The Mystery of the Gospel

Colossians 1:24-29

Good morning, everyone. Wonderful to see you all. Wonderful to be here. Thank you for the invitation. What a joy it is to be here and what a privilege to open the Word of God with you. This morning, as we open the Word of God, I want us to open Colossians chapter 1, and we'll read verses 24 to 29. I will make a couple of introductory notes before we get into the text, but let's read this text again and really see what this, the Word of God this morning, has to say to us.

Paul, in verse 24 of Colossians 1, says, "Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regards to Christ's affliction for the sake of his body, which is the church. I've become its servant by the commission of God, 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 and is now disclosed for 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's 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 has so power that all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me."

Let's pray. Father, as we open your Word, would you speak to your people this morning? Would you take away any distraction? Would you take any thoughts that are not yours, and would you allow us to see Christ, allow us to see this hope of glory which is Christ in us? And I pray, as I speak, would you give me clarity, would you allow me to preach this word as faithfully as I can? We praise you for the work that you are about to do through your word, through your powerful word among your people. In Jesus' name, I pray, amen.

Introduction

It has been interesting to see the news for the past two months. One of the biggest pieces of news, if you have been following, if you do follow news, has been the incident that happened a couple of weeks ago. Most of you probably know what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the submarine that wanted to go down to see Titanic. Who followed? Who followed that news? It was everywhere—every channel, every social media platform you went on, everyone was talking about this.

What was happening? Well, five men had decided that they will go to the depths of the sea, the ocean, to find the remains of Titanic, to see with their very eyes what had happened. I mean, it is quite dark there. I don't know what they were expecting to see, but it was fascinating. They got lost, they lost all communication, and all of a sudden, the whole nation, especially Canada, North America—everyone was talking about this incident, and everyone was saying the same thing. We don't know where they are, but we hope to find them. There was a sense of optimism about finding people in the midst of the ocean, which still largely remains unexplored. And so, for the first day, there was optimism, second day, there was optimism, and very quickly, expert after expert came on, and they began saying, "It seems like we are still hoping, but it is very unlikely that we will find these gentlemen."

And so I began thinking about this. Imagine one of the guys there was a billionaire, and he was there with his 19-year-old son in this submarine that many experts had said is not quite safe to go down in. What was he thinking? What was he thinking, buying a $250,000 ticket to his own perdition and bringing his own son with him? And as I was thinking about that, I thought about our own society. So many men and women so confused about who they are that they are leading the next generation with them to perdition. And I looked at my own nation, the nation of Afghanistan—over 40 million people, and we have been at war for over 40 years, generation after generation, a generation being led by their fathers, by the way they think, by their religious attitudes, to pick up a gun and kill and be killed. What is going through their minds? And so this whole news item almost became a metaphor, and I think we need to ponder it. What is happening in our society? This is not just a rich or the affluent people's problem because yes, for sure, there's Jeff Bezos going into space, and we have billionaires going to the depths of the sea to find Titanic. There's something, something even deeper happening.

Leszek Kołakowski, the Polish philosopher, says it in this way. He says the lament seems all-pervading. Whatever area of life we reflect upon, our natural instinct is to ask, "What is wrong with it?" And indeed, we keep asking, "What is wrong with God, with democracy, with socialism, with art, with sex, with family, with economic growth?" It seems as though we live with a feeling of an all-encompassing crisis without being able, however, to identify its causes clearly unless we escape into easy one-word pseudo-solutions. Capitalism, God has been forgotten, and etc.

So what Kołakowski is saying is that our whole society seems to be something essentially wrong. There's an all-pervading lament, sadness, doubt, and he says whatever area of life we look at, whatever institution we look upon, it seems like something is wrong with it. What is wrong with God? What is wrong with the church? We don't trust our institutions and our leaders anymore. What is happening?

The Greatest Mystery

And so when we think about these things, I think it is wise for us as the people of God to go to the source of our certainty, the very Word of God, to see what He says about these things. So let's go back to Colossians chapter 1, and we'll go backward. We'll go backward because verse 1 seems to be, at the face of it, something seems a little bit odd in the way that Paul has phrased this. In verse 24, he says, "Now I rejoice in what I'm suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is lacking in regards to Christ's affliction." Is something lacking in Christ's affliction? Was what Jesus did on the cross not enough, not sufficient enough, not infinitely magnificent enough for our salvation that now Paul, as a human being, sure, an apostle of Christ, still has to fill up the afflictions of Christ?

