Please rise as you are able for the reading of God's word from Colossians 1.24-2.5 Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church, of which I became a minister, according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations, but now revealed to his saints. To them, God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me. I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face, that their hearts may be encouraged, be knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments. For though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ. I've been personally enjoying our time in Colossians so far. It's been such a rich thing to get into. I love how passionately Paul writes to this congregation who he has never met before, but he deeply cares for, no doubt. And in the initial section of Paul's letter, after his first couple of verses with his classic greetings, thanksgivings, and prayers, Paul launched into the beautiful hymn Pastor Matt preached on last Sunday about Christ's preeminence. This wonderful doctrine of how Christ is before all things, and in him all things hold together, and how he is the head of the body which is the church, and that he's the firstborn from the dead, God's instrument to deliver salvation by means of the blood of his cross. through which he made peace for us sinners." This is an awe-inspiring recap of pure gospel truth. Paul didn't waste any time in the opening of his letter to get to first priority things, namely the hope of salvation in the gospel of Jesus Christ. It feels like we could end the sermon there, because that is the gospel, right? What we hope to arrive at when we hear the word of God preached. And that's good, but the sermon does not end there, sorry. And there's good reason for that. If you only had the opportunity to take a quick peek at this letter, this first section, and that is all you caught, Paul made sure you'd know the hope of the gospel of Christ, which he was so gripped by, so that you might be saved, right? But this is not even the end of chapter one. We're not even into our text this morning. But what is there more to say, then? Well, before Paul gets into this morning's passage, Paul declares, yeah, this is the gospel of which I, Paul, became a minister. He's making a point, and this is where you see how Paul was all about being a minister of the gospel. He loved his calling because he so loved the one who called him. But Paul also loved everything his calling entailed, and he is inviting others to believe, both the Colossians and all of us today, to follow in his footsteps into a ministry of maturity in Christ. That's the title of the sermon, by the way. So let's break that title down. What is a ministry? What does it mean to minister? Literally, it means to be someone who serves, to be a servant. And if that's so, the question is, what is being served? And a quick reply would be the gospel, right? But here Paul challenges us, challenges our understanding of that a bit. The gospel is not just what is being served as a set of propositions or as a main course is in the meal, but rather who? is the ultimate servant who has created all things, he has sustained them, and is using continually all these things to bring his guests into his own presence. And they attend to each and every one of their needs as they experience the richest, the most satisfying and delicate feast we could ever imagine, which will last into eternity. When we come to faith in Jesus, we are united to Him and to the universal church, which is all the body of believers ever, which is characterized by having an ethos of service. That's a word that explains what is our highest value, what is the thing we cherish most. And this ethos of service is descriptive of the family we now find ourselves in when we come to faith. It's a family that's all about ministering to each other. I don't know if you've ever met those families that are entirely, the whole family group is about something very particular. I once had to do some wedding videography as a side gig and it was for a couple, an older couple that already had kids. And the thing is that these guys were Star Wars nuts. Like, everything about them was Star Wars, and that's what they lived and breathed every day. And naturally, everything about their wedding was, of course, Star Wars. And that was the outfits that they wore, the music, the drinks were Star Wars-inspired, the cake was, I just said, empired. That's creeping in. Well, you name it. All of that was at the party. Lightsaber send-off and all. These guys had met at a Star Wars convention. They indoctrinated their kids in all things Star Wars. And they even said part of their vows in some intergalactic language. And of course their honeymoon was going to be in a Star Wars cruise. I hope you get the picture by now. Star Wars was their life. And very similarly, in our union to Christ, we are brought into this family that is all about serving, about ministering to each other in the likeness of the Holy Trinity, which has spent eternity past ministering to each other. And it is then when we embark now, after salvation, on a lifelong journey of growing in Christ-likeness, of slaying sin and pursuing holiness, which at the end of