The book of Colossian is another of Paul's prison letters, written from Rome. Paul wanted the believers in Colossae to be firm in their understanding that Jesus alone is at the head of all churches. Paul's surroundings never interfered with his ability to communicate that Jesus Christ brings true freedom.
Pastor Skip Heitzig: I was just looking at all of you shaking hands and hugging the cameras were panning and it's great to see you. Welcome back to "The Bible From 30,000 Feet" {applause} And I'll tell you, I have really missed this study this last month. It's been great all that we've done; for necessary reasons. But it's really great to be back to the meat of the word, the book of Colossians. Now, because we've taken a little -- over a month off from the Bible from 30K, it afforded me a chance to really get into this book. So I was able to read through Colossians, probably at least 16 times, just over and over and over and over again, and just really understand it afresh. It's a book that, because I did that, means a lot to me.
And I will say this, the book of Colossians is one of the those messages that has certain truce in it that is desperately needed today, because of the tendency today, as I would say in every age, since it was the tendency back then to get off track, to get off center, to swerve toward other emphases. It's always a danger for God's people to get off of what is most important and get sidetracked on important issues that aren't the most important issues, and they can take precedence over that which is all important, as we will see tonight.
I remember when I was in college, which was at least ten years ago, way, way over that, and I would go visit my parents on weekends from college; it was an internship in Radiology, and I would drive from the hospital in San Bernardino to my parents house, about an hour away, and the week had sometimes been so laborious and taxing with work and study that I would find myself driving on the freeway, falling asleep, swerving off, only to be caught by those little markers that are little bumps. So your tires are going, and I would wake up. It's a good thing, because on the other side of those bumps was at least a 30 foot drop. So it just showed me, hey, stay awake so that you can get to your destination. I see that as a real issue then, 2,000 years ago, when this was written, and today.
Now, the dominant theme of this book is to keep Jesus Christ dead center, right in the middle of your life, for a Christian He is it, He is everything, He is the pinnacle, nothing else matters as much as Him. That cannot be overstated, and Paul certainly states it over and over again in this letter.
Because there's winds of doctrine that blow from time to time; there's other voices out there telling me, well, it's good that you have Jesus Christ, but you need more than Him, it's not quite enough. It's great that you are a Christian, but if you only experienced what we have experienced in our group, or if you only had the special knowledge that we have in this other group, you'd be so much further ahead than you are know.
And I have discovered from reading Colossians that it's not some new experience or some new revelation, what I need is a fresh experience of the old revelation, of the most important revelation, which is Christ. In fact, what Paul would say is this, and we will amplify it as we go through it tonight, "If you have Jesus Christ, you have it all, you don't need anything else."
And sometimes we look for something new, it's like the guy who is looking for his glasses, looked everywhere around the house, finally he said to his wife, have you seen my glasses? She said yes, they're sitting on your nose right now. He had them on his face, he didn't even recognize that. I think sometimes we are looking for something that we want desperately and we already have that which we think we need.
I vividly recall in my early Christian walk, during what was labeled by the press, at the time, as the Jesus Movement, a clergyman in Southern California was ditzzing the whole thing of the Jesus Movement and saying, you know, they're a bunch of young kids and what do they know. I remember a statement and it was written on the press, he said, and I am quoting "After all, all they have; that would be us, is Jesus." Close quote.
And I read that and I pondered that and I thought, he doesn't even realize what he is saying. "All they have is Jesus". And Paul would say here, if all you have is Jesus, then you have it all. He is the center and everything branches off from that.
And I have been told throughout my Christian life by well meaning people, individuals, and groups that I need more than Jesus.
I had a guy in a robe; I don't why he dressed in a robe, but he was very dramatic and he came up to where I was living and he told me that, it's good that I was a Christian, but was I a vegetarian Christian? And I said no, I'm not a vegetarian Christian. I have nothing against it. I have tried it before in an episode of my life. He said, well, you're not really following God's will unless you follow the dietary regulations and become a total vegetarian. He was fully into Jesus plus vegetables.
Or I have had other groups say, well, it's good that you are a Christian and you teach the Bible and all that, but do you pray and fast like we do, or like this group does, because if you don't, you are never really complete? I'm not against prayer and fasting, obviously if the Holy Spirit is yielding or leading you to yield to that, but it's not like you must do that or you are not complete in Him, that's just nonsense.
Okay, if you can remember where Ephesus was, or if not, you can locate it on a map at the back of your Bible. About a 100 miles inland from Ephesus; and I'm bringing up Ephesus because that was a very important headquarters for Paul. Do you remember how long he spent in Ephesus? Three years. You get a star for that. You didn't even have to take the quiz on the Internet. Three years. And because that was so important and so pivotal and so much happened, even with relation to what we are going to read tonight, about a 100 miles inland into the east was a valley called the Lycus Valley; very important in the ancient period of history, where the trade routes would go through the Lycus Valley.
