The Labor Pains of Glory Text: Colossians 1:24-29
Introduction: The Cost of Proclamation
We live in a soft age. We have come to believe that the Christian life ought to be comfortable, that the advance of the gospel should be polite, and that suffering is an unfortunate anomaly, a sign that something has gone wrong. We want a crown without a cross, a resurrection without a crucifixion, and a kingdom without a conflict. But the apostle Paul will have none of it. He understood that the gospel is not a peace treaty with the world but a declaration of war. And in war, there are casualties. In this passage, Paul pulls back the curtain on the apostolic ministry and shows us the bloody, glorious, and joyful cost of carrying the word of God to the nations.
Paul's ministry was not a lecture tour. It was a frontline assault on the kingdom of darkness. He did not simply travel and speak; he labored, he strived, he suffered. And he did so with a profound sense of purpose, a purpose that extended beyond his own personal trials. He saw his own afflictions as part of a grand, cosmic reality, intimately connected to the sufferings of Christ and the building of His body, the church. This is a hard word for our therapeutic generation, which views all suffering as an evil to be avoided. But for Paul, suffering for the sake of the church was a cause for rejoicing. It was a participation in the central drama of history: the birth of the new creation through the labor pains of the old.
Here Paul unpacks the nature of his ministry, the content of his message, and the goal of all his striving. It is a dense and glorious passage that gets to the very heart of what it means to be a minister of the new covenant. It is about suffering, stewardship, a grand mystery revealed, and the ultimate hope of glory. To understand this is to understand the engine that drives the church forward in every generation.
The Text
Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and I fill up what is lacking of Christ’s afflictions in my flesh, on behalf of His body, which is the church, of which I was made a minister according to the stewardship from God given to me for you, so that I might fully carry out the preaching of the word of God, that is, the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations, but has now been manifested to His saints, to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we proclaim, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ. For this purpose I also labor, striving according to His working, which He works in me in power.
(Colossians 1:24-29 LSB)
Rejoicing in Redemptive Suffering (v. 24)
We begin with a verse that has caused no small amount of confusion, and yet is central to a robust understanding of the Christian life.
"Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and I fill up what is lacking of Christ’s afflictions in my flesh, on behalf of His body, which is the church." (Colossians 1:24)
Paul begins with a startling statement: he rejoices in his sufferings. This is not stoicism, and it is certainly not masochism. Paul's joy is not in the pain itself, but in the purpose of the pain. He suffers "for your sake," for the sake of the Colossian believers. His afflictions are not random acts of cosmic misfortune; they are targeted, purposeful, and ministerial.
Then comes the bombshell phrase: "I fill up what is lacking of Christ’s afflictions." What could possibly be lacking in the afflictions of Christ? Did He not say on the cross, "It is finished"? Was His atoning sacrifice not sufficient? To ask the question is to answer it. Of course it was sufficient. The sacrifice of Christ on the cross was a perfect, complete, once-for-all atonement for the sins of His people. There is nothing we can add to the propitiatory, sin-bearing work of Jesus. To suggest otherwise is to preach another gospel.
So what does Paul mean? The afflictions of Christ can be understood in two ways. First, there are His atoning afflictions, which He alone could bear and which are utterly finished. But second, there are the afflictions that the body of Christ, the church, is appointed to endure in this age as it bears witness to the gospel. Christ suffers in His people. When Saul was persecuting the church, Jesus did not ask, "Saul, why are you persecuting my church?" He asked, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" (Acts 9:4). Christ so identifies with His body that the afflictions of the body are His afflictions.
What is "lacking," then, is not the atoning value of the suffering, but the appointed measure of suffering that the church must pass through before the end. God has ordained that the gospel will advance through the suffering of His saints. The gospel message must be carried to the ends of the earth, and this mission will be met with resistance, persecution, and affliction. Paul, as an apostle to the Gentiles, is on the front lines, absorbing a great deal of this hostility in his own body. He is filling up the "quota" of suffering that God has assigned to this present evil age. He is taking the hits so that the gospel can get through to places like Colossae. His suffering is the delivery vehicle for the gospel. It is the labor pain that brings new life into the kingdom.
A Steward of the Revealed Mystery (v. 25-27)
Paul now explains the authority and the content of his ministry.
"of which I was made a minister according to the stewardship from God given to me for you, so that I might fully carry out the preaching of the word of God, that is, the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations, but has now been manifested to His saints, to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." (Colossians 1:25-27)
Paul did not apply for this job. He was "made a minister." His ministry is a "stewardship from God." A steward does not own the house; he manages it on behalf of the owner. Paul's message is not his own. He is under divine orders to faithfully dispense what has been entrusted to him. And what is that? It is the "word of God," which he defines as "the mystery."
