The Mystery of Christ in You
Sermon Transcript
0:00:14.0
How many of you love a good mystery? I’m talking about those of you who love mystery novels and you love those kinds of television programs that are dramas that are full of suspense and kind of “whodunit” kinds of things. We all love mysteries at some level. We love the mysteries that are pure fiction, and we love real life kinds of mysteries. Where is Jimmy Hoffa? And what happened to Amelia Earhart? And what about Big Foot? Is he real or not? And what’s up with the Bermuda Triangle? I mean, these are all the kinds of mysteries that we smile about, but we’re intrigued by them, especially when somebody comes up with a new understanding or way to solve those mysteries. I saw a headline this week. It intrigued me. There are 750,000 people that have signed up on this Facebook page titled “Let’s storm Area 51,” because they want to know if the aliens are there—750,000 people who are ready to just storm the gates.
0:01:26.6
We all love mysteries. We all love intrigue. And for that reason, we should love the Bible. Because the God of the Bible is the God of mysteries. He’s a God of secrets. Deuteronomy 29:29 says, “The secret things belong to the Lord, but those that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever.” The God of the Bible is a God of secrets. He is a God of mysteries. And He and He alone chooses if and when to reveal His secrets, if and when to reveal His mysteries.
0:02:07.4
I wrote a book a couple years ago called “Mysteries of the Afterlife.” It’s probably the greatest mystery, and for some an unsolved mystery about what happens beyond the grave. And there is a lot of crazy stuff out there, quite honestly. Bad theology and just all kinds of stuff. And so I dove into the pages of scripture and asked the question, what has God revealed to us about the afterlife?
0:02:34.6
By the way, the phrase “God words in mysterious ways,” do you remember the chapter and verse on that one? You don’t remember because it doesn’t exist. It’s kind of like “cleanliness is next to godliness,” that verse, it’s not in the Bible. But the idea of God working in mysterious ways, although that exact phraseology is not in the Bible. You won’t find the chapter and verse, but the idea is there because He’s a God of mysteries and secrets. And when He chooses to reveal a mystery, that’s a fun time.
0:03:14.6
By the way, a mystery in the Bible is something that was hidden in the past but is no longer hidden. It’s something that was once concealed, but is now revealed. And in the text of scripture I just read from Colossians 1:24 all the way through chapter 2 and verse 7, Paul gets at this a little bit when he says in verse 26, the “mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints.” A mystery is on Paul’s mind as he’s writing to the Colossians. And this particular mystery is known as the mystery of Christ in you. And the “you” that Paul is talking about here, let’s keep in mind he’s writing to believers in Jesus Christ.
0:04:03.0
Let me just pause and say something to those of you who may still be investigating this thing called Christianity. You wouldn’t call yourself a believer in Jesus. You’re still trying to figure this out. Well, what we’re going to talk about today will still be a mystery to you. We’re going to talk about the mystery and how to solve that mystery and, even more importantly, how to live it out and apply that mystery. But maybe the journey you need to travel this morning is not into the depths of a mystery that God has revealed about Christ in you, the hope of glory. Maybe the journey you need to travel is just to come to the cross of Christ as a sinner who needs a Savior. Maybe that’s all the mystery you can handle this morning. That’s okay.
0:04:51.2
But we’re going to go beyond that, because Paul talks about the “mystery of Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Did you see in verse 27? “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.” I love the way the Phillips Paraphrase renders this. “The secret is simply this: Christ in you! Yes, Christ in you bringing with him the hope of all glorious things to come.” We’re going to spend some time kind of circling around the Milky Way this morning, stretching our theological minds and thoughts, solving a theological mystery that was once concealed but is now revealed in the pages of the New Testament.
0:05:47.0
By the way, the word “mystery” appears 39 times in the Bible and predominantly in the writings of the apostle Paul as he writes to Ephesians and here to the Colossians. It doesn’t take him long to land upon this idea of a mystery. In part, if you understand the background of the book of Colossians, Paul is writing to correct the false theology that certain teachers have taught as they have crept into the church at Colossae.
