Video Transcript: Paul's Letter to Colossian Christians (Colossians 1:1-2)

In many ways the book of Colossians is mainly about what it is to live in Christ now. Sometimes there are emphases on in other Bible books and in this one too, on what Christ has done and on His finished work, and that's extremely important and all his future work and His coming again, and that's extremely important. But what is there now what should we expect now in our walk with Christ? What is there that that is part of a living relationship with Jesus Christ, now? That's a big matter to know how do we understand God's will now? How do we fight evil powers now? How do we live in the reality and relationship with Christ now? And that's a major reason that I've chosen the book of Colossians. It's a whole area that I've been reflecting on. It's a book too, of course, that I've been studying and meditating on and memorizing. And so we're going to focus on it for a while. 

Today, we're going to look at it in two very different ways. You're going hear the whole book, and then you're gonna think about two verses. We'll get further than two verses at a time in future messages. But we're going to deal with the whole book first and just hear it. I may not have a whole lot of time left to deal with those two verses, although they will take some time as well.

Imagine that you are a Christian in this town of Colossae. It's not a very major city. Ephesus nearby was a much larger and more important city and in Ephesus, Paul had served for three years but he never came to Colossae. Colossian Christian was living in Ephesus at the time and heard Paul's message and his name was Epaphras. And he was trained by Paul and he went back to Colossae and started a church there. And in that church, the people came to know Christ because Epaphras was an excellent teacher and a devout Christian. But at the same time, there were issues going on in that church. One is that one of the leaders of the house church in that area, Titus had a slave run away from it, Onesimus. Another issue was that somebody came along claiming to add things and improve on that gospel message that Epaphras had brought, and how to really experience Christ by visions and by certain rituals and by all kinds of other things. And so this is starting to raise some questions. 

And Epaphras left Colossae and travelled probably all the way to Rome in this case, because Paul had been imprisoned in Rome. It was about the year 62. And he shared with Paul what was going on. Well, after a while, the people in Colossae see a couple of folks come down the road to greet them. And one of them is that runaway slave Onesimus. And another one is guy named Tychicus, who Paul has designated to carry the letter and bring it and read it to them and then explain how Paul is doing and others in Rome are doing. Paul's in prison in Rome at that time, and Tychicus is going to share the letter as well as some other stuff from Paul and Onesimus is carrying the letter and Tychicus is carrying too. Tychicus has one for the people in Colossae, and another one for a church in nearby Laodicea. And Onesimus has a letter that's a personal letter, it's addressed to his former master Philemon and this letter is to clear up a few little matters, like don't execute your runaway slave, and receive him back not as a slave but as a dear brother. And then this letter to the Colossians is meant to be read to the believers when they get together there. 

And since it is a letter, and since in those days, even though we've been blessed with a printing press, and we can read our Bibles and read our letters this morning, I'm simply going to speak to you this letter so that you can kind of hear the whole thing, the way it would have been spoken without necessarily reading it. Sometimes it's a different experience to hear than to read. Sometimes it’s a different experience to say it and to memorize too. Because I've run these things in my head whenever I go jogging for the last few months, the whole epistle just about but it's easy when I find that when I start talking aloud then all of a sudden I can forget sometimes. So I've got a little help here in case I need it. But here's what Paul wrote for the people in Colossae. 

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God, to the saints and faithful brothers in Christ that Colossae. Grace to you and peace from God our Father. We always thank God for you. We always thank God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ whenever we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints because of the hope laid up for you in Heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of truth, the gospel which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and growing, as it also does among you since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth, just as you learned it from Epaphras, our beloved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf and has made known to us your love in the Spirit. 

And so from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord fully pleasing to Him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created on earth and in heaven, visible and invisible, whether thrones or rulers or dominions or authorities all things were created through Him and for Him, and He is before all things and in Him all things hold together and he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through Him, to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. And you who were alienated and hostile in mind doing evil deeds, God has reconciled in His body of flesh by his death, in order that He might present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him. If indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven. And in which I Paul became a minister. 

Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake and in my flesh, I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you to make the Word of God fully known. The mystery hidden for ages and generations, but now revealed to His saints. To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. 

Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone that we might present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toiled, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me. For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you, and for those that Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I say this, in order that no one may delude you by plausible arguments for though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ. 