In the New Testament, a mystery is not a whodunit novel. It is a truth that was concealed in the Old Testament but is now gloriously revealed in the New. It was hidden in plain sight, in types and shadows, but now the substance has come. And what is this great mystery? It is that the Gentiles would be brought into the covenant family of God on equal footing with the Jews. It is the demolition of the dividing wall. The Old Testament was full of hints and promises of this, but the full reality was staggering.
And Paul defines this mystery with a phrase that is pure dynamite: "which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." This is the content. The mystery is not just that Gentiles get to come to church. The mystery is that the living Christ, by His Spirit, takes up residence within believing Gentiles. The very glory of God that dwelt in the tabernacle and the temple now dwells in the hearts of redeemed men and women from every tribe, tongue, and nation. This is the foundation of our assurance. Our hope of future glory is not based on our performance, our feelings, or our pedigree. It is based on an objective reality: the indwelling of the resurrected Christ. If Christ is in you, glory is your certain destiny. He is the down payment, the seal, the guarantee of the full inheritance to come.
The Goal of Ministry: Maturity in Christ (v. 28-29)
Given this glorious reality, Paul outlines the method and goal of his entire ministry.
"Him we proclaim, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ. For this purpose I also labor, striving according to His working, which He works in me in power." (Colossians 1:28-29)
The subject of all true Christian preaching is a person: "Him we proclaim." The ministry is not about moralistic self-help tips, political commentary, or therapeutic platitudes. It is about heralding the person and work of Jesus Christ. He is the sum and substance of it all.
And this proclamation has two modes: admonishing and teaching. Admonishing is the negative side; it is warning, correcting, confronting sin. It is telling a man he is driving toward a cliff. Teaching is the positive side; it is the careful, systematic instruction in the whole counsel of God. A ministry that only admonishes becomes harsh and legalistic. A ministry that only teaches, without warning, becomes abstract and gutless. We need both, and we need them applied to "every man." The gospel is not for an elite few. It is a universal summons.
And what is the goal of all this proclaiming, warning, and teaching? It is "so that we may present every man complete in Christ." The goal is maturity. The Greek word for "complete" is teleios, which means mature, full-grown, perfect. God is not interested in keeping us in a state of perpetual spiritual infancy. The goal of the ministry is to see every individual believer grow up into the full stature of Christ. It is to present the bride of Christ to her husband without spot or wrinkle. This is the apostolic ambition, and it should be the ambition of every pastor and every Christian.
How is such an impossible task accomplished? Paul tells us in the final verse. "For this purpose I also labor, striving according to His working, which He works in me in power." Paul works hard. He uses words like "labor" and "striving," which is the Greek word from which we get "agonize." This is not a passive affair. Paul pours himself out, he fights, he struggles.
But the power is not his own. He strives "according to His working." The power that accomplishes this great work of maturing the saints is the very power of God, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead, working mightily in and through the apostle. This is the great paradox of the Christian life and ministry. We work, we strive, we labor with all our might. And yet, it is not us, but God who works in us, both to will and to do for His good pleasure. Our effort is the instrument of His energy. His power is perfected in our weakness.
Conclusion: Your Part in the Drama
This passage is not just a description of Paul's ministry; it is a blueprint for the life of the church. We are all called to participate in this great work. We are called to bear the afflictions of Christ, to share in the sufferings that advance the gospel in our own time and place. This doesn't mean we all have to be imprisoned like Paul, but it does mean that a faithful Christian life will be a costly one. It will cost you comfort, popularity, and ease.
We are all stewards of the mystery. We have been given the greatest news in the history of the world: Christ in you, the hope of glory. This is not a message to be hoarded, but a treasure to be dispensed liberally. We are to proclaim Him, to teach and admonish one another, so that we all might grow up. The church is not a nursery for spiritual infants; it is a gymnasium for training spiritual adults.
And we must labor in this work, not in our own strength, but in the mighty power of God that is at work within us. The same Spirit that empowered Paul is the Spirit who indwells every believer. He is at work in you, conforming you to the image of Christ, and He is at work through you, to present your brother and your sister complete in Christ. This is the high calling of the church. Let us therefore rejoice in our sufferings, be faithful in our stewardship, and labor with all our might in the power that He so powerfully supplies.