0:06:15.3
The other place you’ll find mysteries—not just in mystery novels and mystery dates and mystery dramas and intriguing dramas—is in mystery teachings. We often call them the cults. The secret teachings. Beware of any teaching that elevates people to a level of spiritual elite-ness. And only the elite can understand the secret things in the order here. That’s what was happening at Colossae. Paul referred to their plausible arguments. He says be careful of their plausible arguments. A plausible argument is an argument that sounds true, sounds reasonable, but is full of deception. And the cults…even something we would call today the New Age movement is one of those plausible arguments. You know why it sounds so reasonable and so acceptable is because New Age philosophy and New Age theology borrows the language of Orthodox Christianity, but they use a different dictionary. And they take the Orthodox truths of the faith, and they twist them. They make them sound plausible, but they’re twisting the definition. By the way, the high priestess of the New Age movement today is a lady named Oprah Winfrey. And she uses her media empire to parade across the platform the top New Age gurus of the day- many of them, like Oprah, who grew up in the church but at some point rejected the Orthodox truths of the faith—that faith that was once delivered to the saints 2000 years ago—and walked away from it. And they listen to those people who are taking the language of Christianity and redefining it into something else. Beware of those plausible arguments, Paul says. But let’s explore this mystery of Christ in you and in me.
0:08:23.0
Like any good mystery, a mystery needs to be solved. That’s part of the fun, isn’t it? Solving the mystery, putting together the puzzle pieces. So let’s take Colossians 1:27 where this mystery is mentioned. Also want you to look at Colossians 2:2-3. Paul says, “God's mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. “ He kind of tweaks the idea of the mystery here from “Christ in you” to just Christ. And he defines all of that for us.
0:08:58.0
Let me just take a little bit of time to solve the mystery here. What does Paul mean by “the mystery of Christ in you, the hope of glory,” and then later, “in whom are hidden all the treasure of wisdom and knowledge. Four or five things I want you to write down. Number one, it has something to do with the permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit. He says here is a mystery, something that was concealed in the past, hidden by God in the past, but is now revealed by Him.
0:09:29.5
“Christ in you.” Think about that. It’s one thing to be with somebody. And when Jesus Christ came from heaven to earth and was with the disciples, there was a certain level of relationship there and a certain level of intimacy in their conversation and all that. But there came a time on the night before He was crucified in the upper room where Jesus talked about the fact that He was leaving. And He was leaving in order to send the Holy Spirit, who would come and “be in you.” See, the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament was not in people, did not indwell people permanently. He came and He went. He fell upon certain individuals in the Old Testament for certain tasks and responsibilities, but then departed. Nobody in the Old Testament received the permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
0:10:26.6
It wasn’t until Christ came and, really, until He ascended back to the Father and the Holy Spirit came. He came as the down payment and the deposit, the earnest money deposit on our salvation. Do you have the Holy Spirit if you're believer in Jesus Christ? Well, you better have the Holy Spirit. That’s the down payment on your salvation. It’s not somebody or something you get later in your experience with God. That’s the first thing you get. That’s Romans 8 and Ephesians 1. But this mystery that we didn’t completely understand in the Old Testament is that God wanted to live in you. He wasn’t satisfied with the relationship of just being with you and that level of intimacy. No, He came to live in us and to permanently indwell us in the person of the Holy Spirit.
0:11:16.7
Secondly, it has to do with the fulfillment of God’s promise to restore all things. It’s “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Now, hope in the Bible is not wishful thinking. It’s the confident expectation that God will do what He says He will do. And part of what He says He will do is to restore all things—to restore us to the full luster of the image of God in us, to restore the order in creation—all of which was disrupted at the fall, all of which was disrupted by sin. And He has promised in Christ to restore all of that.
0:12:00.4
Thirdly, it has to do with the future resurrection to eternal life. That’s part of the promise of God. By the way, again, one of the great mysteries of life is what happens after death. I’ve stood by the grave of countless people, believers and unbelievers alike, who have gone into the grave. It’s always a sobering moment. For the believer, we grieve not as those who have no hope, but it is a moment where you cling to the promises of God about a future resurrection. The Bible teaches that everybody who dies will face a resurrection in the future, some to eternal life. Some will rise to stand before the God of this universe and the judge of this universe on the Day of Judgment and will rise to eternal death. But everybody who goes into the grave is told that.
0:13:02.6
Romans 8:11 says, “If the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.” That’s a lot of theology. That’s the theology of the resurrection. There’s a future resurrection to life for the believer in Jesus Christ that is part of the mystery of Christ in you.
0:13:28.2
Number four has to do with our future heavenly inheritance. “Christ in you”—listen to this—“the hope of glory.” Makes us think that this hope and this mystery has something to do with heaven, with our future glory in Christ. The inheritance that is ours in Christ. The Bible teaches that we are not only sons—and, yes, daughters of God—but sons of God in Jesus Christ, but we are also joint heirs. We get a part of His inheritance. Somebody ought to get excited. I don’t know what kind of inheritance you’re leaving for your children and your grandchildren. I don’t know what kind of inheritance was left for you, but it pales in comparison in the inheritance that is ours, awaiting for us in glory.
