Colossians 1:24 – 2:5
Richard Wurmbrand was a Christian pastor in Romania in the middle of the communist era. In 1945 there was great conference run by the communists where one by one the church leaders of Romania got up and pledged allegiance to Stalin and the communist system. Although the Soviet state was by definition atheistic, these pastors all got up and claimed that there was no contradiction between Christianity and communism.
It was Richard’s turn to speak. His wife encouraged him to speak the truth. He got up and preached the gospel. The government officials immediately said he no longer had the right to speak and they cut off the microphone. But in the loudest voice he could muster he kept preaching.
From then on he was a marked man. He kept on preaching truthfully and publicly because he knew that that was what his church needed. In 1948 when he was on his way to church, he was kidnapped by the secret police. For years he was kept in solitary confinement, subjected to brainwashing and torture with red hot irons, whipping and other things unimaginable. In 1956 he was released and immediately went back to pastoring the underground church, to looking after his flock and to preaching to the communists. He was again arrested in 1959 and imprisoned for another five years. When he was released in 1964 he was impressed upon by other Romanian pastors to escape to the USA and in 1967 he established a mission organization to the communist world, now known as Voice of the Martyrs.
He considered it his duty before God as a servant of the gospel and a servant of the body of Christ to suffer in his flesh for the cause of Jesus.
In that way, he was very much like the apostle Paul whose words we have just heard read. This is how Paul describes his own suffering in 2 Corinthians 11:23-28:
Are they servants of Christ? (I am out of my mind to talk like this.) I am more. I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. 24 Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, 26 I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. 27 I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. 28 Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches.
Now, 2 Corinthians was probably written five years before Colossians but his suffering hasn’t changed.
We begin in vs. 24: “Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh was is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions”
It’s probably strange to think that Paul is rejoicing in that sort of suffering, but when I first you that verse, alarm bells might start ringing. There’s something lacking in what Christ has done for us? How can that be? What is Paul trying to suggest? Is there really something that Jesus failed to do and now Paul has to pick up his slack?
Well, to give us a bit of insight into this, think back to how Paul first became a Christian. Most of us are probably fairly familiar with conversion of Saul – or Paul – in Acts 9. It’s a famous, stunning, miraculous story. Paul is traveling to Damascus to arrest and probably execute more Christians and suddenly the Lord appears to him in a great flash of light from heaven. Paul falls to the ground and asks “Who are you, Lord?” and the Lord says “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.” Paul goes blind for three days and he is met in Damascus by a Christian named Ananias.
Now God has also spoken to Ananias and told him to go and meet Saul to restore his sight. Ananias has heard about Paul and all the terrible things he has done to Christians so he says to the Lord – hasn’t he come to persecute us? But in response the Lord says these words to Ananias about Paul: "This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel. 16 I will show him how much he must suffer for my name."
That was the task for which God had chosen Paul. To take the gospel to the Gentiles and to Israel. And to do that, he would have to suffer which is of course what we see when we read the rest of Acts and when we read Paul’s letters.
So, was there something lacking in Christ’s sacrifice? Well, yes there was. Not in terms of Jesus’ death not being enough to win salvation and eternal life for us. Not that he didn’t achieve reconciliation by his blood. And not lacking in that he tried to do something and failed. No, this was always part of God’s plan. Jesus preached to the people of Israel, he died on the cross and rose on the third day, defeating sin and death. Then over a period of forty days he appeared to many of his followers. But what didn’t he do? He didn’t take his message to the Gentiles, did he? He never traveled beyond Israel, really. That’s why the final instruction he gives his disciples in Matthew 28 – the Great Commission – is for them to take the gospel to all nations. And that’s why that he chose that persecutor of persecutors, Saul of Tarsus, to be his instrument – and that is why Paul must fill up in his own flesh the suffering of Christ.
For the next few moments I want to make a few brief points about Paul and his ministry from this passage. We’ll look at his role, his experiences, his message and his purpose.
1. His role - servant
In one sense, Paul has no choice about this at all. He was chosen and commissioned by God to present the Word of God to the Gentiles. That was it – and like with the prophet Jonah, when God calls, you’ll do it one way or the other. But unlike Jonah, this passage reveals Paul to be a willing fellow-worker with God.
Look at the way he describes himself in vs. 25 – he is a servant of the body of Christ. Not someone to lord his apostolic authority over others, but a servant, a minister.
2. His experiences - struggles
And there is no greater testimony to his servant heart than what he is prepared to endure for the sake of the gospel and the church. While writing the letter, he’s under house arrest in Rome – in gaol because he’s preaching the Word. And you can feel from the language he uses in this passage that what he has gone through has been difficult, and the work is hard. In vs. 29, he’s struggling in his labour, and in the very next verse he’s at pains to point out how much he is struggling for the Colossians. What those struggles are exactly is hard to say. Maybe he’s talking about his imprisonment, or the myriad of trials he’s gone through over the previous 15 years. It could be his efforts to get letters off to them, or his attempt to visit them which is alluded to in the book of Philemon. Certainly a part of it, though, are his prayers and his concerns for the Colossians. After all, he’s already said he never stops praying and thanking God for them! He doesn’t call this struggling because he necessarily finds praying itself very difficult, but because he recognizes that showing genuine care for people is hard-work! Or at least it should be hard work.