What does this word mean? And so, in order to understand that more clearly, let's start in verse 29. We'll work our way backward so we can see that verse in all its clarity. To this end, Paul says in verse 29, "I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me." Paul says, "I work hard at this. I use all my energy. It's strenuous work. It is hard work, and I work that, but by what means? Is Paul doing the work of the gospel by his own power?" Well, he does say that, "I strenuously work, I contend, I work," but by what energy? It says, "With all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me." It is Christ in him empowering him to do the work that he has called him to.

And sometimes, unfortunately, we believe as Christians that we can do the work of the Spirit by the power of the flesh. We believe we can do the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives by the power of the flesh. Nothing, nothing the Lord abhors more than the flesh trying to do the work of the Spirit. So if you're fighting against sin in your own lives, by what power are you doing that? By willpower? By your own energy? Have you not failed over and over and over again because you have been doing it on your own power?

So the way we do the Christian life is by the energy and the power that Christ works in us. But Paul is not so much talking about his personal life. Let's look at verse 28. He's talking about the message of the gospel, the proclamation of the message. He says, "He is the one Christ is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ." So Paul is working hard by the power of the Holy Spirit to proclaim the Word of God so that it can present the people of God as mature believers.

And we continue. Let's go up a little bit more. That is the work of Paul, but what is this message that he proclaims? We read in verse 25, "I've become its servant by the Commission God gave me to present to you the Word of God in its fullness." So what he's proclaiming is the Word of God because he's been commissioned by God for the sake of this proclamation. And what is it that he proclaims? In verse 26, "The mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations but is now disclosed to God's people." There's a mystery from all eternity, there is a mystery, something has been hidden, not unknowable, but something that is hidden. There's a mystery about life, isn't it? When we look at life, what does life really mean? What are we supposed to do? Why are we even here? What is the purpose of each individual's life? What is the purpose of this church? What is the purpose of a society? Why are we even here?

And philosophers have been thinking about this and writing about this since the time of Plato and even earlier. And let me take you a little bit to Eastern philosophy because that's my background. I, as I said, I come from the Persian-speaking world. Our poets and philosophers, one of them, Khayamm, says, he says, 

"The mystery, the eternal mystery of this world, neither you know nor I \ 

This puzzle that we call life, you don't know the solution to nor do I \ 

Our conversation about it is as if it were behind a veil \ 

And when the veil falls, neither you remain nor I". 

When life has come to its end, by that point, it is too late. We don't know the answer. There's a mystery to life. What is life? What does life mean? The philosophers do not know the answer to that. But when we read the Word of God, the mystery that remains hidden is that God in Christ wants to dwell in us. Read verse 26 with me again: "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."

It's not just that God wants to save us. That is not the mystery of the gospel—that I need to give my heart to Jesus and then I can go on to live my life. The mystery of the gospel is something much deeper, much more powerful than we can even imagine. Our minds cannot grasp it. Christ wants to live in you and through you and me. He wants to live in us. He wants to live His life through His people. But does He not know us? Are we not a sinful people? Are not our thoughts tainted by all kinds of evil? Are our intentions not set on evil all the time? And yet, He still wants to dwell in us. Does Jesus know what He's doing?

You know, Shakespeare says it so very beautifully, describing the heart of man. He says, 

"Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, 

Pluck from memory a rooted sorrow, 

Raise out the troubles of the brain, 

And with some sweet oblivious antidote

Cleanse the bosom of that perilous stuff 

which weighs upon the heart?" 

That's Macbeth talking to the doctor because if you remember in that play, Lady Macbeth has plotted with her husband to kill the king, and now she believes there's blood on her hands, even though there is none. Her conscience is finding her guilty, and so the husband, Macbeth, says to the doctor, "Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased? Can't you not do something for her? Her mind, she has lost her mind. Her mind has become diseased. There's a rooted sorrow in her. There are troubles in her brain. And is there not some kind of medicine, some sweet oblivious antidote, to cleanse this bosom, to cleanse this heart from the perilous stuff which weighs upon the heart? Can't you clean her heart?"

