15 Part Study Of The Book of Colossians
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the holy and faithful brothers in Christ at Colosse: Grace and peace to you from God our Father.Introduction
We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints— the faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven and that you have already heard about in the word of truth, the gospel that has come to you. All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God's grace in all its truth. You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf, and who also told us of your love in the Spirit.
Paul wrote this letter to the believers in Colossae, but he had never been there. But he learned a lot about the church from his friend, fellow worker and fellow prisoner, Epaphras (Colossians 1:2, Philemon 1:23). And after his stint in prison, Paul planned to go to Colossae to see the flourishing church there, even asking them to prepare a guest room for his arrival (Philemon 1:22).
Once a dominant city, Colossae was located in what is modern day Anatolia, Turkey. But Colossae’s decline began during the Roman Empire when the newly built highway was diverted 12 miles to the south, to Laodicea (Colossians 4:16, Revelation 1:11). Nonetheless, it was at the cross-roads of the mystery religions of the east, the Greek philosophy of the west and the Jewish tradition from the south. And in Paul’s letter we can see all of these different influences at play in the Colossian church.
Greeting
Paul starts his letter in a very familiar fashion. He identifies himself as an “apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God”. In the world of the Bible, apostles were messengers or representatives. And like messengers, you don’t pay attention to the messenger; you pay attention to the message and the sender of the message. In fact, John 13:16 says, “I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.” That word “messenger” (in the Greek) is that same word “apostle”.
So Paul is important, not because he is an apostle, but because he is an apostle of (or sent by) Jesus Christ. So he is sent by Jesus Christ. That’s the source of his message.
And Paul is important, because he is right in the middle of God’s long-term plan to take the gospel from Israel to the rest of the world. He is the “apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God.” God’s plan is not some sort of shotgun evangelism to the nations. Paul said, “I am talking to you who are not Jews. I am the apostle to the non-Jews. So I think the work I do for God and others is very important.” (Romans 11:13 NIrV).
So, Paul is a messenger and he has a message for the “holy” and “faithful” in Colossae. If I got a letter with a greeting like this in the mail, I’d be double-checking the envelope to make sure the mail carrier got the right address. Maybe it was meant for 1124 Crestline Circle, Gotham City. Superman. Check. Spiderman. Check. Holy-and-Faithful. Check.
But no! He is talking to you. This message is addressed to you. No mistake. That word “holy” means “set apart” We have been set apart for God’s special purpose. The Bible says (Ephesians 2:10), “For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” One of Jesus’ scathing condemnations of the religious leaders of his day was (Luke 7:30), “But the Pharisees and experts in the law rejected God's purpose for themselves.” Ouch!
We have been set apart by God for his mission to redeem planet Earth. God is at work. God’s kingdom advances, not through diplomatic maneuvering or border skirmishes or redrawn political boundaries, but through the changing of hearts, the transformation of lives, the restoration of relationships, the healing of communities and the repentance of nations. Jesus said, “My Father is always at work to this very day, and I, too, am working.” (John 5:17) Sit and watch? No, heavens no! We are a part of the worldwide movement of God. Set apart.
Paul says we have heard the good report. Paul says, we have heard the good news that you have heard the good news and are on the move with God.
First, when we move, we trust God.
Second, when we move, we love our brothers and sisters.
Third, when we move, we are motivated by God’s promises.
Fourth, when we move, we are not alone.
When We Move, We Trust God
We always thank God…because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and ofWhen we talk about faith in Jesus Christ, sometimes we are thinking about that point in time when we realized our need for God and put ourselves in His hands, recognizing the work that Jesus did on our behalf, making a way back to God. So many put their spiritual lives on auto-pilot, hoping that they will somehow find the way home. Jesus is not just one flight plan among many possible flight plans to heaven. He said, “I am the way.” (John 14:6).
the love you have for all the saints. – Colossians 1:4
But how do I know he’s the right way? Now that’s a fair question, and one that needs to be settled before you can really take off in your spiritual life. Faith can be a powerful motivator. But it is only as powerful, in the end, as the someone or something that you put your faith in. You can put your faith in your parents, but they turn out to be flawed; you can put your faith in your spouse, but he doesn’t turn out to be prince Charming after all. More like Prince Charmin. You can put your faith in your elected officials, or your pastor, or your 401k or some self-help guru at the top of the New York Times best-seller list. But while your faith may be initially fired up by your imagination and words of wisdom and adrenaline, in you will be disappointed if you set it on anything less than God. Why? Because, in the end, your faith can only grow as big as the one you place your faith in.
God reaches out to us and says, you can trust me. Come and dream the bigger dreams with me; set aside your puny faith and take up my mustard-seed faith; come and join the kingdom of God where every tribe and every nation and every language on this planet comes together in harmony before the throne of God Almighty; where lives are not just mended by renovated; not just changed by renewed.
