The Mystery of Faith
Putting Down Roots • Sermon • Submitted
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· 308 viewsAs we continued our series we are now learning what it means to live into the life give in Christ. This faith jourey is about discipleship and community and one aspect of that is growing in knowledge and wisdom of the mysteries of faith. Paul says that this is critical to maturity.
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Our secondary Scripture:
Now I rejoice in what I am suffering 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. I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness—the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord’s people. 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. He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ. To this end I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me.
So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.
Pray.
Introduction....get you caught up (leave the verse up)
Growing up I had this idea that Christianity was this standard I could never live up to. This had different iterations over time. I remember getting in trouble from my dad because I was listening to Creed album…not the new soft Creed album but the old one that was angry. In that album there is a little more language. I was playing basketball and had my little portable CD player with like a 100 foot extension cord running from the house to the street. And when the G.D. words screamed out from the little speakers my dad was hot. “But dad, they are Christian I think…they have that song, Can you take me higher” ....I think that is about God. “We do not take the Lord’s name in Vain.”
I just remember failing at things that I would try and not giving much care to a lot of the things that were supposed to be important.
Fast-forward several years and I have sort of had my conversion experienced. Remember my story is not a moment change but something that took some time. But there was a moment when I heard teaching about God’s grace and I thought to myself....why didnt anyone tell me before!
This became part of my calling to young people, to tell them about the grace that I had missed out on.
Years later I was having lunch with a former youth leader of mine. I was recounting my journey to Christ…they had seen the other side of my journey for sure…and he stopped me eventually and said, “John, you dont think we were telling you about God’s grace? We were brother, but you were not ready to receive it.”
There came a moment where the mystery of faith landed in my heart and changed me. Since then I can’t stop learning and digging and growing to find the next wrinkles of this beautiful mystery. Today we will talk about the pursuit of this knowledge and wisdom and what it means to grow in strength through the grasp of our faith.
My sermon today is a little different. There are three parts I felt led to teach on from our text. They are not all moving in the same direction but I think it is worth while exploring them.
Paul’s Calling and Your Calling
Mystery of Faith
Stronger in Faith
Paul’s Calling and Your Calling
Paul’s Calling and Your Calling
Before we get to the scripture about our own personal pursuit of the mystery, I want to acknowledge something in our text today. Paul is writing very specifically about his purpose and mission. The question occurred to me and maybe it does to you....Is Paul prescribing for us that we do what he is doing?
“Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions....”
“I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God....”
“To this end I strenuously contend with all the energy...”
Sometimes we read the authors of the Bible and we think well I guess I am supposed to do that....or am I doing something wrong if I am not suffering like Paul is.
Two things I want to say:
You are not Paul
We can find calling in Paul
1. You are not Paul
Paul is met by the resurrected Jesus in person and commissioned to extend the mission to the Gentiles. He was the beachhead general. He is apostolic and evangelistic in ways that applied to the need and context he was called to. His giftings were unique and his struggles and sufferings were also unique.
2. We can find calling in Paul
However, we can find a general calling in Paul. Urgency to proclaim the gospel of Jesus, the willingness to suffer for the sake of Christ’s mission, the passion for the growth of Christ’s church. These are not unique to Paul, but they are for us as well.
Suffering:
I want to say a word about suffering and to those in the room that are perhaps suffering even now. Look to Paul and the way he understands his suffering.
Now I rejoice in what I am suffering 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.
He sees his suffering as a redemptive witness to those around him. He knows two vital truths: 1) to suffer is to be intimately connected with Christ. 2) how one lives in suffering has impact on the body of Christ.
I know you want to hear that your suffering will go away. God can heal and restore. But I also want you to know that in suffering you are perhaps closer to Christ than you ever will be in this life and your faith in the middle of the suffering is building our faith.
This leads to the next point, Paul would suffer so that the mystery would be proclaimed.
The Mystery of Faith
The Mystery of Faith
Paul in his mission says he is to pass on the mystery that is being revealed. Look at 25-26 again.
I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness—the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord’s people.
Three times in a a handful of verses Paul mentions this mystery. This word is used less than 30 times in the NT, most of them by Paul in Colossians, Ephesians, Romans, a few in Revelation, and a couple times by Jesus.
Mystery is not like your Sherlock Holmes adventure in the modern sense. Mystery here is about a deep truth, something that was obscured for a time but is not able to be seen. Like the grace proclaimed in my childhood and then heard later on.
