Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript: Colossians 1:24–2:5
## “Suffering, Good Order, and Firmness”
**Pastor Dennis R. Tuuri | November 1, 2015**

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Versus a version of Martin Luther’s great hymn written in the Reformation during times that were not metaphorical in their description of suffering. Those were real. The sufferings of the reformers who brought the word of God back into the existence of the church and established the doctrine of salvation not based upon works were real.

Those songs were very important for the people of the time, and hopefully we can relate to them in our time even in the midst of our much more minor sufferings that we encounter. I want to talk about sufferings today in relationship to good order and firmness, and then throwing in some stuff on the word itself from Colossians 1:24 through chapter 2:5.

There is a handout I would encourage. I didn’t get it out till a little late, so if you don’t have one, you know, they’re available on the stand out this door or in the back. Nothing wrong with getting up right now or sending a child to go get them. Husbands, don’t send your wives. Wives, send your husbands.

I have a structure laid out on the handout and I’ll be talking about that a little bit. The most significant thing about that structure is the way I think it takes us in terms of centering the focus on the centrality of the section in the middle of the text, which we’ll talk about at the conclusion of the sermon. Either follow along in your Bibles or just listen, or you can read the handout or watch that as I read through it.

Please stand for the reading of Colossians 1:24 through chapter 2:5.

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*I now rejoice in my sufferings for you and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ for the sake of His body, which is the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God which was given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God, the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to His saints. To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. To this end I also labor, striving according to His working which works in me mightily.*

*For I want you to know what a great conflict I have for you and those in Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, and attaining to all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Now this I say, lest anyone should deceive you with persuasive words. For though I am absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ.*

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Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for this text. Open it to us, Lord God, by your Holy Spirit. Help us to understand the truths in it, to be encouraged by them, built up by them, convicted by them where necessary, and be transformed by them as we go from glory to glory in the image of our Savior. In His name we pray. Amen.

Please be seated.

## Suffering

Suffering is a universal truth. This text comes after some of the highest, most optimistic language I think in all of the Bible—language we talked about in the opening three sermons. You remember that the description was this new creation and fruit happening in this new church in Colossae, fruit abounding all over the world. This wonderful picture that the new heavens and new earth are becoming reality. The earth is fruiting out with newness as we pray that God’s will might be done on earth as it is in heaven because of the coming of Jesus Christ, His death and resurrection. The new age has begun.

So there’s this wonderful imagery that Paul paints for us early in chapter 1. And then of course he goes into that tremendous, soaring description of the excellencies of Jesus Christ—a soaring, beautiful description of who He is and then a universal purpose for His mission. His mission is to reconcile everything in the cosmos. Everything is in relationship to Jesus, just as it happened in the context of Jesus as creation did. He was the agent of creation. In Him all things are sustained. They keep on going because of Him. No brute factuality. Everything in the world reflects a relationship with Jesus Christ. All these things, having fallen into sin and disorder and schism and division, are now going to be reconciled through the proclamation of the gospel of what Jesus Christ has accomplished on the cross in His death and His resurrection, and most importantly in His ascension.

So we have this tremendous good news at the beginning of this letter to the Colossians. And now we hear about suffering. And as Paul describes his suffering, it’s quite substantial. He is in agony. He’s laboring copiously. He’s struggling. He’s really suffering, and he rejoices in those sufferings.

Now, the first thing I want to say then is that suffering helps us to not misunderstand or misapply what we’ve read up to now. There’s something called triumphalism. And I don’t really know what it is. I know it’s bad. People talk about it and I think I understand somewhat of what it means in Christian circles. And I think it means that we can become triumphalistic in saying that because of all that grand stuff in most of chapter 1, suffering is somehow anomalous to everything. That our lives are supposed to be filled with victory—joyful, not because we’re joyous in suffering, but because we’re joyous in all the tremendous things that are happening to us and we’re doing great things and the church will conquer the world without the kind of struggle and difficulties that Paul is actually rejoicing in here.

I think that’s some form of triumphalism, and it’s easy. It’s not, you know, for most people—if you’re a different eschatological view than us, that’s not necessarily a temptation. But it is a temptation for us, right? Because we are optimistic about the preaching of the gospel converting the world. We see that. But we have to understand that we are not triumphalistic in the sense of not knowing that much of this happens not in spite of suffering but because of suffering. Suffering is much of what God uses to sanctify us.

Here’s an example maybe of triumphalistic preaching. I get up here and I tell you what a great thing marriage is. We have marriages and we have homilies at the weddings and we say what a wonderful thing Christian marriage is, you know, and how great it is. It’s the thing you’ve been waiting for all your life till you’re twenty, twenty-five, whenever it is. And we can oversell it because then when you get married, I remember our first deacon, I think, said that marriage is kind of like a bath. After a little while, it’s not so hot. He was from Texas.

