Col 2:1-3 For I want you to know how great a struggle I have on your behalf, and for those who are at Laodicea, and for all those who have not personally seen my face, that their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love, and attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God's mystery, that is, Christ Himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 
	Last week, as we concluded our very brief consideration of the first chapter of Colossians, we began to reflect on the mystery of Christ in us the hope of glory as declared by the Apostle Paul. We saw that this mystery is something that is hidden by God and that only God can reveal. That He has done in Jesus Christ! We also saw that one aspect of this mystery is the revelation, in God’s timing, of the church, the perfect bride of Christ. We are being perfected by the wisdom and the knowledge of God as opened to us in His Word, as the Holy Spirit makes life within us. It is Christ in whom this wonderful and glorious mystery is personified. It is out of the great love with which we are loved by God that we have been made part of His plan and purpose.
	This morning, let us spend a bit more time in some of the reality of the mystery of Christ in us, the hope of glory. Let us do so with hearts that are seeking to know, in a living truth, the life of Christ Who now indwells us. Let our hearts be centered in learning what are the riches of the assured understanding and knowledge of God’s mystery of Jesus Christ. Please remember that the term mystery, as used in this context, means that which can only be opened to us by God. Only God can reveal Himself and His truth, and that He has done in Jesus Christ, His Only Begotten Son.
	Continuing on, then, the first element of consideration this morning is the fact that this mystery is Christ, the indwelling of Christ within the church, the believers that make up His Body on this earth. As He lives His life in us, so are we brought into the greater and deeper knowledge of the true nature of our living relationship with Him. The scripture is brought to life within our hearts, as we saw, in Luke 24, as the two disciples were walking on the road to Emma'us. After Christ had opened the scripture to them and taught them of the prophet’s announcement of all that had befallen Him, they reminded one another of how their ears burned at His words. He showed them the truth of God as He walked with them. He does the same with us today. He walks with us, in our innermost being, and He communes with us. Through His Holy Spirit, He teaches and guides us by His living Word.	
	One of the key scriptures that opens within us is a most familiar one. Gal 2:20, "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me. This is the cornerstone of understanding the living relationship that is ours in Christ. As we come into the discernment of what this means in us, we begin to view all the activity of this time in its actual perspective. It is as we are brought face to face with the death of our self-lives, that the life of Christ will more and more be our every source of life. Our old lives are very effectively put to death that our new life in Christ will flourish, develop, and envelop our entire beings. It is very literally no longer I that live, but Christ who lives in me. Our self-lives are being put to death in order that Christ will be established as the center of our heart’s desire. When we finally realize that this is reality, and not just theory nor mere doctrine, we will no longer be seeking after that which pleases us, but after that which truly pleases Him. This is a great mystery because the world can never understand this, or hope to understand it with these earthly minds. It takes the activity of the Holy Spirit, in complete line with the Word, to create that living truth within our hearts. Then, once we do begin to understand it, our focal point becomes more and more centered on that which pleases God, period!
	Another passage that becomes very instructional in our beings is Rom 8:28, And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. This truth puts everything in its proper perspective as serving to work God’s good pleasure in all that we endure in this world. It sets our suffering and our tribulations, our circumstances and our hardships into the proper relationship of being only to bring forth the greater glory of God in our lives. No longer are we the focal point of the hurt, the trials, the pain and the suffering. Rather than centering our attention on what it is doing to us, we look to how all of this will work together for God’s glory. Our eyes are slowly turned from how things affect us to how they work to establish the greater measure of God’s glory livingly in His church for His sake. 
	It is so important for us to come into this reality of Christ in us, the hope of glory because God desires such an intimate relationship in and with us. He created us to be livingly related to Himself in order to show forth the perfection of the Love which He is. He didn’t do it to show up the world. He did it because He could not do otherwise. Because He is all love, the perfect Being of Love, that love constrained Him to bring us into the perfect relationship that would express His heart to all of creation. That is the mystery. It is only in Christ that we can have that perfect, true relationship with God Almighty. The indwelling of Christ requires that we are made ready to be brought into the life that is now ours in Him.	
