Vicar
Matthew Luetke Twelfth
Sunday after Pentecost
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21 Once you were alienated from God and were
enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. 22 But now he has
reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in
his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— 23 if you continue in your
faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel.
This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every
creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.
24 Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you,
and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s
afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church. 25 I have become
its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in
its fullness— 26 the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and
generations, but is now disclosed to the saints. 27 To them God has chosen to
make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is
Christ in you, the hope of glory.
28 We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching
everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. 29
To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works
in me.
The Mystery of Christ is Revealed Colossians
1:21-29
I. He is all we need (v. 22) II.
He is for all people (v. 26-28)
In America today we have what some have
labeled a melting pot society. This is
good for our culture, but in religion, it is always bad. As they say, too many cooks spoil the
pot. This was the problem in the
Colossian congregation. They had
already heard the word of truth preached to them by their pastor Epaphras who
had in turn heard it from Paul, but now there were these new teachers in their
midst adding their own “cleverly invented stories” to the truth they already
had. Even today, there are people and
institutions who think
that God’s word by itself is too simple or too bland, and feel the need to add
some flavor. I can think of quite a few
who do this: Roman Catholics season the truth with traditionalism, Mormons and
Jehovah’s Witnesses mix in new revelations.
Evangelicals spice it with ‘spiritual experiences’. All of these religions add human work to the
recipe of salvation. For them, the
gospel is just too simple.
Is the gospel too simple? I thank God that it is not as hard as some people think it ought
to be! But before we spend the next 15
minutes pointing our fingers at others, perhaps we should take a look at
ourselves, for we all have that Old Adam alive and well inside our bones who
yearns to lend a hand in our salvation.
The Old Adam doesn’t listen to God.
It revels in man-made solutions.
It will fill itself with whatever rubbish it hears, just so long as it
doesn’t fill itself with God’s Word.
The Old Adam wants either to revel in sin, or to try and fix our
sin-sick souls by itself. It will not
listen to the truth, that God solved our problem when he made his absolute
wisdom and love freely known in Christ’s death on the cross. You have heard this truth! The mystery of Christ was revealed to you!
This truth is all you need for salvation.
This truth is for all people.
‘Believe this,’ Paul says, ‘and forget whatever nonsense false teachers
and Old Adams proclaim.
Now to understand the situation in
Colossi, one
should get to know their pastor, Epaphras. It is very likely that he was a Colossian
man himself who first heard about Jesus’ death and resurrection from Paul
during his travels to nearby Ephesus.
We know from the opening of this letter to Colossi that Paul knew very
few of the Colossians personally, so he probably never went there himself. However, the Colossians knew a lot about
Paul from Epaphras’ preaching. No
doubt, it was this preaching that compelled Onesimus, the slave of a Colossian
man named Philemon, to run away to Rome in order to meet Paul who was in prison
there.
Pastor Epaphras also came to Rome, some
four to five years after starting the Colossian congregation, because a new
teaching was being preached in Colossi and Epaphras was afraid. He felt ill suited to deal with this heresy
all on his own and sought Paul’s help.
This distortion of the truth evolved from both Jewish traditions and
Greek philosophies, and Paul was learned in both so he was more than capable of
helping Pastor Epaphras.
Epaphras told Paul all about this new
teaching and why it scared him so.
Those influenced by Jewish traditionalism claimed that you still had to
follow the Old Testament rituals of circumcision, the dietary laws, and Jewish
holidays. Those influenced by Greek
philosophies taught that the message of Christ crucified was too easy. The gospel by itself just wasn’t enough for
them. They claimed that there were
greater mysteries out there and these were what really mattered. These mysteries weren’t for everyone
though. You needed a higher
intellectual capacity to understand them.
So in essence, Christ wasn’t for all people but only for those who could
follow innumerable laws and only for those who could attain such a higher
knowledge.
These were the false teachings Epaphras
and his congregation were facing. They
aren’t that different from what we face today.
Let us take a closer look at what Paul wrote to the Colossians, only
from our perspective, since they pertain to us as well. As the Apostle John wrote, “[T]hese are written that you
may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,
and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
Paul starts, “Once you were alienated
from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior.” All people from the time of Adam, including
us were born separated from God by our sins.
While we were still in this state of separation from God, all of our
thoughts were laced with hostility and all of our works were evil. That Old Adam is still inside us and daily
it struggles to keep us as far away from God as possible. Something had to be done to stop this
downward spiral into which all mankind was falling. This is where God graciously stepped in with his gospel. The gospel doesn’t say, “I will save you… IF
you can keep all my commands”, like those promoting Jewish traditionalism were
saying. And the gospel doesn’t say, “I
will save you… IF you have the intellectual capacity to understand my
dark secrets”, like those promoting Greek philosophies were saying. No, when God stepped in to save us, he did
it in such a way that there was nothing left for us to do! We owed God our
lives but Jesus stepped in and gave his life for us. This is the message of God’s love; this is the mystery that has
been revealed to us; this is the secret kept hidden from the gentiles that God
has now chosen to make known to us through his Word.
One of the things Paul likes to do in
his letters is show how God is greater then everything else. Sometimes he does this using the same words
of the false teachers. Since they had
claimed that there were ‘greater mysteries’, Paul argues with them saying, ‘No!
