In Ephesians 3, 4, Paul says, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ. What is the mystery? That the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, partakers of His promise by the gospel.
The mystery is that Jew and Gentile are made fellow heirs to receive and possess God within them. That's our message. This is the subject of the ministry. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.
I'm your host, Phil Johnson. Charles Spurgeon said, There is no joy in this world like union with Christ. The more we can feel it, the happier we are. Now what Spurgeon said is certainly true, but many Christians may hear that and think, What is union with Christ?
What is this blessing that can make my life happier and happier? John MacArthur helps answer that today as he continues his series called, Complete in Christ. And now with today's lesson, here's John MacArthur. We're going to look at Colossians chapter 1, verse 24 to 29 is really what we're studying at this particular point, and I think if there's any one thing that continually comes through to me in the ministry that God has called me to or in the ministry that God has called any of us to, it is that there is never any effective presentation of divine truth without a struggle.
Never. You're constantly dealing with objects that want to make it difficult. If it isn't the fact that people are deaf and they cannot hear and you have to train people and work until you are able to communicate in that way, it is that you're dealing with false doctrine, that you're dealing with heresy, that you're dealing with sinfulness, or maybe it's that you're on the mission field and you're dealing with a language barrier or you're struggling against your own ignorance, but always it seems, always it seems to present God's truth there is going to be a struggle. The adversary always makes it difficult and it is no less true as we look at the book of Colossians that Paul is in a struggle here. Even as he writes this letter to the Christians in the city of Colossae, he is writing from prison. The struggle in his own life has brought him to the place where he has been put in prison in Rome because of his message, because of his preaching, because of his proclamation of the truth of Jesus Christ. In addition to that, while he was a prisoner in Rome, a dear man of God by the name of Epaphras visits him. Epaphras is undoubtedly the founding pastor of the church in Colossae and Epaphras tells him, Paul, something tragic is occurring in our city. Our people are being exposed to terrible false truth. There are teachers that have come to Colossae and they are saying that Jesus is not God and they are saying that Jesus Christ cannot save a man, that Jesus Christ is unable to bring a man to God.
He is neither God nor the Savior. And they are teaching legalism, a ritual. They are teaching mysticism.
They are teaching asceticism. They're teaching all kinds of strange things including the worship of angels and all of this heresy, Epaphras tells Paul, is attacking the church, the young church in Colossae and so Paul sits down in response to Epaphras, writes this letter and puts it back in the hand of Epaphras and says, take it to your people. It is the Word of God to them. And so in the book of Colossians, Paul is clearing out heresy, heresy regarding the person of Jesus Christ and his total power to save. And that becomes the great heart of this letter and that becomes the major theme in the first two chapters and in the last two chapters, the behavior of the believers that should come in response to an understanding of who Christ is and what He has accomplished in salvation. Now it is important that the Apostle Paul, in sending this letter along, give the Colossian Christians some reason to believe Him.
It's one thing to say something, it's something else to have people accept what you say as the truth. And Paul in writing to the Colossians wanted them to believe and to hear and obey what he said. But since he was not the founding pastor of the church in Colossae as he had been in many other churches and they perhaps did not know him that well, maybe some of them did not know him at all, it was important that somewhere in this letter he state his right to speak and be heard and be believed and be obeyed. And that he does in 1 24 to 29. Now in these particular verses, Paul is saying, because of who I am and what God has called me to do, I speak the way I speak with the anticipation that you shall hear and obey me.
Especially important. He says if you want to know why I'm writing the way I'm writing, if you want to know that God has called me and how He has called me and what He has called me to do, if you want to know the gamut of my ministry and why I am dealing with you as I am, here it is. Paul gives us eight features of the ministry.
Now let's begin by reviewing the first four rather rapidly. Number one, I gave you the source of the ministry. The source of the ministry. Notice verse 23 right at the end. I, Paul, am made a minister.
So the source is outside the man. I didn't make myself a minister, I was made a minister. Verse 25, of which I am made a minister according to the responsibility, as it were, given to me by God.