And you know the doctor, the physician, says, "Therein the patient must minister to herself." The doctor, the physician, says the physician has to take care of her own heart. She has to find a way out of this. And I think I rarely find something wrong with Shakespeare, but in this case, he's wrong. If the patient could find a way to save herself, she would have already done it. She would have done it. And so when we find ourselves as a people who are branded by sin, we can't deal with it on our own. We lie to ourselves and cheat ourselves and deceive ourselves more than anyone else. How do we save ourselves? And these philosophies of self-help and that you can better yourself and you just need to work hard and more discipline is against the gospel of Christ. You cannot.

I come from a Muslim background where you have the Sharia law. You cannot know God, first of all. You cannot know God. God is transcendent; it cannot be known. So what can you know about God? You can know the laws of God, which is the Sharia of God. Sharia just means laws. You try to live by those laws, perhaps in that way, you can live a better, godly life. And so there is a Sharia or there is a law about every single aspect of life. You know that there is actually a law on which foot you should step with when you are entering a bathroom. It's there. Well, how do you shower yourself? It's there. The religion tries to cleanse you. But when I talk with Muslims, and I do this every single week, I have a live show where I invite hundreds of Muslims to come to this show, and then I ask to have a dialogue with them, and we talk about this. I've yet to find someone that actually can say that they can save themselves or that they are perfect. The most religious of them, you talk with them, and you talk about the problem of sin; they know it's true. You know it's true. And we live with it.

One of our poets, Bidel, says, "Bedil, that evil that wants to cause havoc upon the whole universe if it could, is nothing but your own heart." There's something essentially wrong about the human heart, and the mystery of the gospel is that Christ has come to save us, to save this heart and make it into a dwelling place for Himself. Don't you love the gospel? I love this gospel because in this gospel, I find hope for myself, hope for the reconciliation of a sinner like me with a holy God of the universe. We have been separated from Him, and now He is not only coming to live with us, alongside us, so we are partners; He comes to live in us, to show and display the power of His mighty love, His sacrificial love, to a people who do not know it. To them, God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery. This mystery that we are talking about, this gospel that we are talking about, is glorious.

And sometimes it doesn't feel like it. We don't think it is. We can stand and sing, and in our hearts, we are far away and cold. We are thinking of other things that need to be done while we are singing about God and Him displaying the mystery of His riches to us in Christ. He lives in you now if you believe in Him. Do you believe in Him? I'm not asking whether you are a Christian. I'm not asking whether you come to this church every single week. That's not what I'm asking. I'm asking, do you know Christ? Does He dwell in your heart? Have you experienced the glory of the riches of God in Christ, Christ dwelling in your heart and living in you and wanting to make Himself known through you? Do you know Him? Do you love Him? Do your affections reach out to Him?

Rejoicing in Suffering

So let's go back to verse 24, and here I think we can speak a little bit more clearly about what Paul is talking about. "Now I rejoice in what I'm suffering." Paul is talking about suffering almost very flippantly, isn't he? "I rejoice in my suffering," as if suffering is not hard. How can you rejoice in suffering? Maybe his sufferings were unlike our sufferings, much easier. But when you read the kind of things he went through, he was shipwrecked, beaten with lashes 39 times, his back opened with the thorns in that whip that he was whipped with. Paul has lived a very hard life, so he's not speaking as if someone who has never experienced suffering. He has experienced that; he has tasted it. And yet he says, "I rejoice in my suffering." And this is not the only place that he says this. Do you remember Romans chapter 5? In Romans chapter 5, he says, "For I rejoice in my suffering because suffering produces perseverance, and perseverance character, and character hope. And hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that was given to us."