We might often think we care about someone. We might pray for them. We might even pray for them often! But can we really say we are struggling for them. Pleading with God to transform and grow them into disciples of Christ. Think about your Connect 09 key contacts – those people whom many of us have committed to pray for and share the gospel with this year. I expect most of you are like me in this. You pray for those people maybe daily, maybe weekly for a few minutes and then think “right, I’ve ticked that box, let’s move on.” Now God can use the weakest and shortest prayers to bring about his purposes – but we’re hardly struggling for those people are we? We’re hardly wrestling in prayer, as Epaphras is described in chapter 4.
What it comes down to for Paul, I think, is that the spiritual well being of the Colossians really matters to him in an incredibly profound way that’s hard to describe. He often calls the recipients of his letters his children in the faith, and I think that sort of relationship perhaps best illustrates just how Paul struggles here. Think about the sort of concern a parent has for their child. To a parent, their child’s development and growth is something in which they have a massive emotional investment. And if the parent is a Christian, how much more will they be passionate that their children grow up to love Jesus and be faithful followers of him! Parents ride the ups and downs of their children’s lives with them. And if they’re going to wrestle in prayer for anyone, it will be for their children. Pleading with God for their body as well as their soul.
Remember back to that list of suffering from Paul in 2 Corinthians 11? Did you notice what the last one was? Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches.
3. The message – a mystery revealed
Thirdly, his message. If he is suffering for the sake of preaching, what is he preaching about? Well, we touched on this last week in that great summary of the gospel that can be found in 1:21-23. I think all we need to do is read it out:
Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. 22 But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation-- 23 if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.
Jesus has died so that we might be right with God and it is that message that Paul is preaching, it is that message that Paul is serving.
But in our passage this evening he does say a couple of other things about it. On two occasions he describes it as a mystery. In 1:25-27 he says that he has been commissioned to present to you the word of God in its fullness-- 26 the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints. 27 To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
And then in 2:2, he wants the Colossians to “know the mystery of God, namely Christ”.
His use of the word mystery picks up on a lot of the religious chatter going on in the Greek world at the time. There were these mystery cults which claimed to have secret knowledge that would only be divulged to an exclusive group of followers.
But the mystery here in Colossians is the complete opposite of that. In fact, whenever Paul refers to the mystery of God in any of his letters, it’s always linked to a word like “disclosed” or “revealed” or “made known”. In other words, what was a mystery has now been made known to us. The question of how God was going to deal with sin, how God was going to bring people from every tribe, nation and tongue into his kingdom – that was a big mystery for those who were around before Jesus. But that has now been disclosed to the saints – Christians in other words – and the answer is wonderfully simple – 2:2 “the mystery of God, namely Christ”.
4. Paul’s aim – Perfect in Christ
Paul’s purpose through his servanthood, his suffering and his proclamation is focused on growing the Colossians in their faith and seeing them stand firm to the end.
The phrase he uses in 1:28 is “so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ.”, and he goes on in chapter 2 to talk about encouragement, love and understanding. That’s why he’s doing all these things. God has called him, so he’s also doing it out of obedience to the Lord, but he desperately wants to see these young Christians become mature and glorify God in everything they do, and ultimately for himself to be able to present them before God on the Last Day and say here are those children you entrusted to me they have remained in Christ and are without blemish and free from accusation. And because he’s looking forward to that day he can rejoice in his present sufferings because he knows that they only serve to further the gospel.
Paul gives us quite an example. He’s a servant, ready and willing to suffer so that he can preach the revealed mystery of Christ for the purpose of seeing people reconciled to God and living for Jesus.
Is it enough just to say – well, be like him? Be that committed. Be that faithful. Be that prayerful. Be that self-less.
Yes and no.
In one sense, Paul was chosen specially by God for a specific task in a specific time. He was the instrument of God to take the gospel to the Gentiles. We’re not that!
But at the same time there are others throughout the New Testament who don’t receive the same call and yet show similar willingness to proclaim the gospel. Epaphras is not the chosen instrument, yet he still wrestles in prayer for the Colossians. Neither is Timothy, but he is Paul’s partner in this work and often therefore Paul’s partner in his suffering.
What is still lacking with regard to Christ’s afflictions today? Isn’t it for us to take the gospel to our friends and families and communities and suburbs and towns and cities and nations? Hasn’t God entrusted many of us with children or youth or bible study groups or mission teams where our burden and our privilege is to proclaim Christ to them, to admonish and teach to encourage in love and in unity so that they may be perfect in Christ? Of course he has! Our city is as much a mission field as the Roman Empire of Paul’s day.
How much struggling are we prepared to do for our church, our brothers and sisters, for our Lord? How much suffering are we prepared to endure? Do we rejoice in anything we can do, whatever the cost to us, that grows people in Christian maturity? Do we labour under the power of God so that everyone may be presented perfect in Christ?
I began by mentioning Richard Wurmbrand and his suffering for the sake of the gospel in Romania. Remember the communist conference where all the church leaders endorsed atheistic communism. I said that his wife encouraged him to speak the truth. Well, in his own words their little exchange went like this:
Sabina (his wife) whispered: “Richard, stand up and wash away this shame from the face of Christ.”
I knew what would happen. “If I speak, you will lose your husband,” I said.
Sabina replied, “I do not wish to have a coward for a husband.”
He then took the stage and proclaimed Jesus and the assembled Christian leaders applauded and praised God because he was doing what they had been too afraid to do. His purpose was to be true to the gospel and encourage the church. Then the communists cut the microphone, and 14 years of torture and imprisonment was set in train.
Labouring for God will involve sacrifice and suffering, have no doubt about that. But what is temporary loss compared to the glorious riches of Christ?
Let us be true servants of God and servants of his church.