God made me a minister. The source of any ministry, beloved, is God. It is God who calls us. It is God who grants us His Spirit. It is God who directs us into the ministry He wants for us. It is God who, by His Spirit, gives us the gifts of the Spirit in order that we might minister them. It is God who equips us physiologically. It is God who gives us capacities and abilities, humanly speaking, to function in areas that He designs for us. It is God who calls us to a ministry.
Therefore, any ministry that I have, any gifts that I have, any abilities that I have are a stewardship committed to me by God to be returned to Him in faithfulness. Secondly, Paul not only talks about the source of the ministry, but he talks about the Spirit of the ministry. Verse 24, the Spirit of the ministry who now rejoice. The Spirit of the ministry is joy.
This was always Paul's attitude. Paul always had the attitude of joy and I told you why. Joy is a product of humility. Now remember that. Joy is a product of humility.
If I really believe that I don't deserve anything, anything I get makes me happy. And Paul says, hey, I was a blasphemer. I was a Christian killer. I was this. I was that. I was the chief of sinners. I was all of these things, but God counted me faithful. He put me in the ministry. He blessed me.
He gave me this and this and this and everything I've got is undeserved. What else could I be but happy? What else could I be but joyous?
What else could I be but thankful? You know something? I think in studying the Scripture, you will find that whenever God calls His greatest servants, whenever God picked out His choice people, He always made them face their total unworthiness so that anything they had, they would realize as a cause for joy because it was a gift of God's grace. For example, Moses at the burning bush could only see his imperfections.
Remember that? He says, hey, what am I going to do? He couldn't talk. And God says to him, look, you're right, but I made your mouth and I'm going to make it work. And I know that every time Moses got up and gave a speech, he knew the source of it. Whenever God called His choice servants, He always made them face the reality of their unworthiness and their uselessness apart from Him. Take for example, well God said to Moses, go and I'll be with you and teach you what you shall say.
Take for example, Gideon in Judges chapter 6. Gideon at the threshing floor, he says, oh my Lord. He says, wherewithal or how will I save Israel?
You calling me to save Israel? Gideon says, behold, my family is poor in Manasseh. In other words, I can't even finance an army.
How am I going to pull it off? And I am the least in my father's house. I'm the lowest guy in the house and we're all as poor as the church mouse.
How are we going to finance the deal and how am I going to get enough credibility to lead it? And God said, good, you're just where I want you. You know you're useless. And so what does God say to him?
I like it. He says, go in this thy might. Your might is in your humility. Remember what? God got him an army.
You know what? 300 people. Say, how could an army of 300 people knock off anybody? They didn't even have to fight.
They just got in a big circle, blew horns, broke pitchers and they killed each other, the other army. Isaiah, Isaiah went to the temple in Isaiah chapter 6 and he saw the glory of God and he said, I am a man of what? Unclean lips. And I dwell amidst the people of unclean lips. And an angel came off the fire and took a coal and touched his tongue, a symbol of purification. And all of a sudden he heard the voice of God and he said what? Here am I, Lord.
Send me. You see, God wanted to show him that he was nothing. And God wants everybody that he ever calls into any ministry to make that initial recognition that he's useless apart from what God wants to do. Peter on the shore of Galilee. God had a lot of plans for Peter. And he on the shore of Galilee saw the glory of the Lord and the miracle of the fish. And when he saw Jesus display this divine, creative power, he says, depart from me for I am a what? Sinful man, oh Lord. Go away, Lord. I don't even deserve to be in your presence. And Jesus looked at him and said, that's good, Peter.
From now on you will catch men. You're just the kind of person I can use. You see, in all of God's choice servants, God has to bring them to a sense of unworthiness, a sense of sinfulness, a sense of inadequacy, and a sense of undeservedness because that's at the very heart of joy. And then everything that happens is a cause for rejoicing. And Paul, like the rest, didn't deserve anything, but everything he got from God gave him cause for joy. And I'll tell you, in the ministry, as long as you maintain a humility, you can maintain a joy.