But the point is, and maybe I know there are people who say we’ve never had trouble in our marriage. Okay, good. That’s great. I’m talking to the ninety-five percent that have. And the reason you have those problems is not that something isn’t working. It’s usually because something is working. God is using suffering to sanctify you, to make you live outside of your own personal little interior thing that most of us have going on in our lives. You have to recognize that your worst—we all stumble in many ways. Two people that stumble in many ways get married and have close relationships and are in the same bathroom doing your teeth or whatever it is—you’re living together and it’s hard because you see each other’s sins.

You know what we need to do in marriage? I was talking to Chris W. this last week. Much of marriage is helping the other person remember who they are in Jesus and encouraging them to live that way, right? Because we tend to not think it’s happening. Okay, so the point is, with all these difficulties in marriage, we think something hasn’t worked. You think, well, gee, you know, RCC marriage is the gig, and somehow that’s triumphalistic if you separate it from suffering.

We read the text in Romans—you know, that our spirit, the spirit cries out within us “Abba, Father,” and we have this relationship to Abba Father. Our view of that is that Abba Father means that Jesus is taking care of everything, that God’s taking care of us as we’re in His Son, that the Father is bestowing all these wonderful things to us and life is grand. But if you go back to where Jesus actually spoke Abba Father, where is it? It’s in the garden. It’s in suffering. And I think in Romans, that’s the point—that even in the suffering, God is calling us. He’s reaffirming. He’s maturing us as His children, not necessarily for our sin. We think we’re suffering because of our sin. Not usually. The world is fallen. There’s division. Jesus is reconciling it. But in the meantime, in the proclamation of the gospel, there is suffering.

Now, Paul’s talking about a particular kind of suffering—suffering for the proclamation of the gospel. But I wanted to make this point early on: suffering is a normal part of the Christian existence. Now, you can get over in that ditch too far as well, and think, well, if I’m having a good time, I must be doing something wrong. No, joy is in there. Joy—not just related to suffering, but suffering is part of the gig.

So when Paul makes this shift now to talk about his own ministry, remember he said at the end of verse 23 that he’s been called as a steward to preach the gospel, and he begins to talk about himself. The first thing he talks about is his sufferings on behalf of the Colossians. So suffering is a big deal here, and this is a reality we’re going to talk about more in just a couple of minutes.

## Overview of the Text Structure

Okay. Now I want to say this—that’s by way of introduction. Now just look at your outline if you’ve got one. I’ve tried to do something this time, and I know that some of you really hate this stuff and you think it mucks up the works. Well, just so you know, it really helps me when I’m looking at a text of Scripture. If there’s some order and structure there, it kind of helps me to see what’s going on. And as you meditate on some of the structural things that God has placed in His text, hasn’t it? First, there’s a delight in the beauty of God for writing so beautifully. But secondly, it kind of focuses you.

And I think in texts like this, there are some terms that I’ve underlined here. The underlined terms are the matching sections, right? You see that? And if the match isn’t exactly the same term—for instance, look at the A section: “the very last thing to fulfill the word of God.” And then the A prime section, he talks about “people are going to deceive you with persuasive words.” That’s the same root word—it’s this logos thing in both cases. The idea is that Paul is being called to fulfill the word, the preached word, to proclaim it, to teach it. We’ll look at that in a minute, what he does with it. And it’s so that in part they won’t be led aside with deceptive words.

So there’s a match there with a movement. What Paul is telling us interior to those bookends is significant to us to keep us from being deceived by wrong words. And I tell you right now, if we ever need a time to have some antidotes to false teaching and prosperity gospel and all kinds of different versions of the gospel, you know, it’s now. And so how are we going to do that? Well, this shows us the bookends. It’s all about words. It’s about God’s word, Christ’s word, proclamation of that word, teaching that word, which will equip us then to not be deceived by other words.

So these underlined phrases are matches. And when you look at a structure like this, whether you see this particular structure or not, you sort of know there’s a unit here. And there’s movement happening. God is moving it somewhere. And what Paul is doing, he’s transitioning from the verse about him being called as an apostle. And now what he’s done with this last verse in this section is he’s opening up the stuff he has to tell them to help them combat very specifically the Judaizing influence upon the Colossians. So he’s opening up a new section. But here in this section, it points out the movement of the text from one word to another.

Then so the words “rejoicing”—so in addition, in this process of moving us toward being able to not be deceived, to be established in the word, there is joy in this. The joy at the beginning is joy in suffering—that’s what it is specifically in that A section. And in the A prime section, it’s joy at seeing—which is an interesting word. Remember, Paul wasn’t there, but Paul saw—you know, their good works, their right order, their firmness. So there’s a suffering and then the establishment of right order and firmness, which are sort of matched up because of the movement of the text. This joy connects those two things up.