Therefore, as you receive Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up with him and established in the faith just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. Let no one take you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world and not according to Christ. For in him all the fullness of deity dwells bodily and you have been filled in Him, who is the head of all rule and authority. In him also who were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised him from the dead. And you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with Him. Having forgiven us all our trespasses by cancelling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This He set aside, nailing it to the cross, He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him.

Therefore, let no one pass judgement on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come. But the substance belongs to Christ. Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, and not holding fast to the head, for whom the whole body nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments grows with the growth that is from God. If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why is if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to its regulations? Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch, referring to things that will perish as they are used according to human precepts and teachings. These have indeed in appearance of wisdom in promoting self made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, you also will appear with Him in glory. Put to death therefore, what is earthly in you sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming, and you too once walked in them when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you've put off the old self and put on the new self which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its Creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave free, but Christ is all and is in all. Therefore put on as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, bearing with one another. And if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

And above all these put on love which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which you were called in one body and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. Teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing songs and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Wives, submit to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them. Children, obey your parents in everything for this pleases the Lord. Fathers do not provoke your children unless they become discouraged. Slaves obey in everything those who are your earthly masters not by way of eye service as people pleasers. But with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord and not for man, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done and there is no partiality. Masters treat your slaves justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a master in heaven. 

Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us that God may open to us a door for the word to declare the mystery of Christ on account of which I'm in prison, that I may make it clear which is how I ought to speak. Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech be always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

Tychicus will tell you all about my activities. He is a beloved brother, a faithful minister and fellow servant in the Lord. I have sent him to you for this very purpose that you may know how we are and that he may encourage your hearts and with him Onesimus, our faithful and beloved brother who is one of you. They will tell you of everything that has taken place here. Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner greets you and Mark the cousin of Barnabas, concerning whom you have received instructions if he comes to you welcome him. And Jesus who is called Justus. These are the only men of the  circumcision among my fellow workers for the kingdom of God. And they have been a comfort to me. Epaphras who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus greets you always struggling on your behalf in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God. For I bearing witness that he has worked hard for you and for those in Laodicea and Hierapolis. Luke, the beloved physician greets you as does Demas. My greetings to the brothers at Laodicea and to Nympha, and the church in her house. And when this letter has been read among you have it also read in the church of Laodiceans and see to it that you also read the letter from Laodicea. And say to Archippus, see that you fulfill the ministry that you have received in the Lord. 

I Paul write this greeting with my own hand. Remember my chains. Grace be with you. This ends the reading of God's Word and God always blesses His word to those who listen.

As we hear that great epistle, there are some things that are such splendid realities that that I just want to hear more about them and think more about them. He opens with words about faith and hope and love about being strengthened with all power according to God's glorious might. About having the riches of the mystery, this knowledge which is Christ in you, the hope of glory, Christ in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, setting your mind on things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God and all the wonders of who Christ is as the one who was preeminent in everything, whether in creation or in salvation, or in reigning over all things or just in making sure everything holds together. And so as we go through this epistle, we're going to be focusing on and meditating on those realities. It is a Christ focused letter, and you are going to know Jesus Christ better at the end of this letter as we think more and more about it and you're going to know better what to expect and seek and experience in your own walk with Christ. 

There are also some difficult things and maybe you heard it all to you. I got that down to this so then you're a lot smarter than I am. Because there are some pretty hard statements in there to figure out. In my flesh, I'm filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions. Try that one on, for starters, you know. There's something lacking in Christ's afflictions. So I'm kind of filling it in. Whatever that means. It could be tough, and we'll get into that when we confront it. Who are these rulers and authorities the elemental spirits of the world? And what has been done to deal with them and what's still involved in dealing with them and triumphing over them. Spiritual warfare in short. These are vital questions that all of us as Christians need to understand and address and so as we go into this letter we will probe those things in a whole lot more and I trust that will be a blessing and exciting discovery for you. 

I just want to look at the first two verses. Now you say well, c'mon, he said, hi. That should be a really, really short sermon. He said, hi guys. Well, not quite. These first verses are Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God and Timothy, our brother to the saints and faithful brothers in Christ that Colossae, grace to you and peace from God our Father. As we think about these this morning, one thing I want you to keep in the back of your mind is that it's always beneficial to slow down. There's a lot of value in reading a whole letter of the Bible, as we just did a few moments ago, and just getting the big picture. There's also a lot of value in just hitting the brakes and taking in the view, and carefully considering each word, each phrase. This is just a letter of Paul, say, Well, boy, if you can slow down over Paul, we'll never get through this letter. 

