Good morning, church.
Would you turn with me to the book of Colossians, chapter 1, verse 24.
That's page 983 in the Pew Bible.
Colossians chapter 1, verse 24.
This fall we've been studying Paul's letter to the church in Colossae,
a letter about the greatness of Christ and the all-sufficiency of who he is
and what he's done.
And you'll remember if you've been with us the last few weeks that Paul
had never met this church before, but we find that he greatly cared about them.
And he's going to describe his ministry in the text before us in order to encourage them.
So we're picking up in chapter 1, verse 24, and we're going to read,
I'll read through chapter 2, verse 5.
This is Paul to the Colossians.
Now, I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I'm 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.
The mystery hidden for ages and generations, but now revealed to his saints.
To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this
mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Him, we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present
everyone mature in Christ.
For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.
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.
I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments, 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.
Let's pray together.
God, we ask that you would help us this morning as we come to this passage from your word.
Lord, help us to hear what your spirit is saying to us, your church.
Lord, give us minds that understand.
Lord, we pray that you would give us hearts that receive what it is you are speaking to
us today.
God, thank you that you have spoken to us supremely in your Son.
Lord, he indeed is the image of you, the invisible God, and we thank you for the gift of your Son
to us.
Lord, would he be exalted as we attend to this passage this morning.
We pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Well, it's been said that the best way to identify a counterfeit is by studying the real thing.
Whether it's currency or the artwork of an old master, it's best to spend your time learning
what makes the real thing the real thing.
Then you can spot whatever imitations happen to come along.
And apparently, when it comes to money, I've been told, it's not all that difficult.
There are certain things that you can look for, the security thread, the watermark, the color
shifting ink.
These things make spotting the real thing fairly doable.
Of course, it's helpful to know what a fake looks like too, to compare them side by side.
But on the whole, if you can know the real thing and what to look for, you can avoid being
taken in by the counterfeits.
That's some of what Paul is up to in this paragraph.
He's showing us what true gospel ministry looks like.
In order that, he says, no one may delude you with plausible arguments, which is chapter 2, verse 4.
Now, it seems that many of the spiritual options in the ancient world seemed plausible to the
Colossians.
And there were teachers and there were gurus with seeming authority and wisdom and skill who really
seemed to know what they were talking about.
And maybe they had a following, seemingly to prove it.
But you see, for Paul to be taken in by these alternate spiritual options was sort of like
having a wallet full of counterfeit money without even realizing it.
You may feel rich.
Your wallet is seemingly full of cash.
But when you finally get to the bank and they run your money through that machine, you realize
that it's not worth a thing and that you're actually broke.
The same is true for us.
Imagine going through life thinking that you're spiritually wealthy, only to find that whatever
you've been believing in and trusting in has been a counterfeit all along.
Imagine coming to the end of your days and realizing that you're bankrupt.
Or to change the metaphors for a moment, imagine to find that what you thought was real medicine
was only a placebo.
And those benefits that you felt, only a placebo effect, masking the fact that the real problem,
the real sickness remained untouched, as dangerous and as cancerous as ever.
So then it's important that we grasp what real biblical ministry looks like.
Counterfeits abound today as then and our spiritual lives are at stake.
We don't want to be deluded, as Paul says, by teachers or ministries or movements that have the
appearance of plausibility but are empty in the end.
But we need to know what real gospel ministry looks like for another reason.
Not just so we can spot the real thing, but so that we can do the real thing.
Later in the book of Colossians in chapter 3 verse 16 we read,
What Paul is saying here is that the work of ministry, teaching and admonishing is actually
for every member of the body of Christ.
We're to do this to one another.
Some are called to be pastors and elders, yes, but ultimately our job as pastors and elders
is to equip you, the saints, for the work of ministry.
So that we can all build one another up in love, as we read in the book of Ephesians.
So then we need to know what real life giving gospel ministry looks like so that we can actually
do it, so that we can actually put it into practice.
And that's how our text this morning is so helpful.
What Paul is showing us here as we look at it are actually two broad aspects, two critical
aspects, two necessary components of real gospel ministry.
And once you learn to see them, they're pretty easy to spot.
