April 30, 2017 | Pastor Bayles | The Mystery of Christ's Identity | Colossians 2:1-5
The Mystery of Christ’s Identity
Colossians 2:1-5
What is the work of discipleship? The first part is a gathering task. Jesus left his disciples with the task of sharing the Gospel in order to gather His sheep, His own, His elect from “the four winds of the earth” (Mat.24:31). In 2 Corinthians 5 Paul stresses that this task is accomplished by preaching the message of Christ: “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Cor.5:14-21). The second part of discipleship is is a teaching task. Jesus said, “and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (Mat.28:19). In today’s text we will see this part of discipleship in full action. It should not surprise us that at the center of the task of teaching, the subject of the person of Christ is prominent. As we have discovered again and again, the substance of the Christian message is a person, a very unique person, Jesus the Christ. Here Paul emphasizes that the nature of Christ is a mystery, complex, yet a knowable. It is at the forefront of his teaching to the Colossian church and to us today.