"God's way for you to grow"
Colossians 1:24 - 2:5
Preached by Bart Erlebach on 9th February 2025
Scripture
24 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, 25 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, 26 the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. 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. 28 Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. 29 For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.
2:1 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, 2 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, 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 4 I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments. 5 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.
(ESV)
Generated Transcript
So our reading is taken from, Paul's letter to the colossians, chapter 1, verse 24 to chapter 2, verse 5, and is found on page 1182 in the blue rebels. Now I rejoice in what I'm 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 it 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 that glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. He is the 1 we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom so that we may present everyone fully maturing Christ.To this end, I strenuously contend with all the energy, Christ, so powerfully works in me. I want you to know how hard I'm ending for you and for those at Leardisia. And for all who have not met me personally, my goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love so that they may have the full of complete understanding in order that they may know the mystery of god, namely Christ, in whom we are hidden, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I tell you this so that no 1 may deceive you by fine sounding arguments. For though I am absent for you from you in body, I am present with you in spirit and delight to see how disciplined you are and how firm your faith in Christ is.
Great. Please keep the passage open in front of you. Page 1 1 8 2. If you've got a Bible and or if you've shut it, do open it again. Page 1 1 8 2.
And let me lead us in prayer. Emily Father, we thank you again that we can come to your words. We praise you. It is a lamp to our feet and a light to our parts. And so we pray that you would help us to be attentive to it, help us to be ready to listen, and to learn and to apply your word to our hearts and lives.
Come in. There is a force at work in the world today that is more powerful and more significant than any other in the history of the world. It is not the spread of democracy nor is it any of the anti democratic movements that are currently and threatening. It is not capitalism nor socialism. It is not civil rights, gay rights, or feminism.
It is certainly not atheistic secularism. The force that is more powerful and more significant than any other in the history of the world is the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's John Woodhouse, a vital scholar, and, who wrote a commentary on the book of colossians. That's what he said in his book. And Paul has been making this claim in the book of colossians, that the wonderful gospel of Jesus our maker, that he is our maker, that he is our reconciler to god.
That's what we thought about last week. That wonderful gospel that is bearing fruit all over the world, Paul has said, is that greatest force in the world. But as John Woodhouse goes on to say, and we've got a quote from him on the screen, if we go for the go on and let you do the slides. Thank you. He then says.
It rarely looks as though the gospel is the most significant, powerful force. In the history of the world. So his point is, it it is the most powerful thing in the world, but it rarely looks it. And that can often be our experience. There can be a seeming contradiction between what we know is true and what we see.
Church and church ministry can at times look anything but empowered by this greatest force. In World History. In fact, sometimes it can look a bit pathetic. And if that's true today, for us, maybe in our experience, it was certainly true for the colossian They'd heard of Jesus from a guy called Epaphras. Now Epaphras had heard it from the apostle Paul, and had passed it on to the colossians.
But now Paul is in prison? Well, that doesn't look very impressive, does it? And furthermore, Paul's ministry. What's the content of his ministry? What does he do when he's with people?
He do anything really impressive? No. He preaches, and he teaches. And it seems like in Colosi, which is the place Paul was writing to, this letter to, that there were people there who were saying, you know, Paul's ministry is alright, but really you want something deeper, don't you? Something more impressive In the passage, we're gonna be looking at.
And in the subsequent passage, the word fullness keeps cropping up. You'll you'll spot it as we go through. And it looks like maybe this was 1 of the the catch words, the the catch phrases of the false teachers in colossi. They were like, yeah, Paul's fine, but you want fullness. I mean, you want the real thing.
Paul's teaching is a bit iPhone 9. It's a bit basic. You want the iPhone 16 version of Christianity. You want it in all its fullness. And if you come to us, we can give you that.
And I wonder whether you've had similar thoughts, similar feelings, You might think, isn't there something more, more to experience of god? Maybe you know people who've gone away from a kind of bible teaching ministry and, experiencing something else, and you've talked to them. And and you discover that they they're they're buzzing with it. They're going, they're, you know, I've discovered something deeper. You know, word ministry's alright, but I've got something more.