And so the underlined words are the ones that match. And then you’ve got this match of the word “flesh.” I’ll talk about that in a few more minutes, but it’s something to meditate upon—these Paul’s use of the term flesh. Okay.

Then the B sections: we read about the mystery—that it was hidden—and then in the matching B section, those same words are underlined because they’re matches. And in some of these terms, and I won’t go through the specific ones, these are the only occurrences in Paul’s letters of these words, and yet they’re matched up in matching sections. So again, I think that’s to make it easy for us to see them. If we’d heard it in the original Greek, things would have been probably easier to see in terms of the matches we’re dealing with. We’re dealing with translation, but these things kind of match up.

And so we’re going to have to talk about this mystery. But the mystery—it’s funny here, too, because you know, we often hear about this mystery, and it seems mysterious to us. But really, the New Testament makes it quite plain what this mystery was. We’ll talk about that in a couple of minutes.

And so these sections again match up. I thought about this. I was thinking of someone who is in very difficult financial straits and suffering, right? And we want to be empathetic toward suffering. This person is in these straits not because of their particular problem but because of somebody else’s sin. Frequently, for us, that’s what happens. Sometimes it’s our own sin. Frequently, it’s somebody else’s sin, and we live in a connected world.

But you know, I know it sounds trite and I know some people would advise me not even to say this, but I just have to say it. You know, sometimes God takes away the riches of the world—as delightful and good as they are. Nothing wrong with riches. Abraham was a rich guy. Blessings of God. Sometimes He takes all that away or almost all of it away. And I think whatever his reasons are, and there are many of them that we can’t figure out all the time, but one thing we can do is to realize that in our hearts and in our souls, we’re remembering that the riches in Christ is what riches are all about. The riches of the world are in some ways just a reflection of the value of Christ Himself.

And when we say Christ, we mean the King who’s revealed in His word. There’s what the riches are. Okay? And when we have that, if we don’t have much else, well, we’d still be rejoicing, right? I mean, I know we want to be empathetic, compassionate, understand that. I know it’s hard. I mean, I’ve been poor, but I just think that Christian sanctification—I mean, He uses these terms “rich” a couple of times in these matching sections. He wants us to think about it. He wants us to realize that true riches, you know, an overwhelming abundance of goods—that’s kind of what the word means—true riches are in Christ, revealed in His word and found in His body in the church. Okay.

So I think that’s important. And so this movement again goes from this mystery being revealed and then the repetition of it in the B prime section, and these sections talk about—again, we’ll talk about it in terms of the word of God—but “in Him we’re hidden all these treasures of wisdom,” so the mystery really is Jesus. We’ll talk about that in a couple of minutes. But that’s kind of what the text is saying.

And then as we look then into that, then we come to this center section—the D, D prime, C, and maybe you could put the B and the D prime together, but they are a matching thing, right? “According to the work which works in me mightily.” This is an interesting word. This is a word that’s the basis for our word “energy.” And I’ve never thought about this in thirty years. I must have been blind to it, or maybe I thought about it and forgot it. I don’t know. But the center of this text, if the structure is laid out right, means that the dynamism, the way you move through the text in sufferings, being blessed by God, knowing the word of God, being firm and established in good order—that all that stuff is going on because of the energy of Jesus Christ. That’s the center.

You know, I was going to say, you know, I can’t talk about Jesus as the Energizer Bunny, but I can talk about us as bunnies. And the Energizer in the middle, the dynamism, is Christ within us by the Holy Spirit. Now, that’s interesting. We’re going to look at a little bit more as we get to the end of the sermon. But you see, it kind of matches up.

And then he says, “To this end I also labor, striving.” See? The English words are completely different. It’s the same Greek word—different form—but it’s basically the same word. And what it refers to is striving in a warlike setting or an athletic contest. That’s the kind of thing. The word where he says “before that I labor”—this is really hard, arduous struggle. And then he’s striving. He’s in combat. You know, you’re like in the frontline troops in a military engagement. Something like this. This is the kind of hard work it is for Paul to do his thing.

And I think that has application to us. Now, he’s an apostle. His sufferings are as an apostle. I get that. His sufferings are for the proclamation of the gospel and the inevitable opposition that comes to him. And in a way, he’s taking the brunt of that opposition so that the Colossians don’t have to. They’re small potatoes. I remember when we passed our homeschool law in 1983. One of the reasons we did was because we were small potatoes, you know? God works in these hidden mysteries of things that will have big consequences but seem to be nothing. This church in Colossae was important and he was getting attacked. But Paul’s taking the brunt.

Okay. So I know it’s distinctive to Paul as an apostle, but each of us are called to strive. You know, old phrase: “How goes the battle? How goes the war? You know, how’s life?” Well, I think for Christians to ask each other how the battle is going at times is a good thing because we’re in a battle. We’re in a war. We’re taking territory for the Lord Jesus Christ. And that means in our own hearts, in our marriages, in our church, in our neighborhoods—it is a battle. We’re to be striving mightily to teach the word of God and to bring people into conformity to that word, into loving relationship with the Father through the Son. That’s a battle.