the day is maturity in Christ. And other than by engaging Christ as we do here in worship or in our spiritual disciplines, which are incredibly important as a means of grace that God has provided for us, we also accomplish this maturity by being ministered to by more mature brothers and sisters, as we see Paul doing for the Colossians here in this passage. All the while, also, we serve others in areas that God has prepared us to do so, as Paul is encouraging the Colossians to do. Maturity in Christ has nothing to do with how old you are, how long you've been a Christian, or what stage of life you're in, but rather what are the areas in which God has gifted you and matured you through spiritual gifts or through unique life circumstances that have shaped you to become who you are in your walk with Christ and how you play a key role as a member in the body of Christ. And this is what Paul is getting into now in our passage. In church lingo we know and talk about this as discipleship, although sometimes that communicates more of a hierarchy between a disciple and their disciples, right? But today I'd like to come to this concept in a fresh way and consider it as a ministry of maturity in Christ, in which all believers execute the priestly office that Christ fulfilled and now shares with us as believers, which is our doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. I believe that Paul teaches us here that there is no full knowledge and understanding of the riches of God's glorious gospel until we're devoted to this ministry of maturity. In our passage, we read Paul teaching on the mystery of the Old Testament prophecies of how Gentiles would be included in God's redemptive plan now being revealed fully in Christ. But as we read him, we also see how he exemplifies the ministry of maturity in Christ and how he's inviting all believers to actively participate in it. So it doesn't take him very long to describe one of the main dynamics of this ministry, which is our first point this morning. The ministry of maturity in Christ is propelled by suffering. Verse 24, the first part says, Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake. It's not even a full sentence, a full verse, but it's just packed with significance. In this opening statement, Paul acknowledges that to minister is to suffer. Now don't get the idea that to minister or to serve is to deplete yourself of your time, your energy, and your resources, and that results in your suffering. That is a very individualistic, materialistic, and transactional understanding, which is definitely not at the heart of servanthood. to serve rather is to willingly put your eyes on someone else rather than on yourself. And yes, use your time, energy, and resources, but the suffering doesn't come from that, but rather it comes as the domain of darkness, which Paul was talking about earlier, retaliates against such a display of Christ-likeness. And we'll address that a little bit more in our last point this morning. But regarding suffering, in the span of Paul's ministry, if you remember, he has been rejected. He has suffered all kinds of hardships, of slander, of death threats, of loss, imprisonment, and conflicts with others. But interestingly enough, as we see here, he counts it all joy in a very James-like way. And the reason for that, he tells us, It's for your sake, for the sake of the church. You see, the gospel, he proclaims, it's a gospel of joy. It's salvation. It's a big, phew, as my kids say when I let them go on something, we were let go of eternal damnation. We are saved. That's a reason to be joyful. Yet the gospel he proclaims causes him to suffer. It's a gospel suffering, a sanctified suffering. Think suffering for the sake of righteousness that Peter talks about. But his gospel suffering is a reason for joy because it's serving a gospel purpose. You see, the gospel has always spread through hardship, has always spread through suffering. Go back to day one of the church, right? Some of you immediately thought of Acts. Roman oppression, Roman persecution, everyone was scared to death. And sure enough, Christianity spread like wildfire, so much that in only a few generations, Christianity was made the official religion of the Roman Empire. But I was thinking more of literally day one or maybe day six or somewhere close to that. In Genesis 3, you have Adam and Eve completely mess things up. So much that they're banned from God's immediate presence and exiled from his garden into the wilderness of this domain of darkness. but God sends them out covered in sacrificed skin coverings, pointing to what, unbeknownst to them, is a sign of what will be his ultimate covering, and his sovereign use of sin and brokenness to display his glory through redemption. Life got hard really quick because we needed to know the glory of God's love through redemption. I've got very old news for you, which if you were ever born, you already know. Life is hard. Amen? Anyone? But Christians, brothers and sisters, it is possible to rejoice in your deepest suffering when you understand that the purpose of your suffering is for the sake of others, and especially for the sake of the body of Christ. The problem with this is that, as a culture, we have