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Captivated by Christ
3d ago00:46:11Tap to summarizeColossians 2:8-15 –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. 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. Introduction Welcome back to Colossians. Two weeks ago, we considered 2:8-10 and the consequences of ideas. Paul warned the Colossian believers about the bad consequences of the bad ideas they were being confronted with. He also reiterated the alternative; the good consequences of the good ideas of the gospel of Jesus Christ. In short, Paul explained that their choice really was binary. Either they would be taken captive by the ideas of the world (philosophy, empty deceit, human tradition, elemental spirits of the world) or captivated by Christ. His point is that a right understanding of Christ makes the choice as easy as it gets. Jesus and nothing is infinitely better than everything without Jesus. Living according to Jesus is eternal life, while living according to anything else is eternal death. This morning, we’re going to pick up where we left off. That is, we’re going to look more closely at who Jesus is and what He’s done for those who receive Him in faith. As we do, you’ll see the big idea: With even the most child-like understanding of the gospel, the choice between living according to Christ and according to anything else is entirely obvious. The main takeaway is to learn and rehearse the gospel continually. Captivated by Christ – Who He Is To be captivated by something is to have it fill you with wonder and delight to the point that you feel enchanted by it. Have you ever been captivated by something like that? For whatever reason, God seems to cause me to be especially captivated by (I’m not really sure what to call it) certain landscapes (Glacier NP, the Canadian Rockies, the views of the North Shore of Superior from the SHT, the Utah NPs, etc.). They give me a sense of God’s presence (and my smallness) that I don’t really experience anywhere else. They really are captivating for me. In some ways, that idea is at the heart of this passage for Paul. He knows that the Colossians will be captivated by something. For every reason, he urges them to be captivated by Christ. Remember, then, the question the Colossians were continually confronted with is the same question that continually confronts all of us: Will we be taken captive by the ideas of this world or will we be captivated by Christ? This sermon is meant to help you see the simple fact that nothing compares with Jesus. At best, every alternative to Christ is a disordering of something which enables it to provide immediate, but temporary and tiny pleasure; pleasure of the sort that ultimately ends in far greater and lasting discouragement and difficulty. I was recently reading a book that enumerated and documented some of this in alarming detail. The author wrote, There is plenty of statistical support for the contention that people [who look to the empty and deceptive philosophies of the world] are unhappy. Levels of self-declared depression and clinically diagnosed depressive symptoms have skyrocketed in recent years… I wish I were merely talking about more adults confessing to being sad, but we are seeing an increase in depressed dispositions leading to an increase in behavior of desperation. The overall suicide rate increased a shocking 30 percent in the first twenty years of this new century. Roughly 5 percent of American adults have reported serious thoughts of suicide. We know that alcohol and drug abuse has skyrocketed, and, in fact, deaths from alcohol abuse have risen precipitously, even for those over the age of sixty-five. Nearly one million people have died from drug overdoses in America since the year 2000, with a 30 percent increase in the number annually in recent years, and a 256 percent increase over that twenty-year period. The escalation in the rate of growth of opioid deaths began just after the 2008 financial crisis. Separate from those who tragically die from drug and alcohol-related causes, a stunning fifteen million Americans regularly abuse alcohol… The tragedy of lives consumed by drug and alcohol abuse is worsened only by deaths rooted in drug and alcohol abuse. The use of antidepressants has doubled over the last twenty years, with a 35 percent increase in the last six years alone. It is estimated that thirty-seven million American adults regularly take an antidepressant medication (albeit at varying degrees of severity and dosage). We are talking about 15–20 percent of American adults needing medication for problems related to depression and anxiety. I do not mean to say that becoming a Christian immediately eliminates all of these things or that mature Christians never deal with them. But I do mean to say that many of them are the direct result, the consequences, of being taken “captive to philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world.” I do mean to say that while the philosophers of this age promise much with all their offers of liberation and satisfaction apart from Christ, they simply cannot ultimately deliver anything but the kind of sadness and emptiness (ultimately death) described by the author I quoted. I do mean to say that Paul was not thinking mainly in the abstract when he wrote of the alternatives to Christ. He knew that whenever we calibrate our minds or hearts to anything other than Jesus, our lives will reflect that in every manner of real-world pathology. And I do mean to say that many of them will change dramatically when we begin to live “according to Christ.” I do mean to say that living by faith in Jesus, and Him alone, only and always ultimately leads to fullness of eternal life and joy. Jesus spoke directly to this in Matthew 13(:44-45), “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. 45 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, 46 who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.” Grace, the rest of this passage and sermon are meant to help you see the simple fact that nothing compares with Jesus; to help you see that He is the greatest treasure and nothing else comes close; to help you see that to really understand who Jesus is and what He’s done for those who trust in Him, is to be shocked that we ever looked anywhere else. So, the million-dollar question is why would anyone believe that Jesus is the greatest treasure? Or, how is Jesus the greatest treasure? Or, what has He done that is so superior to all the alternative philosophies and traditions? Paul answers those questions decisively, emphatically, and poetically by describing two aspects of who Jesus is and a handful of things He’s done for those who trust in Him. Seeing Jesus for who He is and trusting in Him for what He’s done is a gift from God. We don’t deserve it. If we receive it, it is by grace alone. Therefore, as we make our way through Paul’s description of Jesus’ nature and work, my encouragement is to continually ask the Spirit to help you be as amazed by these things as they warrant. Ask the Spirit to help you to see them for what they are and how they compare to everything else. Ask the Spirit to shape your mind and heart, and cause you to live according to the truth and glory of these things above all else. With that, consider with me the two aspects of Jesus’ nature that Paul highlights. Whole Fullness of Deity (9) In v.9, we read, “…in [Jesus] the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily… That, of course, is a truly staggering statement. In some ways ...
