Our New Covenant Ministry in respect to the Revelation of the Mystery
Colossians 1:23-29
(Children's Sheet for Sermon Interaction is at bottom. Notes are throughout sermon)Pastor Kerry Kinchen, Bridgeway Bible Church
Please turn to Colossians 1:23-29. As you are turning there, I want to orient us in the flow of the text. Paul is grounding the Colossians in essential riches that have to do with Christ. Christ is always the focus. In Colossians, Paul identifies the world's main problem. He also identifies the solution. The problem is that everyone is alienated from God. Everyone starts out hostile in mind toward God, and engaged in evil. Humanity is severed from God because of this. In the fall of our great Grand parents, we lost something of the image of God that is very necessary. We lost righteousness. In the fall, humanity reproduced down the family tree in the image of Adam and Eve where the cliche' is starkly profound,
"The apples don't fall too far from the tree."
With Adam and Eve as our roots, we branches are not very far from the source;
"[God] made from one blood every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, ..." Acts 17:26
It is sin tainted blood, and sin is "the" problem. The solution to the problem must be reconciliation. Without reconciliation, we remain lost in our sins, destined to perish in eternal destruction. Humanity fell into sin in the great descent. But God the Son descended down into a womb as flesh, through the Holy Spirit impregnation of Mary. He grew up and was crucified for sins, and then arose to the right hand of the Father in the great ascent. He is the focus, and He is what is needed for reconciliation. The reconciliation is the opposite of Adam. Reconciliation to God occurs in Christ's fleshly body, which is the body of the last Adam. Christ is both the sacrifice for sin, and the eternal life for all He saves. The reconciling solution is the great exchange, where one is crucified to their identity in Adam the root, in exchange for the reconciliation of a new identity in Christ the tree of life. In Adam we all die. We can call the place of death, "the body of Adam." In Christ, we live eternally (aionios) with Him; holy and blameless and beyond reproach. This is what happens when you are spiritually born-again. You are saved (rescued) forever in the real sense of the word. Paul says that this is the hope of the good news. Paul goes on explaining about this good news in our passage and refers to a mystery. Please read it with me now,
"23 ... the good news that you have heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, was made a minister. 24 Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of His body, which is the church, in filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions. 25 Of this church I was made a minister according to the stewardship from God bestowed on me for your benefit, so that I might fully carry out the preaching of the word of God, 26 that is, the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations, but has now been manifested to His set apart ones, 27 to whom God determined 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. 28 We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone complete [perfect] in Christ. 29 For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me."
Please prepare your heart to learn along with me from the preaching of God's word in this sermon titled,
Our New Covenant Ministry in respect to the Revelation of the Mystery
[prayer]
The good news seems straight forward. It should, because it has been revealed. But, it was not always this way. At one time it was a secret. The mystery had to be revealed to become good news. This is the way it is today. The revelation of the mystery to us is God's gift. The revelation of the mystery by us to others is our ministry. This morning I want us to glean six principles from our text concerning our new covenant ministry in respect to the revelation of the mystery.
/1/
The first principle I want us to glean concerning our New Covenant ministry in respect to the revelation of the Mystery, is that God is the One Who makes us into ministers of this good news. Paul says,
"23 ... the good news that you have heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, was made a minister. ... 25 Of this church I was made a minister according to the stewardship from God bestowed on me"
When we think about what Paul says here, we recognize the pattern. God called Paul while Paul was moving through life with ambitions of a religious zealot; but Paul was not serving God, even though He thought that He was. Paul was a devout Jew, but Paul's focus was not on God's focus. God's focus was His Son as the living New Covenant. Paul was unreconciled, sinful, tainted, and lost. So, just like Christ performed His first miracle by turning water into wine at a marriage feast, the risen Christ, stopped Paul in His tracks and miraculously turned Paul into part of the body of His spotless bride. Paul's eyes were opened and he realized that the very Messiah he was persecuting was, in fact, the very focus of all that had to do with a right relationship with God. Paul was changed. Paul's ministry changed to serving the One true God according to the One true focus--which is Christ. The principle for us to glean is that Paul recognizes that he was made into a bearer of God's good news, and so Paul wants the Colossians to understand the weight of this important fact. The reason Paul starts off this way is because he is leading into mysterious things that he is about to explain that should be understood as coming from the authority of His call. Paul is about to go into details of the special revelation of the mystery that was entrusted to him by the One true God. If you are going to be the apostolic revealer of the great mysteries of God to everyone in the first generation of the emerged church, then you better have the credentials behind what you say. A lot of charlatans are out there who claim to be revealing the mysteries of God and they aren't revealing anything but a bunch of fiction. But Paul is the apostle. He has the credentials. The mystery, as Paul calls it, was sovereignly revealed to Paul by God's Spirit, through the word, to Paul, and so all Christians everywhere need to be familiarized with Paul's God-made ministry, and then from there, to the God-made revelation of Paul's good news.