And there were three cities in the Lycus Valley; Colossae, Hierapolis, and Laodicea. The first and the third you have heard off. You have heard of Colossae, because of this book, and you have heard of the letter or the postcard that Jesus wrote to the Laodiceans in the Book of Revelation. These are three very important places. Paul never visited Colossae, but because he was at Ephesus, people from Colossae came to visit him while he was teaching for three years in Ephesus, and it would seem that the pastor of the church at Colossae was one of them. We will be introduced to him in just a minute.
Now, Colossae was on the trade routes, it was a meeting point for east and west. It was a place where goods, services, ideas came together and would travel. And because of that, weird ideas traveled as well, weird ideologies. Belief systems in religions from the western part of the Roman Empire, the eastern part of the Roman Empire, and sometimes they would come together and they would merge into a brand new religious system, where you would have bits of a belief system, bits of another, and they would put it all together and make it sort of a hybrid belief system. That was going on in Colossae.
It wasn't just Gnosticism, as some of you may have read; well, Paul was writing a polemic letter against the gnostics, sort of, but sort of not. It was a synchronistic religious belief system, ideologies that borrowed from Jewish legalism as well as gnostic mysticism, and combine them.
Now, I have said the word gnostic on a few occasions in "The Bible From 30,000 Feet", just a few notable things about what they believed in. Number one, they believed God was good. Number two, they believed everything material, in the material world was evil. And because of that Jesus Christ cannot have had a material or physical body, but He was an emanation from God, and here was their belief system. There was God, He is perfect, He would have nothing to do with the material world because its evil, so an emanation went out from Him and another emanation and another and another and hundreds and thousands of emanations, eventually there was an emanation that went out from that god that created the material world as we know it; all sorts of weird ideas that was Gnosticism.
But this particular religious system that Paul is addressing in Colossians, the four chapters of this book, had a few characteristics. Number one it was ritualistic. That's why I said it had parts of Jewish legalism. There was the observation of certain days to worship, certain seasons to worship, certain regulations they had to keep.
Number two, it was ascetic. What I mean by that is, it was strict discipline, self-discipline, you can't do certain things if you want to attain a spiritual level, the highest spiritual level.
And number three, it was mystic. There were groups of people that claimed to get visions from God and God revealed this to me and God spoke to me, and then they would give what they thought God gave to them, including that they had to worship angels, different spirits other than God himself.
Because all this was happening in the Lycus Valley, in Colossae, in Hierapolis, in Laodicea, the pastor, named Epaphras; he was the pastor of Colossae, takes a long journey from Colossae to Rome. Why Rome? Because Paul is in jail in Rome and he tells him what's going on. Paul, you wouldn't believe what people are into. They are coming into the church; this is what they are teaching.
So Paul goes, yeah, I heard about that before. Yeah, I have seen that before. So as Epaphras downloads what's going on, Paul, around 62 AD, decides to pen a letter to the Colossian church, and Epaphras, the pastor, who was probably saved under Paul's ministry; remember I said Paul never went to Colossae, but he stayed in Ephesus, so probably what happened is Epaphras came to Ephesus, where Paul was teaching, heard the message, responded to the message, became not only a Christian, but became a leader eventually and a church sprung up around a home Bible study, presumably, and now there is problems. So Paul writes the letter to address the issues.
Now, there's four chapters in this book, and there's four sections, if I am going to outline the book for you, make it very easy. So I am giving you now the flight plan for this evening. Here it is. Number one is the personal section. These are the introductory remarks that are in every one of Paul's letters; Paul an Apostle of Jesus Christ, and Timothy, our brother, or whoever is with him, onto the Church at, I have heard about you, this is what I think about it, this is what I am praying for, all of that is the personal section, that's the first part. That's chapter 1, verse 1 to verse 14.
Second section of this in our flight plan is the doctrinal section. That's chapter 1, verse 15, all the way through the end of chapter 2, that's the doctrinal.
Number three; you probably are already guessing where I am going, is the practical section, which is a pattern with Paul's writings, is it not? He would often get personal, then he would get doctrinal, then he would get practical.
So beginning in chapter 3, verse 1 to chapter 4, verse 6 is the practical issue. If these are truces, then this is how they should look in your lives as church members in Colossae.
And the fourth section of the book is relational, and that's the rest of chapter 4, verse 7, all the way to the end is relational. So you have personal, doctrinal, practical, or ethical, or applicational, and then finally relational. That's the flight plan for the book of Colossians.
Let's look at the first section or parts of the personal section, Chapter 1; I take you to verse 3, skipping the introductory remarks.
