Author: Ryan Hale

If we are truly believers and followers of Christ, we have a new life. We have already died to our former life and we have now been raised with Christ, as Paul tells the Colossians:

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.

Colossians 3:1-3

What does it mean to set our hearts on the things above?

Paul starts with the sinfulness of our world. He tells the Colossians to look beyond our fleshly desires: sexual immortality, impurity, lust, and greed. We look beyond the desires that the world puts in front of us because we want something better. We should no longer want those things that are temporal because there is something that is much more valuable: that which is eternal.

He then goes on to talk about the fact that, in Christ, we have been made to be one. We are one people. We have been united. No longer are there Jews and Gentiles, nor any of the other classifications that we give ourselves that bring divisions amongst us. Yes, we still live in the world where those classifications exist, but as we live, we live instead as one people. One family, one brotherhood in Christ.

This is, in fact, one of the greatest ways in which we give glory to God. We have diversity that seeks to divide us in our world, but in Christ, we have been made to be one – we worship him as one people. The diversity still exists, but in Christ, there is unity.

This is all because we have died to our former lives and have been raised to a new life in Christ. We have left behind that which we thought was important in our world and instead found what is truly important in Christ. We continue to live in the physical world, but our eternal life in Christ has started now and will continue forever.

Therefore, both our perspective and each of our priorities must change. We should no longer be worried about that which is temporal, but instead we concern ourselves with that which is eternal. How do I spend my time? How do I invest or use the money that I have received? For whom am I living? When we have been resurrected with Christ into this new life, these are the new questions that we should begin to ask ourselves. This is not just a religion that we go to church to participate in for a couple of hours each week. This is a whole new life.

Can you imagine what it must have been like to sit and talk with Jesus? We believe that Jesus was God made flesh. In other words, Jesus is God.

So if you were sitting and having a conversation with Jesus, you were sitting and having a conversation directly with God. Wow.

I’m not sure which is more difficult for me to wrap my mind around: the humanity of Christ or the Deity of Christ. Both are equally challenging, but as Paul writes to the church in Colossae, he seems to be focused on the Deity of Christ. In Colossians 1, for example, he says that Christ is the image of God:

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

Colossians 1:15

Jesus is the image of the invisible God. He is the physical representation of God, who is spirit. He truly represents God in the way that God was intended to be represented. In a similar way that man and woman, Adam and Eve, were created and formed so as to represent – to image – God, Jesus was the true image. The things that he did. The things that he said. The way that he lived. The holiness of God in human form. The way that he gave himself for each of us. The way that he reigns over his kingdom. Even today, even now, Jesus represents God in a human form.

But there is a very important difference between Jesus and what God intended for Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve were created. Jesus was the firstborn over all of creation, meaning he himself was the creator. Paul goes on to say that Jesus created all things. Everything. Everything was created for him.

And then, even further, Jesus is both the ruler and the redeemer over all things. The creation is his. All of it was made for him, yet at the same time, he both cares for the creation and redeems it all back to God through his blood.

So Christ isn’t just given authority. He also has authority because he is the creator. He is the one for whom all things were made.

And yet he is also the one who walked here on the earth in human form!

Paul punctuates this discussion again in the second chapter in saying that Christ is the fullness of the Deity in and of himself:

For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority.

Colossians 2:9-10

Paul is saying that Jesus isn’t just a created person, like one of us. Yes, he is the image of the invisible God, so he is a human like us, but he is also the fullness of the Deity. In other words, he is fully God. Even though he lived, and still lives even today in bodily form, he also is fully God. He did not lose any part of being God because he took on human form, but instead he is still fully God and he continues to rule and reign as God even today.

It would have been amazing to have known Jesus as he walked the earth. It would have been illuminating. We would have known what to do. We would have been able to understand everything that God wants from us.

Right?

Well, except the disciples messed it up. The disciples abandoned Jesus. Despite Jesus having explained to them his plan, they didn’t understand.

But we do still have the words that Jesus spoke. We can hear directly from him. We can understand what God wants from us even today. We can hear directly from God by reading the words that Jesus spoke.

In fact, we probably have an even greater advantage because we can listen to him with hindsight. We can see the plan in the context of the rest of history. We can see what God is doing from creation to the life of Christ and then understand where we fit, what God wants from us, and the life that he wants us to take even today.