Broadly, we'll look at the manner of true ministry, and then we also see here the message
of true gospel ministry.
So that's where we're going.
Let's look first at the manner of true ministry.
Of course, there's a lot going on in this paragraph that we just read.
We could probably do a whole seminar on the doctrine of the church out of this passage,
but when it comes to the manner of Paul's ministry, three words or three pictures jump
out.
Suffering, stewardship, and struggle.
We see suffering in verse 24.
Paul says,
Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I'm filling up what is lacking
in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is the church.
Now remember that Paul is writing this letter from a prison cell.
He is no stranger to suffering, and yet he can rejoice in that suffering because, as he
says, in my flesh I'm filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions.
Now that probably strikes you as a strange phrase at first, right?
What does Paul mean by that?
Well, there's one thing that he certainly cannot mean by that.
Paul can't mean that there's something lacking in Christ's afflictions for our atonement,
for our salvation.
Our reconciliation with God was finished once and for all through Christ's suffering on the
cross, and that lacks nothing.
The rest of Colossians will say that over and over and over again in a dozen different
ways, that what Christ has done is completely and utterly abundantly sufficient for us.
So what is Paul talking about here?
Rather than talking about Christ's afflictions for our atonement, for our redemption, he's
talking about the ongoing afflictions that Christ experiences because of his ongoing union
with his church.
When the church suffers in this age, Christ himself suffers.
Do you remember Paul's Damascus Road conversion?
When Jesus appeared to Paul the persecutor, he didn't say, Paul, why are you persecuting
my church?
Jesus said, Paul, why are you persecuting me?
Identifying himself completely with his body on earth.
The church is, as it says here in verse 24, the body of Christ, inseparably united with
Christ the head.
And the road to glory for the church, just like Christ our head, the road to glory, the
road to the crown of eternal life is by way of the cross.
Over and over again, the New Testament is very clear that the church will experience affliction
in this age.
We will experience Christ's afflictions, as Paul says here.
That is, we will experience afflictions for Christ.
We will experience afflictions like Christ.
We will experience our afflictions with Christ.
Why is that the case?
Why does the church experience such hostility from the world at times?
Because the church, as Christ's body, friends, is the birth of the new creation in the midst
of the old.
In the midst of the old humanity, in the old fallen way of doing things, the church is God's
new thing in the midst of the old.
And that makes the church a bit like an organ transplant.
The healthy organ is there to heal the body, to give it life and hope.
But as we know, sometimes the old body doesn't recognize this new thing and actually attacks
it as a threat.
It's a bit like that with the church, the new humanity in the midst of the old.
And what Paul is saying here is that he, in his vocation as an apostle, is willing to step
out on behalf of the church and to undergo these Christ-like afflictions to fill up what's
remaining of the Christ's ongoing walk along the way of the cross.
He's willing to step out on behalf of the church and to suffer Christ-like afflictions
for their sake.
And the overtones of this passage are even, in some sense, in their place so that they
don't have to.
So, this becomes then our first window into the manner of real gospel ministry.
Real, true ministry is willing to gladly suffer hardship and loss or even persecution for the
sake of the church, Christ's body.
True ministers of the gospel are willing to stand in front, taking the blow of ridicule
or hatred or even violence so that the rest of the body might be spared.
We see that over and over in Paul's ministry, and Paul here is in prison.
Just like many pastors and church leaders and ministers after him would, in the history
of the church, also suffer and also land in prison and also face persecution, drawing the
heat and the animosity of the world's hatred onto itself so that the churches might be spared.
In other words, if the church is Christ's body, real, true ministry doesn't lord itself
over the body.
Rather, it lays itself down for the sake of the body.
Sadly, many ministries today exist to make a minister great.
But that is not the way of Christ.
Real ministry, true, genuine ministry is just the opposite, a willingness and love even to
suffer for those to whom we minister.
So, there's our first window into the manner of genuine ministry.
We see the second in verse 25.
It's not just suffering, it's stewardship.
If the theme of suffering is connected to the metaphor of the church's Christ's body,
then this idea of stewardship brings with it the metaphor of the church as God's household.
Now, an ancient household was a bit different than ours.
It included not just the immediate family, but also at times the extended family, and also
the servants and the workers who labored as part of the family estate.
