Christ, the Mystery of God
1For I desire to have you know how greatly I struggle for you, and for those at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh; 2that their hearts may be comforted, they being knit together in love, and gaining all riches of the full assurance of understanding, that they may know the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ, 3in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden. 4Now this I say that no one may delude you with persuasiveness of speech. 5For though I am absent in the flesh, yet am I with you in the spirit, rejoicing and seeing your order, and the steadfastness of your faith in Christ.
I imagine many of you give to charity as well. When our church gave to help Ukraine, it was in the hope that the people there could put food on the table, buy medicine, and find the will to go on living. We cannot fully understand how those who receive the gifts feel; we only hope their lives will be even a little easier. An organization I sometimes give to also sends me photos of children and lets me know when they have started or finished school. I have never met them, but simply hearing that the children are growing up well fills me with gladness and gratitude. They may not know what the donors do for a living or with what heart we help them, but they would be grateful simply to receive help. Helping one another is what God desires, so there is nothing to boast of in giving and nothing to be ashamed of in receiving, because those who have been helped can live more diligently in gratitude and help someone else in turn, and that alone can make the world a more mature place.
I believe faith is the same. If we live faithfully, grateful for God’s love and grace, we will find before we know it that we have grown mature in faith. Once the apostle Paul came to understand the grace of the God who had saved him, he labored to preach the gospel for the salvation of many souls. Sharing the word and the grace we have been given is also a form of charity and service. Travel was not as easy then as it is now, so he could not cover wide regions preaching the gospel. Instead he poured his whole heart into a single letter and, as though he might never be able to send another, did his utmost to set down the truth precisely.
While imprisoned, Paul wrote to the saints in Colossae, whom he had never seen, wanting them to know how earnestly he was praying for them. He wanted to comfort them with the knowledge that they were not striving alone to keep the faith, but that beside them stood brothers and sisters like Paul, helping them through prayer. He wanted them to know that wherever they were, they were one family in Christ, and he wanted to show them what they, as the church, must do for those who do not yet believe. The apostle Paul strove to deliver the word accurately so that they could drive off those who spread false teaching to destroy the church, because if the church in Colossae stood together, they were well able to overcome. Paul’s aim was always the expansion of God’s kingdom, and he was waging spiritual warfare through intercessory prayer.
When you are going through hardship, it is a great comfort to know that someone is praying for you. Once you know you are not bearing this trial alone, that your brothers and sisters in Christ are helping you and praying with you, you do not lose heart, and you find courage. In fact, intercessory prayer carries great weight in the working of God. So we must pray for others and become a fence around them, so that Satan cannot carry out his cunning schemes. This is what it means to work together for good, and God takes great delight when his people join together to guard the church. You must not, then, oppose or disappoint a brother or sister in faith who is interceding for you, nor act foolishly by abandoning the truth. Those who let the world steal their hearts and treat that prayer as worthless do so because they do not know how precious the intercession of their brothers and sisters is. Of course, you must pray earnestly yourself for your own faith, your life, and your calling. Yet intercessory prayer has the power to bring Satan’s schemes to nothing and to display the glory of God mightily. To help, serve, and pray for others with all your strength, sharing in their suffering as though it were your own, is also a way to receive God’s blessing.
At Christmas, the small groups in our church exchange gifts and prayer requests. It matters a great deal to choose a gift as one who is entrusting yourself to the person who will intercede for you through the year, and to write your prayer requests with an earnest heart. That is because God sees all this thinking and deliberating. The words we turn over again and again while writing those requests are themselves prayer. The care we put into choosing a gift for a brother or sister is itself thanksgiving and an offering, and so I believe God has received that heart and answered it. That is why I treasure this occasion so much.
Whether the heart behind choosing a gift and writing a prayer request is sincere or a mere formality, God knows it all, so whether to give it your best is your choice. Since preparing the gift and the prayer request is itself a way of showing God your faith, I trust that, if you are wise, you will put your whole heart into it. You may think lightly of it, telling yourself there is no need to ask others to carry your problems when you can deal with them yourself, but such self-centered thinking makes you miss the chance of blessing. Even if the one chosen to intercede for you is weak in faith, when you ask for their prayers, God has already received how earnest your heart is, and he will fill your life with a blessing far greater than what you asked for. Do not look at people; believe that God is watching.