If we will listen to him.

If we will trust him.

There are incredible implications to the fact that Jesus is the fullness of the Deity. It means that we can listen to the words of the Deity. As we read the word of God, we can “hear” the words of God coming from Christ. Yes, the Holy Spirit lives within us and we can hear from him as well. In fact, we must! Yet, if there is any doubt, we can directly read the words of God. We can directly understand his plan. And we can directly move forward based on what he has told us to do.

The fullness of the Deity in a human form should create within us the fullness of Christ living within us, if we will fully place our faith in him and do what he has called us to do. May that be the reality within which we live today and ongoing!

It might have been a surprise to the church in Colossae to hear that something was lacking in Christ’s afflictions. Wasn’t Jesus the perfect sacrifice? Isn’t Christ’s sacrifice that in which I am placing my faith so that my sins could be forgiven?

In what way, exactly, are Christ’s afflictions lacking?

Let’s try to understand what Paul is saying. Here is the passage that I’m referring to:

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.

Colossians 1:24-27

You can see how this could quickly become confusing quickly. If Paul is saying that Christ’s afflictions are lacking in some way, then we have an imperfect sacrifice. And if we have an imperfect sacrifice, then we have nothing in which we can place our faith and we cannot be forgiven. And finally, if we cannot be forgiven, we are lost. We are destined to receives God’s wrath and punishment. We cannot be saved. We cannot be part of God’s kingdom. We are not his people.

But of course, many, many other places in the scriptures have already told us that Jesus is the perfect sacrifice – one sacrifice for all time, for all people, for all sin. Jesus is the one who takes our sins upon himself so that we can be healed. Here is just one example from the book of Hebrews:

And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool. For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.

The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First he says:

“This is the covenant I will make with them
after that time, says the Lord.
I will put my laws in their hearts,
and I will write them on their minds.”
Then he adds:
“Their sins and lawless acts
I will remember no more.”

And where these have been forgiven, sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary.

Hebrews 10:10-18

We can see here that no other sacrifices are necessary. Jesus’s sacrifice was sufficient for all people, for all time. Jesus was, in fact, given as one sacrifice for sins by God himself, through Christ our high priest, and no further sacrifices are necessary. In fact, to offer further sacrifice would be to say that God’s sacrifice was not sufficient. To continue to strive in an effort to please God would be tantamount to saying that the blood of Christ was not enough. Instead, we would be acting as if we believe that we need more.

No, we have received the perfect sacrifice in Jesus Christ. He was bruised and beaten. He was hung on the cross and died, and then he rose again three days later, defeating death and taking away the sin of anyone who would place their faith in him.

If that is true, then, what is Paul talking about? How can he say that there is something lacking in the afflictions of Christ?

Even further, how can Paul, although truly a great man, but just a man like any one of us, make up for anything that is related to Christ’s sacrifice? That certainly isn’t possible, is it?

We need to be sure to read what Paul is saying in context. Paul is referring to the presentation of the message of the Gospel. He is talking about the message that has been hidden from people throughout the centuries but that has now been made known to the Gentiles. He is talking about the fact that the message now must be spread to the rest of the world.

The sacrifice of Christ hasn’t been magically or automatically communicated to everyone. It hasn’t been, in some way, electronically transmitted to everyone’s heart and mind. No, instead, God has decided that people, each of us, would be the way that the message would be communicated and taken to everyone everywhere. We are his ambassadors, as Paul wrote to the Corinthians. In this way, Paul is saying that he is taking on what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.

Christ’s afflictions have taken on the wrath of God in our place. He died so that we can live, but he did not go to everyone throughout the world to take this incredible message to all people. That is the role that God has given us to carry out. That is the job that he has given us to do.

Let’s take this discussion one step further, however. Paul actually doesn’t just say that he is the bearer of the message. Instead, he says that he fills up in his flesh what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions. Paul takes this message within him, within his flesh, and carries it to the whole world.

Paul had taken the beatings. He had been jailed. Like Christ, his flesh bore the marks, the wounds of the Gospel, as he took the message to the whole world. When you heard the message from Paul, you also saw the wounds on his flesh. You saw the marks of Christ upon him. He was full of the message of Christ, even within his flesh. Paul did not just preach the words of the Gospel, but he bore upon himself the true marks of Christ.