The greatest mystery of all is that of Christ crucified for your sins!’
Paul tells us what the mystery of Christ
is with these words. He says, “But now [God] has reconciled
you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight,
without blemish and free from accusation—if you continue in your faith,
established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. This is
the gospel that you heard [from Epaphras] and that has been proclaimed to every
creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.”
Here is a heart-warming message. God graciously gave us the solution to our
sin-sick problem. The mystery of how we
are to be saved is solved by the gospel!
In it we see that God reestablished the proper friendly relationship he
intended between us even before the creation of the world. God refused to allow us to remain as
sinners. In essence God said to those Colossians, ‘Are you still looking for
some great revelation of my unknowable wisdom?
Well here it is: While you have
fought against me, marvel now at my love.
I love you so much. That is why
I sent you my Son who lived the perfect life I demanded from you. That is why he paid the price you owed me
because of your rebellion. He died for
you because I love you and I cannot bear to lose you. Now believe these words.’
Christ Jesus gladly removed our hostility through his sacrifice and made
things right between us and God so that, as our text says, he could “present
[us] holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation.” Thank God that Jesus did not consider it
too much to do so, but gladly and freely laid down his life for us. Christ promises to present us as holy before
himself and he will do this “if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the
hope held out in the gospel.”
Let me ask you, “are you steadfast and
unmoved from this hope”? Yes, I know
that you are. I thank God that you
are. But I also know that you and I, we
daily struggle with our Old Adam who is still alive and well inside us. It will say whatever it can to keep us from
listening to God. And as soon as we
start listening to the Old Adam, we stop listening to our Father. As soon as were start listening to the human
remedies for sin that our Old Adam whispers into our ears, we stop listening to
God’s remedy for sin. What is that
remedy? He says that he loved the world
so much that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him will
not die, but will have eternal life. He
says, “Repent
and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness
of your sins… [This] promise is for you and your children and for all who are
far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”
Brothers and Sisters, this means you. Rejoice that God has called you by his
gospel and come to you through his Son to break down the barrier of sin that
was between himself and us. He remedied
our sin-filled situation; he restored the loving relationship that he intended
for us before the creation of the world.
Paul writes: This is “the mystery that has been kept
hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints.
To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious
riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Fellow believers, you are those saints to
whom God revealed the mystery of Christ.
Do not despair when the Old Adam accuses you being unworthy of God’s
love. Do not despair when you cannot
obtain the high standards it demands from you.
Jesus death isn’t just for those who are able to follow innumerable laws
and rituals. He death isn’t just for
those who have the intellectual capacity to comprehend the dark secrets of God.
When Jesus died, he died for the sins of the whole world. He reveals this mystery of his love to all
who believe. He even explains it to
infants in baptism.
What now should we do with this message? Should we selectively tell it only to those we deem worthy of
it? Or should we bury it for safe
keeping like the servant in the Parable of the Talents did with the talent his
master gave him? By all means, NO! You remember what that master told his
servant when he found out. He said,
“You wicked, lazy servant!”
Listen to what Paul does with this message. He says, “We proclaim [Christ], admonishing [everyone] and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ.” Keep in mind Paul is writing this letter from prison. If he can do this in chains, how much more so can we do it as free citizens! Counsel others, warn and encourage them. Rebuke those who sin because you love them and dare not see them falter. Share the Word warmly and caringly with concern for every soul. Hold Christ before all and in all, in order to fill the hearts and lives of others with Christ.
Do this, not because you think that by doing
it you will compel your Father in heaven to give you some great reward. No, do it because the reward is already
yours. Paul says when speaking about
ministering to others, “To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy,
which so powerfully works in me.”
Christ’s energy is at work in you also, dear members of Christ’s
body. He
gives it to all who believe. His power
changes us from retched sinners into glorious saints, enables us to endure in
this world of sin, and empowers us to spread his good news to all the
nations.
Now when Jesus
told us in the great commission to take his message to the nations, he knew
that each and every one of us couldn’t go gallivanting around the world
searching for lost peoples. You and I
have families and jobs here in SD and we can’t just pack up and leave. By “nations”, Jesus also means our friends
and neighbors right next door. Perhaps
you have heard that Watertown Wisconsin is practically the center of the
WELS. We have a large high school
there. We have multiple churches. I attended a service at St. John’s in
Watertown and directly across the street was St. Peters—another WELS church! If you ever visit Watertown you will see
that it isn’t just the center of the WELS.
There are also many other church bodies there. I spoke with a pastor from Watertown and he told me this
story. He said, “No matter where you
stand in Watertown, you can see the backside of some church. No matter which sidewalk you walk down, you
will cross the path of some pastor on his morning walk. Recently,” he said, “we were doing some door
to door work in Watertown and we met a man who was in his thirties, born and
raised in Watertown. Yet after speaking
with him for a bit, he asked a very simple question. He said, ‘So you mean to tell me that Christ has something
to do with Christmas?’” Yes,
even in a town reputedly to be the center of the WELS there can be found people
who have yet to hear the glorious message of God’s love for them.
There is a passage which says, “We love because he first loved us.” Out of love, we want to take this message to all people—because it is for all people. As reconciled believers, we like Paul struggle to present everyone perfect in Christ. This is our calling as stewards of the message of Christ crucified. Amen.