And maybe you're tempted to think. Maybe they're right. Now Paul, in this passage that we're gonna look at, talks a lot about his ministry. Why? It isn't because he's insecure and feels he needs to justify himself.
He's not gone on the defensive. That's what you and I might do. If people question what we're doing, we we go on the defensive. That's not what Paul's doing. He is concerned for the colossians.
Notice, have a look in the passage chapter 2 verse 4, he says, I tell you this so that no 1 may deceive you by fine sounding arguments. His concern is he doesn't want them deceived. There are people with fine sounding arguments. He doesn't want them to be captured by those. And what does he want for these colossians?
Just have a look at a couple of verses in our passage. First, chapter 1 verse 28, he says what he wants for them. Chapter 1 verse 28. He, that's Jesus, is the 1 we proclaim at monitoring and teaching everyone with all wisdom so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ. That's what he wants for them.
And the word mature, there's sometimes people translate it perfect, but he is saying it's it's a maturity. I want this for you. I want you to be mature. Not stares you up, but go on to maturity. And then chapter 2 verses 2 and 3, what does he want for them there?
He says my goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love. So that they may have the full riches of complete understanding in order that they may know the mystery of god, namely Christ. And it might well be that these colossian false teachers are using all sorts of those words. They're saying you come to us, we can give you mysteries. We can give you hidden knowledge.
May well be that that's what they were teasing people with. And what's Paul saying? He's saying, I've got mysteries. I can give you well, you can have hidden knowledge, the treasures of knowledge and wisdom. See, Paul isn't wanting the less for these Christians.
He's not wanting less for the colossians. He's saying, I want more for you. I want you to be mature. I want you to have these, this knowledge and this wisdom. The question is not whether you want it.
Question is how do you get it? How do you get maturity? Actually, that's not the most important question. The most important question is, what's god's way for you to become mature as a Christian? What's god's way for you to have, knowledge and wisdom?
And that's why Paul talks about his ministry. Because he's saying his ministry is god's way for you to grow. So what does it look like? Well, first thing we see, if you can move us on. Thank you.
God's way is suffering servant ministry. Now the structure of the passage is a little bit tricky. I've been wrestling with it. I just think it it's a little bit tricky to to I normally try and sort of say, well, you know, this block is about this, then this block, then this block. It's just a little bit hard to navigate your way around the passage.
Because Paul returns to ideas as he goes through. So the way we're gonna go through it this morning is we're gonna go through the first paragraph, bit by bit, and then we'll drop down into sort of bits lower there, like a drop down menu. We'll sort of see a bit, and then we'll drop down and see how it recurs a little bit later on in the passage. Okay? So we're kinda working through the first paragraph.
And see how Paul starts. Verse 24, he says, 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. Now Paul is not saying that he enjoys suffering. When he says I rejoice in the suffering.
He's not saying I really love suffering. Bring it on. I really enjoy it. But rather he's saying I rejoice in it, which is certainly saying You know, this suffering I'm going through, this imprisonment I'm going through is in no way an indication that ministry has gone horribly wrong. Now what follows in that verse, verse 24 is tricky?
What does he mean by saying? He fills up in his flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions. What does that mean? It clearly can't mean it can't mean that somehow Jesus' suffering on the cross wasn't enough, and that Paul's gotta come along and kind of save the day and it kind of, well, it wasn't quite enough. I've gotta do a bit more.
You clearly can't be saying that. Because he said in the previous passage that Jesus's suffering is the thing that that can reconcile you and me to god. He doesn't say Jesus is suffering, oh, and then I had to do a bit as well. No. Jesus's suffering is sufficient.
So what is it in Christ's sufferings that are lacking. Well, I think to understand this, we need to cast our mind back to Paul's conversion, which is, described for us in the book of acts. Before Paul was converted to Christ, he was persecuting the church, having people thrown in prison for following Jesus. And on the road to Damascus, There was the blinding light, if you know the the the narrative, there was the blinding light, and the voice of Jesus comes to Paul and says, Saul, that was his name at the time. Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?