The household was sort of a big organization, almost a mini business running.
And within the large household, the head of the house would often appoint someone called
a steward.
And the steward's job was to make sure that the food and other resources of the household
were being distributed and managed wisely and fairly on behalf of the rest of the people
who made up the household.
The steward wasn't there to act on his own wishes or plans, but to carry out the wishes
and plans of the head of the house.
So, you can see now the kind of picture that Paul is painting in verse 25.
He says, 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.
See the picture he's painting here?
God is sort of the head of this household, the church, and Paul's been appointed as a steward
under God's authority to make sure that the Word of God is being distributed to all in
the house.
So, this means that the manner of real ministry is not just one of glad, self-giving love for
the church, but it's also one of faithful teaching and exposition and unfolding and distribution
of God's Word.
Real ministry is not just expounding our own opinions or theories.
Real ministry is a stewardship of the Word of God.
What God has stored up in the treasuries of His Word, the Gospel, and preserved in the Bible
is what we, like good stewards, want to bring out at the right time in the right way so that
the household can be fed and cared for.
So, then if the manner of real ministry is a stewardship, then biblical teaching becomes,
in many ways, the central activity.
And in His devotion to teaching the Bible as God's stewards, real ministry will be appropriately
humble.
After all, we are simply servants working on behalf of the head of the house.
This message doesn't ultimately come from us, but from Him.
So, there's nothing for us, as we minister as a church, to get sort of self-inflated about.
This isn't about our own wisdom or our own rescue.
It's not our own wisdom or our own rescue that we proclaim.
It's God's wisdom, and it's God's rescue.
And so, we're humble, exalting God and not exalting self.
But in addition to being humble, real ministry as stewardship will also, at the same time,
be appropriately bold.
After all, we're not doing this on our own authority.
We are acting in the name of another.
It is God's Word that we teach and we hold out.
True ministry need not be sheepish or afraid.
It need not be blown and tossed by whatever popular ideas might be trending at the time.
As stewards of the Word, we can be humble and we can be bold.
So, those are the first two windows into the manner of real gospel ministry.
Paul's suffering shows us that true ministry is about self-giving love for God's church.
And Paul's stewardship shows us that ministry is about faithful exposition of God's Word.
And the third and last thing we see here is that there is struggle.
Look at chapter 2, verse 1.
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.
Now, the word struggle here is actually an athletic term.
It's a term from the world of sports.
It carries with it an idea of striving for a goal or contending for the crown of victory.
And what makes struggling different than the suffering that we talked about earlier?
Well, suffering, sort of as part of a body, has to do with bearing external attack.
But struggling, like an athlete on a team, has to do with internal desire, with drive.
This is not the first time Paul will use athletic imagery to describe the work of ministry in 1 Corinthians.
And in 2 Timothy, he does the same thing.
Paul will say in those passages that competing like an athlete, training hard, maintaining self-discipline, striving for the crown of victory.
All of these have something to teach us about real ministry.
Here in Colossians, the idea of the struggle of ministry is connected to helping fellow believers reach what he calls maturity in Christ.
Chapter 2, verse 2 describes that maturity that Paul is struggling to bring about in this way.
It says, we should be encouraged in heart.
And we should be united in love.
And we should be fully assured in our understanding.
This is what Paul strives and struggles like an athlete to see happen in Colossae.
And in other cities he hasn't even visited yet, like Laodicea as well.
Struggling, striving, training, working like an athlete, no doubt in prayer for these churches.
No doubt in his correspondence and in his writing to them, as we see here in Colossians.
And no doubt in his training and in his sending of ministers to these cities.
Men like Epaphras that we looked at a few weeks ago who brought the gospel to Colossians.
In all these ways, Paul is struggling and striving for these churches he hasn't even met yet.
So the manner of real ministry, how can we spot real genuine gospel ministry when we see it?
Well, the manner of it is not just self-giving love, not just faithful stewarding of God's word and preaching and teaching,
but also this metaphor would suggest downright hard work.
Verse 29 uses the word of toil.
But lest we get weary just thinking about that,
we see that this toil and this struggle happens, as he says in verse 29,
with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.
