Colossians 1 vv 24 27
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Colossians 1 vv 24 27
- 1. Welcome to (G)race “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us,” Hebrews 12:1
- 2. Colossians 1:24-27 “Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church. 25 I have become its servant by the commission God gave me 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 Lord’s people. 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.”
- 4. Colossians 1:24-27 • Introduction • Commissioned by God “by the commission God gave me”
- 5. Colossians 1:24-27 • Introduction • Commissioned by God – By commission
- 6. Colossians 1:24-27 • Introduction • Commissioned by God – By commission • The origins of it
- 7. Colossians 1:24-27 • Introduction • Commissioned by God – By commission • The origins of it • It evidences itself
- 8. Colossians 1:24-27 • Introduction • Commissioned by God – By commission • The origins of it • It evidences itself • The rigours of it
- 9. Colossians 1:24-27 • Introduction • Commissioned by God – By commission – Divine commission
- 10. Colossians 1:24-27 • Introduction • Commissioned by God - source • To be the CHURCH’s SERVANT - function “for the sake of his body, which is the church. 25 I have become its servant by the commission God gave me …”
- 11. Colossians 1:24-27 • Introduction • Commissioned by God • To be the CHURCH’s SERVANT – Why?
- 12. 1 Timothy 1 ”I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered me trustworthy, appointing me to his service. 13 Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief. 14 The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. 15 Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners – of whom I am the worst. 16 But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life. Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the 17 only God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.”
- 13. Colossians 1:24-27 • Introduction • Commissioned by God • To be the CHURCH’s SERVANT – Why?
- 14. Colossians 1:24-27 • Introduction • Commissioned by God • To be the CHURCH’s SERVANT – Why? – Being a servant, διάκονος
- 15. Colossians 1:24-27 • Introduction • Commissioned by God • To be the CHURCH’s SERVANT – Why? – Being a servant, διάκονος – According to the ‘economy’ of God κατὰ τὴν οἰκονομίαν τοῦ θεοῦ // τὴν δοθεῖσάν μοι
- 16. Colossians 1:24-27 • Introduction • Commissioned by God – the source • To be the CHURCH’s SERVANT – the function • By presenting it with the Word – the content
- 17. Colossians 1:24-27 • Introduction • Commissioned by God – the source • To be the CHURCH’s SERVANT – the function • By presenting it with the Word – the content “the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness”
- 18. Colossians 1:24-27 • Introduction • Commissioned by God – the source • To be the CHURCH’s SERVANT – the function • By presenting it with the Word – the content “the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness” – Fulness of the Word
- 19. Colossians 1:24-27 • Introduction • Commissioned by God – the source • To be the CHURCH’s SERVANT – the function • By presenting it with the Word – the content “the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness” – Fulness of the Word – The mystery of the Word
- 20. Colossians 1:24-27 • Introduction • Commissioned by God – the source • To be the CHURCH’s SERVANT – the function • By presenting it with the Word – the content “the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness” – Fulness of the Word – The mystery of the Word – Which is Christ in you, the hope of Glory
- 21. Colossians 1:24-27 • Introduction • Commissioned by God – the source • To be the CHURCH’s SERVANT – the function • By presenting it with the Word – the content • Conclusion
Editor's Notes
- {Set of items that have particular uses …}What is the use of a Pastor?Because if you don’t know what it’s for and how to best use it … you need to know the answer to that question.Now, Paul mentions this subject as an aside.He’s really been talking about Jesus and what He has done for these Colossians … that’s his big theme, but in doing that Paul has mentioned the suffering that comes along with following Jesus and that he (Paul) is suffering for the Gospel on their behalf – and last time we saw how the sufferings of the Messiah are impacting him for their good.Why is Paul DOING this?Why is he PUTTING UP with what’s coming flying at him in the ministry?What will he go THROUGH this rubbish he’s having to go through for the church?Why?It’s because of how he sees himself in relation to God and to the church that is the physical arms and legs of Jesus on earth.And the dominant idea in these verses as he unpacks the answer to these questions is his clear view of the commission God has given Paul.