So Jesus is saying, when you're persecuting the church, you're persecuting me. So in this verse, I think as Paul talks about what is lacking with regard to, Christ's afflictions, I don't think it's talking about Jesus is suffering in terms of his body on the cross. He's talking about what's lacking in terms of the church's suffering. The church hasn't had all its suffering yet. And Paul's saying that's what's lacking.
And I think that's what he's saying when he's saying I fill up in my body, those sufferings. In other words, I'm doing it for you. I'm doing it for the church. So I think that's where that verse is heading. Paul suffers in a kind of Christlike kind of way, not in terms of paying for sins, but in terms of suffering for the sake of the church, Christ's body.
And Paul is clearly saying he has been commissioned to this task, verse 25. I have become its servant by the commission god gave me. He is a servant of god, servant of the church, and he is a suffering servant. In other words, he's saying, it is a Jesus shaped ministry. And further on, he says, verse 29, to this end, I strenuously contend With all the energy, Christ so powerfully works in me, it it's a struggling ministry.
It's a strenuous ministry. He's gotta work hard at it. But 2 verse 1, I want you to know how hard I'm contending for you and for those at Leodicea. And for all you've not met me personally. Ministry he's saying is a struggle.
It is hard work, and that is not ministry gone wrong. That's the way you got in 10 it to be. It is a huge privilege, and it is a great struggle, Paul says. And those have been Christians know that, and those have been Christians for a while know that ministry is like that. It is a great joy.
It is a great privilege, and it is also hard work. It is a struggle at times. And that's what we should expect as a church as well. It's lovely. We're gonna be having these vision evenings And we're these are gonna be the first, and we're gonna have some more as well, vision evenings.
And what you want in vision evenings is times when don't laugh. 1 of the elders is just laughing. Yeah. We're gonna have more of these. But, you know, we got there should be good times.
Shouldn't they vision times? Shouldn't be times where you're going, yes, actually, this is exciting. And they should be positive. But there's a danger in church life that you can be so sort of visiony kind of, you know, positively exciting that you're not actually portraying ministry in the way that it really is. There is in the way that it's put together, the way it is, you expect that there will be struggles.
And there'll be suffering. And let's not be naive to that. There will be difficulties. It's the way god's made ministry to be. It should be suffering servant style ministry.
Second point, god's way to growth is word ministry. I was really struck by this as in looking at this passage, again, this last week that god's means for the people to grow to maturity is word ministry. Let me show you. Verse 25. I have become its servant by the commission god gave me to present to you the word of god in its fullness.
Notice fullness there. Interesting. And their fullness coming up Paul's saying, the word of god in its fullness, these false teachers keep talking about fullness. You want fullness, Paul saying, I've gotta give you the word of god in its fullness. In fact, Paul has already mentioned fullness when he talks about suffering.
He says I fill up in my body. That's a kind of fullness word as well. What's Paul saying that? It just before we get back to this point, what's Paul saying that he's saying, you guys, you want fullness. I have fullness.
I'm filling up with suffering. That's kind of fullness I'm going for because that's the way ministry is. And now he's saying fullness of the word of god. That's what I've got to give you. That's what he's commissioned to do.
To give us god's word in all its fullness. That's what he must do. That's his god commissioned role. And so for Christians to grow, There must be word ministry. The way ministry is done in different churches will look different.
And it's gonna look different. At different times in different cultures, it is bound to look different. It might be more formal, more informal, more lively or quieter. There but there must be word ministry. **** Lucas, who was a pastor of a church in the middle of London, really great preacher in his book on colossians, he says this little quote.
No spiritual ministries can exist safely or fruitfully in isolation from the word without risk of becoming both meaningless and lifeless. And it is the task of the pastor to spend time working on and delivering that word ministry. Paul charged Timothy in the book of 2 Timothy. He says, I give you this charge, preach the words. It was the passage that was read out at, Cornerstone, when we have our commissioning service there, I was being commissioned as as pastor of Hope Church, that was the passage read out.