Think of what a marvel it is to any letter to any Christians was ever written by this guy. I mean, imagine yourself 10 years into the future, Osama a pastor of Jesus Christ. That's a little hard to wrap your head around. This person who wrote this letter was the chief enemy of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the murderer of the martyr, Stephen, who supervise his execution and the killing of others. A man who said I don't even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of Christ. I'm the least of the apostles because I was a blasphemer and a violent man and the chief of sinners. Think of what a marvel it is that a letter to Christians starts with the word, Paul. 

Well, just to show you that nothing is safe, and nothing is sacred among the leaders of the church and the great minds of the church. There are some scholars who start out with Colossians by denying the very first word. They say Paul didn't write it. Okay. So you really can't get any nastier than that right from the get go first word of the letter, that it says Paul, and they say no not Paul. Somebody pretending to be Paul, somebody fabricating advice to Christians and trying to import that authority of Paul. That's how some liberal scholars handle the Bible nowadays. Later on in the letter it says that do not lie to one another since you have put off your old self with its practices, and have put on the new self. And the person who says that starts out by lying and says, Paul, when he's not. And they say, well, it was kind of common practice back then to write pseudonymous letters. No, it wasn't not among the early Christians who put such a high premium on truth. 

Now they have their reasons. I won't get into them all. Reasons of style, but even more so of theology. They say this letter has such a high view of Christ as divine, and such a developed idea of Jesus as God that Paul couldn't have written it. I don't know where they’ve been? Anyway, I'm just alerting you to the fact that you can't get one word into an epistle and not have it attacked by current New Testament scholarship. You just have to face it. That's how bad things have gotten in terms of the enemy's infiltration in the halls of academia, and in his attacks on the Word of God. 

So at one of the same time, this word Paul is an occasion to say, Wow, if God could save him, He could save anybody. In fact, when Paul writes to Timothy later, he says that's why God chose him the chief of sinners so that he'd be kind of the A one display of grace and people can look at him and say, man, if God could save him I think He can save anybody. If God could make something mighty of him, he could probably make something of me too. And so as you read that word, Paul, just think about the marvel of that. 

He's an apostle, and apostle is not the husband of an epistle as some have thought. An epistle is a letter. And apostle is somebody who is sent out. Apolostolo is the word to send out in Greek. And he is sent out on a mission, he is sent on a mission to speak as an eyewitness to the resurrection. You could not be an apostle if you had not seen the risen Lord Jesus Christ. And Paul was an oddball, kind of a weird apostle in that sense. He was not one who had not followed Jesus during His life here on Earth, as all the other apostles had. But he had seen Jesus Christ when Christ came and appeared to him and arrested him on the road to Damascus. So he had seen the risen Christ and he was an eyewitness to the risen Christ. That's one of the things you had to be to be an apostle. Apostles were those were sent out then to be these eyewitnesses and tell others about the crucified and risen Christ. And they also had authority to define doctrine. To say from God, what the truth is in Christ, and also to say, what was baloney? What was lies, and an apostle had that kind of authority. And so when Paul is writing, he is writing to say, I've been sent by God, I've been sent by Jesus Christ, to bring the good news of resurrection, to teach you the way of Christ and make disciples among all nations, and to be an authority on what the truth is in Christ. And so when you hear this letter, you're listening to somebody who is an apostle, someone who was sent to give this message. 

And you can imagine that the Colossians needed this kind of to bolster again, their confidence because they had not learned the gospel directly from an apostle. They learned it from Epaphras and he was just one of them. You know how it goes when somebody is just part of your own group. What makes him any big stuff. But they learned it from him and they had been blessed. They received the Holy Spirit through Epaphras. But when there came competitors to the Gospel, there may have been some who said, Well, what if Epaphras didn't give us the full truth and everything we needed. Now, we shouldn't go too far in thinking that the people were all falling for that because Paul says I rejoice to hear of you're good order in the firmness of your faith in Christ. You don't have to let it get to crisis stage to hit it off. Paul was just going to nip this bad stuff in the bud. Because the Colossians were still holding firm to the real gospel that Epaphras had brought to them. But now Paul is writing with the full authority of an apostle to tell him Hey, Epaphras is a good minister. You can trust him, you can bank on what he said. And what he said was Christ and Christ is enough. 

