Fulfill Your Ministry

Speaker: Pastor Justin Wheeler

Series: Colossians 

Scripture: Colossians 4:7-18

Manuscript PDF

Manuscript

When the night has come and the land is dark and the moon is the only light we’ll see. No, I won’t be afraid; no I won’t be afraid, just as long as you stand by me.

If the sky that we look upon should tumble and fall or the mountains should crumble to the sea. I won’t cry, I won’t cry; no I won’t shed a tear, just as long as you stand by me.[1]

Stand by Me was originally released in 1961 and it peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard chart in June of that year. In 1986 it was re-released to coincide with the movie by the same name and that year it reached to No. 9 on the chart. In 2012 it was estimated that the song’s royalties over the years made it the 6th highest earning song ever and 50% percent of those royalties were paid to Ben E. King.

The second verse is taken from Psalm 46:2, which refers to the fact that even when the world falls apart God’s people can find refuge in Him. That’s not the point of the song though, the point of the song is to celebrate companionship and it taps into a universal human longing. We all long for friendship. We want people that we can count on, that we can run to, that we can lean on when the nights get dark and it feels like the sky is falling in around us.

And God not only wants us to have these types of relationships but through Christ He has created a community where these types of relationships thrive. The church is not an after-thought. The family of God is not simply a by-product of our justification, it was God’s plan to save us and bring us into fellowship with one another; and not just in this life but forever.

But here and now, God has surrounded us with friendships, gospel friendships. He has placed us in one another’s lives to help us stay faithful to Christ, to help us grow in faith and love and every grace, to help us find comfort on dark nights and to give us someone to laugh with when the sun is shining. I’m so thankful for my friends here at Cornerstone; Aren’t you?

Transition…

The Apostle Paul had friends and he was thankful for them as well. Here at the end of the letter to the Colossian church, Paul lists out some of his friends and he talks about how much they mean to him. There are 10 names that he mentions and some of them are pretty significant. These people fall into 4 different categories but all of them have 1 overarching purpose. They are working together to fulfill their ministry to the church on behalf of Christ.

Read Colossians 4:7-18…

Sermon Focus…

I. 12 Names, 4 Categories…

At the end of Paul’s letters, it is not uncommon to find simple statements acknowledging some of his missionary companions; but for the most part, these acknowledgments are simple. For instance:

2 Cor 13:13 All the Saints greet you.

Phil 4:21 The brothers who are with me greet you.

But here at the end of this letter, we see a long list of names and Paul takes the time to comment on every one of them. He wants the church to know more about his list of companions so he gives them a brief but important explanation of the men who labor alongside him to fulfill the ministry.

First up are the couriers, those men entrusted to carry Paul’s letter to the church.

Tychicus – was a faithful companion to Paul and was a trusted courier for Paul who delivered this letter as well as the letter to Philemon, Ephesians, and most likely the two letters to Timothy. In that day there wasn’t a trusted mail service and that meant that letters were hand delivered. Tychicus was the man Paul turned to often, but he was more than just a delivery boy.

Paul describes him as a beloved brother, faithful minister and fellow servant of Christ. He has been at Paul’s side since Acts 20 which would make him part of Paul’s third missionary journey. He stayed at Paul’s side through the arrest and multiple trials and during that time he was the man Paul trusted to take the letters he had written from prison to the various churches in the area.

When Tychicus would arrive at the church with a new letter in hand he would also give the church an update on Paul’s status. As a fellow minister Tychicus not only delivered the letters but was also in a position to elaborate on them to teach and explain what Paul had written. In other words, he was a missionary, and a teacher and a devoted friend. His name is only mentioned 5 times in the NT but his faithfulness impacted the world.

Onesimus – is the slave written about in the letter to Philemon. He ran away from his master and landed in Ephesus where he met Paul, heard the gospel and was saved, then he began to serve at Paul’s side in gospel ministry. The church in Colossae knows this man but their questions about what happened to him will be addressed in the letters and by Tychicus and Onesimus upon their arrival.

The second list of names makes up a group of Paul’s Jewish brothers and colleagues in gospel ministry.

Aristarchus – stands out from all the other men as a “fellow-prisoner” with Paul and I don’t think this is a metaphor. This man was on the ship with Paul in Acts 27 and he survived the shipwreck that landed them on Malta. He was more than a casual companion but was a faithful missionary that didn’t leave Paul’s side. He greets the church.

Mark (cousin of Barnabas) – is a well-known name among Paul’s fellow missionaries. Barnabas was Paul’s first Christian friend and the two were set apart by the Holy Spirit in Acts 13:2  to take the gospel to Gentile cities and plant churches. Mark joined them on their first missionary journey but he abandoned them in the city of Pamphylia and they completed the trip without him.

Then when Paul and Barnabas were getting ready to take their second missionary journey, Barnabas wanted to take Mark along but Paul didn’t think it was a good idea. Maybe he didn’t trust him. Maybe he thought someone else was a better fit for the work. Either way, this argument was enough to make even Paul and Barnabas split up.

Now it appears that this information had been communicated to the church in Colossae…

V. 10…Mark the cousin of Barnabas (concerning whom you have received instructions—if he comes to you, welcome him)

Somewhere along the way these two men were able to work out their differences and were able to serve the church together. Mark is also mentioned in 1 Peter and since Peter was writing from Rome that probably means that Mark had a significant ministry in the city of Rome. And it was probably from Rome that Mark wrote the gospel that bears his name.

Justus – We don’t know anything else about this man except what Paul tells us here. He was one of Paul’s companions and was one a group of Jewish Christians who were a comfort to Paul because they were fellow-workers who shared the burden of preaching the gospel and planting churches.

This third group of names makes up a list of Contacts for Paul, starting with…

Epaphras – was the man who originally preached the gospel in Colosse and planted the church that this letter has been written to. Epaphras is their pastor but he is also a servant of Jesus Christ and this season of his life is devoted to being by Paul’s side. But he hasn’t forgotten this church nor has he lost his love for them. He prays for them always, in fact, Paul says he agonizes in prayer over them asking God to help them stand mature and to have the full assurance of God’s will for them.

Luke – joined Paul in Macedonia on his second missionary journey and along the way, he was hard at work writing the gospel of Luke and the book of Acts. But he didn’t start out as an author. It’s here in Colossians that we learn that Luke’ profession was medicine. He was a medical doctor but he heard the gospel and was saved and God gave him a burden to compile an accurate eyewitness account of the life of Jesus and the life of the church. Luke’s name only appears a handful of times in Paul’s letters but his ministry has changed the world.

Demas – Not all of Paul’s companions have a happy story. Demas was one of Paul’s companions but there came a point when he walked away from the ministry…and maybe worse. While Paul was in prison in Rome Demas deserted him and went to Thessalonica and the only explanation that was given is that Demas was in love with the world. It’s a cryptic mention but it gives the impression that Demas was not just walking away from the ministry but perhaps even from Christ as well.

Nympha – is not known outside of this letter but she has been a generous supporter of the gospel, to the point of opening her home in Laodicea for the church to meet there. She offered what she had to the service of the gospel and for that Paul commands and greets her.

Archippus – is only mentioned here and in the letter to Philemon but Paul does single him out is a specific way when he writes this message to him:

17 And say to Archippus, “See that you fulfill the ministry that you have received in the Lord.”

We don’t know what Paul means by this but we do know that he is calling this man out and urging him to fulfill his ministry that he received from the Lord. It may have something to do with Philemon and Onesimus, or it may be something else entirely. But Paul doesn’t want to let him forget that he has been given a task, a responsibility, and he needs to complete it. So Paul is giving him some pastoral encouragement.

The last category contains one name and it is the man himself.

Paul – at the end of the letter, Paul took the quill from the scribe and wrote the final words with his own hand.

Remember my chains. Grace be with you.

This is the same Paul who once persecuted the Christians in Jerusalem. The same Paul who was confronted by Christ on the road to Damascus. The same Paul who frightened the early church even after he got saved because they didn’t know if they could trust him. The same Paul who was welcomed by the church in Jerusalem when Barnabas took him in and vouched for him. The same Paul who spent his life on 4 lengthy missionary journeys to see the gospel of Jesus Christ spread to the ends of the earth.

This is the same Paul who confronted kings, who withstood angry pagan business owners, who had to be smuggled out of the city so that they wouldn’t kill him. The same Paul who preached the gospel in Athens to all the philosophers of his day calling them to repentance and faith in the resurrected Jesus. The same man who was nearly killed by his own countrymen, arrested and kept in prison for 3 years awaiting trial in Rome.

This is the same Paul who wrote of his sufferings in 2 Corinthians 11:

24 Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; 26 on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; 27 in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. 28 And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches.

This is the same Paul who wrote 2/3rds of our NT and then died by the command of Nero. There are few men who have shaped the world like Paul. His intellect amazes scholars, his theological understanding is unsurpassed, his bravery is legendary and his care for the people of God is a model that church leaders have sought to imitate for millennia. And his final words to these dear brothers and sisters in Colossae are, “Remember my chains. Grace be with you.”

12 names, some of which we have never heard before, but all of these names represent people who had a ministry to do. They weren’t all gifted in the same way. They didn’t all serve in the same way but they refused to sit on the sidelines, they got in the game and did what they had to do to see the gospel spread and the church grow. Their ministry is still in effect 2000 years later.

You don’t have to be a celebrity pastor to make an impact for the Kingdom. You don’t have to be a leading figure in the evangelical world to serve Christ faithfully. You can deliver the mail. You can explain the Scriptures. You can support pastors, teachers, missionaries, and others. All you need is to be willing to serve where there are needs. Be faithful, fulfill your calling.

12 names, 4 categories, One Purpose.

II. 1 Purpose…

All of these men came to Christ and at some point in the course of their Christian life, they said yes to the needs around them. They knew the risk of what serving Christ would bring them and they chose it gladly. I’m sure that they were just like you and me. They came to Christ and got involved in the church with no real expectation to do anything incredible for the Lord. Some of them may have been very ambitious but I’m guessing most of them were simply happy to be saved and excited to be learning and growing in their faith.

But something came up and it forced them to reconsider their level of commitment. The church was growing and the gospel was spreading but so was false teaching. Paul was writing letters but he needed someone to transport those letters to the churches…and Tychicus stood up and said, “I’ll go.”

Epaphras traveled to Ephesus for business but while there he heard Paul preach the gospel and not only was his heart set free but his mind began to soar at the thought of this same message being preached in his hometown. I’m sure he felt unqualified and immature, but the need was so great that he couldn’t ignore it. So he went home and began to tell others about Jesus.

Luke was doing fine in his role as a physician but when he heard the gospel and was born-again something changed. He wanted to help the church and this man named Paul was fearlessly risking his own life so that people he didn’t even know could hear and be saved. Something changed in Luke’s heart and he decided that he would risk his life along with Paul to make sure the story of Jesus and the church would be documented and passed to the next generation.

And then you have Archippus, a fellow-soldier who had received from the Lord a ministry. God laid a burden on this man. God made it clear that he had a task to do. Paul knew about it and he doesn’t hold back when he tells Archippus point blank, “fulfill your ministry.”

Conclusion…

So here’s my closing thought for you today, “What is your ministry?” How has God called you, gifted you, burdened you to serve the church on behalf of Christ?” Do you have a heart for missions? Do you have a desire to serve in church leadership? Do you want to teach? Or lead a Community Group? Or be a part of the worship team? Or work behind the scenes? Has God laid on your heart a specific ministry that you need to fulfill?

We don’t all have the same gifts and we will not all serve in the same way, but we are one body in Christ and each of us has been given a gift to serve Christ and one another. And whatever our gifts may be we need to use them.

Maybe you would be interested in going to Haiti and working with young kids…we need some adult women who are willing to take on that role? Maybe you and your spouse would be willing to step up and teach a Sunday school class this year, which would allow some of our regular teachers to have a break. Maybe you’re interested in starting a Community group to help all these new families get plugged into Cornerstone. Maybe there is something else that you are longing to do to serve Christ and His church and you just don’t know how to get started.

I want to talk with you, the elders want to talk with you to dream up, plan out, prepare for and take the next step in you fulfilling your ministry. Let’s work together to make the grace of Jesus non-ignorable here at Cornerstone and in the community of Wylie. There are a lot more than 12 names in this room today and I’m sure we can be broken up into more than 4 categories, but if you are a born-again follower of Christ then you and everyone else has 1 purpose.

That purpose is to bring glory to God by making disciples of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit to the ends of the earth. Brothers and sisters fulfill your ministry.

---

[1] SONGWRITERS - BEN KING, JERRY LEIBER, MIKE STOLLER

The Christian's Daily Life

Series: Colossians

Speaker: Pastor Justin Wheeler

Scripture: Colossians 4:2-6

Manuscript PDF

Manuscript

This is the 24th week of our study in the book of Colossians and next week we will wrap up this study. But this morning we are going to see Paul begin to bring the letter to a close.

The book of Colossians is one of the shortest of Paul’s letters but it is also one of the most exciting because in this letter Paul is writing to a young church that is just discovering what it means to be Christians, what it means to trust in and follow Christ, and they are learning how their newfound faith interacts with the philosophies of the culture around them. The main theme of this book is the Gospel Jesus Christ. The good news of how God sent His Son to save us from our sin by dying on the cross in our place and being raised from the dead to seal our forgiveness.

Now you might be thinking, “Why does Paul want to write a letter to a church filled with believers and teach them about something they already know and believe?” For two reasons: 1. Is that we never graduate up from our need to understand and appreciate the gospel. The fact that God loves us and saves us by His grace alone not only forms our identity as Christians but it also forms the basis of our motivation to love and serve God. We don’t obey so that God will save us, we obey because He has saved us.

2. Paul makes the gospel the theme of this letter because within this small church the gospel has come under attack. Paul is writing this letter is to warn and protect this church from false teaching that had crept its way into this brand new baby church.

You see, there is a group of people who are teaching things that aren’t true and Paul is writing this letter to help the church sort through what they are hearing. This group is saying that in addition to Jesus we need to add a whole host of religious rituals and practices to our lives in order to be acceptable to God. But Paul wants the church to know the truth that Christ is more than enough. So he writes this letter to help them sort through what is true and what is false.

Transition…

Over the last 24 weeks, we have been learning the truth about who Jesus is and what He came to accomplish. We have learned how the gospel affects all of our relationships from God Himself all the way down to our neighbors. But here at the end, we are going to see things come down to the very basics of how we live our day to day life. He has taken us on a journey from the eternal being of Christ all the way down here to the way we live each day as followers of Christ.

This morning we are going to see 4 daily rhythms that should mark our lives as Christians.

Col 4:2 Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. 3 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 am in prison— 4 that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.

5 Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. 6 Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

Sermon Focus…

There are really two main verbs in this section and they are: Pray and Walk. These are the imperatives that Paul wants us to see as part of our daily lives as Christians. But the other parts are meant to help us to more clearly and thoroughly understand how our prayers and our behavior are to be directed. This final section is intended to be very simple and very practical. This is what our day to day life as a Christian should look like.

I. Devote Yourself to Prayer (v. 2)

Col 4:2 Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.

Question: Can anyone remember how many times you’ve become frustrated this past week because you are in a hurry and everybody around you seems to be on vacation? How many times have you become frustrated because someone was driving too slow in the passing lane? Or how many times have you become frustrated and impatient with someone who couldn’t make his or her mind up at the coffee shop, or a restaurant?

In the summer time, one of the things our family has learned to do to try and cope with the Texas heat is to get out of the house together and go to an indoor mall. This gives us the chance to get away together; people watch a little bit and enjoy someone else’s cold air. But sometimes walking in the mall becomes a source frustration for me that I am sure each of you can identify with. You know when you are in a place and you can see in the distance a store that you want to get to, but in front of you is a family of 4-5 people who is spread out taking up the whole aisle and they are walking so slow that they might as well be standing still.

Don’t people realize that they are being rude and that they are taking up the whole walkway? Don’t they realize that they are being self-absorbed by not focusing on my need to get around them? Don’t they realize that their conversation is not nearly as important to me as it is to them?

This happens to me all the time and then something else happens to me. I realize that all the accusations that are running through my head about these insensitive and selfish people are actually the way that I am acting on them. I’m the self-absorbed person who thinks my needs come before everyone else. I’m the one being rude staring down my nose at people who are just having a good time together. My biggest problem in that moment is not the group of people in front of me, it’s the self-absorbed jerk inside of me that’s the problem. And often I am too busy to realize it before it happens.

My guess is that I’m not alone. We get so caught up in the frantic pace of American life that we don’t slow down and focus our attention on what really matters. There is always a deadline in front of us and even when we should be relaxing we are still working. About a quarter of all vacationers say they check their voice and email while on vacation. Many others refuse to take a vacation because of the fear of the pile up that will be waiting on them when they get back. We live at a pace that makes us think we are on a deadline even when we’re not.

The technology in our hand keeps us from slowing down because every couple of minutes we get that critically important notification that somebody actually liked something. Our inbox is a constant reminder that we have a lot of things to respond to and very little time to get it done. Meetings fill our calendars, responsibilities at work, at home, at church, to our neighbors, etc.

Our hearts are filled with attitudes and motivations that want to put our needs in front of the needs of others. The pace of our lives is relentless. The demand on our attention is constant and ever growing. Our responsibilities seem to be limitless. And the question is what is our antidote to all this stress, noise, obligations, deadlines, and busyness?

“The pace of an industrialized America whispers insistently to all of us every day, ‘Hurry up!’”[1]

But prayer is Gods way of inviting us and commanding us to slow down.

“Slow down and pray.” Let me give you a couple of examples of this from the life of Jesus.

Mark 1:35 And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed.

Luke 5:15 But now, even more, the report about him went abroad, and great crowds gathered to hear him and to be healed of their infirmities. 16 But he would often withdraw to desolate places and pray.

Over and over, we see in Jesus’ life that the demands on his time are growing but He withdraws from all the demands and busyness in order to pray? Does it surprise us that Jesus withdraws from the crowds to pray?

I don’t know all the reasons why Jesus prayed so much, even in the face of great demands but we can probably put together a short list:

1. Jesus prayed this way because He loved communicating with the Father

2. Jesus prayed this way because He needed guidance and comfort which He received from communion with God.

3. Jesus prayed this way because His task was great and He needed spiritual help which He gained from fellowship with God.

4. Jesus prayed this way to set an example for us to follow and the example is that prayer is as common to the life of God’s people as singing is to a mockingbird.

Prayer was as common to Jesus as our morning coffee is to us. It’s the way he started the day and the way he finished the day. Deadlines didn’t get in the way of prayer; they drove home the need for more prayer.

The pace of our lives is set to constantly try and make us hurry up, but God wants us to slow down. He wants us to remember that He is God and we are not. He wants us to rest in the fact that though we do have weighty responsibilities we should also remember that we can’t do it alone.

John Piper writes:

“The very spirit and essence of prayer is dependence. So, even when we are not speaking consciously to God, there is a deep, abiding dependence on him that is woven into the very essence of our faith. In that sense, we are praying. We are experiencing a spirit of dependence continuously, and that kind of disposition is, I think, right at the heart of what God creates when he creates a Christian. There should be a spirit of dependence that permeates all we do.”

So here’s the first application for us in how to live for Christ today; rather than allowing your schedule, your iPhone, and your inbox to drive you toward irritability, selfishness and stress; allow those things to drive you to prayer. Build prayer into the rhythm of your morning as consistently as coffee. Voice your dependence upon God. Ask for His help in keeping a watch on your heart and life.

But there is something specific that we should also be praying for…Gospel Advance.

II. Pray for the Gospel’s Advance (v. 3-4)

3 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 am in prison— 4 that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.

Don’t miss the fact of what Paul is asking for here and the context of his request. He is in prison for preaching the gospel and here we see him asking the church to pray for God to enable him to…preach the gospel. This man lived with a sense of gospel urgency that was incredible and all of us could stand to catch some of what he had.

Paul here is asking for one of two things: either he is asking for God to open the door of his prison cell so that he can take the gospel out into the world. Or, he is praying for God to open the hearts of his hearers so that they will see their need of Christ and will repent and believe. Either way, he is calling on the church to pray for the gospel to advance and bear fruit, and he wants to be a part of that even if that means he remains behind bars.

Do you ever find yourself at a loss for what to pray for? Pray for boldness and a burning desire to share the gospel. Pray that the gospel would be declared and that more people would be born again. The heartbeat of the Christian life is the gospel, that we are saved from our sin and the wrath of God because Christ took our place on the cross. We deserved death and judgment, but in His mercy, God applied the blood of Christ to our account. We are saved by faith in Him and when we truly come to an understanding of this gospel reality we want others to know it as well.

The result is two-fold: we pray and we proclaim. First of all, we bear witness to the testimony of Christ; we preach the gospel. We teach it to our children, we share it with our friends, we comfort our family with the truth in the hopes that all will see their need of Christ and believe. Secondly, we pray for God to make the gospel clear and undeniable. Pray for your lost loved ones and ask God to open their eyes and hearts to the gospel truth.

Yes, there are things going on in your life that you should pray about. There are big decisions in front of you and you should be praying for God for wisdom, guidance, patience, and confidence. There are things going on in the lives of others that you should be praying about: sickness, uncertainty, marital problems, struggles with sin, etc. That’s why we email out a weekly prayer list. But there is one major thing going on in the world that we should be praying about all the time and it’s the need for folks to hear the gospel and be saved.

1. Devote Yourself to Prayer, 2. Pray for the Gospel’s Advance…

III. Live Wisely (v. 5)

5 Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time.

Be wise in the way you act, especially toward outsiders/unbelievers. You see in this verse that Paul assumes that Christians are going to be in regular contact with those who are outside the faith. And because we are going to be engaging with unbelievers on a regular basis he wants us to make the most of our time with them. How are we supposed to do that? By conducting ourselves with wisdom.

Now, this is going to be a challenge for us because at a foundational level we are more prone to feeling than we are thinking. And wisdom requires that we think our way through life more than we feel our way through life. Most of us, not all, but most of us have more of a tendency to elevate the importance of how something makes us feel over the importance of whether or not it is right and wise. There is room in our lives for both, but notice that Paul doesn’t say that we should walk in emotion toward outsiders. He calls for wisdom.

Christian Wisdom is the mental capacity to understand and function according to Biblical truth. As Christians, we should govern our conduct with unbelievers on the basis of Biblical wisdom. What constitutes Biblical wisdom?

First, it begins with a proper fear of God which means we stand in awe of God and we give appropriate respect to His Word. Our lives are oriented around our Creator God as the center and source of all things.

Second, we let the word of God/Christ dwell in us richly, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another. We read the Bible. We study the Bible. We listen to sound teaching and we let all that we learn shape our view of the world, of family, of others, of life.

Third, the process through the decisions in your life with the fear of God and the Word of God as the guiding principles. Some decisions are simple because the Word of God is clear.

Let me give you a few questions to help us make decisions when it’s not so clear what to do.

1. Is this spiritually beneficial to me personally and to the gospel generally?

2. Will this decision make God look glorious or will it slander His name?

3. Will this cause me to lose self-control?

4. Will my actions be affecting others in a sinful way or a godly way?

5. Does this violate God Word? Is it illegal?

6. Can I do this in a way that glorifies God?

7. Am I following the example of Jesus to help reconcile sinners to God?

Christ calls us to walk in wisdom with outsiders and not waste our time with them. In other words, we should make use of every opportunity to magnify Christ in our relationship with others. There should be a greater sense of urgency in us about the gospel and the need for other to see and hear the truth.

And when we do speak up we should speak of grace and with grace…

1. Devote Yourself to Prayer, 2. Pray for the Gospel’s Advance, 3. Live Wisely…

IV. Speak Graciously/Powerfully (v. 6)

6 Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

Conduct and speech go hand in hand. The way we feel or think in the moment is typically going to come out of our mouths because the primary way that we communicate is through speech. And so a component of the command for us to walk in wisdom is to exercise self-control in the area of our speech. Once again this is going to be hard for many of us because we have a tendency to say what we feel and Paul is saying that we need to let our speech be filtered through grace and seasoned with salt.

Let your speech be gracious and salty. One of these refers to the attitude of our communication while the other refers to the impact of our words. To speak graciously means that we speak with care and concern for others. There is a connection between the attitude of our hearts and the way we communicate with others. For instance, if you are an angry person it is going to come out of your mouth. If you are a bitter person, the people around you know it because of the way you talk. If you are a person who has come to understand and enjoy the grace of God then that grace should flow out of your mouth to others.

For our speech to be salty means that we should speak in a way that makes an impact. This is not a reference to speaking like a sailor, but a reference to speech that is witty, winsome and powerful. This doesn’t mean that we master the art of the one-liner but that our words have an impact on a person’s heart. I think the best way that we can do this is to be so thoroughly familiar with the rudimentary truths of the Christian faith that we can give clear and powerful answers.

1. Devote Yourself to Prayer, 2. Pray for the Gospel’s Advance, 3. Live Wisely and 4. Speak Graciously.

Conclusion…

These are foundational disciplines for living the Christian life and if we aren't careful we may learn to treat them like an old set of golf clubs. Some of us have an old set of clubs and back in the day we used them all the time, but over the years those clubs got pushed to the back of the garage and every now and then we pull them out to go play a round. Then we come home, shove them back in the corner and forget about them for months. This is the definition of a hobby, and Christianity is not a hobby, but we often treat it like it is.

