The hope of glory

Colossians 1:24-29

Karen Watson was a very devout but sensible Christian woman who wrote a two page letter to her pastor 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? 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? The same thing that drove one of Paul’s friends, Ephaphras, to take the good news of Jesus Christ to Colossea: a life captivated by Christ. What I am calling the Christ-captivated life. Turn with me to Colossians 1:24-29. Let’s start with Vv. 24-25.

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 to her citizens 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 – p weren’t on the city itself: its dying 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.

We’re a church that serves a lot of people. The food pantry. The community meal. Days like today when we’re reaching out into the community with fun activities for families and children. And those outreaches place a lot of demands on us, don’t they? If we’re honest with ourselves and with God, we can ALL admit that there are days we’d rather not serve. It’s our food pantry day, and we’re just not feeling it. It’s our week for community meal, but there’s so much else going on. Is it all really worth the effort and headache?

The answer is an unqualified “YES!” Even if you finish up your tasks grudgingly and still aren’t feeling it. The core of the gospel is God’s love for all made visible in Christ. All. Whether they return the love or not. Whether they’re easy or hard to work with. Whether they matter in this world’s eyes or not. Because when we look at people from a kingdom of God perspective, we know that every single person, regardless of financial status or physical ability, is deeply, deeply loved by God. And just as we have experienced that deep love, so we are to share it with others without stopping to consider who it is.

In the 6 verses of Colossians 1 that we are looking at today, Paul gives us a glimpse inside the heart of a Christ-captivated life. Look at V. 24. Um, what? “Now I rejoice in my sufferings …” 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 the good news of Jesus to known by 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 in the midst of the pain of life. He isn’t saying that we should jump for joy whenever we experience pain. He isn’t arguing for 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.

This week I was flipping through an old journal and I found this entry, from March 6, 2026. “Last Saturday when the temperatures hit 55 I was happy. Wednesday night when they dropped to about 2, I wasn’t happy anymore. But as I trudged out to the barn early Thursday morning, plodding through snow that at this point I just refuse to blow out of the way, while not happy, I was filled with joy. I wasn’t happy. I don’t like being cold. But there was joy because I knew that it was 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, any 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.

Jesus never tells us to go looking for pain, for suffering, for trial and struggle. And he never tells us to be happy when we do suffer. But he does tell us that in some way, suffering will find each one of us in this life. “In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (Jn. 16:33). And our suffering has meaning because it accomplishes two things. First, it allows us to more closely identify with Christ. We worship a cross-bearing Savior. Why should we expect that our path through life, if our lives are modeled after Christ, will be any different? The Christ-life is the cross-life.

The second thing that gives our suffering meaning is that it can authenticate our testimony for Christ. It makes our proclamation of the gospel credible because our ability to make meaning out of suffering reveals to the world the power of the gospel. 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, the motivating force of the Christ-captivated life is to make the word of God fully known. What does that mean? Look at V. 27. This verse serves as a sort of hinge for this passage. Everything in verses 24-26 point toward it, and everything in verses 28-29 proceed from it. And it can be boiled down to three words: 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.

When I placed my faith in Christ he began to work in me, shaping and molding me. In Galatians 4:19 Pays said, “my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you!” (Gal. 4:19).

When a family adopts a child, that child receives a new legal identity, an identity associated with her new family, and that legal identity goes into effect immediately. But the lived experience of being a part of that family takes time and a lot of hard work. It takes intentional effort on the part of both the new family and the adopted child.

Now look at Vv. 28-29. God’s goal for your life is nothing less than that you will grow to maturity in Christ. The word translated “perfect” here carries with it not the idea of perfection as we think of it. It has nothing to do with being sinless. It 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. It means that we are growing in the degree to which we are obedient to Christ in every aspect of our lives. In this sense the mature in Christ are not sinless, but they confess their sin willingly and easily when they become aware of it, and do what is necessary to make things right, and they are growing in love, growing in joy, growing in peace, growing in patience, and gentleness, and faithfulness, and goodness, growing in what Paul says are the Holy Spirit’s fruit, impact, result, in our lives.

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.

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. The word Christian means “little Christ.” 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.

Sadly, in the church today, we’ve taken the actual living part out of it, and replaced it with talking about it.

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. Not just the ones we think have potential. The ones we think can do it.

Everyone means everyone. Everyone means you too. Paul took great pains to make sure that the Colossian believers didn’t fall prey to thinking that other believers in more significant cities and churches, or that the Jewish believers in Jerusalem were the real Christians and they were second best. 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 of the benefits of life in Christ, hope in Christ, were theirs too. Even though they were Gentiles, not Jews; even though they were from Colossea, 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 was little good 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?” “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

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?” to which they would reply, “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] Because one woman knew that Christ was living his life in her, that this was her hope, and captivated by the love of Christ, she let her hope, 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 go and care today. Will you pray with me?

[i] “Keep Sending Missionaries,” Baptist Press (3-24-04)

[ii] Ibid., pp. 357-58.