Colossians 1:1-14
1 Amens
Colossians 1:1-14
Video- Lose Your Life
Welcome:
Meditation on the change God has brought into our lives, prayer for Him to continue to change us…
Reading: Psalm 86:1-10
We start today to walk through the NT Book of Colossians. For those who are new, our general practice is to set aside Sunday mornings for our community to come together, to get to know each other better, but even more so, to get to know God. We do this through talking about Him, through talking to Him in prayer, in the songs we sing, and through looking intently and deeply at His word, the Bible. Instead of cherry picking a bit here and a bit there, or dealing with topical issues, we tend to go through whole books, verse by verse, trying to see the character of God and the will of God for our community.
We just finished a summer in some of the smaller OT Prophets like Haggai and Habakkuk and Jonah. And now, for the next 8 or so weeks, we’ll be hitting the book of Colossians.
So if you have a Bible…
This is a letter to the small church community which lived in the Greek city of Colossae, in what is now modern day Turkey. Colossae was a prosperous city, situated on a trade route and the people there did very well for themselves, especially in the trade of wool died purple, until their business was overshadowed by competition from a nearby town called Laodicea.
Colossians was written about 60 or 62 AD, 30 years after Jesus was horribly crucified on a Roman cross and 30 years after He rose from the dead. The Apostle Paul was the author… but he wasn’t always the Apostle Paul was he… For those who might not know- who can fill us in on Paul’s story? Who was he born as?
Cool- thank you all… So after some years of preaching the Good News about Jesus, Paul ended up in prison for his faith- ironic considering his past. It was from prison that Paul wrote Colossians… He says:
VS1
And when he says “chosen”, in light of his story you can understand why… Jesus didn’t just chose him- He knocked him on his can. He blinded him. He asked him, “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather serve me than persecute me???” So I like how Paul says, I was chosen… I hope God never chooses me for anything the way Paul got “chosen”…
VS 2
“Grace” in Greek is “charis” and it sounds like the typical Greek greeting of “Kaire”. “Peace” was the typical Jewish greeting… so for a church made up of a mixture of Jewish and Greek followers of Jesus, very appropriate.
VS 3-5
Paul starts a lot of his letters with telling the people he’s writing to exactly how he’s praying for them, what he’s thankful about regarding them…
What are the two things that Paul really digs about the Colossians? What does he say? Faith in God, love for other people who are following Jesus.
Paul says “We have heard”… he had never met this community, but their reputation preceded them- they had faith in God, and that expressed itself in love for, in care for other churches, other Christ followers. The churches would take collections for each other when disaster or famine or other tough times hit, and I imagine that the Colossians had done that at some point, so Paul is commending them for the love they’ve shown.
He talks about their faith and their love which comes from… what does it say? Hope. Hope in what? God- His character and specifically here, His promises. Faith in Christ Jesus, love for others and hope in God…
This is what we talked about last week and it’s an undercurrent here in Colossians- hope in God versus hope in everything, in anything else. Because all hope not rooted in the person of, the character of God, is ultimately false hope- everything else is transient, everything else disappears… only God is constant, only God never changes… after everything else is gone, only God remains.
Paul says- all this started for them when they first heard the truth of the Good News. This is the first time in the letter Paul mentions “Good News”, the Gospel. The word in Greek is euangelion, and contrary to what you might think, it’s not a Christian term- the followers of Jesus were not the first to talk about “Good News” this way, about the “Gospel.”
It was a distinctly Roman term, a distinctly political term. “Euangelion”, Gospel, was used to announce the birth of a new heir to the throne, to announce Caesar’s military victories. Euangelion was always about the glory of the Roman Empire and about the glory of Caesar. See, they wanted people to know: it was Rome and Caesar that brought Good News, Rome and Caesar that promised prosperity, the word they used was “fruitfulness”, plenty, for everyone… Sure, they conquered your country, but then they built roads, aquaducts, provided bread for food and circuses with gladiators for entertainment… the Roman Empire brought freedom through conquering and promised peace and abundance through the sword. And they delivered for a time…
The story that Rome told the people was a story of the Pax Romana, the Roman Peace, an age of not only peace, but fertility and fruitfulness, of prosperity, all at the blessing of roman gods as they worked through Caesar. Caesar who had the gods on his side, Caesar who wanted to be worshiped as a god. Yes, Rome came with a sword and conquered, but it was for the barbarian’s own good. Yes, the taxes imposed were high, but look what they got for them! Yes, everyone had to light a stick of incense to Caesar, whose image was everywhere from their money to public buildings and arches and statues to the small idols that people kept as a reminder of who as providing them their prosperity… but hey- not too big a price to pay, right?