Prayer shouldn't be that thing we do once every couple of months. Advancing the gospel shouldn't be that thing we only did back in college. Living with godly wisdom is the calling every day. Speaking with grace and impacting the lives of others with the truth should be our daily goal…

At the end of the day, as Christians, we want to let the gospel shape our lives. We want to value what God values and we want to love what He loves. We don’t want to live as though the only things that matter are the items on our to-do list, but rather we want to live by pressing into the spiritual reality that God is there and He loves us and He saved us and He wants us to cry out to Him in prayer.

He wants us to look at the people in our lives not just as those who serve to meet our needs in some way but as souls who will live for eternity. He wants us to live like eternity really matters and that means we care about where our loved ones will spend eternity. So we pray to God for gospel courage and we pray to God for gospel fruit. We get up every morning desiring to live wisely and to speak graciously/powerfully.

---

[1] Jared Wilson, Abide pg. 37

Slavery and the Gospel

Series: Colossians

Speaker: Pastor Justin Wheeler

Scripture: Colossians 3:22-4:1

Manuscript PDF

Manuscript

This morning we are going to continue our study in the book of Colossians and we are in a section known as the household code. It’s called this because it addresses the three key relationships within the average 1st century home. The big idea behind this section is that the Christian faith is meant to shape every part of our lives. The gospel is not just truth for the mind it is the truth that shapes all of life. So Paul’s point in Colossians 3 is to teach us how the gospel affects our relationship to the world, to God, to other believers, and the home.

And the home that Paul is addressing looks a little bit different than our own. Within the average 1st century home there were three key relationships: husband and wife, parents and children, then masters and slaves. It is estimated that between 35-40% of the Roman Empire in the 1st century were slaves. That would be somewhere in the vicinity of 3 million people.

The system of slavery in the Roman world was so extensive that there were 9 different categories of slaves, there were at least 7 different ways that a person might become a slave, there was a vast system of laws governing slavery, and there were even prominent cities where slaves were produced, processed and sold on auction blocks. Nearly every household had at least one slave in it and sometimes many.

It has been said by historians that Rome was built on the backs of slaves. Practically every sphere of life for a Roman citizen or Freedman would put them in contact with slaves and the home was no different. But as the gospel began to spread through the Empire it affected masters and slaves alike. Christians who were slaves grew to understand that their service to their master was to be done in a way that honored their Savior. Masters were to understand that their treatment of slaves was to be done in a way that honored their confession of faith in Christ.

But wait a minute, how can that be the only way the gospel affects the system of slavery? Why aren’t we reading here in Colossians about how the gospel is intended to bring down the systemic injustice of human slavery? Why does Paul simply accept the system and not try to tear it down? On a larger note, what does the rest of the Bible say about slavery? How are we to understand what we see here in Colossians 3?

Transition…

The bottom line is that we need to work to understand a few things about the Bible and slavery so that we can put Colossians 3 in context and answer some of these bigger questions. So what I want to do this morning is to give a brief history of slavery from the Ancient Near East up to the Roman world. Then with that context drawn, I want us to look at Colossians 3:22-4:1 to try and understand and apply it to our own lives. Then I want us to finish up by looking at the NT to see why Paul and others addressed slavery the way they did.

22 Bondservants, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eyeservice, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. 23 Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, 24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. 25 For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality. 4 Masters, treat your bondservants justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven.

Sermon Focus…

Now, before we really get into this subject let me just lay the cards out on the table and let you know that slavery as an institution can be seen throughout the Bible and nowhere in Scripture do we see a universal condemnation of it. However, what we do see in the scriptures is a radical departure from the cultural forms of slavery that we would all consider to be institutionally wicked. But we do not see a verse in Scripture that condemns slavery altogether and if I’m honest this bothers me.

It bothers me because the predominant idea in my mind around slavery has to do with race-based new world slavery. When I hear the word slave, in my mind I think of African men and women being abducted, mistreated, transported against their will to a new continent to live a life of horrific oppression and being made to work in sugar cane fields, or cotton fields until they died. I struggle to get those images out of my head when I read the word slave.

Now I know enough about this subject to know that Ancient Near Eastern Slavery is not the same as New World slavery, but the truth is I don’t want my discomfort to go away. I don’t want to intellectualize slavery to the point where I simply accept the fact that slavery isn’t all bad. I want that visceral reaction to the idea of slavery to remain in me because slavery is not just a thing of the past, it is alive and thriving in our world today. As Christians, we should be doing our part to bring sex trafficking and child trafficking to an end because we know that all human beings are made in the image of God and have in inherent, God-given and eternal value.

But I do want to acknowledge that what we see in the Bible is very different from that type of slavery that took place in European Colonialism and the American South. In fact, we are going to see laws in the OT that govern slavery and in those laws, we see that God expected His people to do things quite differently from the pagan nations of this world.

I. A Brief History of Slavery

Slavery refers to human beings in a state of forced labor or involuntary servitude and in the Ancient Near Eastern world slavery was an accepted fact. In the ancient world, slavery often resulted from a failed military campaign. Two armies would battle it out and the losing army along with the people it defended was typically taken into captivity as prisoners of war and afterward many of them would be sold as slaves.

It was also possible to become a slave through some form of kidnapping or piracy. Raiding parties (land or sea) would enter into small and lightly guarded villages carrying off anything of value including people who could be used or sold as slaves. The most common way to become a slave was to be born to a slave mother, but next to this kidnapping and being a prisoner of war were at the top of the list.

Now right from the start, I want us to see that what was the common practice for Gentile nations regarding slavery was not allowed by God in Israel. I want to point out that slavery through kidnapping or trafficking was punishable by death in the OT law.

Deut 24:7 “If a man is found stealing one of his brothers of the people of Israel, and if he treats him as a slave or sells him, then that thief shall die. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

Throughout Scripture, we see a condemning of those nations that practiced this kind of thing (Gaza and Trye in Amos) and God used the nation of Israel to punish those nations that did this.

It was also forbidden in Israel to mistreat a slave because if you even knocked out his/her tooth the slave was to be set free (Exo 21:27). You might say, “Well what if a master beat his slave and no one ever found out about it?” Good question and the OT addresses that as well.

In Deuteronomy 23:15-16 we read:

15 “You shall not give up to his master a slave who has escaped from his master to you. 16 He shall dwell with you, in your midst, in the place that he shall choose within one of your towns, wherever it suits him. You shall not wrong/oppress him.

The picture here is of a runaway slave who was most likely being mistreated by their master and God has given laws to protect them from further mistreatment. He has even instructed His people to care for them as they would a free man.

Tim Keller points out that:

“This is a direct contradiction of all existing slave laws of other societies in both ancient and modern times. Slave laws always penalized runaway slaves as well as those who harbored them. So what does this law mean? … it assumes that the experience of slavery in Israel was not so harsh that there would be a great number of runaways. Indeed, Deut 15:16 allows a slave to voluntarily remain in servitude after the Sabbath year.”[1]

In Israel, slaves were considered part of the owner’s family and, if Hebrews, they had the right to Sabbath rest and to participate in religious feasts. They were allowed possessions, even to own slaves themselves, and they could buy themselves out of slavery by saving money they earned as wages. But even if they couldn’t buy themselves out of slavery there was still the mandatory release of slaves every 7 years where all Hebrew debt slaves were set free from the ownership of others. And in Deuteronomy 15 you see that the owner of those freed slaves didn’t just let them go. He was also required by God to give material assistance to those he was releasing so that they didn’t end up right back in the same place.

I hope that you’re beginning to see that God was leading His people to view slavery through a whole new lens. They had been slaves in Egypt and they knew the harshness of being treated like something less than human, but God didn’t want them to forget that. He wanted them to remember and instead of committing the same atrocities against others He wanted His people to understand the value of human life and human freedom. God’s Word undermined the foundations of slavery as the world knew it.

At the same time, it was not uncommon for slaves in the ANE to be well-educated, even more so than their masters. Slaves were also known to exercise great power and influence at the insistence of their owners.

(Illus…Think about Joseph in the book of Genesis who was sold into slavery but then showed a great aptitude for business. His master (Potiphar) saw this gift and put Joseph in charge of his entire home and estate. Then later in life as a slave, Joseph rose to be the second most powerful man in the most powerful nation of the world, Egypt. 

We see almost the same thing happen with Daniel becoming second in power to Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon though he too was a slave.

Now, I am not saying that all Ancient Near Eastern slavery was this way. There were certainly instances of terrible abuse, oppression, and mistreatment both outside and within Israel. But if we are going to rightly understand the history of slavery then we need to have the full picture.

Speaking of having the full picture, there is another category of slavery that people would enter into voluntarily and we refer to this as indentured servanthood. Much of the language in the OT that deals with slavery had to do with this form and it involved an individual who sold himself or his family into contractual servanthood in order to pay their debts or avoid poverty, which meant starvation and death. 

(Illus…Let’s say that you are a farmer with 4 children who went into debt to buy the equipment, seed and the hired help you needed to plant your fields. But something went wrong and your crop is a complete failure. There is no government department of agriculture to bail you out and no personal savings that will allow you to feed your family, let alone pay back your debt. So what do you do? One option was to voluntarily enter into an agreement with a more successful land owner nearby.

You would make an agreement for you and your family to work for that landowner for a number of years in return for food, wages, and debt protection. Then when those years of service were ended you could either go free and start over or make another agreement for a couple of more years. In some cases, a person might seek to become a servant for life and it was done voluntarily. That’s indentured servanthood and this type of arrangement was completely different than what most of us have in mind when we think of slavery.

This is a lot like an employee-employer relationship that we experience today, which is why so many pastors, scholars, and Bible teachers read a passage like Colossians 3 and automatically run to the apply it in that way. And we are right to do so, but indentured servanthood is just one aspect of this subject of slavery

But what about slavery in the city of Colossae? What was the situation in this church to which Paul is writing? Slavery in the Greco-Roman world was big business. A person became a slave in one of 7 ways: as a prisoner of war, kidnapping at sea or on land, exposed children were often picked up by slave-dealers, a deeply indebted man might sell a child into slavery, criminals were condemned to work as slaves in the dreaded salt mines, but the most common way that a person became a slave in the 1st Century was that they were born to a mother who was a slave.

The legal status of a slave in the Roman world was that they were a “living tool” and they could be seen in every part of life. Some were deployed as Imperial slaves serving the Emperor and his household, some were public slaves fulfilling civic duties (tax records, archives, court reports, local historians). Some were trained to be managers who oversaw the affairs of a private home, some were skilled craftsmen who could be rented out as needed, some worked as cooks, gardeners, and personal messengers, some worked as Pedagogues (child instructor), some were temple slaves, others agricultural slaves and then there were mine-workers.

“In the first century, slaves were not distinguishable from free persons by race, by speech or by clothing; they were sometimes more highly educated than their owners and held responsible professional positions; some persons sold themselves into slavery for economic or social advantage; they could reasonably hope to be emancipated after ten to twenty years of service or by their thirties at the latest; they were not denied the right of public assembly and were not socially segregated (at least in the cities); they could accumulate savings through earned wages to buy their freedom; their natural inferiority was not assumed.”[2]

Now, why am I teaching all of this? Because I hope that this will be helpful to us as a backdrop for understanding the situation that Paul is writing about in Colossians 3. Yes, he is addressing slaves but the picture that we have in our minds might be a little bit different than before.

II. Slaves in Colossians

At the time of Paul writing this letter, it can be safely assumed that slaves were everywhere and they were a normal part of everyday life. In a smaller city like Colossae, there was likely a ratio of 1 out of every 3 persons was some form of a slave. Some fared really well and others were subject to abuse, but it is understood that slavery was an integral part of the world at that time. Industry, society, government, and the home life depended on it. But just as the OT redefined the treatment of slaves in Israel the NT authors seek to redefine the treatment of slaves in their day.

So Paul isn’t working to abolish slavery but he is reordering the slave-master relationship.

22 Bondservants, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eyeservice, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. 23 Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men,

In other words, yes you have an earthly master and you should serve him well, obey his commands, do it with integrity even when he is not looking over your shoulder, and you should serve as unto the Lord. Seek to please the Lord, not just men.

Now, this has application for us today in the area of our profession. We should obey our bosses and be good workers, not because we fear them but because we want to honor God in every area of our lives. We should get to work on time, we should work hard at the tasks assigned to us, we should be honest people, model employees even if our boss is a jerk. If we have an opportunity to change jobs we should do so in a way that shows respect and consideration.

The gospel has something to say about how slaves relate to their masters and how we relate to our bosses.

The tasks we do in life whether as a servant to a master or an employee to a boss, the tasks we do have the potential to be acts of worship to the Lord. Jesus cares about the integrity of your life, He cares about the sincerity of your heart and He knows that whatever you do in this life, whether slave or free, it can be done in a way that brings glory to Him. This doesn’t mean that slavery brings Him glory but that we can bring Him glory even in the context of something like slavery

And in the end, even the slave will receive an inheritance…

V. 24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. 25 For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality.

With Christ there is neither slave nor free we are all one and the grace that saves doesn’t discriminate. Slaves did have certain rights but owning property wasn’t one of them. And yet, Paul wants the slaves in Colossae to know that because of their faith in Christ they were set to receive an inheritance from God. Eternal life in Heaven and a place at the table of King Jesus, that’s their reward and it is more valuable and surer than anything we might inherit in this life or on this earth.

So Christian slaves are instructed to be model servants, to be sincere, hard-working, men and women of integrity. They are to see their service to their masters through the eyes of their relationship to the Lord and let the eternal promises of God motivate them. And if they are unjustly treated they are to understand that vengeance belongs to the Lord.

But what about masters?

4 Masters, treat your bondservants justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven.

First of all, Paul wants slave owners to know that they too have a Master in Heaven. If men might be tempted to abuse their position at times one antidote to that would be to remember that they are answerable to a higher master and Paul is not talking about the state. God sees our sin and He will not show favoritism when He judges. So just as slaves are to serve as unto the Lord, masters are to address their slaves as unto the Lord.

Paul says, “treat them right! Be just! Be fair! But above all understand that you are brothers in the heavenly household that matter most.” It’s subtle here in Colossae but Paul wants masters to understand that in the eyes of God and according to the gospel, there is equality between masters and slaves. Legal status isn’t what matters most, God’s Word is what matters most and in this way the teaching of the NT became the ground for the abolition of slavery throughout the world.

In Philemon, which is a companion book to this letter, Paul turns the common understanding of slavery on its head when he encourages a slave owner to treat his servant as a brother in Christ. Onesimus was a runaway slave converted to Christ under Paul’s ministry and Paul is sending him back to his old master Philemon, but he pleads with Philemon to understand that, “he left as your slave but I am sending him back to you as a brother…”

In one sense the NT authors weren’t striving to be social revolutionaries but they were trying to change social institutions. The church was small but they believed that the best way to transform the world wasn’t by passing laws but by changing hearts. They were after gospel change and they understood that when true gospel change takes place in the heart of men and women the culture around them would be affected.

So the logic follows in this way, if enough people are born-again to faith in Christ then the society, as a whole would benefit from the growing influence of Christianity. History demonstrates the veracity of this statement. Where genuine Biblical Christianity has embraced society as a whole improves.

To be honest and fair Christians have often been the cause of many social problems. As sinner-saints the church has often been guilty of great injustice but when the teachings of Christ are rightly embraced even those wicked seasons have been brought to an end.

William Wilberforce in Britain fought throughout his life to abolish slavery and before his death, he saw his laws passed. Martin Luther King Jr., confronted racism in America and the arguments he used in the battle were Biblical ones. In his Letters from Birmingham Jail MLK called for Christians not to abandon their faith but to realize what the Bible actually teaches. He called for a truer expression of Christian faithfulness as the means to bringing an end to the race hatred in the south.

When Christian truth is embraced accurately it will change our heart, our home, and our culture, and our eternity

Conclusion…Slavery and the Gospel

For most of us the idea of slavery is uncomfortable but in the NT slavery is more than an idea, it is a reality. Here’s what I mean, in the book of Romans, Paul lets us know that whether we want to accept it or not we are all slaves. Because of the rebellion in our hearts we are slaves to sin. We might want to do good but the sin in our hearts keeps us from it. We might want to stop doing bad things but the sin in our hearts keep us doing those things.

In the NT, sin is personified as an evil power that owns us like a wicked slave master and his intention is to one day sell us to a new master…death. The whole picture is that we are hopeless, powerless, slaves to sin and death.

But Christ came and crushed the power of sin and death. Jesus came to set us free. He conquered sin when He died in our place on the cross and He conquered death when God raised Him from the dead. And now, we who have put our hope and trust in Christ need to understand that we belong to Him. Paul says, “we have been bought with a price and we belong to a new master now.”

He is not like our old wicked slave-master, He is a good Master who loves us, who died for us, who rose for us, who lives for us, and who is preparing an eternal home for us as we speak. We were slaves to sin and death but now we are slaves of Christ, and instead of calling us slaves He calls us friends, brothers, and sisters, sons and daughters, joint heirs of eternity.

Don’t forget that the gospel changes everything. It turns slavery into freedom. It changes our hearts, our lives, and our homes and has the power to change our culture. It can end sinful institutions that have been around for centuries.

It can change you and I so let’s not treat the gospel like it’s something cheap but see it’s God ordained power to change the world.

---

[1] Tim Keller, Generous Justice has taken from a footnote on page 197-198.

[2] Murray Harris, Slave of Christ: A New Testament Metaphor for Total Devotion to Christ, NSBT (IVP, 2001), 44.

The Gospel at Home (2 of 2)

Audio Block

Double-click here to upload or link to a .mp3. Learn more

Series: Colossians

Speaker: Pastor Justin Wheeler

Scripture: Colossians 3:18-4:1

Manuscript PDF

Manuscript

When was the last time you were in a conversation with someone and at some point in the discussion you realized that they were talking about something that you were completely ignorant about and couldn’t really contribute to the conversation? This happened to me a few weeks back when I introduced two of my friends to one another. One of them is an electrical engineer and the other one builds electrical systems which made for a great conversation between the two of them, but I had absolutely no clue what they were talking about.

My technical vocabulary includes the terms wires, outlet, breaker, fuse and circuit, but that is about the extent of it, so I introduced these guys, they found out what each other did for a living and then they were off and I just faded from the conversation. This type of thing happens to us from time to time. We meet someone who knows something or does something that we are quite ignorant about and the extent of our contribution to the conversation is to ask questions and listen because we have very little to contribute. We have never studied the subject, never experienced what the other person has experienced and the best thing to do is to listen and try to learn something.

But there are some subjects where first-hand experience and book knowledge are completely unnecessary. If there is one subject that people tend to have an opinion on even if they have no practical experience themselves is the subject of parenting. Have you ever had a single guy in his twenties give you his theory and methodology about how to raise kids? Have you ever had someone correct you on your parenting techniques even though they themselves have never had children nor spent much time around kids at all?

I was that guy. I had parenting all figured out. I had a theory and a plan and then I got married had a few kids and thought, “Wait a minute…what is wrong with these kids? Surely my plan is foolproof and the problem must be with these kids.” Our kids are 13, 11, and 9 right now and if there is one thing I’ve learned over the last 13 years it’s that I was a complete idiot when our kids were first born, I’m still an idiot but by God’s grace I think I’ve learned some things along the way and hopefully I haven’t’ completely blown it as a parent.

As an adult there are few subjects that have challenged me quite like the role of raising kids. We have had to change strategies several times. We have read books, sought counsel from others, we have apologized to our kids regularly and prayed more for them than almost anything else that I can think of. We have also sought out instruction from God’s Word to help us and that is what we are going to do together this morning. We are going to look at Colossians 3 and Ephesians 6, where Christ gives instruction on how the gospel is to affect the relationship between children and their parents.

Transition…

Thousands of books have been written on this subject and as a culture we have read and tried to apply many of them in our homes. But God only gives us two verses here. So we are going to need both wisdom and grace to get through this so let’s read the text and then pray for God’s help this morning.

Col 3:20 Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. 21 Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.

Sermon Focus…

III. A Word to Children…

20 Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.

Right up front I want us to notice that Paul is directly addressing children in this verse. He is not telling parents to have a talk with their children, he is talking to children directly. Now, why do I point this out? Because I want our children and those of you who still live under the care and guidance of your parents to know that you matter to God. Your youth and the fact that you still live at home does not mean that you are irresponsible or unworthy of respect. God takes your role in the home seriously and so should you.

But I do want to ask a question before we go any further and that question is who qualifies as a child in this verse? In our culture we use language that breaks up our early life into segments. Newborns, toddlers, children, pre-teens, teens, young adults, extended adolescence and then adulthood. Because we have a tendency to think in these terms and categories many of you wouldn’t think of yourself as a child who needs to obey your parents. So you might think this doesn’t apply to you.

The problem with that way of thinking is that the Bible doesn’t use our culture’s categories. Biblically speaking a child (teknon) is not distinguished by age. A child refers to offspring who are still dependent upon their parents. As long as you are in the home and your parents are responsible for you then you are still a teknon, you are a still a child. You stop being a child when you go out and establish your independence as a man or woman by starting a family or having your own home and no longer having mom and dad pay your bills.

But then, even as an independent adult you are still to honor your father and mother. But here, the calling upon children living under the care and guidance of their parents is to obey them in everything. This is true of young children and older children, and the call to be obedient implies that these children are mature enough and responsible enough to exercise obedience. God isn’t giving you a pass because you are entering your teen years…God is calling you to reject the rebellious instinct in your heart and to honor Him by obeying your parents.

Now this word obey is different from the term submit and I find that really interesting. The husband wife relationship is fundamentally different from the parent child relationship. The wife isn’t called to obedience like a child is called to obedience. I don’t have the same expectations of my wife that I have of my children. I want to love them all and respect them all, but one of these things is not like the other.

I need to know this, my wife needs to know this and my children need to know this. Leigh needs to know that in terms of human relationships there is no one that is more important and more deserving of my love than her. My children need to know that in terms of human relationships there is no one more important and more deserving of my love than their mother. My children also need to know that I love them unconditionally but they are not at the same level of authority and responsibility in the home as mom and dad.

But what is the nature of the relationship of parent to child? Children are to be obedient to their parents in everything. Obedience implies a relationship where one party issues commands/instructions to the other. “Son, I want you to clean your room.” “Sweetheart, I want you to help your mother with the dishes.” Son, I need you to work on this or that while I’m gone.” “Kids, I want you to show respect to one another and stop arguing.” These are instructions that children should be eager to obey.

In Ephesians 6 we see the same instruction:

Eph 6:1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.

God calls children to obey their parents, to follow their parent’s instruction in everything and this type of relationship is right in the eyes of God. This obedience is something that pleases the Lord. Now there are clearly exceptions to this such as abusive parents, or parents who command you to violate God’s will, but on the whole it is God’s design for the family that parents lead, guide and exercise authority while children obey their authority in a way that pleases God.

This sounds simple, so why don’t we see more of this? Part of it is that the mindset of our culture is so confused about this subject. We have overstressed the “rights” of the child and overemphasized the individuality of the child to such a degree that we see kids who trample on their parents and anyone else in their way. Children need love and support, they need freedom as well as boundaries, they need forgiveness and discipline.

But more than anything they need the gospel, you need the gospel. You need Christ to set you free from the sin and rebellion in your heart that causes you to reject your parent’s role in your life. Your parents aren’t always going to be right and when they get it wrong hopefully they are humble enough to admit it and seek forgiveness when necessary, but God’s plan is for you to obey your parents and honor them.

God’s plan is for parents to raise children, not the other way around. But why is this true? Why can’t children rule the world? Because you would burn this place to the ground. Haven’t you read Lord of the Flies? Children don’t know what they don’t know but they are naively convinced that they know everything they need to know. God explains the situation this way, “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child…” and parents are God’s gift to help children to grow, learn, and mature into godly men and women.

So, how can you grow in obeying your parents in everything? Ask yourself these questions.

1. How can I obey my parents when I just don’t want to?

2. How can I honor my parents throughout the day but especially in this present moment?

3. How can I honor my parents even when they aren’t around?

4. How can I speak to my parents so that they know I respect them and want to honor them?

5. Pray that God would change your heart and help you to honor your parents.

Children obey your parents in everything for this pleases the Lord.

IV. A Word to Fathers…

21 Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged.

God wants us to know that the responsibilities within the parent-child relationship go both ways. Children are to obey their parents and parents are to lovingly encourage their children. The term “fathers” can refer to both parents, because after all, children aren’t commanded to obey their father’s only. But, it may be that fathers are being singled out for their role in overseeing the upbringing of their children as part of God’s design on the family.

The instruction is stated in the negative, “Don’t provoke your children. Don’t lead them to discouragement.” First of all, what does this mean and secondly how can we avoid this? The phrase suggests that there is a way that we as parents can engage our children to the point that they take our leadership as a challenge to them. Instead of bringing them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord (Eph 6:4) what is happening here is that parents are nagging, irritating, demanding, and provoking their children in such a way that they just want to give up trying to obey and please their parents.

