The Mystery of God
CCCAG, March 19, 2023
Scripture: Colossians 2:1-5 (talk about handouts)
Introduction
How many people here this morning can honestly say they love mysteries?
I split this word mystery into two different subjects.
The first-TV mysteries, mystery books- the “who done it” type of mysteries.
But there is a second kind of mystery- that kind of mystery that deals with the things in life that are so vast and inscrutable that they boggle the mind and our ability to explain the intricacies of how they work.
Maybe it's getting home late and looking up at the night sky. I do this several times a week as I get home either at 440 or 540 when it’s still dark out. I always look up and see the constellations and the stars and even galaxies and stand there amazed at God’s creation.
The mystery of how God put all of that into being.
Or maybe it's an overlook where you can see miles and miles and you marvel in the grandeur of creation and if you're a person of faith your heart swells with worship of God.
I still love to drive to Independence and when you are coming over the hill you see all the bluffs and ridges way over in Buffalo County.
The bible says that God has put eternity into the hearts of men. I believe that is where we get this hunger for this idea of mystery- something that is awesome and mysterious to behold, but difficult to describe or to explain to someone else.
In fact my love of science is built around this love of mystery.
I like to figure things out. In fact, when I was growing up I’d drive my mom crazy because usually by the end of January, I’d be in my bedroom with the door shut disassembling some expensive toy she had bought me for Christmas just to see how it worked.
It’s also one of the reasons I love theology. Theology is simply the study of God. It's the study of why He does what He does, and how HE chooses to interact with HIS people.
Theology is both beautiful in it’s diversity, and solid in it’s truth. The bible is amazing as it can speak something to a homeless drug addict or a Harvard Law graduate.
Today, we will be continuing on our journey through the book of Colossians, looking at chapter 2, verses 1-5 and exploring the mystery of God and what it means for our lives today.
Scripture:
Col 2:1-5
I want you to know how much I am struggling for you and for those at Laodicea, and for all who have not met me personally.
2 My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
4 I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments. 5 For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit and delight to see how orderly you are and how firm your faith in Christ is.
NIV
Prayer
A few moments ago, I said theology can be beautiful in it’s diversity. When I said that, I did not mean that you can believe what you want.
I simply stating that there are some parts of the bible and many parts of how we understand God and His ways are open to interpretation.
After all, any language we have is going to be very unable to describe that which is indescribable. At best, the bible gives us glimpses into the nature and character of God, but never assumes to be a complete picture- just the one HE wants us to know.
In fact, that in itself, is embracing the mystery that is faith.
Saying that, much of interpretation has been done for us, and handed down through the early church fathers, through many of the commentators that we use today, to even modern findings that shine the light on the authenticity and accuracy of scripture.
So we will begin there today- As we learn to embrace mystery and to search the deep things of God to discover His nature for ourselves, we still have to defend what has been handed down to us for the last 2000 years.
I. The Struggle for true doctrine
Doctrine can be a bit of a double-edged sword for us here in the A/G.
Let me tell you why-
Let’s take a time machine back to about 1910. We get out of our time machine onto a busy street, and decide to pick up a newspaper to see when are at, and what is going on in this time of history.
Within the first few pages of the newspaper, you read about a very strange religious movement forming.
The writer of the article doesn’t mince words, but calls it a dangerous cult- one that can’t even describe who they are, what they believe, or why they believe what they believe.
You flips over to the editorial page, and find opinion pieces written by popular Lutheran, Methodist, and Baptist Pastors and even RC priests condemning this new movement.
Any guesses what I’m talking about? There are probably a few people wracking their brains, trying to figure out when Mormonism or Jehovah Witnesses started.
But, I’m not talking about them- I’m talking about us.
The Assemblies of God was officially formed in 1917, but had been in the public eye since Agnes Ozman first spoke in tongues in 1901.