Whatever you’re doing in life is connected to the kingdom. You go to work every day, right? I’m kind of getting to my conclusion already. That’s bad, but I’ll do it anyway. So you go to work every day. Well, how do you get the energy to do that? To feed people, to transport their goods and services, to build the kingdom through your vocation. Where does that energy come from? Well, I think if you’re doing everything for Christ, this is the answer. The key, the center of this text, I think the way the structure is laid out points us right to the presence of Jesus Christ operating in us through the Holy Spirit, giving us the energy, the drive, the vitality.

And I think what that means, by the way, is that if you don’t have energy and drive and vitality in your life, well, you need to get more of Jesus. You need to get more of the Scriptures. You need to get some of that stuff because I think Paul’s example—I think big picture—you’ve got Jesus in His flesh, and his absence. Then you’ve got Paul suffering in his flesh, right? Absent but present in the spirit with the Colossians, right? Absent, present in the spirit with us, our Savior.

And I think this is the model that the Scriptures set up—that we’re connected to Jesus, living out in some ways the significance of His life in our own lives. And so what’s true of Jesus was true of Paul. And what’s true of Paul—for the most part, I know he’s an apostle, I get that—for the most part, it’s the same with you and me. We go through the same things. We’re going to have sufferings. We need the energy of Christ. We’re called to do various tasks and bring whatever we do in life—recreation, vocation, whatever it is—into conformity to the word of God.

Okay. So that’s my brief overview of the text, and I hope it makes sense. And I would encourage you: when I give you this stuff, maybe keep them for a while, look it over, and maybe talk about some of the things we’ll talk about today in your community groups or in your home, whatever it is. But I do a lot of research, and I’m sharing with you stuff that I think is useful and is useful to me.

## Rejoicing in Suffering: Filling Up What Is Lacking

Okay. Second point: rejoicing in suffering. What does it mean he’s filling up what is lacking? Verse 24: “For I rejoice in my sufferings for you and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ for the sake of His body, which is the church.”

Okay, so this is a strange verse. I talked about it last week. Won’t it be fun to know what it is? Well, we know what it isn’t. We know what Paul is not saying here. He’s not saying that there is any lack of sufficiency in the sufferings of the Savior to bring about the salvation and reconciliation of the world. Because he’s just told us about all that, right?

In verse 20, he says that “by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth, things in heaven, having made peace, past tense, definitively, through the blood of the cross.” So the blood of the cross, the sufferings of our Savior, were absolutely all sufficient for the reconciliation of all things and for the peace of all things.

Colossians 1:22 says: “And the body of His flesh through death to present you holy and blameless and above reproach in His sight.” So we know that the death of Jesus was sufficient to bring us into acceptable relationship with the Father both now positionally and ultimately in the eschaton as well.

Now the condition of that in verse 23 was “if indeed you continue in the faith.” But the point is Paul is not saying at all—banish all thoughts that he’s saying he needed to make up something that was lacking the way we think of the term in what Jesus had done. There was nothing lacking in what Jesus had done. He had affected the reconciliation of the world. He had brought peace. He had forgiven your sins. All this totally through the sufficiency of His own sufferings on the cross.

Well, here’s a couple of verses that are pointers, I think, to what this actually means. And this is on your outline. Matthew 13:14 says: “In them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled which says, ‘Hearing you will hear and shall not understand.’” This is the same word—”filling up,” “fulfilled.” So there’s nothing new to the word, but it’s being applied and brought to pass in a particular situation. There was no lack in what Isaiah wrote. But it was now being applied by God and made manifest in a particular setting.

Again, in 1 Corinthians 16:17: “I am glad about the coming of Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus. For what was lacking on your part, they supplied.” Now here you have the same two things going on that Paul just talked about. What was lacking in Christ’s afflictions, he supplies, he makes up. Well, he’s not saying that these people were not doing what they should do. He’s saying that as your representatives, they are giving me more of what you were already supplying to me. Okay? So there’s no lack in them. Their sufficiency is all sufficient. But these guys are coming, bringing them as it were to a particular situation, taking care of this. They supplied what was lacking in the absence of these people that had sent them to Paul.

So that’s another good reference, I think. And then Galatians 6:2: “Bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the same word, the law of Christ.” Again, it’s not the law of Christ is insufficient. It’s that it’s being filled out in application of what we do.

And then finally, Philippians 2:30: “Because for the work of Christ, he came close to death. This is talking about an individual. For the sake of Jesus, he came close to death, not regarding his life to supply what was lacking in your service toward me.” He’s not chastising them for their service to him. The lack of it—that’s not the idea of lacking there. A further evidence and a transmission of their service to him was this man who represented him, who was willing to die to supply what was lacking.