"We give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; that's the theme of this book, the Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of your love for all the saints; because of the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, of which you have heard in the word of the gospel or the word of the truth of the gospel, which has come to you, as it also is in all the world, and is bringing forth fruit." Whenever the true gospel message is preached that will inevitably be the result, fruit will happen, it will come, people will be affected by it. "As it is also among you since the day you heard and knew the grace of God in truth; as you learned from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful servant or minister of Christ on your behalf."
So there's been fruit in Colossae, but wherever there is fruit, there are fruit flies, or as H.A. Ironside use to say, whenever you turn on the light, there will be bugs. And the light has shined in that dark region of the world, and because of that you have bugs that are attracted, fruit flies that come to spoil the work of God.
Now, verses 9 through 14 is Paul's prayer for them, which if you have noticed in many of his letters so far, he will begin with introductory remarks and then he will say, you know, I have been thinking about you lately, and as I think about you, here's some of the specific things that I pray for you about, and they are all different in each letter, as also in this one.
So in verse 9; "For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you might be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom; by the way, wisdom will be mentioned six times for a very particular reason, and spiritual understanding." So notice, he prays for knowledge, wisdom, spiritual understanding.
"That you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God." Why does he use these terms sort of stacked together; knowledge, wisdom, spiritual understanding, and then repeat those throughout the book, simply because these were terms the gnostics loved to use. In fact, they had a special word for their kind of knowledge, they called it super knowledge, super knowledge, in the Greek, epignosko, not just nosko; to know something, to be aware of something, but we have an epignosis, we have a superior super knowledge above all the rest, and if you do certain things, if you keep certain regulations and rituals, you too can be initiated and enter into this super knowledge, this epignosis.
So Paul says, you know what I am praying for, that you will have a super knowledge of what God wants for your lives; a knowledge of God's will and all wisdom and spiritual understanding.
Now, these terms that the gnostics used that Paul is, I wouldn't say borrowing from them, because I would say that the gnostics took good godly biblical Christian terms and hijacked the terms. They are great terms; wisdom, knowledge, spiritual understanding, great terms, but used by the devil through the gnostics; they came to mean something else.
Now, I have noticed something about some of the tactics of Satan. He loves to hijack Christian vocabulary, but he doesn't want to consult the Christian dictionary as to the meaning of those words. He will give it a brand new meaning. And so society will even say words like born again but not mean what the Bible means, or spiritual enlightenment, but not mean what the Bible means, or I have been saved, but not mean what the Bible means.
So that's why it's very careful, whenever you engage in conversation with any buddy besides a believer in Christ, a worldly person or for that matter a cultist, especially I would say, learn to define your terms and you will discover that the Jesus of the Mormon and the Jesus of the Jehovah Witness and the Jesus of any cultic group, though the name sounds identical to what we read in the Bible, get them to define Jesus, and you will find it's a very different meaning. So get them to define, what do you mean by Jesus? Well, exactly who was He in your view, and you will discover their description of Jesus or salvation is different than the Biblical definition. So don't be fooled by terms, investigate the terms. These were terms used and hijacked by the gnostics.
Now, beginning in verse 15 is the second section, the doctrinal section of the book. This is the pinnacle of the book, this is the most important section of the book, everything is derived from this, and because of that I will spend more time in this section tonight than any of the other sections in our time together.
Jesus Christ, preeminence, or being the most important one, the most important issue, was denied by Jewish legalists and the gnostic mystics, and this was a religion remember that was a compilation of both of these.
So Paul says in verse 15: "He, [that is Christ], is the image of the invisible God, He is the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible."
I wish we had time to delve deeply. This is one of the hardest things for me about "The Bible From 30,000 Feet", is I look and I go, I want to just wait, stop right here, and go deeper, but I can't because we are trying to fly over it, and I want to have that plane land and start digging into the ground and I can't do that. But you will notice that there is a visible creation and an invisible creation, one that you can't see, ie, spiritual beings, angels, and some of those angels who have defected and become demons. A very real world, that's invisible, as well as one that is visible.
"All things were created; notice, through Him and for Him. And He, Christ, is before all things, and in Him all things consist. And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell."
So you can understand and see by what we have just read is that, Paul is giving Christ a way exalted position, and you can't overstate Christ and how important and how central He is. And so that becomes the most important part of this book.
So let's look at a couple of items here. Notice, Jesus is the image of the invisible God. What does that mean? The word is icon, which means a portrait or a picture, a copy or a likeness. It's another way of saying Jesus Christ is the likeness, visibly, in His character and personality of the invisible God.
That word, icon, was used way back in ancient Greek times, one Greek soldier wrote a little letter and in the letter was a drawing of himself, a portrait that a fellow soldier made of him. And he sent this to his father and said, father, I sent you a little icon, portrait of myself. Jesus is the icon of God.