Sometimes this means that children feel like complete failures who are unable to please their parents. Nothing is ever good enough. No accomplishment will ever make mom and dad happy. And sometimes this means that children feel provoked/angry with mom and dad like they are being prodded into a fight or a competition. There are ways that we can interact with our children that have a tendency to crush their spirit and there is a way that we can interact with them that makes them want to fight back…and we need to seek to avoid both.

The goal is to teach them and instruct them in the truth through a growing relationship that reflects the love that God has shown us.

So how does this happen and how can we avoid this? Here is a short list of things that we do as parents that will often lead them to lose heart and how we can dial it back a little bit.

1. Overprotective or helicopter parenting – This is when we expect our children to relate to us almost exclusively by following our rules or when we oversee and analyze their behavior to such a degree that they lose a sense of freedom and individuality. Kids who are overprotected rarely here the word, “Yes” and kids who suffer from helicopter parents struggle to make decisions on their own.

Protecting our kids is our responsibility, but overprotection can cause them to lose heart.  Overprotection happens when there is no trust and freedom but only very narrowly defined boundaries that feels stifling to the child. When they are young this feels right to us. They are still learning about the world and we keep such close eyes on them that they always feel the need to ask us first, but as they grow are they able to navigate the world on their own with the wisdom that we have poured into them.

This is a big challenge for many of us, but sometimes our children need to learn lessons on their own. Give them principles and guidelines but them let them make their own decisions/mistakes, let them experience the joys of the world and sometimes the sorrows. In this way they can grow and be more prepared for the challenges ahead of them and hopefully they will have a greater respect and appreciation for the parents who supported them, instructed them and trusted them along the way.

2. Over discipline – There are few things that lead to more bitterness than the constant expectation that you can’t do anything right. As parents we have to understand the balance between appropriate discipline and grace. Kids are going to make mistakes and then repeat that same mistake for years. Kids are going to fall short of our expectations, they are going to disobey our instruction but it will take wisdom on our part to know when to discipline and when to show grace.

How we discipline them matters too. Sometimes discipline is the right response but it is done in a way that is over the top. When discipline simply becomes a show of strength or an exercise in how loud you can make your point; it ceases to be godly discipline and has become a display of a parents lack of self-control and understanding. Yes, they may need to hear what you have to say but are you saying it in a way that is crushing their spirit or provoking them to anger and frustration.

3. Neglect – This is the extreme opposite of over protecting and over disciplining. When we fail to give our children the time, attention, affection and guidance they need it will cause them to act out in rebellious ways or to simply withdraw from the relationship. This is a silent form of discouragement where our kids don’t feel loved, respected, appreciated and or that they matter at all. There is a way to overdo parenting but this is on the opposite end of the spectrum that will lead to discouragement.

Your job is not more important than your children. Your free time is not more important than your children. Your hobbies, your buddies, your social media presence are not even close to as important as your children who are made in the image of God and have been given to you as a gift to be loved, enjoyed, discipled and appreciated.

There are many more ways that we can provoke our children and we should sit down together as a family and talk about these things. I want to communicate with my children in such a way that they understand that we love them, we are for them, we support them, we have hopes, dreams and expectations of them. I want them to learn to talk about their lives in respectful but honest and God-honoring ways. I want to encourage them to grow to be godly men and women, and my joy as a parent is to help them in that in every way that I can.

I want my children to know that I am more concerned with their heart than I am with their behavior. I want them to know that I am more concerned with my heart than I am with their compliance to my rules. I want Christ to be displayed in our home and the gospel to fuel how we relate to one another as parent and child, as a family.

Conclusion…

Our duty in the home is to live out the gospel with one another, because we have come to understand the gospel for ourselves. In Christ, we don’t get what we deserve, we get amazing and abundant grace instead. The Bible teaches us that God knows us, He knows that we are nothing more than dust. He knows that we are sinners whose hearts are filled with rebellion. But He loves us anyway and sent Jesus to ransom us from our sin by His blood.

Now, He calls us to let the gospel shape our lives and our family. He calls wives to love and submit to their husbands as a reflection of our own love and submission to Jesus. He calls husbands to love our wives and to care for their needs the way Jesus loves us and met the deepest need of our souls.

He calls children to obey their parents the way we should obey God and He calls us to parent our children by following the example that our Heavenly Father has set for us. We should parent with truth and grace, with love and hope, with warmth and trust. There is a time for discipline, but even that should be done with love and purpose.

The Gospel at Home (1 of 2)

Series: Colossians

Speaker: Pastor Justin Wheeler

Scripture: Colossians 3:18-4:1

Manuscript PDF

Manuscript

One of the greatest gifts that God has ever given to man is a wife and one of the greatest gifts that God has ever given to woman is a husband. In the days of creation when God made Adam and Eve and placed them in the Garden to be together He looked on what He had made and declared it very good. God has made some amazing things and He has given us some amazing gifts, but the greatest gift, apart from Christ Himself, is the man or woman sitting beside you right now.

As the creation narrative unfolds we see that this gift wasn’t lost on Adam. When he first laid eyes on Eve his response was that he started singing. Adam became a poet the moment he saw his wife because he knew that she was a gift like no other. But it didn’t take long for this gift to become corrupted by sin.

The marriage relationship of a man and a woman, as wonderful as God intended it to be, has taken a hit. It was in Genesis 3 when Adam and Eve rebelled against God that sin entered into the world and into human hearts and as a result the marriage relationship has been troubled ever since. And it’s not just the marriage relationship that has been affected, our entire home life is still reeling from the effects of sin.

But there is hope because the gospel mends broken relationships. That’s what we’ve been studying these past few weeks in Colossians 3. Through Christ our relationship to God that was broken because of sin has now been restored by faith and not by works. Through Christ we are not who we once were, we are dead to sin and have the life of God flowing through us.

Christ has mended our relationship to God, He has given us the power to mend our relationship to one another in the church and He has given us the power to resurrect a broken marriage and the relationship that are broken within the home.

Transition…

You see the gospel not only has something to say about our relationship to God, our relationship to one another in the church; it also bears its weight on our home. So this morning we are going to look at Colossians 3:18-19 verses where God gives instruction on how the gospel shapes the relationship between a husband and wife.

Col 3:18 Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. 19 Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them. 20 Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. 21 Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged. 22 Bondservants, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eyeservice, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. 23 Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, 24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. 25 For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality.

4 Masters, treat your bondservants justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven.

Before we really begin to dissect the text here I want to say something about the scope of this sermon and I want to say something to those among us who are not married. First this sermon is not intended to cover every detail of the marriage relationship. The context of Colossians is quite limited and each piece of instruction about the Christian home is given in one verse statements. But this passage is not the only one that addresses the roles of men and women in the home.

Back in October and November of 2014 I preached a 5-part series on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood so if you are interested in going deeper into this subject I would encourage you to go to our website and dig up that sermon audio. There are also a host of good books that have been written on the subject and we have several of them in our library. One of my favorites came out last year written by Ray Ortlund titled Marriage and Mystery of the Gospel.

To those of you who are single I want you to know that these truths are important for all of God’s people in that they reveal the wisdom of God and the power of the gospel to affect all of our relationships. It may be that you are young and not yet married and these verses will speak to your heart in such a way that they prepare you for a grace-filled and gospel rich marriage in the future. I pray that would be the case.

But it may also be that you are single for some other reason. I want to remind you that you are not loved by God any less because of your singleness. I want you to know that I love you, that your church family loves you and needs you because you are a precious child of God and dearly loved member of this church family.

Sermon Focus…

In this passage, Paul turns his attention from the spiritual family (ie. The church) to the physical family in what is often called the “household codes” because it deals with the essential relationships that were common in a 1st century household. This kind of teaching was common in the Greco-Roman world. For the Greeks and Romans this type of instruction wasn’t religious at all but rather it came from the realm of philosophy.

Aristotle divided the household into three essential relations: master and slave, husband and wife, the parent and child. So instruction for the home life was “in the air” and because the gospel affects all of our relationships, it makes sense that Paul would want to address how it affects the home. In a sense, Paul is saying, “Yes these are the essential relationships in a 1st century household, but the gospel is going to influence those relationships in a distinct and countercultural way.”

And as we work through this we will see that the relational dynamics addressed here are to reflect a distinctly Christian spirit. The gospel doesn’t erase our existing social relationship but it does transform them and the question is how? Let’s look first at the relationship of a wife to her husband.

I. A Word to Wives…

Col 3:18 Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.

Now, right out of the gate I know that this is troubling and uncomfortable for many of you. The idea of submission seems archaic and degrading, which causes a lot of women to simply reject what the Bible teaches on this subject. But I want to suggest two things: 1. That Submission might not mean what we think it means and 2. That God wants to lead us into a relational dynamic that is better than what we could come up with on our own.

God designed marriage in the beginning, it was His idea and the instruction that we see throughout the Bible is not meant to suck the joy out of our lives and our marriage but is instead meant to lead us into greater joy in marriage.

Submission is not servile groveling at the feet of a domineering husband. Submission in the home is ultimately to be a reflection of the Church’s submission to Christ, which is the most grace-fueled and loving relationship in the world. At the same time, this picture of the Christian home is about God restoring peace into our lives that was lost in the Fall. God is not taking something away from us but is instead giving us something that we never even knew we could have.

So, before we reject what this verse says let’s work to try and understand what it actually means. This verse is almost identical to what we read in Ephesians 5:22 and the first part of 1 Peter 3:1, meaning that this instruction for wives is consistent throughout the NT. But what exactly does this word submit mean? And how should we view this role?

The term submit here means the voluntary recognition of a divinely ordered structure. For wives to submit to their husbands means that they are voluntarily and humbly putting themselves under their own husband’s leadership because she recognizes that God has ordered the home in this way. The same word is used all over the NT to describe different forms of submission that takes place in the world. We are to submit to God. We are to submit to one another. Christians are to submit to governing authorities. Members of the church are to submit to their leaders. In each category the term means a recognition of an established order of authority as determined by God.

Now, this call to submit does not negate all of the other promises, blessings and responsibilities that belong to Christian women. You are a dearly loved daughter of God and you should be treated with dignity, honor, respect and love by all Christian men, but especially your husband. So this instruction about submission to your husband is not degrading to you nor does it give the husband a green light to treat you like a doormat.

But at the same time we need to recognize that submission is not the natural posture of our sinful heart. The natural posture of our hearts is to seek our own way, not God’s way. Our natural inclination is not to submission but to domination, which means that Christ is calling us to something here that flows out of our relationship to Him. And just so we don’t get tunnel vision, this type of submission is to sweeten and flavor the entire Christian community.

Eph 5:20 give thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 21 submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

The presence of Jesus among us should lead us to serve one another, to outdo one another in showing honor, should lead us to humbly count others as more significant than ourselves (Phil 2:3). Submission and servanthood are to be a hallmarks of the entire church.

But then for the wife in particular, God calls you to live out this Christian heart of submission and servanthood toward your husband as toward no other. Paul is urging women to submit to their own husbands and submission does not mean weakness. Godly submission may be one of the strongest personal character qualities in the world. It takes great strength of character as well as great humility to submit to another person out of love and that is what Paul is calling for here.

But submission does not mean inferiority either. Jesus submitted to the Father and that does not mean that Jesus was inferior. Jesus willingly assumed a position of responsibility by submitting to the authority of His Father.

And when we carry that over we learn that the Christian calling upon the wife is to voluntary submission to her own husband with godly wisdom and dignity, not blind obedience to an unbelieving tyrant. In other words, this is not absolute submission to a man but willing submission based on one’s faith in Christ. The final phrase in this verse makes clear that a Christian wife’s submission is ultimately to flow out of her love for Christ.

Ok, so what does this look like? A submissive wife is going to be supportive and respectful of her husband. A wise wife is going to think for herself and communicate with her husband her thoughts, desires and fears. She will at times disagree with her husband and seek to add her counsel to the situation in a respectful way. But in the end she seeks to let her submission to her husband be a reflection of her submission to Christ (Eph 5). She will follow her husband’s lead and support him as he assumes the responsibility that God has place on him within the family.

“By trusting the Lord and embracing her calling, a Christian wife empowers her husband as no one else on the face of the earth can do. She is so secure in Christ that she is no longer jealous to establish her own identity separate from her husband. She understands how profound it is to be one flesh with him, and she gives him her whole heart and her practical support.” Ray Ortlund (Marriage and the Mystery of the Gospel, pg. 94)

Jesus sets us free to be truly human and he teaches us to express ourselves according to God’s design, which is not to grapple for control but to serve one another in love. Submission is about humble service, loving support, and mutual respect that both honors God and leads us into joy.

There’s more. The role of wives in the Christian home is intended to have a companion and that is the role of the husband.

II. A Word to Husbands…

19 Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them.

In the Greco-Roman world of the early church it would have been mildly counter-cultural for wives to submit to their husbands. In all honesty, Roman wives were expected to assume a position of obedience not unlike a slave. So Paul’s instruction for Christian wives is much different. But the requirement for husbands to sacrificially love their wives was completely unheard of in Paul’s day. Here again is a uniquely Christian emphasis being placed on the family dynamic.

The call for Christians to love one another is widely taught in the NT. Our first duty is to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and our second duty is to love our neighbor as ourselves. We are to love one another, we are to love our neighbors, we are even to love our enemies. And this call to love is rooted in the love that we have been shown by Christ. He loved us while we were still sinners. He loves us even though we are constantly unworthy of love. He loved us to the point of death on the cross and He will love us forever.

His love fuels our love and as husbands we have been given one human relationship where our love is to be most keenly directed and that is toward our wives. And notice that this is not a love that stays bottled up in our hearts as a feeling but is a love that we express. Paul tells us that our treatment of our wives is to be characterized by sacrificial love and not harshness. In other words, our leadership in the home is not to be carried out in such a way that it leads to bitterness in our wives. We are to be gentle, humble, respectful and are to love our wives in such a way that we make it easy for them to respect and support us.

Men, our wives are real human beings made in the image of God and they are our sisters in Christ. Loving our wives will often mean that we put her interests ahead of our own. In fact, we see another parallel here to Ephesians 5:25 “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” The love that we have for our wives is to be a reflection of the love that Christ has for us; a patient love, a tender love, a unique love, a lasting love and a sacrificial love.

When we trust the Lord and embrace our calling as Christian husbands, we are going to strive to love our wives like Christ loves us. We are going to sacrifice our wants and needs in order to serve, honor, respect and love our wives. This is what Christ did for the church. He laid aside His own glory and power in order to meet the needs of His people. Men this is what we are called to in relationship with our wives. To love them like Christ.

Brothers, you aren’t called to simply put up with your wives but to cherish them, to actively love them the way Christ loves us. We don’t treat our wives like servants but like sisters in the Lord and the most precious gift of God this side of the gospel.

(Appli…Husbands, be sensitive to your wife’s needs and her feelings. Learn what helps her to feel loved and don’t forget. Probe her heart to the point that you know her well and understand what her spiritual as well as physical needs are and then live with her in such a way that you meet those needs and honor your wife.

Now before we take this too far I want us to remember that there is a sense in which we as husbands will not be able to meet our wife’s deepest needs. Only Christ can fulfill the deep needs of our souls so let’s not carry this verse out to an absurd conclusion. I cannot save my wife from sin, I cannot ultimately fulfill my wife in all the ways she wants or needs to be fulfilled because that role belongs to Christ alone, but I must strive to know her well and love her well.

When I speak in such a way that it hurts her feelings and she tells me that, I need to listen and learn.

When I hold her in such a way that she feels safe and loved, I need to remember that and do it more often.

When she goes out of her way to show me love and respect I need to recognize that and honor her for it.

When I come home from my meetings at the end of a long day and I recognize that she’s worn out from her day as well I need to show her the same respect that I would want her to show me.

When you recognize that your wife needs some time away from the kids make it happen for her.

When things go completely sideways and you don’t understand what your wife is going through emotionally, or you don’t know what to do to “fix it”; be patient, work hard to listen, and practice simply being there for her.

Conclusion…

Col 3:18 Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. 19 Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them.

To both the husband and the wife let’s be honest and say that this is going to take some work. This isn’t going to happen overnight and it isn’t going to happen because we demand it from one another. By the way, my love for my wife is not dependent upon her submission, nor vice versa. Each of us has a responsibility to walk in this and our ultimate obedience is to Jesus. I love my wife because she is lovely and loveable, but ultimately I love my wife because Christ calls me to love my wife.

My wife seeks to honor, respect and submit to me not because I am imminently worthy of those things, but because she loves the Lord and wants to be faithful to Him. We want to be faithful to the Lord, we want to relate to one another in a godly way, and we want the gospel to bear fruit in our home. That starts with the husband and the wife.

God has a purpose for how our family life is to be structured. There are patterns of authority and submission, leadership and obedience that God intends us to embrace as born again people. It would be wrong to assume that these principles are outdated and don’t need to be accepted. It would be wrong for us to assume that since many of us grew up in Christian homes that we already know what this should look like.

Rather, we should study this passage and the others that correspond to it (Ephesians 5, I Peter 3, and Titus 2). We should seek to understand how God is calling us to live with one another and to how to treat one another. We need to examine our own lives, our own relationships and our own homes. We need to seek forgiveness from one another where we have failed and then with humility and patience we need to seek to let the gospel invade our family.

Let me encourage you to sit down and talk with one another about this. Open up your Bibles, pray for God’s help and patience, then begin to talk about what this can and should look like in your home. If you have really blown it then own that and seek forgiveness, but also seek to grow in your God-given responsibility. Ask questions. Be a good listener and pray that God would help you both to grow in your roles. 

Put on the Lord Jesus Christ (2 of 2)

Series: Colossians

Speaker: Pastor Justin Wheeler

Scripture: Colossians 3:12-17

Put on the Lord Jesus Christ (1 of 2)

Series: Colossians

Speaker: Pastor Justin Wheeler

Scripture: Colossians 3:12-17

Manuscript PDF

Manuscript

What is the greatest truth in all of the Bible? Many of us would scratch our heads thinking that this is not an easy question to answer but perhaps it’s easier than we think.

On April 23, 1962, Karl Barth (the renown 20th Century Swiss-German, neo-orthodox theologian) spoke at Rockefeller Chapel on the campus of the University of Chicago. Many have reported that, during the Q & A time, a student asked Barth, if he could summarize his theology in a single sentence. As the story goes, Barth responded by saying, "In the words of a song I learned at my mother's knee: 'Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.'"[1]

The love of Christ for sinners is an amazing truth but the fact that Jesus loves me, not as a possibility but as a reality…now that has to be the greatest Biblical truth I will ever discover. 

The fact that God knows us intimately and still loves us unconditionally is the greatest news that you will ever hear in your lifetime and when we tease out the details of His love for us it gets even better. He loved us before He made the world (Eph 1:4). He loves us with an everlasting love. His love for us moved Him to send us the greatest gift the world has ever seen (John 3:16). He loved us while we were still sinners (Rom 5:8) and there is nothing in the universe that can cause Him to withdraw His love from us (Rom 8:31-39).

If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, then you can be absolutely sure that Jesus loves you and this love should produce two things in our hearts: gratitude for His amazing grace and repentance from the sin that once grieved our Savior’s heart. The kindness and love of God should lead us to repentance, to turn away from sin and to seek to bring glory to Him for who He is and for all that He has done.

Transition…

God loves us and when we come to see His love for us in the gospel and we embrace it by faith it brings about a change in our heart that also results in a change in our life. Now, if we get this out of order then we will miss the point of the gospel entirely but if we can keep this in place then we can live our lives with enduring confidence and Christ-like obedience.

With this in mind let’s read together, our passage for this morning from Colossians 3:12.

Col 3:12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 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. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. 17 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.

Sermon Focus…The Rule of Christ in the Lives of His People

This morning and next week we are going to learn 5 ways the love of Christ impacts our lives as believers. Today we will look at the first 2…

I. The Power of Christ’s Love (V. 12)

Col 3:12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience,

You may not see it at first glance but there is an immeasurable power at work in this verse. Paul’s shift from doctrine to practice is still underway. He has spent 2 chapters helping us to get our minds right when it comes to who Jesus is and what He accomplished for us on the cross. But now Paul is working to apply all of that doctrine to our lives. He wants us to know that right-teaching (orthodoxy) necessary leads to right-living (orthopraxy).

And the thing that he wants us to understand is how one motivates the other. What is the mechanism of action between right doctrine and right living…it’s the saving love of God. In one sense this passage is very basic and immensely practical. We are being instructed here to put on the character of the Christian life and these characteristics are intended to contrast with the sins that we once walked in (Col 3:5-8). But the simplicity of how are we to live as Christians is rooted in the deep magic of Gods love for us.

Notice that the calling for us to put on the character of Christ is rooted in the fact that we already belong to God. We are God’s chosen ones, the eternally elect children of God. How do we know this? Because we believe the gospel. We know because we, “heard the gospel and we understood the grace of God in truth (Col 1:4-6).”

1 Peter 1:3 According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…

The gospel assures us that our membership within the family of God depends not on our goodness but gods grace, not on our loveableness but on His love.[2]

By faith we are the chosen ones of God, holy in His sight, and dearly loved by our creator. THIS is what motivates us to put on godly character. We are well loved children who long to be more like our loving Father.

(Illus…In the early generations of the Christian church the ceremony of baptism sought to illustrate this in a tangible way. Baptismal candidates would symbolize the radical change of Christian conversion by arriving at the place of their baptism in old and shabby clothes that symbolized their old way of life. Then just before going into the water they would take off those old garments, laying them aside. They would undergo baptism as a symbol of their new life in Christ and as they came up out of the water the church body would gather around them and wrap up in fresh, new and often bright white garments to symbolize the new life in Christ that lay ahead for them.[3]

The love of Christ is so powerful that it completely changes the course of our life. The gospel is so amazing that it can pry our hands away from a lifetime of sin and rebellion. The good news of God’s love is so thorough that it can change not only our eternal destination but also our earthly journey. Our identity as the chosen, holy and dearly loved people of God gives rise to a new way of life.

And that new way of life includes “putting on” a deep sensitivity to the needs and cares of others. Our lives are to be filled with compassion for others and this flows out of the compassion that Christ has shown us. We didn’t deserve His pity, or love; and yet He came to live and die in order to meet our deepest need. By faith we have received compassion and now we become conduits of compassion to others.

Being compassionate toward others leads us to show kindness to them. Kindness is compassion in action. In other words, the love that we have been shown is to affect us deeply and then flow out of us freely. The gifts of God are not intended to terminate on us. They are meant to fill our hearts to the point of overflowing and then burst out of us so that others will experience the kindness and compassion of God for themselves.

Kindness is a Christ like attitude toward others and humility is a Christ like attitude toward oneself. Christian humility is to have an accurate view of your importance in light of the cross. Our sin is so great that Jesus had to die to save us, but Christ’s love is so great that He was willing to die to save us. This doesn't cause us to boast it cause us to worship. The gospel brings us all to our knees.

 The supreme act of humility in the history of the world was put on display by Jesus and His act of humility is to fuel our own.

Phil 2:5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Meekness does not mean weak in fact it means the opposite. This word refers to a person that is so strong in their character that they master themselves and willingly assume the role of a servant to others. Isn’t this exactly how Jesus treated us. He was and is the eternal Son of God but He willingly laid down His life for us and He calls us to follow Him.

The last trait in this list is patience. God calls us to be patient, slow to anger, understanding, and willing to wait on the Lord. But there is another application to this and it has to do with how we treat those within the church. The main verb in this verse is a 2nd person plural verb which means that these character traits are to be employed within the context of the church. God wants us to live in this way all the time but especially in our relationship with other believers.

The power of Christ’s love is so strong that it transforms our individual lives and begins to spread out to transform the community that we belong to. But the next question is how do we put these into action?

II. The Function of Christ’s Love (V. 13-14)

13 bearing with one another…

The newfound compassion in our hearts functions to impact our relationships with one another. Jesus calls us to bear with one another, to be patient with each other, even to put up with one another. This is the same word that Jesus used when he said to the disciples, “O faithless generation, how long am I to bear with you?” IOW, how long do I have to put up with your spiritual ignorance and immaturity.

But it’s more than mere tolerance, it’s love that binds us to others no matter what. Our love for one another is to be so strong that it causes us to overcome that frustration.

(Illus…Mark Dever tells a story in his book The 9 marks of a Healthy Church and in the story he is talking with a friend. The friend has gotten into the habit of coming to church only for a portion of the worship service (the sermon) and then he quickly ducks out to go on about his business. He wouldn’t stay around to meet people, to build relationships with people, to share with people or to help people. He simply came in to get what he wanted and then he would leave. Mark asked him about this and the friends responded by saying that he could get everything he needed from the sermon and then by leaving he was making sure that other people weren’t holding him back from his growth in the Lord.

In his mind, hanging around and investing in the lives of other people would be a frustrating waste of his time. He might have to hear their stories, they might request his counsel, and that would require him to bear with them to help them grow in Christ, but he really didn’t want anything to do with that.

Now let’s contrast this with how Jesus treats us. Jesus never hears us praying and thinks, “I really don’t have time for you today.” He never sees us coming and says, “Oh no, not this guy again.” He never loses focus when I ramble on about my problems, He never rolls His eyes when I confess the same old sins, He never looks at His watch as a signal that I need to move on.