Transcribe →Justified by Faith
1w ago00:30:43Tap to summarizeRomans 5:1-5 –1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Introduction Its baseball season. I loved playing baseball. Do you know what we did on gameday? We took batting practice. The infielders took ground balls and turned double plays. The outfielders would take fly balls, and practice throws to 2nd, 3rd and home. We never ever started a game without doing these things first. Why was that? After all, we practiced on days when we didn’t have games! Why was it necessary to take batting practice before a game? Because some foundational things must be done well if we are going to play the game well. And so, we rehearse the same thing again and again. Several years ago, I took Shelli’s nephew to a Brewers game. We got there early. Guess what professional players were doing before the game? Batting practice, fielding ground balls, and catching fly balls in the outfield. I say this to you this morning because for the Christian, there are some foundational truths that we must practice again and again. It’s not enough to hear and believe a foundational truth when we first become a believer. There are foundational truths that we must rehearse and understand and apply to our real-life situations each new day. The “game” of life is infinitely more important than the game of baseball, and so we must practice, practice, practice. And one of those foundational truths that we must “practice” or rehearse, is the doctrine of justification. The focus of today’s sermon will be on how our lives are impacted and changed by being justified by faith. We are not justified by works, but by faith. We will talk about that more in a minute. But first, to fully understand the significance of being justified by faith, we must first rehearse what it means to be justified. What is Justification? Wayne Grudem defines justification like this: “Justification is an instantaneous legal act of God in which He thinks of our sins as forgiven and Christ’s righteousness as belonging to us and declares us to be righteous in His sight” (Systematic Theology, p. 723). In other words, God declares, once and for all, that our sins are forgiven (past, present and future sins), and that we are counted as righteous. All of this is because of Jesus, who took our sin, and gave us His righteousness. When we are justified, it’s not that we no longer sin, and that we are now innately righteous. Rather, when we are justified, God, from His heavenly courtroom as a just judge, declares that we are no longer liable for our sins, and declares the righteousness of Jesus to be considered as our very own. Christ’s righteousness has been imputed to us, or it has been credited to our account. When God sees us, He sees the righteousness of Christ. God has the authority to justify, and it is His act or declaration. Justification is an act of God. It’s a gracious act of God. It’s an undeserved gift from God. But we receive it by faith. What Does It Mean To Be Justified by Faith? Romans 5:1 begins by saying: 1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith… In chapters 3 and 4 of Romans the Apostle Paul makes it clear that no one will be justified by obeying the Law, because no one (other than Jesus Christ Himself) has ever obeyed the Law perfectly. We all fall short. We all sin. That is why Romans 3:10 says “There is no one righteous, not even one…”. And so, Romans 3:20–26 says this: 20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. The Law exposes our sin before a Holy God. 21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— (since we won’t be righteous by keeping the Law—news of God revealing His righteousness apart from the Law is really good news—but what is it? Here it is…) 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. We will never be declared righteous because have kept the Law perfectly. Never! We will be declared righteous by God’s grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. What Jesus did in His death for us satisfied the wrath of God for our sin—and we receive this by faith, not works. When we are justified by faith we are forgiven and declared righteous by trusting in the person and work of Jesus Christ alone. We are justified by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. That is the exact opposite of us being justified by our keeping of the Law or our works. Chapter 4 establishes that even Abraham was justified by faith. Romans 4:3 says: 3 For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” Before we talk about some of the blessings of being justified by faith, I want you to listen to an important word by Wayne Grudem: “Scripture never says that we are justified because of the inherent goodness of our faith, as if our faith has merit before God. It never allows us to think that our faith in itself earns favor with God. Rather, Scripture says that we are justified by means of our faith, understanding faith to be the instrument through which justification is given to us, but not at all an activity that earns us merit or favor with God. Rather, we are justified solely because of the merits of Christ’s work” (Systematic Theology, p. 730). We are justified to the praise of God’s glory alone! Now… When We Are Justified by Faith… We have received a rich gift from God. And within that gift, there are many other gifts. Not only are we declared forgiven and righteous in God’s sight, verses 1-5 mentions at least 4 other blessings that come from being justified by faith. One is that… We Have Peace With God (v. 1b) “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” The fact of the matter is this: Sin separated us from God. We were alienated from God. Without hope. Without life. Because of our sin, we stood condemned before God. We were enemies of God. We were hostile towards God. But Jesus Christ changed everything. Ephesians 2:14 says Jesus is our peace. Jesus gave us peace with God. This peace is a state of reconciliation with God. In Jesus we are restored to a right relationship with God. Through Jesus, we are brought back to God. We are at peace with God. This is a real objective peace. We have this because we were justified by faith. It’s not a subjective feeling that comes and goes. This is an objective fact. We are no longer under condemnation of God; instead, we are restored to God and at peace with Him. We have this peace with God whether we feel it or not—because it is a result of being justified by faith. Its objective and never changing. Now, there is also a subjective peace OF God that we can also experience. As Philippians 4:6-7 teaches us: 6 do not be anxious about anything, (sometimes that is what we feel or experience) but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. This is a subjective peace that comforts us when we face troubles. At times we may feel more anxious, and at other times, we may feel or experience the peace OF God that guards our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. This sense of well-being and quiet is the peace OF God—it’s a subjective experience. Romans 5:1 is talking about Peace WITH God—it is a never changing objective reality because we are justified by faith. But secondly… We Now Stand in God’s Favor (v. 2a) 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into th...
Transcribe →The Consequences of Ideas
2w ago00:41:53Tap to summarizeColossians 2:8-10 –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. Introduction What’s the worst idea you’ve ever heard? My early-mid teenage years were pretty much defined by bad ideas. Sticking a bobby pin into a plug and then the plug into an outlet was one of the more innocent and innocuous ones. On the other end of both spectrums was some really, really bad ideas I had while driving a car. On a more global scale, humanism, materialism, and all the various aspects of secularism are among the worst ideas mankind has ever conceived. The extent of the devastation caused by them (both temporally and eternally) cannot be measured. Our passage for this morning is largely about bad ideas and their consequences. But Paul’s point is not to merely wallow in how bad the Colossians’ world was, but to help them see the stark contrast between those things and the best idea of all time and its consequences. And that so that they might continue to walk in Jesus. Stated another way, whereas our passage for last week, 2:6-7, gets to the heart of the solution to the Colossians’ problems (remember the simple truths of the gospel and then seek to become increasingly rooted, built up, established, and abounding in thanksgiving), our passage for this morning, 2:8-10, gets to the heart of the problems themselves (they were at risk of being taken captive by bad ideas and led astray from Christ). The big idea of this sermon is that all ideas have consequences. What we believe determines how we act. False beliefs take us captive. True beliefs, which are always rooted in Jesus, set us free. The main takeaway is to see that no one takes us captive with false beliefs and to seek the freedom that is found only in the Truth of Christ. The Ideas Once again, Paul’s letter to the Colossians is one part warning concerning the imminent danger they faced, and one part encouragement concerning God’s protection and deliverance that was theirs in Christ. In that is a critical reminder that the news of salvation in Jesus is only good when it’s shared in contrast with the bad news of death through sin. When we share the gospel with the world, it is as important that we tell them what they must be saved from as it is to tell them what they are saved through and to. A gospel without the sovereign holiness of God and the death-producing sin of mankind, is no gospel. We must warn before we woo. But Paul is not mainly speaking of evangelistic efforts or to non-Christians here. He is mainly speaking to a group of people who profess faith in Jesus, but are in danger of being led astray from the truths of the gospel by false teachers and their bad ideas. And within that, he writes to them of the bad ideas, their consequences, and the manner in which the Colossians ought to respond. In a bit of reverse order (from Paul’s in v.8), let’s consider the bad ideas first. Paul explicitly names four: (1) philosophy and (2) empty deceit, according to (3) human tradition, according to the (4) elemental spirits of the world. These are more categories containing bad ideas, than bad ideas themselves, but they serve as important place holders for what’s to come in the letter. Philosophy The first bad-idea category is “philosophy”. It’s important to note that the term itself isn’t negative. It simply means “love of wisdom”. There is good philosophy, of course; philosophy rooted in genuine wisdom. But there is also bad philosophy; philosophy rooted in the godless ideas of the world. There is, perhaps, no clearer example of the contrast between these two kinds of “wisdom” that what we find in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. Throughout the end of chapter one and into the beginning of chapter two, he writes of “destroying the wisdom of the wise,” God making “foolish the wisdom of the world,” and the inability to “know God through wisdom”. But he also writes of “Christ crucified” as the “the wisdom of God” and his burden to “impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God,” which is the power of God to save. In other words, and once again, in the Bible, the word “philosophy” is used in both positive and negative senses. In that way, the issue isn’t that the Colossians were at risk of “loving wisdom”. The issue that Paul wants to Colossians to consider is the nature and content of the “wisdom” being presented to them. Empty Deceit That leads to the second “idea” named by Paul, which is actually just a clarification of the first idea. It answers for us the nature and content question of the philosophy Paul wrote about in v.8. What kind of philosophy was being presented to the Colossian Christians? “Empty deceit” philosophy; the first kind of philosophy I highlighted from 1 Corinthians 1-2; the philosophy of the world, the kind God destroys, the kind God makes foolish, the kind through which God cannot be known, the kind that promises much, but delivers little. Grace, have you ever considered how much empty deceit there is out there? Have you ever considered how often you are bombarded with it? Have you ever really tried to slow down and examine your own thinking to find elements of it? It’s probably easy for most of us to name the empty deceits “out there”. The world is so confused when it comes to issues of sex and gender, wisdom and folly, good and evil, life and death, love and hate, marriage and family, government and religion, ethics and morals, God’s nature and commands, and a whole host of other things. The world around us promises that we can work through those things however we want and find true satisfaction in whatever we come up with, but for the most part, we know that’s empty deceit, right? While I don’t think the Church is as good on those things as we think we are, we are, for the most part, better at recognizing them for what they are than those outside of the Church. However, there’s plenty of empty deceit inside the Church as well. As Jerry Bridges has pointed out, we often function according the empty and deceiving philosophy that treats ungodliness, anxiety, discontentment, unthankfulness, pride, selfishness, lack of self-control, impatience, irritability, anger, judgmentalism, envy, and gossip as “respectable sins.” In similar fashion, over the years, we’ve regularly been grieved as elders at how common it is for otherwise godly families to follow the empty and deceiving philosophies that kids’ sports/extracurricular activities ought to dominate family life, that skirting the edges of community with God’s people is an OK way to live, that worshiping as the gathered church on the Lord’s day is anything other than the pinnacle of the week in God’s design, that coming in and out of covenant membership in a local church is treated as a small thing, that husbands so easily abdicate and wives so easily complain, that non-evangelism is normal, and that God’s Word is minimized as the ultimate standard for significant aspects of our lives. Grace, if you are to receive Paul’s words as God intends, you will prayerfully examine every aspect of the ideas and philosophies that drive your life, seeking and destroying those that are ultimately composed of empty deceit; that is, those that promise joy or comfort or acceptance, but can only deliver the opposite. In just a bit, we’ll see what’s at stake for those who live according to these kinds of ideas, but first, let’s look at the final two “ideas” and the fact that they describe the source of the empty-deceit philosophies being put before the Colossians. They are human traditions and the elemental spirits of the world. Human Tradition Human tradition means exactly what you probably think it means. It is the thing that Jesus rebuked the religious leaders of His day for. 6 And [Jesus] said to [the Pharisees and scribes], “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, “‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; 7 in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ 8 You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.” 9 And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition!” (Mark 7:7-9). Jesus said this in relation to...