- Here’s the first big thing to get your head around.Paul is serving the Church, suffering for the Church, caring for the Church (not Colossae’s church, certainly not PAUL’s church) …THE (capital ‘c’) Church …NOT because they appointed or called him to be THEIR minister.Paul is doing all this (first and foremost) because he has been commissioned to do this BY GOD.
- We looked briefly last time at God’s commissioning of Paul as viewed through the eyes of Ananias and this time we read Paul’s descriptin of the situation from his perspective in Acts 22.But we need to be very clear this was NOT a matter just of Paul ‘feeling’ called.This was down to Paul’s call from God being very clearly evidenced to the church …
- Now, of course, at the very beginning it was very much between Paul and the Lord … Ananias had been along there and accredited his call to some small extent but the onus had been on Paul to just get out in Damascus and prove himself to be a workman approved by God.God had called him.Ananias had supported and helped him.Paul had got stuck straight into a very different job in Damascus than he’d originally thought that he was going there for.And then it was into Arabia where he spent a good while presenting Christ to people we know very little more of at all before travelling back at some point to his own home town of Tarsus.But Tarusus is not any place Paul should be staying long …By Acts 11 we read“Now those who had been scattered by the persecution that broke out when Stephen was killed travelled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch, spreading the word only among Jews. 20 Some of them, however, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to Antioch and began to speak to Greeks also, telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus. 21 The Lord’s hand was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord.22 News of this reached the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. 23 When he arrived and saw what the grace of God had done, he was glad and encouraged them all to remain true to the Lord with all their hearts. 24 He was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith, and a great number of people were brought to the Lord.25 Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, 26 and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. So for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people.”There soon came a bunch of prophets down to Antioch predicting a famine in Jerusalem, so a collection was made and Barnabas the Levite from Cyprus and Saul (still called Saul until the missionary journeys of Acts 13 ff) were sent up to the Jewish belidevers with gifts to help them to get through the time of emergency.By Acts 13 Paul is settled back in the church at Antioch which had become the heart of the mission to the Gentiles, no doubt in fulfilment of God’s instructions through Ananias.By now Paul is already the Apostle to the Gentiles because God has been using Paul for what the Lord has laid on Paul’s heart, and he’s been doing that for some little time.He’s got on with what God had told him to do, and that’s born fruit, and the church is about to recognise his calling in Acts 13 as the Spirit says to the assembled, praying believers in Antioch … well, here it is:“While they were worshipping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, ‘Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.’ 3 So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.”The commission of God to Paul did not come to the church, it was recognised by the church by the fact that God spoke to support a clear ministry and calling He’d already evidenced.
- And Paul was now heading right into the soup.Because the rigours of a God-ordained ministry reflect the rigours of the suffering Saviour.We should for this very reason be more concerned when its NOT hard than when it is … and respect comfortable ministries far less than harrowing ones (were that harrowing arises from Gospel ministry and faithfulness).Too often we get this all tangled.See it like this.Did Paul or the heretics at Colossae have the more successful and blessed-looking ministries?THEY are in the pulpit and Paul’s been shut up in the slammer … so whose ministry was God most powerfully blessing?See the point?In a parallel situation in the Wales we now live in … do you think it would be faithful hard pressed Gospel ministry that would prevail?Paul is a man who’s been commissioned by God, as attested by its origins, evidences and rigours in his case.So what?It’s not any old commission, but God’s!I don’t often recommend books in the course of my sermons because although reading is a really good thing to encourage in Christians it gets divisive when so many of us aren’t big readers.I’ve got to make reference here though to a particular book by a servant of God from Sri Lanka … where God’s people have seen significant hardships in the last couple of decades.It’s called ‘The Call to Joy and Pain – embracing suffering in your ministry’ and I’m now going to tell you briefly what it’s saying …The first part of the book shows from the Bible that suffering and joy are both basic to Biblical Christianity.The second book shows from the Bible that suffering (met with faith) brings God’s faithful ones nearer to Christ.The third part of the book shows that our suffering in this way helps the church (though it does so without going near the things we learned last time about the Sufferings of the Messiah!)The fourth part of the book describes what it means to be servants of the church (the phrase Paul picks up here)… and the conclusion reflects the paradox of the Christian life that it brings joy along with its sufferings: “God does not regard the absence of suffering as one of our basic needs.” (Ajith Fernando, ‘The call to joy and pain’ p. 156)To be rigourised is not the denial of this commission but actually the authentication of its origin.