Paul says, "I rejoice in my suffering," why? Because suffering produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. In the midst of suffering, Paul has experienced something so magnificent that we miss out when we don't accept this reality of the gospel, that we are called to suffering as a people. Jesus was not joking when he said, "Follow me and pick up your cross." It wasn't just using a metaphor; he meant it. And in a world like ours, there are so many people that need to see the suffering of Christ in His people, and that is what Paul is saying. "I fill up in my flesh, I fill up in my life, in my very body what is lacking in regards to Christ's affliction."

What is lacking in Christ's affliction is not the power of a saving grace. It's not the lack in the the atoning work that Christ was not able to fulfill. Christ's work is sufficient for our salvation, so don't hear from me what I'm not saying. I'm not saying that we need to suffer so that we can earn our salvation or that Christ was lacking something. He went to the cross, and now we can do it. That's not what I'm saying. What the Word of God is saying is that there's something lacking in Christ's affliction and Christ's suffering, and what that thing is, is the display or demonstration of it to the people around us. We are a people of the cross. We are a people that believe that it was through suffering that Christ saved us. That was 2,000 years ago. And so today, when you and I talk about that, most people don't hear it because they don't see it. They don't see it in us. And so Paul says, "I fill up the afflictions of Christ in my body, in my life."

A Story from Afghanistan

Let me give you a couple of examples of how I have seen it and how this affected my life very, very deeply. It was 2010; I had just finished grade 12, and I was at a conference. It was a conference for Afghans who were doing ministry, and others who were doing ministry to Afghans. There, a 22-year-old woman who had just finished university wanted to serve the people of Afghanistan. We had a conversation, and she talked about the Puritans and how she found so much depth in the Puritans. John Owen was one of her favorites, and John Owen magnificently says, "Oh, to behold to the glory of God. Herein would I live, herein would I dwell in every thought and affection until all things to me become dead and decayed and no longer in any way call out for my affections and embrace." She talked about the Word of God and how she had been memorizing it, and how that had been affecting her life. She had been reading the news about the women in Afghanistan, how they suffer, and they are suffering again today under the Taliban regime. Women cannot even leave the house without their husband or a male companion. Women can no longer go to school after grade 6.

She said, "God is calling me to go to Afghanistan." Now, she came from a quite affluent family. She was rich; she didn't need to do this. She wasn't doing this for a job. So we prayed for her, and she went to Afghanistan and served faithfully for two years. Two years later, as she was traveling from one city to another, we heard the tragic news of 12 people serving together, some as doctors, and others not. They were caught by the Taliban, made to kneel down, and shot in the head. A 24-year-old woman. A year later, when her dad came to the same conference, she was reading a letter from her that she had sent to her sister a couple of months before she was killed. In that letter, her sister, who was in high school at that time as well, had been telling her that she misses her sister, and she wants her to come back home. She was afraid of everything happening with all the bomb blasts in Afghanistan. He read the letter in tears, and she had written a poem saying that even if I don't come back home, meaning her country, I will see you in home and our heavenly home. She accepted the suffering; she displayed the sufferings of Christ among the people who would not have seen it otherwise.

Mission to the Unreached Peoples of Afghanistan

How are people going to see that Christ is glorious? This message is glorious when we talk about His suffering without ever accepting it as the means by which they are going to know. Missions is not going to be done if we sit at our comfortable houses, try to seek our own comfort, and believe that by that means the Great Commission is going to be fulfilled, especially among a people, especially among the unreached. Now, I will more specifically talk about the people of Afghanistan.

We have a population of 40 million people, less than 3,000 Christians according to Open Doors. It is the most persecuted country in the world, the fifth poorest country last year. As you know, Afghanistan is now under the Taliban, the theocratic regime of the Taliban. How are the people of Afghanistan going to hear the message of the gospel, and whose work is that supposed to be? Me, because I'm an Afghan? I don't think so. That's not what I read in the word. The mission of God is the work of the Church of God, for the sake of the glory of God. The mission of God among the unreached in the hard places is not for one person; it is for the Church of God, the bride of Christ, to lay out their comfort aside and say, "We are going to do whatever it takes so that people may hear this gospel." Because, let me remind you, we heard about the glory of the gospel and that He lives in us, but here's also another reality: those who do not have Christ living in them are headed towards an eternity in hell. Do we believe that, or has hell just become a word that means nothing to us in our society anymore?