Jesus bears with me, He bears with you and He calls us to bear with one another. To be patiently present to listen, to encourage, to offer counsel, to rebuke when necessary, to share scripture often…this is what it means to bear with one another.

V. 13…and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

If you spend even a short amount of time in the church you are going to learn a very important lesson and it is that we are not perfect people. Your brothers and sister in this church are not perfect people. We will let one another down, we will let slip something that was shared in confidence, we will offend one another and when these things happen we need to remember the gospel. The ultimate offense is not what someone has down to us but what we have done to God.

The deepest and most egregious offense in our lives is not that someone let us down but that we sinned against our God. And yet the Lord has forgiven us. He forgave and He forgives and He calls us to follow Him by forgiving one another. There is not a time when we are more like our Heavenly Father than when we forgive those who have betrayed, hurt or offended us.

As Christians we know the joy and comfort of being forgiven and Jesus is calling us to extend that joy and comfort to others. When we forgive one another in the church we are echoing the forgiveness that each of us has already received from the Lord.

14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

Paul goes back to the clothing metaphor here and he paints the picture of us taking a large cloak that covers over everything and he tells us to fasten it tightly around our shoulders. The one garment that pulls everything together is love. If we try to pursue the other virtues and we forget that they flow from a heart of love then either we will fail or those virtues will become distorted. Rather than bearing with one another we will become manipulative and controlling. Rather than forgiving one another we will hold grudges that will eventually burst out and ruin our friendship, or cause us to pull away altogether.

But when love is the motivation for our care for one another it covers a multitude of sins. We can look at one another and think the best rather than the worst. Love makes the commands of God a delight rather than a duty, it makes us want to listen to one another rather than have to listen to another.

1 Cor 13:4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

This is the function of Christ’s love.

Conclusion…

(Illus…Many of the battles that we see in the church don’t come down to doctrine at all they come down to one person’s preference over another. One person wants this while another person wants that. One person likes this style while another person likes that style. One person agrees with this presidential candidate while another person agrees with that presidential candidate.

Personal opinions and preferences are a natural part of life and we aren’t always going to agree on some things. But there must be something or someone holding us together that is greater than our personal preferences. That person is Christ and our unity in Him is far more important than our differences.

The default mode of the human heart is pride and pride rails against the idea of someone having authority over you or getting preference over you. Pride looks upon another person and desires to dominate them. Pride causes us to compare ourselves to others and to think that we are better or more important than them. Pride seeks power. It seeks to be superior to everyone else.

But the gospel comes in and it not only chips away at our pride, it destroys it. The gospel obliterates the idea that we are better than the next guy by telling us that we are just like the next guy. Sure, we may have more education or experience but those are only external things. You see the gospel gets at the heart of who we are and lets us know that we are not as awesome as we think.

The gospel attacks the default mode of the human heart and in the place of pride it inserts humility.  And the fruits that flow out of this gospel humility are gentleness, patience, bearing with one another and an eagerness, a zeal, to maintain unity and peace in the church.

In the world pride fuels competition but in the church humility fuels community and that is what God is building. Through the gospel of Jesus Christ God is creating a new counter-cultural community. He is building a city on a hill and the only way that we can be brought together as a city that displays the love and grace of God is if the pride in our hearts that would cause us to compete with one another gives way to humility before God that would have us embrace one another.

---

[1] http://www.reformation21.org/blog/2016/09/jesus-loves-me-this-i-know.php#sthash.ULOMUWAj.dpuf

[2] N.T. Wright TNTC Commentary on Colossians and Philemon (pg. 145-6)

[3] Douglas Moo The Pillar NT Commentary Series Colossians (pg. 266)

Our Battle Against Sin

Series: Colossians

Speaker: Pastor Justin Wheeler

Scripture: Colossians 2:20-3:5

Manuscript PDF

Manuscript

One of my fondest memories as a kid was going on family vacations in the summer time. They always came at the end of baseball season and 9 times out of 10 it involved my family loading up and making a trip to Gulf Shores, AL. My parents grew up in Mobile, AL and my brother and I were born in Mobile, AL and this meant that most of our road trips took us “home” to see our family. But before the trip was over we would jump back in the car and make the short drive to Gulf Shores to spend a few days on the beach.

The drive from Mobile to Gulf Shores only takes about an hour but it usually took us longer because we would stop along the way to visit the USS Alabama Battleship Memorial. As a young boy, my favorite thing about visiting this park was the ice cream stand right out front. But even as a boy I couldn’t help but marvel at the World War II era battleship and submarine floating alongside the gangway.

The USS Alabama launched into service in 1942 housing 2,500 sailors and during WWII she saw battle in the South Pacific arena. She was awarded 9 battle stars during her 3-year tenure and was dubbed the “Heroine of the Pacific.” She was honored to lead the American Fleet into Tokyo Bay in September 5, 1945. But all that history was lost to me as a young boy. The only things that stood out to me were the huge guns that were mounted to the deck of the ship.

The USS Alabama was a battleship armed with 52 – 20 mm guns, 48 – 40 mm guns, 20 – 5”/38 cal. and 9 16”/45 cal. guns. The 16”/45 cal.[1] Mark 6 canons were capable of firing a 2,700 lb. armor-piercing shell at a velocity of 2,300ft/s at a range of 23 miles.[2] These things were massive and awe-inspiring for me (they still are)[3] but the reality today is that these weapons are now powerless. These incredible weapons that once propelled shells weighing more than a ton could not propel a BB 2 feet today. These weapons were once feared mechanisms of destruction but now they are powerless, housed in a museum floating along the shoreline in Mobile Bay.

Transition…

Now, why am I pointing this out? Because in our text this morning God wants us to understand that these decommissioned weapons of war aren’t the only things that are powerless in battle. Here at the end of Colossians 2, Paul wants us to understand that there is a battle going on in our lives and it is a battle against sin. He also wants us to understand that some weapons are completely worthless in this battle.

The false teachers in this church are trying to convince everyone that the way to battle sin is with legalism, works-righteousness, and moral living but Paul tells us in verse 23 that these things may look like wisdom but they are powerless to bring an end the sinful longing in our hearts.

Col 2:20 If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations— 21 “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” 22 (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings? 23 These have indeed an 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.

3 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. 3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you

The only weapon that will free us from sin’s devastating power is Jesus and if we have Jesus we have the only weapon we need.

Sermon Focus…

I. Jesus wants us to lay aside worthless weapons (Vv. 20-23)

V. 20 If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations

Verse 20 opens up with a conditional statement, “if with Christ you died…” and this verse is meant to do two things:

1. It marks a shift from Paul’s arguments against the false teaching to how Christians are to live by faith in Christ alone.

2. It also serves as an invitation for the people reading this letter to consider whether or not they have truly put all of their hope in Jesus. If we have truly been born again, if we have truly died with Christ, then there are implications to this that inform how we live our lives.

The gospel is not simply the baseline of theological truth that one must believe in order to be saved. It is also the motivating ethic for how we live our lives every day. 

Paul has been arguing about how Jesus and the gospel are better than Pharisaical legalism. He has been arguing how true spiritual victory comes when we embrace Jesus as our only hope. And now, Paul is going to plead with us not to put our confidence in our own ability to overcome sin, but to embrace the whole of what Christ accomplished for us.

So the point of this question, this conditional statement, is not to make us doubt our salvation, but rather to help us fully embrace the Christian worldview. When we believed the gospel it wasn’t simply that we adopted a new religion but rather that God had begun a work in our hearts. Ephesians 1 tells us that:

“When you heard the Word of Truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, (you) were sealed with the Holy Spirit…”

The reality is that we didn’t come to Christ on our own, we were drawn to Jesus by the Father (John 6:44) and the Spirit of God opened our eyes to see our need of salvation (2 Cor 4:6). He also opened our hearts to receive Christ as Lord. We call this being “born-again” and this new birth has massive implications on not only our salvation from the guilt of sin but also on how we live our lives from this point forward.

God didn’t begin this work in us to simply turn us over to our own ideas about how to battle sin. The Spirit of God now dwells in us, guiding us, growing us, convicting us, strengthening us for this new life. Now that He has begun this work in us He wants us to live a new life of faith, not by reliance upon our own flesh (do not handle, do not taste, do not touch), but by dependence upon Christ and the Spirit of God.

Rom 6:3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life…11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

When he uses the word consider he is implying that gospel theology is impacting our lives every day. Sin is no longer our master, Jesus is our master.

12 Therefore, Don’t let sin reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. 14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

I know that we think the starting point in our battle against sin is for someone to tell us what to do. We want action items, but that’s not the first thing we need. The first thing we need is not be told what to do but rather to understand what He did. We need to understand in our minds what God has done deep down in our souls. Theology matters! And sound gospel theology is key to our freedom from the bondage of pharisaical legalism.

(Illus…In Galatians 2, when Paul confronted Peter over his hypocrisy, He didn’t give him a list of things to do but rather he reminded Peter of the gospel. Paul rebuked Peter by telling him, “You are not living in step with the gospel…”Peter needed to be reminded that the gospel sets us free from the legalistic tendencies in our heart and mind. Legalism has power, not over our sin but over us.

Let me explain what I mean: The basic operating principle of legalism (man-centered religion) is “I obey-therefore I am accepted by God.” Legalism lies to us and tells us that through our obedience we can make ourselves acceptable to God and with this as the default mode of our heart we will labor under the empty promise that I am all I need. And one of two things will result, either we will become arrogant and look down on others who aren’t like us (Pharisees) or we will be crushed by the reality that no matter how hard we try we can’t seem to make any real progress against our sin.

Legalism fails, these regulations fail, for three reasons: 1. They are perishing. IOW, these weapons are worldly and worldly weapons are no use against spiritual problems. 2. They are according to human precepts and teaching. Man alone can’t solve our God-sized problem. 3. They are worthless to bring about real spiritual change in our hearts. They focus on the flesh and have no power over our hearts.

These things can’t give us what we need so Jesus wants us to lay down these worthless weapons. He wants us to reboot our hearts and minds to the default mode of the gospel where the basic operating principle is, “I am accepted by God through the work of Jesus Christ – therefore I obey.” Our lives as gospel people are to be marked by grace-fueled obedience.

Since we belong to Christ, and since we have been born again through faith in Christ, the weapons we will use to battle against indwelling sin are not the weapons of the flesh but the weapons of grace. In fact, to the Christian the weapons of the flesh are dead. They have been put to death and decommissioned. To submit to these regulations would be like having a Japanese naval officer come to Mobile, AL and surrender to that old decommissioned Alabama battleship.

But how does Jesus want us to battle sin now?

II. Jesus calls us to keep our mind fixed on Him (Ch. 3:1-3)

3 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. 3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

This is a wonderful passage of Scripture that aims to have us fix our gaze on Jesus as the means of overcoming the brokenness of the world, the ongoing sting of personal sin and to gain victory over the temptations of Satan. And this section starts off with a strikingly gospel-centered statement…

If/since you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above…

He did not tell us to seek the things that are above in order to be raised with Christ. But rather, he said since you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above. This turn of phrase is in direct contradiction to the false teacher’s message of legalism and this turn of phrase makes all the difference. Paul is boldly declaring that the way to be free from the power of sin is not through human effort, but through grace-driven longing for more of Jesus.

John Owen – Fill your affections with the cross of Christ that there may be no room for sin.

And this longing takes shape in the form of the two imperatives/commands, which are to “seek the things that are above,” and “to set our minds on things that are above.” Now, don’t let this confuse you. Paul is not advocating some ethereal spiritual experience, nor is he pushing for mere intellectualism but rather he is echoing what Jesus taught us in the Sermon on the Mount.

Matt 6:33 “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness…”

To seek the kingdom of God involves our mind, heart and life. We set our minds on things above when we deliberately and daily commit ourselves to God’s glory, God’s Word, and God’s ways. Paul wants us to orient our hearts around the fact that the blazing center of the universe is God. He wants us to commit our minds to being renewed by God’s Word and He wants us to live out these values in a life of faithfulness to Jesus.

Can we do this? Of course we can. We are enabled to live for God’s glory now because we have been given new spiritual life and our life is hidden in God (protected). In our former state of being dead to sin we were unable to live this way, but by faith we have been raised to live a new life in Christ, to live a new life like Christ.

Now it is important for us to recognize that Jesus is not merely an example for us to follow, He is first and foremost our divine Savior to be trusted and worshipped. But, as believers in Christ we are to follow His example. His Godward orientation is an example for us to follow. His self-giving love is an example for us to follow. His zeal for the glory of God sets an example for us to follow. His faithful obedience to the will of the Father is an example for us to follow…

Are any of us going to do this perfectly? No. When we stumble in sin, God’s grace is there is lift us back on our feet. We remember that God’s love for us is not based on our merit but is cemented to His grace. We confess our sin to God, we repent of that sin and we refocus our minds on Jesus.

But practically speaking what does this look like? Jesus has freed us from the guilt of sin and the authority of sin; but while we live our bodies are still subject to sin’s presence and this is where the day to day battle of sanctification comes into focus for us.

And since this is a battle we have to learn to use the weapons that our captain has given us. Let’s call them the weapons of grace.[4]

1. The blood of Christ is our first weapon

Ephesians 2:13   But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

As we struggle against sin we must always keep before us the gospel reality that it is through the blood of Christ that God has redeemed me and made me his own; not my moral success or the modification of my behavior.  And this is so hard for us because we are naturally wired to believe that we will overcome some obstacle or achieve our goals through our own efforts.

(illus. God is not in Heaven holding a clipboard and watching us to see when we fail so that he can mark us off His team.

The truth is that God loves us and accepts us because of Christ and this shouldn’t make us complacent it should set our hearts on fire to battle our enemy because of our love for our king. And when we fail it should make us want to run back to Him, not away from Him.

2. The Word of God is our second weapon

2 Timothy 3:16-1716 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,  17 that the man of God1 may be competent, equipped for every good work.

This verse helps us to understand the value of what we hold in our hands. This bible is the Word of God, theopneustos. This gives us the picture of God breathing and as His breath passes the vocal chords we hear the sound of His voice. This is the voice of God to us and it is, more than any other thing, helps us to fix our mind and heart on the things above.

When it comes to knowing and doing the will of God we are blind without His Word. I cannot stress enough the necessity of filling our mind and life with God’s Word.

3. Prayer in the Spirit

According to Ephesians 6, we only have two offensive weapons at our disposal. They are the Word of God and prayer and both are indispensable to the believer in battling sin. Sometimes our prayers consist of crying out for God to show us our sin, and sometimes we cry out to God to show us the way out that He has provided.

Sometimes we cry out asking God to forgive our sin and cleanse us from it, sometimes we cry out thanking Him for a victory. But, through it all our lifeline to our field captain is prayer and when all we can do is bow our heads and moan, he lives to make intercession on our behalf.

4. The community of Faith

Finally, the last weapon we have in our battle against sin is the community of Faith and we see evidence of it in our passage (Col 3:1). The verbs here are in the 2nd person plural, which means that Paul is not simply talking to individuals, he is talking to the church as a whole and he is exhorting us to battle sin together.

He is saying, “You (pl) set your (pl) minds on the things above…” We follow Christ together, we learn about Christ together, we battle sin together. We need to build into our lives, layers of relationships where we can learn and grow and where we can pour out into others and help them to grow.

These are just a few of the weapons at our disposal as we battle to be more and more free from sin and to be more and more like Christ. But what will be the final result of this battle?

III. Jesus will bring us home to glory (V. 4)

4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

The false teachers promise something that they cannot deliver, but Christ will deliver on His promises. What Jesus starts in us He will finish in us. If you are a believer in Christ, then this life is going to end one of two ways: Either you are going to see Jesus coming out of Heaven one day or you are going to die and go be with Him until He busts out of Heaven one day. But either way, our Christian hope is that we will be with Jesus in glory.

Conclusion…

But that is not the hope of everyone. This last verse brings the end of our lives right out into the open and it is intended to give confidence to those who are in Christ but for those who are not trusting in Christ this verse is no comfort for you. The Bible says that on the day when Christ comes again His glory will be so intensely awesome that unbelievers will cry out to God for the mountains to fall on them in the hopes that Jesus won’t be able to see them and carry out the punishment they deserve.

His glory is awesome for those who trust in Him but His glory will be awful for those who reject Him as Savior and Lord. I want to urge you to take your sin seriously, to take the state of your soul before God seriously. Understand, that you cannot battle the spiritual problem of sin in your heart with the tools of this world. There is no legalistic track that will take you to Heaven.

Jesus alone can cleanse your heart of sin. Jesus alone has made a way for you to be right with God. Trust in Him, turn to Him, cry out to Him…and you will find both forgiveness and peace.

---

[1] http://www.ussalabama.com/explore/uss-alabama-battleship/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16%22/45_caliber_Mark_6_gun

[3] http://www.navsource.org/archives/01/60a.htm

[4] The weapons of Grace idea have been adapted from a sermon by Matt Chandler from Colossians 3

Christ Has Made You Free

Series: Colossians

Speaker: Pastor Justin Wheeler

Scripture: Colossians 2:16-19

Manuscript PDF

Manuscript

Some habits are hard to break and sometimes it’s hard to let go.

In 1944, Lt. Hiroo Onoda was sent by the Japanese army to the remote Philippine island of Lubang. His mission was to conduct guerrilla warfare during World War II. Unfortunately, he was never officially told the war had ended; so for 29 years, Onoda continued to live in the jungle, in a state of war-like readiness even though World War II was over. He survived by eating coconuts and bananas and evading search parties that he believed were enemy scouts.

When he was deployed in December of 44 his division commander gave him these orders:

You are absolutely forbidden to die by your own hand. It may take three years, it may take five, but whatever happens, we'll come back for you. Until then, so long as you have one soldier, you are to continue to lead him. You may have to live on coconuts. If that's the case, live on coconuts! Under no circumstances are you [to] give up your life voluntarily.1

And he obeyed these orders for 29 years.

In the early 1970’s, a college dropout named Norio Suzuki decided to travel to the Philippines and He joked to his friends that he was going to search for the long lost Japanese Lt. Onoda and in 1974 Suzuki found him. He made contact with Lt. Onoda and tried to convince him that the war was over. But the old soldier explained that he would only surrender if his commanding officer ordered him to do so. Over the years he had heard rumors that the war was over but he simply would not believe the stories.

Suzuki traveled back to Japan and found Onoda's former commander, Major Taniguchi, who had become a bookseller. On March 9, 1974, Suzuki and Taniguchi met Onoda at a preappointed place and Major Taniguchi read the orders that stated all combat activity was to be ceased. Onoda was shocked and, at first, disbelieving. It took some time for the news to sink in.

After nearly 30 years of fighting in the jungle Hiroo Onada eased off the pack that he always carried with him and laid the gun on top of it. The time for fighting was passed, now was the time for peace.[1]

Some things are hard to let go. Some things get so embedded in our lives that even when they come to an end it is hard for us to accept that it is time to move on.

Transition…

Now imagine that you have an entire nation of people who had lived a certain way for as long as they could remember. Imagine that you have a nation whose identity is tied to their religious practices that go back 1000’s of years. Then try to tell these people that because of the death of one man all of that history has been redefined and brought to a practical end…how do you think they would respond?

The gospel of Jesus Christ has changed the world but it also fundamentally changed the way of life for the Jews and they had a very hard time letting go. Like Lt. Onada they simply could not believe that their battle was over, that their debt of sin was cancelled by the cross of Christ. They couldn’t

accept that through one man they were now free. And so rather than lay down their arms and accept that the war was over, some of them have decided to continue the fight. And the way they’re fighting is to insist that new Christians must obey the law of Moses in order to be saved.

Their weapon is legalism and Paul is fighting back! Here in our text this morning the Apostle Paul wants to help us as a church embrace the freedom we have in Christ, to embrace our freedom from the burden of the law. He wants us to embrace the freedom that comes from God Himself.

Col 2:16 Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. 17 These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. 18 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, 19 and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.

Sermon Focus…

There are two ways that Paul wants us to take action when it comes to legalism but neither one of them call on us to really do anything. Instead, he wants us to make sure that we don’t let someone else do something to us. And the first thing he says is, “Don’t let anyone pass judgement on you.”

I. Let no one pass judgment on you (Vv. 16-17)

Col 2:16 Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath.

Our passage this morning is linked to what we studied last week by the term therefore. Last week we learned that Jesus and His gospel are better than OT religious rituals because those rituals were powerless to save us from our sin, but where they failed Jesus succeeded. The OT rituals were incomplete symbols that pointed to the deep spiritual need of our hearts. Jesus came to complete those symbols and meet the deep need of our hearts. He came to fulfill what the OT rituals were pointing us to. And now, because of Christ’s victory, we are free from the guilt, penalty, and burden of the law.

Jesus gives us true circumcision of the heart, He gives us true spiritual life, He accomplished complete forgiveness for all our sins, and He has triumphed over every authority to make us free. And Paul starts the very next verse with the word, Therefore. Because all of this is true for the believer there is no reason for us to allow someone to pass judgment on us in regard to the fact that we don’t follow the law of Moses.

If you are a believer in Christ, then you need to understand that the law of God has been fulfilled not by us but for us. Jesus kept the law perfectly, He earned the perfect righteousness that God requires and by faith, we receive His righteousness.

Rom 3:20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified (declared righteous) in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law… 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.

That is why we sing the song, “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness.” The Apostle Paul wants us to understand how amazing God’s grace truly is and as a result, he wants us to be free from the judgment of others. He says, “Let no one rule over you. or oppress you, or become your judge with regard to these things.”

But what do I mean by these things?

We can break these down into two categories; food and drink, and the observance of special religious days. Both categories were instrumental in the life of the Jews and served to set them apart from their pagan neighbors. These things were part of their identity and identity markers aren’t easily set aside. To make matters more intense we need to remember that God commanded the observance of these dietary laws and special religious days as part of the Old Covenant.

So the questions we need to ask are, “What exactly are these false teachers trying to impose? And how has the gospel changed our views on these things?”

What are they trying to impose? The phrase food and drink is most likely referring to the dietary laws of the Old Testament (Lev 11) and certain restrictions on wine that were common in 1st century Judaism. I say most likely because the truth is we don’t know. Paul doesn’t tell us what specific food or drink is being prohibited here.

It could be the same type of thing that was taking place in Romans 14 where the issue is meat and wine that was commonly used in pagan rituals. Or it could be that a group of Jews are trying to force these Gentile believers to follow the dietary laws in Leviticus (Moses).

But either way, we need to know that God has spoken to this issue and has declared all foods to be clean.

Last week we talked about Peter’s vision in Acts 10. In this vision, God showed him a collection of animals that were declared unclean in Leviticus, but God told Peter to “rise, kill and eat.” Peter wasn’t comfortable with this but God kept giving him this vision until he realized that in some way Jesus death, burial, and resurrection had brought an end to these dietary restrictions. What once served to mark God’s people as distinct from the rest of the world was no longer the mark of God’s new covenant people. In Christ, we are free from the burden of the OT dietary laws.

The OT dietary laws were meant to distinguish God’s people from the other nations. They were meant to communicate that God’s people were those who followed God’s Word. It’s not that eating shellfish is necessarily sinful, but that God’s people were to follow His instruction, His Word.

But now, in this gospel age, the invitation to become the people of God is extended not just to one nation but to all and the distinguishing mark of the New Covenant people is that we follow the Word of Christ. And the Word of Christ is one of freedom and rest. We are free from the burden of the law and able to rest secure in the gospel of Jesus.

It’s not that Christianity wants nothing to do with Judaism, but rather it’s that Christianity is the fulfillment of Judaism. Those OT dietary laws were a shadow; Christ is the substance.

The second issue has to do with the observance of special religious days (festivals, new moons, and the Sabbath). The Jews observed quite a few festivals including Passover, the Feast of Firstfruits, the feast of Weeks and the Feast of Trumpets and the Day of Atonement (Lev 23). New moons were celebrated at the first of the month and involved making sacrifices as a sin offering (Numbers 28:11-14). The Sabbath day was a weekly day of rest that also included a holy convocation or gathering for worship (Lev 23:3). 

All of these elements were part of the Old Covenant Jewish religious life. The festivals were important in that they reminded the people of how God saved them, protected them and brought them into the Promised Land. The new moon sacrifices served as regular reminders of the people’s sin and need of forgiveness. The Sabbath taught that God wanted His people to rest from their works and rely completely on Him to meet their needs. All of these things were vitally important in the religious life and to the theological understanding of the Jews, but all of these things were mere shadows of what was to come.

17 These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

That’s what Paul says here. He says these things are “merely a shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.” Now what does this mean?

(Illus…Imagine that you are standing in the middle of the desert in the heat of the day and you have to shield your eyes from the intensity of the sun. Even with your hand up to shield your eyes you find it difficult to focus on anything. You can only get small momentary glimpses of your surroundings as you blink due to the intensity of the sun.

But finally you spot an image on the ground nearby. It is indistinct but it is clearly a shadow. You begin to move toward it and the closer you get the more distinct the outline becomes. You can’t dare look up at the at the solid object casting the shadow because the sun is simply too powerful, but as you move close and blink your eyes the object begins to take shape in your mind.