This word that Paul uses here for minister, is also "servant." Paul says the same thing in the parallel epistle of Ephesians. Paul says of his insight concerning the same mystery;
"... I was made a minister [a servant], according to the gift of God's grace which was given to me according to the working of His power." Ephesians 3:7
@1 It is a grace miracle of God to be ________________ into a minister by His power. (Ephesians 3:7)
God makes His ministers. We also notice that this miracle making is called a "gift." Whenever you are called into service, your ministry is God's gift, where he specially equips you to do it. We know that we are not Paul the apostle. We also know that we are not primary apostles. But there is a life principle here that applies to us that we need to recognize. Whenever you are ministering the word, for God's glory, and you are doing the work of the Lord, then you are God's-made minister. There are times that God will use you as His minister for the moment, and it may seem small and passing, but, you are always His minister for a lifetime. But the principle goes further. Knowing that God has made you to serve Him, is the starting point, but we also need to affirm this in two very important ways that walk hand in hand down the same avenue of service:
1) You should be able to confidently tell people that God has made you into his servant to manifest Christ to others.
2) You should do it in humbleness.
Any Holy Spirit led work for the Lord is servanthood bestowed by God. Knowing this, Paul boldly proclaimed that He was an apostle, a preacher, and an evangelist. Paul was not proud of Himself. Paul was proud of Christ. In Paul's ministry call, Paul was in humble awe about it. That is what 2 Corinthians 12 is all about. Paul called himself a "nobody" in 2 Corinthians 12:11. He calls himself the least of the apostles in 1 Corinthians 15:9. Paul also proclaimed that his special insights, gifts, and unique calling, to glorify God, is all from God, for God. It is God's power--not the servant's. Maybe this is how you think of yourself. You are a nobody. You are the least in the church. But, even if you think this way, God wants you to recognize that you are His minister, and you should proclaim it with boldness. God wants us to be both bold and humble at the same time. Whenever you affirm that your gifting, calling, and ministry, is from God, then you are not glorifying yourself. You are glorifying the caller, the gifter, and the power of the One you serve in ministry. So, this is actually what we should be doing--right? Any other kind of so-called ministry work is just pride, even though you try to act humble. What I mean is that if you are not deferring to the Lord as the focus, then all the glory comes back to you and what you are doing by proxy. So, when people see you serving Christ, suffering for Christ, sacrificing for Christ, they need to know that it has nothing to do with your own human generated ambition. Both your ministry, and your ambition to minister, are there by the Spirit. You are a tool of God's love in God's hand by the Spirit. And so Paul unashamedly declares that His ministry was made by God in undeserved favor, and it was according to the sole working of God's power through the Spirit. I also want us to notice that Paul says that he was made a minister for the church,
"according to the stewardship from God bestowed on [him]"
This word here, "stewardship," is a word that was used in the Roman world to signify a steward's duty as the head servant of the master's household. The steward-servant, is also translated as the dispensational minister, or the administrative slave. The administrative steward was the slave who administered the affairs of his master. He was like a secretarial manager. When the owner of a household would travel, he would leave the estate in charge of the steward. Stewards were given great trust and responsibility. In much the same way, spiritual stewards have a big responsibility in God's household. The question we may ask today is;
"What in the world is God's household?"