So, when Paul talks about the Gospel, about good news, the truth of the good news, understand- he’s not simply using what to us has become a nice, if slightly cliché, religious term. When Paul writes about it, and these people read about it, the Good News of Jesus, it’s subversive. It’s something that as they read, I imagine they were tempted to look over their shoulder to see if anyone else might be reading it. When they talked about the Good News of Jesus, and when they used those distinctly political terms, what they were really doing was telling an alternative story to the mainstream narrative of peace and prosperity at the behest of Caesar. When they talked about the Kingdom of God, it wasn’t just words… it was a not-so-subtle challenge to the Empire of Rome. King Jesus, not king Nero. The Good News of Christ, not of Caesar. And this is the kind of thing people were put into prison for and people got killed for. In fact, the charges against Jesus when He stood before the Roman governor? Anyone remember? They said: He’s telling everyone not to pay their taxes (not true) and He’s saying He’s the King (very true). See, the claims of the Kingdom of God, always stand over and against the claims of empire, even those empires that bring political peace and financial prosperity and wonderful entertainment… because empire always demands allegiance to another king, another power… Paul says…
VS 6-
This is Paul drawing that picture for these folks…
The empire around the Colossian people he was writing to reinforced its claims at every turn, that Rome and that Caesar were the source, the fount, the provider and guarantor of all fruitfulness. And Paul gives them the subversive claim that the Gospel, the good news of Jesus is “bearing fruit everywhere”… And its fundamentally different than what the empire over them provided. The fruit of the Gospel of Jesus is grounded not in political and military might and economic exploitation of the people at the outer realms of the empire for the good of those back in Rome, but in the practice of justice. In sacrifice for others. In mercy and forgiveness.
He says- this counter-cultural Gospel, this message that God Himself has come to rescue and renew creation through the work of Jesus Christ on our behalf, this Gospel of Jesus changes lives- not by the sword or even by commerce, but by helping us understand God’s grace. God’s freely given gift of salvation and forgiveness to any who want it, to any who ask.
It changes lives, he says. And he should know.
I want us to spend some more time meditating on what we started with… For those of you who have made that decision to be a follower of Christ, to seek God- what has that meant? What has changed? Have you thanked Him for that? Have you seen the changes and been moved to deep, deep gratitude? And if so, what else- what else do you still need that change, that growth in? Have you asked Him- God- give me the patience I need, because I don’t have it. God, make me the person in need to be for the sake of those around me. God- let my life point people to You- let it demonstrate your goodness, your grace… change me.
Song-
Paul says to them-
Vs 7
Epaphras was the church planter who started the community in Colossians. And now he was with Paul as Paul was in prison for telling people about Jesus, and he had been telling Paul all about his church, his community. And specifically,
VS 8
I love the way Paul describes it. It’s not the love you guys have for others because you are so cool and sensitive and caring… It’s the love for others which the God’s Spirit had given them, And man, if I need to pray for anything, it’s that God would help me to love as He had helped these people. Because I have problems with that. It’s easy for me to move from not liking what people do, especially when it inconveniences me, to not liking them. And when you actively don’t like someone, it’s hard to be loving in your actions and attitudes towards them. And so I need to ask God to help me…
In fact, that wouldn’t be a bad prayer for our community as a whole…
In fact, here are a good number of things we could pray for this community as we try to live out our mission of worshipping God and loving Portland…
VS 9-10
A knowledge of God’s will, spiritual wisdom and understanding so that how we live will always honor and please God and our lives would matter, would produce something that’s worth producing… all while we grow to know God better and better. Not a bad prayer for a community, eh?
