The Cost of Mission

Salvation Is Free. The Mission Is Costly.

“Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake…” (Colossians 1:24)

This line is deeply personal for Paul. In the report he received about the church in Colossae, these new believers were trying to make sense of their new life in Christ while watching the very man God used to bring them the gospel constantly face hardship. Naturally, the question rises: why? Why all the suffering? Why the detours?

It’s a question we still ask. Why does following Jesus sometimes feel heavier, not lighter?
That tension doesn’t sit comfortably with us. We tend to assume the opposite. If Jesus is Lord, shouldn’t life smooth out a bit? Shouldn’t obedience lead to clarity, comfort, maybe even a lighter load?

Paul answers that expectation from these Colossae Christians with something surprising. He says he "rejoices in suffering." Not because pain is pleasant, but because Jesus is sovereign and supremely above all things, nothing we face is discounted from his kingdom plan.

Paul sees his life caught up in something bigger than his own ease. He understands that while salvation is completely free, the mission of God is costly. Jesus suffered to accomplish salvation once and for all. That work is finished. But the message of that salvation still needs to travel, still needs to be heard, still needs to reach people who have not yet seen or believed.

And God, in His wisdom, sends that message forward through ordinary people who are willing to give their lives away.

That’s where Paul finds joy. His suffering is not meaningless. It is being used. His sacrifice is not empty. It is producing life in others. As he says elsewhere, “death is at work in us, but life in you.” When Paul lays down his comfort, others are led to Christ. When he endures hardship, the gospel advances.

That reframes how we see our own lives.

What if your current struggle is not an interruption to God’s plan, but part of it? What if the very thing you would remove is the thing God intends to use for his own glory and the gospel. 

Paul also makes it clear that this kind of life flows from identity. He says he became a servant according to a stewardship from God. Not a consumer, not a spectator, but a servant entrusted with something valuable.

That’s the shift many of us need. We often drift into asking, “What am I getting?” Paul asks, “What have I been given, and who is it for?” Grace doesn’t just comfort us, it commissions us.

And at the center of it all is this staggering reality: “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” The mission is not powered by your willpower or sustained by your strength. It is Christ Himself, alive in you, working through you, carrying you forward even when you feel weak.

That means you don’t have to wait until life feels easy to step into what God has called you to. You can serve in the middle of hardship. You can love when it costs you something. You can speak the gospel even when it feels inconvenient.

Because your life is not random. It is an assignment.

So take a moment and ask: what is driving my life right now? Comfort or calling? Consumption or commission?

Salvation is free. You cannot earn it. You cannot add to it. Christ has done it all.
But stepping into His mission will cost you something.
And in the strange, upside-down economy of the kingdom, that’s exactly where you’ll find your life.