As we labor hard, God's power is at work, energizing us for the task.
And this means two things.
On the one hand, genuine ministry is not lazy or complacent.
But on the other hand, neither is it frantic and always on the verge of burning out.
Genuine ministry is not sort of a sitting around, letting go and letting God,
nor is it sort of sitting around thinking that everything depends on us at the end of the day,
and we get completely stressed out.
See, the balance Paul is striking here.
We toil, we struggle, but we do so with his power and with his energy.
I think naturally, dispositionally, we tend to tip one way or the other.
Can you spot which side you tend to sort of stumble into?
Are you prone to laziness, or are you proning to burning out?
Or do you sort of swing back and forth between the two when you sort of sense that you're getting lazy,
and then you speed over this way and start burning out,
and then you're like, well, I got to pull back,
and then you start, you know, getting all lazy again and binging on Netflix for 48 hours
and catching up on all your shows?
How do we get off the hamster wheel?
How does one go about struggling with all his energy,
as opposed to floundering with all of our energy?
I think the first thing to say here is that this empowerment happens
in the act of working itself.
There's no good waiting around until you, quote-unquote, feel energized,
because God's power meets us in the doing.
The next thing to say is that prayer is vital here.
In a couple weeks, we're going to look at Colossians chapter 3, verses 1 through 4,
where Paul tells us to set our minds on things above,
that is, on Christ ascended to the Father's right hand.
And the setting of the mind on Christ in prayer throughout the day,
remembering where our real identity lies,
remembering our real glory in the midst of the world,
that is one of the things that will empower us to labor with all his energy.
So here are three aspects, three windows into the manner of real gospel ministry.
So friends, maybe it's worth asking, I wonder,
do you perhaps have a desire to be a minister in Christ's church?
Not just an elder or a pastor, but some other kind of ministry.
Well, we see here that genuine ministry means
to love the body,
and to steward the word,
and to work hard with all his energy.
And again, remember,
this isn't just for pastors and elders,
or campus ministers, or small group leaders.
Every member of Christ's body
is a minister.
As we've been walking through these three elements,
I'm sure it's been tempting to think,
man, Pastor Nick's preaching one long sermon
about himself up there.
What in the world? Get over it, dude.
But no, this is for us, church.
We are called to ministry.
This is a model for us all
to love the church,
and to steward his word,
and to work hard with his energy.
God has given you a sphere of ministry
that no one else has.
It's there that he's calling you to serve.
You have opportunities to minister God's word,
and to see his kingdom advance in places,
and in relationships that I will never encounter.
That Pastor Greg, or Pastor Matt,
or any of the other elders will ever encounter.
This ministry, this call to ministry,
is for us all.
And this window of real gospel ministry,
these aspects, this manner of gospel ministry,
it's a good grid for spotting the genuine
from the counterfeit.
And we have to be charitable here, I think,
but it's worth asking at times,
as we consider maybe joining a particular ministry,
or being fed by a particular ministry,
or encountering friends who are engaged
with a particular ministry or teaching.
Task along the lines of self-giving love,
is this ministry, a loving ministry?
And does it ever speak of suffering
as part of Christian experience?
Paul's very clear here that suffering
is a pretty normal event in the church life.
Or does this ministry only promise health
and wealth and worldly prosperity?
Do the ministers lord their authority over the flock,
making themselves greater?
Do they lay their lives down for the sheep?
Or along the lines of ministry as stewardship,
we could ask,
what about this ministry's fidelity
to the Word of God?
Is the teaching of the Bible
central to its life and health?
Are there certain aspects of God's Word
that seem to be conspicuously absent?
Are certain hard passages or ethical demands
being twisted or ignored or explained away?
Are other books or other sources of authority
seen as equal in authority
or greater authority than the Bible?
Like the Book of Mormon
or the Watchtower for Jehovah's Witnesses.
Lastly, does a ministry struggle with all His energy,
with all God's energy?
Is there, on the one hand,
a bold vision for the growth of the kingdom?
Is our very real human responsibility
taken seriously to obey the great commandment
and to fulfill the great commission?
And at the same time,
is there a prevailing sense of joy and peace
that at the end of the day,
God is in control
and His sovereign purpose will prevail?