But there’s more…When we start talking that way about living to honor and please and worship God and love those around us, at times, that can get a bit overwhelming… so Paul prayed for them
VS 11
When we attempt to live that counter-cultural life of loving God and loving people, we could easily get tired and worn down by the strain of swimming upstream, of attempting to live deeply relevant lives within the context of our city and yet living at times against the grain of America, of the empire in which we find ourselves… and so isn’t it a good thing that God Himself gives strength. That God Himself gives endurance and patience. That we can pray for, ask for, beg for the strength to live life in the way of Jesus. Paul says,
VS 11c-12
The Good News is that God Himself (are you getting this memorized by now?) has come to rescue and renew creation through the work of Jesus Christ on our behalf, so everyone who grabs hold of that, who throws in their life with Jesus, who looks at what He did in His death, burial and resurrection and says not just the Savior… but my Savior… everyone who does that is included in that rescue and renewal and enjoys the benefits of it now and when God finally comes to finish up, to remake and renew this whole screwed up world.
VS 13-14
The word kingdom here is “dominion”, or power… becoming a Christ follower, throwing in your lot with Jesus isn’t like getting a SubClub card at Subway or like deciding you are now a Detroit Lions fan… it goes a bit deeper than something you carry around in your wallet and occasionally get some benefit from and a bit longer than next football season…
Deciding to become a follower of Jesus is literally being removed from the sphere of darkness, the empire of sin and evil and everything that ruins us and ruins the world and being transferred to, transferring allegiance to, another kingdom, the Kingdom of Jesus… the one who bought our freedom and forgives our sins.
But everything in this world conspires against that, everything else tries to pull our allegiance, our hearts, our minds… and the empire makes some pretty big promises. Problem is, it extracts a pretty big price as well. And the claims of Jesus stand in direct contradiction to a world that promises salvation through pleasure, salvation through advancement, salvation through excess and self. The good news of Jesus comes to you and me and offers freedom and forgiveness…
Let’s take some time and we’ll meditate on that, we’ll respond to God… and I’ll come back and see what you want to say, what questions or comments you might have…
Songs-
So what do you think? What do you wonder? What do you want to say?
As we move through the book of Colossians, we’re gong to come up against some real practical issues- both theologically like “Who is Jesus” and lifestyle-wise like “so who can a follower of Jesus sleep with?” It’s going to be challenging for our community, I think… I hope you will hang around for the whole trip, and I hope as we move through this book you’ll continue to see Jesus in all of it, at the center of everything.
Read MoreVideo- Lose Your Life
Welcome:
Meditation on the change God has brought into our lives, prayer for Him to continue to change us…
Reading: Psalm 86:1-10
We start today to walk through the NT Book of Colossians. For those who are new, our general practice is to set aside Sunday mornings for our community to come together, to get to know each other better, but even more so, to get to know God. We do this through talking about Him, through talking to Him in prayer, in the songs we sing, and through looking intently and deeply at His word, the Bible. Instead of cherry picking a bit here and a bit there, or dealing with topical issues, we tend to go through whole books, verse by verse, trying to see the character of God and the will of God for our community.
We just finished a summer in some of the smaller OT Prophets like Haggai and Habakkuk and Jonah. And now, for the next 8 or so weeks, we’ll be hitting the book of Colossians.
So if you have a Bible…
This is a letter to the small church community which lived in the Greek city of Colossae, in what is now modern day Turkey. Colossae was a prosperous city, situated on a trade route and the people there did very well for themselves, especially in the trade of wool died purple, until their business was overshadowed by competition from a nearby town called Laodicea.
Colossians was written about 60 or 62 AD, 30 years after Jesus was horribly crucified on a Roman cross and 30 years after He rose from the dead. The Apostle Paul was the author… but he wasn’t always the Apostle Paul was he… For those who might not know- who can fill us in on Paul’s story? Who was he born as?
Cool- thank you all… So after some years of preaching the Good News about Jesus, Paul ended up in prison for his faith- ironic considering his past. It was from prison that Paul wrote Colossians… He says:
VS1
And when he says “chosen”, in light of his story you can understand why… Jesus didn’t just chose him- He knocked him on his can. He blinded him. He asked him, “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather serve me than persecute me???” So I like how Paul says, I was chosen… I hope God never chooses me for anything the way Paul got “chosen”…
VS 2
“Grace” in Greek is “charis” and it sounds like the typical Greek greeting of “Kaire”. “Peace” was the typical Jewish greeting… so for a church made up of a mixture of Jewish and Greek followers of Jesus, very appropriate.
