A Church That Makes God Known

Remember this letter is probably dictated by Paul from a prison cell where he is literally in chains. But even as perhaps he hears the clink of his chain or the pressure on a sore point of his wrist, he is reminded of God’s purposes.

In V1 he calls himself a prisoner of Christ Jesus. Right back in Acts 21 we hear of Paul’s arrest in Jerusalem and later that he was sent off to Rome, still in custody because he was a Roman citizen. His crime, if crime it was, was to preach the good news of Jesus not to the Jews but to the Gentiles. This had caused a riot and it was Paul who was held responsible. But Paul does not call himself a prisoner of Rome or the state. He calls himself a prisoner of Christ Jesus. Like Joseph of old who was sold in to slavery by his jealous brothers and finished up in Pharoah’s prison cell yet saw it as an act of God, Paul sees his imprisonment as part of God’s plan for himself and for the proclamation of the good news.

How? Because God is sovereign and almighty. God almighty used to be a very popular title of God. We use it more sparingly these days. But if God is almighty he has the power to intervene. To redirect. The power to withhold his power even.

The word used for “Almighty” in Hebrew is Pantokrator. It means literally “the one who has his hand on everything”. The Christian God is not aloof or distant. He did not wind up the planet with a key and then send it off in to space. He is a God totally involved in his creation.
He is a hands on God.

In Revelation 4:8 the song of heaven is Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty… You see God is not only the Alpha (beginning) and Omega (end) as in Revelation 1:8 but he is the God in between as well. Alpha, Beta, A, B, C, D, hands on every step of the way. An A-Z God.
So in his Roman prison cell Paul declares a truth against all the human standards of wisdom. In effect he says if God is the Almighty hands on God of the scriptures, then his hand is on my life now even here in my prison cell. Therefore I may appear to be the prisoner of the Romans but in truth I am a prisoner of Christ Jesus. The Romans could imprison his body but his soul still roamed free. If the Son shall set you free you will be free indeed.

Brother Yun in the best selling Christian book “The heavenly man” is tortured for his Christian beliefs and his fearless declaration of the good news of Jesus by the Chinese authorities. His church cries out to God for his release. But at one point brother Yun asks why. God had put him in that hell hole to proclaim Jesus and the grace and love of God. God’s hand was on him therefore he was free.

Is your God almighty? No matter what your circumstances has God got his hand on you? Even in the tough, raw and wounded places is he hands on for you? In sickness, or loneliness, or the pressure of the workplace, in the situations where you feel trapped, in the dis-ease that you cannot shake off is God to you the Pantokrator? The answer of God’s word is “Yes”. That is not to condone actions against you or circumstances you find yourself in. Evil is always evil. But the hands on God even has the power not to exercise power and that is a tough one to grasp. It begs many questions that I have not time for today. Why does an Almighty God allow suffering? Why does a God who heals allow some to remain sick? That is not today’s subject.
My point today is can we see in our present situation whatever that may be for you or for us, can we see the hand of God? Paul in his chains and pains could. “I Paul the prisoner of Christ Jesus…” One of the reasons why he could declare this so confidently was that he knew his God from experience not just theory.

Someone once said of those first disciples of Jesus, and the same would have been true for Paul, “they were never bored and constantly in hot water.” To follow Christ was for them to always be on the verge of inciting a riot. Whilst they comforted the disturbed they disturbed the comfortable. That was a way of life for Paul but his experience proved his doctrine. God showed himself to be hands on, again and again and again.

Let me read from 2 Corinthians 11:23-end onwards of Paul’s account of his sufferings (read). Paul knew hardship and he knew God’s hand to rescue in due time. He knew his own weakness and God All mighty. He did not see as the world saw he saw through the eyes of faith formed and fashioned in a fire. He did not believe in a theory he believed in a person; a God who intervened. Faith for Paul was not an abstract idea but a living reality.

“I Paul a prisoner of Christ Jesus”.

Mark a prisoner of Christ Jesus… Insert your name and feel your own chains. Perhaps acknowledge that this time there may not be a miraculous escape.
Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane cried out “Father if it be your will take this cup from me”. But the cup of suffering that was to take Jesus to his death for the sins of the world was not taken away. When you are all mighty that even gives you the power to do nothing. If you are all loving that will always serve a greater good. God’s voluntary powerlessness as his only begotten Son hung on a Roman cross was an act of love for you and me. Perhaps that was the only inspiration Paul needed in his own Gethsemane.

Again I ask what about you? What about me?

Perhaps it helps when we know that the suffering is because we are in the centre of God’s will. Too often people in hardship see it as a divine punishment. What have I done wrong to deserve this? Perhaps we should more often be asking “What have I done right to deserve this?” Paul’s answer: “I Paul a prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of the Gentiles”. Paul’s ministry was to carry on in his masters footsteps. That ministry of turning things upside down. That ministry of overturning religious tables. A ministry that expected God to be hands on.
Now if it was me or you in that prison cell. Me in chains. The sermons I would write on injustice; the evils of the Roman state or even perhaps on how God was not all that he used to be. Perhaps his power was seeping away or if he was all powerful he was certainly not all loving or visa versa. When my life hit its lowest ebb I believed my experience. Namely that God had left the planet. Once I believed that lie I was wide open for the next one. Namely that if God was no longer around then I no longer needed to please him. I was free to do whatever I liked. It took me a long time to realise that that kind of freedom leads to slavery. Or as James writes “..after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when its full - grown, gives birth to death”.
(James 1:15).

BUT Paul hangs on to the truth. God is in this. God does not abandon those who live in his will. Paul was suffering because he was obedient to his charge from God to reach out to the Gentiles with the gospel. Are we prepared to believe in this hands on God for the future of Oak Tree? For God’s individual plans for each of us. Paul had already written in this letter to the Ephesians that we are each “God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do”. (Ephesians 2:10). Paul dared to believe that even in the struggles and the mystery of his imprisonment God was at work to make the mystery of Christ (V4) known. Revelation had come to Paul (his Damascus Rd experience) and now he had a revelation to pass on. (Read v6)

This Gospel was for all people. The church of Jesus Christ was and is to make Christ known. That is our great commission (Matthew 28:18-20). Our almighty God has chosen to do it as we go out in his power, with his hand upon us. That is what we must do and if it is to be in his power it will have to be in prayer.

God is almighty. If that be the case he will be at work with us so let us be encouraged. Even the circumstances that look unpromising can be used for his glory.
(I ask you, therefore, not to be discouraged because of my sufferings for you,
which are your glory-v13).

As we shall see next week Paul then breaks out in prayer, or more accurately returns to prayer.