It was read out and it says preach the words. Now that is not all I am to do, but it is the main activity of the past. Because it is god's means for people to come to faith and grow in faith, and it takes time and discipline to do it. The pastor needs to value word ministry and work at it, and the church family needs to keep valuing word ministry because frequently churches or Christians will just diminish the place of word ministry. I'm not saying you're doing it.
I know we've got a good group of people who are saying we want word ministry. Give us it. But that is not always the case. When I was a youth worker for a church in Eastborn, a few years back. There there was a move amongst churches to say, let's do some joint youth things.
And the the feel amongst the youth leaders there was, you know, preaching and teaching, young people can't cope with that. They won't want that. And so there was a lot of suggestions of doing things in a kind of sensory kind of way. A lot of lights and, you know, you go to a place and there's particular music or what as if that is the way that people are gonna grow. And Paul would say, actually, the way to grow is with the full word of god being preached and proclaimed.
It's essential. And it's essential because if you think that maturity and growth is gonna come other ways, there is danger that you will be received. That's what Paul is saying. Don't be deceived, he says. So preachers need to work on preaching, and church families need to maintain a hunger for word-minutes stream.
Now let me just I just want to say a word to parents at the moment. Okay. Parents, which doesn't mean everyone else just falls asleep, or if you do, I'll bring you back in a moment. Alright? Parents.
How are you gonna help your children to engage with preaching, because there will come a time where your children will come out of the children's ministry and be sat in here during sermons. How are you gonna help them engage with sermons. Because I think, you have to learn how to feed from sermons, like eating shellfish. You've gotta learn how to do it. You gotta learn how to peel the thing and do the whatever.
To feed. I think you do have to learn how to do it. And parents, you can help your children to learn how to feed from sermons. How do you do it first off? Can I encourage you be positive about church and about sermons?
Now you may think, well, that's obvious. No. But actually be I mean, don't be over the top in a kind of ridiculous way. But be positive about church and about preaching and about sermons in their hearing before they even start coming in here, be positive with your children about it, and talk to them about, I'm sure you do already, but I'd encourage you to keep going and asking them in your groups What are you learning from god at the moment? In other words, from god's word?
Use that kind of language. What are you learning from god at the moment in his word? And then you talk about what you're learning about from god in his word in the sermons. Because that's saying to your children, we're positive about this, We really value god's word, and hopefully that might be making them think, you know what? I'd quite like to be in sermons as well.
And then when they start coming in and when they start sitting in sermons, I want to encourage you to have conversations with them about the servants after the service. Now you might do this already or you might have already you might think, oh, yeah, this is obvious. Have conversations with them over lunch about the sermons And, obviously, not every preacher is gonna be as gripping as every other preacher, not every sermon is gonna be the most exciting sermon ever. And their temptation will be to switch off. So I want to encourage you over those lunches, you can acknowledge that maybe it was slightly dull.
That's alright. But persevere with it, help them to feed from it, and to say, okay. It may have been dull. But What was god teaching us today? Because when god's word is preached, his voice is heard.
So you heard god speaking, you've just gotta help them persevere with it and say, okay. What did we learn and talk about it? Help them feed from god's word. Okay. So and if you want to talk about this more afterwards of happily do that with parents or whatever, just to think, how are you going to help your children when they start coming in here to engage with the preaching with the preaching of god's word.
Okay. Back to everyone. If you fell asleep, wake up again, if you're back with me. Just to see a little bit more about word ministry. That's what he says.
He says. I come his job is to proclaim god's word in all its fullness, and then the drop down menu bit you go down a little bit further. Verse 28, he is the 1 we proclaim admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ's notice. He said, This is how I do I preach. I proclaim.
I admonish. I teach so that people will become mature. This is the way to wisdom. This is the way to maturity. It's through the word ministry.
Now notice, again, the words he uses there. It's proclamation. You know, we've already thought about that a bit. It's also admonishing. Now admonishing is to say when someone's going wrong, that you correct them, that you get them going down the right path when they're going down the wrong path.
Now for all of us, this is the unpopular bit of word ministry, isn't it? We like it when we're affirmed in what we believe, but we really don't like it very much when there's something where we're going actually, I need correcting on that. Or you're you're telling me I need to be corrected. But we do need this. And we need, therefore, to be correctable.