But as soon as you get to thinking you're not getting what you deserve, you're a better guy than what you're getting, you're in a lot of trouble. Then you get bitter, then you get into complaining, and you've lost the joy of the ministry. I meet people who've lost the joy of the ministry.
I do. Christians who are tired of serving the Lord, you know why? Because they think they should have better than they've got. And the truth of the matter is that we all deserve nothing. Third thing we studied last time, the suffering of the ministry, not only the source of it and the spirit of it, joy, but the suffering of it. He says in verse 24, I rejoice in my suffering for you, and I fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the church. And he says, look, the suffering of the ministry, it's this, I'm going to have to suffer because the world isn't through persecuting Christ. Since the world can't get to Christ because he isn't around, they're going to persecute me, but that's all right because if I suffer getting the gospel to you, that's good. I'm willing to suffer, Paul says, I'm willing to die for the work of the Lord.
That's what he wants. The fourth thing, just reviewing, the fourth thing that Paul looked at in his ministry was the scope of the ministry. Verse 25, what is the scope at the end of verse 25? To fulfill what?
What? The Word of God. What is the scope of the ministry? It's just to do what God has called you to do, to maximize your effort, to fulfill the Word of God. God has spoken to me, Paul says, and God has told me what to do, and it is my responsibility to do it, to fulfill the Word of God.
What does that mean? It means to fulfill the Word of God to me in my call. It means to preach the Word of the gospel. It means to teach the whole counsel of God. It means to fulfill it all, to do what God wants me to do by proclaiming his truth. That's to fulfill the Word of God.
Paul says, the scope of my ministry is simple. I'm just going to do what God tells me to do. I'm just going to obey him. I'm going to proclaim his Word to the unsaved. I'm going to teach his Word to the believers only in the way that he wants me and only in the place that he wants me to do it. And Paul knew what his calling was because God had said to him, you shall go to the Gentiles and be my apostle to the Gentiles. And God designed where he was to go, and he went there, and he obeyed God. And when he died, he said, I can tell you right now, I fulfilled my ministry.
I finished my course. The great desire of the man of God, the great desire of the servant of God, the great desire of anybody in any ministry is to fulfill God's will by proclaiming God's Word in the place of God's call. And Paul wouldn't let anything stop him.
Absolutely nothing would stop the apostle Paul from doing what he knew God wanted him to do. That's the scope of the ministry. Fulfill it. Don't do a half-baked job. Don't do a three-quarter job.
Don't slough it off. Do the whole job in the place that God has called you to do it. And that takes tremendous commitment to do it.
That brings us to the next four. We've seen the source of the ministry is God. The spirit of the ministry is joy. Suffering of the ministry is on the behalf of Christ for the sake of the church.
The scope of the ministry is to fulfill the whole Word of God. Fifth, the subject of the ministry. Now, what is it that we are saying? What is it that we are proclaiming?
What is the subject? What is the message of the ministry? Verse 26, even the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations but now is made manifest to his saints. What is the subject of the ministry? The mystery which has been hidden from ages and generations.
And incidentally, ages means times and generations means people. So, it's been hidden from times and people but is now given in manifestation to the saints. What is the message? The mystery. We are to teach people the mystery.
So, you know, wait a minute. What is this mystery thing all about? All right, let me give you a little quick theology of the term mystery.
This is very interesting. First of all, God has always kept some secrets. Did you know God has always had some things that only He knows? And you never know them.
No one ever knows them but God. Deuteronomy 29, 29, it's a great verse. Don't ever forget it. It's the one I always use when I can't answer a question. Deuteronomy 29, 29, the secret things belong to the Lord.
It's a handy one. Oh, the secret things belong to the Lord. So, God has some secrets that He never tells anybody and that's where our intelligence ends and God begins. Secondly, God has some secrets that He reveals to special people all through history. Not everybody knows them, just special people.
You say, who are they? Psalm 25, 14, the secret of the Lord is with them that hear Him. Proverbs 3, 32, His secret is with the righteous.