	We are prepared for this new life through Christ’s faith in operation in us. It is a living and active faith that creates a complete trust in God to do all that which He has declared, all that which He has already done, and all that which He will do by His indwelling presence in us. 1 John 3:23+24 And this is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us. And the one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. And we know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.
The Apostle Paul lays forth the operation of God within the Body of His believers. It is the object of Our Indwelling God Almighty that we would come into greater and greater realizations of the glory that is invested in us through Jesus Christ. None of this glory is for our purposes, it is all for the sake of the name of Jesus Christ as He is expressed in life on this earth. That is the function of the Church. 
Consider Eph 3:14-19, For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man; so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fulness of God. In this passage we see the Hand of God as He lavishes His riches in Christ upon us, His church. He opens the full treasury of the heavens and fills us to overflowing with His great love. We are indwelled by the Holy Spirit to strengthen our inner man, the spiritual man that has now received life through Jesus Christ. We are being grounded, firmly rooted in the power and the glory of God on High. He is at work in us to bring forth a greater and greater understanding, comprehension, and reliance upon Him in our lives. All of this is to the nth degree of learning the fullness of the love of Jesus Christ expressed from within us, His church. This is the life that we now live, with His abiding presence and power and guidance. This is eternal life.
	This life eternal is established by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. He reveals the plan and purpose of God’s will in Jesus Christ. Jesus, Himself, told us that in John 14:15-20, "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. "And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not behold Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you, and will be in you. “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. "After a little while the world will behold Me no more; but you will behold Me; because I live, you shall live also. "In that day you shall know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. It is the Holy Spirit Who opens the Word of God within our beings. It is the Holy Spirit Who declares the living Christ actively in our hearts. It is the Holy Spirit Who works to bring our lives into conformity with Christ. It is the Holy Spirit who melds us together into Christ’s Body, the living Church.
The work of the indwelling Spirit of God was announced throughout scripture. Again, it can only be understood as God opens it within us, Spirit to spirit. This was not understood by many of those in the Old Testament, but was nonetheless declared by God to those who had an ear to hear. One example is found in Ezek 36:22-30, where God opens His heart as to the purpose of His Spirit within our lives. "Therefore, say to the house of Israel, 'Thus says the Lord God," It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for My holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you went.  "And I will vindicate the holiness of My great name which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord," declares the Lord God, "when I prove Myself holy among you in their sight. "For I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands, and bring you into your own land. "Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. "Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.  "And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances. "And you will live in the land that I gave to your forefathers; so you will be My people, and I will be your God. "Moreover, I will save you from all your uncleanness; and I will call for the grain and multiply it, and I will not bring a famine on you. "And I will multiply the fruit of the tree and the produce of the field, that you may not receive again the disgrace of famine among the nations. 
	The Apostle Paul enlarges the understanding of the depth of trust that is established as the Holy Spirit manifests Himself within our beings, Spirit-to-spirit. There develops a growing awareness that we have a rock solid assurance that we belong to God and that there is nothing that can hinder or prevent the work of the Holy Spirit as He operates in our lives. We see this as Paul writes to his protégée, Timothy in 2 Tim 1:11-14, …for which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle and a teacher. For this reason I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day. Retain the standard of sound words which you have heard from me, in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. Guard, through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, the treasure which has been entrusted to you.
	The mystery of Christ in us, the hope of glory is the treasure, the most valuable one that God, Himself, guards through His very own Spirit. It is such an overwhelming treasure of the grace and the love and the glory of God that John refers to it, in 1 John 2:27, as the anointing. And as for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in Him. According to the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Anointing oil symbolized the presence of the Lord's Spirit to give wholeness to the total person…Anointing, then, was viewed as God's act and as the outpouring of the Spirit to equip for service. (from International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, revised edition, Copyright © 1979 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. All rights reserved.)