Paul calls the church "the household of God" in 1 Timothy 3:15. In the context, Paul teaches that overseers have a stewardship in the household of God which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth. In the parallel passage, Paul says,
"The overseer must be above reproach as God's steward" Titus 1:7
The Holy Spirit makes stewards in the church as overseers, Acts 20:28. In respect to Paul's unique apostleship and calling to reveal the good news of the mysteries of God, Paul says over and over again,
"in this manner, as servants of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God. In this case, moreover, it is required of stewards that one be found trustworthy" 1 Corinthians 4:1-2
@2 In salvation, we serve Christ as ___________________ and as stewards. (1 Corinthians 4:1)
Being a steward of Christ is a calling from solid spirituality to dependable service. Paul had to be a trustworthy steward because in ministry, He was representing God. Everything in our ministry points back to God and what He is doing. We don't serve in ministry to impress the church, or to gain riches, or to build up our pride. Our ambition should be to be trustworthy to the Master of the house. This is what God has designed His stewards to be. We fulfill needs because it is trustworthy to do so. We can not operate on emotions, or temporal ambitions. We operate on faith, according to the word, by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is what makes a servant who is trustworthy. Listen carefully as Paul explains the process,
"16 if I preach the good news, I have nothing to boast of, for I am under compulsion; for woe is me if I do not preach the gospel. ..."
Paul means that the Master of the Household compels Paul to preach the good news solely for God's reasons. Then Paul says,
"if I do this voluntarily, I have a reward; but if against my will, I have a stewardship entrusted to me," 1 Corinthians 9:16-17
The point is that whether you minister in exuberance, or by compulsion from your Master, to be trustworthy is to simply do what is commanded from God; so that God gets the results He wants. The point is that in ministry we are lining up our will with God's will. Paul says that he is,
"the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles--2 if indeed you have heard of the stewardship of God's grace which was given to me for you; 3 that by revelation there was made known to me the mystery." Ephesians 3:1-3
When we think of this identification of being a steward, we must understand what the Colossians are thinking of. House-stewards were typically slaves. Some of them were captured prisoners of war, or debtors who had lost their freedom. Paul says he is the prisoner of Christ Jesus. The principle is that if you are a true minister, then you are Christ's possession. You are His prisoner who was made that way. Paul is using the genitive case in Ephesians 3:1, which indicates that Paul is saying that Christ Jesus is his owner. Paul repeats it in Ephesians 4. He says that he is,
"the prisoner of the Master [Lord]" Ephesians 4:1
It is all through the New Testament,
"Paul, prisoner of Christ Jesus," Philemon 1:1
Paul says to Timothy;
"do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Master or of me His prisoner," 2 Timothy 1:8
Paul was made into these things. In like manner, all of us are made, called, and commissioned to serve Christ. This is the first principle. This leads to the second principle I want us to glean concerning our New Covenant ministry in respect to the revelation of the Mystery. Paul says,
24 Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of His body, which is the church, in filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions. 25 Of this church I was made a minister according to the stewardship from God bestowed on me for your benefit, so that I might fully carry out the preaching of the word of God,
/2/
The second principle is that our ministry is on behalf of Christ's body, which is the church, for benefit. Benefiting the body is the goal, even though we may suffer for that benefit. Notice that Paul is not just recognizing that he suffers for the sake of the churches. Paul goes on and rejoices in it. The way Paul sees the body of Christ aspect of our salvation, which is our identity in Christ Himself, is that Paul is suffering for Christ in representing what Christ continues to go through in His earthly ministry in affliction through His body-church. Everything about all aspects of our salvation is Christ and His glory, and this principle is right there in the middle of it. I want us to all understand our interconnectedness here too. Paul is part of the same body church that he suffers for. Think about this for a moment. This is one of the most amazing statements in the Bible. Paul who is a vessel of the Holy Spirit, is continuing to receive the afflictions meant for Christ by suffering for the body through the body, of which Paul is part. We remember that Paul is stuck in an actual Roman prison system. But Paul is able to rejoice for suffering for the Asian Christians who, according to the natural mind, seem so detached, and so distant. And yet Paul's point is that they may be distant, but they are not detached. Look around you. You may think the other members of the body are distant, but they really aren't. Think about how the branches of humanity are not far from the root in Adam. Here, the sense is that we, the members of the body of Christ, are not far from one another as the body of Christ, and we are not far from Christ who is the spiritual life blood of the body. Paul, as a part of the body, is suffering for the sake of the churches, but Paul is suffering for Christ, and so Paul makes this amazing statement that we all need to be making every single day. In his body-calling, his instrumentality is that he does his "share" as a member, in filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of the Messiah. Think about this. He does this to nurture what the Messiah is interested in nurturing at whatever the cost is to our own comfort zones. There is no "woe is me" theology going on here in what Paul is saying. There is no,
"Hey look at me. See what a martyr I am" sense to what Paul is saying.
