The Christ-Captivated Life
Colossians 1:24-29
Karen Watson was a very devout but also very down-to-earth follower of Jesus She wasn’t a seminary-trained professional missionary. She was a detention officer at the county jail where she lived in Bakersfield, California. In her church, she led a Bible study group and participated in the singles group. She was a typical American person, living a typical American life. Until she took a leave of absence from her job, sold her house, her car, and most of her possessions, shoved what was left in a single duffle bag, and boarded a plane for Iraq. Who dreams of going to Iraq? What drives somebody to do that?
Before she left, Karen wrote a two-page letter to her pastors before heading to Iraq to share the love of Christ. On the envelope she put the words “Only open this letter in the case of my death.” The letter was dated March 7, 2003. Karen was killed, along with four other missionaries, on March 15, 2004. She was shot in the back in a drive-by shooting in Mosul, where she was helping to set up a mobile water purification plant. This is the letter that she wrote:
Dear Pastor Phil and Pastor Roger: You should only be opening this letter in the event of my death. When God calls there are no regrets. I tried to share my heart with you as much as possible, my heart for the nations. I wasn’t called to a place. I was called to him. To obey was my objective, to suffer was expected, his glory my reward. One of the most important things to remember right now is to preserve the work…. I am writing this as if I am still working with my people group.
I thank you all so much for your prayers and support. Surely your reward in heaven will be great. Thank you for investing in my life and spiritual well-being. Keep sending missionaries out. Keep raising up fine young pastors. In regards to any service, keep it small and simple. Yes, simply, just preach the gospel … Be bold and preach the life-saving, life-changing, forever-eternal gospel. Give glory and honor to our Father.
The Missionary Heart: Care more than some think is wise. Risk more than some think is safe. Dream more than some think is practical. Expect more than some think is possible. I was called not to comfort or success but to obedience … There is no joy outside of knowing Jesus and serving him. I love you two and my church family. In his care, Salaam, Karen.[i]
What drives someone to do this? What drives someone to leave a relatively safe and secure life in the United States to go to one of the most dangerous places on earth for the sole purpose of telling the people there about and demonstrating the love of God in Christ? The same thing that drove one of Paul’s friends, Ephaphras, to take the good news of Jesus Christ to Colossae: a life captivated by Christ. What I am calling the Christ-captivated life.
Remember, Colossae wasn’t much of a town. Her best days had long since passed by the time Paul’s friend and coworker Epaphras carried the good news of Jesus Christ and founded a church there. One scholar has stated emphatically that Colossae was “without doubt … the least important church to which any epistle of St. Paul was addressed.”
In fact, just a few short years after Paul wrote this letter, Colossae was leveled by an earthquake and neither the residents nor the Roman Empire bothered to rebuild her. They simply moved on to a better city nearby. But the eyes of Epaphras, and a few years later the eyes of Paul, weren’t on the city itself – with its declining political and economic importance or its crumbling infrastructure. Their eyes were on the people. Their hearts beat for the people, and they wanted them to understand both the depth of God’s love for them, and the real-life implications of that love.
Care more than some think is wise. Risk more than some think is safe. Dream more than some think is practical. Expect more than some think is possible. Turn with me to Colossians 1:24-29.
Paul and Timothy are giving us a glimpse inside the heart of a Christ-captivated life. Um, what? Rejoice in my sufferings? That’s what Paul says. But what does he mean?
The motivation for the Christ-captivated life is a passion, a desire, for Christ in your own life and to make him known in the lives of others. But what does that have to do with suffering? Everything! Now, I want to be clear here, because this is one of those really misunderstood passages in the Bible. Paul isn’t arguing for some kind of glee amid the pain of life. He isn’t saying that we should jump for joy whenever we experience pain. He isn’t telling us that we have to have some kind of spiritualized masochistic mentality that likes to suffer.
Rejoicing – joy – is so much deeper than happiness. Happiness is a surface emotion that changes with the weather. Every spring in March, as the temperature starts to warm into the 50s during the day, I am happy. But then when they drop to about 2, I’m not happy anymore. But as I trudge out to the barn early each March morning, plodding through snow that at this point I just refuse to blow out of the way, while not happy, I am filled with joy. I’m not happy. I don’t like being cold. But there is joy because I know that it is March, and while that means I will probably have to deal with a few more cold, snowy nights, spring is on the way. We’re climbing out of winter. It doesn’t make me any less cold, but it helps me to tolerate it.
That’s what joy does for us. It doesn’t make suffering any less intense, any less fearful, or less painful. It doesn’t make me want to go looking for it. But if it finds me, I can deal with it, because I know that the day is coming when, united finally with Christ, I won’t suffer any more.
The second thing that gives our suffering meaning is that it makes our testimony for Christ very real. Our ability to make meaning out of suffering show the power of the gospel in a very tangible way. The depth of our devotion to Christ and his transforming work in our lives is most clearly revealed not when our lives are good and we’re walking on top of the world, but as we slog through the Valley of the Shadow of Death.
The love of God is seen most clearly on the cross of Christ. And it is reflected most clearly as we pick up our crosses and follow him daily. It doesn’t minimize the pain or say that in some way pain and suffering are good. But pain and suffering are in some way a part of each person’s experience. And while not inherently good, God can use the pain we experience in this world for his glory.
