other, we let difference of opinions get in the way, fallouts get in the way, and we become lazy in our disciples and our relationship building within the church as well. Discipleship or becoming mature in Christ, as Paul writes, is a struggle. It takes hard work. It's something we need to labor for. We can't believe the lie that we can just sit back and relax, and God will do it all. God will work within us, we believe that. There's an element where we need to show commitment as well. Because faith is like a muscle. If we don't use it, it's going to become weak. If we use it regularly, it will grow stronger and stronger. Paul said he was toiling, he was struggling to see the people of Colossae and himself become more mature in Christ, to grow in their discipleship. First of all, we saw that he's suffering for sharing the gospel. Secondly, he's struggling for discipleship. It takes work to grow mature in Christ. And then thirdly and lastly, this morning, he's struggling through prayer. He's struggling through prayer. It says at the beginning of chapter two, Paul writes, For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you, and for those at Laodicea, and for all who have not seen me face to face, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. What Paul really meant by struggling for discipleship was that he's working hard for discipleship. What he means when he says he's struggling, he has a struggle for these people and the people of Laodicea. Really, he's talking about spiritual warfare. The word can be translated to mean conflict. And Paul is fighting this conflict by praying. He's struggling through prayer. And he's praying earnestly for the people of Colossae, and he's praying earnestly for the people of Laodicea. That's what his struggle is here. He wants certain things for these people, and he wants it so badly for them. It's as though he's struggling in prayer for to see these things happen in their lives. It's as though there's a conflict going on. And he prays three things for them. He prays that their hearts may be encouraged. Because Paul knew the truth that discouraged Christians, it's easier to give in to temptation. It's easier to give up on your faith. It's easier to take your eyes off Jesus and do as the world says if you're discouraged. So he prays that the hearts would be encouraged. He mentions the Church of Laodicea as well. If you go on to the book of Revelation, the Church of Laodicea is mentioned and they're called lukewarm. And God actually says to them that he would spit them out of his mouth. They're neither hot nor cold, but they're lukewarm. That is one place you do not want to be as a Christian, is lukewarm. God tells them that he'd rather they were cold than lukewarm. In other words, I'd rather you weren't a Christian. Because right now you're calling yourself a Christian, but you're not acting like it. You're not living the life. And God doesn't want that for us. So that's why Paul, maybe he saw the early signs of that. And he's saying that he's praying and asking God that they would be encouraged in their faith. Secondly, he prays for these people that they'd be knit together in love. Paul's concerned about their unity. He knows in churches how easy it is for disagreements, for disunity to come into the church, and it can be so damaging to the body of believers. It can tear down the work that God is trying to do. And then thirdly, he prays that they would have the full assurance of the understanding. He wanted them to grow in the knowledge of God's truth. Again, this is a challenge to us as Christians. Because who are we struggling in prayer for? Who are we praying for so desperately that it feels like a struggle? It feels like a conflict. Who are we praying that they would come to know Jesus, that we would see salvation come into their lives? Who are we praying that God would encourage in their walk with Him? Are we praying that the church would be united, this church and the global church? Are we praying for someone that they would know God's truth more and more? Might even be praying that for yourself. But who are we struggling in prayer for? Because we believe as Christians that prayer changes things. That God not only hears us but he answers all of our prayers. Doesn't mean he answers your prayer exactly how you want him to answer it. But we believe he answers every single prayer. And it's vital as a Christian. So if we believe God hears our prayers and answers our prayers, why would we not ask the God of the impossible to step into my family's life, my friends' life, my colleagues' life, and intervene and transform their life? Why would I not give time to praying for that to happen if I believed that God could do it? Why would we not pray that the church is united, that disagreements would be no more in the church and tear down what God is trying to do? We can't believe the lie that our prayers are meaningless. God hears and answers our prayers. That is where we see God break through in our lives. That's why we gather throughout the week for prayer meetings to cry out to God and ask Him to intervene. In people's lives. Paul struggled for these people through prayer. He had a conflict of wanting these things for the people of Colossae, and he fought that conflict through prayer. There's no better way to face our conflicts than prayer. It's a struggle at times, especially when it feels like your prayers aren't being answered. But we need to remember that we pray to a God who listens and answers our prayers. That he is the God of the impossible. What seems impossible for us is possible for him. In this passage, Paul tells us these three struggles that we will face if we're following Jesus. And we shouldn't be surprised by them. That we will suffer for sharing the gospel. We will face opposition. We will struggle for discipleship. It's hard at times. We need to work hard to become more mature in Christ and to help others get to that point as well. And sometimes it feels like we're struggling for people through prayer. We want to see their lives transformed. We're praying so earnestly for that it feels like a struggle. I don't know about you, but all of that can sound a little bit depressing. It can sound heavy, it can sound difficult. If that's where Paul stopped, or that's all he was saying, it can that would weigh us down. That would make it seem so difficult. Why would you even want to do that? How would you even begin to cope with all of that? You see, there's a little part in this passage that commentators call the anchor verse, which really everything flows out from what Paul says, and it's verse 27. Paul writes this. That this Christ, by whom and through him all things were created, this Christ who is before all things and in all things, this Christ in whom God was pleased for all of his fullness to dwell, this Christ who is the firstborn of all creation, the image of the invisible God, in whom all things hold together, this Christ who is the head of the church, who will stand at the end of time and be the final judge and triumphal Lord, this Christ lives in us by the Holy Spirit. That is the good news in all of this. That Christ is in us, and that is the hope of glory. That at our invitation, when we respond in faith to Christ, let Him into our lives, we surrender our lives to Jesus, Christ enters our lives and he dwells within us. This is the greatest hope, the greatest glory that we can have. Because we will face struggles. If it's not the struggles we've mentioned this morning, I'm sure you can list off the struggles in your life just now. But we will suffer for sharing the gospel. We will struggle to grow mature in Christ. We will struggle to build relationships in churches with Christians. We will struggle with people through prayer. But with Christ in us, when we're suffering for sharing the gospel, when we find it hard, he will give us the courage, he will give us the words to tell people the good news. Just look at the book of Acts. You see how the disciples, guided by Christ in them, the Holy Spirit, preached in thousands, were brought into the church. When we're struggling for discipleship, Christ in us will give us the ability to love one another well, to forgive each other. He will light a fire within us, to spend time in his word, growing mature in him. With Christ in us, when we struggle through prayer, when we don't know what to pray, he will lead us, he will guide us in our prayers, he will give us the words to pray, he will give us the ability to keep persevering for the people we love in prayer. This is why Paul writes at the start of this section that he can rejoice in suffering. Because through it all, Christ is in us, working in us, making us more and more like him. If you're struggling in those three places, if you're suffering for sharing the gospel, if you're struggling in discipleship, if you're struggling through prayer, don't be discouraged. You're on the right track because Paul was going through the exact same thing. In this Christian life, we will face struggles. But in the face of those struggles, Paul tells us we can rejoice because Christ is in us, and that is our hope of glory. Let's pray. That your Son, Jesus Christ, in whom and through him all things were created, holds all things together, and now dwells within us. Lord, we pray that we would, when faced with these trials, faced with these struggles, faced with any struggle in life, we would be reminded of that truth, that He lives and works within us. Help us not to become comfortable Christians. Lord, but call us out of our comfort into discomfort for you. Lord, help us be obedient to where and what you want to do in our lives. And Lord, we ask that in those moments of discomfort, you would use us. You would move in our lives and you would form us to be more like your son. Lord, help us be guided by you. Amen.