So what Paul is talking about, I think, when he says that he fills up the afflictions that were lacking—lack of affliction, the afflictions of Christ that were lacking—what he’s talking about is extending the sufferings of Christ by which the new creation was brought into being. And we extend those and apply them as we preach the gospel. We suffer with Jesus. And so we’re in a sense filling up. We’re suffering in unity with Jesus, but it’s not as if His sufferings were insufficient. We’re simply extending the effects of those. And when we suffer for proclamation of the gospel, we can be said to be adding sufferings on the part of the body of Christ to the work of Jesus—not in a salvific sense, but in a way that works it out in a particular situation and puts it into effect.

So I think that’s what’s being said here. And this persecution again is specific to Paul’s proclamation of the word. Listen to this verse. My wife pointed this out to me recently. John 15:20: “Remember the word that I said to you. ‘A servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you.’ So you’re suffering the sufferings of Christ, right? You’re adding more, so to speak, from one perspective, to the sufferings of Christ because you’re not suffering for yourself. You’re suffering because you’re united to Christ. ‘If they persecute Me, they’ll persecute you.’

And listen to this one: “And if they kept My word, they will keep yours also.” You know, when we tell people the Scriptures and we try to teach them and they reject that, they’re not rejecting you. Jesus is saying it’s because they’re rejecting Me. It’s My word, not your word. It’s My suffering, not your suffering ultimately, right?

So you know, what this means is that when we bring the word of God into people’s lives, we will suffer persecution from some and we will be rejected in our teaching. Don’t take it personal, right? Maybe you need to be a better teacher. Maybe you need to do a better job of explaining things to your kids, for instance, or to your husband or to your wife. But understand that if people’s hearts are cold to God at that point, that’s why they’re going to reject His word as it applies to their life. So it’s a deeper problem.

All right. So suffering—Paul rejoices in these sufferings and he’s doing them on behalf of the Colossians. And that’s one reason why he rejoices in them. He rejoices because he’s in union with Christ. This is a demonstration of that. And he rejoices because it’s actually been beneficial to establishing this Christian church. So he rejoices in his sufferings. So should we.

## Body, Flesh, and Spirit

Verse 24: “I now rejoice in my sufferings for you and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ for the sake of His body, which is the church.” And then Chapter 2:1: “For I want you to know what a great conflict I have for you and those in Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh.” And then verse five: “For though I am absent in the flesh, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the steadfastness of your faith.”

There’s something going on in this particular section of Colossians where Paul is using language of flesh and the sufferings of the flesh, body, absent in body, present and in spirit—that is absolutely tied up in the relationship of what Jesus did in His flesh with His body, which is now identified as the church. And Jesus is being absent but present. And so Paul particularly in these prison epistles is kind of painting a picture of how God works in our lives. And I don’t want to say much more about that than just that. But I think it’s very interesting and this is something worth meditating about and praying about—how again our unity with Christ, our union with Him, is described by Paul in these very interesting, meaningful, kind of packed words—freighted terminology—that show again his identification with the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. May it be the same with us.

Okay. So he suffers. He suffers in the body, in the flesh. He suffers in union with Christ. He rejoices for it for various reasons. And he is extending the sufferings of Jesus for the sake of the body of the church, in the same way that we do. And so when we suffer for righteousness’ sake, as Jesus says we will, then we can rejoice as well. And all these great truths are true of us as well.

## The Word

Okay. I added the word here. Originally this was going to be about suffering, firmness, and good order. But I added some stuff on the word here because in my studies, after my original take on the text, I noticed all this stuff about the word. So let’s go through this quickly.

### Fulfilling the Word

The word—first, Paul is suffering for the sake of fulfilling the word. Did you catch that in verse 25? “I became a minister according to the stewardship from God which was given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God.” And I take that expression to mean that he wants to keep preaching the word of God, to fulfill the word of God, putting it into force in particular congregations, particular situations. He is going through the sufferings that he does for the sake of his word ministry, to fulfill the word of God.

Verse 26 then says: “The mystery which was hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed.” What is that word which he’s fulfilling? The mystery was in the word. We didn’t know how God would bring that word to pass. And now the way God has brought that word to pass is through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ—this suffering servant pictured vaguely in Isaiah 53, but now completely revealed. And this mystery has now been revealed. So it’s not as if the mystery is mysterious. The mystery was something that was hidden. It was in the word, but hidden in terms of how God would accomplish it. And Paul is preaching that word. He’s preaching that the mystery has been revealed and that the Gentiles will now be brought into the same body as the Jews. So the word is what’s important here.

In Colossians 1:5, he talks about “the hope that is laid up for us in heaven, of which you have heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel.” So when Paul uses the word here, he’s always defined for us in verse five of the chapter—that the word is the truth of the gospel. Okay? And so the truth of the gospel is the content of that word in all its varied books and writings.