Now, I am going to go into a hobby that I know and I use to know a lot more when it was in film, and that is photography. Now, photography today is all digital, right? Even our esteemed photographer who is taking photographs tonight has a digital camera. So film, it's like, film, what's that? And you go to buy film, it's sort of hard to find a lot of the film you use to buy.
But in photography, pre-digital, when there was there film and photographic film was produced by shinning or the picture by shinning light through the film and then enlarger onto paper, there was something called the latent image, okay? So when you exposed the film; click, you take a picture, shutter opens up, light goes through, and you have a latent image on the film, it's invisible. If you were to take it out of the camera and look at it, you wouldn't see anything, you would see gray, but it's there.
Because the light has excited some of the silver bromide crystals that are on the face of that plastic, that film, it's invisible, but if you apply certain chemicals, like a developer to it, it takes something invisible and makes it visible. And so you develop it and you develop the paper.
Jesus Christ came, and up to that point God was invisible, He developed the picture, so that people could look and go, that's what God is like. There is the image of God. There is the perfect picture and personality of God.
So Paul starts there with a Colossian church, He is the image of the invisible God; notice, the firstborn over all creation.
Do you know how many cults have used that little phrase in this verse for their own perverted reasons, saying, see, Jesus wasn't God, He was born first. Because this says He is the firstborn, and they love to use this incorrectly.
Here's the problem though, if you keep reading down about the verses that we have been looking at, notice it says, "He is the firstborn from among the dead." So does that mean Jesus Christ was the first whoever rose from the dead? It doesn't mean that, it can't mean that, if it does he would be wrong, because even in Jesus' own ministry, He rose people from the dead, raised them from the dead before His own bodily resurrection, and in the Old Testament people rose from the dead before the New Testament. So obviously it doesn't mean first in time or chronology, it must mean something else, and it does.
The word firstborn is a very common construction; the Greek word, prototokos, it means the most important. First in status or priority, and sometimes the nation of Israel was called the firstborn of God.
Like in Exodus, chapter 4, God said "You are my people, my firstborn", that is, you are the most important people group of all the people groups in this world. I am dealing with you right now, and I am bringing you into a land, and I am giving you priority as to my own plans for the future. They were the firstborn.
Here's another example. Remember Joseph, he had two sons while he was in Egypt. Remember their names? Firstborn, the guy who was born first, who came out of the womb first was called Manasseh. The second born son was Ephraim. Except later on when Joseph brought his sons to his father Jacob to bless, remember what he did, he did one of these switcheroos; he crossed his hands, placed his right hand on the youngest son, left hand on the oldest son, and Joseph goes, Dad, you got it all wrong. He goes, nope, I know exactly what I am doing.
And later on when we get to Jeremiah, God uses this example and He says of Ephraim, who was born chronologically second, is not Ephraim my firstborn. That is, he is in the place to receive the inheritance and the blessing. It's a way of saying he is the most important one, the one that I am going to work through more so than the other one.
So don't get thrown by the term firstborn that means born in chronological order first, it means first in order of importance or priority. Jesus the firstborn over all creation, that is, of all that exists, since He is the creator it says here, He is the head of it, it originated from Him and He is the most important over everything else. And of all the people who have risen from the dead He is the most important, the firstborn from among the dead. That's the idea of it.
Look also in verse 17, "He is before all things." Do you understand this, He is before all things? Go as far back as you want to in history and put your peg there, and then you go, well, I can pick of something further back then that and further back, wherever you put your peg, Jesus Christ will walk out of eternity and meet you there. He is before it all. He is the only one who existed before He was born. Before He was born in Bethlehem He preexisted. In the beginning was the word and the word was with God, and the word was God, and the word became flesh; that's Bethlehem, and dwelt among us. He was the only one who preexisted or lived before He was born.
And then Paul says, "In him all things consist." It means to be glued tightly together. Jesus Christ is the super glue of everything that is in creation, He holds it tightly together.
Verse18; "And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He might have the preeminence."
Jesus is the source, He created everything, and He's the source of the church. The church was His idea. It wasn't a bunch of guys getting together going, you know, it would be really cool, now that Jesus is gone, like if we just like kept this thing going, we will call it a church. No, Jesus said I will build my church; it was His idea to call men and women out and to bring them together throughout history.
Notice, "that in all things He might have the preeminence." "For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell."
Well, this makes sense. If He is the preexisting one, as Paul said, if He is the creator, as Paul said, if He is the sustainer, as Paul just said, if He is the incarnate one to reveal or develop the personality of God and human flesh, and if He is the originator of the church, well, it only makes sense that He should occupy the most important place in your life and my life. That it shouldn't be angels or some other being or some ritual or regulation, that we have Jesus plus something else, it just make sense that if all of the fullness is in Him, then all you need is Him.
Here is what Paul is getting at. Jesus Christ was no second rate emanation but the true revelation, the exact full revelation of God the Father.