In fact, in all the schooling I had to take to get ordained, one phrase from an early A/G theologian from the early 1900’s always stood out to me-
“We are an experience waiting for a theology.”
But that is how God works- He moves, then we eventually catch up and figure out how to explain it and hopefully be able to find the truth of what HE did in the clear examples from scripture.
After all, no group of people had the Holy Spirit be poured out on them prior to Acts chapter two.
God did it, and then the apostles explained it a few years later.
That’s what happened with the A/G.
God raised up men who loved to study scripture and were spirit filled. Most notably, Stanley Horton searched the scriptures and early church writings and found that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit was extremely common in the 1st century church and didn’t begin to die down until about 325 AD.
It was only after the church became legal that suddenly power of the Holy Spirit started to become less and less important to the church.
This was because the leadership in the church of that time loved the worldwide acceptance they got through Constantine proclaiming them to be the official state religion.
The result- compromise the church didn’t hold to sound doctrine concerning the importance of the Holy Spirit.
Before we turn up our noses at them dumb people in the past, we have to recognize that today, we are experiencing the same thing.
In the late 80’s early 90’s, Churches began to worry about, “Being Relevant” so people would be comfortable in church.
Instead of preaching Holiness, sanctification, and being filled with the Holy Spirit, we substituted light shows, fog machines, songs that focused more on ginning up emotion than teaching and reinforcing doctrine.
Not only that, but many so called Christian denominations are watering down the scripture regarding purity, holiness, teachings about sex and marriage, and living a changed life before the world.
As Paul told the Roman church-
“They exchanged the truth of God for a lie” Romans 1:25
This is why Paul tells young Pastor Timothy in both of his letters to him-
Guard what has been entrusted to your care. Guard it with the Help of the Holy Spirit which lives in us.
What was he talking about guarding?
True Doctrine, and it begins with the-
II. The Mystery of God
My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
Have you ever tried to explain something to a person, and they just don’t get it?
Someone else tries, and they still don’t.
Person after person tries to explain it, but there is a mental block there that no one can seem to get past, and they remain in the dark about whatever you were trying to get them to see.
This was, and largely is today, the Jewish person.
With a few exceptions- there are messianic Jews out there for sure and they are wonderful Christians, most Jewish people today cannot grasp who Jesus really was, or what he did for us.
It’s a mystery to them. But, it’s not just the Jewish people anymore.
If you stop your average person on the street and ask him what the significance of Easter is, they will stumble about a bit, say something (maybe) about Jesus rising from the dead, and leave it at that.
How did this happen? How did a once Christian nation become so biblically ignorant? The reason is summarized in
2 Cor 4:3-5
3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. 4 The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
A little over 20 years ago, I took a break from being a field paramedic to take a job as a middle manager for a medical call company. Our church at that time was going to have an Honorbound conference where we were expecting 800+ men to show up.
I volunteered to run it provided I could get of the time off of work.
I went to my boss, who was a gay man, and very dismissive about anything having to do with Christianity despite growing up in the bible belt. Him and I had several informal discussions about faith, but he wouldn’t budge in his beliefs that it was all a fairy tale.
I handed him my vacation slip and he asked me what I was going to do during my time off- thinking I had a huge vacation planned.
I said, “I’ll be leading a team at my church getting ready for a Christian men’s conference that will have over 800 people attending and some nationally known Christian leaders speaking at it.”
He looked at me and said, “So instead of using your only vacation time to rest or take a trip, you’re going to work for free and get nothing out of it at all”
He signed it, shook his head, and tossed it back at me and told me sarcastically, “It’s approved, go forth and be saved”
The reasons I chose to serve the Kingdom were a complete mystery to him.
There are some people, who by their own choices, to love sin more than truth. If they stay in that condition The Good news of the Gospel will be forever beyond their grasp until the Holy Spirit can soften their hearts.
You can make a legal case for Jesus that would impress a Harvard Law Grad, and they won’t budge
You can pull on their heart strings- show them how much Jesus loves them, and nothing will happen.