All of us do. I do. You do. There needs to be a humility about us to say, actually, I can be correct by others. I can be corrected by god's word.
After all 1 of the provokes we've been learning, the fear of the lord is the beginning of But fools despise and yeah. So, the question is, are we gonna be foolish? Are we gonna be fools? Because fools despise wisdom and instruction. They don't want correction.
That's a foolish thing to I know I've had it already since since pastoring here. But once I've tried people have left going, I needed to hear that. I got that wrong last week. And I think those people think they're spiritually immature. That is not immaturity.
That is maturity of saying I need to be corrected and I can be, but we all need to have that, that attitude. Now we're gonna find a little later on in colossians that Paul charges the whole church with teaching and admonishing 1 another. We'll find it, in chapter 3 verse 16. He says, this is gonna be the responsibility for all of you. So what Paul was doing for them and monitoring and teaching.
He's now saying you've gotta do it for 1 another, which means we all need to be involved in this. Yeah. There's a particular ministry of the proclamation of the work, the preaching of the work, but all need to be involved in teaching 1 another, which is why we need home groups and things like that, and we haven't set them up yet. And I know there are some here who have been going, come on, bring on home groups. We want home groups.
We need home groups. We do. And we do need it for this so that we can be admonishing and teaching 1 another. But we needed to do things to do with what we're doing on the 20 fifth and 20 sixth in the evenings We've got to do that first, and then we'll get into home groups, but I'm keen for them to get started so that we can be teaching 1 another, and we will. So Paul is saying god's way of growing us is word ministry.
Now, of course, it isn't enough just to say have teaching because there's false teaching. So Paul's gotta say, not just, yeah, you gotta preach, and there's gotta be word industry, it's gotta be correct word ministry. And so he gives something of the content of that teaching. So verse 26, would you have a look at it with me? First 26 and 27.
The mystery so he he's gotta speak god's word in all its fullness. First 26, the mystery that had been kept kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the lord's people. Okay. So next point on the screen, last point, God's word is a mystery. Now we use the word mystery in different ways.
Sometimes we just use the word mystery to mean, we don't understand how things happen, how things work. It's just baffling. You just don't get it. Like, where does socks go in the wash? It's baffling.
No 1 knows. Haven't got a clue. But that isn't what Paul means here. He's not saying god's word. He's just who knows what that means.
That's not what he means. No. Rather, he's using the word mystery to mean something that was secret, but he's now revealed. And he's open it's sort of an open secret now. That's what he means.
It's a bit more like if you read a murder mystery, yeah, it's a mystery who the murderer is. Or you if you've been to see the mouse trap in London, been to see that that production, you I mean, it's a mystery who the who the murderer is until you get to the end, and then you find out. Except in the mousetrap, then you're sworn to secrecy. So I've been, and know who it is, if my memory's right. But, yeah, I'm not supposed to tell him.
That's the opposite for Paul. It's it's a secret that's been let known. And he goes I'm gonna tell everyone. This is an open secret. I'm gonna tell as many people as possible.
That's the kind of mystery it is. And what is this mystery? Verse 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. Christ in you, the hope of glory. Now that's a summary.
But word ministry that grows Christians will be consistent with that message, with that mystery. So let's just pull it apart just for a moment. It won't take us long. So here it is, Christ knew the hope of glory. First bit.
Christ. Now if you were here last week, if you heard the sermon online, you know that that word is packed with meaning. From what you've had so far in the book of colossians, the word Christ has huge significance because Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible god. He is the maker of all things the reconciler of all things, and so on. You know, all that that we thought about last week, that it that you've got in verses, 15 to 23 of of chapter 1.
All of that is packed into the word Christ. Yeah. Christ, next bit, in you. Christ in you. Now to understand that, you need to remember who Paul's writing to.
He's writing to colo the colossians who are gentiles, and that's significant, and what's being written here. That the colossians are gentiles. In other words, they're not Jews. And that is significant because god's chosen people in the Old Testament were the Jews, the Israelites, the people of Israel, They were god's chosen people. And throughout the old testament, basically god dealt with the Israelites, not exclusively, but he did, mostly.