- Paul’s commission is God’s genuine commission.Now, that very fact in itself regulates (or should regulate) the way Paul relates to the people he’s there to serve … the emerging and gathering Church … and should condition the way that they go on relating to him.The source of that commission is what gives it its’ authority.The source of that commission needs to condition Paul’s conduct.It is God that he answers too and speaks for.But he should be received in that manner as well.What is he commissioned for?To be the Church’s servant, ordinary household servant, says Paul.
- That’s better!NOW we’ve got him!He’s to DO what we TELL him in DEACONS’ MEETINGS!(Just hold that thought!)It may not look quite like that when you understand this …κατὰ τὴν οἰκονομίαν τοῦ θεοῦ // τὴν δοθεῖσάν μοιThe commission is the thing, and it’s dignified by the identity of the person Who has handed it out here.Now when we’re thinking ‘commission’ we’re probably thinking: military officer … and that’s not really the background to what we’ve got here.The martial, chain of command undertones are simply not helpful at all.
- Paul is extremely grateful to God for Jesus.Paul had been about as wrong as a man could be about God, life, death and eternity.Not small matters – quite significant in any human life, really.More than that, Paul had been so wrongly convinced on these issues that he’d been firing off at God’s servants like a maniac – making it his business to persecute them (both male and female) to suffering, prison and DEATH.Here’s how he now understood it …Because it is Christ’s body, so to serve it in the material world is about as close as you get to serving HIM in the material world.
- Paul has a powerfully clear view of his own sin and sinfulness, so he has a very clear view now of the mercies of God shown towards him.And for that very reason Paul wants honour and glory for Jesus for ever … and he wants it like he’s going to do something to GET it!There’s a snag with that.There’s a snag (as Paul knows because He saw Jesus on the road to Damascus clothed I splendour and Heavenly glory) as the Lord’s physical body is in Heaven and Paul is currently pinned down on earth, as it happens in Nero’s best gaol.
- Here again is how Paul now understands things … Christ’s arms and legs on the earth are now His people’s.The church is the earthly, material body of Christ here.And because it is Christ’s body, serving it in the material world is about as close as you get to serving HIM here!Now let’s be clear, it’s the Church with an upper case ‘C’.It’s that bunch of people being called and gathered from amongst all the nations that is emerging, gathering and maturing to live here as the people of God.Why is Paul thinking of Himself as the servant of the churches?Because He’s so grateful for salvation that he wants to serve Jesus and the church as we’ve defined it is as close as he can get t a body for Christ that Paul can serve on this earth.He isn’t here to calm or entertain persistent rebellious sinners (however religious they might be).He’s actually here to serve the Church (capital ‘C’).