And does that joy and peace and confidence
in God's sovereignty
flow out in a rich dependence on God
expressed in prayer?
That's the manner of real gospel ministry.
Now, I confess, if we step back,
all of this might sound,
on the surface, a bit dour.
I mean, suffering, stewarding, and struggling.
On the surface, that is a downer
of a job description, right?
Right?
And yet, Paul does it with joy,
as he says in the opening of our passage.
And at the end,
this whole passage is sort of bookended
by joy.
How can that be?
Well, that brings us to the second big thing
we see about real gospel ministry.
We've seen the manner of real ministry,
and now we come to the message
of genuine gospel ministry.
Look with me again at verse 25.
Paul says,
I became a minister,
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.
The mystery,
hidden for ages and generations,
but now revealed to his saints.
Then 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.
The message of real gospel ministry
is what Paul calls here
the mystery of God.
Now you see what Paul means
by the word mystery in verse 26, right?
For Paul, God's mystery
is not something incomprehensible about God
that we'll never figure out
with our finite intellect.
That's how we use the term mystery sometimes, right?
No, for Paul, God's mystery
is what was once hidden,
but now revealed.
In other words,
God's mystery is the long-awaited unveiling
of God's redemptive purpose
that he's been planning all along,
and now it's finally being unfurled
for all to see
in all its surprising wonder.
I've been thinking about
how to sort of capture this idea
of mystery, biblical mystery,
and in some sense,
I think surprise is almost a good word.
There's been an anticipation for it,
and now it's here.
In some sense,
we couldn't have predicted
how it was all going to play out,
but now that it's been revealed,
it makes sense of everything.
God's open secret for the world
of his great redemptive plan,
God's mystery.
What is that mystery?
Paul says in verse 27,
it's Christ in you,
the hope of glory.
This once hidden,
but now revealed,
saving plan of God,
this is the message
of real gospel ministry.
Christ in you,
the hope of glory.
Let's meditate briefly
on each part of this message.
Let's pull it apart
and soak on it
for just a little bit together.
First,
Paul's telling us
that our message
is Christ.
It's easy to think
of Christianity
as simply a system
of rules
or religious practices
or a worldview
or an intellectual tradition,
but Christianity,
friends,
is ultimately Christ,
a person.
Verse 28 says,
Him we proclaim.
The message
is Jesus.
Jesus.
When we tell people
what God is like,
what do we have to do
as Christians?
We have to proclaim Jesus
because He is the image
of the invisible God.
When we tell people
what God has done
as Christians,
we have to proclaim Jesus
because He is the one
who has finished
the work of redemption.
He has reconciled us
to the Father
through His cross.
And when we tell people
what God's goal
or what God's desire
or what God's future
is for us,
we have to proclaim Christ.
The rest of verse 28 reads,
Him we proclaim,
warning everyone,
teaching everyone
with all wisdom
that we may present
everyone mature in Christ.
This is what completion
looks like.
This is what finality
and fulfillment
looks like.
Maturity.
it looks like Jesus.
In Christ,
chapter 2,
verse 3 says,
are hidden
all the treasures
of wisdom
and knowledge.
Anything you could
want to know,
anything you could
want to be,
anything that would
make sense
of our existence
is stored up
to be withdrawn
from the person
of Jesus.
Our goal,
our ultimate joy
and future
is Christ
Himself.
In other words,
friends,
the Lord Jesus Christ
is not a means
to some other end.
He is not a way
to get something else
that's better
or more lasting.
Jesus is the end.
He is the point.
He is the goal.
In Him are all
the treasures
of wisdom and knowledge.
Knowing Him
is eternal life
and boundless joy.
And this is what
Jesus Himself taught.
Engaging with the
religious elites
of His day,
Jesus said in John 5,
He says,
you know,
you guys are searching
the Scriptures
because you think
that in them
you have eternal life
and yet it's they
that bear witness
about me.
Yet you refuse
to come to me
that you may have life.
You see what Jesus
is saying there?
He's saying that
the whole point
of the Old Testament
is Him.
You're searching
the Scriptures
trying to find
eternal life
and you're missing
the fact
that it's all about me.
I'm the fulfillment
of God's saving plan.