	The indwelling of the Holy Spirit not only has the power and the capacity to make us whole, to bring our lives into conformity with the perfection of Jesus Christ, to equip us for a life of service unto the Lord and to guard the mystery of Christ in us, but the indwelling of the Holy Spirit also demonstrates to the world Christ’s mission of love, of sacrifice, of resurrection, and of redemption. Christ declares this, as recorded in John 17:20-23, “I do not ask in behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be in Us; that the world may believe that Thou didst send Me. "And the glory which Thou hast given Me I have given to them; that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, that the world may know that Thou didst send Me, and didst love them, even as Thou didst love Me. 
	The Apostle Paul also encourages us with this truth in Rom 8:9-11, However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. And if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who indwells you. 
We are alive because the power of God, that raised Christ from death, has raised us up from our spiritual death into life evermore. The complete focus of that life is to show forth the glory of God on this earth. We live because Christ lives in us. We know that Christ lives in us because the Holy Spirit indwells us and brings forth every opportunity to express that so great Love of God unto those around us in such dire need of life.
	The gloriousness of this great life that we have in Christ is that it is possible to all. Anyone who calls upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ will be given His life in the powerful indwelling of Christ in us the hope of Glory. This mystery, which is hidden from the powers of this age, is ready to be revealed within the lives and hearts of those who will but seek after Christ as guided by the Holy Spirit. John writes of this tremendous truth in Rev 3:20, Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him, and will dine with him, and he with Me. 
As our hearts are knit together into His living Church, we will present the glory of God unto this world. The life of the Church will be that attractant unto the lost to know the One by Whom we live. There will be a hunger stirred up in those who witness the power of the living Christ as He operates in His Church through the most turbulent storms and trials. The triumphant power of God manifested through the mighty work of the Holy Spirit will draw out those in dire need of life, and they will find it. They will find every aspect of the glorious spiritual life that has been lavished forth from the heart of God into this world through His Only Begotten Son. They will open the door to answer the call and will receive life everlasting as they, too, learn that hidden mystery of the indwelling Lord Jesus Christ in all of His great love. …so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fulness of God. Amen
For I want you to know how great a struggle I have on your behalf, and for those who are at Laodicea, and for all those who have not personally seen my face, that their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love, and attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God's mystery, that is, Christ Himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Amen

Special blessing on Mother’s Day (get roses)

Prov 31:10-31 An excellent wife, who can find? For her worth is far above jewels. The heart of her husband trusts in her, And he will have no lack of gain. She does him good and not evil All the days of her life. She looks for wool and flax, And works with her hands in delight. She is like merchant ships; She brings her food from afar. She rises also while it is still night, And gives food to her household, And portions to her maidens. She considers a field and buys it; From her earnings she plants a vineyard. She girds herself with strength, And makes her arms strong. She senses that her gain is good; Her lamp does not go out at night. She stretches out her hands to the distaff, And her hands grasp the spindle. She extends her hand to the poor; And she stretches out her hands to the needy. She is not afraid of the snow for her household, For all her household are clothed with scarlet. She makes coverings for herself; Her clothing is fine linen and purple. Her husband is known in the gates, When he sits among the elders of the land. She makes linen garments and sells them, And supplies belts to the tradesmen. Strength and dignity are her clothing, And she smiles at the future. She opens her mouth in wisdom, And the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. She looks well to the ways of her household, And does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and bless her; Her husband also, and he praises her, saying: "Many daughters have done nobly, But you excel them all." Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, But a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised. Give her the product of her hands, And let her works praise her in the gates. Amen

This morning’s benediction is from Rom 16:25-27  Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past, but now is manifested, and by the Scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the eternal God, has been made known to all the nations, leading to obedience of faith; to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, be the glory forever. Amen.