0:14:23.8
You see, the Holy Spirit was the down payment on your salvation. There’s much more to come. Peter says it this way in 1 Peter 1:3-4. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” Then he goes on to say, “To an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.” There’s an inheritance waiting for us. It’s part of the mystery of Christ in you.
0:15:00.1
And then, finally, the wisdom of Christ. This takes us to chapter 2 verses 2-3. “God's mystery, which is Christ, 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” Paul is taking a direct shot at those so-called self-appointed spiritual elitists who had crept into the church at Colossae. These people who said, “It’s just the elite people who achieve this status of spiritual wisdom and knowledge.” Paul says no, the mystery of Christ in you is that you’ve got all the wisdom inside of you that you need because Christ is living inside of you. Wisdom is the ability to skillfully apply the truth and the knowledge that you have from scripture. All of that, the mystery of Christ in you solved.
0:15:54.2
Now, if we just left it there it would sound like a high and mighty, sort of ivory tower theological discussion. But I love how Paul through this text, weaves the theology and the orthodoxy into practice and living it out. So we’ve got to take this mystery of Christ in you from solving the mystery and defining the mystery to applying the mystery. And as I read the text I find four ways that the apostle Paul applies the mystery of Christ in you and in me and how he lives it out himself. How the mystery of Christ in you impacts your daily life.
0:16:32.4
Four ways. First, it impacts the way you suffer. Yeah, the way you suffer. Go back to verse 24. And Paul begins this entire part of his letter to the Colossians by saying this. “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.” Keep in mind, this is one of four prison epistles that Paul wrote while he was in his first imprisonment, a house arrest in Rome. And he says some words that got to make you scratch your head a little bit. He says, “I rejoice in my sufferings.” First of all, anybody suffering here today? Maybe you are, but come on. Generally speaking, in Western Christianity we live a pretty comfy life relative to the rest of the world and relative to our brothers and sisters in Christ around the world. Do a little research into what is called the persecuted church, how some people of faith in Jesus Christ are really, really suffering.
0:17:51.7
But even if you are one of those under the sound of my voice today…and this message goes around the world through a radio broadcast, so we get people from time to time from other parts of the world in places where the persecuted church is real. Paul says, “I rejoice. I’m joyful in my sufferings.” What’s he smoking? Are you kidding me? What kind of drowsy medication is he taking today? How can you rejoice in times of suffering? He goes on to say something that really conflicts with our understandings maybe a little bit and has really made Bible scholars throughout the ages spin around this. He says, “I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I’m filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.” What does that mean? I thought the cross of Jesus Christ—His death upon the cross and His burial—was 100% sufficient to pay the penalty for my sins. What’s lacking in the afflictions of Christ (0:19:00.0) that needs to be filled up?
0:19:02.3
Well, we could download tons and tons of scholarly debate on this. I’m not going to bore you with all of that. But suffice it to say, what Paul is not saying is that his sufferings in the flesh in some way contributed to the sufferings of Christ redemptively. Meaning that the cross of Christ wasn’t enough to pay the penalty of our sin, and so now somehow through penance or some other suffering, “I need to add to that.” That’s not what he’s talking about at all. We know better than that from the balance of the rest of scripture. But he is talking, I believe, about what Christ was saying and predicting and prophesying about His church and His people, about how this thing called the Christian life is fraught with suffering. Don’t think it’s strange, Peter says, when the fiery trial comes upon you. (0:20:00.0) Don’t think it’s strange that brothers and sisters in Christ are being persecuted, literally losing their heads and their lives naming the name of Jesus Christ. Jesus would teach us that, “The more you love Me and the more you are conformed into My image, the more this world will hate you.”
0:20:26.5
And Paul, perhaps, is reminiscent of something he heard on the road to Damascus. Remember Ananias, who was the first one instructed to meet this Saul of Tarsus, this terrorist from Tarsus? And Ananias had a message from the Lord for Paul. And that message was the Lord saying to him, “For I will show you, Paul, how much you must suffer for the sake of My name.”
0:20:59.1
We’re talking about the mystery of Christ applied. The mystery of Christ being lived out. It’s got to change the way you suffer. It’s got to change the way you think about suffering. We’ve gotten soft as Christian. You know, somebody says a nasty word to us, “Oh….,” you know. It’s nothing like the church has suffered throughout church history.