In this important way, Paul fills up within himself that which is lacking in Christ’s afflictions. He isn’t sacrificing himself for the people. He is giving himself to Christ, for the cause of Christ and to Christ’s glory, so that the mystery of Christ would be revealed to all people and the whole world may hear of the salvation that comes from God.

It is quite a statement to say that you consider to be garbage all of the things that you had done before. All of your accomplishments. All of the things that even others would say about you to describe what you have done in this world. That, though, is the lens through which Paul sees his life, at least in comparison to the value and the worth of knowing Jesus.

Paul is making a comparison. He is holding up the value of the things that he has done, that which people would normally evaluate one another, alongside the value of knowing Christ. And as he sees the one in comparison with the other – his heritage, his religious position, his personal attributes, and his own righteousness as compared to knowing Christ – he sees his own experiences as nothing but garbage.

These are all of the things by which we typically evaluate one another. If you intend to hire someone, one of the first things that you look at is their resume. What has this person done? What is their education? What is their experience?

And Paul’s education, experience, and practice is, from a Jewish perspective, flawless.

This should, within his society, lift him up. This should give him a promotion. This should, if God were to think as human beings think, immediately allow Paul to come directly into a good and right relationship with God.

But God does not think that way. He isn’t too interested in all of our trophies, nor our accolades. There is only one way that we can know God, and that is through Jesus Christ. So because of this, because we can know God through Christ, Paul places that relationship above all things.

Paul understands that all he had done previously to gain his accomplishments, to impress others and more, was simply garbage. There is one thing, and one thing only, in which he is interested: knowing Christ.

But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.

Philippians 3:7-9

Paul sees the world through this lens: How can I know Christ? How can I know him even more? How can other people know Christ, and know him more? That is the one single thing that matters to him and everything else is garbage.

And what about me? What about each of us? Do I see the world through that same lens? Do I place the highest value on knowing Christ, following him, and glorifying him? This is certainly my desire, although I feel that I have a long way to go. My prayer is that I will be able to live for Christ, understanding the value of knowing him, and live for him, now and into eternity.

Jesus proclaimed the gospel of the kingdom of God and said that it would be proclaimed among all nations, and then the end would come.

Paul spoke of a gospel that offered forgiveness for sins by faith in his death and resurrection.

Are these two gospels? Two different plans?

Of course not, but let’s take a moment to understand how they actually work together.

First, let’s start with the spiritual reality that surrounds us. Jesus spoke of two kingdoms: the kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness.

And these kingdoms, of course, stand in stark opposition to one another because of the kings that rule over each of those kingdoms. Jesus is the king in the kingdom of God. Satan is the king in the kingdom of darkness.

When Jesus came to earth to offer himself as a sacrifice for our sins, what was he doing? What was it that changed as he did that?

Jesus was offering his blood as payment for the sins that had been committed by each of us. It was a type of ransom payment, a redemption, to allow us to leave the kingdom of darkness to come to the kingdom of God.

So as we place our faith in Christ’s sacrifice, we are moving from one kingdom to the other, because of Christ’s blood. Because of the payment that he made for us.

So, as Paul reiterated to the Ephesian church, Christ allowed us to pass from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light (the kingdom of God):

For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light.

Ephesians 5:8

Paul proclaimed a gospel of Christ that offered forgiveness for sins, but he was not proclaiming a different gospel. No, instead, he was primarily talking about the payment that Christ made for each of us with his blood.

Jesus, on the other hand, spoke of the fact that he himself is the king. He is the one who rules over the kingdom of God. He is ruling today, and he will continue to rule forever while the kingdom of darkness will one day, finally, be destroyed forever.

So Paul is actually explaining the reality to the Ephesians that, yes, there is light and there is darkness, but he is referring to the same kingdoms of which Jesus had spoken. He is encouraging the Ephesians to live for the king. It is not enough to simply be saved from the kingdom of darkness. Instead, we must give ourselves and live for the king in the light.

This must be what we offer as we respond to Christ’s precious gift. He gave his blood to pay for us to be ransomed from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God. We give him our gratitude, our love, our entire lives.

I love how the elders, the creatures in heaven, and all of the people that had been saved from every tribe, tongue, and nation sing about this reality in heaven, as recorded in Revelation 5:

And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of God’s people. And they sang a new song, saying:

“You are worthy to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
because you were slain,
and with your blood you purchased for God
persons from every tribe and language and people and nation.
You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God,
and they will reign on the earth.”