It is all Christ focus, where Paul is simply focused on ministry that benefits the body, and while doing so, the suffering comes with the territory. But, the practical point that I am wanting to make for you and me, is that this principle is something that we all experience in our service for the Lord for the benefit of His church. We see this first revealed to Paul on the road to Damascus where He was persecuting the body of Christ, and yet when Christ revealed Himself to Paul, Christ asked why Paul was persecuting Him, the risen Jesus. Then Paul becomes part of the body of Christ himself. When you became saved, your whole direction was changed, and your whole makeup was changed too. Paul was also commissioned that day to be an apostle. In Paul's commission, Paul became part of the body that would experience persecution that was filling up what was lacking in Christ's afflictions. This is really beautiful and deep, and it is something that we all must understand when we are persecuted for being Christians. You are suffering for Christ, and you are suffering to bring benefit to the body that Christ suffered to create in Himself. Every minister needs to recognize this sovereign purpose that comes with the territory. If we act like it is some strange thing that has come upon us when we suffer in ministry, then we have a carnal view of the whole process. What happens is that we start to look at the body as something less than it is. What I mean is, we won't want to love the body properly, because we won't recognize that love for the body means to love in ministry even when it hurts. It hurts to love. It hurts to care. It hurts to be hurt for loving and caring. It hurts to stand for the truth. I want us to notice how Paul makes the ministry urging in the parallel epistle in Ephesians 4,
"I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, 3 being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling;" Ephesians 4:1-4
@3 God wants us to be humble, gentle, and patient as we show tolerance for one another in ____________________. (Ephesians 4:1-4)
Notice the body connection. Ministry is always for the spiritual benefit of the body in building it up. It is not for personal benefit of having something to do with our time because we are bored. It is not for personal benefit in making money. It is not for personal benefit of being part of a popular group. It is not for the personal benefit of being renowned, or being patted on the back. True ministry builds up the members of the body, and true ministry also builds the body through evangelism. But here is the point--If suffering comes, it is part of the ministry--not something foreign to it. A lot of ministers give up when the going gets tough from the persecution of the world. But what is amazing is not that they give up, but that they give up because they act like persecution is something that should not have happened. I strongly urge all of us to listen to what the Spirit is saying. Paul goes on in Ephesians 4,
7 But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. ... 11 And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors [who are] teachers, ..."
Why is God making all these kinds of people in the body to minister back to itself? It is because God wants to see benefit. So, we read,
"12 for the equipping of the saints [everyone separated unto Christ] ..."
Again, why equip? And the same answer--For benefit. Read on,
"for the equipping of [everyone separated unto Christ] for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ."
So, there are equipping ministers that God has made to help us all serve, and in your service, you were made by God in the big ministry connection of the body too. We are already the body--right? So, our job now is to seek to "benefit" one another in true ministry in helping one another to become mature Christians.
What is a mature Christian in the body?