0:21:22.7
Not to contribute to the sufferings of Christ redemptively, but I think to do two things. One is to advance the gospel. Paul always tied his sufferings to the advancement of the gospel and the building up of the church. But also in the way that we identify with Christ. You know, Jesus said, “If you want to be one of My disciples, deny yourself, take up your cross daily and follow Me.” There is suffering in that. Nobody is signing up for it. Nobody is saying, “Oh, I want to be the first to suffer.” That’d be a little bit weird. But when it does come, we need to have a biblical perspective on this. This is Christ in you, the hope of glory being fleshed out in everyday life in a way that advanced the gospel. God may choose to bring suffering to your life or to my life for the purpose of reaching other people for Christ. And we have to leave room for that in our theology because we are possessors of the mystery of Christ in us, the hope of glory. Praise God for that.
0:22:31.2
I’m reminded of what Paul wrote to the Corinthians in the ways he suffered. 2 Corinthians 11:23-29. Just write down that passage. Go back and read this sometime this week. He said, “Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one.” Five times. “Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.” Anybody willing to sign up for that as a follower of Jesus? Come on now. “And, apart from other things,” Paul says, “there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant?” Paul lived this mystery of Christ and hope of glory in him through his flesh and through his sufferings.
0:23:47.7
One more thought here. I’m reminded of his writing to the Philippians. And Paul says to the Philippians…this is another one of his prison epistles, all right. He writes from prison this joy-filled letter to the Philippians. And in chapter 3 and verse 10 he says, “I want to know Christ.” How many of you want to know Him? Come on. How many of you want to know Christ? And he goes onto say, “I want to know him in the power of his resurrection.” How many of you want to know Him in the power of His resurrection? You want more Holy Spirit power flowing through your life. Great. And then he adds this, “And in the fellowship of his sufferings.” Are you kidding me?
0:24:36.0
Makes me think of two military people who come back from war, and they have a foxhole experience. There is a bond between the two of them because they were in that foxhole together and fought that war together. It’s an unshakeable bond. And when you and I suffer like Christ did…maybe not a physical suffering upon a cross, but maybe mistreated, despised and rejected by the world. That’s when Jesus says, “Come on in a little bit closer. We’ve got something in common now. You now know what it feels like.” And Paul had this deep, deep desire to know Christ. Not just on the surface, but to know Him deeply, to know Him intimately. Yes, in the power of His resurrection, but he was willing to go there for the sake of Christ that brought suffering to his life. The kind of mistreatment that he wrote to the 2nd letter to the Corinthians and to say, “You know what? None of this really matters because what I get is a more intimate, personal, deeper, foxhole kind of relationship with Jesus.
0:26:02.8
If I had time this morning I could tell you about some times I’ve been mistreated as a pastor, despised and rejected. Not so much by the world, but by some of God’s own people. And when I went through those times, they were just times of intimacy with Jesus because I could go to Him with my aching heart. And He says to me in the quietness of the moment, “I know exactly how you’re feeling.”
0:26:30.6
This mystery of Christ in you should change the way you suffer. Secondly, the way you serve. Paul says in verse 24, “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.” Quickly here, he’s talking about the ministry that God had entrusted to him. He uses the word—one of my favorite words—“stewardship.” He says, “The stewardship from God that was given to me for you.” And he says this is “to make the word of God fully known.” That was the ministry that God had entrusted to Paul, and he received it as a stewardship, in contrast to the word “ownership.”
0:27:16.0
One of the most difficult transitions for a believer in Jesus Christ to make is from an ownership worldview to a stewardship worldview. From a worldview that says, “What’s mine is mine, and I’m going to keep it. Get your dirty paws off of my stuff.” From a worldview that says, “I make all I can, I can all I get, and I sit on the lid.” To a stewardship worldview that says, “What’s mine is God’s, and I’m going to share it, starting with my very life.” To a stewardship worldview that says, “I make all I can, I save all I can, but I give all I can,” in the words of John Wesley. Because at the end of the day I’m just a steward. And whatever ministry He has entrusted to you, it’s a stewardship. It’s a sacred trust for the purpose of making the Word of God fully known. How you doing in that stewardship responsibility? One day will you hear Him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of my Lord,”?
0:28:18.2
Paul goes on to say in verse 28, “Him we proclaim.” It’s Christ we proclaim. “Warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ.” Anytime you see a word repeated twice or three times like that, circle it and spend some time thinking about it. Why did he emphasize “everyone mature in Christ”? Because the elite spiritual teachers were saying, “This maturity and this deeper knowledge and this higher wisdom is only for the spiritually elite. Not everyone is going to get there.” And Paul says, “No, I’ve received this ministry and this stewardship for the purpose, so that everyone is mature in Christ.” And that is goal of our ministry.
0:29:10.6
Number three, the mystery of Christ in your applied has to do with your relationships. Now, let’s read on chapter 2. And again, I love how Paul weaves into this, yes, sometimes ivory-tower theology just some practical, relational things. He says to the Colossians, “For 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, being 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,” he says. “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.” Paul is highly, highly relational.