Transcribe →Walk in Jesus as You Received Jesus
3w ago00:49:46Tap to summarizeColossians 2:6-7 –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. Introduction Church, try to recall a time in which you found it particularly difficult to follow Jesus. Perhaps it was hard because you just didn’t know what to do (what it meant to follow Jesus in your circumstances). Or, perhaps it was hard because although you knew what to do, you just didn’t want to do it. Or, perhaps it was hard because although you knew what to do and even wanted to do it, the consequences for doing so were steep. When you found yourself in that place of difficulty, what was the most helpful counsel you received? Was there anything that you read or heard or remembered that truly helped you navigate your circumstances with biblical, Spirit-empowered hope and confidence (even if it was still hard)? What do you do (and how do you know) when following Jesus makes life hard? If that’s not a question you’ve ever had to deal with (or even regularly have to deal with), that’s a problem, but one for another day. But for those of you who do find themselves asking that question consistently (maybe presently), I hope you’ll lean way in this morning for Paul offers a great deal of help. Indeed, answering that question is largely the point of this entire letter, but it is especially the point of this particular passage. Above all (that is, throughout Colossians), Paul argues: You remember that Jesus is over all and in all (that He is supreme, preeminent). First and most, you settle on the fact that no matter what you are going through, Jesus is with you in it and sovereign over it. More specifically though, according to Colossians 1:6-7, you remember when you first trusted in Jesus and then, in light of that, you continue to walk in Him. That is, you remember your faith initially as a means of living out your faith continually. The big idea of this sermon is that faithfully walking the Christian life (always, and especially in times of hardship and confusion) is directly connected to beginning the Christian life with a simple acceptance of the simple gospel. The main takeaway is to consider all aspects of our lives through the simplifying lens of Jesus as King and Savior and then to live it out in truth, faith, and thanksgiving. As You Received Him (6) The small church in Colossae, consisting primarily of newer Christians, was in a tough spot. As we’ve seen, and will see again next week in greater detail, their difficulties were largely the result of a constant bombardment of “plausible arguments” and “philosophy” and ‘empty deceit” and “human tradition”. It’s probably not too hard to imagine, is it Grace? These baby Christians trusted in Jesus and consequently had their whole lives turned upside down. Everything was new and little was clear. They didn’t even have the completed Bible yet. Even without opposition, it was a tall task to even know what to do, let alone do it. But with bad actors, teaching bad ideas, it was inevitably harder still. It was harder because some of what they were hearing was “plausible”. It was wrong, but it sounded like it might not be. How do you sort through it all? It was also harder because some of what they were hearing was appealing. It was wrong and they knew it, but it was easier (kind of like the doctrine of annihilationism—no hell sounds a lot easier than hell). How do you keep choosing that which is right, but harder, when life is continually hard and easier options are continually put in front of you? Gerri and I are seeing that in a group of our son’s friends. Many of them either just came to faith in Jesus or just came to understand it in a life-changing way. And that, right into the deep end of life. They’re trying to discern God’s will for their areas of study, graduation, dating, marriage, career, etc. They’re getting all kinds of advice from all kinds of people with all kinds of motives and it can be hard to know what to make of and do with it all. They have friends and even parents giving them “plausible” advice for living their best life. It’s often rooted in real life experience and a genuine desire to help them avoid some of the mistakes they made themselves. The advice they’re getting generally flows out of truly (even if misguided) benevolent motives. At the same time, friends and family often mock or take offense if their counsel is rejected. These young people know that life is 10,000x better in Christ, but also significantly harder than just going with the cultural flow. So what are the Colossians and our son’s friends supposed to do and how do they know? Again, that’s largely the point of these two verses—which are right at the heart of the letter. The first part of Paul’s answer, found in v.6, was to consider how they received Jesus. 6 Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him… How did they receive Jesus? The same way anyone and everyone receives Jesus: They trusted in Him (1:4) with child-like faith. Not everything was clear, but there was a sweet clarity in simply believing that Jesus alone is Christ and Lord—that He alone could forgive them of their sins and that He alone was worthy of submitting to entirely as the highest authority in their lives. And there was a sweetness to the confirming grace of God that came with it. God immediately produced in them love for one another (1:4), hope for eternal life (1:5), and significant spiritual fruit 1:6). In other words, to come to faith in Jesus is to settle on the purist, most basic elements of the faith. It is to accept mere Christianity—Jesus as Lord and risen Savior. So, what does that have to do with baby Christians discerning the will of God in the midst of lots of clamoring voices making all kinds of claims? It means, Grace, we never move past the basics of the gospel. If any aspect of our walk with Jesus is honoring to Jesus, it’s because it flows out of the good news that King Jesus was crucified and risen for sinners. In that way, every aspect of the Christian life flows out of the things we believed when we first trusted in Jesus. There is more to learn, but it’s never disconnected from the things we believed when we initially experienced new birth in Jesus. The longer you are a Christian, the more life you will experience. And the more life you experience, the more complicated things can become. Like the Colossians, you’ll inevitably encounter lots of questions and competing ideas. The simple fact that God loved the world in such a way that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life, won’t answer all of those questions, but it most certainly will orient you for them all. It won’t sort through every plausible idea for you, but it will immediately eliminate many and illuminate all. For instance, when confronted with the question of who you should marry and the many voices speaking into it, remembering the gospel doesn’t give you her name, but the reality that Jesus is the Christ means that she needs to be a Christian and someone who loves as Jesus loves. The gospel doesn’t give you his name, but the reality that Jesus is King means that he must be someone who loves His rule. Likewise, when confronted with the question of how to respond to the bully at school, the gospel isn’t a play-by-play instruction manual, but it is a reminder that Jesus loved us when we were still His enemies. When confronted with the question of how to respond to someone who is wrestling through gender issues, the gospel doesn’t tell you everything you need to know, but it is helpfully orienting to remember that we are who King Jesus says we are, that we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and that the only hope for any of us is Jesus crucified and raised. The first part of Paul’s answer for the Colossians, our son’s friend group, and every Christian who is having a hard time discerning God’s will for their life (especially when life is hard for being the kind of person who tries to discern God’s will for your life), is to remember that faithfully walking the Christian life is always directly connected to the beginning the Christian life. It always begins with the conviction that everything flows out of the reality that Jesus is King and Christ. Oh to be properly amazed, humbled, and oriented by the basic truths of the gospel throughout all our lives. So walk in Him (7) Again, the small church in Colossae, consisting primarily of newer Christians, was in a tough spot due to a constant bombardment of the “plausible arguments” and “empty deceit” of “human tradition” and “philosop...