Now it was no secret to the the Jews that the Messiah would come 1 day. They all were expecting that. That wasn't the mystery. And it was actually no mystery that the nations would be brought in. Yeah.
That's clearly there in the old testament as well. That wasn't really a mystery. They knew the Messiah would come, they knew the nations would come in. The question was how? How are the nations gonna come in?
How are the gentiles gonna come in? You and me? How do we become god's people? You see, they would have assumed that the way would be, well, you've gotta become a Jew. You've gotta go to Israel.
You've gotta become a Jew. You've gotta become 1 of god's people that way. But this is the mystery revealed. And the mystery revealed is, bro god brings you and me in by Jesus coming to Earth, as we thought about last week, coming to earth to reconcile us to god through the cross. So Jews and gentiles need to put their faith in Jesus And through him, we are washed clean, and now Christ himself comes into us and lives in us, whether we are due or gentile.
And that is how we become god's people, just as much god's people as the Old Testament Israelites. And this is an incredible thing. Just pause for a moment. This is a staggering moment in the book of colossians. Needs.
I think this is incredible. That Paul is saying that Christ, the 1 from colossians 1 15 to 23, the 1 in whom all the fullness of god dwells, is in you. He is in you by his spirit. That is an incredible thing, Christ in you. He's set up home in you.
There is no greater privilege. Have you ever had a dignitary come to, maybe, to your workplace or school or something like that? Oh, it becomes a big deal, isn't it? Oh, the cleaning that's gotta go on. If they come to your house, the tidying up you've gotta do, the cleaning that goes on.
You have price in you. The Christ of colossians 1 15 to 23. And the cleaning has already been done. He did it himself at the cross. Through his death.
He's in you. How can you need anything more? You've got Christ. Christ in you. We the last bit, the hope of glory.
Because Christ is in you, if you're a Christian, you have the hope of glory. Beyond death, there are 2 destinations like when you go down the tube, go down the stairs, in the tube, and you go 1 go right to go 1 way on the line, the other way to go the other way. So after death, there are 2 destinations. There's glory, and the Bible tells us there is hell. We deserve hell.
We are heading that way. But if Christ has died for you, if you have put your trust in him and he has come and put himself in you by his spirit, then not because of anything good about you, but purely because of what Christ has done, you have changed platforms, and you are headed for glory. That is your hope, not a wishy washy hope, but a certain hope of glory. And the invitation is open to any. If you've not yet come to christ.
You could come to him. The invitation is for you, as it was for us, for gentiles, for those who've been on the outside. For outsiders, you can come to Christ. And he can come and live in you if you will turn to him and bow before him as your lord and savior. And that is the mystery hidden for ages, but now revealed Christ in you the hope of glory.
And this, is a summary of Paul's message, and the preaching and teaching of god's word must be consistent with this. And he sums it up more briefly in chapter 2 verse 2. When he says my goal is that they may be encouraged in heart, United in love so that they may have the fullest riches of complete understanding in order that they may know the mystery of god, namely Christ. So god's message is a mystery. So if you go on to the next slide, thank you, and it is Christ.
The mystery is Christ in whom I hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. And the teaching of the church must be consistent with this teaching of pools. You must be Christ centered seeking maturity in him, seeking wisdom and knowledge of god in Jesus. This is god's way for us to grow to maturity. So don't be deceived.
Paul says, by those with fine sounding arguments, the gospel of Jesus Christ is the most significant and powerful force in the world today. It doesn't often look it, but it is. And the way to grow, don't be deceived, don't be taken away with something else. The way to grow is through suffering servant ministry, through word that proclaims and teaches the great mystery, Christ. Father, we pray, please, that you would help us not to be deceived.
Help us to be discerning. Help us to be alert. Help us father to stick with true ministry, suffering servant ministry, help us to be prepared to suffer, help us to stick with word ministry and to evaluate and delight in your words. And help us to stick with that great mystery, Christ in us, the hope of glory. Although, may we never depart from that.
But may we grow to maturity in Christ, amen?