Well he's an apostle of Christ Jesus. Again, for Paul to utter those words is kind of an amazing thing because he believed when he was Saul that Jesus was an imposter. The last thing he would call him was Christ or Messiah, the Promised One of Israel whom God had sent to save Israel and the whole world. But now he's an apostle of Messiah Jesus, and He speaks on Jesus authority. Here again, I've got to refer to what goes on these days. And for the last couple of 100 years, in some Christian circles, and in some scholarly circles. There's a tendency to get kind of red letterish when you deal with the Bible. And to say, well, if it's one of those red letter statements of Jesus, then it has full divine authority. But things that are written in the black letters and the rest of the Bible, you don't have to take it quite as seriously. 

And at the scholarly level, here's how it works. Jesus had a clear simple message of love. And along came Paul and took what was clear and made it complicated. He took what was simple and made it difficult. He took this message of love, and he changed it into something where God actually punishes sin. And Paul just messed up that beautiful message of Jesus. Well, it's always humorous to see people 2000 years later, thinking they understand Jesus better than those who lived in his own time and received revelation directly from him. But just forget and dispense with that whole scholarly notion of a gap between Jesus and Paul. The latest version I've seen of that was in Brian McLaren, the Emerging Church guru who was in his latest book saying how different Paul was from Jesus again, and so on. Anyway, just hear that but also remember, don't get too red letterish with your Bible. Paul's statements are just as much the revelation of Jesus Christ as Jesus’ words recorded in the gospels. In fact, Paul wrote these letters before Luke wrote his gospel. So it why should you trust Luke more than Paul. 

Luke is writing down Jesus’ story and Jesus’ words. But Paul is writing as he says in Galatians I didn't get my message from any man not even from the other apostles. I got it directly by revelation from Jesus Christ. And we know that Jesus told His apostles, even in the upper room, I have a whole lot more to say to you that you're not quite ready to accept yet and he shared much of that, of course between the time of His resurrection and his ascension. But he also revealed much by His Holy Spirit, and in his appearances to Paul and the other apostles after the resurrection. And so when we read that Paul is writing as an apostle of Christ Jesus, get rid of the notion that Paul and Jesus are on totally different wavelengths, and that Paul came along and changed what Jesus had been and what Jesus had said, that's just baloney. And also avoid your own little tendency to pick your favorite part of the Gospel where Jesus is here on earth talking and saying, oh, that's Jesus speaking and then to ignore other parts of Scripture, where Jesus is just as surely speaking, because it is the very Word of God that he's given to His Apostle. 

He's an apostle by the will of God. Well, in first place, we see that in Paul's biography. Paul did not go on the road to Damascus with his To Do List saying how to become an apostle of Jesus Christ. His to do list was, okay here's the people I'm gonna hunt down and kill there. And then I'm going to nab those people over there and drag them back to prison. And then I'm gonna torture a few others and see if I can get them to change their minds. So that was kind of what his To Do List looked like on the road to Damascus. And then came the light and the voice, I am sending you to them to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may have repentance from sin and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me. Paul heard that voice, and he was called to be an apostle by the will of God and he later came to understand that God had set him apart from before birth to be his mighty apostle, and even all those bad roads he travelled God had been there, waiting to ambush him, waiting and waiting and waiting and then making him an apostle by the will of God. It's no wonder that when Paul would write to the Ephesians, he would say that God does everything according to the counsel of his will. Or that Paul would have such a strong sense of God's electing love which chose him not because of what a fine guy he was, but in spite of the kind of guy he was. He was an apostle by the will of God. They wanted to make that clear to give credit to God as well as to make it clear you need to listen to me. I am an apostle by the will of the Almighty God. And so when I talk, it is also the will of the Almighty God that you listen, and you listen very, very carefully. 

So as we go throughout this whole letter of Colossians, and in any other part of the Scripture, it comes to us from people who were chosen by the will of God. And whatever else we don't fully understand about God's will, one thing we know it is also his will that we listen to his chosen spokesman. And Timothy, our brother. Timothy was a younger man who was walking with Christ who was there with Paul at the time, almost certainly the person who was writing while Paul was talking. Many of Paul's letters are written down by somebody else and only the very end does Paul write a sentence or two in his own hand just to make sure they know it's Paul, who did it because they'll recognize his handwriting and his signature at the end. But Timothy is the one here and so Paul says, Paul and Timothy, our brother, are the ones who are doing the writing.

