Excellent and Elementary: Mystery, Ministry, and the Gospel of Christ
Colossians 1.24-2.5
Call to Worship
Prov 25.1-13
Pastor Andrew Loginow
Nicene Creed
Pastor Andrew Loginow
Song
Behold our God
Confession & Pardon
Pastor Michael Champoux
Song
Doxology
Song
Something Greater
Introduction
"I have the advantage of knowing your habits, my dear Watson," said he. "When your round is a short one you walk, and when it is a long one you use a hansom. As I perceive that your boots, although used, are by no means dirty, I cannot doubt that you are at present busy enough to justify the hansom." "Excellent!" I cried. "Elementary," said he.
This is probably the most famous Sherlock Holmes quote of all time. The quote we often hear in films and shows is, “elementary, my dear Watson.” But Sherlock Holmes never actually said that in the original stories. Sherlock Holmes is without a doubt the most famous detective in the world. Wikipedia says there are already over 25,000 stage adaptations, films, television productions and publications featuring Sherlock Holmes. Guinness World Records lists him as the most portrayed literary human character in film and television history.
I think this is the case because people love mysteries. We love a story we have to figure out. We love to go along for the ride and see if we can figure it out ourselves. That’s such a unifying human experience because we’re all actually living a mystery story. The very fabric of the universe is the story of a mystery revealed.
That’s what Paul is telling us here in Colossians. He’s telling us that there was a mystery kept from the world from the beginning of time but it has now been revealed. And that mystery affects how we live. That mystery affects how the church does ministry. In our pericope this morning Paul reveals how the mystery of the gospel shapes the ministry of the local church.
You know how when you watch a show and every new show start with a look at what happened last week (previously on LOST)? Let’s do that with Colossian; let’s briefly review what we’ve seen so far in the book of Colossians. Colossians is a letter written by Paul to this little church in Colossae because heresy had infiltrated the church. False teachers were probably teaching some sort of Jewish/Pagan/Christian syncretism. They were preaching that to be saved someone must take Christ but also have extra experiences. We’ll look more at those specifics in the weeks to come.
And so what Paul does is he gives the church at Colossae Christ, Christ, Christ. Like the famous chef in New York City who for six months fed his interns exclusively his cooking so that they would acquire a taste for only the best, Colossians gives us so much of Christ that we’re ruined for everything else. Like a bank teller who studies genuine money so that he can immediately identify a counterfeit, Colossians gives us the clearest theology of Christ in the Bible so that we can spot false teaching. Colossians is possibly the most explicitly Christocentric book in the New Testament. Every book of the Bible is about Jesus, but none are more explicit than Colossians.
Verses 3-14 contains the opening prayer of the letter where Paul rejoices that the Colossians have believed the gospel and encourages them to walk in the gospel. Last week Pastor Kevin preached the great Christological hymn from Colossians 1.15-23, wherein Paul declares that Christ is the head of creation and the head of new creation. And now in this text Paul describes his ministry, which is centered in the gospel of Jesus Christ. So here is our sermon summary this morning: the ministry of Christ Community Church must be centered in Christ because that will cause us rejoice in our suffering and will keep us from being ruined by sin.
The Ministry of Christ Community Church Must be Centered in Christ
So now let’s look at the text. To properly understand the text we need to start with the center of the pericope, which is Christ. We’ll get to verse 24 in a bit but notice at the end of verse 25 Paul’s ministry was to make the Word of God fully known. This has been the job of every Pastor and Elder for the last 2,000 years. Paul then elaborates on what it means that the Word of God is fully known: the mystery hidden for ages and generations is now revealed to his saints. And what is the mystery revealed? Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Just like a great Sherlock Holmes mystery, the very fabric of the universe is centered in a mystery. Ever since God created the heavens and the earth and humanity in his image, and ever since humanity rebelled against God in sin in the garden, God made a promise; God announced a mystery. Genesis 3.15 says that the seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent. And from that point the entire Old Testament is telling the story of this mystery. Through providential types and shadows, through people and through problems, the history of redemption in the Old Testament is giving us the clues that are leading us to Jesus Christ.
The mystery revealed is the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel is the announcement of the good news that the eternal second person of the Holy Trinity was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. His name is Jesus of Nazareth and he lived a truly human life, yet without sin (Heb 4.15). He died on a Roman cross bearing the wrath of God for the sins of his people. He was buried and three days later he resurrected from the dead, proving that he was the fulfillment of the Genesis 3.15 promise. Jesus crushed the head of the serpent when he walked out of the tomb.