So in chapter 2 verse 3; speaking of Christ, "in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Now this I say lest anyone should deceive you with persuasive words."
Verse 8; "Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ."
Interesting thing about these teachers, with this new spiritual identity, this mixture of Jewish legalism and gnostic mysticism, what's interesting about them is they seemed to not go out and win converts from the pagan world, the Roman world and bring them into their group, but they always attached themselves to already existing assemblies, churches. And their evangelism was, you need more than what you have. They couldn't sell their bill of goods to any kind of intellectual pagan, because they would be like, this is stupid. So they would find unsuspecting young believers who have already opened the door to spiritually in their lives and start confusing them, and the ones who would fall prey, the easiest where those who weren't rooted and grounded in truth.
And they would play, the false teachers would play upon a deep desire we all have. We all want to grow. We all want more than we have already experienced. We all want a deeper relationship with God. And so these teachers would say, well, I know that you do, therefore we have got the system for you, and would drive them away.
They tell them about the deeper life. You want a deeper life, follow us and follow this system if you want a deeper life, and they got so deep, they went off the deep end.
This is not uncommon. This is very relevant, not just for today, but it will be relevant in the next generation if the Lord tarries, in every generation this happens.
I was reading a part of the autobiography of E. Stanley Jones, the great missionary who went to India. And he talked about his young ministry and how he attached himself to different people. He was 83 when he wrote what I am about to read, and looking back over his life, here is what that veteran missionary said. He said, Christ has been and is to me the event. In His light I will try to see all of life.
He writes that as a young evangelist he saw the danger of becoming sidetracked. He says this; I once traveled during my formative evangelistic years with a very great man. I learned much form him, but when his emphasis shifted from Christ to various other emphases; anti-war program, social justice, birth control, spiritualism, he was less than effective, he was a blur. He would exhaust these emphases in a year or two and have to shift to a new one. But you do not exhaust Christ, He is the inexhaustible one. Events come and go, but the event remains unchanged amid the unchangeable.
So follow what Paul says in a brief few verses before we get to this next or third section.
Verse 11; "In Him, [in Christ, He is the center of this letter], In Him you were also circumcised; [but notice], with the circumcision made without hands. "
Why would he say that? Because part of the people or part of the group were saying, hey, you know, I know you are a Christian, you believe in Jesus, but you must keep certain regulations, and one of them is circumcision.
"You have been circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ. "
And then verse 12; "Buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him."
So this is what he is saying in verse 11. Every ceremony is completed in Christ. You can't add to Christ. It's not like you are saved by Christ plus baptism. You are not saved by Christ plus circumcision. You know, I don't know how they ever got very far with that one, and if you really want to get really spiritual, you have got to be circumcised. Uh, next. I don't know how anybody would be really appealing to that, but it must have got some people.
You know what; some folks are really obsessed with ceremony. To them it's all about the beauty of the ceremony rather than what the ceremony means, what it's a symbol of. Well, if a ceremony or a ritual is symbolic of a greater reality, wouldn't it be better to find out what the greater reality is that it's speaking about, instead of stopping short by just getting hung up on the symbolism of that which is greater. It doesn't matter if it's circumcision or baptism or baby dedication or confirmation; these are all symbols of a greater reality.
So what he is saying in verse 11, "Every ceremony is completed in Christ."
Look down at verse 14; "Having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross."
Now he is saying every requirement is depleted in Christ; not only is every ceremony completed, but every requirement is depleted. He says that He has taken away the handwriting of requirements. Okay. Here is what he means.
The law pointed its finger at us and told us, you have blown it, haven't you? Thou shalt not, and you did. Thou shalt, and you didn't.
So when you read the law; you can read just the Ten Commandments or you can read the book of Deuteronomy, which is the re-emphasis of the law, or you can read all the first five books of Moses, but read them and you will discover, that's the standard, and I haven't kept all of that righteous standard. I have fallen short. I have blown it. And here is why, it was meant to. It was meant to show you, you have blown it; you can't fix it on your own.
Here's the words of Paul, the Apostle, "I would not have known sin except by the law. Now that we know that whatever the law says it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world guilty before God. Therefore, no one will be declared righteous by observing the law, rather through the law I become conscious of sin."
So I read the law, there is requirements; I failed to keep the requirements. It tells me I am guilty. The law is in effect a handwriting of requirements that I have not kept. So Jesus comes and He dies on the cross, and He takes away the charge that is against us, the failure, breaking of the law, and nails it, as it were, nails it to the cross.
In ancient times if you owed a debt, once you paid the debt, a public announcement was nailed up somewhere that announced to people that you have paid in full your debt. So you and I could never fulfill the debt or breaking the law, it was done and completed in Christ at the cross.
One of the great songs we sing from time to time is, Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe. Sin has left a crimson stain; He washed it white as snow.