Okay? So he’s fulfilling the word. Secondly, this word was concealed and then revealed. So the movement from the Old Testament to the New Testament is not from law to grace. That’s a false teaching. That’s not what’s going on. The movement is from being concealed. Things were concealed and are now revealed in the New Testament. And specifically, what’s been concealed and now revealed is a movement from the Old Testament to the New Testament of estrangement from God to adoption—from being outside, most of the world, the people of Israel being accepted, from being outside and estranged, to now being brought in. That’s the change. That’s the definition of the mystery: that these Gentiles are now brought into the new body of Christ. And it’s been accomplished by a means that nobody could have really understood or predicted. They certainly didn’t.

Romans 16:26 says this: “But now made manifest, talking about the mystery, now made manifest and by the prophetic Scriptures made known to all nations according to the commandment of the everlasting God for obedience to the faith.” The prophetic Scriptures here are being described in what is being revealed in this mystery.

Romans 3 puts it this way: “By revelation, He made known to me the mystery as I have briefly written already, by which when you read you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ, which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets—that the Gentiles should be fellowheirs of the same body and partakers of the promise in Christ through the gospel of which I became a minister.” So he identifies very clearly there that the mystery is this bringing in of the Gentiles with the Jews in one body, that is the body of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Verse 27 of our text says this: “To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Now listen, listen to this. What has He made known? The riches of the glory, the mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. It’s glory and glory, right? The riches. What’s He proclaiming? Glory and glory, riches and hope. And then at the middle of it: “the mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” You see? So it’s a little thing that again does parallelism at the middle to identify that the mystery is Jesus Christ. Okay? He contains the mystery. He is the mystery. And His mystery is now revealed to the Gentiles. The mystery among the Gentiles. Christ in you. Christ in you. The hope of glory. “In you” is plural. It’s like the Gentiles. Christ in you. The Colossians as a very real and substantial revelation of the general, great truth of the mystery that’s been revealed—that the Gentiles, that Jesus is reconciling all things.

Okay.

### The Word Proclaimed: Admonition, Instruction, and Presentation

The word proclaimed. See on your outlines: admonition, instruction, and presentation. Verse 28: “Him we proclaim. Okay, so that’s the summary statement. Now listen to the components: “Warning every man, teaching every man in all wisdom that we may present every man perfect in Christ.” So there’s an every man, every man, every man. And it lines up with warning, teaching, and presentation.

Now, I think you could probably look at a trinitarian thing there. Warning—the proclamation of the gospel must include a warning to people that they are at odds with the Father and He has wrath against them. Okay? They need to be warned and admonished. Having accepted that relationship, they need to be taught: “teach every man in all wisdom.” We don’t stop with admonishing and bringing people to repentance. The job is to teach them in all wisdom, which is what we’re doing this morning through the proclamation of the word of Christ. To the end that “we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.” So you can sort of see a Father, Son, Holy Spirit thing going on here. But you definitely see that the emphasis on the word that’s affecting their firmness and solidity—okay—is giving them the ability to be joyful in suffering. The word is stressed. That’s my point here.

You can blow by this when you’re reading the whole section I just read. But if we slow down just a bit, we see that the word is central to this, and the word in both its admonition elements and its instructional elements.

### The Word That Encourages, Creates Love, and Implants the Riches of Christ

Verse two of Chapter 2: “To the end that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, and attaining to all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery.” How do you get understanding and knowledge of the mystery? He’s already shown us earlier in Chapter 1 that understanding comes from an understanding of God’s word. That’s where the mystery, that’s where the wisdom is all revealed—in the word of God. So what does this word of God do?

Well, it says that your hearts will be encouraged by that word. Secondly, it says you’ll be knit together in love. You’ll do things as a community in love. And third, you’ll attain to all the riches of the full assurance of the understanding. So the word is central again here. It produces encouragement. It creates love. And it implants the riches of Christ into the midst of our being.

### The Word as Vaccine

Finally, the last thing about the word here: the word is a vaccine. And I’ve mentioned this already. But how does the text come to its conclusion toward the end? He warns them. He says: “Now this I say lest anyone should deceive you with persuasive words.” So the word is an antidote to you being deceived and being drugged off the path.

The word is a means of encouragement to you and to me. The word will fuel and put into effect your deeds of love and kindness. The word will create in you an understanding of the knowledge of God. And as a result of that, the riches found in the Lord Jesus Christ. And that word does that through it being an admonition to us and through being instruction to us.

Okay? And this was Paul’s whole purpose in his suffering—that he rejoices in—was to fill the word up, to get the word proclaimed to go everywhere, to teach and to preach. Some don’t know what we think Paul is. He’s a gospel preacher. He takes the word of God and proclaims it to people and he teaches people and he admonishes people. That’s what we need. We need more of the word.

