Sermon Cloud

When speaking of Jesus’ Kingdom, Paul echoes the language of the empire and Caesar while repudiating it and claiming a superior King in Jesus. Notice the terms and phrases that Paul uses in the first 6 verses: Gospel – word used to announce the good news of a birth or victory of a King – here it is used to speak of the Good news of Jesus and his death and resurrection that has brought life and salvation to his people. Whole World it is bearing fruit and growing. The Roman Empire was spreading throughout the whole world, conquering peoples and exercising its dominion everywhere, promoting a version of peace that was militaristic and oppressive. Gospel is spreading and it is happening not through armies and swords but through humble servants and storytellers like Epaphras. And it is creating communities throughout the world devoted to Jesus and his Kingdom, even in the face of Caesar and his Kingdom. Paul’s Prayer for this community in Colossae:

Prays for their Imaginations to be captured by God’s dreams for them. Images and icons promoting Caesar’s story and the empire’s expectations. Paul’s prayer is “that as this world tells you who you’re supposed to be, what you’re supposed to pursue and accomplish and own – as the empire’s ideologies and expectations press upon you a vision for your life, I pray that your imaginations would be liberated from these things and be captured by God’s dreams for you. God would alter your aspirations and renew your intentions for your life. You would have the heart to discern the difference between the story of the empire and the story of God. The Empires of our day, the Empires of the American Dream, are sending messages with images and icons, corporate logos and magazine covers, and media outlets that hope to shape you and conform you. A TV for Sharp is advertised by the slogan, "Change Your TV; Change Your Life." The message is "Technology will increase the quality of your life." The Scriptures seem to indicate that the quality of our life depends largely upon the health of our relationships – with God, ourselves and others. The irony is that technology has a tendency to isolate us from those relationships. Let your imagination be captured by God’s dream for you and subvert the empire by breaking away from your technology, canceling your cable, limited TV time, putting down the video game controllers, and powering down the computer so you can engage God more and be renewed by the scripture and prayer and enjoy some quality time with your spouse, your kids, your friends. The empire promotes consumption and the increased pleasure of possessions. Subvert the empire by living out God’s dream for you to experience the counter-imperial joy of shaping the future through radical generosity that simplicity makes room for, living simply so others can simply live. The empire, this cultural pattern of corporate sovereignty, affluence, success and consumerism will make unreasonable demands upon your life. Illus: Japan’s auto engineer died from overwork. Subvert the empire by embracing God’s dream of Sabbath rest; you will recover your humanity and relationships. Let your time commitments determine the amount of work that gets done instead of letting the amount of work you will get done determine your time commitments? Are you creating margin for Sabbath. Romans 12:1-2 (NLT) “And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him.” 2 Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.” Is your imagination being captured by God’s dream for you or the empires expectations and patterns?

Prays that their conduct would reflect their allegiance to Christ (vv10-14). To these Colossians: your life would reflect your conviction that Jesus is Lord is Caesar is not. Paul reminds them in 13-14 that they are citizens of the Kingdom of God’s beloved Son. He tells them, you used to be slaves to another kingdom but have now been set free, redeemed, and brought into a new Kingdom. This is Exodus language, intended to draw a parallel with Israel. Israel was enslaved to Egypt, a dominant power. But God rescued them, freeing them from that oppressive empire and doing it in such a way as to demonstrate that Pharaoh was not god, Yahweh was. He leads them out of the darkness and slavery of Egypt and into the promise land where he gives them a vision in the Torah of how they will live radically different from all the other empires around them, their collective life will be antithetical to that of any empire. Empires enslave, but Israel would be a people of jubilee where slaves are released. God’s law pointed to a way of life distinct from the surrounding cultures. Walsh/Keesmaat Colossians Remixed:

While the empire is preoccupied with images that represent its own power and hegemony (dominance), Israel is called to image a counterreality in a countercommunity. While the empire is frantically caught up in the management of production and consumption, Israel is called to a Sabbath keeping that acknowledges the gift character of its life in the land. And while the empire is sustained on the backs of slaves and economic oppression, a Sabbath-keeping Israel images its God by caring for the poor, the stranger and the sojourner, the widow and the orphan. The care of the marginalized - those who have no standing ground in the community – is antithetical to the constant striving for power, dominance, and hierarchy that characterizes the empire. Israel is called to be an alternative socioeconomic witness to the empire.”

What was true for Israel in that sense was true for these Colossians and is true for us. With this imagery Paul is saying, God has saved us from something worse than Egypt – he has saved us from sin and death. We used to be enslaved to our self-promoting impulses; we lived for ourselves and our own pleasure, a slave to our own passions. That resulted in God’s just displeasure. But God, who is rich in mercy, gave His beloved Son for us, who took our sin and guilt and the Father’s displeasure with it and paid the penalty for all our selfish ways that we might be forgiven, fully accepted by the Father and free from living under the control of any other master. Now, we live in a new kingdom with a new ethic that is counter to that of this world. And Paul says, live in a way that demonstrates this to be true; don’t be like the kingdom you have left behind. You belong to Christ now; walk in a way that images him forth, embrace the counter patterns of his Kingdom that you see in him exercised toward you. Patterns that subvert the empire, like forgiveness, generosity, purity, Sabbath, integrity, humility, compassion for the poor and suffering, service, community - sacrificial love. This is called bearing fruit with every good work. Bearing fruit with every good work means you don’t live for what the empire lives for; you don’t live for the American Dream, but you image forth a bigger story, a deeper reality. We can’t reduce fruit to simply good behavior. It is action in creation – Gen 1:28. Are you bearing fruit?

This prayer is that the Colossians and that we, would get a vision for the life God wants to shape in us, imaginations awakened to all he dreams for us to be and do, and that we would conduct our lives by that vision so as to reflect a loyalty to Jesus who has rescued us from unbearable lightness. This loyalty to Jesus results in a pattern of living that runs counter to the dominant culture and subverts it through generosity, compassion, justice, creativity, excellence, laughter, rest, forgiveness and love.

Prays that God’s Power will move this from theory to praxis. If you are going to live this way, with an awakened imagination and a life under the lordship of Christ that engages in good works that bring about flourishing and subvert the empire, it is going to take a lot of courage and a lot of strength and a lot of patience and endurance. This kind of life is upstream. So Paul prays that God would supply strength and endurance that exceeds our natural capacities. This experience comes from the relationship engaged in through prayerful dependence upon God. We learn something here – If you don’t find yourself driven to prayer and pleading for strength and endurance it is because you are not attempting anything that you know will fail without it. The reason we don’t experience the supernatural power of God unquestionably at work in our lives is because we are not living in a way that requires it. What about you?