Then finally the object steps into the sun’s path and shields the intensity from your eyes. You look up and your eyes begin to adjust and what you see standing before you is a man.

This is what life has been like for the Jews. Their entire religious existence has been occupied by getting glimpses of the shadow but now Jesus Christ has come and He is the one who has been casting that shadow all along.

In other words, Jesus is the point and the fulfillment of all the Old Covenant law and our standing with God is not determined by our adherence to that law but by our faith in Christ. Don’t put your hope in the shadow to save you, put your hope in the man Himself. Let your heart and mind rest secure in the fact that Jesus alone saves you and reconciles you to God.

II. Let no one disqualify you (Vv. 18-19)

18 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, 19 and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.

First, it was don’t let anyone judge you but here the command is don’t let anyone disqualify you. Don’t let false teachers condemn you or rob you of your prize. Your salvation is secure because of Jesus so don’t allow these men to steal away your hope and freedom in Christ.

This time the problem is not related to Old Covenant laws but rather to certain spiritual experiences. These false teachers are insisting that in order to be fully integrated into the Kingdom of God you and I must practice asceticism or in some translations humility. I think the NIV gets this one right when it translates it as false humility and it may be best understood in its connection to the next phrase and the worship of angels.

It seems that the false teachers were employing these ascetic practices as a way to induce heavenly visions. It may even be the case that they were insisting that by fasting from certain food and drink that they could stimulate the experience of visions and because of this they were boasting (puffed up) of their unique spirituality.

But what does Paul say about all of this? He says the problem is that you have lost sight of what matters most…Jesus. He accuses them of “not holding fast to the head.” Spiritual experiences are not the goal, Christ is.  If your spiritual experience is more important to you than the gospel, more important than the salvation that Christ has accomplished for you, then your experience hasn’t elevated your spirituality but diminished it.

Christ is the head, supplying life and growth to the whole body. Growth in the Kingdom of God comes from keeping our focus on Jesus, from understanding his function as the fulfiller of the law on our behalf. Spiritual maturity comes when we embrace the cross of Christ as the standard of our freedom and we embrace Jesus and His Word as the fountain of all spiritual life.

The true test of whether or not one belongs to God’s people is neither the observance of dietary laws and Jewish festivals, nor the cultivation of super-spiritual experiences, but whether one belongs to Christ and is alive with His life. [2]

So why does all of this matter? The bottom line is that a group of people have come into the church and they are seeking to impose their convictions about food and drink, about certain religious days and about spiritual experiences upon these new believers. They are saying, “If you don’t follow these laws and do these things then you can’t truly consider yourself part of the covenant community of God’s people.”

And Paul is saying to the church, “Don’t let them come in here and bind your conscience with their convictions. You put your trust in Christ alone. Christ has set you free from the burden of the law and He calls you to follow His Word alone and to live for His glory alone.”

III. Live in the freedom Christ has purchased for you

I’ve been serving as the pastor of Cornerstone for more than 7 years now and I have never had to address someone trying to force circumcision on the church. I have never felt the need to actively defend the church against 1st-century Jewish legalism, but that does not mean that we are free from all types of legalism. Unfortunately, there are still those who seek to bind the conscience of Christians and you may not even realize it.

This type of legalistic judgment and disqualifying is still going on in the church. We have people in our lives who hold really strong convictions about things such as politics, education, entertainment, alcohol, etc. They hold these convictions so passionately that they become evangelists for their position and directly or indirectly begin to demand that others fall in line with their way of thinking.

You hear it in statements like this, “I don’t see how someone could hold that view, do that, say such things and be a Christian.” Now, when we do this we are making a judgment call on someone’s salvation based on what they do or don’t do. And in those moments we need to remember that our political views aren’t the measure of our salvation. Our views on education aren’t either. Our right-standing with God is determined by our faith in Christ. Yes, our faith will guide our thinking and our actions, but just because someone holds a different view than yourself doesn’t mean that you’re right and they’re wrong. Nor does it mean that they don’t love Jesus.

And let’s be careful that we don’t sit back and think that this is only a problem for them, this is a problem for us as well. We do this too. We hold our convictions so strongly that we often leave little room for others to hold a different position. It is right for us to study, it is right for us to think deeply and develop convictions on certain subjects that the Bible doesn’t clearly address. But when we take our convictions and impose them on others that’s when we’ve become part of the problem.

Conclusion…

Ray Ortlund posted an article this week about the one another commands that we don’t see in Scripture but that we do often see in the church.

The beautiful “one another” commands of the New Testament are famous. But it is also striking to notice the “one anothers” that do not appear there.

For example, sanctify one another, humble one another, scrutinize one another, pressure one another, embarrass one another, corner one another, interrupt one another, defeat one another, sacrifice one another, shame one another, marginalize one another, exclude one another, judge one another, run one another’s lives, confess one another’s sins . . .

The kind of God we really believe in is revealed in how we treat one another. The lovely gospel of Jesus positions us to treat one another like royalty, and every non-gospel positions us to treat one another like dirt. 

Our relationships with one another reveal to us what we really believe as opposed to what we think we believe, our convictions as opposed to our opinions. It is possible for the gospel to remain at the shallow level of opinion, even sincere opinion, without penetrating to the deeper level of conviction. But when the gospel grips us down in our convictions, we embrace its implications wholeheartedly. Therefore, when we mistreat one another, our problem is not a lack of surface niceness but a lack of gospel depth. What we need is not only better manners but, far more, true faith.

If this gets a hold of our church, then the watching world might start feeling that Jesus himself has come to town:

Where the Scriptures are clear let us all hold fast to the Word of Christ but when it comes to our personal convictions let’s not be those who pass judgment on others who don’t think the same way we do. Let’s not be those who disqualify others who don’t do the same things we do. Let’s allow Christ to be the Lord of their Conscience and learn to love one another as Jesus has loved us.

Let’s be those who champion the glorious truth that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone and for God’s glory alone. Let’s also be those who strive to let that glorious gospel bear its fruit in the way we love another.

---

[1]The War is Over . . . Please Come Out By Jennifer Rosenberg,

[2] N. T. Wright Colossians and Philemon (TDNT) pgs. 128-29.

Christ's Victory is our Salvation

Series: Colossians

Speaker: Pastor Justin Wheeler

Scripture: Colossians 2:11-15

Manuscript PDF

Manuscript

There are times when I am preparing a sermon and I know that the subject matter is going to make some of you uncomfortable. There are times when I think, “Oh this should be helpful.” Or “This will be difficult” or even “this is going to be offensive.” It’s not my intention to be offensive but I know that God’s Word has that effect on our hearts, so in those moments I want to check my own heart, try to say things carefully and be faithful to the text. But in the end, I often have a good idea of how the sermon is going to impact the congregation.

But there are rarely those times when I know the sermon is going to make half of you squirmy and uncomfortable; today is one of those days because our subject is circumcision.

Now we know that this issue comes up throughout Scripture and our understanding of why it’s a thing could range from, “I have no clue” to “Got it! Let’s move on.” Many of us understand that it’s more of an Old Testament/Old Covenant command and we are New Covenant people so why even bring it up? The reason we need to bring it up is because it’s right here in our text and in some way it is becoming a hindrance to the Colossians church.

In Colossians, and other books of the NT, the issue of circumcision hasn’t gone away, in fact it is a main point of emphasis in several books of the NT. Jesus talks about it quite a bit in the gospels of Luke and John. Circumcision comes front and center in the book of Acts. Paul addresses it in Romans, 1 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and it even comes up in the book of Titus.

Circumcision was a very significant issue/problem for the early church and that’s why we see it in our text this morning. But you’ll notice that the way Paul talks about it is very different from the way it was viewed in the OT. So let’s read the text and try to understand why this issue has come up again and what it means now that Christ has come.

Transition…

Col 2:11 In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 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. 13 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, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.

Sermon Focus…

Let’s remember that in this section Paul is addressing false teaching that is aimed to cause the church to put their confidence in something other than Christ. Some Bible scholars believe that the false teachers are exclusively Jewish and you can see why in this section. But Paul’s wants the church to understand that while Jewish tradition is valuable and important, it all points to Jesus. In verse 17 he says that the traditions and laws are but a shadow while Christ is the substance.

So Paul’s point in these verses is to show how Jesus is better and in verses 11-15 he wants to teach us 4 ways that Jesus and His gospel are better.

I. Jesus is better because He solves the problem in our heart (V. 11)

One of the most significant debates that the early church had to work through was the issue of how much Jewish law and tradition would continue into the life of the church. Should Christians be circumcised as well as baptized? Should Christians observe the Passover and the Lord’s Supper? Should Christians go to temple on the Sabbath and gather with the church on Sunday (the Lord’s Day)? These were questions that needed to be answered, but at first they weren’t pressing.

The early church was made up of Jews who had all been circumcised, who observed Passover and who went to temple on Sabbath (Saturday). But when the gospel began to spread to the Gentiles, these issues came front and center. A little history on this issue…

In Acts 10 God gave Peter a vision and this vision would motivate him to go to the house of a Gentile named Cornelius, an Italian soldier who loved God. When Peter came to Cornelius’ house he shared the gospel with everyone present. And while Peter was speaking, the Holy Spirit fell on everyone in the house and they began to speak in tongues even though they were uncircumcised.

Now this is incredibly significant and here’s why. The Old Testament demonstrated that in order for God’s presence to dwell in the midst of His people they must be ritually pure and to be ritually pure meant circumcision, it meant that sacrifices had to be offered, it meant strict dietary laws, and they needed to have a consecrated priesthood serving as a mediator. There were even times when all of this was in place and God would still not allow the people to come into His presence. All of this was to demonstrate that the sinfulness of man is a barrier to fellowship with our holy God.

But in Acts 10 we see this whole paradigm turned upside down. God’s presence has fallen on a group of people who were uncircumcised, ritually unclean, Gentiles. They had made no sacrifices to atone for their sin, they had no priesthood mediating for them and yet they believe the gospel and have been filled with the Holy Spirit. God is pleased to dwell, not just near, but within these people despite their lack of adherence to the law of Moses. This was amazing and confusing at the same time.

Shortly after this, Paul and Barnabas begin their ministry together and they too preached the gospel to the Gentiles, many of whom believed. Gentiles were getting saved and were being filled with the Holy Spirit but many of the Jews weren’t comfortable with what was taking place. The whole situation came to a head in Acts 15.

1 But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” 2 And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question.

4 When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they declared all that God had done with them. 5 But some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up and said, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses.”

So here we see a group of Jewish believers who were convinced that in order for Gentile Christians to be justified in the eyes of God, they must be circumcised and they must keep the law of Moses. This sparked a big debate and in the end a decision was reached. Both Peter and James spoke up and here is what they had to say.

Acts 15:7 …Peter stood up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. 8 And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, 9 and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith. 10 Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? 11 But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.”

Then James, the brother of Jesus, stood up and said…

28 For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements: 29 that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.”

Now why am I bringing up all of this history and this old debate? Because I believe this debate is what Paul is dealing with in the book of Colossians. The issue of circumcision simply will not go away and this debate has found its way into this young church. A group of people, most likely a group known as Judaizers, had begun to teach that in order for these Gentiles to be truly saved they must undergo circumcision according to the law of Moses.

These same men had begun to teach that Christ wasn’t enough. That faith wasn’t sufficient and if these people truly wanted to be the people of God they must become Jews, be circumcised and then obey the law of Moses.

But Paul says here in Colossian 2:11 that won’t be necessary because, as believers in Christ, they have already been circumcised.

Col 2:11 In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ,

Paul is making a distinction between circumcision performed by man in the flesh and circumcision performed by Christ in the heart. And this is what the practice of circumcision has been pointing to all along.

In Genesis 17 we see God command Abraham to institute circumcision as a sign of God’s covenant relationship with him. There wasn’t much explanation as to why this was taking place, just that God wanted it to be a sign of his covenant with Abraham.

Then later in Exodus we see it come up again. Moses’ son has to be circumcised so that Moses didn’t die under the wrath of God and then when the law is given at Sinai it includes circumcision. And in the law we learn that circumcision is the external and physical sign of the covenant relationship between God and His people. It was an outward mark of the relationship that existed and it symbolized that in order for man to come into relationship with God, something needed to be removed from us, our sin needed to be removed from us.

As a symbol, circumcision pointed to a deeper truth that went beyond the physical act. Circumcision was designed as a metaphor to show us the deep need of our soul. There is sin in us and it rests in our hearts and this sin in our hearts needs to be cut away if we are to have peace and fellowship with God.

This is what Moses taught in Deuteronomy 10:16 when he says, “Circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and no longer be stubborn.” He is saying, “As the foreskin is cut away from your flesh, your stubborn rebellion needs to be cut away from your heart.”

But how can we cut the rebellion out of our own hearts? We can’t, but God can.

In Deuteronomy 30:6 Moses passed on this promise, “The Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.” In order for us to live as the people of God we need God to remove the sin from our hearts.

And Paul is saying that this has already happened in those who believe. He is saying that what marks us as the people of God is not the circumcision of our flesh but the circumcision of our hearts, which is evidenced by our conversion. IOW, when you were born again this took place. When the gospel was preached and the Holy Spirit opened the eyes of your heart showing you that you were a sinner in need of Christ, that is when this circumcision in your heart took place.

God called you from death to life and the Spirit removed your heart of stone and gave to you a heart of flesh and you received Christ Jesus as Lord. You believed the gospel and repented of your sin and you believe today; all of this is evidence that your Christian circumcision is complete.

We needed a circumcision of the heart and only Jesus provides that for us. Jesus is Better in that He Cures the Problem in our Hearts.  But there is another way that Jesus is better…

II. Jesus is Better Because He Has Given Us New Life (V. 12)

12 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. 13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him…

Circumcision as a symbol pointed to our need for God to remove the sin from our heart. Baptism as a symbol points to the reality that by faith in Christ we have been circumcised in our hearts and we have been raised from death to live a new life. And it seems quite clear that Paul understands Christian baptism to have taken the place of circumcision as the outward sign of our covenant relationship with God.

Circumcision, as a religious rite and symbol, pointed beyond itself to a deeper spiritual reality that God would address in the future. Baptism does the same thing but in a different way. It points beyond itself to the spiritual realities that God has already accomplished in us when we believed. Circumcision pointed forward to Jesus and baptism points back to Jesus.

And for all those who trust in Christ for salvation and who are baptized in obedience to Him, Paul wants us to understand that everything that Christ accomplished for us has been applied to us. Paul loves to use the language of “in Christ”, “with Christ”, “through Christ” and when he does this he is showing that the blessing of salvation, the security of eternal life, the power of Christ’s redeeming blood have already been applied to us.

And this is what baptism symbolizes? Here in verses 12-13 Paul teaches us to understand that Baptism symbolizes our involvement, our mysterious but very real involvement, in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. Christ died and by faith we died with Him. Christ was buried and by faith we were buried also. Christ was raised from the dead by the power of God and by faith we too have been raised from the dead. Christ is alive and by faith we too are alive in a way that we weren’t alive before we believed the gospel.

As believers in Christ, we have spiritual life in us and that life didn’t become ours when we were circumcised. It didn’t become ours when we got our act together and began keeping the law. It became ours when we heard the gospel and believed.

Gal 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

2 Cor 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself.

Jesus is better because he removes sin from our hearts. Jesus is better because in Him we have new life, and Jesus is better because in Him we have forgiveness of sins.

III. Jesus is Better because in Him we have the Forgiveness of Sins (V. 13c-14)

V. 13c…having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

Listen to this phrase again, “In Christ, God has forgiven us all our trespasses.” Christian your forgiveness is complete and definitive. All of our sins are forgiven.

“Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe; sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow.”

Forgiveness makes our hearts sing and in Christ, we have been forgiven all of our sins. Paul understands that this truth, more than others, brings joy and freedom to our hearts; so he doesn’t just teach us about forgiveness with cold logic. He paints pictures for our minds.

First, he says we should understand our forgiveness in this sense that there was once a record of debt that stood against us. The judge held it in his hands and he read off all the charges that we were required to pay. In the end, the sum total of our debt couldn’t be paid. We couldn’t buy ourselves out of it and the law demanded that we give our lives to pay the price, “for the wages of sin is death.”

But Christ came and he took the ledger in His own hands. He paid our debt and covered our sin, past present and future. There is no longer a record of wrongs that can be held against us in court. Our debt has been canceled, obliterated, erased completely.

The second image brings joy as well but with a more somber tone. Paul wants us to see that this debt was paid in full but it still came at a cost. Our debt was paid by Christ himself. When Christ was crucified he wasn’t paying for his own crimes, he was paying for ours. And He paid our debt to the very last drop and then he died to show that the sentence had been carried out.

Jesus was nailed to the cross as payment for our sin but He didn’t remain on that cross. His body was taken down and placed in a tomb, but even that was not the end. He was raised. He was raised from the dead, showing that God the Father accepted His offering as paid in full.

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!

My sin, not in part but the whole,

Was nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

Jesus is better because He fully took upon Himself the due penalty for the sins of all those who believe.

IV. Jesus is better because His victory results in our salvation (V. 15)

15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.

Paul has one last image he wants to paint for us in this section and this image is that of Jesus as a triumphant King who rules over every authority. Jesus is the valiant warrior who stepped onto the battlefield to defeat his enemies and ours. We didn’t lift a finger in this fight, He did it all and it was hardly a contest.

He triumphed over ever ruler and he defeated every authority in creation. He conquered every human king and he disarmed every spiritual being with one devastating blow. He put them to open shame; this phrase should actually read that He stripped them bare, removing every hint of power they had and He triumphed over them singlehandedly.

The false teachers who want to lead us away from Christ with their plausible words, they stand no chance. The Judaizers who claim to know the secrets of how we can truly get our names written in God’s book of life, they are powerless against this Champion. The modern-day false prophets who teach that God’s favor comes to those who name it, claim it and pay money to get it, they will be stripped of their high-priced and high-quality garments when they stand before Jesus.

Jesus Christ is better than all of them and His victory over sin, death, and Satan has resulted in our salvation.

Conclusion…

So what does all of this mean? It means that there is nothing that you can add to the work of Christ that will make you more saved or more secure as a child of God. The mark of circumcision already rests upon you because of your faith in Christ. You have been born again by the power of the Holy Spirit to believe in Jesus and that is enough. All of your sins are forgiven, your debt is canceled, the record was nailed to the cross and you bear it no more. In Christ’s victory, you have received salvation and eternal life. All that He accomplished, all that He promised, all that He offers is yours, not by your works but by faith in Him.

But why do so many of us try to attach works to our faith? Why are all the religions in this world, save Biblical Christianity, so bent on creating a system of works that they promise will result in your salvation? Because faith is hard and we would rather take matters into our own hands.

It’s easier to go to mass and say a few hail Mary’s than it is to feel sorrow over your sin and truly live a life of repentance and faith. It’s easier to make a trip to Mecca and mark off one of the 5 pillars on your list than it is to trust that Christ’s death, burial and resurrection are all that you need. It’s easier for us to give $100 to plant a “seed of faith” in the hopes of reaping a 10-fold reward than it is to battle the sin of greed and trust that the greatest gift we can receive is salvation by faith in Christ alone.

Grace is hard because it demands we trust our souls into the hands of someone other than ourselves and at the same time grace is the most comforting thing because if we’ve ever tried to be religious we know how much of a failure we are at it.

Brothers and sisters Jesus is better so put all of your hope in Him. Rest in His victory knowing that by His triumph we too are more than conquerors. 

Remain in Christ

Series: Colossians

Speaker: Pastor Justin Wheeler

Scripture: Colossians 2:6-10

Manuscript PDF

Manuscript

In January of 1999 my whole world was new. It was a new year and the new Spring semester had just gotten underway. I changed my major a few months before, which meant that I was in a new building with new classmates, new professors, and new subject matter. But this fresh start was about more than just the surroundings and the curriculum.

In the fall of 1998, over the Christmas break a friend shared the gospel with me and I was born again. I hadn’t been to church in years and my life was filled with sin and addiction but Christ had made me new. I was still learning what it meant to repent and trust in Christ. I was just beginning to learn the Bible and the doctrines of the faith. I was young and weak but I was alive for the first time.

I walked into class that first day back and I saw an old friend I hadn’t seen in years. We had grown up together, played sports together and gone to church together when we were little but hadn’t seen one another for years. I sat beside him and we began to catch up and I couldn’t wait to share with him that I had recently become a believer. To my surprise he shared a similar story.

For the next few weeks we spent quite a lot of time together and much of that time was spent talking about the Bible. He had a lot to share and I was eager to learn. He was convincing, he was articulate, he was polished in his thinking and looking back on it I can tell that he had been trained by the leaders of his church, but I had not.

My doctrine at the time consisted of the fact that I was a sinner and Jesus was my Savior. I didn’t understand the details of how that happened and while my knowledge of the Bible was growing I was still very much a baby in the faith. I couldn’t pick out truth from error and my interaction with this friend exploited this weakness in me.

He was teaching me that in order to truly be saved I needed to be baptized by the right person, in the right place and only then could I truly be sure I was a Christian. He took me to a few passages of Scripture, which all seemed to prove his point. His argument seemed plausible and in the end I believed him. I followed his line of thinking. I embraced what he was teaching me and because he had given me the key to unlock the confusion that I had on the issue…I began to share it with others.

I shared it with my friend but he didn’t buy it. I shared it with my girlfriend and she too was skeptical. Then I shared it with my dad and he promptly sat me down, opened his Bible and pointed out step by step why my friend was wrong.

I didn’t realize it at the time but this young man had caused me to shift from putting all of my hope in Christ to putting my hope in my own works. He had convinced me that my salvation was a Jesus + works equation and when my father pointed out my error, I was pretty devastated. My friend meant well and there is no doubt that he believed his doctrine was right, but in the end he was leading me away from Christ alone as the hope for my salvation.

Transition…

I hope it’s not the case but I know that some of you have found yourselves in a similar situation. You know what it’s like to have someone lead you to embrace false teaching. The same thing was happening to the Colossian church and that is the major reason why Paul wrote this letter. Let’s look at what he says to the church…

6 Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, 7 rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

8 See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. 9 For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, 10 and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.

Sermon Focus…

Here in these verses Paul gives us instruction on how we are to remain faithful to Christ when facing false teaching.

I. Remember the Gospel (V. 6)

6 Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him,

Verses 6 & 7 are known as the heart of Paul’s argument in this entire letter. The church is being tempted to abandon their confidence in Christ alone and Paul is urging them to remain centered upon Jesus. He is saying, “Remember when and why you received Jesus, hold on to that and let it guide your life from this point forward.”

I love the pattern we see in these verses because they help us make sure that we understand the role of faith and obedience in the Christian life. Faith comes first and our obedience is the result.

Notice what Paul says here, “As you received Christ Jesus the Lord…” In order to become a Christian and rest in the forgiveness of sins and the hope of everlasting life all that is required is for us to come to Christ by faith, to receive his precious gift. There is no work we must do in order to be saved.

“It is by grace that you have been saved, through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, and not a result of works…Eph 2:8-9”

These folks became Christians when they received Christ Jesus as Lord. They heard about Him; who He was and what He had done. They heard about their sin and God’s coming judgment. They heard about Jesus who died on the cross and then rose from the dead to save them. And these men and women believed. They put all their hope in Jesus to save them and bring them to God and Paul wants them to think back and remember when this happened.

Essentially, Paul is saying that the starting point for our Christians life and to overcoming false doctrine is the same; to remember the gospel. Remember that you are a sinner and Christ is a great savior. Remember that there is nothing that you can add to Christ’s work. There is nothing that you and I can do to make up for our sin. There is nothing we can do to save ourselves except to put our hope in the One who died to do it all for us.

Paul is saying remember this and let it be the fuel for tomorrow. Our hope for tomorrow does not shift away from the gospel to something else. There is no hope of being saved from God’s judgment outside of Christ. We didn’t add anything to Christ’s works on the front end, so don’t allow someone to cause you to try to add anything to Christ on the back end.

Our faith begins with the gospel, it is carried along by the gospel and its future is supplied by the gospel. There is no Christianity 2.0. One biblical illustration of a church turning away and not holding onto the gospel is the church at Galatia who started out on the right foot of faith in Christ and then somewhere along the line they were taught that Christ was not enough. And Paul warned them that to deviate from a hope in Christ alone was to “fall from grace.”

Our battle against false doctrine begins by remembering the gospel and we must do this daily. We do this by preaching the gospel to ourselves. We have to understand and remember that our relationship to God is not based on what we do it is based on what He has done. My right standing with God is the result of His grace not my works and if we can remember this we are one step closer to being equipped to battle the false teaching that would have us add our works to God’s grace as the means of our salvation.

II. Walk in the Gospel (V. 6)

This central confession of Christ Jesus as Lord is the foundation that helps to ward off the false teaching and guide our conduct in life. Obedience to Christ doesn’t save us but it is a fruit that is born out of our salvation. IOW, we don’t walk in Him in order to receive Him as Lord, but because we have received Him as Lord we walk in Him.

This term walk it refers to the way we live. It refers to our way of life and Paul is saying “let your conduct be fueled by and animated by Jesus and not some other religious belief or philosophy.” As Christians, we are to let Christ and no other, established our values, our thinking, and our conduct.

