Sermon from July 23, 2025

“To Make the Word Fully Known”

6th Sunday after Pentecost

Colossians 1:21-29 & Luke 10:38-42

Let us pray: Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen. (Psalm 19:14)

The text for our meditation this evening is the Epistle Lesson, from Colossians 1:21-29, along with a few thoughts from our Gospel lesson, Luke 10:38-42.

Two Sundays ago, we heard in Colossians 1 that our Heavenly Father qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light and has already delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we were redeemed and forgiven (Colossians 1:12-14).

Why was that so important? Paul reminds us, in our text for today, what we were all like at one time. He wrote about us: “You once were alienated and hostile in mind toward God, doing evil deeds” (Colossians 1:21). In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul said something very similar: “Remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated… and having no hope and without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12). Paul even goes so far as to say, “You were dead in your trespasses,” your sins - physically alive, but spiritually dead (Colossians 2:13) with regard to the way of God and God Himself. You and I all were, in effect, enemies of God, born with a sinful nature and alienated from Him and needing to be reconciled to Him. And none of us could reconcile ourselves to God and make things right with Him.

That is why God the Father sent His Son, Jesus, into the world. Paul writes, just before our text, “In Christ Jesus, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through Him to reconcile all things, making peace by the blood of His cross… He has now reconciled us in His body of flesh by His death” (Colossians 1:19-20). By being true God and true man, Jesus was able to pay the price needed to make things right between us and God and have us be counted acceptable to and fully forgiven by Him. In fact, Paul says, through Christ, we are “presented holy and blameless and above reproach before God” (Colossians 1:22).

But we certainly don’t feel that way, though. We know our sins and struggles in our lives. Yet with Christ, we have a robe of righteousness which covers over all our sins. It is described in prophecy in the Old Testament in this way: “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall exult in my God. For he has clothed me with the garments of salvation; He has covered me with the robe of righteousness” (Isaiah 61:10).

And how does that robe come to us? Paul says, “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” “For in Christ, you are all sons of God, (children of God), through faith” (Galatians 3:26-27). Jesus also says that we are born again to a whole new life, through water and the Spirit, along with the living and abiding Word of God, through which the Spirit works, to bring us to faith in Christ, through that Gospel (John 3:3-6, and 1 Peter 1:23).

So when God looks at us now, as baptized believers, He sees not us but Christ in us, with His perfect righteousness (Matthew 3:13-17). As Paul wrote in Romans 3, ”But now the righteousness of (and from) God has been manifested apart from the Law… the righteousness of God through faith in Christ Jesus for all who believe” (Romans 3:21-22). And again, as Paul wrote, “I am not ashamed of the Gospel” (the Good News of Christ as Savior, made fully known through the Word of God - Colossians 1:25) "for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes… For in (that Gospel) the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, 'The righteous shall live by faith'" (Romans 1:16-17). Through Christ’s righteousness, given to us as a gift, God then sees us and counts us as “holy and blameless and above reproach” in His eyes.

In our text, Paul also adds a Word of warning. All this continues “if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the Gospel that you heard” (Colossians 1:23). It is important, Paul says, not only to begin in the faith, but to continue in the faith, through continuing to hear the Word of God. Paul was made a minister “to make the Word of God fully known,” he says, and that it be proclaimed to everyone under heaven (Colossians 1:23,25). And that Word centers in “Christ, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27) and eternal life, through what He had done for us, as we have already heard. For Scripture says so clearly, “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other Name under heaven, given among men, by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). “Christ Jesus we proclaim,” Paul says, “warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom” (with all the Word of God) "that we may present everyone mature in Christ” (Colossians 1:28).

The warning is there because people could drift away or fall away, not continuing in the faith, and there were and still are many false religions and ideas seeking to pull people away from belief and faith in Christ. Paul speaks of “the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed in Christ” - that He is the anointed Savior of the world for everyone (Colossians 1:26). Judaism expected a Messiah, a promised Savior, but rejected Jesus as that Savior and wanted to put and keep people under Jewish laws and rules and regulations which they thought necessary for salvation. Paul may have used the word “mystery” also because there were mystery religions of that time, with secret knowledge available only to elite people and not to people in general. And there were many other so-called gods and goddesses to choose from, in a very polytheistic world.

In contrast to all that, we have Christ and His Word, the Word of Scripture, through which the Holy Spirit brings us to faith and keeps us continually in that faith. Paul wrote, on another occasion, “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing comes through the Word of Christ” (Romans 10:17). And Jesus says, “If you continue in My Word, you are truly My disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Paul knew that freedom in Christ and His Word, the Word of God, even though when he wrote our text and the whole book of Colossians, he was in prison in Rome, simply because of his Christian faith. Paul writes in Colossians 4:3-4, asking that the people of the church at Colossi “pray that God may open to us a door for the Word (of God), to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison - that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.” Even in prison in Rome, Paul knew that he was a free man, in Christ, and prayed for opportunities to share the Word of Christ even there, for it was Good News for prisoners and other people in Rome and people everywhere. So he spoke and wrote the Word of Truth in Christ.

Sharing the Word of Christ was not easy for Paul, as his time in prison indicates. But Paul says, in our text, “I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and for the sake of the church.” (Christ had already completed all the suffering necessary for our salvation, but Paul’s sufferings might spare other believers some suffering (Colossians 1:24). And as our text ends, Paul says that he toils and struggles, but that the results of people coming to faith actually came through Christ in him, and the Holy Spirit, with their energy and powerful work within him. Paul takes no credit for himself. The One True God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, gets all the glory and credit for any who come to believe.

Note also that our Gospel lesson for this evening also emphasizes the great importance of the Word of Christ. Jesus had come for a visit to Martha and Mary, along with some of His disciples, most likely. Martha quickly gets busy preparing a meal for them all and other things necessary for them. She soon is upset because Mary is not helping her, but “just sitting at the feet of Jesus and listening to His teaching” (Luke 10:39-40). This in itself is highly unusual because in those days, Jewish rabbis taught only men and no women. But here is Jesus, teaching both men and women. The Good News of His Word and His saving work is for everyone everywhere under heaven - men and women and children. Jesus, the Lord, then said to Martha, “You are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:41-42). And Jesus said, on another occasion, “My sheep hear My voice and I know them and they follow Me. I give them eternal life, and no one will snatch them out of My hand” (John 10:27-29).

Think about it. Without the Scriptures, we would not even know of Christ and His saving work for us, at the center. We would not know how important baptism is for us and our children, and the need to go out into the world, baptizing and teaching. And we would not know of the gift of the Lord’s Supper and that we receive not just bread and wine, but the very Body and Blood of Christ to forgive and strengthen us.

That is why our Lutheran doctrinal writings, our Confessions, say, “We believe, teach, and confess that the prophetic and apostolic writings of the Old and New Testaments are the only rule and norm according to which all doctrines and teachers alike must be appraised and judged, as it is written in Psalm 119:105, ‘Thy Word is a Lamp to my feet and a Light to my path'... Other writings of ancient and modern teachers, whatever their names, should not be put on a par with Holy Scripture… Holy Scripture remains the only judge, rule, and norm according to which… all doctrines should and must be understood and judged as good or evil, right or wrong” (Formula of Concord, Epitome).

It is on that “foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the Cornerstone” (Ephesians 2:20) that we stand, as God’s people, in faith, today and always.” Amen.