Revelation 5:8-10

They all sing of the fact that the Lamb, Christ himself, purchased people from all over the world to make them a kingdom, his kingdom, the kingdom of God. Those people will be the priests and serve the Lord in that kingdom. They are, in fact, singing about what Christ has done for each of us who believe!

That is the kingdom that we live in, even today. Yes, we also are a part of our earthly kingdoms, the nations where we live. However, there is a true and larger reality that we are living within even today…and within which we will live forever. Jesus purchased us to come out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of light. Let us live completely and wholly for him, in this greater reality, starting today.

Christ is the head of the church. And we are each members of his body.

First and foremost, it is important to clarify who is who and the nature of the relationship between Christ and his church. We don’t always understand or practice that relationship very well.

I would contend, in fact, that there has been confusion regarding this issue recently within the Catholic church. We recently, of course, saw the death and selection of a new Pope who is considered to be the head of the Catholic church. Instead of Christ at the head, we have a person in the headship role that will, in short, step into the place of Christ as the head over the church.

And while I point the finger at the Catholic church, I think it would also be right to say that we frequently, both positionally and authoritatively, see people in protestant and various evangelical churches do the same thing. While they would not, of course, say that they are the head of the church, we see an assumption of the headship role, a person through whom all final decisions will go, an executive of executives, if you will.

Paul spends a lot of time in chapter 4 in his letter to the Ephesians to emphasize these points, that Christ is the head and we are each members of his body. The members of the body work together to build one another up. Yes, each member performs its function. It must so that the body can function properly. However those members of the body also have the other parts of the body in mind. As each part works, it works for the good of the rest of the body, spurring each part within the rest of the body on to good works for the purpose of glorying Christ.

Paul says that, while we are one body, we are not necessarily all the same. Christ gave gifts to each of the people within the body. In this chapter, he lists five different gifts that were given by Christ to us who are part of his body, the universal church, here on earth:

So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

Ephesians 4:11-13

The five are apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers.

And each of these five have a purpose. The purpose of these five gifts is to equip the people, the rest of the body, for works of service. Christ gives the gifts to the church so that the church will be built up. Not only that each of us would use our gifts individually so that we are individually glorified. Instead, it is so that the body will be built up.

But why build up the body? The head of the body is concerned about the health and growth of the body. The head of the body wants to see that the body comes to full maturity. Christ does not want to we remain infants. Instead, he wants that we become mature.

How would these gifts make us mature? Let’s think about the gifts themselves for a moment:

Apostles are the people that see where the kingdom of God has not yet arrived and helps to lead and organize the rest of us to reach out to those who do not yet know Christ. This brings the body to greater maturity by teaching the rest of us to see those around us who need to know Christ and do what is necessary to reach out to them.

Prophets call us to greater clarity and truth in alignment to the word of God. Prophets help us to know when we are out of alignment and are straying away from the calling of Christ on our lives. Instead, they point us back to the way of God and keep us pointed in the direction that Christ has called each of us to go, calling us to repentance and the truth of who God has made us to be.

Evangelists teach us and lead us to tell others. We need to know how to share the Gospel. We need to know when to share the Gospel. We need to know the best ways to share the Gospel given the diversity of the people all around us. Evangelists build us up by showing and leading the rest of us to do these things.

Pastors, or sometimes translated Shepherds, care for the flock. Jesus said that he is the Good Shepherd, but he has also placed shepherds amongst us. They take care of the people within body of Christ and teach each us to do the same with those who are around us.

Teachers continue to take us deeper into the word of God, helping us to understand its meaning and applying it to our lives. They help us to see what it is that the word is saying and teaching us also how we can teach others. They can multiply their gift by teaching others the meaning of certain sections of scripture, but they can also multiply their gift by teaching others to teach.

In these ways, we can see that the body of Christ will be built up. It will continue to grow until it reaches maturity, attaining to the full measure of Christ, glorifying him by using the gifts that he himself has provided to his body so as to bring the body to the fullness of maturity.