Okay. We’re going to sing “Book of Books” at the end of the service probably because it’s the day after Reformation Day, and the significance of the word for Reformation Day. But listen, it does no good to sing that song if we don’t end up with a greater commitment to know the Scriptures, to let them admonish us, to bring them into our community groups. That’s great, fun stuff. But if we don’t have the word somehow in the context of that, providing the context for the discipling that goes on there, we’d miss the boat somehow.

You see, I’m not talking about some big lesson, but the word has to be there. Your children—you know, how much instruction is there in the word of God? I mean, I think that if I was going to build curriculum, I’d teach the Proverbs, right? They go from simple stuff to kind of mature stuff and then to really complicated, kingly stuff. That’s a course. That’s a twelve-year course right there in Bible.

I don’t know. But my point is a simple one. You know, as I looked at this text, I read about the suffering, the significance of that to combat triumphalism. I looked at the firmness and the good order that is reflected in what Paul gives thanks for at the end. But as I studied it, there are all these references to the word. The word permeates the text. You can’t get rejoicing in sufferings or suffering righteously. You can’t get good order in your life. And you can’t get firm establishment in your heart and in your life without the word. That’s the point here.

Okay? The word is the deal.

## Good Order

The word produces good order. This is verse five. “Though I am absent in my flesh, I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the steadfastness of your faith.”

So these two terms. First of all, good order. Okay. So Paul is wanting them to have good order. What does it mean, good order? Well, it’s an interesting term. It’s not a normal term that Paul uses to describe our lives. But both these two terms are used somewhat infrequently, but they’re there and important. The good order had to do with military rank. It meant being ordered up in a military division, for instance, or in any other kind of order.

The word is used, I think, ten times in the New Testament, and I think seven of those are talking about the order of Melchizedek, the order of the Levitical priest—that kind of stuff. So it has this idea of arrangement. And only one or two places is it used like this, but it’s here and it’s significant for us. And what he wants for a church that’s beginning to mature, to grow, is he wants—and he sees it and he thanks God for this—that the word has produced this good order in them.

You know, this—we’re going to talk about husband-wife relationships in Colossians in probably a month or two, and this will be significant. Because this is the root word for the word “submission.” This is like the word “mission” to “submission.” This is “tasso”—the ordering of things up. And submission means staying under in good order. Okay. So an understanding of this term is necessary for understanding the relationship of roles in any institution: family, church, state, business, whatever it is. But the point here is that Paul says what he delights in is seeing their good order.

Paul is like Jesus. He’s absent in the body but present in the spirit. Jesus is here today. And He would evaluate us, I think, on the same condition. Is your life in order? Is your house in order? Is it arranged? Do you have some regularity to your life, or are you all over the place?

See, it’s not supposed to be like that. Christians are supposed to be well-ordered people, you know, not fanatical, but well ordered. And you should ask yourself: if Jesus does see you today, he asks you, “Is your house in order? Do you have good order to it? Or is it just whenever you want to do something—flippity-flop—this and that?”

You young people, you want to know how to prepare to become men and women? Start to develop order because your temptation right now is to have no order, to go off in a thousand directions. Start to live orderly lives. That’s what the Proverbs is all about. Understanding contrast, what you should and shouldn’t do, producing an order to your life.

So Paul sees good order, and he wants us to see that good order in what we do as well. There’s a word that’s related to this. In 1 Corinthians 14, we read: “But all things be done decently and in order.” That’s the only other occurrence I could find of order except the order stuff with Melchizedek and all that. So it’s related to being decent and in good order, right? And we know the context for that is the worship service. And if you go to a lot of worship services these days, this is a verse you might think of. Is it being done decently and in order?

So this word “decent” is a synonym in terms of Corinthians for orderliness. And there are a few other Scriptures. This word is used in Romans 13:13 in this way: “Let us walk properly, orderly, decently”—same word is “decently.” “Let us walk properly as in the day. Not in revelry and drunkenness nor in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy.”

So those are sins you can engage in and attitudes of strife and envy that are not orderly. They’re not decent. They’re not proper. And so as Christ looks at your life—not just here at church, but into your life—does He see order? Or does He see envy and strife, lustfulness, sins of that type?

Again, in Romans 15:12, he says: “The reason for this is the night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore, let us cast off the works of darkness. Let us put on the armor of light.” You do that by becoming orderly.

1 Thessalonians 4:10 and following. “Indeed, you do so toward all the brethren who are in Macedonia. But we urge you, brethren, that you increase more and more, that you also aspire to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands as we commanded you, that you may walk properly”—there’s the word—”toward those who are outside.”

So to walk properly, decently, and in order, right? It’s to lead a quiet life. It’s to work, not be slothful, to do things, right? Mind your own business—he said, which doesn’t mean stay out of other people’s business in the sense of not caring, but it means take care of your business, right? Be orderly about your home, be orderly about your business and your development. Young people, develop these skills of orderliness now.