Look at verse 15. Not only is every ceremony completed, not only is every requirement depleted, but now every enemy is defeated.
Verse 15; "Having disarmed principalities and powers; [that means that's the invisible creation, fallen angels], having disarmed them, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it."
At one time, Satan said of your life, he is mine, she is mine, and then Jesus died on the cross, and that was the point of victory that caused Satan in whatever life would turn to him and say, I trust in Christ to be broken.
Whenever the Roman government would win a decisive battle, in prominent battles there would be a victory march, where the spoils of war, where prisoners; typically who were soldiers fighting on the opposite side, would be marched through the town as a public victory procession, saying, we have won, they have lost, here is the spoils of war that we are entitled to, and that's the idea here. He has made a public spectacle of them triumphing over them in it. It's what Paul meant in Second Corinthians, when he wrote, "Now thanks be to God who always leads us to triumph in Christ". And some modern translations say He leads us in a triumphal procession in Christ; it's the idea of a public spectacle.
So verse 16; "So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ. Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and the worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind."
In other words, there are people who are saying, I have this revelation because God gave it to me in a vision or in a dream, it's directly from God. So if you disobey what I am saying, you are disobeying God. Paul is saying, they made it up, they made it up. God gave us the full revelation in Christ. Hebrews, chapter 1, verses 1 and 2, that's it, they are making this stuff up.
So food, drink, festival, new moon, Sabbath. Verse 16, notice he says, "they are a shadow", Verse 17, "of things to come."
You know what a shadow is, it's not the substance. Up here on the platform I can hold up my hand and there is lights coming from different places, but there is a shadow of my hand, or let's see, is there a shadow of me behind here? Little bit, there is a shadow. That's not the real thing. The shadow of my hand speaks of the reality that there is a hand, but it's only a wisp of the reality, it's only an indication of the reality.
So if circumcision, new moon, Sabbath, rituals, were all shadows of the reality, why were people hung up on the shadow rather than the reality? And they were making it all about the shadow, the baptism, the circumcision, the dedication, instead of Christ.
And it brings a question up that I have wondered about. If Jesus Christ is truly all that you need, then why would anyone ever settle for anything less than Him, or why would somebody go to something more than Him; Christ plus something? And I thought about that and I can only come up with one answer based upon my observation of human nature. It's because mankind is incurably addicted to working for his own salvation. They just cannot trust that Christ is enough. It's got to be something more that I do to earn His favor. And I have seen it over and over again. They never mature, because they never rest in grace and therefore appropriate what is theirs.
Which takes us to the third section, which we are going to skim through; chapters 3 and part of chapter 4, down to verse 6; this is the practical section. This is where Paul says, Colossians, now you need to become in experience what you already are in God's grace positionally, live it out. So he changes here from correction and instruction to application; very, very practical, and he starts out with an if then proposition; if this is true, then that must follow.
Verse 1; "If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God."
Verse 5; "Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry."
Verse 8; "But now you yourselves are to put off all these things: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man; [that is not your dad, that is the old you before Christ], you put off the old man with his deeds."
That's summed up all of this in verse 8 and 10, put off the old, put on the new. Stop doing certain things, start doing other things; not to earn salvation, but because you are in grace already saved and therefore have the power to do it, not on your own, but through Him. You put off and you put on.
Now look at Verse 18, he gets very practical. "Wives, submit to your own husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands love your wives and do not be bitter toward them. Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing in the Lord. Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged. Bondservants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, but not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but in sincerity of heart, fearing God."
You see how Paul thinks in this letter? Do you see what he does? I really want you to get this. He begins by exalting Jesus Christ as the creator and the sustainer of everything. He then exalts Christ as the head of the church, and he says, not only is He the head of creation, not only is He the Lord of the church, but He needs to be the Lord of the kitchen, the Lord of the living room, the Lord of the bedroom, the Lord of the boardroom, the Lord of all of your other relationships; if He is the preeminent one, and He is, then it ought to change our relationships; beginning at home and on into the relationships of everyday life.
Because as Howard Hendricks loved to say in his preaching, if your Christianity doesn't work at home, it doesn't work, and then he said, so don't export it.
So if Christ is preeminent; and you get all theological, I know this and all that, let's argue about the kenosis. Let me just see how you are living at home, with your wife and your husband and your children, and bondservants with their masters. He has got to have first place in our families, first place in our marriages, first place in the workplace, first place in relationships, recreations, vacations. First place in what we listen to and what we look at when people are watching and when nobody is watching. First place.
Keep your eye on Christ, that's the theme, keep your eye on Christ. Jesus is the most important thing, so Colossians, look at Him, keep your eye on Him, focus on Him, everyday, Christ.