As we have short-term teams and interns come to work with us here, one of the things that we like to do is to go through a series of lessons that outline the bigger story that we are living within. We call this series of lessons Finding Your Purpose in God’s Plan. It primarily comes from the struggle that I and others have experienced as we asked ourselves for many years, decades in fact, what it was that God wanted us to do. What was our calling? How did God desire to use us? I think that these are fundamental questions for almost every person: Who am I? What is my purpose?

So as individuals and teams come to work alongside of us, we like to walk through a series of lessons that help to highlight the bigger story that we are living within, that God has placed us within.

The first lesson is called The Mission of God, looking at and considering God’s bigger-picture plan. What is it that he is doing? What is going on in the world that all of the rest of what we see around us, and that which is written in the scripture, fits within?

So, just to intentionally spoil the surprise, I believe that God’s mission is that his image would be spread all over the face of the earth. I believe that we can see that mission initially stated in Genesis 1, and then this same mission is restated in the Great Commission, and its conclusion shown within the discussion of the end times in Revelation. You can read through the details of what I mean by following the link above.

But having this same understanding helps me a lot as well as I read the rest of the Bible. For example, I would say that without that understanding of what God is doing, it becomes difficult to understand what Paul is saying as he talks about the “mystery” that is being revealed, that the Gentiles are being invited into the kingdom of God so that they also will be part of God’s people:

Although I am less than the least of all the Lord’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ, and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things.

Ephesians 3:8-9

So the mystery is that the Gentiles would know God… But why is that a mystery?

It is a mystery because it wasn’t always like that. In fact, it was the exact opposite. The Israelites thought – no, instead, it is better to say that they knew – that they were God’s chosen people. And in fact, they were the only chosen people. The Gentiles, according to everything that the Jews had understood up to that point, were not God’s chosen people.

Except the mystery is that, actually, in Christ, the Gentiles would also be God’s chosen people if they were redeemed and reconciled back to God in Christ, and at that time, that which seemed to be a mystery was being revealed to both the Jews and the Gentiles for the first time.

So what does Paul mean when he talks about the administration of the mystery? He is saying that he is taking this very message to both the Jews and to the Gentiles.

God has opened the way for the Gentiles too!

So, looking back and reading this here in our day, we could say: That’s nice. Good theological point… Nice idea. Let’s move on with our day.

Except, if we are a believer in Christ, this makes a significant difference. No, instead, it is a massive difference. It turns everything upside-down.

Why?

Because God has a plan and if you know God’s plan, that should be a determining factor, a direction for your life.

God’s plan is to spread his image all over the face of the earth. And he has called each person who believes Christ into service to be part of bringing that plan to completion. Why? Because it brings glory to him. It brings all of the glory to him.

My life and your life are not about me, nor is it about you. No, instead, our lives are about carrying out God’s plan. As believers, living for ourselves, for what we want, for what pleases us, is antithetical to God’s plan.

No, there is something even greater. Much greater. In fact, if you want to know what will truly please you, in that which you will find the greatest amount of joy, go and learn about God’s plan and understand how God has called you to join it.

Then start. Move. Do it. You can move somewhere else to be part his plan, or you can stay right where you are. You can stay in your job or you can do something new. Your circumstances are not the point. God will use you right where you are, if you will allow him to do so.

Becoming part of the administration of the mystery, that God’s image is being spread all across the earth, that he has called all people, from every tribe, tongue, and nation to come into his kingdom, and you have a role to play so that they can be reconciled back to God through Christ, is the most important part. That is where you will find true joy because that is the story that God has been telling from the beginning, and it is the same story that God will continue to tell all of the way to the end of time. And this is the same story into which he is inviting us even today.

In 2016, my family and I moved to Italy to work with immigrants and refugees arriving from Africa, from the Middle East, from South Asia, and beyond. We arrived in Sicily and have lived here now for nearly nine years, sharing the Gospel and making disciples of Christ amongst these people throughout this time while also encouraging and helping to mobilize our Sicilian Christian brothers and sisters to do the same.

Moving into a new country brings a number of new experiences and new understandings of your relationship to other people. One word, one idea in particular that we have learned, especially moving to the southern part of Italy in Sicily with its strong culture is this:

We are “stranieri”.

Stranieri translates in English to “foreigners”, or maybe you could translate it to “strangers”. While we have learned a lot over the years, we are foreigners to the Sicilian land, the Sicilian culture, the language, and much more. We are foreigners… always have been and I’m pretty sure that, in the eyes of the Sicilian people, regardless of how well we might speak the language or the extent to which we learn the various parts of the culture, we always will be stranieri.