Listen, there are some things that only God knows. There are some things He reveals only to special people. Who are the special people? They are the righteous. They are the ones who believe in God. They are the ones who commit themselves to Him. They are the ones in whom the Holy Spirit dwells in this age. They are the children of God. Now thirdly, there are some secrets which God hid from everybody in the past and He reveals to all the saints in the New Testament.
Those are the mysteries. So if you see the word mystery in the Bible, what is it? It's something that was never revealed in the Old Testament to anybody but is now revealed in the New Testament to everybody.
Everybody who is a Christian, everybody who is a saint. Look at verse 26 now with that in mind. Even the mystery that is the things hidden from the Old Testament saints which have been hidden from times and generations but now are made manifest to His saints. What is it then John?
What is it? The mystery is the New Testament. The revelation of Christ incarnate.
The story of God becoming man, of God in human flesh. That's the mystery. Sacred secret. And that mystery is approached many ways. There are other mysteries in the New Testament. The mystery of iniquity, did you read about that? The mystery of the rapture. The mystery Babylon in Revelation 17, some form of evil that had never been revealed earlier. The mystery of the church, the church is not seen in the Old Testament. The mystery of the bride in Ephesians chapter 5, the Old Testament never saw a new group as the new bride of the Messiah any other than the nation Israel.
The mystery of Israel's unbelief, the Old Testament never saw a time when Israel totally abandoned God. The mysteries of the New Testament, that's what Paul is saying. What then is the subject of our ministry? It is the fullness of New Testament revelation. You say, aren't we to teach the Old Testament? Of course we are.
That goes without saying. But the fullness of our message is all of the mysteries of the New Testament that make the Old Testament meaningful. So he doesn't use the word mystery in the sense of some secret teaching or some rite or ceremony hidden from the masses and revealed to exclusive elite people, not some kind of thing like the Babylonian mystery religions, not a mystical thing. The mystery is simply something in the past that was hidden that is revealed in the New Testament. Now notice verse 27, to whom God would make known, this is to the saints, to whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is, and here's the mystery, Christ in you, the hope of glory.
There are many different things that are called a mystery in the New Testament, but the major one, the major one that Paul points out here is Christ in you. In the Old Testament, the Jews knew Messiah was coming. They were told that. What they never really fully knew was that the Messiah would not only come, but that he would live in the very bodies of his people. What they didn't know was that your body and my body would become the temple of the living God. They didn't know that.
That was a mystery. And listen, here's the fantastic thing that the Jews never saw in the Old Testament, the riches of the glory of this mystery among the what? Gentiles.
That's us, folks. They may have understood the Messiah related to Israel. They never understood the relationship of an indwelling Messiah to the Gentiles. This is the church. This is Christ dwelling in us in His church.
We are rich because as Gentiles, because as the church, Christ is in us. And this is the message. This is the subject of the ministry to tell people, hey, did you know that the living God wants to come and dwell in your life? What a fantastic reality.
What a thrilling concept. In Ephesians 3, 4, Paul says, you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ, which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men as it is now revealed unto His holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. What is the mystery? That the Gentiles should be fellow heirs and of the same body, partakers of His promise by the gospel.
The mystery is that Jew and Gentile are made fellow heirs to receive and possess God within them. That's our message. This is the subject of the ministry. I mean, we're not running around the world announcing, now all of you people please try to do better. You know, like my old coach used to say, ship up or shape out. We're not ship up or shape out. We're not saying that. That's right.
That's the way you always said it backwards. We're not saying that. We're not forcing on somebody some imposed ritual or some self-styled alteration of life.
We're not saying, please, could you make your New Year's resolutions every month? We're not saying that. That's not the message. What we're saying is God wants to come and live in you. That's what we're saying, how rich we are, how rich we have become. This becomes a theme in Paul's heart as he talks again and again and again about riches. In Ephesians 1 18, the eyes of your understanding should be enlightened that you may know what is the hope of His calling and the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints. Riches.