Paul will talk about this all over the place, for example
that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.
See it has particular importance to Paul because he gave his whole life to his Jewish faith. Was so zealous in his beliefs that he felt he needed to stomp out this Jesus following movement.
Jesus in talking to the disciples in Matthew and Mark acknowledges that there are things they understand and others dont.
He told them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables
Truth is our faith is mysterious.
It is a mystery that Adam and Eve would blunder what God gave them
It is a mystery that Sin brought on brokenness, evil, and separation from God.
It is a mystery that God chose to begin redemption through one single man named Abraham.
It is a mystery that God brought his people into a promised land and somehow established them as the people of God among other people
It is a mystery that God would dwell with his people in the Temple
It is a mystery that God would endure generations of bad kings and corrupt leaders
It is a mystery that God would come Himself in the flesh. Born of a virgin.
It is a mystery that God would come at that time and that place.
It is a mystery that this Jesus would become the second Adam, the human that would be obedient, so that the rest of Adam’s race might be joined with God again.
It is a mystery that the cross of Christ defeated death, sin, evil, hell,
It is a mystery that Jesus walked out of the grave after three days
It is a mystery that His resurrection means resurrection for all those in Christ
It is a mystery that these promises are available now.
It is a mystery that the mission of God to the Jew and the Gentile is now in our hands for the world.
It is a mystery that he will come again and all things will be made new.
It is a mystery. But this mystery has been revealed to you.
Stronger in Faith
Stronger in Faith
So when Paul says that we are to live our lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught....
He is talking about growing in understanding of our faith. A better translation might be that
“you would be stronger in your grasp of the faith.”
Putting down roots is about being launched into this mystery. FF. Bruce puts it this way, for those that have received Christ:
“They have not learned all there is to know when once they have come to Christ; that is only the beginning. He is indeed the embodiment of divine wisdom, but the exploration of the wisdom that resides in him is the task of a lifetime, and even so the most enlightened of mortals can only “know in part” (see 1 Corinthians 13:9). It is necessary, then, not only to preach the gospel but also, when people have believed the gospel, to “instruct everyone and teach everyone in all wisdom.”
Bruce commentary, 86-87
Two things here:
Live a life of learning and growing
Receiving Christ is only the beginning. The work of the Spirit leads you deeper into this journey. It is for your benefit because it is for your maturity in the faith. Same as last week, I think about the person that refuses to be in community. Read a book about theology, doctrine, about the aspects of our faith instead of 10 hours of netflix every week. Also, as a challenge…put down the self-help christian books every now and then and read something of more substance. If you need help, come and see me.
Study with each other, get into a Sunday School, come on Wednesday nights!
2. Historic Faith is our faith
We grow in wisdom and understanding in consistency with the historic church. Lucas puts it this way:
As usual with Paul there is this great stress on the importance of teaching. Without the full truth, and a mature understanding of it, there cannot be a satisfying Christianity or a stable church. So, according to Paul, a hallmark of the Spirit’s work is an unquenchable thirst to learn.
But once more there is a balancing caution here that is quite unmistakeable. The new learning must be consistent with the old. The Christian who grows in knowledge can claim fuller enlightenment only in so far as he remains loyal to the saving gospel truths that first he was taught, and which led him to Christ.
1 Lucas, R. C. (1980). Fullness & freedom: the message of Colossians & Philemon (p. 92). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
Too often in our post modern enlightenment we like to reinvent things or let our own experiences convince us that we know better than 2000 years of church history. I could say a lot here but will chose to keep it simple. We anchor ourselves to the creeds and to the historic faith because it is right and good. When we dont then resurrection, for example, becomes a nice metaphor. Or we get rid of the Old Testament because we dont like things there. Or we ignore the parts of the bible that Jesus performs miracles or cast out demons because that makes us uncomfortable.
Be Thou My Vision
Jesus is the one we “proclaim.” The revelation of Christ has been revealed and it is an admonishing force in our life.
This is about maturity. What I love about Paul is that he did not want to simply look back and see people following him because he was convincing, or to look back and see people following Jesus, as good as that is, he wanted to look back see people following Jesus on to maturity. Same here my prayer is not for us to sit in the shallow end....
Picture:
“God, grant me wisdom, fill me with an insatiable hunger to become his disciple. Give me an unquenchable thirst for the fullness of the Holy Spirit.”