VS 3-5
Paul starts a lot of his letters with telling the people he’s writing to exactly how he’s praying for them, what he’s thankful about regarding them…
What are the two things that Paul really digs about the Colossians? What does he say? Faith in God, love for other people who are following Jesus.
Paul says “We have heard”… he had never met this community, but their reputation preceded them- they had faith in God, and that expressed itself in love for, in care for other churches, other Christ followers. The churches would take collections for each other when disaster or famine or other tough times hit, and I imagine that the Colossians had done that at some point, so Paul is commending them for the love they’ve shown.
He talks about their faith and their love which comes from… what does it say? Hope. Hope in what? God- His character and specifically here, His promises. Faith in Christ Jesus, love for others and hope in God…
This is what we talked about last week and it’s an undercurrent here in Colossians- hope in God versus hope in everything, in anything else. Because all hope not rooted in the person of, the character of God, is ultimately false hope- everything else is transient, everything else disappears… only God is constant, only God never changes… after everything else is gone, only God remains.
Paul says- all this started for them when they first heard the truth of the Good News. This is the first time in the letter Paul mentions “Good News”, the Gospel. The word in Greek is euangelion, and contrary to what you might think, it’s not a Christian term- the followers of Jesus were not the first to talk about “Good News” this way, about the “Gospel.”
It was a distinctly Roman term, a distinctly political term. “Euangelion”, Gospel, was used to announce the birth of a new heir to the throne, to announce Caesar’s military victories. Euangelion was always about the glory of the Roman Empire and about the glory of Caesar. See, they wanted people to know: it was Rome and Caesar that brought Good News, Rome and Caesar that promised prosperity, the word they used was “fruitfulness”, plenty, for everyone… Sure, they conquered your country, but then they built roads, aquaducts, provided bread for food and circuses with gladiators for entertainment… the Roman Empire brought freedom through conquering and promised peace and abundance through the sword. And they delivered for a time…
The story that Rome told the people was a story of the Pax Romana, the Roman Peace, an age of not only peace, but fertility and fruitfulness, of prosperity, all at the blessing of roman gods as they worked through Caesar. Caesar who had the gods on his side, Caesar who wanted to be worshiped as a god. Yes, Rome came with a sword and conquered, but it was for the barbarian’s own good. Yes, the taxes imposed were high, but look what they got for them! Yes, everyone had to light a stick of incense to Caesar, whose image was everywhere from their money to public buildings and arches and statues to the small idols that people kept as a reminder of who as providing them their prosperity… but hey- not too big a price to pay, right?
So, when Paul talks about the Gospel, about good news, the truth of the good news, understand- he’s not simply using what to us has become a nice, if slightly cliché, religious term. When Paul writes about it, and these people read about it, the Good News of Jesus, it’s subversive. It’s something that as they read, I imagine they were tempted to look over their shoulder to see if anyone else might be reading it. When they talked about the Good News of Jesus, and when they used those distinctly political terms, what they were really doing was telling an alternative story to the mainstream narrative of peace and prosperity at the behest of Caesar. When they talked about the Kingdom of God, it wasn’t just words… it was a not-so-subtle challenge to the Empire of Rome. King Jesus, not king Nero. The Good News of Christ, not of Caesar. And this is the kind of thing people were put into prison for and people got killed for. In fact, the charges against Jesus when He stood before the Roman governor? Anyone remember? They said: He’s telling everyone not to pay their taxes (not true) and He’s saying He’s the King (very true). See, the claims of the Kingdom of God, always stand over and against the claims of empire, even those empires that bring political peace and financial prosperity and wonderful entertainment… because empire always demands allegiance to another king, another power… Paul says…
VS 6-
This is Paul drawing that picture for these folks…
The empire around the Colossian people he was writing to reinforced its claims at every turn, that Rome and that Caesar were the source, the fount, the provider and guarantor of all fruitfulness. And Paul gives them the subversive claim that the Gospel, the good news of Jesus is “bearing fruit everywhere”… And its fundamentally different than what the empire over them provided. The fruit of the Gospel of Jesus is grounded not in political and military might and economic exploitation of the people at the outer realms of the empire for the good of those back in Rome, but in the practice of justice. In sacrifice for others. In mercy and forgiveness.