So, how are the people going to hear? How are Afghans going to hear? How are my cousins and my families and uncles going to hear unless I say the time has come for me to step out in faith and go to the dangerous places where my life is at risk, and it's worth it because I have this Christ living in me? Whether I live or die, I have life eternal; they cannot do anything to me. And it's with that faith that I go through refugee camps and preach the gospel. There have been moments where I thought those are going to be my last ones. This is not to glorify me in any way; this is not the point. The point is that this gospel requires sacrifice because we follow a Christ who sacrifices very life. He's calling us as the church to accept sacrifice over comfort. Are you willing to do that? Be honest with yourself. It's easy for us to say, "I want to follow Christ with all my heart and with all my life, and He is my Lord." Those are easy in practice. What does it look like to you, moms and dads, if your young daughter, 22 years old, has worked hard through university, has finished her degree, can have a bright career here in Canada, comes to you and says, "God is calling me to go to the worst of the places. I don't know if I'm going to come back home." Will you allow them to go? There's a cost, brothers and sisters, and sometimes we want others to pay the cost and not ourselves.

An Invitation to the Church

So, this is an invitation to the Church of Christ, the body of our Lord Jesus Christ. There are over 2 billion people who have not heard this gospel. There are people headed towards eternity and hell because they have not rejected this gospel yet; it's just that they have not heard about it. You and I are called to be the hands and feet of Christ, the display of that gospel in this community first. I believe that. This is not just a call for everyone to go overseas. I believe that God has called His church to be evangelistic and make disciples in this community first. Yes, let's go to Canada; let's go to other parts of Canada. Quebec only has 2%, 2% of people in Quebec are reached; we have a role to play in that. But we also have a role to play in the global mission of God because Jesus did not just come to die for us and for our communities; He came so that the line of division between us and them would be destroyed, and that we would be one. And that we say, those people who are suffering and yet do not know Him, it's our obligation and our duty for the sake of the gospel to reach.

Three years ago, I decided to do precisely that. I began my video ministry three years ago. I went back to my country for the last time and said goodbye to my people without being able to say goodbye. I said goodbye to my grandma without being able to really say goodbye, saying that I will never see you again, same thing with my aunts and my cousins. And I came back, and we have now begun a new ministry called "Lumens of Truth." We want to be His light among the unreached peoples of Afghanistan. So, the specific call for this morning is, would you join us in prayer? Would you pray for the people of Afghanistan, and would you pray for our team? We are under a lot of pressure; death threats abound. Every month, I get 10 to 20 death threats. We are in sorrow as we look at what is happening in Afghanistan. Pray for us; pray for the work of the gospel among the people of Afghanistan. Would you encourage us if you can? I know life is busy, but sometimes the best moments in a full month is when I receive an email from my brother and sister saying we are praying for you. That encourages our hearts and allows us to continue. And we do need support. This is not a call for you to give. I'm not here; you can take your hands out of your pocket. I'm not after your money. But if the Lord calls you to join this ministry, not my ministry, not "Lumens of Truth" as a ministry, but the ministry of the Lord among the people of Afghanistan, if He calls you to that, we would love to talk with you and come; let us see together what the Lord has in store for the people of Afghanistan. There are moments in history where the Spirit of God begins moving in nations. It happened in Iran about 30, 40 years ago, when all of a sudden, now Iran is the fastest-growing church. Nineteen point five percent increase in the church every single year. Growth happened in Korea about a hundred years ago. I believe God is doing the same work in Afghanistan, and what a joy and a privilege it is to be a part of that. And what a joy it is to invite others to say, "Come, let us see what our God is doing among those who do not know Him yet." Let's pray.

Prayer

Father, we are in awe of the gospel; we love You, we love the cross, we love the crucified Christ through whom we now have life. Thank you for living in us and wanting to display Your affections and Your forgiveness and Your love to others. I pray for Your blessing over this church; I pray for Your protection over this church. I pray for Pastor Lee and his family, protect this dear family, and I pray that from this pulpit, this gospel would be preached for years and years and years to come. May lives be transformed for the sake of Your name. Amen.