Well, who's getting a letter? The saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae. That's a very important statement again, not what you want to hurry past to too quickly. To the saints. Who are those saints? Everybody hearing the letter. It is a mistake to have a list of saints as though those are the real upper-cross. It's not bad to have Christian heroes and maybe even a give kind of a special recognition to people who've been used mightily by God and served him well. But to list them as saints and then everybody else has something else is a huge blunder. Now, there was already that tendency going on very early. There were people who were saying that in order to really be a Christian you've got to go through secret and particular rituals that those ordinary church people don't go through. And you've got to have certain practices and really punish your body and maybe have some visions and you've got to communicate with some angels while you're at it, because, you know, any old schmo can go and pray. But if you've got spirit guides, now, you're somebody special. If you're in contact with those spirit guides and those angels and that's what makes you kind of an elite because anybody can just go along and believe in Jesus as Savior and pray to God and have that ordinary garden variety Christianity. Paul is saying if you've got that ordinary garden variety Christianity you are saints, you are the ones who are set aside and set apart by God. You are a chosen people, the holy priesthood, a people belonging to God. You're the ones that God has set aside. You are the light of the world. 

And to be a saint is to be holy, to be set apart and holy doesn't first of all mean the degree of goodness that you have. It does mean that as well. But the first thing holiness means is simply to be a breed apart. A different people. A people who aren't part of the rest of it in some important sense. God is holy in that He's pure and free from sin, but he's also holding that he's just totally separate from anything else. And Christians are holy in that set apart sense as well. And so that's an amazing thing that Paul says, You are a saint. If you are listening to this letter and you are a believer then every Christian who hears this is a saint and then of course, you're called to become more saintly, where you aren’t getting too absorbed in the world. And he'd ask some hard questions and see what it means for set apart people to live in a different manner than the worldlings do. But you're already declared to be a saint and set apart if you belong to Christ at all. 

Faithful. Sometimes we think of faithful in terms of being devoted or loyal or somebody who sticks with something and that is very important part of it. But don't be misled by English translation. Our word faithful has come to mean that. But really, if you just take the word really literally and say it, then it will get close to the Greek faith full, full of  faith, faith filled. He's writing to people for whom faith is the big thing. It's not going to be their own achievements. It's not going to be their own philosophy and discoveries. It's going to be their faith in Jesus Christ that matters most. They’re faith filled, they trust in Him. They have been filled in Him who is the fullness of God, by faith in Him. 

And then of course, they're also devoted and loyal. They're stable and steadfast. I'm standing firm in him because when you're filled with faith, then it makes you a faithful kind of person as well. They're brothers again, we can kind of race over that. It's a word that gets used so often in the Bible that you get kind of used to it and every so often, just slow down for a moment and think about what does that mean? Well, adelphoi, you know, Philadelphia city of brotherly love. Adelphoi is brothers or brothers and sisters that covers both male and female but members of the same family. This church is called family of faith. One of the chief pictures of God's universal church in the Bible is as the household of faith. And that's why brothers and sisters are running all over in the New Testament, because it is a family. And there are other ways of looking at the church as a theatre performance with an excellent performer and then an audience, as a government with somebody in charge trying to manage and make sure everybody else behaved and whip them back into shape, and a lot of other things a school where everybody sits quietly and gets a lecture or whatever. But one of the most fundamental pictures of church is household, family. And we need to conduct ourselves that way and rejoice that it is so. Not just strangers or people we kind of have put up with. But people that we love, people that are our brothers, our sisters, loving members of one family and cherished by the Father, God who has adopted us as His sons and daughters in Christ. 

There's no greater privilege than to be a part of the family of God. It's a great thing to sing the hymns of the cross and have the power of the blood to cleanse us and we should sing those often. And we should not stop there. We are not just forgiven. We are adopted. We are loved. We are guided, we are embraced. We are part of the family, and we are brothers and sisters in Christ. And it's also by the by you know, I said we shouldn't exalt any saints too highly but I still have a pretty high opinion of Paul and I kind of like being called a brother, by somebody like that. Think of some of the brothers and sisters, that you're part of the same family of. We may not pray to saints, or get too carried away in singling out some saints above others. But it doesn't hurt a little bit to think about who some of these great men and women of God are and realize that you're part of the same family and maybe that'll even inspire you to live a little bit more up to the family standard in Christ. 

