Paul now shifts his focus to his ministry to the
church. Paul rejoices in his sufferings
for the Colossians. It is weird for us
to think of rejoicing in our sufferings.
We will see that Paul’s view of suffering for the church is very
different than ours. Just like in
everything else, Paul’s focus is on Christ.
He says he is filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the
sake of his body, that is the church.
Does this imply that Christ’s afflictions were lacking? Definitely not! I think what Paul is saying is quite profound
though. As Christians, we are the body
of Christ. Christ lived a life of hardship
and sacrifice for our sake. He died a
horrible death to bring us to life. When
we as the church become the body of Christ, we inherit His affliction to some
degree. In order to bring the good news
of life to the world, the Body of Christ must sacrifice itself like Christ
sacrificed His body while on earth. Paul
sees His ministry as being according to the stewardship from God given to him
to make the word of God fully known. This
is not Paul’s ministry, it is God’s ministry, a part of which He has entrusted
to Paul. This is huge when it comes to
ministry! We tend to make ministry
personal. When we succeed it is awesome
for us and when we fail or hit a rough spot, we are depressed and feel like
failures. If we look at it as God’s
ministry and affliction as us sharing in the afflictions of Christ, this should
completely change the way ministry works.
Our focus needs to be on God and not ourselves. Paul then calls the word of God a mystery hidden
for ages but now revealed. Why was the
mystery hidden for so long? I don’t know
and may never know, but the bottom line is it has been revealed to us now and
that should prompt a response. Our lives
should be focused on explaining this mystery to those who have not heard it
yet! Paul states that God has chosen for
the saints to make known how great the glory of this mystery is among the
gentiles. This mystery is Christ in us,
the hope of glory. This really is a
mystery. We had no hope and then Christ
came into us and now we have a hope.
This is profound! Often we take
it for granted, but this is a huge truth!
We are to proclaim Christ, teaching everyone with all wisdom. It is important to use wisdom when sharing
the gospel, but that doesn’t mean to be selective. We are to proclaim Christ to everyone! Not just our neighbors, not just Americans,
not just people in far away countries, we are to proclaim Christ to everyone! I don’t believe Christians should have the
approach of having been called to a particular area. We are called to proclaim Christ to
everyone! This is obviously impossible
on our own, but it is possible for the full body. This is the ministry for which Paul toils, struggling
with all his energy that God powerfully works in him. Paul is energized by God to be able to
minister. This does not mean he has it
easy. He says he toils, struggling with
all his energy. God apparently gave Paul
enough energy for ministry, but not any more than enough. Even with God’s help, it is an exhausting
struggle for him. This is a little
scary, but also really encouraging! If
you are worn out and burnt out, it’s okay!
Even Paul struggled and was worn out.
Instead of looking at how effective you want to be for Christ, compare
how effective you are with Christ to how effective you were before Christ. When you do that, you should see the impact
of the energy that God powerfully works within you.
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