A mature Christian is one who is more like the stature of Christ than like the stature of himself. He is more like the fullness of Christ than like the fullness of himself. He looks, thinks, and acts, more like the body of Christ than the body of Adam. Maturity is growth. This is the benefit. So, the Spirit is telling us that God wants each of us to be about the business of benefitting the church instead of focusing upon benefitting ourselves alone. This is ministry. Think about this. If you are focused on trying to benefit your selfish desires in your Christianity, then at the fundamental level, you are not going to suffer for Christ and fill up His afflictions. You will avoid persecution for yourself and so you will hide your Christianity; you will hide your godly principles from others because you will be inclined to protect yourself. You'll become a chameleon that looks more like the world than like the Lord. You'll even try to change biblical doctrine into something that justifies your self orientation, like false doctrines that promote your ease, riches, and comfort. And so, when it comes to the true spiritual benefit of others in the body, the last thing you are going to do is suffer for them in ministry. All I am doing is describing the Christianity of culture, and we see it all over the place like an overgrowth that is choking the body. It is where Christianity is supposedly some kind of a trendy subculture, where everybody blends together, whether you're saved, or not, as long as we love, and don't judge, and have this big fake fuzzy group hug, and on, and on, and on. The point is that if you are focused upon yourself, then you will not take a stand for Christ like you should. Why? Because it is the self nature to do everything that self can do to avoid persecution of self. It may not even be persecution. It may simply be the need to break out of your comfort zone to act out the love of Christ to the body in real meaningful ways. But listen to me, when it comes to being persecuted for Christ, the body of Christ is Christ focused, and so the body is the place of Christ's current persecution. Again,
The body of Christ is Christ focused, and so the body is the place of Christ's current persecution.
So we must learn the heart of the Spirit and grow, or the true benefit that you can offer to the body, as part of the body, gets wiped away in the light of your self. This is not a theoretical problem either. There are masses of people who are part of the body, but they act like they are detached. There is a certain superficial selfish freedom in detachment. It is carnal, but it feels good to not be committed--to not have body responsibilities be part of your false doctrine. Loner Christianity is shameful and it's disgusting. It is an entirely unbiblical activity within God's New Covenant, and yet it is so popular today; and it is growing. Mavericks for Messiah don't benefit the body. Their skewed agenda is not part of God's design. Sometimes they act like they are suffering, but they are suffering for their own agenda that they try and support with some Bible verses taken out of context.
How are they acting like they are suffering?
They use their self detachment as the proof that their self inflicted ostracization is some sort of cross that God has ordained them to bear.
What a bunch of rubbish--to use a theological term coined by Paul in Philippians 3:8. What God has ordained is the preaching of the mystery with the real commitment of living out the fullness of the mystery in the body to benefit the body that God created to glorify His Son. God has called all of us to be the body of Christ together in unity that may require hurt, discomfort, pain, irritation, and self sacrificial love, but working through the process still results in what God wants, which is unity. A body is not an amputated mess strewn across the countryside. The body of Christ is togetherness. It is meant to work together in togetherness, and bring glory to the Focus. It is to be operating in community now, with the same people you will see forever (aion). This is true "benefit" ministry. It is where we continue to reveal the mystery by manifesting the mystery. One way that you can always know for sure that you are benefitting the body according to the Spirit, is if you are ministering togetherness. If you are ministering divisiveness and contention, then you are ministering the body of Adam into the body of Christ, and that is not called benefit. It is called sin. It is poison. God has not called us to be stewards of Adam.