Transcribe →Sustained by God’s Grace
May 1700:35:04Tap to summarizeI Corinthians 1:4-9 –4 I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, 5 that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge— 6 even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you— 7 so that you are not lacking in any gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 8 who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Introduction I grew up in a home with a dad who had a lot of stamina to finish a project. My dad and I would often work on cars. Far too often we were making repairs that were not going as well as we had hoped. When I was younger I would be along side of dad watching—as I got older I would begin to help—but I soon found out that I would grow weary and quit, but my dad would keep on working until the job was done. My dad was amazingly patient and persistent. I always had full confidence that the car we were working on would get fixed no matter how difficult it was. My dad was one of those guys who if he didn’t have the right tool—he would fabricate one to work perfectly. Dad would persistently stay with a repair until it was done. In a much greater way, our text for this morning tells us how God persistently stays with us to finish the work that He started! And here is why this truth is so important. Have you ever battled sin or trials and wondered if you were going to be able to make it to the end? Have you ever felt weak, as if you may not have what it takes to make it and to remain strong to the end? Have you ever faced discouragement to the point where doubt dominated your thinking? I hope that at some point in your life you have felt weak and incapable of going on to the end! You might be thinking—Darrel, that is not the encouragement I was looking for this morning—but let me explain. Paul, in II Corinthians 12:9 records the words of the Lord Jesus when He said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness”. Paul continues: That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong”. You see, hardships remind us that we need God’s grace! Why do we need hardships? Because we are so prone to be self-sufficient and to think that we can make it on our own! Paul is writing to the church of Corinth, a church that was loaded with problems. But what is at the heart of their problems? Commentator Gordon Fee helps us understand one significant root of their problems when he states “The Corinthians are genuinely gifted, but as the letter reveals, they are self-satisfied and creature-oriented, boasting in mere human beings.” (NICNT, p. 36). Fee also states that “their problem lies not in their gifts, but in their attitude toward these gifts”(NICNT, p. 36). It was their inordinate attention on self and others—rather than God—that caused many problems within the church. Paul writes to them in I Corinthians to help redirect their focus. Today we will focus upon verses 4 through 9. In typical fashion for Paul, he expresses thanksgiving to God for the Corinthians. But if you have read through the letter to the church in Corinth, you know all the problems they had, and you might appropriately ask—what do the Corinthians have for which can be thankful? Well, what the Corinthians have, we have also been given—and because of that we too should be very thankful to God! But for what is Paul is thankful? Three things. First… I. Give thanks to God for what He has done (v. 4-7) In verse 4, Paul says “I always thank God for you because…” and then he gives us three reasons why he is thankful. The first reason is this… A. God has given you grace in Christ Jesus. Here “charis” is the Greek word for grace, and it refers to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Gospel of Jesus is God’s grace to His people. The Father sent His Son, Jesus, to this earth, and ultimately to the Cross to purchase our redemption. Through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the penalty for our sin was paid in full. Today, if we are the recipients of God’s unmerited grace by faith, we are counted as righteous before God. We have peace with God. If you are “in Christ” by grace through faith, then there is absolutely no condemnation upon your life. Not now. Not ever again! God’s grace that is given to us in the Gospel of Jesus Christ sets us free from sin and death. That also means that the power of sin was broken. Born-again believers are no longer slaves to sin. We don’t have to keep sinning. We are set free from sin to live in obedience to Jesus Christ. This grace given to us in Jesus Christ also includes the gift of the Holy Spirit, who gives us power to live our lives for God’s glory and others good. We don’t have to keep on living proud, self-sufficient, and self-serving lives. We can, because of the grace given to us in Christ, begin to find our greatest joy in loving God! And, because we are no longer held captive to sin, and because we have experienced God’s great love in Jesus, we can begin to love others in right ways. We can place ourselves at the loving service of others for their good and for God’s glory! Because the grace given to us in Christ Jesus, the penalty for our sin is paid in full, and the power of sin in our lives is broken. But that’s not all! God’s grace given to us in the Gospel gives us great hope for eternity. We are given a great hope that when we leave this earth, we will spend eternity with Jesus Christ without the presence of sin. Because of God’s grace given to us in Christ Jesus, the penalty of sin is paid in full, the power of the sin is broken, and we have a Gospel-infused hope that one day we’ll be entirely removed from the presence of sin, and we’ll see Jesus face to face. For what is Paul thankful? It is not what the Corinthians have accomplished. Rather it’s what God has accomplished in the lives of the believers through the Gospel of His grace. As Leon Morris states, “Mere human achievement means little to Paul”. Morris continues, “Paul doesn’t thank them for qualities such as faith, hope, and love (as in I Thess 1:2-3), but for what God’s grace has in fact done in them”. You see, Paul is beginning to redirect their focus from man to God. Imagine for a moment if I was standing next to the Mona Lisa in Paris, France (a picture I actually had the privilege of seeing on a business trip). Pretend that I stood next to the enclosed case and talked with tourists as they came by—and as I talked with them, I talked with them as if I had been the one who had painted the Mona Lisa. What would happen to me there? I would get booted out quickly because everyone knows that Leonardo DaVinci painted the Mona Lisa in 1506. It would be absurd for me to try to take credit for something a famous artist had done centuries before. So to, it is wrong for us to take credit for something that God has freely done in our lives—the Corinthians were squabbling about following Paul, and following Apollos—they were fascinated with all of what man can do, but Paul keeps reminding them all the way through the letter that we are just clay vessels—their focus was on man, and it should have been on God—so Paul is at work to redirect their focus—from man to God But let us continue, for what else is Paul thankful to God? Here it is… B. God has enriched you in Christ Jesus. Paul is thankful to God for how they have been enriched in every way. The idea here is that the Corinthians have been “made rich” or “richly furnished” in every way. But then he gives two specific ways in which they have been made rich: 1. In All Speech: This is kind of funny because one of the Corinthians problems was an inflated view of their speech. Yet, Paul begins by saying he is thankful to God for the way He has made them rich in ALL speech. As we will see later, Paul did not place a high value on rhetorical eloquence. Paul didn’t proclaim the Gospel in lofty words of wisdom. Instead, Paul’s preaching of the Gospel was made effective by the power of the Holy Spirit. Neither did Paul place a great value on the act of speaking in tongues if it wasn’t done in love, or the good of others. In fact, Paul said that if you speak in tongues without love its like an obnoxious clanging noise. Silence would be better than that. In chapter 14 Paul puts a huge emphasis upon speech that builds up the church. Paul was big on the body of Christ being edified. Paul would address their abuse of speech, but here in the beginning of the letter, Paul gives thanks to God for how their lives have been enriched in all Speech. This probably includes edifying speech they had received from him, and it would have certainly included edifying speech they have been able to give to one another in the church. The bottom line is this: Paul is thankful to God f...