Why trust God? At the root of it all, that is the critical question. Because at the heart of the Christian faith is a relationship. It is a relationship between you and me and our Father in heaven; where a peace deal was brokered; a cease-fire was declared when Jesus paid for our walking-away from God and made us his adopted children. No relationship can go far if it is not based on trust. If the smell of suspicion lingers about motives and how we really stand with each other, we will always be holding something back. Yes, I might believe that God exists, but how do I know how he feels about me?
Let me suggest two ways that God demonstrates his trust-worthiness. I’ll get to the second one in a minute. First, the Bible is a powerful record of God’s trustworthiness. Here’s what the Bible says (Romans 15:4, NLT):
Such things were written in the Scriptures long ago to teach us. And the
Scriptures give us hope and encouragement as we wait patiently for God’s
promises to be fulfilled.
God says check me out. Here it is: people who didn’t like me, people who did like me, people who questioned me and people who loved me. And here’s what you’ll find: hope and encouragement that God is trust-able.
What makes Paul’s heart beat faster, what causes him to thank God, is the idea that this church in Colossae, is moving out, trusting God; not just for their rescue from Hell but for rescue of their day-to-day lives.
When We Move, We Love Our Brothers and Sisters
We always thank God…because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of
the love you have for all the saints. – Colossians 1:4
Now the second reasons God says to take a look is this: Look at my people: see how they love each other. Now that may seem kind of strange to you. Why? Because you know some Christians. And they didn’t give you the warm-and-fuzzy, group-hug, living-in-harmony sort of feeling. I know. I’ve been hunted in the wildlife of the church kingdom, filled with porcupines, puffer-fish, badgers and well-intentioned dragons. But God says: when you see it, you will know I am there.
Look at what it says (Romans 15:5, NLT):
May God, who gives this patience and encouragement, help you live in completeLove for the brothers and sisters: It is fitting. It is right. It is proper. Its’ peanut-butter and jelly. And if Jesus says:
harmony with each other, as is fitting for followers of Christ Jesus.
Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.Then we know it is something that He expected other people could look at to gauge whether He was present. This is the spiritual thermometer of Cornerstone: Do we go out of our way for the people we love? Of course we do. Are those in this room included?
-John 13:35 (NLT)
How can you love those you don’t know? Some of you could walk out of here this morning and you wouldn’t know enough about anyone else here to be able to begin loving them. Thank you for making a commitment to encourage and build up and love even a small number of the saints.
When We Move, We Are Motivated By God’s Promises
...the faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heavenThe faith and love that we’ve been talking about are an effect. Our faith and our love are not the cause of what is happening. God’s people didn’t suddenly decide to have a little more faith in Him and a little more love for each other and that somehow kick started the kingdom of God and motivated God to get off his duff and do something.
and that you have already heard about in the word of truth, the gospel that has
come to you.
No. Our faith and our love are the response to the tidal wave of the gospel which originated when Jesus Christ conquered death and sin and came back to life. The good news of God’s forgiveness and God’s heaven had reached Colossae. You can choose to fight the wave. Or you can tread water. Or you can choose to get up on your board and surf.
Did you notice that the hope is ‘stored’ up for you in heaven? God has set aside; he has reserved for you, in heaven, hope. Hope of eternal life. Hope of relief. Hope for renewed bodies. Hope for the presence of God. That hope is made real in Jesus. He came, he died, he came back to life, he went to heaven, and he is returning to claim his people.
This is the gospel. This is the good news. This is the truth.
With our past paid for and our future secured, we could rest on our holy rumps. But that’s not the call that the Bible makes. When God’s promise of our future is described, it is coupled with a call to action.
It teaches us to live…godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the
blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. –
Titus 2:12,13
Therefore, prepare your minds for action;…set your hope fully on the grace to beWhen kids graduate from high school or college and they head out on their own, where do they go when things go wrong? They come home. Maybe they move in with mom and dad again, get their bearings and launch out again. Now, there are two types of kids: there are kids who excel because they are willing to take risks because they know that, no matter what happens, mom and dad will be there and kids to do nothing because they take no risks, because they know that, no matter what happens, mom and dad will be there. Which are you?
given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. – 1 Peter 1:13
God has secured your tomorrow. He has saved your soul. He has given you a hope and a future. That future is a terrible thing to waste. Wouldn’t you like to be like King David, where it says in the Bible that he fulfilled God’s purpose in his generation and then he died?
The gospel is simply this: Jesus has paid for your past, on the cross. Jesus is transforming your present, through his Spirit. And he will guarantee your future, with the Father in heaven. You can try and pay for your mistakes yourself. You can try and change yourself. You can try and secure your future. But you are not big enough; you are not strong enough. You have to give up on yourself and ask God to do it. Once you let God do that, it frees you up. Instead of wasting your energy on what you can’t do, you can begin doing what God created you to do.