So this second principle is that God has called us to serve Him and be ready to suffer for His name's sake. He has called you to look at the other members of the body as being better than yourself, Philippians 2:3. True ministry is to be seeking to benefit the body. For Paul, in the immediate context, this has to do with what he says next, which is the next principle. Paul says,
"... so that I might fully carry out the preaching of the word of God,"
/3/
This third principle is that the public proclamation of the word of God in preaching has been the Lord's primary ministry calling He has chosen for edifying the body. Preaching the word of God is vital. If we preach anything else in Christian ministry, then we are just spreading opinions, philosophies, and other data. Paul's stewardship bestowed upon Him by the Lord was for the task of preaching the whole counsel of God. Paul's call demonstrates the consistent call across the board in his last recorded words. It is where Paul solemnly charged Timothy to preach the word itself,
"1 I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: 2 preach the word;" 2 Timothy 4:1-2
@4 God wants ministers in His church to __________________ the ______________________. (2 Timothy 4:1-2)
This solemn charge is what brings the benefit. Whenever a church culture deviates from this, then the church of that culture will manifest the destructive consequences. Once we get into worldly methods, and gimmicks to replace the simple, pure, illuminating preaching of the word, then our Christianity becomes worldly, and gimmicky, and even sub-Christian. Every minister of our generation needs to recognize how important this mandate is for the body. This is what ministers have done throughout history in following the great legacy of benefiting the body through the pure nutrients that come from preaching God's word rightly handled, 2 Timothy 2:15. When Paul told Timothy to preach the word itself, rightly handling it, what Paul meant was to preach the recorded Scripture of the Old Testament and whatever parts of the New Testament that Timothy had available to him. It is the same for us today. We preach from the Bible. When we preach the Old Testament, we preach it through the lens of the New Testament revelation of the mysteries. Now I want us to notice what Paul says about the message He preaches. There is an unusual designation of the word of God that he is talking about here. The specific ministry that he is talking about, is to preach the word of God in respect to what he calls, the mystery. There are perhaps a number of mysteries revealed in the New Testament. God revealed them to his apostles. They looked through the lens of Christ by the revelation of God's guiding Spirit, and they discovered mysteries in the Old Testament. Some of the mysteries were revealed by direct revelation, in dreams and encounters with the risen Lord. Here, Paul has a particular mystery in mind that had been revealed to him to preach. This is what we want to know about because this is very important to preach as our message. This leads us to consider the next point to glean, which is what this mystery actually is. Paul speaking of himself when he says next,
27 to whom God determined 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."
@5 God has decided to make known to us the great mystery, which is __________________ in us, the ________________ of glory. (Colossians 1:27)
/4/
This is our fourth principle, and this is my favorite doctrine. The revelation of the mystery is Christ in you, the hope of glory. If you think about it, this statement is just as amazing as Paul saying that he is filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions. In fact, this statement is intimately married to that one. This mystery revelation is one of the most important doctrinal truths you will ever learn. It is one of the most important doctrinal truths that can be, and should be proclaimed. In fact, this is the pinnacle message of our salvation. If Christ is not in you, then you are not saved. You are not, and never were reconciled. Nobody will ever be reconciled without Christ in them either. Christ has to be in you because of what I covered in the introduction this morning. If Christ is not in you, then you are in Adam, and in Adam all die physically and spiritually eternally, forever, in an everlasting, and ongoing state. Christ is our all in all. He is all our righteousness, and all our life, in all of us who are His body. He is the deposit that is our hope that we will be glorified in eternal perfection forever.
Christ in His people as the hope of glory is something that was planned by God since before the foundation of the world. When God put the tree in the garden, and God made man in His own image, God knew that man would eat from the tree and lose that important aspect of God's image which is righteousness. God ordained that at the proper time He would come as Christ, and that it would be in Christ, with Christ in us, that we would be righteous spiritually with the very righteousness of God in Christ. The mystery is that the Jews saw the prophesies concerning Messiah, but they did not understand that the Messiah would be crucified, then resurrected, and then He would live as Holy Spirit in those whom He saves, making them into the body of Messiah as joint heirs forever in the eternal kingdom of the eternal covenant. This leads to the goal of our preaching of the mystery, which goes back to the benefit.
"28 We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone complete [perfect] in Christ."
The goal of Paul's preaching, proclamation, and admonishment in teaching the riches of Christ Jesus Himself in you, and me and all who are the church, is so that we will be mature, stable, and complete while we are in Christ.
/5/
This is the fifth principle: Preaching, proclaiming, admonishing, and teaching the riches of Christ in you, your only hope of glory, is so that we will be mature, stable, complete in respect to what it means to have Christ in us as the hope of glory. Paul preaches Christ as the grace place. When He is in us, we are the grace place of His attention. Paul's preaching Christ is what grounds us in the details of the faith in respect to being the body to each other and the world. This is what good preaching in admonishment is all about. We want completeness from it. We want fullness. We want growth. I don't know if you realize it or not, but most Christians have no idea that Christ is in them spiritually as their hope of glory. The term, "the body of Christ," is something that is nebulous to them. But, it shouldn't be this way. The big need in our day is to start with the grace place of salvation, where you are in Christ who is the hope of glory. The mystery has been revealed. In Christ, God makes you into the body. Then from there, we need to preach to reflect Christ in the worthy walk that is pleasing to the Lord, Colossians 1:10, where we reflect more of the body of Christ that we actually are. Everything in our completeness points back to Christ. Its about Him, where we are created in Him to be like Him. We do good works that express Him,
"10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them," Ephesians 2:10
Knowing who we are in Christ, and Who Christ is in us is completeness.
