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Lesson 8 – Setting a Good Foundation – Completed Service, 24-29
Read Colossians 1 - https://www.bible.com/bible/59/col.1.esv

In the last lesson we saw how a stable faith produces a hope in us that will not lead us to shame, so now we will see how that hope will produce something in us as well. I ask you to read verses 24-29 again.

Verse 24 is an amazing statement – I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions… First, why is Paul rejoicing in his suffering? He says it’s for the sake of these Christians in Colossae.

*From 2 Corinthians 11:23-27, list Paul’s sufferings ______

Paul says in verse 25 his purpose for becoming a minister was to make the word of God fully known to others, (verse 26) to tell people of God’s truth that had been hidden until Jesus came to be the sacrifice for our sin. Now (verse 27), God has chosen to reveal the “riches of the glory of this mystery, which Is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

Let’s go back to our mountain from last lesson. As we get closer to the mountain range, we begin to see snow on the high peaks, beautiful colors (could they be rocks or flowers?) that drive us forward and upward onto the mountain, giving us a taste of what we are sure will be unimaginable beauty when we finally reach the top.

Just so, Paul says the glory and beauty of what he can already see in Jesus Christ is so far more important to him than any suffering he has to endure in reaching for that goal, that he can rejoice in the suffering as a result. The goal of teaching other believers to be stable and mature in Christ is worth struggling for with all the energy Jesus gives him.

Do you have your eyes set on the goal of being stable and mature in Christ, of being used by God to bring others to that same goal? It is a high mountain that will require everything we have to give to reach it – but the glory we will share with Jesus there will be so much greater that all the pain or heartache or suffering we’ve had to endure here won’t seem like anything at all.