Slides: Christ In You

Christ In You
Colossians 1:24-29

24 Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, 25 of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, 26 the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. 27 To them God chose 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. 28 Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. 29 For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.

Missionary David Livingstone

I have never ceased to rejoice that God has appointed me to such an office. People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa... It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger, now and then… may make us pause, and cause the spirit to waver, and the soul to sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing compared with the glory which shall be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice. (David Livingstone)

Missionary Hudson Taylor

I never made a sacrifice. Unspeakable joy all day long and every day, was my happy experience. God, even my God, was a living bright reality, and all I had to do was joyful service.

• Gave up his own culture, clothing, hair
• 51 years as missionary
• Survived two typhoons on a voyage
• Robbed of all possessions
• Lost everything in a fire
• Seven children died
• Wife died of malaria
• Boxer Rebellion murdered 58 missionaries and 21 children of China Inland Mission, but Taylor refused any payment, wanting to show “the meekness and gentleness of Christ.”

Taylor’s Tombstone: “A Man in Christ”

If I had a thousand pounds China should have it—if I had a thousand lives, China should have them. No! Not China, but Christ. Can we do too much for Him? Can we do enough for such a precious Saviour?

The Lord Jesus received is holiness begun; the Lord Jesus cherished is holiness advancing; the Lord Jesus counted upon as never absent would be holiness complete.

Christ in you

To be a Christian is not just to hold correct opinions based on the Bible, or to get off the hook for sins, or to have a ticket for heaven. To be a Christian is to have Christ living inside you. You don’t just have eternal life; you have the life of the Eternal.

Christ in you

1. His suffering is your suffering.
2. His mission is your mission.
3. His mind is your mind.
4. His glory is your glory.
5. His life is your life.
6. His energy is your energy.

1. His suffering is your suffering.

24 Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church

Why is this hard for us to understand?

• Americans prize prosperity and pleasure, so sufferings perplex us and get us down.

• Americans emphasize individualism and often overlook interconnectedness.

1. His suffering is your suffering.

“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.”

“I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.” (Acts 9:5,16)

The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. (Romans 8:16-18)

Ministry as the American Dream

When his huge income and lavish lifestyle were questioned, Eddie Long answered, “We're not just a church, we're an international corporation. We're not just a bumbling bunch of preachers who can’t talk and all we're doing is baptizing babies. I deal with the White House. I deal with Tony Blair.”

Genuine preachers deal with King Jesus!

1. His suffering is your suffering.

For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake… For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ … that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. (Philippians 1:29; 3:8-11)

For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. (2 Cor 1:5)

… always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.  For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. (2 Cor 4:10-11)

2. His mission is your mission.

of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you

Christ in you gives you a commission (co-mission), a stewardship, a domain where Christ acts through your actions and reigns through your responsibility.

Your heart comes fully alive as you enjoy and enhance the domain where Christ acts through you in blessing others.

3. His mind is your mind.

to make the word of God fully known,  the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints.

But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory… these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit… we have the mind of Christ. (1 Corinthians 2:7-16)

4. His glory is your glory.

To them God chose 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.

• Gentiles, not only Jews, are gloriously rich.

• Christ is in us, not just with us.

• God reigns through us, not just over us.

• Christ’s co-reign in my domain now is a first taste of the glory of co-reigning with Him over a far greater domain in eternity.

Christ in you, the hope of glory

The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me (John 17:22-23)

…strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith (Eph 3:16-17)

Christ lives in me. (Galatians 2:20)

Unsearchable Riches, Manifold Wisdom

To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. (Ephesians 3:8-10)

4. His glory is your glory.

Christ is so richly glorious that he cannot be fully expressed in any one of us. Millions of believers display different facets of Christ’s glory and reign. The same Christ lives in all of us and reigns in all of us by the same Spirit, yet this one Christ displays himself in different personalities who have a heart for different domains and whose personal glory displays an aspect of Christ’s glory that is not to be found in any other human.

5. His life is your life.

Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ.

Why do preachers and churches exist? To proclaim Christ and form Christ in people.

…until Christ is formed in you (Gal 4:19)

…until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (Eph 4:13)

Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom (Colossians 3:16).

Christ living in one believer
proclaims the living Christ
to Christ living in other believers
to produce full-grown life of Christ.

If Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. (Romans 8:10-11)

6. His energy is your energy

For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.

When you do Christ’s work in your assigned domain, you are energized by Christ.

He is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us. (Ephesians 3:20)

Christ in you

1. His suffering is your suffering.
2. His mission is your mission.
3. His mind is your mind.
4. His glory is your glory.
5. His life is your life.
6. His energy is your energy.

St. Patrick’s Breastplate

I rise today
with the power of God to pilot me,
God's strength to sustain me,
God's wisdom to guide me,
God's eye to look ahead for me,
God's ear to hear me,
God's word to speak for me,
God's hand to protect me,
God's way before me,
God's shield to defend me,
God's host to deliver me .

Christ with me, Christ before me,
Christ behind me; Christ within me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me;
Christ to the right of me,
Christ to the left of me;
Christ in my lying down,
Christ in my sitting, Christ in my rising;
Christ in the heart of all who think of me,
Christ on the tongue of all who speak to me,
Christ in the eye of all who see me,
Christ in the ear of all who hear me.