When We Move, We Are Not Alone
In many ways, the gospel is about failure. We cannot beg, borrow or steal eternal life. It must be granted to us. It is beyond our power to pay for our wrong. It required the sacrifice of another. Making godly choices eludes us on a minute-by-minute, day-by-day basis. It requires the wisdom of God.
And when it comes to fulfilling our destiny; when it comes to changing the world around us; when it comes to advancing the kingdom of God; we can’t do it alone. Paul wrote (Colossians 1:6b):
All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has beenDid you catch that? Built into the essence of the gospel—the good news—is it takes root in the good soil. It flourishes. It grows. It reaches out to God. It flowers. Then it bears fruit.
doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God's grace in all its
truth.
But fruiting is not the end of the story. Rather, it is the beginning of the next story. Every fruit is a seed bearer. Every fruit carries within it the potential for a new life.
El Dorado Hills is rocky soil. Though the gospel is spread generously, sometimes we look around and wonder whether all of God’s work struggles so with the weeds of materialism and apathy which seem so prevalent here. Is this how it is? El Dorado Hills native growth seems to be grass; sprouting today and burned tomorrow.
Each group of believers, each church looks at their own landscape and wonders the same thing: God, is it all like this? Jesus said (John 4:35b-36):
I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.What we need is perspective; a look at the world as God sees it. What he sees is a worldwide movement of God. The gospel has been scattered widely, and it is bearing fruit. I’ve seen praises to God in Belize; I’ve met with persecuted Iranian believers vibrant in their faith. I’ve seen homes and churches in caves dug out of the hillsides in Turkey. I’ve met people hungry for the word of God in China. My family has been blessed by generous churches in England. I can testify, as Paul does, that “All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit…”
Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop for eternal
life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together.
We are not alone. We are part of the worldwide movement of God. And when I go to those churches and look back at El Dorado Hills; at Cornerstone Christian Church; I can see better what God is doing. He is not raising grass. His word has struggled to find purchase in the rocky hearts here, but when it does, it goes deep. He is growing oak trees. I have seen it; men and women who refuse to be distracted by the world; whose eyes are fixed on heaven; who have taken the wind and the rain and the fire and stood strong.
Conclusion
Instead of producing firewood, are producing acorns. Now what we need are a few squirrels.
Now, in the history of schools, there are few who can match the mascot of U.C. Santa Cruz, the banana slug. But my high school comes pretty close. I was raised in Morgan Hill, California, just south of San Jose and went to Live Oak High School. And our mascot was…you guessed it…the acorn. My green-and-yellow senior T-shirt has a picture of a buff acorn. Our motto: “Go nuts!” By contrast, our arch-rivals were from Gilroy High School—the Mustangs. The big game of the year was the Mustangs vs. the Acorns.
Hey, but really, oaks are cool. Did you ever look at oak trees out here? Oaks don’t grow under the canopy of another oak. Each oak needs its own shot at sunlight. But where do the acorns fall. Under the tree! So how do those acorns get a chance? Squirrels! You though that those squirrels were salting away those acorns for a future banquet. But really what God has them doing instead is providing a nice starting point for a future oak.
How does the gospel move? By moving you. This summer, I met an Iranian movie director who came to Christ, was persecuted for sharing his faith and now he and his family are refugees in central Turkey. How long will he be there? He doesn’t know. But he knows there are 45 Iranian believers in the city. And we know that the city where he lives is spiritually dark. How does God bring his good news to Muslim Turkey? He brings a man to Christ in Iran and transplants him.
Maybe he’ll make it to pagan California next.
Or perhaps he will use you or me. I sometimes joke that we are the Bay Area refugees. Most of our families don’t come from El Dorado Hills. God has transplanted us here. The gospel is not an abstract concept; it is the work of God changing you and me for the better. When he scatters the seeds of the gospel, he scatters his people. You are not here by accident. You are part of God’s plan where every man and woman and child has a chance to hear the good news; that every corner of this planet can shout praise to God. You are part of the worldwide movement of God.
Today is the day to change your mind about God. If God has been speaking to your heart, today is the day. Jesus said (John 14:1),
Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.What does it take for you to trust Jesus? Ask yourself that question. Ask God that question. Trust anchors your relationship. What would it take for you to trust Jesus? What would you do if he proved himself? Would you be ready to re-arrange your life? Your furniture? Or would you appreciate the 10 minutes of spiritual excitement and then switch back to your old style.
Do you already trust Jesus? Is it moving you? Great! It excites me to see people right here taking bigger steps of faith, getting their feet wet, making choices that make God proud to be called your Father. It excites me to see the saints loving on each other like they were really brothers and sisters. Giving like Jesus gives.
Serving like Jesus serves. Loving like Jesus loves.
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