So let me ask you a couple of questions that I think we should ask ourselves regularly as followers of Christ: What in your life is distinctly Christian? Is your home life distinctly Christian? Is there anything about the way you spend your time, money, etc. that uniquely shows that you love Jesus and are committed to his Word? Is your way of life, are your daily decisions being fueled by your love for Christ and His teaching or are these things being shaped by the culture and what feels good in the moment?
It’s not enough for us to remember what we believed, we are also to let our faith guide our lives. It’s incredibly easy for us to allow our lives and our thinking to be shaped by tradition, by the way we were raised, or by the flow of culture. But as Christians, we have to fight against this impulse and let the gospel and teaching of Christ guide us.

As we preach the gospel to ourselves and let it guide our behavior the result is that we will be…

7 rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

Here Paul gives us four images that help to elaborate on how Jesus and His teaching are to affect our lives. The first thing he says is that we are to rooted in Christ. Like a tree we are to be planted in the gospel and let our roots run deep. Second, he says we are to be built up in him and this is a construction metaphor. Christ is the foundation and our lives are to be built upon Him and nothing else.

Third, Paul wants us to be established in the faith, solidly grounded, and not shifting from our faith in Jesus. And finally, he says that if we remain rooted in Christ, built up in Him and established in the faith, we will overflow with thanksgiving. In other words, this is not a loose connection. Paul is painting a picture of discipleship that is firmly fixed on Christ alone and producing the fruit of thanksgiving to Christ.

What we are being called to here is to let Christ and the gospel determine both our identity and our conduct.

Let me try to illustrate what I mean by this. How many of you had to deal with cliques when you were in school? When we were little we are all friends and we all played together but when I started junior high I found myself for the first time trying to understand which group I fit into. You had the really smart kids in school, the really athletic kids in school, the cheerleaders, the band kids and then another group of troubled kids. And each group had these unwritten rules that you had to obey if you were to be part of their group. If you identified with the group, then you were expected to act a certain way. Your identity fueled your actions.

Athletes dated cheerleaders and cheerleaders dated athletes. Smart kids dated band kids and vice versa. Every now and then a cheerleader would go out with one of the rebels but there was a lot of pressure for her to come to her senses. The whole system was propped up by shows like Saved by the Bell and movies like Can’t Buy Me Love.

But we all got caught up in the system and we followed social expectations. Our identity within these groups determined our actions. But then as we grew up and matured a little bit we realized how silly some of this was and we began to establish our own identity based on what we believed, what we liked, what we wanted and our lives began to change, because our life was now being shaped by our new identity.

As Christians we have a new identity that is rooted in Christ and the Scriptures. And we need to grow in both. We need to grow in our trust in Jesus and our knowledge of His Word. Then as we grow we are better equipped to identify thoughts and behaviors that don’t match up with the Scriptures or the gospel.

And this leads us to the third point which is…

III. Be Captivated by Christ Alone (V. 8-10)

8 See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. 9 For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, 10 and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.

So how are we supposed to identify philosophies and traditions that would lead us away from Jesus? First, Paul says to examine their origin to see whether they are from Christ and the Word or if they come from human tradition. Is it from God or man?

This was a major part of Jesus’ interaction with the Pharisees. They would come to Him with a question designed to trap Him but He would end up flipping it and showing them how they had actually abandoned the teaching of the Bible and put their trust in their own man made traditions. In one exchange the Pharisees ask Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples follow the traditions of the Elders and wash their hands before they eat?” Jesus replied, “Why do you abandon the commandments of God in order to follow your man-made traditions?”

Another one of these exchanges took place in Matthew 19:1-8, where the Pharisees posed a question about whether or not it was lawful, consistent with the law of Moses, for a man to divorce his wife for any cause.

The backstory on this verse is that there was a provision in the law of Moses that allowed for a man to give his wife a certificate of divorce in certain cases of infidelity or idolatry. But over the years, rabbis had added their own opinion to this law. They had given husbands the ability to divorce their wives for something as trivial as failing to properly cook dinner.

And Jesus knows all of this. He knows that these men have added their own human interpretation to God’s Word and have authorized the practice of things that were sinful in the eyes of God, and that these authorized practices had become normative in that day. So what does Jesus do? He goes back to the beginning and confronts them, not with the law of Moses, but with the decree of God in Genesis 2.

Jesus answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

So Jesus is not going to play their game nor is He going to allow them to twist God’s Word. He says, “In the beginning God established and decreed that the only context for human sexuality is that which takes place between a male husband and a female wife who have been joined together in the eyes of God and having been joined together it is God’s purpose that they remain that way.”

What is Jesus doing in this reply? Well, He is confronting the Pharisees for corrupting the Word of God and promoting false teaching. He doesn’t accept their teaching nor their tradition, but rather He points them back to the very beginning and to God’s Word. Jesus understands that they have an opinion on this matter, but He shows them how their opinion doesn’t match up with God’s decree.

So how does this happen today? Let’s stick with the issue of human sexuality and marriage. If you do a search online for “what does the Bible say about sex before marriage?” you will find articles, blog posts, videos and books that will tell you whatever you want to hear. You can find articles that support sex before marriage and articles that oppose it and depending on what you want to believe; you can adopt the view that suits you.

But the problem is that Jesus is the one who determines whether something is sinful or not. So that blog post you read may have given you the green light on something but that guy ain’t Jesus. And when Jesus quotes Gen 2:24 He is making it clear that nothing has changed in God’s design for marriage and sexuality. If you engage in sex before marriage you are sinning against God, it doesn’t matter what blog post you read. When we do this we are allowing human tradition and worldly philosophy to masquerade as spiritual teaching and we are being taken captive by it rather than by Christ and His Word.

So why does this happen? Sometimes it’s a matter of confusion. Sometimes it’s a matter of immaturity. Sometimes it’s a matter of rebellion, but in each case we are allowing human tradition to take us captive and Paul says, “Don’t allow that to happen.” He even goes a little further here and says that when we do adopt human tradition and philosophy over the teaching of Christ we are begin led astray by something that is “empty and deceitful.”

What this means is that this teaching doesn’t add to your knowledge of God it actually takes away…it is empty. But even worse is the fact that it doesn’t lead you into truth and freedom, rather it deceives you. It’s a fraud and there is no value in it no matter how religious and plausible it may sound.

What does Paul mean when he says this false teaching is according to the “elemental spirits of the world?” Some take this to refer to the teaching as being elementary and infantile. In that case the “elemental spirits” would be referring to elemental truths and not the deep things of God. But there is another view that interprets this to refer to teaching that is promoted by spiritual forces of darkness in the heavenly realms.

This second interpretation is how the ESV translates the phrase. And this fits with the overall context of this letter. In Col 1:16 Paul shows us that Jesus created and rules over all

 things including, “thrones, dominions, rulers and authorities.” In Col 2:15 he refers to these rulers and authorities once again. In Col 2:18 Paul references the worship of Angels and it appears that each of these references opens the door for us to understand that one of the elements of the false teaching in Colossians had to do with focus on spiritual beings.

Whatever the precise meaning of this phrase, the point that Paul wants to make is that this teaching is “not according to Christ.” Whatever is being said is not consistent with nor is it dependent upon the teaching of Jesus. Therefore, it is not true. It might sound reasonable and it may make you feel better about your sin but it cannot save your soul.

But the Word of Christ can be trusted because…

9 For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, 10 and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.

What does this mean? It means that it makes no sense for us to seek out the wisdom of men and human tradition when we have the eternal Son of God to lean on for understanding. It makes no sense for us to pay heed to instruction that comes from spiritual beings when God in the flesh has given us His Word once and for all.

Hebrews 1:1 Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.

In these last days God has spoken to us in His Son and there is no way that any created being can “add to” Christ. His Word is definitive.

Conclusion…

The point that Paul is making is that there is no way to improve upon the gospel. There is no divine mystery that needs to be revealed. Jesus Christ is God in the flesh and He has not only died for our salvation, but has also opened the door for us to enter into fellowship with Him and His father. The greatest gift that God could ever give us is Himself and that is what He has given to all those who trust in Him.

And we have been filled in Him! There is nothing else that we need to save us and satisfy our souls for eternity except what we already have in Jesus.

The first steps in our battle against false teaching is to:

1.     Remember the Gospel

2.     Walk in the Gospel

3.     Be Captivated By Christ Alone.

The Fruits of Gospel Ministry

Speaker: Pastor Justin Wheeler

Series: Colossians 

Scripture: Colossians 2:1-5

Manuscript PDF

Manuscript

How hard are we willing to work in order to help one another grow in the faith? How much time and energy are you willing to give to see your brothers and sisters bear fruit for Christ? How far are we willing to go to safeguard the gospel in our generation? How far will you go to ensure that you and your family aren’t led away by false teaching? How hard will we work to ensure that sound doctrine is established and upheld in the church? These aren’t questions that we often ask ourselves, but we should.

The church exists to glorify God by making disciples of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. That’s why we are here, to see people come to faith and to teach them to be faithful and mature Christians. The goal of the Christian life is not a lifetime of church attendance; it is to be faithful to Jesus, to grow to be more like Him and to engage in the mission He called us to.

In a parable, Jesus taught that the church is a like a field where good seed was sown. That seed has sprouted, taken root, and is now growing up and one day it will be mature, ready for harvest. But in the night an enemy came and sowed weeds in among the wheat.

The church and her message is always under attack by what appear to be well-meaning and sensible people. Their stated goal is to help a new generation of seekers find peace with God. They don’t really want to redefine the faith so much as they want to restate it in terms their generation can understand. They adopt new language, they might ask new questions, they want to help us see things in new ways and this approach isn’t always a bad thing.

Every generation needs to wrestle with the deep questions of faith. We need to study hard, pray faithfully and think deeply about the nature of the gospel and its implications for our lives today. But at the same time we need to put just as much energy into guarding our hearts against false teaching.

We need to adopt two postures when it comes to gospel ministry: we want to help nurture genuine faith in others while also guarding against false doctrine in those same people. We are like gardeners in one sense and guardians in another. We sow the seed of the gospel, we water the seed, seek to nourish it with good food and we trust God for growth and fruit. But we must also weed the garden, pull rocks out of the soil, fence out the animals that want to devour those fresh new shoots and we protect the garden from outside threats.

Transition…

This dual posture of gardener and guardian is what Paul is after in Colossians 2. The bulk of this chapter is about Paul addressing the false teaching that is affecting the church. He wants to make sure these believers aren’t led in the wrong direction but he also wants to see the church grow in the right ways. He is striking a balance between nurturing them and protecting them.

Col 2:1 For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face, 2 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, 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 4 I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments. 5 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.

Sermon Focus…

Here in this passage we see Five Specific Fruits of Gospel Ministry.

I. Gospel Ministers set an example for others to follow (V. 1)

Col 2:1 For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you…

The word Paul uses here is one of his favorite metaphors for Christian ministry and he takes it from the Roman athletic arena. It is often translated as striving or contending but it is the Greek word ἀγών and from it we get our terms agony or agonize. The Greeks would use this term to refer to athletes who were entering into a contest and it draws our attention to the hard work, the intense struggle that is necessary for an athlete to be able to compete in the games.

An athlete strives, agonizes and competes with all of his might and he does this in front of a watching crowd. The Greeks and Romans loved their athletes. They showered them with praise, erected statues to them; much like today those athletes and their accomplishments spurred on a whole generation of young people with dreams of athletic glory. When Roman athletes would enter the arena they were willing to put it all on the line to win and the watching crowd was focused on every move they made.

And notice here that Paul wants his readers, he wants us, to be aware of his struggle. He wants to draw the church’s attention to his agony. He wants them to see his labor and to understand what he is going through. But why? For two reasons: he wants them to see the seriousness of his instruction and he wants them to follow his example.

This is a church wrestling with what to believe about how the gospel compares with other religious teaching. Some hybrid ideas from Roman paganism and Jewish mysticism have crept in to this church and it has begun to challenge the teaching of Christ. So, this church is struggling to know what to believe. They are not sure if the Christian message is true, they are not sure if Christ is enough and here is Paul saying, “Let my confidence in Christ encourage you.”

Paul is saying, “I’ve stepped into the arena, not as an athlete struggling for a prize, but as a minister struggling to make the gospel known and I am willing to lay my life on the line for this gospel and for you” As Paul writes this letter he is sitting in a Roman prison for preaching the gospel and he wants this knowledge to help strengthen their faith in Christ.

How does his suffering strengthen their faith in Christ? Let’s ask a few questions…

Why would a man put his life on the line day in and day out for something unless he was convinced it was true? Why would Paul, a genius of a man, allow himself to suffer imprisonment on account of his obedience to Jesus unless he was convinced that obedience to Jesus was worth dying for? Why, would he write a letter from prison to the people of Colossae and Laodicea encouraging them to trust in the sufficiency of Christ unless he himself trusted his own life to the sufficiency of Christ?

Paul wanted the people of Colossae to know about his suffering because he wants his example to strengthen their trust in Jesus and the gospel. Brothers and sisters, one of the fruits of the gospel in our lives, one of the fruits of our gospel ministry, is the impact that our example of faithfulness will have on other believers.

The primary example that we are to follow is the example of Jesus:

John 13:15 For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.

I Peter 2:21 For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps.

Christ is the prime example for us to follow. But also, within the church God has also left us faithful examples in the men and women who have gone before us. This is the nature of discipleship, that those who follow Christ leave an example for the next generation to follow.

Phil 3:17 Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us.

There is great benefit to our struggle in the faith. Our labor for the sake of the gospel bears a unique kind of fruit in the lives of others. Our labor is a testimony of the truth of the gospel fleshed out in our lives. Paul wants the church to see his struggle and to be encouraged by it to trust in Christ all the more.

But how does he want them to be encouraged?

II. Gospel Ministry Encourages the Hearts of Believers (v. 2)

2 that their hearts may be encouraged…

Paul wants the knowledge of his struggling to have an effect upon our hearts or more accurately upon the core of our being. We have to be careful not to assume that when the bible mentions the heart that it is simply referring to our emotions. When the Bible uses the term Heart it means to refer to our emotions but not exclusively and certainly not on a superficial level.

The heart refers to the core of our being, the seat of our emotions, and at our core there is emotion as well as conviction. Our core/heart is the foundation of what we believe to be true, what we believe to be right; and this is what Paul wants to encourage in us.

Paul is not saying, “I really want you guys to feel good about everything.” But rather he is saying, “I want you to be strengthened and encouraged in your faith in God, your trust in Jesus alone, your confidence in the Apostles teaching.”

He wants us to have resolve in our hearts about what is right, and good and true. This is what Paul is aiming to encourage. He wants the core of our faith in Christ to be established and fortified.

But how is this going to work?  

III. Gospel Ministry Promotes Unity (v. 2)

being knit together in love…

Our faith in Christ will be encouraged to grow by the example of Paul’s struggle and by the unity that we have with other believers. Solo Christianity is not just a lonely walk but it is also not the way God intended us to live and grow. The gospel draws us into community with other believers where we can learn, grow, and be discipled by other more mature believers.

Notice that Paul uses the phrase being knit together and what he means is that the church is to be so united that we are like one big quilt or scarf. Our lives, our faith, our hearts are to be so intertwined with one another that you can’t pull us apart.

(Illus…Have you ever seen a Giant Sequoia? Giant Sequoia trees are the largest in the world and are among the most massive living things on our planet. The Giant Sequoia named The General Sherman Tree reigns supreme as the largest of the living things on earth. This tree is so large that it’s growth in a single year yields enough new wood to equal that of all the wood found in a 50 foot tree.

But these massive trees don’t grow on their own, they are interdepent. Giant Sequoias can survive in less than 3 feet (1 meter) of soil and they do this by spreading their roots out instead of down. They send their roots away from the tree, up to 300 feet (100 meters). That such mammoth trees have such shallow root depth is astonishing.

How do such trees remain upright without a deep anchoring system? Sequoias don’t grow alone, they grow together and help each other. Giant Sequoias do not compete with each other for resources, rather their huge root systems fuse together and they share resources. The complex intertwining of roots helps support these huge trees.[1]

Paul wants us as a church to benefit from one another in a similar way. He wants our unity in the faith to help us grow and mature. He wants us to be so knit together that we support one another, encourage one another, and enable one another to grow.

Now, don’t forget the context here. This young church is under attack, not from Roman officials, but from false teachers who are attacking their faith in the gospel. And the result is that this church has grown unsure about the what they believe. They want security but this new teaching has shaken the foundation of their hope. In terms of sheer emotion this is a terrible state to be in.

But Paul wants them to abandon every hope but their hope in Christ and he wants them to do this together. Their good works can’t save their soul. Their devotion to religious rituals, whether they be pagan or Jewish, can’t save their soul. Their only hope is to trust in the work of Christ to save them. Their only hope is to accept God’s grace by faith in Christ.

False teaching effects the church by small divisions that grow into church splits. One person shifts from a position of orthodoxy and they start talking to the guys in their small group. Or a person reads an article on Facebook and they start sharing it with their friends before Sunday school. Then before long there is a small group of people who have gotten off track and they start to feel themselves separated from the rest of the church or they seek to actively separate themselves from the rest of the church.

False doctrine is a ploy of Satan that seeks to tear apart the people of God. But the gospel, the pure unadulterated truth of Christ, as our only hope of salvation brings unity. Christ is the substance of our unity. If we begin to shift from our trust in Christ as the foundation of our faith, then our unity will be no more.

Christ is our tuning fork and when our hearts and lives are tuned to Him we will all be in harmony with one another.

IV. Gospel Ministry Helps Us Grow in Assurance (V. 2-3)

to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ, 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge…

Humility is a virtue of the Christian life but humility and assurance are not the same thing. Humility is a posture of the heart that says, “It’s not all about me.” Assurance is the settled trust that when it comes to salvation, “It’s all about Jesus.”

We need to be people who exercise humility in our interactions with others. We need to be patient with others, able to listen to people and eager to learn from others. But at the same time we need to be resolved on the foundations of the faith. There is no greater mystery in this world than the mystery of Christ. There is no higher knowledge to ponder than the truths of the gospel. There is no greater purpose in the universe than that, “Every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.”

Our assurance is rooted in Christ. Not our performance, not our worldly wisdom, not even our worldly success; but our settled faith in Christ. Our unity as a church doesn’t center around a method, a model, or even a tradition, it centers around Jesus.

Now why is all of this important? Because someone is trying to deceive this church with false doctrine and Paul wants the church to be able to defend itself. He trusts that if the church is healthy in the ways that he has described then it will be able to defend itself against the deception.

So let’s summarize what we have seen thus far…Paul wants the church to be made bold by his example (first). He wants their hearts, the deepest part of our soul, to be settled on the gospel (second). He wants them to be knit together in Christian love (third) and he wants them to have assurance that Jesus is Lord (fourth). He wants the church to be strong in all of these ways so that it can withstand the efforts of false teachers.

V. Gospel Ministry Strengthens us Against False Teaching (V. 4-5)

4 I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments. 5 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.

False teaching doesn’t come in the front door and present itself as false, it comes in a window and presents itself as plausible (reasonable). If someone came into the church and sat down in your Sunday school class or your community group and claimed that Jesus was really a transgendered man who learned how to do miracles through inner eye power he picked up as a teenager in Egypt; you wouldn’t entertain them at all. You would simply say, “That’s ridiculous…” and you would move on.

But plausible arguments come across as reasonable. When you hear a plausible argument you come away saying, “I’m not sure if that’s true but it sounds reasonable.” Let me give you an example of how this is happening right now in our backyard.

(Illus…This past week I heard an example of how false teaching is finding its way into the church here in Dallas. It came in the form of a prayer request where a woman who found out that she was pregnant with triplets, via in-vitro fertilization, was asking her ladies group to pray for her to know God’s will. She and her husband were prayerfully considering whether to do selective elimination of one of the babies. They were considering whether or not it was God’s will for them to abort one of their babies because they didn’t feel that God was calling them to raise triplets, so she was calling for prayer and seeking God’s will about what to do. (15:33)

This mom was using the language of Christianity, she was asking people to pray for her, she didn’t feel God was calling her to something; but all of this was divorced from the teaching of Scripture. In other words, she wasn’t leaning on her understanding of Christian ethics or even sound Biblical logic; instead she was leaning on feelings alone. She used the language of sentimental piety to try and get the others to sympathize with her situation even though what she was considering amounts to moral horror.

This is how false teaching is creeping into the church today. It doesn’t focus on doctrine it focuses on feeling and experience. Doctrine doesn’t matter or at the very least it shouldn’t matter that much. What matters is how people feel. What matters is how tolerant we are. What matters is how sensitive we are to other people’s experience.

What we are facing in the culture around us is a complete rejection of objective truth and moral absolutes and what matters is how things make us feel. This means that we not only need to know sound doctrine but we also need to be on guard against the spirit of our age. And Paul wants us to do this together.

False teaching seeks to redefine the foundation of our Biblical worldview. It wants us to trust in Jesus + ____________. It wants us to redefine the nature of God’s love and grace? It doesn’t want us to think about who Jesus is and what Jesus came to do, it wants us to feel who Jesus is and what Jesus came to do.

It wants to say that sin against God is not the problem we need to solve, what we really need to do is to discover our true self and that happens when we embrace people for who they are.

But notice what Paul says about this kind of plausible argument in Colossians 2:8:

8 See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ…10 who is the head of all rule and authority.

Paul is saying that doctrine matters. The teaching of Christ matters because he is God and is the source of all that is true and right and good. False teachers want to take us captive with philosophy, empty deceit and human tradition but we need to have our hearts filled with the truth.

Conclusion…

Our task in gospel ministry is to nurture and protect. We want genuine faith to grow and to produce fruit, so like Paul we labor to set an example for others to follow. We stand firm in the truth. We stand up and teach what accords with sound doctrine and when opposition comes we endure. We want encourage the hearts of believers and labor to see them resolved to trust in Christ no matter what.

But our task also involves protecting the church against the plausible arguments of false teachers. We pull weeds. We confront wolves, we expose lies and liars. We do this so that faith can grow. We labor on two fronts so that the church can be strong, and healthy and protected.

---

[1] Learn More about Sequoia Trees

---

The Character of Gospel Ministry (2 of 2)

Series: Colossians

Speaker: Pastor Justin Wheeler

Scripture: Colossians 1:24-29

Manuscript PDF

Manuscript

“It’s time to grow up!” This is a phrase I heard many times as a boy and it typically came on the heels of a mistake I had made. It wasn’t a phrase I enjoyed hearing because it almost always implied that I wasn’t grown up. It was both a rebuke and an exhortation. It made me face the fact that I wasn’t mature while spurring me on to pursue maturity, and maturity is one of those things that if you ever begin to seek it out you might just come to realize that you will never fully attain it.

Today, I find myself still seeking to grow and be a mature man. There are so many things I don’t know and so many things I have still yet to learn. There are experiences that I haven’t had, trials that I’ve never been tested against, and so the journey toward maturity that began when I realized just how immature I was, that journey continues and I don’t think I will ever fully arrive; at least not on my own.

Growth and maturity are natural aspects of human life. In fact, it’s when growth is not occurring that we often realize that something is wrong. Some dear friends of ours have a young son who was born as their fourth child and things appeared to be quite normal early on for him. He was a happy, playful, and energetic little boy, but when his age kept increasing and his abilities didn’t match his age, there was cause for concern because growth and maturity are a natural part of healthy human life.

Growth and maturity are natural signs of health in of all forms of life. Now that Spring is officially upon us I will be spending quite a bit of time working in my vegetable garden. One of the things I will be looking for as I tend the garden is whether or not my plants are growing the way they should. The goal of a garden is the fruit and if plants are growing in a healthy way then I will need to address the problems, tend to the specific needs in order to help them grow up to maturity so that they can produce fruit.

Growth and maturity are natural signs of health in every facet of life including the life of God’s people. New Testament authors use the common stages of human development to describe how Christians are to grow from infancy, to childhood, and on to mature adulthood. As Christians, we are called to press on to maturity in the faith. We are encouraged to grow up in every way to be more like Jesus. When growth is not seen in the life of a Christian there is cause for concern because growth is a sign of life.

But what are the means to such growth? How can we put ourselves in a position to promote growth in our own Christian life? How can we serve to promote growth in the lives of others? Well, these are questions that Paul is seeking to help us answer here in Colossians 1:24-29. This passage is about the character of gospel ministry and today in verses 28-29 we are going to see three aspects of ministry that pertain to maturity in the Christian life.

Transition…

Over the last 2 weeks we have been learning about the character of gospel ministry. We learned that the spirit of gospel ministry is joy and that suffering in gospel ministry comes with the territory. Last week we learned that God is the source of gospel ministry, that making the Word of God fully known is the scope, and Christ is the substance of gospel ministry. This morning we are going to look at three more characteristics that are found in verses 28-29: style, sum and strength.

Col 1:24 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, 25 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, 26 the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. 27 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. 28 Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. 29 For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.