become increasingly terrified of sharing our suffering. We believe it to be part of our private realm, and we dread any public display of vulnerability, hence the continual proliferation of ways to mask ourselves and isolate ourselves, thinking that it's safer that way. Maybe through workaholism, or through picture-perfect social media channels, or by intentionally pursuing work-from-home positions for fear of being found out as a failure, as a fraud, incompetent, or fill-in-the-blank. Or even preferring to get your dinner at a drive-thru or door dash, of course, with no contact delivery, instead of enjoying a meal with your family or friends, because any unanticipated interaction carries potential for exposing our vulnerabilities. Or worse, still attending church online just to avoid its messiness, or our public displays of emotion, or the awkward passing of an empty plate. or the shame of your rowdy kids in the pew, or forcing a smile to say hi to people you know you should be more excited to greet, but just aren't really that interested. If you can avoid that, why not just do it? Well, because we're a body. We are Christ's body, united by His Spirit, and there's great power in that. No wonder Satan retaliates against that. It's fantastic that all of us are here this morning because when we gather for worship, we fight this fear. We declare our belonging into the realm of light, although there are some things we'd like to keep in the shade. There are still avenues to explore for deeper fellowship for the sake of the body, and we'll continue to see that this is how we mature in Christ. and how we find joy in our Savior's work of maturation. This verse alone paints a picture of Paul as a mature minister, a mature servant, a mature believer, but he's just getting started. In the second half of this verse, and in my flesh, I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body that is the church. Now this section is mind-boggling, and everyone who comments on that, like, high-tier theologians, they say, this is big stuff, so I'm not gonna pretend that I have it, figured it all out, but what does Paul mean by lacking in Christ's afflictions? Was his sacrifice not enough, that there's something lacking? It's certainly not that. Nothing is lacking in Jesus' atoning sacrifice. The entire epistle of Colossians, the entire New Testament testifies to that. Nothing else needs to be added so that Christ's claim that it is finished remains true. And true faith alone makes this a reality in our life. But what we do see here is an intimate identification of Christ with his church and in a very unique way through suffering. It's a unity conceived in God's redemptive plan birthed in the coming of the kingdom of God in Christ's appearance, and made ours through faith in Him. He is our head, and we are His body, as Paul has already stated. And here we learn that the suffering Christ endured as our head resonates in us as a body. And the suffering we experience is also suffered by Christ. There's an acoustic phenomenon called sympathetic vibration, for all you engineers out there. And that can be very helpful to illustrate this. Basically, you have two strings on a guitar, for example, and they're tuned to the same note, the same frequency. If you pluck one of those strings, The other, which is tuned to that same frequency, will pick up on its vibrations and start vibrating in the same pattern, matching the vibration of that first one. Instrument builders and some entire instruments are built on that principle, that very effective principle. And this is how closely Christ relates to His church. We are tuned to the same frequency. We share the same spirit in us. You remember Saul? Saul is Paul, author of Colossians, right? But before he was Paul, he was Saul. And he persecuted the church. He chased Christ's followers. He imprisoned them. He tortured them. He had them killed because they were so offensive to his understanding of God's revelation up till then. And then Jesus shows up. on Saul's way to Damascus and asks him, Saul, why are you persecuting the believers? No. He says, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Jesus personally suffered the persecution that his followers were experiencing. But after God tells Ananias to heal him, and even despite Ananias's, are you sure this is the guy, this terrorist? God tells Ananias that Paul is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name, for I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name. This is not God's weird revenge plan here. This is how he operates. It's a symbiotic relationship of sorts, but it shows the reality of our union to Christ through suffering, through gospel suffering. And again, I can't pretend I know exactly how this works, but one thing is clear. Paul knew his sufferings were good for the church. and that they were the result of his closeness, his unity to Christ, which in turn was his greatest joy. It's a win-win situation for everyone involved. Paul continues into the next verse explaining the joy of why he became a minister. He basically says it's because the gift of faith in the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, the most precious treasure, the most dramatic and impactful