Now, I should just warn you here I won't do it to you today because time is running on us. I have two books of 300 pages each that are about in Christ. Because union with Christ is the centre of Paul's thought. The phrase in Christ appears again and again and again and again in all of his writings. And again, it's one of those things that he didn't invent or differ from Jesus. Jesus said, I'm the vine you're the branches. If a person remains or abides in Me and I in him, he'll bring forth much fruit. Apart from me you can do nothing. Jesus speaks again and again of being in us and of his father coming to live with us and both happening by the Holy Spirit whom He sends us the Comforter to live within us. And so that phrase in Christ is huge. In Colossians, it talks about something else about Christ in us. And Paul says in Galatians I no longer live but Christ lives in me. And that's one of the things that we evangelical Christians emphasize quite a bit is Jesus living in your heart. Some people even talk about becoming a Christian as inviting Jesus to live in your heart. Now there is some truth in Christ in us because it's a wonderful reality to be a temple of the Holy Spirit and have him living in you. But it's even more frequent in the Bible, to speak of not just Christ being in us, but us being in Christ. And we need to keep both phrases in mind. There is something wonderful about that personal relationship of Jesus coming just to live in your heart. But there is something in a sense, much greater and more expanding to who you are for you to be caught up into Christ. It's not Jesus wittling himself down to live in you. It's him catching you up to live in him. A fish needs water to live in. We need air to breathe, and the Christian needs Christ. Christ is what you live in what you breathe, and it does not work, to try to go through life holding your breath. That's what it's like for a Christian to live without the living, active presence of Christ in you. It just can't be done. 

We live in Christ and it’s the position we have and we'll see more about that. I don't need to explain it all here. They were positioned in Jesus life. We're positioned in his death. We're positioned in his resurrection, we’re positioned in his ascension, where Paul can speak in another letter of being seated with Christ in the heavenly realms. Being in Christ and positioned in him. What does it mean, to die with him, to rise with him to be seated with Him, to reign with Him? It doesn't just mean something that's gonna happen in the future. Not the way the Bible talks about it. It talks about being seated with him now, and reigning with Him in life. And so we're going to be thinking more about what that says, I'm just giving you advance notice that life in Christ is just the core and supreme reality of what it is to be a Christian at all. And Paul writes to these people, the very beginning of the letter and he says you’re saints, you’re faithful you’re brothers, you’re in Christ. 

One more thing he says about them. You’re at Colossae.  Or in the original it says in Colossae, you're in Christ and you’re in Colossae. That's kind of where the challenge comes, as well as the exciting opportunities. You're in Christ. And you're in Colossae. You're in this whole hum middle sized town where a lot of people don't think much of you or of the new sect that you're part of and you're in Christ are seated with Him in the heavenly realms. And wherever you go, you are in him and he's in you. He's writing to people who are saints and brothers and faithful and in Christ and housewives, and fishermen, and business people and carpenters, and all occupations you can think of that are they're just people doing these ordinary things living in this ordinary place, and yet having something mysterious and extraordinary and supernatural, that is true of them, because they have believed the gospel and the Spirit of God lives in them. You can in a sense summarize your whole Christian experience in Christ in Colossae or in Christ in Monet or in Christ in Crete, or in Christ in Frankfurt, or in Christ in Homer-gland or whatever town you are, whatever town and home you live in, you are in Christ. And you are in this set of circumstances with these kids who still need their noses wiped, and sometimes their tail spanked or you know, whatever the case may be, you have your very ordinary life. 

That's why at the end of the letter, you get these instructions Dads, don’t bug your kids too much. You know, you may be in Christ and you still might be a bozo at times. And so to live in Christ while you're a dad means okay, I'm gonna live in Christ and I'm gonna try not to drive my kids crazy. In Christ when you're in a situation where Roman fathers have absolute power, life and death over their children and over their wives. Well, to be in Christ means Husbands, love your wives, and don't be harsh with them. Just because the surrounding world says you get to do whatever you want, you may be harsh with them. You're in Christ, and so you're going to hear a lot of different ways that being in Christ while you're in Colossae applies when the rubber hits the road. 

