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In our studies today by reading from our epistle to the Colossians, chapter one. The epistle to the Colossians, chapter one. We begin to read at verse twenty one. And you, being in time past alienated and enemies in your mind in your evil works, yet now has he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death to present you holy and without blemish and unreprovable before him. And as we pass by, you may care to capture again the importance of that last phrase.
The hope of the gospel involves nothing less than this, that one day Christ will present us holy and without blemish and unreprovable before him. If so be that you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached in all creation under heaven, whereof I, whereof I, Paul, was made a minister. Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and fill up on my part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh, for his body's sake, which is the church, whereof I was made a minister, according to the dispensation of God, which was given me to you, Ward, to fulfill the mystery of God, to fulfill the word of God, even the mystery which has been hid from all ages and generations, but now hath it been made manifest to his saints, to whom God was pleased to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory, whom we proclaim, admonishing every
man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ. Whereunto I labor also, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily. So now, as we begin our studies this week, let us try to take our bearings. Last week we divided for practical purposes, we divided the material of the Epistle to the Colossians into three main movements. If you can't quite, uh, see from where you sit, then there are these, uh, paper charts available.
If you haven't got one and your neighbor has, I mustn't, as a Christian, advise you to steal it. I believe they are in a little short supply, but, uh, perhaps your neighbor will be kind to let you look over. But we divided the material of the epistle into three major movements, and we noticed the leading theme that is set in each of the first paragraphs of those three movements. In movement one, paragraph one, the hope laid up for you in the heavens. In movement two, all treasures of wisdom and knowledge hid in the Lord Jesus, and movement three, your life hidden with Christ in God.
And then we noticed that the theme that is set in the first paragraph of each movement, of course, naturally, uh, continues through its particular movement. So last week, uh, as we began to think about movement one, we noticed how the theme of hope is to be found in all three of its paragraphs. The hope laid up for you in the heavens, says Paul in paragraph one. Be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, he says in paragraph two, and confides in us in paragraph three, the essence of the mystery of God is this, the glory and the wealth of the riches, Christ in you, the hope of glory.
And in pursuance of that theme of hope, last week we considered together, uh, in some sort of fashion, the first two paragraphs of Movement One. This week we have to start by moving on to paragraph three, and we shall find its topic is the suffering and striving of the Apostle Paul. Notice now that this topic of suffering and striving and agonizing is a, is a theme that we shall, uh, be, uh, dealing with practically the whole of today.
It will spill over into the first paragraph of movement two, because having told us here about his sufferings and strivings, when he comes to this first paragraph of movement two, he then explains why he s- took the time to tell us all about his strivings and sufferings. And when, at the end of the day, we come to paragraph three of movement two, we shall find it explicitly deals with the strivings, the religious exercises of the religionists, the mystics, and the ascetics.
Next week, when we come to our final study, paragraph three of movement three, we shall find once more we have recurred to this topic of striving and struggle. Here it is, the striving and struggle of Paul and his fellow workers in the spread of the gospel and the edification of believers. Striving and struggling, then. We're going to think today of Paul's sufferings and strivings, genuine, marvelous sufferings on for the sake of the body of Christ. We shall think of the pseudo bogus religious exercises of the religionist mystics and ascetics.
But of course, in what for us will be the central paragraph today that talks to us of the Lord Jesus, we shall think of his struggles and strivings, dare I call them that. Paul will eventually come round to painting an exceedingly vivid picture of what happened at the cross of Calvary. As our blessed Lord took our sins upon him and suffered there at Calvary, says Paul, the principalities and powers and all the hostile, venomous might of the spirit world gathered around his cross, as a besieging army gathers around the fortress that it hopes to take and subdue.
Then was Christ solitary in the universe. Then he fought the fight upon which our salvation and our eternal welfare, uh, depended. And thank God we shall hear about the outcome of that struggle. For us he fought the fight, the battle won. He stripped off the principalities and powers, made a show of them openly, triumphing in the cross over all their massed and venomous might, and strode triumphantly to the right hand of God, where now he sits. So then, to take up our present paragraph three, let's connect it in thought to the paragraph that went before it.