I'm the rest
that you've been longing for.
I'm the peace
that you've been hoping for.
I'm the protection
you've been seeking.
I'm the cleanness
that you've been trying
to find
and I'm the justification
that you've been slaving
so hard to get.
It's me.
It's in Him
that we find
eternal life.
This is how you can spot
the real message
of Christianity.
Ask yourself,
who is the hero
of this story?
Is it me?
Is it my performance?
Is it my moral record?
Is it my achievements?
Is it the work
that I have to do?
Is it some kind
of program out
in the world?
Or is the hero
of the story
Christ?
Is He the beginning
and the middle
and the end?
Because, friends,
the truth is
that the gospel
says that we are sinners
and we are deserving
God's just judgment,
but Christ died
so that we might live
a new life.
Christ is the hero
of the story
and His cross
is the place
of victory
where God's wrath
was satisfied
and we're reconciled
to Him
and the new creation
begins.
That is our message.
Our message
is Christ.
But here's where
things get interesting.
Even more interesting
than that,
if you can believe it.
Our message
is not just
Christ over us
as our Lord,
not just Christ for us
as our crucified
and risen Savior,
but also Christ
in us,
Christ in you.
Elsewhere,
Paul writes,
I have been crucified
with Christ.
It's no longer
I who live,
but Christ
who lives in me.
And the life
I now live
in the flesh,
I live by faith
in the Son of God
who loved me
and gave Himself
for me.
The message
of real Christianity
is at least
twofold, friends.
It is both
that we are in Christ
and so we have
a new status
before God,
we are justified,
we are forgiven,
but also that Christ
is in us
and we have
a new nature
and a new dynamic
of spiritual life
pulsing inside.
Again,
this is what Jesus
Himself taught.
In John 14,
Jesus says to His disciples,
and this probably
was so confusing
to them at the time,
He said,
when He had them
gathered for the
Last Supper,
right before He was
about to be betrayed
and go to the cross,
He's teaching them
and teaching them
and He says,
because I live,
you also will live.
In that day,
that is the day
after His resurrection,
you will know
that I'm in my Father
and you in me
and I in you.
Christ in you,
the living Lord,
the risen Savior,
alive in you
through His Holy Spirit.
You know,
friends,
half the battle,
spiritually speaking,
is remembering
who you are
and who lives
inside of you.
This is why Paul
is always saying things
in his letters
like he says in Romans,
consider yourself,
reckon yourself,
tell yourself,
remind yourself
that you're dead to sin
and you're alive
to God in Christ Jesus
because that's true,
that's what's true of you
and you always forget it.
remember who you are
and who lives inside of you
and live in line
with that great truth.
When the besetting sins
rear their head again,
when you despair
about how to handle
that tricky parenting issue
or that situation at work,
when you just look out
at the brokenness
of the world
and just want to give up,
remember,
the same Jesus
who has lived
and died
and risen again
for you
as Lord of the whole universe
is now alive in you,
leading you
and empowering you
and sustaining you
and granting you wisdom
to speak
when you need to speak
and to listen
when you need to listen.
Church,
you are not left
to your own devices.
You're not left
to just sort of wait
until something else happens.
Christ is in you.
If anyone is in Christ,
there,
the new creation,
Paul says
in 2 Corinthians.
And we need no longer
be slaves again
to fear,
fear of condemnation,
fear of repeating
our worst selves
over and over again.
You're God's child now.
God lives in you
and He's making you new.
Do you want to join
the adventure
of a lifetime?
Link your life
to the Lord Jesus
and find out
what happens.
But there's one more
part of this message.
It is Christ
in you,
the hope
of glory.
Later in Colossians,
Paul will say,
when Christ,
who is your life,
appears,
then you will also
appear with Him
in glory.
Now,
I get a chance
to preach that passage
in a couple weeks,
so I'm not going to steal
my own thunder.
But do you see
what he's saying?
If Christ is in you now,
then you will be
with Him then,
raised with Him
to imperishable life,
reigning with Him
in a creation made new.
And friends,
we've got to hold
these two things together,
this Christ in you
and this hope of glory.
You see,
Christ in you
now,
working,
changing,
transforming,
breaking open
this old world
with the new creation
and the hope of glory.