Sermon Focus…

I. The Style/Method of Gospel Ministry (V. 28a)

28 Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom

There are three verbs in this verse that describe the style of gospel ministry. They outline how we go about our task. We are to proclaim, warn and teach. And the way we should read this verse is that we are to proclaim Christ, and in our proclamation we do two things: we warn and we teach. Our proclamation involves both warning and teaching. So what does all of this mean?

What are we to proclaim? Him! We proclaim Christ. The One described in verses 15-20 is the One that we are to tell others about. We are to proclaim or announce the truth about Jesus Christ. The verb carries with it the idea of a public announcement, which would include preaching but would also include sharing or dissemination ideas in a bold, clear and public way. This proclamation happens in normal everyday conversation as well as in the pulpit on Sunday morning.

The gospel of Jesus is good news and good news is meant to be shared in formal as well as informal ways. This news doesn’t need to be embellished or polished up in any way. It can stand on its own and it will accomplish the purpose of God (2 Cor 4:1-7).

We need to have complete confidence in the simple yet bold proclamation of Christ as the means by which God would save sinners, build His church and accomplish His purpose in the world. Listen to Paul describe the power of God at work through the clear and faithful proclamation of Christ Crucified.

I Corinthians 2:1 And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, 4 and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

Paul is saying, “Listen, all I did was come to you and tell you about Jesus. I told you who He is and what He died to accomplish. I told you all about His life and miracles. I told you about how He fulfills the OT prophecies regarding the Messiah. I told you about His resurrection…I just told you the truth of the Gospel and that is enough.”

(Illus…This past week I read about an encounter that Tim Challies had with a Worship Leader and Creative Arts Director for a church in Toronto. Here’s how he explained the encounter…

Her main task is to put together and then lead her church’s worship services. Early in the week, the senior pastor tells her his focus for that Sunday and she gets to work. She thinks of stage props that will complement the message, she considers assembling the dance team, she combs through YouTube and popular movies to look for clips—especially funny clips. Some Sundays she removes the sermon altogether so the church can watch a painter produce a work of art or a drama team lead a performance. These “visual sermons” are often more effective than preaching, she said.

At one point she began to tell about her pastor. He is a good communicator and loves to preach, but there is a problem: while the church is getting younger, he is getting older. She isn’t sure he can be effective at his age and is kind of hoping he will move on. I took the opportunity to ask what qualifications the church might value in a new pastor. She thought for a few moments and replied, “He’d need to have good rapport with young people and a great sense of humor.”

This is a sad state of affairs but it is more common than we care to admit. For many “churches” there is no confidence in the simple proclamation of the gospel. For pragmatic churches like this the goal is to inspire people. The worship service has to be engaging, inspirational, uplifting and dramatic; if it doesn’t meet this criterion then it has no place in their service. This is a far cry from the scope of gospel ministry outlined in Scripture.

Again, listen to Paul address the style of gospel ministry in 2 Cor 4:

2 Cor 4:1 Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. 2 But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God. 3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. 4 In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5 For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.

For Paul, the gospel of Jesus has a power and wisdom all its own, it is the power and  wisdom of the upside down kingdom of Christ. It is a wisdom, which shows us that sacrificial love is the most powerful thing in the universe. It is a wisdom that discourages pride and exalts humility. It is a wisdom that says the only way to God is through faith in Christ, not obedience to a religious system, not painstaking adherence to a system of laws, but by abandoning the self-salvation mission that every religion in this world proclaims and trusting in the work of another to save you.

We preach Christ crucified as the only hope of salvation for a sinful humanity that is separated from God and headed for destruction. Notice also that Paul says the style of our ministry involves a warning. We warn everyone and this word warn can be translated as admonish if you prefer old churchy terms. It means that part of our proclamation includes a warning about sin and the judgment that is sure to follow.

Good news is only good if it addresses what we already understand to be bad. The bad news is that we are sinners and God is angry about our sin. The flood in Genesis 6 gives us a picture of God’s wrath toward sin. At the beginning of chapter 6:5 we read, “The Lord saw that the wickedness of mankind had become great upon the earth and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually…”

Ephesians 2:1-3 makes it clear that in our natural sinful state we are dead in our sin, following the rebellious course of Satan himself and are by nature children of wrath. Brother/sister, I know this is uncomfortable to hear but part of our responsibility as gospel ministers is to proclaim the gospel and warn every one of the consequences that they will face if they do not turn from their sin and trust in Christ. “All have sinned and fallen short of God’s glorious standard. The wages of sin is death and after death comes judgment.” This will not make us popular within the growing secularism of our culture, but popularity is not our goal.

There is also a place for warning/admonishing within the church. Colossians 3:16 “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom.” This happens when we see our Christian friends acting in a way that is inconsistent with God’s Word and we warn them of their sin. This happens when we teach our kids not to be selfish or hateful but instead we teach them to share and be kind. This happens when we point each other to the Word of Christ and help one another obey the Lord.

But don’t miss the fact that there should be balance in our proclamation. We proclaim, we warn and we also instruct. It is not enough to warn people of what not to do, we are also to give clear instruction on what we are to do. These two terms serve as two sides of the same coin. We teach what to avoid and we teach what to embrace.

Let me give you an example of this in action…In Ephesians 4 we read that as Christians we are to put off the old and put on the new. If we were once prone to lie all the time we should stop doing that and work hard to tell the truth. If we were once a thief who liked to take things that didn’t belong to us, we should stop doing that and get a job so that we can learn to give away what does belong to us in order to help others.

The style of gospel ministry is such that we proclaim the gospel, we warn people about their sin and its consequences, and we also teach them how to know, love, and serve Christ.

II. The Sum of Gospel Ministry (V. 28)

that we may present everyone mature in Christ.

Why do we labor in preaching, warning and teaching? So that the people we are ministering to can grow up to Christian maturity. The goal of our ministry is not to gain notoriety and book deals. The goal of ministry is not to climb the church ladder and have a cushy job on the stage of a megachurch someday. The goal of gospel ministry is not to grow a big church that is a mile wide and inch deep. The goal of gospel ministry is to help Christians grow to be more like Jesus.

That’s what God promises to do in us, He promises to grow us to be more and more like Jesus. He will work in our hearts to make us wise. He will teach us truth so that we won’t be so confused and susceptible to false doctrine and teaching. He will give us opportunities to serve others and will give us the strength to carry out that service. He will grow our patience, our understanding, our sensitivity to the needs of others, our sensitivity to His Word; God is going to grow us up into maturity and one of the most significant ways that He will accomplish this in our lives is through the ministry of others. The normal means of gospel ministry.

Eph 4:11 Jesus gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood…

God promises to use the normal means of faithful and spiritually gifted men and women in the church to help us mature in the faith.

14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. 15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

The church will grow up to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ when we are faithful to invest our lives in gospel ministry. That’s right! God desires to bring Christians to maturity and He has called us to be one of the primary means that He uses to grow young Christian’s into that maturity.

As a church this responsibility starts with the elders, then it impacts the deacons, it leans heavily on the pastor, but also every other member who teaches. It falls on parents to be raising our children to know and love God and His Word. It is accomplished in community groups, in Sunday School, in youth ministry, in ladies Bible studies, in Calvin reading groups and countless other relationships where we take seriously the responsibility of gospel ministry.

This is discipleship and it happens when we invest our lives in the ministry of the church. It happens when we get to know one another on a deeper level than a greeting in the hallway on your way to Sunday School. It happens when we say yes to the needs around us. It happens when you make time to really study the Word, to read a good book, to get plugged into a ministry of the church so that you can grow and then help someone else to grow as well.

So here’s an important question, “How are we going to help others to grow?” The truth is most of us feel as though we are the ones in need of growth so how are we going to be helpful to others? How are we going to help others to grow?

Our confidence for gospel ministry is not in our expertise or qualifications but in the Word of God.

2 Tim 3:16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work…(therefore) 2 preach the word.

Christians will move toward maturity by feeding on God’s Word. You don’t have to have a seminary degree to help others grow in Christ. Read the Scriptures, think and pray. Read, write down your thoughts, and pray. Read a good book, think about it, discuss it with others, and pray. Be faithful in worship and let the Word of God seep down into your heart and life, then be willing to share it with others.

And there is one more thing that Paul wants us to understand about the character of gospel ministry and it is that our strength comes from God.

III. The Strength of Gospel Ministry (V. 29)

29 For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.

First, I want you to notice that gospel ministry involves toil. These word that Paul is using here mean laboring to the point of exhaustion. Gospel ministry is hard work. It requires sacrifice. It means late nights studying to get ready for Sunday morning. It means losing sleep because the person you are discipling is struggling with sin. It means sacrificing leisure time to read and pray. Ministry is often toil.

Most of the leaders and teachers in this church work full time jobs, they are actively raising children, they are taking care of needs within their own families, but they are also carving out time to get a Sunday school lesson together. Once each quarter I ask one of the elders or another capable man in the church to preach for me. I do this because I need to put myself under the ministry of the Word, but I know that this is asking a lot of these men. It’s work to prepare a sermon for this congregation.

Our Sunday school teachers do a wonderful job, our community group leaders work hard to host and make those meetings profitable, our bible study leaders make significant sacrifices to help others grow and all of this is hard work. Ministry in a small local church depends on the hard work and sacrifice of volunteer teachers and leaders.

But for all of our labor we need to understand that we are not working alone. Our struggling in ministry is being propped up by the power which God supplies. In other words, our efforts in ministry are not merely human efforts. It’s hard work yes, but we are not the only one’s working. God supplies us with strength.

(Illus…The fire of faithfulness that burns in us is supplied by the kindling that we put around us (prayer, Bible study, service, etc.) but the flame is kept ablaze by the Holy Spirit who pours oil on the fire even when we can’t see it.

God’s power is at work in us as we labor and His power is at work in those to whom we labor. Our labor is not in vain on either front. The Kingdom of God rests upon the mysterious power that God provides underneath the hard work of His people. It is mysterious in the sense that Paul can say in 1 Cor 15:10, “I worked harder than all of them”, but at the same time he says, “through Him who gives me strength” (Phil 4:13).

Conclusion…

So what does this mean? It means we have a lot of work to do and the burden of that work falls on our shoulders. But God will not abandon us to fruitless toil. He will strengthen us. He will supply what we need and He will work in the hearts of His people through our efforts.

Colossians 1:24-29 has taught us 8 characteristics of gospel ministry ( the spirit of gospel ministry is joy, suffering in gospel ministry is common, the source of gospel ministry is God, the scope of our ministry is to make the Word of God fully known, the substance of gospel ministry is our glorious Christ, the style of our ministry is to proclaim Christ (warning and teaching), the sum of our ministry is Christian maturity and the strength of our labor is supplied by God Himself.

This is the character of gospel ministry within the upside-down kingdom of Christ and it is not just a task for the professionals. Every believer is called to serve in this.

So let’s pray and ask the Lord to ready our hearts and to strengthen our faithfulness to the task of gospel ministry.

The Character of Gospel Ministry (1 of 2)

Series: Colossians 

Speaker: Pastor Justin Wheeler

Scripture: Colossians 1:24-29

Manuscript PDF

Manuscript

Paul’s Conversion in Acts 26:12-18

“Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven?” It’s a simple question but the answer will surprise you. This question comes up because Jesus’ disciples were having a conversation while they were walking from Galilee to Capernaum. To be honest it was more of an argument and it had to do with which disciple was the best disciple.

I can imagine them comparing notes about who cast out the most demons, or who had memorized more of Jesus’ sayings. I imagine Peter reminded everyone that he did in fact walk on water, even if only for a minute. I’m sure John reminded everyone that Jesus did seem to love him more than the rest. Judas probably bragged about how Jesus has asked him to manage all of the finances.

This probably wasn’t the first time they had this argument but it must have come to a head on this day because Jesus decides that it is time to set the record straight; not by pointing out who is the greatest but by teaching them what greatness means in His kingdom. Jesus tells them, “he who is least among you is the one who is great. If you want to be first in the Kingdom of God, then you must be the servant of all”

It’s not about what you do that makes you great in Christ’s Kingdom, it’s about how you serve. This is quite different than the pattern of greatness that we are accustomed to in the kingdom of this world, but don’t forget that God’s Kingdom is different, it’s upside down.

This morning we are looking again at the character of gospel ministry through the lens of the apostle Paul’s suffering. What he has to say to us is not simply an outline of the Apostolic role but is intended to serve as basic instruction for all who participate in the ministry of making disciples, which in one way or another involves every single Christian. If you are a believer in Christ, then you have been given not only the gift of salvation but also gifts that the Lord intends for you to use as you take part in the Great Commission which is found in Matthew 28:18-20.

The task that Jesus has given to all of us is that as we are going through life as His people we are to be making disciples. We are to be sharing the gospel and making disciples in our homes, in our churches and out in the world. Now it’s true that we don’t all have the same gifts nor the same responsibilities, but great commission ministry rests on all of us. Because as disciples of Christ we are all servants of God.

That’s the term Paul uses in our passage this morning. He doesn’t introduce himself as an apostle in this text, nor as an elder, nor a pastor; he calls himself a servant (διακονος). In verse 23 Paul refers to himself as a servant of the gospel. In verse 25 he calls himself a servant of the church and we saw last week that at this point in his life, Paul is willing to serve even to the point of suffering.

But, that wasn’t always the case. Paul wasn’t always so supportive of Jesus, the gospel, and the church. So what changed to bring him to the point of being a servant of Christ and a servant of the gospel, who was willing to suffer in order to make disciples and strengthen the church. That’s one of the things we are going to talk about today.

This morning we are going to continue to look at the 8 characteristics of gospel ministry that Paul outlines in verse 24-29. Last week we learned that the Spirit of Gospel Ministry is one of Joy and we learned that serving in gospel ministry often brings Suffering. Today we are going to learn the Source, Scope, and Subject of Gospel Ministry.

Colossians 1:24 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, 25 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, 26 the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. 27 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. 28 Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. 29 For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.

Sermon Focus...

I. The Source/Stewardship of Gospel Ministry (V. 25)
V. 25of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you...

It might seem like an odd thing to say but it’s true that Paul didn’t choose gospel ministry, rather he was chosen for gospel ministry. When we first learn about Paul in Acts 9 he was on track to become the next big leader within the ranks of 1st century Pharisaism. He was the rising star of his day.

Paul was born a Jew of the tribe of Benjamin. He had a Jewish mother and a Roman father. From early on he devoted himself to the strictest Jewish religious party of the Pharisees, and he was head of his class. His life was devoted to memorizing the Torah and applying its truth to every bit of his daily life. He was a great student and undoubtedly looking at a career as a great teacher.

He was an apologist for his cause, like a 1st-century blogger ready to argue his position with anyone who disagreed. But he was willing to do more than just argue with his opponents. When we meet him in Acts 9 we find that he is a zealot and the followers of Jesus are his enemies. Paul was a persecutor, having placed himself in the legal position to condemn and kill those who claimed Jesus as the Messiah of God. The first time we meet him it’s in Jerusalem and he is holding the garments of murderers like a boxing manager holds the robe of his prize-fighter, and these men are set to stone Stephen to death.

Now, I imagine that while the men picked up stones to throw them at Stephen, they would look over their shoulders at Paul, the law expert, who quoted scripture to justify what they were doing. He was a proud man, a powerful man and a man who saw great gain in his religion and way of life. But God had another plan for Paul and he kicked it off by turning the man’s life upside down.

In Acts 26, Paul gives an account of what happened in his own words:

Acts 26:5...according to the strictest party of our religion I have lived as a Pharisee... 9 “I was convinced that I ought to do many things in opposing the name of Jesus of Nazareth. 10 And I did so in Jerusalem. I not only locked up many of the saints in prison after receiving authority from the chief priests but when they were put to death I cast my vote against them. 11 And I punished them often in all the synagogues and tried to make them blaspheme, and in raging fury against them, I persecuted them even to foreign cities.

12 “In this connection, I journeyed to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests. 13 At midday, I saw on the way a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, that shone around me and those who journeyed with me. 14 And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’ 15 And I said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ And the Lord said, ‘I am

Jesus whom you are persecuting. 16 But rise and stand upon your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you, 17 delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles—to whom I am sending you 18 to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’

Paul had his career plan mapped out and it included stoning those who followed Jesus, but after this encounter with the Christ, Paul became a man who was willing to be stoned in order to serve the followers of Jesus. That’s a radical transformation and it came directly from God.

Notice that Paul says that he became a minister/servant according to the stewardship from God that was given to him. It wasn’t that he chose this role, he was chosen for it. And make no mistake, it was a shock to those who found out about it.

Near Damascus, there lived a man named Ananias who was a disciple of Christ. One day Ananias had a vision from God and God said to him, “I want you to get up and go into town and take a right on the straight street and stop at the house of a man named Judas. Inside you will find another man praying, his name is Saul of Tarsus.” Ananias answered back to God and said, “Are you talking about the Saul that has been killing Christians in Jerusalem?” And God answered, “Yep, that’s the one...he is a chosen instrument of mine who will carry my name to the Gentiles...I will also show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.”

The source of Paul’s ministry wasn’t a decided career move. He didn’t sit down to weigh out his options and chose Christian ministry. He was chosen for it. God changed his life, called him into service, and gave him a specific stewardship/responsibility to take the gospel to the Gentiles

Now, what does this mean for you and me and the ministry that we serve in today? Do we all have to have a radical conversion story and see a vision of Christ to know we are called to ministry? Not exactly.

All those who serve in gospel ministry must be born again and embrace to the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. And all who serve in gospel ministry should seek to use the gifts that God has given them to meet the needs of others and the needs of their local church. And let me be clear, that all Christians have been called to serve God in one capacity or another. When God calls us to salvation He calls us into service to Christ, the gospel, and the church.

Each of us has been called into service within the household of God and to shine as lights in the world. But how do we know where to serve? I’m going to try to make this really simple because I think this has often been one of the more complicated issues in the church.

It starts with an understanding of calling and I’m not talking about a Damascus road experience or some mystical prophetic word. I’m referring to the Biblical understanding that all of us are called to serve the Lord in the ministry of the Word and the making of disciples. Nowhere in the NT does God say to Christians that we are saved for nothing more than to sit and learn from others for the rest of our lives. We are all called to serve. We are all called to engage in disciple making whether it is in the home, in the church, in our neighborhoods or in the world.

Once we have embraced the fact that we are all called into service the next step is to identify what you are burdened about. What area of ministry are you most drawn to? What do you desire to do for the Lord and for the church? Is it consistent with the Scriptures?

Then I would encourage you to explore your gifts. What are you able to do? What skills and abilities do you have that could be useful to the body? In what way have you been gifted by God to serve His people? Are you a musician, an artist? Do you like to study and share what you are learning with others? Do you have organizational skills?

Then seek the wisdom, direction, and affirmation of church leaders. Spend time with men and women and get their feedback on how you can grow, on where you can serve, on how you can improve or be more consistent, more clear, more helpful, more faithful.

Then serve. Go on mission trips, assist in Sunday school, take up the offering, volunteer to serve with the deacons, as a deacon, talk to Cody about music ministry, talk to Kim about helping out with hospitality, talk to the elders about hosting a community group, leading a community group, etc.

Let’s not make this mysterious or more complicated than it should be. Here are those 5 steps: calling, burden, gifting, affirmation and service. I believe that all of these steps are initiated by the Holy Spirit in our hearts. He opens our eyes to see that our calling to salvation involves a calling to serve. He burdens our hearts to serve in specific ways. He gives us gifts to use in our service. He guides our leaders to be Biblically discerning and wise, then He empowers our service by His own strength.

Now that we have seen the source of Gospel ministry let’s turn our attention now to the Scope of Gospel Ministry.

II. The Scope/Task of Gospel Ministry (v. 25) to make the word of God fully known...

Our role is not to present ourselves and our ideas but to present God’s Word faithfully. Paul says here that his task is to present the Word of God in its fullness or to fulfill the Word of God. Now what does he mean by this?

The task of making disciples starts with a presentation of the truth. Gospel ministry is a revelatory role in that we are making the truth of God known in the world through preaching, teaching, and sharing God’s Word.

Romans 10: 13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” 14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” 16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” 17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

But what does Paul mean by making the Word of God fully known? There are two ways we should understand this:

• Making the Word of God fully known must be understood to refer to Jesus Christ and the gospel as the pinnacle of revelation. The Bible is incomplete without Jesus. The OT history, law and prophecies are unfinished without the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. The OT characters we love, the OT stories we learned as children, the Psalms we love to quote...these all point beyond themselves and find their ultimate fulfillment in the person and work of Christ.
• Making the Word of God fully known also refers to the effects of preaching the gospel. The Word moves in power and it is not only heard, but it plows up the rocky soil of men’s hearts, it brings dead women to life, it produces fruit of the Spirit, and changes the world.

The Word of God is made fully known when the gospel is proclaimed and that proclamation accomplishes the purpose God has for it.

Now, there are countless ways that we can serve our community. There are ways that we can help the homeless, provide counsel to needy people, and feed those who are hungry. There are ways that we can show love to our neighbors, be good friends, and serve those around us at home, at work, or in the city. We can and should volunteer our time, we can and should be salt and light wherever we go. But these things are not the focal point/scope of gospel ministry.

The focal point of gospel ministry is to make the Word of God fully known. To preach the truth once for all delivered to the saints. To preach Christ and Him crucified, this is the task of gospel ministry.

Let’s turn our attention now to our last point this morning...

III. The Subject of Gospel Ministry (V. 26-27) v. 26 the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. 27 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

We have already hit on this a little bit in the previous point but here I want to take the time to be crystal clear that all of Scripture finds it pinnacle and purpose in the gospel. All the Scriptures, the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Writings, they all concern Christ. The whole of the Old Testament is drawing our attention to the main stage where God is showcasing the main event which is Jesus Christ.

The entire Bible has been pointing to Him; He is the mystery of God revealed. He is the one who fulfills all the promises of God. He is the climax of the story and the climax of world history as well.

God the Son, the second person of the eternal triune God, became a man clothed in flesh to die in the place of sinners as the crescendo of God’s plan of redemption. This truth which baffles the mind is the means through which God has determined to undo and destroy the effects of sin upon creation.

Every story the Bible tells is pointing us to Jesus. Every promise finds it’s fulfillment in this; that God became a man and humbled himself to the point of death, even death on a cross in order to settle our debts with God and grant us eternal life. Where imperfect men have failed to rise to the standard of Holiness that God demands, Christ came to succeed.

Jesus is the true and better Adam who passed the test in the garden and whose obedience is imputed to us.

Jesus is the true and better Abel who, though innocently slain, has blood now that cries out, not for our condemnation, but for acquittal.

Jesus is the true and better Abraham who answered the call of God to leave all the comfortable and familiar and go out into the void not knowing whither he went to create a new people of God.

Jesus is the true and better Isaac who was not just offered up by his father on the mount but was truly sacrificed for us. And when God said to Abraham, “Now I know you love me because you did not withhold your son, your only son whom you love from me,” now we can look at God taking his son up the mountain and sacrificing him and say, “Now we know that you love us because you did not withhold your son, your only son, whom you love from us.”

Jesus is the true and better Jacob who wrestled and took the blow of justice we deserved, so we, like Jacob, only receive the wounds of grace to wake us up and discipline us.

Jesus is the true and better Joseph who, at the right hand of the king, forgives those who betrayed and sold him and uses his new power to save them.

Jesus is the true and better Moses who stands in the gap between the people and the Lord and who mediates a new covenant.

Jesus is the true and better Rock of Moses who, struck with the rod of God’s justice, now gives us water in the desert.

Jesus is the true and better Job, the truly innocent sufferer, who then intercedes for and saves his stupid friends.

Jesus is the true and better David whose victory becomes his people’s victory, though they never lifted a stone to accomplish it themselves.

Jesus is the true and better Esther who didn’t just risk leaving an earthly palace but lost the ultimate and heavenly one, who didn’t just risk his life but gave his life to save his people.

Jesus is the true and better Jonah who was cast out into the storm so that we could be brought in.

Jesus is the real Rock of Moses, the real Passover Lamb, innocent, perfect, helpless, slain so the angel of death will pass over us. He’s the true temple, the true prophet, the true priest, the true king, the true sacrifice, the true lamb, the true light, the true bread.

All of the Bible is ultimately about him.1

The overwhelming trajectory of the Biblical witness concerns a movement by God towards man. The Father sends the Son. The Word became flesh. To save us, God did not come in the fullness of His glory, but rather he came in the humility of a man; as a baby crying in the arms of a teenage mother, who required feeding and changing and who would be condemned to die as a criminal upon a cross. Jesus hid his glory, limited himself and walked to the cross in our place.

And all the while, He remained equal, one with God, even though He had taken the form of a slave. He became one with us, sharing in our limitations, our sorrows and bearing our burdens. He experienced the temptations that we know too well, only he remained sinless to the day of his death. And in his death, he atoned for our sins and by faith, He unites us to God.

Conclusion...

In the OT, God dwelled in the midst of His people when His glory came down and rested within the Tabernacle. In the NT, Christ walked in the midst of His people when He humbled Himself and took on flesh to tabernacle among us. Now since Jesus’ ascension, the Holy Spirit of Christ dwells in the hearts of God’s people, leading us, guiding us, gifting us, empowering us for gospel ministry, and He will never leave us nor turn away from us.