We noticed in paragraph two of Movement one what is the hope of the gospel? It is nothing less than that one day Christ will present every believer before the presence of God's glory with exceeding joy. He shall present you holy and without blemish before him in love. He shall present you, to use the exact words, holy and without blemish and without charge before him, or without accusation before him. So said paragraph two. Now this morning we're going to move on to paragraph three, and notice that it talks once more about this matter of our presentation before God in the day to come.
We labor and strive, says Paul. We proclaim the Lord Jesus, admonishing every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect or mature in Christ. So let's begin by thinking for a moment about those two presentations and the difference between them. The presentation in paragraph two, let's notice its terms. For it is put before us as the hope of the gospel. It is God's decree, says Paul in that paragraph.
It was the good pleasure of the Father, through him to reconcile all things, and you as well, when you were in times past alienated and enemies in your mind in your evil works. Yet now he has reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, in order to present you holy and without blemish and without charge before God. Notice that presentation then, and it is brought about by the once and for all sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ reconciled you in the body of his flesh through death.
He reconciled you through his death in order to present you that coming presentation based solely and utterly on nothing else than this, than the once and for all atoning sufferings of Jesus Christ, our Lord. It will help us perhaps to focus what the point of the presentation is, if alongside this verse we put that famous verse from Paul's other writing, the Epistle to the Romans, chapter eight and verse thirty three. Who, says Paul, shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? When it is God that justifieth, who shall condemn us when it is Christ that died, yea, rather is risen from the dead, who also is at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.
This phrase here, to present us without charge, without accu- accusation, reminds us, of course, that this presentation is a presentation based solely on the once and for all sufferings of Christ at Calvary. It is his precious blood that cleanses our conscience, that wipes out our guilt before God, and enables the Savior to present every believer at last without charge in the presence of his divine majesty. Oh, what a glory that is, and the very moment you trust the Savior, then you have the very hope of the gospel.
Notice how it is phrased. Not the hope that's dependent on your progress, but the hope of the gospel, you may have it the very moment you trust the Savior. Who shall condemn us now, since Christ has died and risen and gone above for us to plead at the right hand of God? Who shall condemn us now. That's the presentation then in paragraph two. But now we come to paragraph three. We read about presentation again. Says Paul, I proclaim Christ, and I admonish everyone, and I teach everyone, that we may present everyone perfect, that is, fully grown, perfect in Christ.
And that's not quite the same thing, is it, as presenting them without charge, without accusation. The merest babe in Christ can rejoice in his hope that before God he stands cleared of every charge, every sin forgiven. But the merest babe in Christ is hardly mature, hardly full grown, hardly perfect. So there is this other side of Paul's work, laboring constantly that he might eventually present everyone perfect, fully mature, full grown in Christ.
And if you want to, uh, focus more, uh, accurately on the terminology used, you may consider what Paul wrote in his other letter, the letter to the Philippians, where he tells us of his own struggles and strivings to make progress in his own spiritual life. This one thing I do, he says, I press towards the mark, not that I am already perfect. The great Apostle Paul admits that hitherto he still is not perfectly mature. It is one great objective of his life in pleasing the Lord Jesus, that he might eventually attain that for which he was arrested by the Lord Jesus and, uh, be presented fully grown, mature in Christ.
You'll notice how in this third paragraph, the basis of this maturing is said to be different from the other presentation. Paragraph two, the presentation is based on and brought about by the once and for all sufferings of Christ at Calvary. This presentation, as Paul now explicitly tells us, is brought about in great part anyway, look at verse twenty four, by the ongoing afflictions of the Lord Jesus. Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, says he, and fill up on my part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the church.
And we notice two things about that. First and foremost, it is the afflictions of Christ. They are the ongoing afflictions of Christ. And then they are the afflictions of Christ in which others have a share. I, for my part, fill up what is lacking, says he, in the afflictions of Christ in my body. And you notice at once the difference between the two things, don't you? It would be a blasphemous, a blasphemy and contradicting the gospel to say that any other person had a share in the atoning sufferings of Christ at Calvary. In those su- in those sufferings, he stood alone in all his unique majesty.