Transcribe →Struggling for Sinners
May 1000:36:13Tap to summarizeColossians 2:1-5 –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. Introduction In our passage for this morning, Paul continues to describe how hard he worked to bring the Word of God to bear in the lives of others. He did so because he loved them and because he believed with all he had that God’s Word is so precious and powerful and transformative that sharing it with the world is worth every ounce of energy he had. He also did so because he knew that where God’s Word is taught in truth and received in faith, there is the treasure of encouragement, love, assurance, joy, and unity. Conversely, he did so because he also knew that wherever competing claims have taken hold, there is the misery of discouragement, division, doubt, corrosion, ignorance, and death. The big idea of the sermon is that hard work for the things of God is a feature, not a flaw of a godly life. Predictably, the main takeaway is to learn to understand and love God and His Word such that we’re compelled to work hard at living it out for the sake of the world. Moms, this isn’t anything like an ordinary Mother’s Day message, but I think you’ll find a good deal of clarity and hope for the hard work of your mothering in this passage and message. Paul Greatly Struggled on Behalf of Others (1) I wonder, what is the hardest you’ve ever worked? Have you ever felt like you were truly at the end of yourself on a physical level; like you worked so hard, you were on the verge of collapse? Similarly, what’s the longest you’ve worked the hardest for? Have you ever worked really hard for days, months, or years for something? And probably most importantly, what kinds of things have you determined are worth working your hardest for? What have you found to be valuable enough to work at with significant sacrifice and to the point of exhaustion? For the most part, our current cultural mindset seems to be that the main things worth working hard at are avoiding hard work and worldliness. But that’s a different sermon for a different day. My point here is to draw your attention to the Apostle Paul’s hard work, and especially what he worked hard for. Previously, we saw that Paul toiled and struggled to bring the gospel to everyone (1:29). In our passage, he picks up where he left off. You may remember that the Greek word translated “toil” indicates working to near exhaustion. And if you remember that, you probably also remember that the Greek word for “struggle” is even more severe still. To struggle in that sense is to work past exhaustion to the point of agony. Consider then Paul’s new modifier, “For I want you to know how great a struggle I have…”. He worked past the point of exhaustion, past the point of agony, to the point of great/excruciating agony. As I mentioned last week, that included ~10,000 miles of foot and water travel, preaching, teaching, debating, counseling, negotiating, rebuking, disciplining, encouraging, writing, tentmaking (he was bi-vocational), and all without a home base, without much sleep, often without food and water, with constant persecution and regular imprisonments, and all of that continually for ~30 years. We know from this letter (beginning right at the beginning and all the way to the end) that his primary work for others was prayer. His great struggle took the form of nearly constant prayer for his readers. Twice already, Paul has made it clear that God strengthened him for that work, but that wasn’t apart from Paul’s great struggle. We’ll come back to who and what it was that Paul greatly struggled for in a bit, but for now, two things… First, not everything is worth working this hard for, but there most certainly are things that are. We all need to have a category for things worth working towards until we have nothing left. As long as we live in this fallen, broken, cursed, and largely disordered world, and as long as we live under the dominion mandate, the Great Commandment, and the Great Commission, there will be things we need to pour ourselves out for (“as a drink offering” (Philippians 2:17)), both physically and spiritually. In this world, God’s design is leisure for work, not work for leisure. The rhythm of creation is 6 days of labor and one day of rest. And while we aim at “bearing [good, gospel, God-prescribed] fruit in every good work,” the expectation is inefficiency, difficulty, and injustice, no matter our work (Genesis 3:17-19). In other words, most of us would do well to do a bit of recalibrating concerning our understanding of the role of hard work in the life of a Christian. It is a feature, not a flaw of a godly life. Moms, on this Mother’s Day, you know this better than most. Good mothering is among the hardest work there is. There are few things more demanding, more constant, and with more at stake. But know this as well, there are few things more worthy of your best efforts and hardest work. If you are working hard as a mom, according to God’s design, you are working hard at one of the most important and significant tasks available to mankind. Do not let the world or your own inner voice tell you otherwise. That leads to the second thing I want you to notice from the beginning of v.1. For Paul, greatly struggling toward his God-given charge was both success and reward. This will become clearer as we make our way through the passage and letter, but a well-lived life works hard at the things of God and rejoices in the certainty of God’s pleasure in us as we do. As you all know, moms, your best efforts and hardest work can often feel like two steps forward and three steps back. And that can feel like failure. But the results are up to God, not you. You cannot save or sanctify your kids no matter how many prayers you pray, passages you read over them, verses you have them memorize, or how consistently you disciple and discipline them. Again, moms, learn from Paul that your task and your success is faithfulness in giving to your kids that which God has called you to. Work hard at those things (repent of not doing so if need be and rest in the forgiveness that is already yours in Christ). But as you do so, in the strength God provides, rest and rejoice in the knowledge that you do so in God’s pleasure. What’s true of motherhood is true of every aspect of a godly life. Our job and success, Grace, is working hard to live lives of faithfulness to God’s design, not to produce a particular result. Like Paul, work hard—really hard—for the gospel-good of others. And then rest well—really well—in the mighty hand and sweet pleasure of God in Christ. Paul Wanted Them to Know How Great his Struggle Was for Them (1) Paul greatly struggled on behalf of a group of people, and he wanted them to know it. I find that fascinating and not a little counter-intuitive. “For I want you to know how great a struggle I have…”. The first thought that comes to my mind when I read that is Matthew 6:1-4. “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. 2 Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Jesus told his followers to do good for others “in secret.” But in our passage, Paul was announcing his good work. He even went beyond simply telling his readers that he was struggling for them. He also told them how great the struggle was. Why was that and why is it not a violation of Jesus’ charge? Simply and encouragingly, Jesus’ prohibition was not against talking about our good works. It was about doing so for self-glory; for the...