event in all of history, the most relevant and important person in all of history, was given to me. Such an undeserving and self-righteous sinner. Remember who he was. Dear Christian, remember who we all were before Christ. But he doesn't stop there. This treasure that was given to him, this treasure that was given to me, says Paul, is for you, Colossians, for you, New City, for all of the Christendom to come. And this is where we get our second point. The ministry of maturity in Christ pursues both knowledge and the proclamation of Christ. Verse 25, I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you to make the word of God fully known. The ministry of maturity in Christ, then, is a two-rail track. You grow in your knowledge and spiritual understanding, and you also share it. It's knowledge and proclamation. If you are not doing both of these things, you're not reaping the full benefits of, nor effectively ministering the gospel. You're missing out on the full benefits of being, knowing, and sharing in Christ. This is something we ought all to examine our hearts and probably repent of. Many times we lose sight of what true discipleship means. We are quick to get people to pray a prayer of trusting in Jesus as their Savior and Lord and consider the job done. But many times we neglect the fact that disciples are meant to be discipled and that they ought to be discipling others. There's not one without the other. And this is why here at New City we're trying to grow in our efforts and avenues to foster discipleship, to minister maturity in Christ. We've been asking each one of you to be involved in any one of our ministries where the Word of God is mined and discussed and where life is being shared, the joys and the sufferings, so that the Word of God may be fully known to you and through you to others. Praise God, we have a healthy worship service where the Word of God is faithfully taught, prayed, sung, and experienced through the sacraments. But participating in a worship service alone will not produce mature disciples. As good as a preacher we can get behind this pulpit, that alone will not produce mature disciples. but in addition to all what happens here, in addition to the means of grace that God has given his people. What will produce mature disciples is an intentional involvement in the body of Christ, in which every member is serving, is ministering to each other, knit together in love, as Paul says, and in such deep fellowship that we experience Christ when we experience each other. Not just His sufferings, but Christ in a full way. Chapter 2, verse 2 says, We experience all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of Him. We go back to verse 28 and we see that we only get to experience this fullness of Christ if each member of the body is actively ministering. The ministries Paul describes here are in the first person plural. Look at that. It's not I, Paul. It's not we, pastors and leaders. It's we, believers. proclaim Christ to everyone. We believers warn everyone. We believers teach everyone so that we believers may present everyone mature in Christ. You have unique connections among the body that some leaders don't. You are important. The church needs you. for the sake of maturity. Paul's ultimate goal, that for which he toils and struggles, is to produce mature believers. And he shares that it is only through a full experience of Christ, in word and body, that this is attained. Paul is so passionate about this that he struggles and toils with all his might, as mentioned repeatedly in this passage, even for people he has never met before. The words used here have roots from where we get the English word agony. It's gospel suffering to a whole nother level in Paul. And it begs the question, why go through all of this? What's at risk that Paul would be so devoted to this ministry of maturity in Christ? And this is our last point this morning. The ministry of maturity in Christ produces firmness of faith. The church in Colossae was under attack. Some commentators argue that there were many false teachers preaching Christ as only the gateway into a deeper spiritual knowledge and understanding, which was highly mystical and ethereal. But before we get lost in those details, New City, we are also under attack. And this is nothing new. This is the reality of the church. We have to keep in mind that the church is a divine institution, as a divine institution is an eschatological community. That means of the end times, right? Meaning that it only exists because there is an appointed day when Christ is coming back to wrap things up, to bring the fullness of his kingdom, and to judge the living and the dead according to where they stand before God. Either in Christ's righteousness, or not, because there is no salvation in any other name. In our study of Revelation a little over a year ago, we learned that between Jesus' final blow to Satan on the cross and his second coming, when he's gonna wrap things up, right? Satan is burning hot with anger. He knows his days are numbered, and he's wanting to take down as many souls as he can with him. This is the retaliation of the domain of darkness that causes our gospel suffering. Remember, it's a crafty serpent