But here, Paul explicitly tells us, in the sufferings that go towards presenting people mature in Christ. Paul has a share along with Christ, and you and I too shall find, as life goes on in our work for the Lord, that we are privileged to have a share in those afflictions as well. So now, in this paragraph, as we study it this morning, I want, if I can, to inflame your hearts with love and respect for the Apostle Paul.
So you notice that this paragraph is almost entirely Paul speaking about Paul. Of course, I'm not going to ask you to idolize him. And certainly I have no intention to detract from the glories of Christ any more than Paul himself had. We thought of those glories last week, didn't we? How marvelous, uh, they were. Just let's remind ourselves of them, the person and work of the reconciler and the redeemer that we studied in paragraph two. So we thought about the magnitude of the ruin of sin.
We thought about the immensity of the task that lay before the Lord Jesus at Calvary. We thought of the majesty of the agent, that is of our Lord, the agent that God by his decree chose for the task, the marvel of the methods that God used in our reconciliation, and the magnificence of the achievement of the Lord Jesus at Calvary. It is not Paul's intention, nor mine either, uh, to, uh, detract from the unique glories of the Lord Jesus. On the other hand, you will notice from time to time in the epistles that Paul, who was never giving to boasting, and if he comes anywhere near it, apologizes for it.
Nonetheless, Paul is not afraid to stake out the importance, I almost said the unique importance that he had, in the work of the gospel. And if we would, uh, make progress in spiritual life, and not come to grief in our effort to make progress, then one thing we would be wise to do, and that is to get clearly into our spiritual sights an adequate concept of the exceeding great importance of the Apostle Paul.
And not only to respect him for his work, but to grow to love him for all the sufferings that he endured for our sake. It is probably true to say that there's not one of us sitting here this morning who is saved, but what owes his salvation in part to the Apostle Paul. Because he wasn't it in his second great missionary journey that brought the gospel to Europe. It was he in his own day who was given a ministry to us Gentiles. And oh, how he suffered in the fulfillment of it, preaching hours on end very often throughout the day, and when everybody had gone home, going back not to sleep, but to make his tents, to make enough money to pay his own expenses and the expenses of all the team that went with him, so that he might preach the gospel to us free of charge.
And that's not to talk of the nights he spent sleepless in prayer, not to talk of the imprison- prisonments and the beatings and the stonings and the shipwrecks, not to talk of the laborious work of writing the letters that have sus- provoked and sustained our faith in many a crisis. Oh, what a debt we owe to the Apostle Paul. I'm looking forward to meet him in glory, I hope you are, and to express, and I shall be able to express it then more adequately than now, my profound and eternal gratitude to this great honored servant and apostle of our Lord Jesus Christ. And I admire, among other things, the way he stood so valiantly amidst tremendous criticism, for he has never been the most popular apostle, has he?
John takes the biscuit there. You watch when you get home to heaven to see all the crowds around John. You'll say, you won't have to queue up to see Paul. Ah, and Peter, well, we love Peter because he's so much like us with all his mistakes, but Paul, hmm, Paul, bit heavy, the theology, you'll see. Bit tough on times, isn't he? What? Yes, never been the most popular of the apostles. I do admire the way that in his own day he stood utterly immovable for the sake of the gospel and the definition of the gospel. When even such an one as Peter was guilty of hypocrisy and compromise in the gospel, Paul refused to budge an inch.
Why? That the truth of the gospel might abide and come down right to us here and now. For if Paul had compromised in the gospel, you and I sitting here wouldn't now be sure exactly what the gospel is. And in order to protect the gospel, Paul is not afraid to claim his apostolic authority, and you will hear him from time to time saying, I, Paul, say to you. He says it, doesn't he, in Galatians chapter five verse two. Behold, I, Paul, say unto you.