- That’s better!NOW we’ve got him!He’s to DO what we TELL him in DEACONS’ MEETINGS!(Just hold that thought!)It may not look quite like that when you understand this …κατὰ τὴν οἰκονομίαν τοῦ θεοῦ // τὴν δοθεῖσάν μοιThe commission is the thing, and it’s dignified by the identity of the person Who has handed it out here.Now when we’re thinking ‘commission’ we’re probably thinking: military officer … and that’s not really the background to what we’ve got here.The martial, chain of command undertones are simply not helpful at all.Paul is saying that he has become its Minister/ servant … διάκονοςAnd that expression has a history in Acts …Acts 6He’s commissioned by God, not the church he is serving … but neither is he a tyrant lording it over the flock.He’s out there SERVING the church God is calling.He says, in fact, that he has BECOME its διάκονος
- Οἰκονομίαis a word used in the Pauling literature to denote either Paul’s administration of his office as an Apostle (as in 1 Cor. 9:17 for example) where he describes himself as a steward of God’s mysteries, or of God’s administration of the world and of salvation (Eph. 1:10, 3:9 etc.)Here the link to God’s plan being unfolded is obvious … and what’s given to Paul seems to be the understanding of God’s unfurling plan of salvation for the Gentiles, so he can explain it to them and as they’re saved play his part in rolling the plan out.But all the while … this is something that’s been GIVEN to him.There’s the source of the service, the function of the service and here’s the content …
- Every so often someone will find out I’m a minister and ask me ‘so what is it that you … DO?’OK, so HERE’s what a minister DOES.
- A minister of Christ Jesus is a minister of the Church, but he does that by being a minister of God’s Word.Paul qualifies and expounds what he means by this quite significantly in these verses …
- We’re conscious that the Colossian proto-gnostic heretics were concerned with peddling an esoteric ‘higher experience’ and spoke about that as ‘the fulness’Paul insists ‘fulness’ lives in the Word of God … which he preached to them.R C Lucas: “People cannot know Christ better without knowing the Scriptures better.”Here Paul seems to mean that he ‘did fully’ or ‘carried to completion’ the commission of God to convey the whole rounded message of Scripture to them.Incidentally … THAT is the work of the evangelist: not to have 150 sermons up your sleeve on John 3:16, but to convey the Word of God in all its rounded out fulness.We teach the whole counsel of God to bring everyone to maturity in Christ and THIS is the subject matter of our evangelism.In Paul’s context here this word of God is fulfilled not simply by telling it out but by fulfilling the purpose for which it was intended … that the mystery of the Gospel i.e. that God would bring all things Jew and Gentile back together under the headship of Christ by forgiving sins and redeeming by the Cross of the crucified Messiah … and that as this was told and as this Gospel was preached it would accomplish the purpose of which it spoke.F F Bruce: “The word of God is fulfilled in this sense when it is freely proclaimed in the world and accepted in faith; thus it achieves its purpose.”
- This is what Paul describes as ‘the mystery’.Mankind wasn’t aware of it before Christ and the subsequent ministry of Paul and others to the Gentiles.But now in Christ and in the preaching of the Gospel this mystery is made known and unfolded.(Again, we know proto-gnostics were big on initiating people into mysteries and Paul uses language that picks up on that).And the content of the mystery is explicit …
- The content of the mystery now revealed (it’s not plural but singular) for these Gentile Christians Paul’s addressing is Christ Himself, their own hope of Glory.The recipients of this revelation are not some select group of initiates, but those who have heard and received the word of God … because it is in the effective and dynamic prclamation of the Gospel that the decisive event referred to in the νῦν δὲ of v. 26 occurs.
- Next time we’re going to look exclusively at the method for doing this … but that’s going to be v. 28 and we’re saving it for next week.The health of the church is bound up with preserving its ministers’ time, energy and effort for this task.You can’t feed the church and fulfil the primary ministry of the minister – the servant of the church in the Word – unless you set aside what is necessary for those called by God to do what they do.It’s not just doing the Sunday morning mumbling.It’s giving your life over to the non-material, non-tangible matter of studying, praying and preaching by one means and another in faith that God will use that according to His eternal plan and purpose to do that which becomes tangible and impacts the material world in the ways He intends.It takes faith.It takes faith on the part of the person who invests his life (of which he only has one) to do this.And it takes faith on the part of those who benefit to lay aside what is theirs that is material to support and provide for that which is spiritual and eternal … the work of God through His Word in their lives and in the lives of others, swapping that which is temporary and material, investing it in the Word ministry whose effects are eternal.