0:30:04.7
And it made me think of how in the church today we talk a lot about our personal relationship with Jesus Christ. And it’s true. You can have a personal relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ. And it’s personal. I always say it’s personal, but it’s never private. Don’t be a secret service Christian where nobody knows of your faith in Christ. But Christianity is not just personal. It’s also communal. We’re meant to live out our faith in community with other followers of Jesus. Throughout the letter Paul writes to the Colossians there are probably, I don’t know, 10, 12, maybe 14 different names of people that he drops into the conversation. People that he’s connected with. People that he’s doing ministry with.
0:30:53.9
There are no lone rangers in the Christian life. If you think you can have a personal relationship with God and, “I’m okay with Jesus, and He’s all right with me. And I don’t need this thing called organized Christianity,” you’re wrong. It was never meant to be that way. Christianity from the very beginning of Acts 2 was communal. We do this together. That’s why we say, ad nauseam here, gather, grow, give, go, grace, all of that. We gather in worship service. We gather in a life group. Because the lifeblood of your relationship with God and mine is other people who are following hard after Christ. But we need one another. This mystery of Christ in you is not something that you just… “Yeah, you know, Jesus is all right with me, and I’m all right with Him. And we’ve got this thing going, but I don’t need all that other stuff.” Yeah, you do. You do. And Paul says it in so many ways as he writes in very relational terms. He had never met these people in Colossae. He didn’t plant this church. But he had a heartfelt relationship with them and for them. And he was connected in ministry with all kinds of people, and he drops these names in.
0:32:15.9
I’ve got to move on. Lastly, the mystery of Christ in you applied has to do with your daily walk with Jesus. Look at it in verse 6-7 of chapter 2. “Therefore,” Paul says. “Therefore” means, “In light of everything I’ve just said. I’m summarizing some things. I’m pulling some things together.” “Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.” Quick question. How did you receive Christ Jesus the Lord? It’s not a trick question, class. Think Ephesians 2:8-9. How did you receive Him? By grace and through faith, right? That’s a good starting point. “As you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him.” The word “walk” throughout the New Testament describes how we live out our faith. The Christian life is a walk. It’s not a hop, skip and a jump. It’s not a sprint. It’s a walk. How we walk through life. “As you received him, so walk in him.” How did you receive Him? By grace and through faith. How do you walk in Him? By grace and through faith. Paul wrote a letter to the Galatians. And he says, “I’m amazed at how quickly you’ve been beguiled by another gospel.” Because the Judaizers came in, and they said, “Oh yeah, you can receive salvation by grace and through faith, but you’ve got to live out this Christian life by the law. Here is the hard hammer of the law.” No, we live in Christ and walk in Christ by grace. I don’t know about you, but I need the grace of God every day. Not just in salvation, but in my sanctification too, because I wish I was more sanctified than I really am. And sometimes the Lord looks at me and says, “My grace is sufficient for you.”
0:34:13.6
And you can never take faith out of the equation. The Bible says that apart from faith, Hebrews 11, it’s impossible to please God. Not just difficult. But if you try to come to Christ and you want so much proof that you take faith out of the equation, listen, Christianity is a reasonable faith, a reasonable proposition based upon reasonable evidence. But reason only takes you so far. Faith takes you the rest of the way. And you can never take faith out of the equation. How is God stretching your faith today? If you can’t answer that question, you need to spend some more time with Him. Because He is always, always trying to stretch our faith and trust in Him. It’s how you walk with Christ. By grace. When you mess up, “Oh, I need the grace of God today.” “My grace is sufficient for you.” But He is always going to stretch your faith. And when you fight against that and say, “Nah, if we could just take faith out of this, God, show me exactly…” It doesn’t work that way. The mystery of Christ in you is lived out and applied and fleshed out in the daily walk with Christ, which is by grace and through faith.
0:35:44.1
And that’s how we become rooted in the faith, Paul says, the agricultural analogy. How deep are your roots in the faith? You’ll know when the storms come, when the suffering comes. You’ll know exactly how deep the roots are. And then he changes the analogy to construction. “Built up.” Built up. We’ve all seen buildings that were not built with good, strong construction materials, but the body of Christ is. And I pray every week that through our time together, through all the times we spend together through life groups and other places, that God would strengthen the body of Christ, deepening our roots so that when the storms come and times of sufferings come, there is deep roots and strong roots building us up in the faith, brick by brick, stone by stone. And this is how we live the Christian life and how the mystery of Christ in you and in me becomes reality. It isn’t just some theological idea, but it’s a mystery that’s solved. And it’s a mystery that’s applied.
0:37:18.4