Now, if I were to adopt that style, you'll soon be at me, wouldn't you? I, Gooding, say to you. You'll say, who do you think you are, Gooding? Taking airs and graces like that to yourself. Mm. Well, then I don't speak like it, but Paul did. I, Paul. His apostolic authority given him by the Lord Jesus. I, Paul, say to you that if you be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. Here is Paul on the basis of salvation. Oh, thank God for Paul, standing valiantly for the conditions and definitions of the gospel of our salvation.
In Ephesians three and one, for this cause he says, I, Paul, the prisoner of the Lord, tell you about the revelation that God has given me concerning the church and her heavenly calling and her place with Christ in the body of Christ and seated in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. Alas, how centuries after century forgot Paul and turned the church into a worldly institution with all its career structures, and in the end made partnership with the world. Alas, alas. And in one Corinthians fourteen thirty seven, he says, if anyone thinks himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him take knowledge of the things which I write, that they are the commandments of the Lord.
So when it comes to the way we order our churches, that is what one Corinthians is about, isn't it? And the way we are to order and control the gifts of the Spirit. Then once more, Paul uses his apostolic authority. If you think you are spiritual, he says, or a prophet, then recognize, please, that the things that I write are the commandment of the Lord. Similarly now, when Paul is going to talk to us of our spiritual progress, he reminds us of his authority.
Look at verse twenty three, his authority in the gospel. To br- uh, uh, the gospel, he says, preached in all creation under heaven, of which I, Paul, was made a minister, a servant of the gospel. And then in verse twenty or and twenty five, he speaks of being made a servant of the church. So then we are to think, by his invitation, of the special ministry God gave him for affecting the growth and maturity of the Colossian believers, and for our growth as well, so as to present everyone, so far as that be possible, mature, perfect in Christ.
And here I have roughed out the contents of this third paragraph. And you'll see that in the first two verses, twenty four and twenty five, Paul talks to us of his part. As a servant of the gospel and a servant of the church, his share of Christ's sufferings, and his stewardship of God's word and mystery. Then he spends two verses, twenty six and twenty seven, talking to us about the glory of that mystery that had been committed to his stewardship.
And he helps us to see the wonder of it by talking to us about the progress of revelation, mystery that was concealed for ages and generations, but now in the course of God's progressive revelation, has been revealed. And then again, he talks to us of the glory of this mystery. It's the potential it carries, the potential for our glorification. Christ in you, the hope of glory.
And having said that, he comes round once more to talking about his own part in attaining this purpose. Paul's part in the presenting of everyone perfect or mature in Christ. And in verse twenty eight, he talks of the process, proclaiming Christ and admonishing and teaching everyone. And then finally he talks of the power available for him in his ministry, the power that operates in me mightily. Just let's run through those as briefly as may be.
For all our striving, we didn't quite, uh, start on time, you'll see, so, uh, I'm going to steal back five minutes of the time you stole from me, and that's a very good Christian attitude, isn't it? Paul's part then. His share in the sufferings of Christ. When he says, talks about filling up which that is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, of course it's not a criticism of the law, of the Lord. It is not as though he's blaming the Lord Jesus for not having quite suffered enough.
His term implies no criticism. What he means is the sufferings that remain to be suffered and have not yet been suffered because as yet they could not have been suffered. That which is still, uh, to be done, that which is still to be suffered. They are, he says, the afflictions of Christ. Notice again that they are not, of course, his atoning sufferings. They are finished and have been since Calvary. But they are the afflictions of the Lord for his body's sake, which is the church.
Sufferings and afflictions involved in his care for his church. Ephesians chapter five has a delightful phrase. In the course of exhorting husbands how to behave, Paul says, your wife is part of you. You are one flesh. And no man, he says, do see, ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it as Christ also the church. And we think now not of for Christ's sufferings at Calvary, but of his present ministry in nourishing and cherishing the church, so that one day he may present her to himself, a church in glory, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing.
And of course, it involves suffering. This process of being perfected will involve suffering for the church, as Paul well knew, because in his unconverted days he was allowed of God to persecute that church and attack them wildly and ferociously and furiously, and drove them to prison and stood over them and tortured them in order to try and get them to blaspheme the holy and lovely name of the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus allowed it. You say, why does the Lord Jesus allow Saul of Tarsus to persecute his church like that? Had the risen Christ no concept of the suffering they were going through?