In chapter 3 of Ephesians, verse 16, that He would grant you according to the riches of His glory to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man. We are rich. We are rich because Christ is in us. And that's rich. That's rich beyond imagination. Because if you look at Colossians 2 3, it says, in whom, and that refers to Christ in verse 2, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
Listen to me. In Christ is all wisdom and all knowledge. And Christ lives where?
In me. What a resource. What a resource.
What a resource. In Romans, just a thought, verse 23 of chapter 9, is it? And that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He's prepared unto glory. God, by His mercy, made us rich now and forever.
We are rich. Romans 11 33, He says it again. Oh, the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God. He is so rich in knowledge, so rich in wisdom, so rich in mercy, so rich in grace, so rich in love, so rich in everything, and He deposited it all in us.
It's an incredible reality. Christ in you, the hope of glory. That's the incredible truth John MacArthur looked at today on Grace to You, as he continues his series titled, Complete in Christ. You know, John, this portion of Colossians 1 that we're looking at, you've described this as a very personal passage, because you've described this as a very personal passage. You've described this as a very personal passage, because Paul uses a lot of first-person pronouns like I and we, and what he's telling the church at Colossae. And of course, we know Paul was all about putting the spotlight on Christ. He had a humble view of himself.
He didn't like to talk about himself. So what should we take away from the personal nature of this book of Colossians? Yeah, and I think that's a really wonderful insight.
I think that's a really wonderful insight. I think Christ was very personal to Paul, and not just in the encounter on the Damascus Road or subsequent encounters when he saw the risen Christ. But I think he said this, he said, for me to live is Christ. Yeah, it's not I, but Christ in me. Right, it's Christ in me. So I think this is the personal reality that distinguishes Christianity from every other religion in the world. It's the imminence of Christian truth.
Religions tend to postulate gods who are far off and transcendent and distant, and somehow we have to do whatever we have to do to appease that god. The truth is, God for a believer is not far away. He's living in that believer's heart.
This is intimacy at its most extreme level. It's not as though Jesus even put it this way. He said, I have been with you. We're speaking of the Spirit of God, and it's been good that I've been with you, but when I go away, I'm going to send the Holy Spirit, and he's going to be with you. And Paul says to the Romans that every believer has the Spirit in him.
We've all been made to drink of the same Spirit. So this is a stunning reality in terms of just looking at religion in general, that the living and true God abides in the heart of everyone who believes in him. Paul understood that, and that's what dominated his life, Christ living in him. And I think for all of us, you might say, well, yeah, but he was an apostle, right? He was an apostle, so that was unique to him. No, the I's and the we's in Colossians demonstrate the fact that he's saying what I've experienced as an apostle is what you all experience, because it's the same Christ who's taken up residence in your heart. That is the amazing wonder of true religion, that God lives in the hearts of his people.
Yes, that's right, Jon, and thank you. Friend, if you want to dig deeper into the amazing truth about the incomparable riches of salvation in Christ, or any other truth in God's Word, I would encourage you to pick up the MacArthur Study Bible. Its 25,000 footnotes will explain virtually every verse in Scripture. To order a copy, contact us today. Call 800-55-GRACE or go to gty.org. Along with the footnotes, the Study Bible also has introductions to all 66 books with outlines, maps, charts, and more that take you deep into God's Word and help you understand and apply it better than ever.
The MacArthur Study Bible comes in the New American Standard, English Standard, and New King James versions, and in many non-English translations as well. To order your copy, call our toll-free number, 800-55-GRACE, or go to our website, gty.org. And when you visit gty.org, take advantage of the thousands of free Bible study tools that includes Grace2U's blog, and past episodes of this broadcast, and episodes of Grace2U television, along with multiple devotionals from John MacArthur, and much more. To see all that we have to offer, go to gty.org. Now for John MacArthur and the entire Grace2U staff, I'm Phil Johnson reminding you to watch Grace2U television this Sunday, and you can check your local listings for channel and times. Then be here tomorrow when John looks at how to be a bold witness for Christ. It's another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace2U.
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