Transcribe →The Heart and Marks of a Well-Stewarded Ministry
May 300:43:01Tap to summarizeColossians 1:24-29 –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. Introduction Last Sunday, for missions week, I preached a high-level overview of this passage. My main aim was to help you see the kind of perspective Paul had that enabled him to rejoice in his missionary sufferings. His answer, in simplest terms and consistent with the theme of missions week, is that while the sufferings he suffered were significant, they were far lesser than the greater good of bringing the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world. In other words, Paul was able to rejoice in his sufferings because although the cost was high, the reward was far greater. The loss of worldly comfort was a price worth paying for the gain of living in the will of God and love for His people. It was better, he reasoned, to die to the pleasures of the world than to live apart from the eternal pleasure of God and the saints. In that way, much of what I pointed out last week focused on how the claims of this passage support that glorious reality in relation to missions and how they relate to a well-stewarded missions ministry. For the next couple of weeks, then, we are going to circle back through the passage in order to consider more closely and practically what it means for the ministry to which we’ve been called. Last week, the focus was on doing that internationally. This morning we’re going to consider the heart and marks of a well-stewarded local ministry. To be even more specific, I’m going to make the case that this passage is a charge to all of us (to all Christians) to make it our life’s chief ambition to bring the glorious riches of the gospel to bear on everyone we meet. That’s the big idea and the main takeaway. Follow My Example Without getting too deep into the weeds, before getting into the meat of this sermon, it’s important for me to acknowledge/remind you of a few things concerning the context of this passage. I’m arguing that we apply this passage to our local ministry, but Paul had never met the Colossians. I’m arguing that we apply this passage to our local ministry, but Paul was hundreds of miles away from the Colossians when he wrote this letter. I’m arguing that we apply this passage to our local ministry, but Paul functioned mainly as an on-the-move missionary. I’m arguing that we apply this passage to our local ministry, but Paul’s ministry was as an apostle. I’m arguing that we apply this passage to our local ministry, but Paul’s ministry was directly, audibly, visibly, and explicitly given to him by Jesus. The question, then, is: How do I get from there to here? Am I being faithful to this passage in claiming that it is a charge for us to heed and example to follow, both in missions (last week) and local ministry (this week)? I think I am being faithful to the text for two main reasons: (1) Paul’s command in 1 Corinthians 11 and (2) His words in v.28. Paul’s Command (1 Corinthians 11:1) In 1 Corinthians 11:1, Paul commands his readers to “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.” The NIV translates it like this, “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.” Paul meant his readers (which includes us) to look to his life and do what he did, love what he loved, and say what he said, because he did, loved, and said what Jesus did, loved, and said. He was not, of course, calling everyone to imitate him as an imprisoned, apostolic, missionary. Nor was he calling people to perfectly follow his perfect example of the perfect example of Jesus. But he was claiming that by God’s grace, his life was a good example of godliness for others to follow. In my estimation, following the Paul’s example boils down to living continually out of three main convictions, no matter our context: (1) Treasuring Jesus above all, (2) Expressing that through whole-life, glad-hearted, Spirit-empowered obedience to God, and (3) Doing so especially by proclaiming and applying the gospel everywhere and among everyone, no matter the earthly cost. In that way, although this paragraph in Colossians was written from prison, to a church he’d never been to, it flowed out of the same convictions that led him to spend 2+ years investing in churches in Tarsus, Ephesus, Rome, Corinth, and a few other cities as well. For us to obey 1 Corinthians 11:1 in light of this paragraph, then, ultimately means learning to live out of the same core convictions that Paul was living out when he wrote it (which is a local ministry for most of us). Paul’s Friends (1:28) The second reason I think this passage is rightly applied to our local ministry is found in v.28. Throughout most of our passage (vs.24-27, 29), Paul described his ministry in first person terms (I/me). But in v.28 he switched to the third person (we). “Him [Jesus] we proclaim…that we may present everyone mature in Christ.” Timothy, Epaphras, Tychicus, Onesimus, Aristarchus, Mark, Justus, Luke, Demas, and Nympha are all explicitly mentioned in this letter as significant ministry partners (part of the “we” of v.29). Each of those individuals played different ministry roles for the sake of the Church. Paul charged Timothy, for instance, to follow the example he set in this paragraph as a pastor of a local church (in Ephesus). More to the point, what was missions work for Paul, was at the same time, local church ministry for Epaphras (who was from Colossae). Therefore, just as those who were with Paul shared his convictions and followed his example in whatever context God put them in, so too should we. Grace, may we all treasure Jesus above all, express that through whole-life, glad-hearted, Spirit-empowered obedience to God, and do so especially by proclaiming and applying the gospel everywhere and among everyone, no matter the earthly cost. The Heart of a Well-Stewarded Ministry Let’s say I’ve convinced you of the need to pursue those convictions, and apply them according to Paul’s example (which I’ve prayed all week would be the case). What, specifically, does that mean? At the heart of the example Paul set is a commitment to stewarding his God-given ministry well. Don’t miss that. I think the culture of Grace Church is such that we all eagerly nod our heads when told of our need to treasure Jesus above all. But what does that look like lived-out? Certainly, it has a good deal to do with our appetites, affections, longings (which Paul talks about elsewhere). But it also has a good deal to do with the way we live our lives. It makes little sense to say we treasure Jesus apart from living that out in concrete ways. Paul’s point in v.25 is that the primary way he did so was by being a good steward of the ministry entrusted to him, “…I became a minister [of the Church] according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you…” In other words, I think the center of Colossians 1:24-29 is an example of what it means to treasure Jesus in our daily lives; namely, by being good stewards of the ministry entrusted to us by God. My main charge, then, is to do just that, Grace—treasure Jesus by giving your whole life to being a good steward of your God-given ministry. Key Terms If we’re going to follow his example, then, we need to begin with clarity on the two main terms of this clause—minister and steward. The term “minister” is an important one for Paul and an often misunderstood one for us. It is the same word used for “Deacon” when we speak of the office of deacon (1 Timothy 3:8-13). The literal translation is “servant”. God made Paul a minister of the Church in that He made him a servant of the Church. Paul’s main charge was not to get from the Church, but to give to it. O, that we might all come to think and act like that. We’re so programed to think of the church as existing to serve us (which, of course, it does in some ways) instead of the other way around. Indeed, it is far more blessed to give (to serve, to minister) than to receive. Grace, how are you guilty of thinking of the church mainly as your servant? The other key term, “steward,” is an unusual one. I can’t think of the last time I heard it outside of the Bib...
Transcribe →Death to That Which Is Lesser – Life to That Which Is Greater
Apr 2600:42:49Tap to summarizeColossians 1:24-2:2 –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. 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… Introduction Welcome to the start of missions week. I’m exceedingly thankful for the culture-shaping effect it has had on our church over the years. One of the most tangible ways I’ve seen that play out is in the fact that missions is normal at Grace. No one wonders whether or not missions ought to be a part of our church-life. We all know and love the reality that as long as there are people around the world who have not heard the good news of Jesus, who have not yet tasted and seen that He alone can satisfy our souls, we must go to them or support those who have. But if we’re being honest, we’ll admit that missions is a scary and costly and intimidating. With that in mind, Kyle introduced me to the theme of missions week this year with the following thoughts… “How many of us fall short in our sending and our going because we see it too much as a loss of something? A loss of money, loss of time, loss of comfort, a loss of fulfillment, or a loss of safety and security? Yes, missions is loss, but it is a loss of that which is lesser, and a gain of that which is greater. Greater joy. Greater purpose. Greater satisfaction” (Kyle Puelston). Grace, I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that all of life is one choice after another between lesser or greater. Likewise, I don’t think it’s misleading to say that sanctification is God’s work of giving us increasing appetite for all things greater. Our main problem is that sin has made it so that we often can’t tell the greater from the lesser and even when we can, we often don’t prefer it, and even when we do, we are often unwilling to pay the cost to get it. And here’s the key for us to grasp this morning: As long as that’s the case, missions will never find its proper place in our own lives or in the life of our church. Missions week this year is a call to die to that which is lesser in order that we might live for that which is greater. It’s a plea to ask the Lord to help us increasingly die to all the sinful and even “fine” things in our life, that we might come alive to the greatest things—to Jesus and all that He has commanded. Through Paul’s example, we are given a crystal-clear picture of what that looks like. The big ideas of this sermon are that God commands missions, missions is hard, and we’ll never do the hard work of missions if we aren’t convinced that it is greater. The main takeaway is that we’d work hard to learn, love, and live the greater, no matter the cost (that we’d read our Bibles, pray for the Spirit’s transforming power, and spur one another on in missions). Missions In Paul’s Life Again, there are three components to the big idea of this sermon: (1) God commands missions, (2) Missions is hard, and (3) We’ll never do the hard work of missions if we aren’t convinced that it is greater. Paul most certainly understood and believed and lived in light of those biblical truths. To help you see that, and then apply it, consider with me six high-level observations from our passage. Paul Rejoiced in His Suffering as a Missionary (1:24) Almost from the moment of his conversion, Paul spent his entire life serving as a missionary. That is, he gave himself to traveling around