that we're dealing with, and he will use subtle and not-so-subtle ways to entice those who have put their trust in Christ. And in Colossae, as well as in our day and in our midst, we are faced with all sorts of plausible arguments or, as other translations put it, persuasive speeches. And as we think about that, I think it's going to take big and impressive ideas to persuade and deceive a believer, right? Ideas that sound right and true, hence the persuasiveness, but that lead us away from the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ, in whom, Paul says, are hidden all treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Ideas like, The highest good is your freedom and happiness. That sounds wonderful. Or nothing can challenge your self-autonomy, your self-definition, and your self-expression. That sounds nice, I guess. or similar to what the Colossians were experiencing, faith in Christ alone is great, but you can always add another ideological, philosophical, mystical, religious thing onto that to enhance it. But the persuasiveness of an idea does not legitimize it. Further so, Paul shows us that any believer who is who unimpressively suffers and engages in vulnerability for the sake of the body's maturity, confirms his role as a gospel servant, and by doing so, he is someone worth paying attention to. You see, the dragon's plan of retaliating and causing this gospel suffering only strengthens the body and reveals who is doing the gospel ministry, the ministry of maturation among us, if we are engaged in this ministry. So that which is at risk if we don't engage in this ministry of maturity is losing those whose faith is incomplete and frail. Those who may have learned all that there is to know intellectually, but haven't really experienced Christ. those who fill their silence or find their company in trendy and secular religious preachers of false gospels, instead of spending their time and energy with long-suffering regular saints, which God promised to use for the edification of His church. And this is a little of what my personal story with Christ looked like. I grew up in a good Presbyterian home, worshiping every week, practicing spiritual disciplines at home. It felt like every single conversation after every meal was about church life, doctrines, sermons. And after, give or take, 18 years of that, I think I could have done pretty decently in the TFL exam some of you had to take in the last week. I knew stuff, but honestly, it didn't make much of a difference in the way I was living my life. An intellectual ascent to great doctrine was not nearly enough to keep me from being persuaded to explore other religious philosophies, a little bit of New Age spirituality and mysticism, and pursuing all sorts of transcendent experiences. But by God's grace, after exhausting my options, I felt nothing was making sense, that the spiritual pursuit I was on was chasing after smoke. The Spirit convicted me over my sin, and by grace, I knew where to find forgiveness. It was at the cross of Christ, and in that, I resolved to commit to serving the church as a detox plan from my empty living. And the next day, I was going to meet my pastor to buy a drum set for the church, and that kicked off slowly a deeper involvement in the body there through service, through fellowship, through accountability, and all of that started to bring life to the truth that I already knew. And I entered into this ministry of maturity and my affections, the things I chased, changed. And what I loved was being shaped communally. And until this day, I'd say few things are as satisfying as deep fellowship, as experiencing Christ in ways you can never learn to do, namely through his body. You see, when we intentionally engage other believers, we experience Christ through them. And thus, our knowledge and experience of Christ is enhanced. When we engage each other in love, Paul tells us there are riches of full assurance and understanding. and no intellectual process alone will lead to a full grasp of the mystery of Christ unless it is tied to a resolve to minister maturity in Christ to each other. But only intellectually engaging sets of propositions apart from the body. By doing that alone, you will be so dissatisfied that you will endlessly bounce from one set ideas to another because you haven't experienced the warm embrace of Christ. My prayer for all of us today is that we may be a people committed to the ministry of maturity in Christ. By opening up our lives to each other, sharing our suffering for the sake of growth, that we may strive to learn God's word and share it among each other so that we may continue steadfast and forward in our faith in Christ. Amen. Let's pray. This is from Ephesians 4. Lord Jesus, You are equipping your saints for the work of ministry, for the building up of your body until we all attain the unity of faith and the maturity to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, and by craftiness and deceitful schemes. Rather, by speaking the truth in love, may we grow up in every way into Him who is the head, into Christ from whom the whole body, when each part is working properly, makes it grow so that it builds itself up in love. We pray in your powerful name. Amen.