/6/
Finally, this leads us to understand the sixth and last principle I will bring out of this text this morning: We, as Christ's body-ministers, do this according to God's power working in us.
"29 For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me."
This is where the mystery's miracle is manifested in real power. When it comes to the miracle of salvation, we can say that we are saved because of the power of Christ in us. When it comes to the miracle of ministry we must say that our work in striving is according to the Holy Spirit that is in us. It is God's miraculous power in us that enables us to minister as trustworthy stewards. Paul understood this so intimately that he did not want to give any credit to himself for his work, or for his endurance, and especially the outcome of his ministry as a steward. Everything goes back to Christ in us. It all glorifies Him. If you encourage someone in the faith, it is by God's power. If you rebuke someone in the faith, it is by God's power. If you pray, it is by God's power. If you evangelize, it is God's power. All through the Bible, the power of the Holy Spirit is honored as the miracle making force in everyday ministry life of the body. In Acts 20:22, the power of the Spirit is identified as constraining Paul to go up to Jerusalem (bound). In Romans 15:13; we overflow in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. God's power strengthens us; Ephesians 3:16. In Romans 8:13, it is how we are putting to death the deeds of the body. In Romans 15:19, it is how Paul said he preached. In 2 Thessalonians 2:13 it is how all Christians are separated unto God being chosen from the beginning. Some Christians ignore it. So-called "higher critics" have a problem with it. Various denominational movements have moved away from it as a pure fact. But everything about real gospel ministry is based upon God's power and not your power. Paul says,
"my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power," 1 Corinthians 2:4
"4 For we know, brothers loved by God, that He has chosen you, [How?] 5 because our good news came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit ..." 1 Thessalonians 1:4-5 (ESV)
@6 The message of God's truth is shared in __________________ that comes from the Holy Spirit. (1 Corinthians 2:4, 1 Thessalonians 1:4-5, Colossians 1:29)
Word plus power. This is the pattern of our New Covenant ministry in respect to the revelation of the Mystery. This is how Paul got saved and made. This is how you and I get saved and made. It is by the power of the Holy Spirit and the good news of Christ. Again, with this in mind, Who is glorified in the work? Right. Always Christ.
My strong urging to all of us this morning is to recognize the foundational fact that God is the One Who makes us into New Covenant ministers of this good news. Always be understanding that our ministry is on behalf of Christ's body, which is the church, and it is always for benefit. We may suffer for that benefit, but it is God's will. I urge all of us to pay attention to God's important mandate. The public proclamation of the word of God in preaching is His design for edifying the body for benefit. Always make sure that the essential foundation of your doctrine is the revelation of the mystery. Know what it is, and what it means. The mystery is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Preaching, proclaiming, and admonishing, and teaching the riches of Christ in you, your only hope of glory, is so that we will be mature, stable, complete in respect to what it means to have Christ in us. Finally, Let's not ever forget that, as Christ's body ministers, we minister the mystery according to God's power working in us, which is itself, a manifestation of the mystery.
@1 It is a grace miracle of God to be ________________ into a minister by His power. (Ephesians 3:7)
@2 In salvation, we serve Christ as ___________________ and as stewards. (1 Corinthians 4:1)
@3 God wants us to be humble, gentle, and patient as we show tolerance for one another in ____________________. (Ephesians 4:1-4)
@4 God wants ministers in His church to __________________ the ______________________. (2 Timothy 4:1-2)
@5 God has decided to make known to us the great mystery, which is __________________ in us, the ________________ of glory. (Colossians 1:27)
@6 The message of God's truth is shared in __________________ that comes from the Holy Spirit. (1 Corinthians 2:4, 1 Thessalonians 1:4-5, Colossians 1:29)