## Firmness

And then attached to this, Paul says they are firm, right? I delight to see your orderliness and your firmness. So he’s with them in the spirit, and he’s delighting in their firmness. This is a word that means solid. It was referred to the firmament because the firmament was thought to be solid. It means a well-fortified place. It can mean kind of like a fort. I don’t think that’s the sense here, but it’s the same kind of thing. Our lives should be orderly and as a result of being rooted and based on the word of God and upon the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the content of that word, it should have produced an orderliness in our lives, and it should produce a fortitude, a hardness, a firmness, so that when false doctrines come along, you’re not led astray. You’re not going after this one and then the other one. It’s a firmness that God wants in our lives as well. And it’s like strength, right? In fact, it’s the way it’s translated often times is in terms of strength.

So Acts 3:7: “He took him by the right hand, the man that was begging alms, right? And he brought him up, and immediately the man’s feet and ankle bones received strength.” This is the same word—firmness.

Let’s close with this story. What was the guy doing? He was begging right for alms. Where was he? Right in front of the temple. What did the encounter with the apostles—what was it about? He wanted money. What did they say? He was panhandling. On the door of some church. And they said, “Well, we don’t have any money for you. We got something better.” And they healed him. They raised him up. His feet, which he couldn’t walk on before, are now strengthened. They’re firm. They had good order to them now. And what does he do? He doesn’t run home. He runs into the temple to praise God.

They equipped him to be able to enter into the worship of God. And then later, as the story develops, people are saying, “That’s the guy that used to take alms.” Used to. Because now he can work. You see, he’s been healed. He’s been strengthened so that he can worship and so that he can work. He’s been restored. That’s what the gospel does. That’s what Paul was excited about the Colossians for. They had well-ordered lives. They had strengthened a church. They had strengthened the people in the church. And I take by this implication that their lives—he’s not just talking about Sunday morning sitting in the pew, well-ordered and firmly established in the seat. He’s talking about their lives. And their lives, because of the centrality of the word that they’d been taught and received from Paul, through this letter, through the workings of Epaphras, through the ministries of other people—self-sacrificial, great suffering, great, arduous work going on—they were now firmly established. They were strengthened. They were worshippers of God now.

And once they’ve been far off, now they were regular men and regular women. Use an old-fashioned term. Now they could work. Now they could worship. That’s who we’re supposed to be in Jesus. That’s our identity. Some, I think, have the sense that our identity in Jesus is so different.

I go to the fortresses or the castles in Europe, and I think, “Who were these men, right?” I think that’s who we’re supposed to be like—strong people. Not warriors, but strong, firm, established. How do we do it? The word of God.

All that stuff about the word in this text is what produces firmness, good order, establishment, restoration to worship and work. All of our lives now. And what’s at the center? The battery, the dynamo, the energy, the Lord Jesus Christ.

I won’t take the time now, but on your handouts, on the outline, if you look at those verses about the Lord Jesus being our energy at the very center of our text, you’ll see a relationship to power. Look at some of the verses. “Working” and “power”—the way it’s normally translated. And “working” is what’s at the center of today’s text that Paul places right at the center. The working of Jesus, the energy. That’s what our word “energy” is from—that Greek word “working.”

And you know, if you look at those verses, what you’ll see is: if you want power, if you want the power of God, you need to have the working of God, the energy of Christ sustaining us in the things we’ve talked about today—in our ministries, in our worship, in our work, in our families. The energy of Christ is what you need to call on to perform that work.

And when you have Jesus at the center of your life, empowering you, being the battery in the middle of you, the guy going to work all the time and being diligent and all that stuff—you’re experiencing now the power of God.

How do we get the power of God? “Oh, please throw down upon us power. Bring that stuff on down to me.” Well, it comes down here as we take the word of God and the energy of the Lord Jesus Christ and do the next thing He wants us to do and to do it well, to do it in good order, to do it strengthened as a result of Jesus bringing us into the new creation, affected by the Savior.

So I think that’s what this text is about. Yes, there’s sufferings. We can rejoice in them. We’re to rejoice by becoming people of good order and people of firmness. And the only way all that happens is through the word of God and the energy of Christ that brings to us in the center of our being.

—

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for this particular text. We covered a lot of ground here. Lord God, I pray for the people that you would take what each of them particularly needs today from the message—whether it’s encouragement in suffering, whether it’s a call to action to recommit themselves to be energetic people, energized by the Lord Jesus Christ working in them by Your Spirit, whether it’s repentance from seeking power in some other way, or whether it’s the need to become more orderly in our lives. Lord God, grant all of us a renewed desire and a further commitment to Your word—to know it, to treasure it, and to see all the riches of Christ that are hidden in it.

In His name we pray. Amen.