And now everyone who will repent of their sin and place their faith in Christ will experience the forgiveness of sins and will inherit the hope of eternal life. To have faith in Christ means to know the facts about who Jesus is and what Jesus did, to ascent that these things are true, and to place the full weight of your trust on him.
The mystery revealed is that this good news isn’t merely for ethnic Israel, but it is for the gentiles also. The good news is for the nations. In Christ all of the families of the earth will be blessed (Gen 12.3). The riches of the glory of God’s grace are for everyone who will believe. Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved (Rom 10.13).
The good news is Christ in you, the hope of glory. When you repent and believe Christ lives in you because the Father gives you the Holy Spirit. When you have the Holy Spirit you have hope but it’s not a generic hope, it is the hope of glory. It is the hope that on the last day Jesus will raise you from the dead. On that day you will stand before him in judgment and he will declare that you are righteous and justified. You will be glorified and you will live forever in the New Creation, where you will never sin and never desire sin.
And this is why it is imperative that we preach Christ. In verse 28 Paul writes, Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. In Chapter 2 verses 2-3 Paul says Christ is the knowledge of God’s mystery, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Follow Paul’s logic here: verse 25 ends with Paul saying that his goal is to make the Word of God fully known. He makes the Word of God fully known by proclaiming Christ. Warning and teaching everyone Christ with all wisdom will produce maturity in Christ.
It’s important to not that in proclaiming Christ Paul is warning everyone and teaching everyone. The gospel is for everyone. It is not for those who have special knowledge or an extra experience. We will see in the coming weeks that Paul is writing against a heresy that taught that people need secret knowledge or an extra experience. Paul has coopted the words of the false teachers and using these words against the heretics. Word like mystery and fullness were used to propagate false teaching that salvation is Christ plus something else.
Paul is saying that the mystery is revealed in Christ. Christ is the fullness of God. Paul says here that Christ is all we need. Everyone can be warned and taught in Christ. Everyone can be mature in Christ. Regardless of IQ, education, or any other factor, Christ is all we need and everyone who wants Christ can have all of him.
The goal of all believers is the hope of glory. Another way to say glory is mature in Christ. At glorification we will reach full maturity in Christ. The way we get there is through proclamation of Christ. The hope of glory is Christ in us; the only way to persevere in that hope is to have more of Christ. We do not need Christ plus another experience. We don’t need Christ plus Judaism or Christ plus legalism or Christ plus anything; we simply need Christ. We need more and more of Christ. And Christ is found exclusively in the Word and the sacraments.
So when we think about the ministry of Christ Community Church everything we do must be centered in Christ. Every sermon preached must be centered in Christ because every pericope in Scripture is centered in Christ. We must not neglect the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper because they are the signs of the New Covenant and the only tangible expressions of the gospel given to us by Christ himself. Every song, every prayer, every element of the liturgy of our service must be centered in Christ. Every Bible class, every small group, every kids Sunday school and youth group lesson, every men’s breakfast, every Elder meeting, every deacon or deaconess meeting, everything that ever happens at Christ Community Church must be centered in the gospel of Jesus or else we are missing the point. It is him we proclaim so that everyone may be presented mature in Christ. Jesus Christ was the content of the preaching and ministry of the apostles and He must be the content of our preaching and ministry as well.
Because That Will Cause Us Rejoice In Our Suffering
This is not merely theoretical; Paul gives us two universal points of application. The ministry of Christ Community Church must be centered in Christ (1) because that will help us rejoice in our suffering and (2) will keep us from being ruined by sin. First only Christ can cause us to rejoice in our suffering. Look again at chapter 1 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.
Before we think through the strange concept of rejoicing in suffering we first have to address what does Paul mean when he writes that he is filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of the church? Remember Paul is writing this letter from prison. NT Wright uses the illustration of a solider that takes the fire to distract the enemy so his comrade can get to another position, Paul is saying that he is taking the persecution of imprisonment so that the enemies of the gospel would be distracted with him and not bother young churches like Colossae and Laodicea.