Oh yes, indeed he had. Listen, as he shone forth on Saul of Tarsus and brought that persecutor to his knees, Saul, Saul, said he, why persecutest thou me? You say the Lord in glory can't feel sufferings, can he? Surely he's in heaven, and up in heaven they don't feel any sufferings, don't they? Oh. What would you make out of what is said of God in the great prophet Isaiah sixty three verse nine? Talking of the afflictions through which his people Israel went through, God says through the prophet, in all their affliction he was afflicted.
What, God up in heaven? Well, I, I, I, I've no right to dispute it, my brothers. It is in, it is in scripture. Do you think that God sits on his heaven, and even when his people go astray, doesn't feel any sorrow? We perhaps shall revise our notions of what heavenly joy is like. Certainly it is perfect. But the Lord himself feels for his people. We have a high priest that can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, sharing in the afflictions of his people.
And of course, there come times when the Lord must discipline his people. And with him it is very sincere. It, of course, was with you parents too, wasn't it? We make a joke of it, but underneath it was sincere. As you had to discipline your children, you said it hurts me more than it hurts you. The ministry of the risen Christ for his people in order to perfect them, in which Paul tells us he had a share. All his traveling and preaching and suffering and writing and praying and working, and all the insults and the criticisms he bore.
He says, I rejoice in it. How could a man possibly rejoice in it? Why, says Paul, it's for his body's sake. I don't know about you, but I don't like looking after my, uh, my Volkswagen. Clean it once, and then it gets dirty in five minutes. La, the old thing. It'll say, so if you see a Volkswagen going through town, it meant to be red, but it's in fact gray and brown, that's mine. You may enjoy looking after yours, I don't know.
I can think of better things to do. But if Her Majesty one day delivered to you one of her Rolls Royces and says, look after this for me, cool, there wouldn't be a spot of dust on it, would there? Christ has delivered to us the body, his own body, to look after. Don't get romantic ideas of what it is to try and help the Lord's people, because you'll get as many criticisms and heartbreaks as you will joys. The thing that will keep you going is it's the Lord's body.
And why shouldn't Paul suffer in his flesh? How could he ever forget it that the blessed Lord reconciled him in the body of his flesh through death? Why to come into glory and to see the risen Lord with the nail prints in his hands and a body that was once wounded for our sake? You'd be ashamed of yourself, wouldn't you, to arrive there without a wound that you'd encountered in the battles of the Lord. Yes, Paul share in the, uh, sufferings. He's going to fill up, he says, what is still to be suffered.
And when it comes to his stewardship of God's mystery, he's going to fill up the word of God. He means, uh, that he had this mystery, this secret revealed to him, and he tells us more about it in Ephesians chapter three. But since he had this stewardship, he felt, uh, under a compulsion to preach it to the full, in two senses. To preach it as widely around the world as he possibly could. So in Romans, he says to this effect that, uh, he has fully preached the gospel from Jerusalem right round to Illyricum.
He's going to preach it fully. And then he tells us at the end of the paragraph, he's going to preach it in all its details. Not content just to harp on one, uh, uh, verse, even though it's an apostolic verse like John three sixteen, but to preach all the word of God. That was his ambition, to preach it fully. And as we pass by, I often, I often start thinking to myself, you might be surprised, but I do. I say, Gooding, my boy, you haven't much more time to get home to glory. How much of the Bible have you preached?
Well, I, I preached John three sixteen and I preached a bit of John. Yeah, good. Romans? Well, I've had a go. Yeah. Mm, anything else? Well, one or two more books. Uh, uh, what about Chronicles? Well, not much on Chronicles. Ezekiel? Well, no, not to- well, I know where to find it. And then I think of my assembly and your assembly. It's your ambition to preach the whole of God's word. How are you getting on? Well, you say it took us three years to get through the Epistle to the Romans.