the known world, telling everyone he could about the good news of God’s grace in Jesus Christ. He did so across every geographical, cultural, linguistic, political and, economic boundary there was at that time. In the course of nearly 30 years of missions work, Paul traveled across two continents, somewhere in the vicinity of 10,000 miles, personally sharing the gospel with hundreds, if not thousands of people. And in that time, he suffered much. He suffered to the point that it’s probably nearly impossible for most of us to imagine it, his perseverance in it, or even his lack of complaining about it. But more than merely making it through and keeping his complaints to himself, Paul explicitly tells us (in v.24), “Now I rejoice in my sufferings…” He did the hard work, kept doing the hard work for three decades, and saw his hardships not as a flaw of his ministry, but as a feature, as opportunities to rejoice. That ought to cause two questions to spring immediately to mind: (1) What suffering, and (2) Why rejoice in it? What suffering? It’d be a significant understatement to simply say, “a lot.” By the time Paul wrote his letter to the Colossians and claimed to be rejoicing in his suffering (you can read about a good deal of it in 2 Corinthians 11:23-2), he’d already been beaten, lashed, stoned, shipwrecked, sleepless, homeless, famished, and betrayed. Most immediately, in the context of this letter, Paul was suffering imprisonment, in “chains” (4:18), for declaring “the mystery of Christ” (4:3). And all of those things, multiple times (including shipwrecked). Again, needless to say, that level and length of suffering goes far beyond what any of us can even imagine. If that’s the nature of his suffering, how/why in the world would he rejoice in it? You do know that sounds a bit crazy, right? Paul seems to be living out what James commanded: “Count it all joy…when you meet trials of various kinds.” I’ve always found that to be the most counterintuitive passage in the whole Bible. (I know there are others that should seem more that way, but they just don’t.) On the surface, trials and joy seem to me to be the definition of opposite ends of the spectrum. Nearly every part of my rational brain is convinced that to move away from one is to move toward the other; that they cannot coexist. The theme of missions week, the opening words of our passage, and Paul’s entire Christian life, are a direct assault on that line of thinking. But again, why? How? The short version is that in all of these things, Paul told his readers that he was willingly dying to his old self and life, to his old desires and motivations, to his old priorities and privileges, and to his old thinking and reasoning. And he told them that he was doing so for the sake of living for something much, much (incalculably) greater. Everything he once held dear and built his life upon, had become to him as rubbish compared to the opportunity to know Jesus, obey Jesus, and proclaim the good news of Jesus to the world. The remaining six observations are the meat on that bone. They are the alternate calculus which reckons suffering as joy instead of ruin. They are the greater that makes it worth dying to all lesser. They are the things that an above the sun exchange rate values above all earthly comfort. They are the answer to the question of how a man or woman of God can rejoice in their trials of obedience. Paul Rejoiced in His Suffering for the Sake of the Church (1:24) The second observation, and the first explanation for Paul’s rejoicing in his suffering, is found in the very next clause in v.24, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake…” [that is, according to the end of the verse,] …for the sake of [Jesus’] body, that is, the church…” (also, “for you” according to v.25). In other words, Paul knew that the suffering he endured for telling people about Jesus was for the benefit of all God’s people. It was a benefit for those who had not yet heard the gospel in that they might hear, believe, and be saved. And it was a benefit for those already trusting in Jesus in that, as we’ll see from 1:28 on, it resulted in their spiritual maturity. In his second letter to the church at Corinth (2 Corinthians 4:8-11), he says it like this… We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 10 always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our bodi...
Transcribe →Persevering Faith in Christ Our Treasure
Apr 1900:42:34Tap to summarizeColossians 1:21-23 – 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. Real Letter, Real People, Real Author We are continuing our journey with the Colossian believers through Paul’s letter to them. I say it this way because this was a real letter to real people written by a real man. This is not simply a theological—let alone philosophical—exercise in analyzing abstract concepts. The Colossians are our brothers and sisters, we will see them in glory someday soon. There is a gospel history to our faith today – enduring faithful saints long before us. Praise God for the great cloud of witnesses that have endured before us! The real words to real people is true for the Bible as a whole, it is not just some book. These are the words of the Living God written in a real time and preserved for us, so that as the author of Hebrews says: “all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.” My aim this morning: Remind you of the great hope we have in Christ who has reconciled us to God the Father and will present us holy and blameless. Therefore, we joyfully persevere in Him, through Him, and for Him for our utmost joy and His utmost glory today into infinity. The reality of this letter is that it is not just written for those who are navigating hardships. Yes, the Colossian church was facing hardship in unique ways, but I imagine that some believers were coasting, not wanting to draw attention to their lives, or they were seeking comfort, maybe a justified holy comfort. This letter, friends, is for anyone who claims Christ is their treasure, to stir their faith daily in the sufficiency and joy in Christ. Often it is not just hardship that draws us away from Jesus, but the comfort, the ease, the ordinary days of this life, especially in the West. We drift if we are not careful. In fact, there are many warnings throughout the Bible of wandering away from God, we are to be diligent in our faith. To simplify all of this: whether hardship or ease is your current posture, this letter is meant for you to proclaim to your soul that Jesus is awesome so that you press on to the end. With that in front of us, let’s walk through Paul’s words starting with how vs 21 & 22 are connected and vital to understanding vs 23. 1. Your Condition and Calling: From Alienated to Reconciled Delight in God (vv. 21–22) “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.” Once alienated, cut off from the joy in God (v. 21). Alienated (apellotriomenous) meaning “transferred to another owner”. We belonged to sin, self, and Satan before Christ saved us since we were in Adam as all mankind is. In Adam, we are born alienated from God. Our very nature opposes Him. As individuals, we willingly embrace that alienation through sin (thought, word, and action), some of us more subtle than others, but until the light of Christ shone in our hearts, we loved being separated from God. Paul tells us this alienation affected our mind: “hostile in mind” meaning we were an enemy of God in our minds, and it affected our behavior, thus “doing evil deeds” meaning out of the heart the body acts. Not just guilt, but misdirected desires. Choosing broken cisterns over the fountain of living waters (Jeremiah 2:13), this phrase points us to the core problem of sin which is seeking joy in everything else other than where is can be found which is Jesus. We are alienated not only from God’s presence, but from God as our delight, treasure, and joy…alienated from life. Therefore, we are joyless, lifeless, hostile people in our sin. Can you just notice the ‘once’ for a moment. We can see there is something else coming…once you were like that…BUT GOD….transferred us from this alienation. This same term was used by Paul earlier in verse 13 “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son…” So, now we are reconciled, restored to God as our treasure through Jesus to present you holy into the joy of your Master. For those who have been adopted or adopted someone, you understand this in a unique way. Verse 22: “Now He has reconciled…” God’s answer to your alienation is reconciliation, accomplished at the cross. Friends, this is the initiative of God. He did not meet us halfway in our separation, but He came all the way to meet us down in the pit of our own sin and guilt. He does this “in his body of flesh by his death.” This emphasis by Paul reminds us of a real Savior, real body, real blood, real cross for a real redemption. Christ didn’t just make salvation possible, He secured your salvation and your reconciliation. Not just peace with God, but access to God as your supreme joy. The result of this reconciliation is “to present you holy, blameless, and above reproach before him…”, presented as acceptable before God, clothed in Christ’s perfection. This salvation includes transformation. It is not just escaping from righteous judgment, but becoming holy like Christ. The Apostle Peter tells us Christ died to bring you to God fulfilling the goal of salvation which is seeing and savoring God forever (1 Peter 3:18). This is key before we move onto the striking word we find in vs 23. 2. Your Response: Continuing Because You Treasure Christ (vs. 23a) “if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast…” The Bible does not contradict itself. Since Christ purchased your salvation, He will keep those He shed His blood for…not a drop is wasted. We believe that we are saved by grace alone through faith alone – we do not do anything to earn or keep our salvation. The ‘If’ is a warning, friends. Throughout the Scriptures, the Lord warns His people as a loving act. The “If” statements of God bring clarity to our responsibility in hearing the gospel and treasuring Christ as He also does a work in our hearts and minds at the same time. Here are a few instances: Genesis 2: “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” Deuteronomy 28: ““And if you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth…“But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord your God or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you.” 2 Chronicles 7: “When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people, 14 if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” Then in Ch 15: “The Lord is with you while you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will forsake you.” Isaiah 1: “If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; 20 but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” In the NT, this pattern continues way before Colossians. Jesus in John 14: ““If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Jesus, then follows this with the hope of the Helper coming…so that we would work to keep His commands out of love and duty, not to earn the free gift of salvation. John 15: “If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. 7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. “ Paul in Romans: “For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” (ch 8) Lastly, the author of Hebrews: “Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. 13 But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. 14 For we have come ...