The very real reminder
that the best
is still yet to come
and that there is
more in store.
And you see
how it's helpful
that we have to hold
these two things together?
Because we need to know
that not every besetting sin
will simply go away
this side of Christ's return.
And not every injustice
will be put to rest
this side of Christ's return.
Now,
this doesn't stop us
from pursuing God's kingdom
and His righteousness
above all else
with all His energy
that He powerfully works in us.
But it reminds us
that in this age
we are still waiting
for the consummation
of Christ's work.
We are in the middle
of the story, friends,
not at the end.
But if Christ is in you,
then you have the hope
of glory.
You will share
in that glorious hope.
You can face the future
with confidence
no matter what
that future might hold
because you know
how the story ends.
You may not know
all the twists and turns,
all the light
and dark patches,
all the conflict
and resolutions
that are standing
between you
and the coming
of the kingdom.
But you know
the director
of this drama
of creation
and He has shown you
how the story ends.
The curtain will rise,
the King will step
onto the stage,
and when the King
of glory comes in,
creation will be set free
from its bondage
to decay,
and our hearts
will be set free
from sin,
and every knee
and every tongue
will confess
that He is Lord.
And those who have
repented and believe
will reign with Him forever.
And the one
who is directing
this drama
of creation
to its finale
lives in you,
giving you wisdom
to understand
your role to play,
giving you the grace
and the strength
and the creativity
to play it,
Christ in you,
the hope of glory.
That's our message,
and that is the message
of real,
genuine Christianity.
So friends,
do you have
the real thing?
When you look
in your spiritual wallet,
do you have
the real thing?
Or have you been
banking on something
that's an imitation,
a counterfeit?
Have you embraced
the message
of real Christianity?
Have you embraced
the living Christ Himself?
Not some moral code,
not a sort of nice
social group
to be a part of.
Have you embraced Him?
And if not,
why not?
What is it
you're waiting for?
And if you have
taken hold of Him,
then this message
comes out at us
and says,
join the real
gospel ministry.
You have been
shown the manner
and the message.
We have been shown
the marks
and the message
of this ministry.
And we need not
be deluded
or taken in
by counterfeits.
Rather,
let us continue
the work.
Friends,
what would happen
in our city
if we went forth
with this message
of hope
that we've been
talking about
and we held it
forth in this manner
of love
that we've been
describing?
What if our neighbors
saw our self-giving love
and an energized labor
that they couldn't
understand
and a joyful stewardship
of this message?
What if they heard
from us not merely
a moral code
or another religious system
or another social program
or another political project,
but a real message
of hope?
Christ in you,
the hope of glory.
In the early church,
we read in the book of Acts
that God added
to their number daily
those who were being saved.
That's the power
of the real thing.
counterfeits
eventually leave us
empty and longing
for more,
but by God's grace,
the real thing
catches fire
and spreads.
And it becomes
a movement
of hope
and joy.
That's what we see
in the early church.
The word of God
goes forth
and leaves
in its wake
joy.
It becomes
a movement
of hope
to the glory
of Christ.
May God
use us
as a church
for such
a ministry.
And may
our city
and our neighborhoods
increasingly know
these glorious riches
of Christ
in whom are hidden
all the treasures
of wisdom
and knowledge.
Friends,
may this be
the message
and the manner
that we go forth
in,
Christ in us,
the hope
of glory.
Amen?
Let's pray.
Amen.
Lord Jesus,
we ask that you
would energize us
with all of your power
so that we might
run this race
set before us
with endurance.
Lord,
would you help us
to cling to the real
thing,
to cling to you,
and may our hearts
be overflowing
with such confidence
and joy
and hope in you
that we can't help
but simply
proclaim you
in our words,
in our deeds,
in our homes,
in our workplaces.
And God,
would you
gather your people
from every tribe
and tongue
and nation
in this city
and around the world.
Lord,
bring us to yourself.
Help many more
to know the hope
of glory,
Christ in you
and our city,
Father.
To the glory
of your great name
we pray.
Amen.
Well,
friends,
let's stand.
We're going to end
by singing
the song
Alive in Us,
which is
that's
Amen.