St. Luke’s Evangelical Lutheran Church -- Watertown, WI
Pastor Mark Gartner
21Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. 22But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation—23if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.
24Now I rejoice in what was suffered 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. 25I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness—26the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints. 27To 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.
28We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. 29To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me.
Dear brothers and sisters who are united in worship and praise to the true God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen
The other day they had on TV, a few clips showing some of the dumbest criminals. The one that I remember was man who was in a police chase which was captured on tape by someone in a helicopter. The criminal was traveling extremely fast through the streets of the city darting in and out of traffic as the police followed in hot pursuit. The chase went on for some time and the criminal actually got ahead the police officers by quite a bit, when all of sudden the criminal slammed on his brakes got out of his car and ran into a convenience store to get a pack of cigarettes. I guess the stress was getting to him. While he was in the store, the police caught up and captured him. This man was not too smart. I can hear all of you thinking, What a blockhead!
As we go through life there are many people who are even dumber than the man caught by the police. No, I am not talking about people who do dumb things like that criminal, but rather I am talking about Christians who for some reason throw away or forget the spiritual wisdom that God has given them and either think they have found something better or just as bad they just plain fall away from God and wisdom all together. How dumb can people be! As we gather here in God’s house today, we want to once again let God’s Word remind us about how great it is to be filled with God’s Wisdom, because it is the only thing that will bring us to our eternal home in heaven. That’s why our theme will emphasize this thought:
Sermon Theme: Let’s Hang On To the Wisdom We Have!
1. Remember where we were without God’s wisdom
2. Remember what God’s wisdom is doing for us now
3. Remember what God’s wisdom holds out for the future
As we think about this portion of God’s Word, we need to realize that the Colossians were people who for the most part were Gentile Christians. This meant that they spent most of their lives not knowing about God’s Wisdom, and then found God’s Wisdom as a man named Epaphras preached the pure Gospel message of God’s grace to them. They now believed and trusted that Jesus was the only answer for there sins, but the Devil wasn’t too happy that these people now followed the truth. The Devil used some false teachers who were trying to destroy the power of Jesus. What were these new Christians supposed to do? Should they listen to the truth of Jesus, or should they listen to the words of these false teachers?
The other day as I was listening to reports about a trial, I wondered to myself why anyone would want to be a lawyer and then I thought to myself, what a difficult job it must be for the jurors on these trials. For hours upon hours these jurors listen to these lawyers and their witnesses. And as they listen to these people it becomes very obvious that something is wrong. It almost seems like it is impossible to find the truth buried under all these testimonies and witness. And if that isn’t bad enough, the jurors are told that there can’t be any doubt when they make their final verdict. “Beyond a reasonable doubt” they are told. They then have to sift thorough all the garbage and get down to the truth. As we sit in God’s house today we need to sift through all the garbage that is out in the world and ask ourselves what is the truth? Each of us has received from God the wisdom that comes by faith in Jesus. The Holy Spirit has given us the truth, but the Devil will do anything to destroy that wisdom. The Devil will do anything to create doubt. All he wants is for people to not be sure — to explore other options which causes many to fall away from the true wisdom of our Lord. This morning we want to throw away the garbage and get down to the roots of what God’s Wisdom is and why it is so important for us.
As we think about the Wisdom that the Holy Spirit has poured into our hearts, we need to first think about where we were without God’s Wisdom. The Christians in Colosse were reminded by Paul of this very point, “Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior.” There was a time in their lives where they were separated from God’s Wisdom. They didn’t have any of God’s wisdom in their hearts and minds. That time was the time before faith was worked in their hearts. It was during this time of spiritual ignorance that they followed the desires of their sinful nature, which Paul reminds them was not a good thing. Paul tells them that this time in their lives was terrible. It was wrong. It was a time when you actually were enemies of God and his wisdom.
Everyone was born into this world in this same exact condition. It is the original sin that we inherited from Adam and Eve. It is this same spiritual mess that also reminds where we were without God’s Wisdom. We were not on the way to heaven. We were not “good” people. We were people who were destined for eternal destruction in the fires of Hell. To truly appreciate God’s wisdom, we need to realize how far God has brought us. He has brought us from death to life -- from destruction to eternal joy and peace with God. This even applies to us sitting here today. We didn’t skip this part. We were in this same spiritual mess.
There is new game show on TV these days. If you have cable or satellite TV you may have seen it or heard about it. It is called Camouflage. The jist of the game is that they will put about a whole bunch of letters all in a row. Inside all of those letters is a word that you need to find. They then give you a clue and you need to guess he correct word. At first it is almost impossible to guess the word, but every couple of seconds they take away letters until the correct words becomes more and more clear. Sometimes it gets down to only the last few letters before someone guess the correct word. It is amazing how hard it is to find the correct word, and sometimes you fill kind of dumb that you didn’t guess it earlier. God tells us that he had revealed the mystery of God’s Wisdom to the Gentiles and to all the people living in this world, “I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness—26the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints. 27To 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.” Paul and all preachers of God’s Word are the tools by which the mystery of God’s Wisdom is reveled. As we go and proclaim God’s Word the Holy Sprit works in people’s hearts until they believe and trust that this is the truth. Then the mystery is fully uncovered. They can see what it means to know with certainty that Jesus died for the sins of all people.
Paul reminds us just in case we have forgotten exactly what this precious mystery is, “But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation—23if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.” We never want to let go of God’s wisdom, because it is the only truth in the whole world that will make us pure and holy in God’s sight. Paul points it out so clearly when he says, “But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation.” What is the gospel? It is the fact that Jesus came and gave his body as a sacrifice for the sins which we commit everyday and the sin which we have from our birth. It is this truth of God’s complete and full forgiveness that makes us holy and without blemish. We are different. We are God’s children. While we know that we sin each and every day on this earth, we know that Jesus’ forgiveness ahs take away those sins and made us clean. Why would we ever want to give us this beautiful truth of God’s wisdom? Why would we want to try and get to heaven some other way, when God has given us the only way?
But with all that we have said, we never want to forget the most important reason for why we always want to hang on to God’s Wisdom. Paul says it perfectly, “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. We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. 29To this end I labor, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in me.”
There are a couple of phrases in this section that bring it all home to us. Paul talks about the “hope of glory”. We are God’s children who are living in a sinful world surrounded by sinful people. On top of that we realize that we still have a sinful nature and that we daily sin much. God’s wisdom is so important, because it tells us that we have a hope – a hope that we will one day be in God’s glory forever. Without God’s wisdom in our hearts, we have nothing. With God’s Wisdom in our hearts, we have everything. We have the assurance that heaven is our home. We have the assurance that God will take us into heaven, even though we are sinful people.
And why do we have this assurance? Paul says that he proclaims God’s wisdom for a reason and that reason is very simple, “We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ.” God’s Wisdom make us “perfect” in God’s sight. We can stand before God on Judgment Day and know that we are perfect because Jesus’ blood on the cross ahs made us perfect. Nothing can take this way from us. This is the best wisdom in all the world. This is a wisdom that we never want to forget about or lose track of or worse think is unimportant. This is the wisdom that has changed our hearts and lives – not just here on this earth, but for an eternity. This is why we want everyone to know this wisdom. God uses us to go out into all the nations to proclaim this wisdom, the wisdom that can change hearts and lives. Amen.