Knowing how great a power intercessory prayer is, Paul prayed diligently even in prison for brothers and sisters he had never met. He did so because he believed that his own suffering, imprisoned for preaching the gospel, could strengthen them, and that God would answer even prayers offered from a prison cell.
Colossians 2:2-3
2that their hearts may be comforted, they being knit together in love, and gaining all riches of the full assurance of understanding, that they may know the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ, 3in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden.
We share the gospel so that others may come to understand Christ, the mystery of God. Paul says that when we are knit together in love we come to know Christ, the mystery of God; from this we can see that working together for good is the very power that makes a true church. To give others genuine love, we have to lay down our temperament, our feelings, and our reasoning, and that takes a great deal of patience.
To make the church a true church, the home a true home, and believers true believers takes endless effort and self-examination. Wise believers are those who, instead of trusting their own judgment, look back on their conduct, reflect on it, and consider where they have departed from God’s will. Only when we are wise can we tear down the ideas of heretics who oppose Christ. Because they do not fully understand the providence of Christ, some take in heretical teaching that sounds close to the truth, and their faith wavers. Even now I keep receiving emails from a cult. Sometimes the tone is pleading, sometimes it is laced with threats and mockery; as I watched them press their views, it grieved me that some in the church are taken in by words that have left the truth behind.
Friends, the test for recognizing a heresy is this: no one who lives in this world can ever be God. Jesus, who came in the flesh, bore the cross to atone for sin and truly died; he conquered death, rose again, ascended into heaven, and is waiting for the day of his return. If Christ is there, awaiting his return, then anyone in this world who claims to be God, the Savior, or the Christ is lying. Knowing this alone will keep you from being deceived by heresy. Heretics deceive people in the name of religion and hinder the gospel, but because they themselves do not know Christ, what they say is not the truth. Christ is not someone people can understand by their own effort. To meet Christ, who created the world by his word, we need the wisdom and knowledge the Holy Spirit gives.
Look at what heretics are doing, and you see that they are the same now as in Paul’s day, because evil spirits will be at work until the last day. The spiritual line of Cain and the spiritual line of Seth will stand against each other until the end, so anyone who does not know the word of truth comes to have a spirit like Cain’s. We must pray without ceasing for the salvation of souls, as Paul did. What is happening around us right now shows why Paul prayed so hard and how important intercessory prayer is. Knowing how precious a blessing salvation is, we must intercede for our brothers and sisters in Christ, for our nation, and for our people.
Ephesians 1:9,11
9making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in him 11in whom also we were assigned an inheritance, having been foreordained according to the purpose of him who does all things after the counsel of his will;
Christ can be met only through the wisdom and the deep knowledge of God. God revealed this mysterious plan to the world through the cross, and through the atonement he made plain Christ, the mystery hidden since before the foundation of the world. Having come to know all this by the leading of the Holy Spirit, Paul longed for people to meet Christ. If believers who know such a wonderful and mysterious secret become God’s soldiers and stand against the ideas of the false teachers, the church in Colossae can win the victory. For that, the Colossians must know the word. If they wage spiritual war with the word, heresy will never take root in the church. A sure grasp of Scripture lets them discern Satan and the heretics who tempt with lies, and lets them defend the church.
If faith is not to be shaken, the church must first repent and live by the word of truth, as befits the children of God. When Scripture says that God purposed this in Christ for an administration of the fullness of the times, the word administration refers to the one who manages a household. It means that God planned, governed, and managed everything in Christ for the sake of his people and of all creation. Through his plan, his providence, and his fulfilling of it, we have become God’s own possession. God has done all this to lead one person into heaven, and even now he is bringing Satan’s schemes to nothing lest precious souls stumble. Only because we have received such grace can we live under the name of saints, so we must not forget that love, and we must share the gospel.
Today the church has been corrupted and no longer preaches the word of truth in full. If believers make no effort for the salvation of souls, which God planned before the ages and has brought to fulfillment, then even if they attend church, they have nothing at all to do with God. If those who have received God’s wondrous grace cannot offer him heartfelt praise, how can they pray to be led into heaven? We must freely give praise and glory to God, who uses heaven and earth and human history as his instruments to spread the gospel.
Colossians 2:3
3in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden.