But there is also a broader sense in which all Christians who experiences suffering are filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions because we are the body of Christ. When we suffer, Jesus suffers because we are his body. Paul heard this from the mouth of Christ himself when he was converted. In Acts 9.4 Jesus Christ asks Paul, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” Paul wasn’t literally persecuting Jesus. Jesus was already ascended to the right hand of the Father; Paul was persecuting the church. But when the church suffers, she is filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions because she is his bride; she is his body.
There is also an eschatological element to what Paul’s saying here. In Jewish thought the history of the world is divided into two ages: (1) this age is marked by sin and death, hope and promise and (2) the age to come, which is marked by resurrection, no sin, and eternal life. Israel saw these two ages as distinct, but the New Testament tells us that with the resurrection of Jesus Christ the age to come has invaded this current age. We experience suffering but we also experience the forgiveness of sin and the hope of glory.
So we can rejoice in our sufferings because Jesus is victorious. The resurrection of Christ is God’s declaration that the suffering of his people has an expiration date. Hebrews 12.2 says:
Look 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.
Jesus endured the shame of the cross for the joy that was set before him. What was the joy set before him? It is his resurrection and the redemption of his people. Because we’re in Christ we can endure suffering for the joy set before us. What is the joy set before us? Christ in you, the hope of glory.
This isn’t just theoretical for me right now. This isn’t just theoretical for my dad as my mom is laying in the ICU. This isn’t theoretical for the Ross family right now. This isn’t theoretical for those who are battling cancer, or those who have lost a spouse or a child, or for those who have experienced divorce, or whatever suffering you have gone through, are going through, or will go through. This is as practical as it gets.
And this is why life, marriage, family, and church must be built on Christ. If church is built on a famous senior pastor, or topical preaching, or an attractional church, or celebrity, or a hip church growth movement, or anything other than the gospel of Christ, it comes up short in suffering. If what we do on Sunday morning can’t be reproduced in a living room or a hospital room, then it falls short of what God commands.
And Will Keep Us From Being Ruined By Sin
Keeping our lives and our church centered in Christ not only causes us to rejoice in our suffering but it also keeps us from being ruined by sin. Look at chapter 2 verse 4: I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments. These plausible arguments are the reason Paul wrote the letter and we will get into them in the coming weeks. The word translated delude is the Greek word παραλογίζομαι, which means, “to deceive by arguments or false reasons.” The Greek word that is translated as plausible arguments is the word πιθανολογία, which means, “plausible, but false, speech resulting from the use of well-constructed, probable arguments.”
Having your life and church centered in Christ will keep your from being deceived by arguments or false reasons which are plausible but are ultimately false speech resulting from the use of well-constructed, probable arguments. Like a chef who has acquired a taste for only the best food who are ruined for everything else, like a banker who has studied legitimate money so acutely that they can easily identify a counterfeit, believers should study Christ so intently, desire Christ so intimately that we can identify a counterfeit. False teachers have been a threat to the church for 2,000 years. Paul is writing this letter 30 some years after the resurrection of Christ and there are already false teachers invading his church. From this 1st century false teaching to the heresies that were the catalysts for the early creeds like the Nicene Creed we read earlier, to the Roman Catholic church’s bad theology that led to the Reformation, even to the silly and problematic church trends we see today, everything that is not centered in Christ is passing away. “On Christ the solid rock I stand all other ground is sinking sand.”
If you’re centered in Christ, you’ll be alarmed when a “Bible teacher” says that we need to unhitch ourselves from the Old Testament, or that we don’t need to believe in the virgin birth or the Trinity. You wont fall for the culture’s declaration that the historic Christian sexual ethic is outdated, or that it doesn’t matter whether you come to church or not, or that you can be saved without repenting of your sin, or any number of sinful lies that ruin lives. If you are not continuously consuming Christ then you will be susceptible to all sorts of heresies and false teaching that sound Judeo-Christian but aren’t actual Christianity.
Conclusion
No one can solve mysteries like Sherlock Holmes, but the problem is that there is always another mystery to solve. There will always be another murder or kidnapping to solve. But that is not true with Christ. The mystery of the ages has been revealed: Christ in you the hope of glory!
The ministry of Christ Community Church must be centered in Christ because that will cause us rejoice in our suffering and will keep us from being ruined by sin. We don’t need Christ plus any other experience. We need Christ. And the gospel is so deep and wide that doctoral dissertations continue to be written on even the smallest aspects of Scripture. Yet the gospel is so accessible that even a child in elementary school can understand and accept Christ; excellent and elementary.