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Struggling for More of Christ

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1 For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all those who have not seen me face to face, 2 that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ. Colossians 2:1-2

“I want you to know how great a struggle I have,” Paul says to the people at Colossae. Seems odd, does it not? The word he uses for struggle is agonizomai. Paul is agonizing, in real pain and effort that they may be encouraged at the heart level. He basically says I struggle with all I have to give you more of Christ so that you will be encouraged. Why though, would they need to know that Paul is agonizing on their account?

Think with me of Bill Colossian, the average guy from Colossae who is hearing Paul’s letter. He hears Paul say, “I’ve been struggling for you.” Bill might be thinking that Paul must be talking about Epaphrus and the church leaders, not ordinary him.  Then Paul says He’s been struggling for those in Laodicea, another community 10 miles away. This would have brought Bill some comfort realizing that Laodicea was striving with them in the faith, battling as well against the false teachers that were trying to disrupt their lives.

Then Paul says how greatly he has been struggling in his work “for those who have not seen me face to face” – Bill realizes, that is me. Paul had never met most of the Colossians, nor had he visited. Bill had never met Paul face to face.  Think through what this would have meant to Bill in his life and faith in his small town life.  Paul himself is struggling, working hard to encourage Bill specifically along with his brothers and sisters in Christ at Colossae as he was trying to resist the false teachers and live faithfully as a believer.

Bill didn’t see the apostle Paul every day, text him every day, get together with him to go fishing or hunting every weekend.  The false teachers at Colossae, on the other hand, were among them, all around them, closest to them and therefore in a position to be most persuasive. The false teachers, however, were not willing to suffer for them. Paul wants them to know that he has been struggling, laboring, agonizing, toiling, and suffering for them even though he was not physically present.

Paul tells them that he does not want his labor for them to be in vain. Why was he laboring for them? “That their hearts may be encouraged.”  This letter would be tantamount to your church receiving a letter from Billy Graham himself, now 98, saying that he prays specifically for our church every single day.  Not only that, but that he prays for each of us (including Bill) by name.   Notice that he prays for them to be encouraged in heart.  When the Biblical writers spoke of the heart, they didn’t just mean their emotions, they meant the whole person.  They meant the very core of who you are.  That you would be encouraged at your very core, encouraged in all of your thinking, feeling, carrying about and doing.

For Paul, the most encouraging thing that he could do for them, was to labor for them to know Christ more, to be knit together in love and to know Christ. Knowing Christ sets up a community where continued growth in the knowledge of the gospel is nurtured.  When you are in a church community that is knit together in love and care for one another, you are in a place that understands the love of Christ on the cross and extends that same love out to one another. That’s what Paul is working hard at on his end, for them to have in their church, and in our church: an environment of love, encouragement and getting to know Jesus.

The work that Paul does is also for Bill and the others at Colossae “to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ.” In essence, Paul labors for them to be assured in their trust and understand what God was doing in and through Christ.  As you look at the letters that Paul wrote, this was the overwhelming aim and goal that he had.  The beautiful thing is, we still have his labor for us to know Christ fully at our disposal in the pages of your New Testament.  Let us joyfully make use of his struggle for our sake.


In Christ, My Only Hope, Pastor Steven

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