You can make every Socratic or logical argument you can and they still will be unable to see it.
Because it’s a mystery to them.
They simply can’t grasp it.
If would be like you giving me a thank you letter written in Mandarin Chinese. I don’t speak a word of that language, so I can’t understand the message you are trying to convey.
This is why faith in Jesus will always be a mystery to those who are perishing without it.
That is why the Holy Spirit is so important in the work of salvation.
The Holy Spirit is released and activated through our prayers
Listen- as I just said-
You can learn the best arguments
you can place them in a logical trap where they have no other choice but to admit you're right
you can pull on heartstrings and make every emotional argument you can imagine.
you can give them gifts do special things for them try your hardest to get through to them through your kindness and generosity.
But until the Holy Spirit softens their heart there will be no chance of salvation in their lives.
That is the mystery I think the church is missing in this day.
We need to get back to believing in the power of Holy Spirit LED prayer.
People's hearts today are so hard by the things of this life that the only thing we have left is the supernatural power that God has given each one of us.
The very spirit of God living in you.
Let me say that again you have the very Spirit of Almighty God living within you.
He wants to use YOUR prayers to save your loved ones.
I can and do pray for your loved ones but it's not nearly as powerful if you pray for your loved ones.
We as a church can try to pray your loved one into the Kingdom but it's not going to be nearly as powerful as you praying your loved one into the Kingdom.
Nothing is as powerful as you opening your heart to God through the Holy Spirit and exercising faith in HIS power- the power of the almighty God to change the heart of a Sinner.
It is not by might nor by power but by my spirit sayeth the Lord God almighty. (Zech 4:6)
It’s all God!
But, and this is where it gets hard for us- it could take awhile. I don't know how this works in the spiritual.
Some people begin praying and God immediately answers
other times, it takes a minute…or hours, days, weeks, even years.
I want you to think of your prayers like a balloon under a leaking waterspout.
Sometimes it runs fast, sometimes it just drips.
But no matter how fast that water is running, sooner or later that balloon will fill up and burst, and suddenly all of that weeping, all of that crying over the lost loved ones, all of the faithful prayer will suddenly explode into heaven and God’s sovereign hand will move.
You just need to have faith- Jesus is faithful. He will remember every prayer, every tear, every groan, and every pleading you offer him to save your loved ones.
He is Faithful, and He will move.
The final thing I want to take from this verse in Colossians-
III. The need for Orderly and Firm Faith
For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit and delight to see how orderly you are and how firm your faith in Christ is.
Nothing blesses the heart of a pastor than seeing God growing in people’s hearts.
Sometimes it seems like pastors preach the same thing over and over again- like we have nothing else to say.
But you don’t build a foundation for a skyscraper with one layer of concrete- you use various layers of various materials over time so that foundation can hold the weight of what is being built on it.
When I was doing camp nurse at Spencer Lake, I had a retired pastor tell me about his first church he had pastored early in his ministry. He was there for a little over 5 years and had moved on. He pastored for almost 35 more years and ended up retiring. He and his wife were doing some traveling and happened to travel through the area of that first church he had pastored.
They snuck in the back on Sunday morning opened the bulletin and was surprised to see that both the associate pastor, and the senior pastor had been in the children’s ministry when he was there as a pastor. Looking at the directory, it seemed like their children had leadership positions, and the daughter of the senior pastor was leading the children’s ministry.
Think about that for a moment- how that pastor must have rejoiced, knowing that his labor was not in vain, and then read Paul’s words again.
For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit and delight to see how orderly you are and how firm your faith in Christ is.
I have no idea where life might take me and I’m not throwing out clues or saying I’m leaving, I’m not planning on it
but if God does call me away-
I hope I could come back at some point before God takes me home, so I can see how orderly and firm your faith in Jesus remained after me.
All rise
Prayer/altar call