Now, look at Vv. 27-29. CHRIST. IN. YOU.
When we place our faith in Christ, he takes up residence IN us. He begins to live his life IN us. “Christ IN YOU, the hope of glory.” Down in V. 29 Paul says “For this I toil, struggling with all HIS energy that HE powerfully works within me.” When we place our faith in Christ, he takes up residence in us and goes to work in two ways: in us and through us. He begins to transform us from the inside out, changing our hearts and minds and wills to reflect his as he takes up residence in our lives. And that leads to living differently just by nature – God doing his work in the lives of others through us.
Now, look at the end of V. 28. God’s goal for your life is nothing less than that you will grow to maturity in Christ. Another apostle, James, one of Jesus’ disciples, said the same thing. “And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (James 1:4).
The word translated “perfect” there is exactly the same word Paul used that is translated as “mature” in our text today. It is the word “Teleios,” and it carries with it not the idea of perfection as we think of it, even though it’s translated that way in James. It has nothing to do with being sinless. Teleios means adult, full-grown, of full age, the opposite of little children. In our context it paints a picture of maturing in Christ, just as children mature into adulthood.
It means that we are growing in our ability to live as disciples of Jesus. Yes, Jesus tells us to have a child-like component to our faith. That doesn’t mean we are to stay immature in our faith. It means we learn to just trust Jesus. What he says, we trust, like innocent children.
But what do children tend to also do? Children tend to be very “me” focused, and throw tantrums when they don’t get their way. They’re still learning to clothe and feed themselves. It’s their immaturity. And just as normally developing children eventually grow up, we must also grow up spiritually. That doesn’t mean we’re more sophisticated, or develop a special knowledge, or super-human powers. It simply means that we more and more easily trust Jesus.
And like the process of coming into physical maturity, maturing spiritually is a process. Now, as human beings we all grow physically, but healthy physical growth requires certain conditions, doesn’t it. It requires good nutrition, and exercise, and adequate rest. Without those conditions, human physical development can become stunted. And the presence of the wrong things can lead to poor development too.
The same thing is true of our growth in Christ. We need solid nutrition. Paul says “Him (Jesus) we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom.” To grow to maturity in Christ, we need good nutrition, and we get that through the preaching and teaching of the word of God in worship, and in small groups and Bible studies, and in our own growing ability to read, and study, and meditate on the word of God ourselves. But we also need spiritual exercise. What good is knowledge if we don’t put it into practice?
To me, one of the most challenging verses in the entire Bible is 1 John 2:6. “whoever says he abides in him (Jesus) ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.” Whoever claims to live in Christ must live as Jesus lived. If we are in Christ and Christ is in us, then we should be looking more and more like Christ. We don’t BECOME Christs. But we resemble him. Are you and I known as “little Christ’s” by our families, our friends, our coworkers, our neighbors? Learning ABOUT Jesus is useless if it doesn’t impact our ability to live LIKE Jesus. The promise is that Christ is IN us.
Now, there’s something else we need to see here: the word “everyone” It appears three times in this one verse. Paul is making his point very clear. There are no outsiders in the body of Christ. There are no second-class citizens in the body of Christ. There are no spiritual elites. All have access to the maturity in Christ of which Paul speaks.
That’s why in V. 27 he emphasizes God’s choice 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.” He wanted to make sure they understood that all the benefits of life in Christ, hope in Christ, were theirs too. Even though they were Gentiles, not Jews; even though they were from Colossae, not Laodicea, Christ was in them too. There are no second-class citizens in the body of Christ. And the goal toward which we all are moving is maturity in Christ.
Christ is for everyone. There is not one person outside the reach of his love. And there is not one person who cannot grow to maturity in Christ. And the Christ-captivated life sees great potential in every life we come in contact with. That’s true for you. And that’s true for every person whose path we cross. And those living Christ-captivated lives look for ways, develop ways, for people’s paths to cross their own.
Several years ago a woman in Africa gave her life to Christ. She was 70 years old, blind and uneducated. She couldn’t read. From the perspective of most people, there wasn’t much she could do in the kingdom of God. But she went to the missionary who led her to Christ with her French Bible and asked, “Would you mind underlining John 3:16 in my Bible in red?”
Intrigued, the missionary watched her as she took her Bible and sat in front of a boys’ school in the afternoon. When school was dismissed, she would call out to a boy or two and say, “Boys, come here please. Do you know French?” When they very proudly said that they did, she would say to them, “Please read to me the passage underlined in red in my Bible.” Then she would ask them, “Do you know what it means?” And they always replied, “No, we don’t.” And she would tell them the story of Jesus.
Do you know that because of one 70-year-old, blind, uneducated woman 24 of those boys became, you thought I was going to say “Christians” didn’t you? No. God only knows how many became Christians. Twenty-four of those boys became pastors.[ii] Even though she was old, blind, and illiterate, she knew that Christ was living his life in her, and captivated by the love of Christ, she let Christ in her spill out.
Care more than some think is wise. Risk more than some think is safe. Dream more than some think is practical. Expect more than some think is possible. We were called not to comfort or success but to obedience. May we live fruitful lives, captivated by Christ, marked by the worship of God, growth in maturity through the word of God, and witness to the goodness of God. Let’s pray.
[i] “Keep Sending Missionaries,” Baptist Press (3-24-04)
[ii] Ibid., pp. 357-58.