Transcribe →Once Alienated, Now Reconciled, Soon Holy
Apr 1200:45:10Tap to summarizeColossians 1:21-23 – 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. Introduction Having spent the past several weeks on 1:15-20, we’re about to begin a new section of Paul’s letter. Before we get there, though, let me give you a quick recap of what we’ve covered so far. After a brief introduction (1:1-2), Paul wrote out his prayer of gratitude to God for His gifts of faith and faithfulness in the lives of the Colossian Christians (1:3-8). From there, Paul shared with the Colossians his main prayer for them; namely, that God would grant them all they needed to live lives “fully pleasing to Him [to God]” (1:9-14). And then, again as we’ve been considering for some time, Paul rooted all of that (along with all that’s to come), in the preeminence of Jesus. He wrote at length of Jesus’ supremacy over Creation and Recreation (1:15-20). Ultimately, Paul called the Colossian Christians to persevere in faith through persecution and false teaching, and, most importantly, he told them how to do so. He charged them to keep their eyes fixed on Jesus, the Preeminent One, who holds all things in His hands. His great burden was that they’d make sure Jesus, not themselves or their problems, was at the center of the story they were living out of. Beginning in v.21 (our passage for this morning), then, Paul moved from declaring transcendent truths about Jesus back to applying them to his readers. He moved from second person pronouns (He) back to third (you). Lord willing, we’re going to spend two weeks on this passage. This Sunday, I’m going to focus on vs.21-22 and the great exchange it describes. Then, next Sunday, Pastor Colin is going to focus on v.23 and the call to perseverance in faith. There’s a past, present, and future component to this passage. Consequently, there’s a past, present, and future big idea for this week as well: All people are born with a sinful nature (past), our only hope is to be reconciled by Jesus (present), and all who are reconciled will be made holy (future). And the main takeaways are to fight for humility, share the gospel, and hope in future grace. Born Sinful (21) I’ve shared this story with a number of you, but it bears repeating here. One evening at the Farmer’s Market a woman came up to me holding the “Gospel for Kids” booklet we hand out. She thought it was important to let me know that someone put a book at our church table that said of kids, “Because we do not love God as we should, we deserve to be punished.” She found that to be entirely false and offensive. What’s more, she assumed I’d agree and be glad she brought it to my attention. In a profound way, I really believe that much of the enflamed social and political turmoil we’re currently experiencing is captured in that brief encounter; that is, over the question of mankind’s essential nature. Whether she could articulate it or not, the division between us was directly tied to our answer to the question: Are humans naturally good or bad? I’ve recently read two clarifying books on this idea. Carl Truman’s “The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self” and Thomas Sowell’s “A Conflict of Visions” both recognize this problem and its profound impact on our culture. Although Truman writes from a Christian perspective and Sowell from a secular one, both persuasively argue for the same basic conclusion: Mankind is fallen in nature and needs help restraining his self-interest. With Sowell, I’d suggest there’s more than sufficient empirical evidence to support the claim that we’re born with sinful natures (he phrases it differently; doesn’t call it “sinful”). But at the end of the day, Truman is right in that it really comes down to whether or not we believe the Bible accurately describes the human condition. We can debate definitions and evidence. What we can’t debate though is what God’s Word says about the matter. What Paul says in v.21 is echoed over and over and over and over throughout the entire Bible. Of the Colossians, which is to say of every person since Adam’s Fall, Paul said exactly what we find consistently taught from Genesis 3 on, “you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds…” (21). And to remind you of the rest of the Bible’s teaching on this matter, consider just a few of the many verses.… Genesis 6:5 The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Ecclesiastes 7:20 Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins. Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? Romans 3:23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God… 1 John 1:8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. I could go on, but the point remains: If you believe the Bible is God’s word and that it means what it says, then there’s simply no way to deny that alienation from, hostility towards, and evil against God is our natural condition. For Paul to claim that of the Colossians, for him to declare that they were alienated from God, is to claim that they were living in opposition to the very reason for which they were made—fellowship with God. To be alienated from God means being separated or estranged from Him. It is to be at enmity with God. It is a tragic declaration that they had been entirely severed from their very purpose in life. The next two clauses, “hostile in mind” and “doing evil deeds,” give the reasons for and result of their alienation. That they were hostile in mind means their thoughts were opposed to God. It means they believed lies and hated the truth. It means they were confused and conceited in their thinking. It means they didn’t know God, His will for them, or even themselves. It means the things they were thinking made God angry. And that they were doing evil deeds means their actions flowed out of their busted, rebellious thoughts. The did what they ought not to have done and refused to do what they should have. They chose folly over wisdom and death over life. They did what God hates and not what He loves. During my teenage years, had you asked me if I’d go to heaven or hell when I died, I’d most emphatically have answered, “heaven.” If you pressed me for my rationale, I’m most emphatically have answered, “because hell is for truly evil people.” In v.21, Paul teaches that I was right and wrong. I was right to think hell is for truly evil people. I was wrong to assume I wasn’t among them. We really need to come to grips with that idea, Grace. If we’re honest, it doesn’t really seem like that, does it? Do you really think of yourself as having been (or being) hostile in mind and evil in deeds? Do the unbelievers in your life truly seem wicked? Non-Christians, if you’re being honest, this seems pretty offensive even, doesn’t it? Of course, there are some who do more evil than others (sometimes, much, much more). Paul certainly wasn’t denying that. But his point was that starting there means missing the point. The problem with my teenage thinking was that it was exclusively on a horizontal plane. I was only comparing myself to other people. But Paul calls his readers to think on a different plane, a vertical plane. He wasn’t telling the Colossians Christians that they were alienated from God because of the way they stacked up against other Colossians, but because of the way they stacked up against God. In relation to God, everything looks very different. It is true that 99.99% of us do less evil than someone. Probably most of us do less evil than the majority of the rest of the world. Again, however, even the briefest glimpse of the holiness of God will cause the best among us to join Isaiah’s cry, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts” (Isaiah 6”5)! In other words, Paul’s claim that the Colossians (and all people) were hostile in mind and evil in actions, did not mean that they were (we are) as bad as they could be. But he did mean that they had fallen infinitely short of the glory of the holy God. And He did mean that their rebellion against God had completely alienated them from Him. They were guilty before God and under His just judgment, not because of how they compared to one another, but because of how they compared to God’s holy nature and commands. Evil thoughts and actions, whole-being rebellion, leads to and results from our whole-being alienation from God. Paul echoes the sam...
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