In Jesus Christ there is wisdom and knowledge that the world cannot fathom. Yet before God, the source of such surpassing wisdom and knowledge, the world prides itself on what is foolish, senseless, and evil — the elements of the world. Foolish human beings can perceive spiritual things only when they understand the wisdom the Holy Spirit teaches and the providence of God. The gospel is not something people believe just because they wish to; they can believe only when the Holy Spirit opens the door to the deep truth, and so we must know the word. Even so, people judge God by their shallow thoughts and knowledge and press their own ideas in order to distort the work of God. So Paul exclaimed at the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, saying that his judgments are unsearchable and his ways past tracing out. [Romans 11:33] No human being can ever fathom the deep, deep wisdom and knowledge of God, and no one can even guess at the measure of his love and grace.
Isaiah declared that upon Jesus rests the Spirit of Yahweh, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of Yahweh. Jesus, he said, would delight in the fear of Yahweh; he would not judge by what his eyes see or decide by what his ears hear. With righteousness he would judge the poor and decide with equity for the humble of the earth; he would strike the earth with the rod of his mouth and slay the wicked with the breath of his lips; righteousness would be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his body. [Isaiah 11:2-5] Describing in detail who the Messiah is, Isaiah proclaimed that the most important thing is that the Spirit of the almighty Yahweh has come upon him. The Messiah, on whom the Spirit of Yahweh has come, does everything solely so that Yahweh is well pleased, Isaiah said. People judge and condemn by appearances, depending on who stands before them. The Messiah, he declared, never does such an evil thing. Jesus is wholly intent on pleasing God, yet we, on whom the same Spirit that came upon Jesus has come, give God no glory at all. Jesus is not swayed by what he sees and hears; he discerns all things with the fear of Yahweh as his only principle. Always steadfast in revering God, he never lost the humility that sacrificed and lowered himself so as not to cast the slightest blemish on God’s holiness.
People who have received grace have fallen so far before God, who guides the beginning and end of every life, that they set themselves in his place and openly declare that they are God. Satan deceives people with lies and locks their lives in darkness. But when God’s final judgment begins one day, regret at having been deceived will be too late to change anything, and they will fall into the fire forever with Satan. That is why the apostle Paul said that philosophy and vain deceit, evil spirits, and religious knowledge are immature, and told his readers not to follow the elements of the world. Those immature people who abandon the higher truth to follow the elements of the world will not listen even when taught the truth; bound by elementary principles, they will not come out into the light. Paul sent this letter so that the Colossians, under attack from false teachers, could repel false ideas with the word. Seeing him in prison for the gospel, he hoped, they too would overcome fear and keep the faith through the word. Whatever happens, we must never unite ourselves with anything but Christ, and we must never give idols a place in our hearts. Because many churchgoers today have no interest in the Bible, they lack the ability to judge a false gospel when they hear one, which leaves them chasing after the world’s blessings. If we do not forget God’s purpose in creating heaven and earth and the grace of salvation Jesus Christ has given us, we can see how absurd it is for a human being to claim to be God. Today heresies and false gospels run rampant in the world, and Satan is using worldly power and wealth to keep the truth from being proclaimed. Under the banner of peace, harmony, and religious freedom, he is steadily carrying out his plan to bind the whole world into one and to oppress the church. The very believers who should be resisting such evil spirits have instead given their hearts to the world and are leading the way in its work. For that reason, those who love God must pray for the discernment of spirits.
Friends, the world is moving so fast it is hard to keep up, and conditions are growing steadily worse. Those of you who believe in Jesus Christ and know there will be a final judgment of the world will sense that the day is drawing near. Though we live in a world where it is hard to live by the word of truth, I hope you will not be deceived by false gospels or taken in by human words, but will rely on the holy God alone. It is a tragedy that the world grows darker, but that too is part of God’s plan, so we must make every effort to save even one more soul before judgment comes. When the church and its people fall into corruption, there is no hope left. If the church, which God asked to join him in saving souls, becomes corrupt, God has no reason to leave the world as it is. When the church falls, the final judgment God has appointed will begin.
Friends, I ask you to praise God where he has placed you and to live with integrity as his people. May you not side with this falling world or be taken in by people’s words, but cast off the elements of the world and fulfill your calling to the end with God’s precious wisdom and knowledge. If you who love the word become fishers of men and serve faithfully according to God’s will, God will commend you, thanking you for shouldering the task he gave you. I earnestly ask you to be people of prayer, so that you are not drawn into false gospels and so that you may meet Jesus Christ on the last day.