When I used to help my father in the construction business; he was a builder, a real estate developer, and so he would hire out me and his other three sons to do work that he could pay a lower wage to than the real carpenter. So we would do finish work and we would work as a helper to some of the other carpenters. Well, in my observation and experience in working with carpenters, they get really good at hammering nails, because they do it all day long. And I remember seeing carpenters put a nail down and seemingly take off their hand; that's what it seemed like to me and sort of look at it while it was balancing, and then with one hit, drive the nail all the way into the two by four. Now, it was faster than that, but they just, bam, bam.
And I tried it, and I asked them to teach me, and they just said, just try it, you will get it. And I kept hitting my thumb, and I noticed they never hit their thumb. And so I asked an expert, what's the secret? He goes; you always hit what you are looking at. If you are looking at your thumb, you are going to hit it. And I was, because I thought, I don't want to hit that, I want to protect that. So I am looking at what I want to protect, but I am using a hammer in my right hand to drive a nail, and I always hit what I looked at. He was looking at the head of the nail and driving it perfect every time. I was looking at my thumb and it was hit and miss; mostly miss rather than hit.
Are you looking at Christ? Are you living your life looking at Christ, or have you added some things to your Christianity? You are being digressed form the most important thing. What other thumbs are there that are holding up Christ, that seem to get all the attention? That's his thought here.
Now, let's close the book with the last several verses; this is the relational part. Now, there is eleven names in the rest of chapter 4, and if you have ever read Colossians, you may come to this part and just sort of skip it. I don't -- what do I care? I don't know these people, what's the big deal? Why are they so important? And if you are the kind to do that, then you have also discovered other sections of the Bible you have had to skip over as well, like the whole 16th chapter of the Book of Romans is all a list of names.
And one of the things Paul does from time to times is list associates, coworkers that were very important to him. So if you read it and you go, so what, what's the big deal, if Paul heard you say that, he would say, they are a big deal to me, they are my associates, they are helpers in the ministry. And here is the point I think Paul is making. Whenever you see anyone successful or visible in any endeavor; even ministry, but especially in ministry, know that there is several people behind the scenes making it all happen.
Charles Lindbergh, you know him, right? You have heard him? Question, who is his mechanic? You say, I don't know, it's not important. It was to him; very, very important. So we have that here as well.
These are, what we would call, hidden saints. If you were to ask anybody in the first century church, they would know who they are. Paul certainly knew who they were, and so he writes about them.
Verse 7; "Tychicus, [he calls him] a beloved brother, faithful minister, a fellow servant in the Lord, who will tell you all the news about me."
He is mentioned five times in the New Testament. Because he is mentioned, he must have been important. He was. He joined with Paul on the third missionary journey. He was probably one of the guys from Colossae who traveled with Epaphras to listen to that new preacher in Ephesus named Paul, and was converted and was affected.
When Paul decided to go back to Jerusalem and everybody said, don't go, don't go, don't go, Paul chose seven people as part of that team and Tychicus was one of the traveling companions. Notice that Paul calls him here a faithful minister; that means a servant. He is always thinking about other people.
He was the guy that while Epaphras carried the letter to the Colossians back to Colossae, Tychicus carried the Ephesian letter back to Ephesus. He was a pretty important and weighty ministry to Paul.
Somebody once said, the greatest ability in the world is dependability. I can't tell you what it's like to have people around you that are dependable. And I realize that in any ministry, there is a visibility factor; people see my face or hear my voice because of radio, but everybody in this church knows that the reason things work and tick so well is because there are so many faithful servants of the Lord doing the work of the ministry behind the scene, that keep it all going. It's true here; it was true in Paul's life.
Billy Graham had T. W. Wilson and Grady Wilson. Martin Luther had Philip Melanchthon. Paul, the Apostle, had a whole list that he mentions in his letters.
Verse 9; "With Onesimus, a faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you; [that is, he is a homeboy, he comes from your town, homeboy in the New Testament sense]. They will make known to you all things which are happening here."
Now, keep that name tucked in your brain, Onesimus, because he was a criminal. He was a runaway slave, and the owner was Philemon. And we get to the book of Philemon, its all about Onesimus and Philemon and that relationship of love and forgiveness. You see, it seemed like Onesimus robbed his master Philemon and ran away to Rome, because in Rome you can get lost in the crowd, you can start a new life, he thought. He must have met Paul, and Paul led him to Christ, and Paul said, you have got to reconcile with that old owner of yours, Philemon. So this is Onesimus, that slave; and we will get more into him when we get into that book.
Verse 10; "Aristarchus my fellow prisoner greets you, with Mark the cousin of Barnabas (about whom you have received instructions: if he comes to you, welcome him)."