Good for you. And how do you propose to get through the whole Bible? In a lifetime. Once. Well, that would be hard work, wouldn't it? Systematically to teach the church the whole of God's word and do it once in a generation. Even once in a generation. Hard work. That is the hard work to which Paul gave himself. How shall we present God's people mature and perfect if we're content just everlastingly to repeat the mere simplicities and elementary things of the faith?
Yes, more could be said, couldn't it? But I mustn't, time is running away. A comment on the glory of the mystery. What a marvelous mystery it is. And how it ought to get us rejoicing almost to the point of excitement. This is the mystery that was for ages and ages concealed. It is now revealed to his saints. Have you not thought recently how tremendously privileged you are? Our Lord Jesus, we are told, at one stage rejoiced in spirit and then had to explain to Peter, because in those days Peter was a fisherman. I don't suppose he knew much about history.
But the blessed Lord, who is not only Lord of creation and Lord of redemption, but Lord of history as well, pointed out to Peter how fortunate and blessed he was and privileged. He said, blessed are the eyes, your eyes, that they see what you see, and your ears that hear what you hear. For I tell you, many prophets and kings have desired to see what you see and have not seen it, and to hear what you hear and have not heard it. Oh, my brother, my sister, we get so used to our treasures, don't we? Why? John three sixteen? King David would have gone around the world and fought ten thousand Goliaths to hear that.
The wonderful accomplished sacrifice of Christ and how it has opened up the way into the holiest of all. Not the biggest saint in the Old Testament knew anything about it and was obliged to keep outside and never entered into the holiest of all. And you know all about it. Oh, blessed are the eyes that you see, that see what you see, and the ears that hear what you hear. How comes it in God's providence that you belong to this privileged period of Earth's history when the Savior has come, and you know the noonday revelation of God in Christ?
And then not only the progress of revelation, the privileged age that we live in, but the potential for glorification. Christ in you. Ah, when we think of this progress towards perfection, and you might say, well, shall I ever get there? And what resources have I? Now listen to the glory of it. Just imagine the possibility of you arriving in glory, fully mature, perfect. Got the resources? You have indeed, as you sit on that seat without moving a centimeter, if you are a believer, you have all the necessary potential.
For the potential for glory is this, Christ in you. What a magnificent thing. To know Christ as creator is wonderful. To know him as redeemer, that he died at Calvary for you, that is wonderful. But who shall describe this glory? Christ, the creator and the redeemer in you. What else would you need as a potential towards perfection? Ah, but then developing our potentials is another story, isn't it? And it won't be done without a lot of struggle and exertion.
How would you go about it if you were Paul and you wanted to lead the believers on and eventually present them mature in Christ? How would you do it? What recipe would you have? Well, it can be summed up very briefly. We do it, says Paul, proclaiming. That's how it's done. Let us see to it that every energy we possess, whatever methods may be deemed appropriate, is given to the sine qua non of progress. It is proclaiming Christ every time you get a possibility, proclaim Christ.
And not only, uh, not only generally, but individually now. You'll see, you think of the potential of just one believer, just one believer, when at last they stand perfect before the throne of God's glory. And so I admonish everyone, and I teach everyone. I'd better make sure I do that now, hadn't I? You, madam. Not all those others over there. You. You a believer? Christ is in you.
The Lord of the universe, the Redeemer and the Reconciler who died for you, or my sister, if you'll be a believer, he's in you now. God implanted potential for your ultimate perfection. And you, sir, you're a believer with Christ in you, you are, you are calling on your potential, aren't you? You're not like the man who got a bit of gold and put it in a napkin, his talent in a napkin, and put it in the earth and said, I'll, I'll come get that when, when it's ready.
Some people do tend to think of salvation like that, don't they? My soul is saved, they say. Marvelous. Where is it? Well, it's in the bank, you say. I put it for safekeeping in the bank. That's my soul saved. And when the Lord comes, I say, Lord, half a minute, I just go and collect my soul that I got deposited in the bank. No, sir. Salvation is nothing less than Christ in you with all his potential, and he calls on you, let me admonish you, to bring every power you know how to the development of your potential. And there is power available, isn't there? For the same Christ who made the universe, who died at Calvary, who resides in us, has a power that operates in us mightily for the development of the divine potential.