He says- this counter-cultural Gospel, this message that God Himself has come to rescue and renew creation through the work of Jesus Christ on our behalf, this Gospel of Jesus changes lives- not by the sword or even by commerce, but by helping us understand God’s grace. God’s freely given gift of salvation and forgiveness to any who want it, to any who ask.
It changes lives, he says. And he should know.
I want us to spend some more time meditating on what we started with… For those of you who have made that decision to be a follower of Christ, to seek God- what has that meant? What has changed? Have you thanked Him for that? Have you seen the changes and been moved to deep, deep gratitude? And if so, what else- what else do you still need that change, that growth in? Have you asked Him- God- give me the patience I need, because I don’t have it. God, make me the person in need to be for the sake of those around me. God- let my life point people to You- let it demonstrate your goodness, your grace… change me.
Song-
Paul says to them-
Vs 7
Epaphras was the church planter who started the community in Colossians. And now he was with Paul as Paul was in prison for telling people about Jesus, and he had been telling Paul all about his church, his community. And specifically,
VS 8
I love the way Paul describes it. It’s not the love you guys have for others because you are so cool and sensitive and caring… It’s the love for others which the God’s Spirit had given them, And man, if I need to pray for anything, it’s that God would help me to love as He had helped these people. Because I have problems with that. It’s easy for me to move from not liking what people do, especially when it inconveniences me, to not liking them. And when you actively don’t like someone, it’s hard to be loving in your actions and attitudes towards them. And so I need to ask God to help me…
In fact, that wouldn’t be a bad prayer for our community as a whole…
In fact, here are a good number of things we could pray for this community as we try to live out our mission of worshipping God and loving Portland…
VS 9-10
A knowledge of God’s will, spiritual wisdom and understanding so that how we live will always honor and please God and our lives would matter, would produce something that’s worth producing… all while we grow to know God better and better. Not a bad prayer for a community, eh?
But there’s more…When we start talking that way about living to honor and please and worship God and love those around us, at times, that can get a bit overwhelming… so Paul prayed for them
VS 11
When we attempt to live that counter-cultural life of loving God and loving people, we could easily get tired and worn down by the strain of swimming upstream, of attempting to live deeply relevant lives within the context of our city and yet living at times against the grain of America, of the empire in which we find ourselves… and so isn’t it a good thing that God Himself gives strength. That God Himself gives endurance and patience. That we can pray for, ask for, beg for the strength to live life in the way of Jesus. Paul says,
VS 11c-12
The Good News is that God Himself (are you getting this memorized by now?) has come to rescue and renew creation through the work of Jesus Christ on our behalf, so everyone who grabs hold of that, who throws in their life with Jesus, who looks at what He did in His death, burial and resurrection and says not just the Savior… but my Savior… everyone who does that is included in that rescue and renewal and enjoys the benefits of it now and when God finally comes to finish up, to remake and renew this whole screwed up world.
VS 13-14
The word kingdom here is “dominion”, or power… becoming a Christ follower, throwing in your lot with Jesus isn’t like getting a SubClub card at Subway or like deciding you are now a Detroit Lions fan… it goes a bit deeper than something you carry around in your wallet and occasionally get some benefit from and a bit longer than next football season…
Deciding to become a follower of Jesus is literally being removed from the sphere of darkness, the empire of sin and evil and everything that ruins us and ruins the world and being transferred to, transferring allegiance to, another kingdom, the Kingdom of Jesus… the one who bought our freedom and forgives our sins.
But everything in this world conspires against that, everything else tries to pull our allegiance, our hearts, our minds… and the empire makes some pretty big promises. Problem is, it extracts a pretty big price as well. And the claims of Jesus stand in direct contradiction to a world that promises salvation through pleasure, salvation through advancement, salvation through excess and self. The good news of Jesus comes to you and me and offers freedom and forgiveness…
Let’s take some time and we’ll meditate on that, we’ll respond to God… and I’ll come back and see what you want to say, what questions or comments you might have…
Songs-
So what do you think? What do you wonder? What do you want to say?
As we move through the book of Colossians, we’re gong to come up against some real practical issues- both theologically like “Who is Jesus” and lifestyle-wise like “so who can a follower of Jesus sleep with?” It’s going to be challenging for our community, I think… I hope you will hang around for the whole trip, and I hope as we move through this book you’ll continue to see Jesus in all of it, at the center of everything.
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