---

1 Tim Keller, from class lectures on Preaching Christ in a Post-Modern World.

Suffering and Joy

Series: Colossians

Speaker: Pastor Justin Wheeler

Scripture: Colossians 1:24-29

Manuscript PDF

Manuscript

Colossians 1:24 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, 25 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, 26 the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. 27 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. 28 Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. 29 For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.

Suffering and joy are two words that don’t often go together in the human experience. Suffering and sorrow work together, comfort and joy go together; but not suffering and joy. Perhaps we can understand joy in the midst of suffering, or we might attempt to cling to some joyful thought as we are enduring suffering; but rejoicing in suffering, well that’s just weird.

Paul’s statement here is counter-cultural. It is contrary to our normal human experience, this is counter-human. Either this man is mentally unstable or there is some set of values within the Christian life that run contrary to the values of the world around us. Just so that I’m clear I don’t think Paul is mentally unstable.

The Kingdom of God is an upside-down kingdom. While the world values power, strength, wealth and notoriety the church of Christ values humility, charity, faith in the strength of another, and sacrificial love. In the days of the early church, as the message of Christ spread to new cities it became obvious to the people that the Christian message overturned the normal course of the world.

This was the testimony of the men of Thessalonica when Paul came to town. Acts 17:6 These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also,

The upside-down kingdom of Christ spread like fire through the Roman Empire during the 1st century, taking root in the people’s hearts, upsetting accepted cultural norms but the world had a strategy for putting a stop to it, persecution. When things got out of control in Jerusalem, Rome clamped down on both the Jews and Christians. When the gospel message reached a new Roman City it was often met with suspicion and those who preached it faced legal opposition.

You would think that a world power like Rome would be able to get a handle on the Christian problem. You would think that persecution and the threat of death would put a stop to the spread of the gospel, but not for the upside-down kingdom of Christ. In fact, according to Paul, what appeared to be devastating to the spread of Christianity was actually serving to advance it.

The book of Colossians is a prison epistle most likely written while Paul was under house arrest in Rome. He is writing this letter from Rome as a prisoner of the state, but how did he get in that position. While on his third missionary journey, Paul took a trip through Macedonia (Philippi) at the beginning of Acts 20:1-6. After this we know that he spent some time encouraging the Ephesian Elders and then he made his final trip to Jerusalem.

Paul went to Jerusalem to deliver a gift, a collection of money from the Gentile churches, which he had hoped would strengthen the relationship between Jewish and Gentile Christians. But on arrival he became aware of a large number of Jews who were not on board with his missionary methods.

A few days later Paul was apprehended in the temple by a group of Jews from Asia who sought to put him to death on the charge of bringing a Gentile into the court of the Jews. The charges were false but their zeal was not. He was then rescued by the Roman authorities as a peacekeeping measure, but this was only the start of his trials.

From this point he was held in chains in Jerusalem as a Roman prisoner awaiting trial. (Acts 22)

He was made to stand before the Sanhedrin and give an account of himself in what proved to be a pre-trial hearing (Acts 23)

Then he was transported to Caesarea to avoid being murdered by another group of Jews who had plotted against him (Acts 23)

While in Caesarea for two years he would stand trial before Felix, Festus and Agrippa before exercising his right as a Roman citizen to appeal to Caesar. These two years were spent in bondage as a prisoner of the state (Acts 24-26).

When he left Caesarea he spent months at Sea during the worst time of the year and his cruise ended in shipwreck off the coast of Malta (Acts 27).

Finally, after more than three years he arrived at Rome only to be kept in custody for another two, while awaiting trial as an insurrectionist, a charge punishable by death (Acts 28). During those two years in Rome Paul wrote Ephesians, Philippians, Philemon and Colossians.

So this brief catalogue of trials is the suffering that he refers to in verse 24. In other letters we get an even more vivid picture of what had happened to Paul in the cause of Christ.

2 Corinthians 11:24-28 Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; 26 on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; 27 in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. 28 And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches.

Many who study the life of Paul are left with the conclusion that this man was either delusional or he was a masochist. Many would say that Paul should have abandoned his ministry because it would appear that he was an utter failure. Hated by the Jews, loathed by

the Gentiles; Paul was a marked man who spent the better part of five years in a Roman prison. It would appear that Rome had succeeded in silencing this man, but things aren’t always what they seem in the upside-down kingdom.

Philippians 1:12 I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, 13 so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. 14 And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.

15 Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. 16 The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. 17 The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. 18 What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.

Why is that Paul can rejoice in his suffering? Because he knew something that the Romans did not. He knew that God has chosen the foolish in this world to confound the wise. He knew that God has chosen the weak to overpower the strong (I Cor 1:27). He also knew that his suffering was not in vain, but was for the sake of the church. If the state was opposing Paul’s work it was because Paul’s labor was bearing fruit for the upside- down kingdom of God.

Now, all that I have just shared with you should serve as the backdrop to this next section of the book of Colossians. This section (1:24-2:5) marks a shift in the letter, a shift that takes us from what Christ has done to reconcile us to God to what gospel ministers do to extend that reconciliation to others. From reconciled to reconciler, this is the pattern of the Christian life but especially for those serving in gospel ministry.

At the end of verse 23 Paul let us know that he had become a minister of the gospel. He calls himself a servant of the gospel (διάκονός). He is a courier who serves by carrying the message of God wherever he goes and communicating that message to all who will listen. In His day, Paul was the foremost champion of the gospel in the world. He travelled throughout the Roman empire preaching Christ, planting churches, training other ministers and discipling believers who would join him in spreading the good news to the ends of the earth.

Paul saw great success on the mission field. He was blessed to see people converted under his ministry, to see churches established under his leadership, and to see the gospel advance in the world to the point that in Romans 15 he wrote, “I no longer have any room for work in these regions.”

But his ministry was not without its difficulties. The same can be said for gospel ministry today. While the external circumstances have changed a bit, the foundational character of Christian ministry has not and here in this passage Paul is going to give us 8 Characteristics of gospel ministry which we will be studying over the next few weeks. This morning we are going to look at 2 of these characteristics and both of them are found in verse 24.

I. The Spirit of Gospel Ministry (v. 24)

Colossians 1:24 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,

The spirit of gospel ministry is one of joy and this outlook was modeled by Christ himself. “For the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross despising it’s shame (Heb 12:2).” Yes, I know Jesus was a man of sorrows but beneath it all was a deep seated joy that was more powerful than the day to day circumstances of life.

Perhaps it would be accurate to say that Jesus wasn’t happy about the cross, who would be. But joy and happiness are not the same thing. If we view emotion as a sliding scale, then it is easy for us to see that our emotions will fluctuate depending on what is happening to us at the moment.

(Appli...If I bring a box of donuts into the house my kids will all of a sudden become happy. If I bring flowers home to my wife her emotional state tends to swing toward happiness. We have all experienced this to some degree.

John MacArthur writes: ‘Happiness is an attitude of satisfaction or delight that is based upon some present circumstance.’1 The word happiness is related to the word happening, or happenstance. Our degree of happiness is directly related to what is happening in our lives at the moment. And because of this happiness is a fickle thing.

But joy, on the other hand is an emotional state that is not tied to circumstances. Joy, understood Biblically, refers to a deep sense of confidence that all is well, no matter what the circumstance of life may be.

Joy is not on the sliding scale of emotions but rather it is a is a steadfast, immovable satisfaction of the deepest longing of the soul. It goes beyond circumstances and is able to say, “To live is Christ and to die is gain (Phil 1:21).” For the Christian, joy is the internal confidence that says, “I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom 8:28f).”

The gospel is the root of our joy and as ministers of the gospel we have to understand that our joy is not tied to performance but to faithfulness. Joy in ministry is not tied to worldly success. It is tied to faithful service to our redeemer God. Joy in ministry is not tied to worldly success it is tied to faithful service to Christ, His mission and His people.

II. The Suffering of the Gospel Ministry (V. 24)

Colossians 1:24 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,

Paul is clear that he sees his suffering as a benefit to the church. He says it is for your sake and for the sake of his body. But what does he mean when he says that he is filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ? Let’s first point out what he is not saying.

Paul is not saying that we (ministers or saints) do anything to add to the saving work of Christ. There is no redemptive power in my suffering for you. All that was needed for our salvation was accomplished by Christ alone. He paid the full price for our sins and supplies us with all that we need to be reconciled to God forever, Paul has already made that point clear.

The Catholic church uses this passage to prop up its doctrine of purgatory, prayers to the saints and the practice of indulgences. But Paul is not teaching that through suffering we add something to the redemptive work of Christ. But what is he saying?

Paul understands that his mission is that there is one thing lacking in the sufferings of Jesus and it is the presentation or proclamation of Christ’s sacrificial love to the people for whom He died. The only thing lacking is that there are still people who have not yet heard or seen the gospel and so Paul sees his missionary work and the subsequent suffering at the hands of Christ’s enemies as working to complete the sufferings of Christ.

John Piper explains it in this way, “Christ intends for the great commission to be a presentation to the nations of the sufferings of His cross through the suffering of His people...that’s the way it will be finished. If you sign up for the Great Commission, that’s what you sign up for.” Those who wish to represent Christ and serve His church must be willing to suffer for His name.

When ministers of the gospel suffer for faithfully preaching the gospel, two things are bound to happen:

The elect, those for whom Christ died, will be called to salvation as an application of the sacrificial suffering of Christ.

Those present will witness a sample of the suffering poured out on Jesus. They will see a picture of Christ, in the picture of our suffering.

Conclusion...

Some will say that Christian suffering shows Christian weakness, but there is another side to this. God has a habit of working in such a way that he accomplishes his purpose through weakness, because the upside down kingdom of Christ has a totally different pattern, a totally different set of values and a totally different power, than the right side up kingdom of this world.

In the book of Exodus, the people of Israel were in bondage as slaves to the most powerful nation on the planet. Moses, a murderous, stuttering outcast was chosen to be the deliverer who would stand before Pharaoh and demand the release of the Jews. But through this weak man, God brought Pharaoh to his knees.

But do you remember how he did it? God warned of the last plague that was to come, the destroyer who would take the life of every first born son in the land. This destroyer was unstoppable and Pharaoh’s army was powerless against him. He swept through Egypt in the night and without any opposition he took the life of every first born son in Egypt. But do you remember what kept this unstoppable force from destroying the Israelites?

The most insignificant animal in the herd; a defenseless, helpless little lamb. What seemed weak was the only thing that could hold back God’s messenger of death. Every home in Egypt that night either had a dead son in it or the blood of the lamb on it. You see it was the lamb of God who covered the sins of the people and kept death from their door.

The greatest and most powerful army in the ancient world could not stop the destroyer whom God sent, but the blood of the lamb did. What looks like weakness is actually an unfathomable power in the upside-down kingdom.

Fast forward 1500 years to the time of Christ, whom John the Baptist called “the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Christ taught a system of values that turned the world’s pattern upside down, and for that he was nailed to a Roman cross.

The cross was nothing if not a warning to the world of just how weak they are in comparison to the power of Rome. The cross was a tool of torture and humiliation and served as a deterrent for anyone who might get the idea of trying to start a revolution. Jesus, the son of God, hung upon a Roman cross and died.

But, what appeared to be folly, what appeared to be the end of Christianity, what appeared to be weakness was the wisdom and power of God to save men from sin and to reconcile them back to Himself. What looked like failure, was actually the greatest victory ever.

1 Corinthians 1:18 For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

You see, Paul knew the pattern of God’s kingdom not only from the past, but also through his own firsthand experience. Because rather than silencing the gospel through imprisonment, Paul’s suffering actually promoted it. He writes this letter while he is still imprisoned, in chains, in Roman custody and uncertain about what he will face next; but as he looks upon his suffering he can rejoice because the gospel is not in chains. The mystery of God has been unleashed to turn the world upside-down.

---

1 J. MacArthur, The Epistle of Joy Philippians 1:1-; code 50-1 (taken from www.gty.org)

Our Division Destroyed

Series: Colossians

Speaker: Pastor Justin Wheeler

Scripture: Colossians 1:21-23

Manuscript PDF

Manuscript

I want us to think for a few minutes about the divisions that we experience in our lives, our families, our culture and our world. When I mention division I’m talking about the differences that divide us from other people. Some of those divisions are simple ones, like which college football team you root for (Aggies, Longhorns, Red Raiders, Bears, or Horned Frogs). Some of those divisions are more personal, like your convictions on education (homeschool, private school, public school). Some of those divisions are more serious, like political philosophy, ethical positions or theological heritage.

Then some of our divisions rise to the point of being eternally serious, such as our religious beliefs and worldviews. You probably have neighbors and friends who don’t practice any faith, some who are atheists, some who are Christian but from a different denominational heritage, then others who are Muslim, Mormon, or Jewish.

These are all very real divisions that we deal with on a regular basis. Some of these cause us more stress than others. And yet, all of them pale in comparison to the division that matters the most, which is the division between a holy God and sinful man.

Over the last few weeks we have been looking at Jesus. We have seen this glorious picture of His eternality, His authority, His power, and His preeminence. Jesus’ glory fills the entire stage of Colossians 1 and what it does is to cast this huge shadow upon us.

Jesus beauty and glory is staggering but the thing that stands out for us is just how unlike Jesus we are. He is holy and we are not. He is totally righteous and we are totally corrupted by sin; and this helps us to see the division that exists between God and man.

Transition...

In the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, Jesus talks about the division between Heaven and Earth as being this great immovable chasm. Because God is holy and we are sinful there is an unbridgeable space between us and it is the greatest division that we will ever experience; but Jesus Christ has come to destroy this division.

Listen to Paul talk about it...

Col 1:21 And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, 23 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 of which I, Paul, became a minister.

Sermon Focus...

My purpose in preaching this morning is to show how Jesus has destroyed the division that exists between God and followers of Christ. In order to fully grasp what Christ has done we are going to look at our past, our present and our future and then we will finish things up with the encouragement to stay grounded in the faith.

Let’s look first at our past...

I. What Once Was (V. 21)

The Contrast of Once and Now (Vv. 21-22)

Col 1:21 And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22 he has now reconciled...

In this new section of Colossians, we see Paul put into use one of his favorite literary devices when he contrasts what we “once” were and what we are “now.” This should be one of our favorite literary devices as well. But that depends on how well we know our sin and how much we long for forgiveness.

And it depends on whether or not you have turned from your sin to trust in Christ. For many of us here this morning we can say that this is a description of what we once were, but for some I want you to understand that this is a description of what you still are.

As we come to understand our spiritual condition according to the Bible we are confronted with the fact that we are not just separated from God but we are sinners who deserve God’s wrath. As a culture we tend to avoid talking about the wrath of God, but if you read your Bible faithfully you can’t avoid it. God’s wrath is an extension of His justice and since we have rebelled and broken God’s law we deserve His just wrath.

Now, I believe that when we have a right understanding of our sin it is going to cause us to long for forgiveness, to long for salvation, to long to be made right with God. We are going to long for our status to change. Like the prodigal son when he finally recognized how desperate and dreadful he was, he wanted nothing more than to be reunited with his father, even if only as a servant.

When we see just how broken our lives are we want the kind of change that only the gospel can bring. So the question we need to ask is, “How desperate is our situation? Just how broken are we?”

Here in Colossians, God’s Word tells us that our identity apart from Christ is that we are alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds. Let’s break this down a little bit.

To be alienated from someone means to be separated or isolated from them. We were separated from God when He exiled us from the Garden and now we are strangers to Him. Apart from Christ we have no fellowship with God, no relationship with God, no communion with God.

One NT parallel is Ephesians 4:18 where it talks about being alienated/separated from the life of God because of our sinful ignorance. As unbelievers, we were not only separated from relationship with God but were separated from the very life of God.

We thought we were wise and we were confident that we had something to offer the world, but we were living like pagans in a pagan world with nothing to look forward to but death and judgment. In our minds there was hostility toward God.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that you were angry with God, like many atheists are today, but rather it means that the things that you think of as good are actually the opposite of what God declares to be good. One of the clearest ways that our hostility toward God can be seen is that we, apart from Christ, love what God most hates and we hate what God most loves.

When we were separated from God the things of God were cold, dull and boring to us. But the passions of the flesh were exciting and we put all our energy into them.

We were enemies of God in our hearts, minds and behavior. Another NT passage that parallels what we see here in Colossians 1 is what we read in Romans 1:21-32.

Rom 1:21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God...

Our hearts were corrupted by sin. Our minds were bent toward sinful ideas and our lives followed along. This is the spiritual status of everyone apart from faith in Christ.

You might say, but wait aren’t there good people who do good things who aren’t Christians? Well first of all that depends on how you define the term good. Within the scope of God’s common grace there are people who do good things. They care for their families, help others, perform services that strengthen and stabilize society; but every single one of those acts falls short of the type of good that would change one’s status with God.

The law of God makes two things abundantly clear to us: 1. We aren’t’ as sinful as we could be and 2. We are far more sinful than we care to admit. And the bottom line is that even though we aren’t as sinful as we could be, we are still sinful and that sin separates us from God and demands divine justice. The wages of sin is death...and that’s the bad news. But that is not where Paul ends.

II. What Now Is (Vv. 22)
V. 22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and

blameless and above reproach before him

I can think of no greater comfort to someone who has come to understand the weight of their sin than for them to hear that because of what Christ has done they are now reconciled to God. The separation was our fault. The judgment was what we deserved. But Jesus kept the law perfectly and then gave His life in order to save us from sin.

And now, by faith in what Christ has done I am reunited to God. The sin that I committed in my youth is no longer held against me. That lifestyle that you once followed is no longer admissible in God’s law court. The past memories that haunt you are paid for, washed away, forgiven.

Apart from Christ we were enemies of God but now by faith in Christ we are children of God, invited to sit at our Father’s knee, to pull up a seat at His table, and to enjoy the closest fellowship we can imagine.

Do you think I’m over stating this? Should we really think of ourselves as that close to God simply because we trust in Jesus? Look back up at the beginning of verse 21 and notice how Paul begins this section with the two words, “And You.”

And You...just so we stay connected to the surrounding context of this passage we need to understand that Paul views “us” as a subset of “all things.” You can and should follow the progression that started with Christ being supreme over all creation, then moved to Christ being supreme over all authorities, last week we saw that Christ is supreme over redemption and here we see that Christ is supreme over us.

The focus of God’s redemptive work is not simply to restore creation to its former glory and it’s not just to bring peace into the animal kingdom. The culmination of all that God has done through Jesus is that we are now brought into intimate fellowship with our God, whom we call Abba.

I think this is one of Paul’s favorite things to teach. He wants us to relive our conversion and be moved to deep emotion and worship because we grasp again what it means to be saved. We were lost but now we’re found, we were blind but now we see, amazing grace how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.

For all those who believe, Christ has fully reconciled us to God. By His death on the cross, Jesus bridged the gap between heaven and earth, He spanned the chasm between us and God. He has transformed our status, which means that we are no longer separated, hostile strangers, but are now newly adopted sons and daughters, who love and worship our redeemer God.

God shows us our past sins, He covers them to reconcile us in the present and He also promises to work in us in the future.

III. What is to Come (V. 22)
V. 22...in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him

Here Paul tells us the ultimate end of our reconciliation. Christ’s ultimate goal is to not only bring us back into fellowship with the Father but to present us to God. This word carries the idea of a formal presentation, like a wedding, when we will be led down the aisle to stand before God. And when we get there this is what we will be; holy, blameless and above reproach.

Let’s look into what these words mean and think about how this is going to be accomplished.
Holy (hagios) carries the meaning of being separated from sin and set apart to God. We see this

same language in Ephesians 1:4...
He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless

before him.

Now are we singularly responsible for making ourselves holy before God? Not according to the text here. This verse indicates that Christ is the one ultimately responsible to present us holy before God. He works this holiness in us both practically, through our grace-wrought obedience and positionally, through His own imputed righteousness.

Here is what I mean, we will not stand before God on our own and present ourselves as Holy but rather when Christ presents us He will covers us with His own holiness. His holiness is imputed to us, credited to our account, so that on the day we stand before God, God will not see our righteous deeds but will see the prefect righteousness of Jesus in us.

Christ will bring us to God and when He does we will stand before Him in the perfect holiness of Jesus. God’s purpose was to create a holy people and when the day comes that we are called to stand before God, Jesus will put upon us the robe of His holiness and present us to His Father.

Blameless means without blemish which reminds us of temple sacrifices. The lamb of the sacrifice had to be without blemish otherwise God would not accept it. When we stand before the Judge at the end of the world we too will be presented as spotless, blameless, with defect or blemish.

Above Reproach which means free from accusation. No charge will stand up to the scrutiny of our redemption. Christ’s work is absolutely perfect. It lacks nothing and accomplishes full atonement, full acquittal, full justification before God’s judgment seat.

On the day when we are called to stand before God, our purification from sin will be complete. In fact, according to the NT God sees us now as we will be then.

Romans 8:28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

Foreknown, predestined, called, justified, glorified...all in the past tense. In God’s eyes our salvation is complete. Christ has given us everything we need to stand before God and to be welcomed by Him into everlasting joy.

This is amazing! From hostile enemy exiles to humble loving children; this is what Jesus has done for us. This is the hope of the gospel; this is the power of Christ’s cross. All our sin cleansed away, all our separation removed, all of our future secure. Why would anyone turn away from this?

That’s Paul’s concern. His concern is that through false teaching or a lack in our understanding of the gospel that we might abandon this faith. So here in verse 23 he urges us to make sure that we remain firmly planted in our trust in Christ.

IV. Stay Grounded in the Faith (Vv. 23)

23 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 of which I, Paul, became a minister.

Christ calls us to persevere in the faith. To remain faithful till the end, not shifting from the hope of salvation and eternal life that we heard in the gospel. He has called us to His side and given us every reason to trust Him, and here in this verse He is saying to us, “Keep trusting Me. Keep following Me. I will not abandon you, I will not let you down, so don’t stop trusting in Me.”

When you are in a relationship with someone, especially a marriage relationship, there are ups and downs. There are days, weeks, months when things are great and there is joy and intimacy in the relationship; but there are also seasons when things get difficult. You are still married but you don’t feel the same security and confidence that you feel at those other times. And when this occurs it is often because we have stopped doing the little things.

We don’t say I love you. We don’t hug in the kitchen as much. We don’t flirt anymore. We don’t serve each other. We don’t sit and talk the way we used to and unless something changes the heart begins to wander. What has happened is that, in a sense, we have lost our first love. We have let things get in the way of our love for our spouse. We have let things get in the way of serving our spouse, flirting with our spouse, and making them feel secure in our love and in our relationship.

There are few things more painful than a lack of security in our relationships. But when that happens we have to ask how did it get this way and often times we will find that we simply stopped doing the little things. We didn’t stop being married, but we stopped being faithful to love our spouse the way we should. We stopped doing the things that fostered joy, intimacy and security.

So what does this have to do with Colossians 1? Paul is urging us to keep doing the little things so that we don’t look up one day and realize that our hope has shifted. He is urging us to stay grounded in Christ and stay faithful to love Him, to trust Him, to submit to Him, to learn from Him, to grow in Him.

As Christians, we have put all of our hope in Christ to save us, we don’t hedge our bets with other remedies. We build our house upon the rock of Jesus Christ and we don’t seek any other foundation. We stay grounded, we stay faithful.

This doesn’t mean that we never struggle, or never have doubts. But when doubts come or when sin gets the better of us we don’t run from Christ, we run to Him. Friends, the gospel is powerful enough to save us and it is powerful enough to sanctify us. The grace of God is the foundation of our salvation and it is the motivation for why we remain faithful.

When we stumble in sin we have to remember the gospel and cling to Christ once again. One of the marks of true saving faith is perseverance in believing and that is what we are being called to here in Colossians 1. To persevere in faith and faithfulness (obedience) to Christ and His grace.

Grace doesn’t lead us to ignore sin or to continue sinning, it motivates us to love God and to pursue a life of faith and obedience. Our active faith in Christ and active obedience to Christ are spiritual fruits that bear witness to our salvation. They are not the cause of our salvation but they are indications that we have been born again.

John 15:8 By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.

Conclusion...

So in this passage, Paul wants us to learn 4 things. He wants us to understand the state of our souls before we came to Christ. He wants us to understand that because we now trust in Christ we have been united to God. He wants us to know that our future is incredibly bright because Jesus will present us to the Father and will supply everything we need on that day. He also wants us to stay faithful, to stay grounded in the gospel and not lose or abandon our love for Jesus.

One of the ways that we stay grounded in our faith is that we sing the praises of the One who saved us. So as I close in prayer let’s prepare our hearts to worship Christ and fix the hope of our hearts on Him again.

The Supremacy of Christ in Redemption

Series: Colossians

Speaker: Pastor Justin Wheeler

Scripture: Colossians 1:19-20

Our Glorious Christ (2 of 2)

Series: Colossians

Speaker: Pastor Justin Wheeler

Scripture: Colossians 1:17-18

Our Glorious Christ (1 of 2)

Series: Colossians

Speaker: Pastor Justin Wheeler

Scripture: Colossians 1:15-20

The Father's Plan

Series: Colossians

Speaker: Pastor Justin Wheeler

Scripture: Colossians 1:12-14