Well, what's the blessing Grace to You, and peace from God our Father. What's grace? It's unearned favor. It's God looking on us with favor. God desiring to pour out many, many great blessings upon us and not because we've earned it or merited it or done anything to bring it toward ourselves or attract his favor to us. But simply because he has chosen to love and this grace isn't just forgiveness. Amazing Grace saves the wretch like me. Takes somebody who's lost and finds him somebody who's blind and gives him sight and that's amazing. That grace brings forgiveness and new life. But that's nit where grace stops. Grace has brought me safe thus far and grace will lead me home. Grace gives you daily favor from God, a daily supply of oxygen, a daily supply of food, a daily supply of the Holy Spirit. And so Paul in his greeting is saying, Grace to You, these people have already received the grace and forgiveness and a new life but they need ongoing grace. And that grace is something that we rely on throughout our lives. 

To you. I warned you. We're gonna be looking at everything. But again, some of you maybe should ignore everything else I've said and just take that. You hear sermons again, and again and again. And you hear wonderful things said about Jesus and about God and about His blessings about what he can do for you again, and again and again, and a good deal of it maybe either bores you or even bugs you and bothers you. Because you say there's that guy up there talking all excited about this. And it just isn't there for me. Maybe you need to meditate on to you for a while. When you're reading this letter, and you are seeking God and seeking Christ and and believing on him for salvation. Maybe God's big message is simply to you. Not just somebody else. Not just those people over and emphasize you in Colossae, you there in family of faith you as an individual who struggle with this. I'm talking to you. And if you understand those words to you have been all of a sudden your ears pick up and you say, Oh, I could have union with Christ? I can defeat the powers of evil? I can be different and to you may make the whole difference. 

Well, and peace. Peace is the Hebrew word shalom or the Greek word Irene um that's a nice name not used very much anymore but Iraenae or Irene peace. It means not just absence of war, but it's Shalom wellbeing, health, and it's a healthy relationship with God being justified by faith. We have peace with God and we continue to live in that peace of God that surpasses understanding. It means peace with others. Peace that heals relationships, if one has a complaint against another forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven you. So you also must forgive. That statement of Paul later in the letter is an expression of peace and peace within. You're not so troubled and so disturbed when God's grace comes to you. Peace comes knowing God's grace is sufficient. Paul struggled with many difficulties in his life. When he wrote this letter, he was in prison. And other times he struggled with something called a thorn in the flesh that Satan had inflicted and God chose not to remove. But God did give this message My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. When God says grace to you, then peace is the result of that. If you don't have peace, a sense of contentment, a sense of being rightly related to God and to others, you don't just need a change of circumstances. You say, boy, if my life were going easier, if my job were more steady, if my kids were better behaved if the economy wasn't such a mess. If the government was in better shape, then I could be a little calmer and not so upset and so riled about everything. Well, you don't need those things. To change. It'd be nice if they would. To have peace and grace. And when you have God's Sufficient Grace, then you have peace in him as well. And it comes from our father, our strong father, our loving father. 

And so when Paul brings this message in because he is inspired by God Himself, it's not just Paul's nice little wish. It is Paul's declaration on the authority of God the Father Himself. You brothers are part of God's family. God is your Father. Your Abba is loving, he sent his spirit into your heart, moving you to call him Abba. And so you can count on grace for every day. You can count on peace with him, with others within your own heart because he floods your life with his grace. 

Well, that's just the two verses a little sample of things to come. This is a tremendous revelation from God in this book, and I pray that God will help each of us to take to heart these things. If you're Christians, I pray that He'll lift your hearts to the heavens and strengthen you and make you powerful. If you're kind of on the edge. I'm not even sure if you're a Christian. I pray that today's message and ones to come will really help you understand what it is to belong to Christ, and to come to Him in faith believing. Let's pray. Father, we thank You for this revelation in the scriptures. We thank you for the marvel of Your grace which saved and rescued the Apostle Paul and worked through him to save many others as your Spirit touched their hearts and lives. And as we hear again, your voice coming to us through His voice as we hear in the voice of the apostle the voice of the Good Shepherd of our souls. We pray that you will encourage that you will warn, that you will touch, that you will help us to mature that more and more we will know the treasures that are ours in Christ Jesus, and to know You Jesus in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. We pray in Jesus name, Amen.