As Paul wrote to the church in Ephesus, he noted this same division that had previously been found between the Jewish people, who had been called God’s people through the covenant that God had made with them, and the Gentiles who were not under this same covenant. God had given the Jews a sign of their covenant. The men would be circumcised and this would show that they are under the covenant, a group of people for whom Yahweh would be their God and they would be his people.

The Gentiles did not have Yahweh as their God. They were not under this same covenant. They did not have the sign of circumcision to show that Yahweh was their God and they were his people. The Jews and the Gentiles, in that time, were two separate people. Not only did they come from different places… Not only did they have a different language… Not only did they have different cultures… They were different peoples as they stood before God.

So the Gentiles were foreigners to God. And what was more, they were foreigners to the people of God. They were outsiders. They did not belong. They had no part in a relationship with God as they Jews did. In fact, Paul says that the Gentiles had no hope. They were excluded. They were walking through this world without God.

And yet Paul says that God, in Christ, removed this barrier. God made these two groups of people one nation, one people. He unified them in Christ. He brought together the Gentiles and the Jews through the blood of Christ. He made peace. He removed the wall of hostility that existed between the Jews and Gentiles, not to mention the wall between God and the Gentiles. God offered the gift of grace and mercy to both the Jews and Gentiles through Jesus, making the two to instead be one.

So the Gentiles are now offered citizenship in the kingdom of God. They were made to no longer be foreigners, but instead, citizens with the full rights and privileges as the people of God:

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.

Ephesians 2:19-20

The Gentiles are no longer on the outside, but instead are on the inside. They are part of God’s kingdom. They are, even better, part of his household. They belong because of Jesus. Jesus opened the door to all peoples to come in and he himself is the foundation, the chief cornerstone, of the people of God, of whom now both the Jews and all of the Gentiles belong, if they will come to him through Christ.

This continues to have implications for us even today! Christ died for Muslims. Christ died for atheists. Christ died for Buddhists, Hindus, and more. He did that so that they would be welcomed into the kingdom of God, into his household. And he has sent us to tell them that great news: They are no longers foreigners. They are citizens. They are no longer just servants. They are his children. They are now, if they will come in Christ, the people of God.

I find that one of the more challenging questions that I can ask when we have a meeting is the first one that, as a team, we nearly always ask:

What are you thankful for this week?

Very often, I can much more easily get responses to theological questions about a particular scriptural passage:

What do you learn about God from this passage?

Or, what do you learn about people from this story?

But unfortunately, I find that we aren’t always very good at giving praise to God or very good at offering thankfulness. We aren’t really very good at remembering the things that God has done for us.

Instead, often when I ask this first question, the response is… silence.

Why is that?

We could probably make a long list of reasons, but for today, I want to point to one possibility: As human beings, we tend to focus on the negative things in our daily lives. And even further, as followers of Christ, we do a good job at losing sight of what is really happening around us, the true nature of reality of that which God has done and is still doing all around us, even today.

We live in the wrong story. We see the world through the wrong lens. We look at the situation and the circumstances around us with regard to how we believe it affects us and the negative consequences, either perceived or real, directly upon us. We do an excellent job of making ourselves the center of our own stories, and therefore our own circumstances – which admittedly may not be, or may not seem, all that positive – become the primary driver of how we feel about our lives.

That can, of course, have several downstream consequences: emotional consequences, physical consequences, and much more, both upon us and even further, upon other people in our interactions with them. We can continue to be wrapped up in our own story and our own circumstances that we can therefore wrap ourselves into knots and create a life that is far from who we were made to be. We can end up far from that which is God’s plan for us.

I was reminded of this when I read the first chapter of Ephesians today, remembering that Paul was in prison when he wrote this:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.

Ephesians 1:3

Paul is looking at his life through an entirely different lens. He is clearly not focusing on his own circumstances. He is looking at everything – his life, the situation around him – entirely through the lens of what God is doing and the work that he has been given to do by God. Paul found the purpose of his life, not in his personal circumstances, but instead in God’s story.

Paul had been nearly beaten to death several times. He had been stoned. He had been put in prison several times. He was often without food. He was regularly threatened by thieves, threatened by cold, threatened by angry mobs.