Remember Mark, he was the guy in the first missionary journey with Paul and Barnabas, but somewhere in the middle of the journey he got homesick, he got cold feet, he got scared; we don't know exactly, but he left the company of Paul and Barnabas. Well, later on when that was done and Barnabas said and Paul said, "Let's go back over the area where we planted churches and strengthened those believers." Barnabas said, "Great, let's bring Mark with us." Paul goes, "I am not going to bring him. He is not dependable, he flaked out."
Well, there was such a disagreement between Paul and Barnabas that they split company and two groups were formed. But toward the end of Paul's ministry there must have been a reconciliation, for the very last letter Paul ever writes; Second Timothy, he talks about Mark and he says, get Mark and bring him with you when you come to me, for he is useful to me for the ministry.
I love the fact that there was a breakup, but that in time; and it must have been several years, there was a beautiful reconciliation of these two, before Paul died.
Verse 11 and notice; "and Jesus; [that is not Jesus Christ, that is another Yeshua, a common name], who is called Justus. These are my only fellow workers for the kingdom of God who are of the circumcision; who are Jewish, they have proved to be a comfort to me. Epaphras, who is one of you, a bondservant of Christ, greets you, always laboring fervently for you in prayers that you may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God."
He was the pastor of their church, Epaphras, and Epaphras traveled all the way to Rome to have an audience with Paul, to say, Paul, what do I do about this weird doctrines spreading through my church? And Paul gave him instruction and wrote a letter, and it was carried back by this faithful pastor, and notice, one of the characteristics that Paul brings out about Epaphras; wasn't his theology but his kneeology. He was a prayer warrior. He had labored faithfully for them in prayer and Paul must have spent a lot of close time to notice the prayer habits of this spiritual soldier.
Verse 13; "For I bear him witness that he has a great zeal for you, and those who are in Laodicea, and those in Hierapolis."
Remember those three cities were together in the Lycus Valley. "Luke, a beloved physician [who wrote the gospel of Luke, as well as the Book of Acts, was a traveling companion and personal physician of Paul the Apostle], and Demas greet you."
Now, all of these names are good examples except that last one that I read, Demas. He is mentioned three times in the New Testament. He was with Paul on his third trip. He was with Paul when Paul got arrested and Paul was prosecuted, and something, we don't know exactly what happened, but it could be that in seeing the prosecution he said, I can't hang with this. I didn't sign up to get hurt. I didn't sign up for people to not like me anymore. I didn't sign up for people to call names at me or to have my life threatened.
So the last thing we hear of Demas is in Second Timothy, chapter 4, the very last letter that Paul writes, he said, "Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world."
Here is a guy who had the veneer of a dedicated Christian while all the while loving the world and loving the things of this world, and really tied to the value system of this world. And you couldn't tell at first, but when times got tough; and it always happened when times get tough and there is prosecution and an economic crisis and wars, etcetera, etcetera, eventually as that goes on and on and on, the wheat and the chaff are separated. And this is a sad testimony of Demas.
And we conclude verse 16; "Now when this epistle is read among you, see that it is read also in the church of the Laodiceans, and that you likewise read the epistle from Laodicea."
Now, some would say, oh, I wish we had that letter. That is a letter Paul wrote that we don't have. There is no letter to the Laodiceans in the New Testament. Most scholars believe that the letter to the Laodiceans was the letter to the Ephesians, and that the principal city in that region was Ephesus, so they got the letter first, but that whole region would share letters that Paul wrote, because they believed his letters to be weighty, important, and scripture.
Peter said, they were read publicly and then taken to another assembly and read publicly, because they didn't have copy machines and he couldn't email one here and email one there, so they would read it publicly, and then they would exchange letters.
"And say to Archippus, Take heed to the ministry which you have received in the Lord, that you may fulfill it. This salutation by my own hand-Paul. Remember my chains. Grace be with you. Amen."
Let's pray; Father, thank You for this book or thank You for the central message of this letter. The central message Paul would say is it's not about him, it's not about Christianity, it's not about the belief system, it's about Christ Himself, and how a person is related to Christ. And Lord, this just clears so much up for us, because we tend to get sidetracked, or even when we witness, we sometimes tend to get sidetracked by making the issue everything but Christ Himself. And I pray that as we are reminded to keep Christ as the center or as Paul puts it The Preeminent One in all areas of life; from family to business, from work to recreation. That as Jesus is the center of our lives in this upcoming year, people would see it, and see that we are different, and we would live compelling lives, the kind that unbelievers just got to know more about, because they are curious that somebody could live such a different manner; that's what You have called us to live, different lives, holy lives.
I pray Father that as we do that, You be a rewarder of those who diligently seek You and a Savior of those souls who are around us. Do your work Lord in us and through us and thank You for hungry hearts, who come out to hear the Bible being taught. Strengthen each one gathered here tonight. You know the good, You know the bad, You know the issues struggling. Father, we pray that You would bless and strengthen for Your purpose. In Jesus' name, Amen!