If Paul was focused on himself, he should have given up long ago. But Paul didn’t consider his own circumstances, his own personal situation as the lens through which he saw his life. Instead, after all of these negative events above, he was also now being kept in prison in Rome and yet was able to give praise and thanks to God, even despite his circumstances.

Paul is an extreme example, but he is also a good one. He is an example of an ideal that helps us to see that we should not focus on ourselves because our story is not just our story. Our lives are not just about us. Our lives are to be lived for God’s glory. The story of our lives should be found within God’s story. This is the only way in which our lives make any sense. This is the only way in which our lives have meaning. Otherwise, we have no foundation for living a life of gratitude because everything depends on each of us and depends upon an accident of nature in which I do not have enough faith to believe.

Instead, we need to maintain a life of praise and thankfulness because God has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every kind of spiritual blessing. In this way, our lives have meaning and we can live for him. Praise God!

When I teach people about our ministry’s vision, I explain that we have adopted the vision to see no place remain, no place left where we can work.

That probably sounds crazy. It certainly seems that way to me. Can you imagine a scenario where we would, at the end of our work, find that there is no place that remains for us to continue doing our work?

Actually, we didn’t make this up on our own. In fact, that was Paul’s vision as well…and he accomplished it. We don’t see that he said that was his vision, but at the end of his work, he proclaims that he has finished his work in these regions. There is no place for him to work here where he has been working, so he wants to move on. Take a look at what he says here:

I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done— by the power of signs and wonders, through the power of the Spirit of God. So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ. It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation. Rather, as it is written:

“Those who were not told about him will see,
and those who have not heard will understand.”

This is why I have often been hindered from coming to you.

But now that there is no more place for me to work in these regions, and since I have been longing for many years to visit you, I plan to do so when I go to Spain. I hope to see you while passing through and to have you assist me on my journey there, after I have enjoyed your company for a while.

Romans 15:18-24

Let’s understand what Paul is saying here. In verse 19, he says “from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum” is the area where he did his work. We can probably pretty easily understand where Jerusalem is on the map. But where in the world is Illyricum?

Check out this map:

The darkened area is Roman province of Illyricum.

So Paul is saying that, from Jerusalem all of the way around to Illyricum, which today would be Bosnia in the southern part and Slovenia in the northern part – or just to the east of Venice, Italy! – Paul no longer has any place left where he can work.

Hmmm… What does that mean?

Judging by today’s geography and political maps, Paul is, at the least, saying that he has covered all of Israel, Lebanon, Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, and more. Paul had done his work. There was nothing left for him to do. He was moving on…

Paul had spent approximately 15 years to start movements in at least three different regions within the areas described above.

In his first journey, he planted churches in at least four different cities in the area of Galatia and Phrygia that themselves went on to spread the word of God across the entire region.

In his second journey, Paul began training Timothy and others to do the work that he was doing, traveling into the areas of Macedonia and Achaia in the city of Corinth.

And finally, in his third journey, Paul once again visited the Galatian churches, but was able this time to head down to Ephesus so as to see amazing fruit from his ministry, teaching and training the disciples who, it seems, went themselves to share the Gospel and plant churches in nine different cities all across the province of Asia, or present-day western Turkey.

So, at the end all of all of this work, Paul now says that there is no place that remains for him to continue his work in these regions. Amazing!

Anytime that we develop a vision, that vision drives the direction in which we go and the form of what we intend to do will take. In Paul’s case, he was not satisfied with the idea that he would plant one church. Paul looked to glorify God with entire regions of people who would hear the Gospel, entire cities of people who would be part of the city church from house to house, who would go on to tell others as well.

In other words, Paul worked to saturate an entire area with the Gospel, and so as we learn from him, our desire is to do the same thing. Our team is focused on sending workers to start new work amongst people who do not know Christ, and then, from amongst the people with whom we have initially worked, we can work alongside the local team to strengthen and build up the local church, making disciples and teaching them to take ownership of their own walk with Christ, taking ownership in helping others walk with Christ, and teaching them to take ownership of their own church.

In this way, our desire is to one day say, just as Paul says here in Romans 15, that we have no place that remains for us to continue to do our work. Instead, we can call people into service of our king, making disciples and planting churches amongst those who do not know him!