01 Colossians Study 1 — Colossians 1

0:02 We're going to continue our our study in the book of Colossians. Ray Gonzales, introduced the study last week, and he reviewed some of the some of the major errors or heresies that were facing the church of that era. And he ably and quickly reviewed the four main things, and one was what he called Greek philosophy, that is any systems of beliefs, values, tenets that guide your thinking. And that's, if you think about it, confronting us today, Philosophies of men that threaten the the truths of the gospel that that that attack it. The Ivy Leafs, Ivy League Schools out east were all founded.

0:51 I understand by Christian men who wanted to train people in theology and now now look at them. The wisdom of the world is foolishness before god. Also, secondly, Ray mentioned mysticism. And in regards to that, it was the worship of angels and we'll make a few comments about that later. Third, the Jewish tradition.

1:14 The fact that these Christians were saying, yes, Christ is is part of it but you have to add to it or you have to have this certain tradition. And that's not true either. And then the last thing that Ray mentioned was asceticism. Kind of a I can't fully explain that to you, but I can I can tell you what Ray said? It's...

1:35 He said that in regards to asceticism, it's where every... Where material... Everything material is considered evil. So if Christ was was in the flesh that we wouldn't compute with them because if he was in the flesh like the rest of us, there's evil involved and therefore, essentially, it was a tag upon the deity of Christ. So, that's that's what Ray talked about last week and some other things I'd encourage you to get the tape if you have not already listened to it but let's bow for a word of prayer before we launch into our our verses for this week.

2:12 Father, again, we thank you for your word and we pray that as we look at it these few moments this morning that you'll help us to have our not merely our minds open but also our hearts to receive your truths and to understand them and to have the courage and obedience to apply them and to be faithful to our lord and savior and we just ask these things in his name. Amen. I just I want to cover just four verses today. Just not not Four sentences. Just four sentences we'll be looking at today.

2:50 Unfortunately, Paul the apostle wrote those four sentences. So, they're quite lengthy. There's 14 verses. As as I mentioned before the prayer, the challenges that Ray Gonzales outlined last week that were confronting the church in Colossi also are confronting us today where there the gospel is being distorted or outright rejected. Did you know that the word churchianity is actually in the dictionary?

3:23 Churchianity and it's not to be confused with Christianity. Christ alone is the foundation for the church. We read that in first Corinthians three and also second, and also Ephesians two that Christ... Ephesians two where Christ is the chief cornerstone. It's his truth.

3:44 It's his gospel that that we base our our faith on. I was away for two weeks last month and I had the joy of attending a a fellowship of Christians each of those two weeks, and I found it interesting the subject matter that was presented. The last Sunday I was here was the AIG event, and Doctor. Michie was reminding us of the slide today in the church across America. Many do not even use the scriptures anymore, or they'll water it down.

4:22 They'll say creation wasn't six days. They're reinterpreting the scriptures, but... And the two different churches I went to, one was Scottsdale Bible Church. They're preaching through the book of Galatians. And the pastor there was on chapter one explaining the true gospel, and I just want to review the three elements of the true gospel that are indispensable.

5:05 Secondly, the second element of the true Gospel is the work of Christ, namely Calvary. The substitutionary atonement at Calvary. One of the songs we read today talked about Calvary. Calvary is not a fabrication of man to make us feel good. It's a historical fact.

5:25 There's a couple of well known people that have set out, they were legally trained minds, attorneys, that decided for themselves, they had to figure out once and for all whether or not Jesus really died on the cross, whether it was just a fact or made up. They attacked it as unbelievers because that's what they were, and they came to the conclusion that it did happen and that they needed to bow the knee to Him. So, the work of Christ at Calvary. And thirdly, faith alone. By grace are ye saved through faith and that not of yourselves.

6:00 The human tendency for all of us is to want to assist God, but that's not the true Gospel. Now, when we do place our faith in Him for salvation, it will affect how we live. He has prepared good works that we should walk in them, but it's not good works that accomplish our salvation. And the other message I heard while on vacation was in New Mexico, Las Cruces, New Mexico, at Bethel Bible Fellowship, and the preacher there, the message there was on the importance of the gospel. So, first message 500 miles away was on the true Gospel, and then the second message was on the importance of the Gospel.

6:41 And then his main texts are preaching through the book of Romans, and they were in chapter 10, particularly verses 13 to 17, that whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. But the imperative upon us is to proclaim that name. If people hear the message, they can believe, and the power of the Gospel is able to save. So let's look at Colossians chapter one. And my approach today is going to be to take it phrase by phrase.

7:13 We won't talk about every word or phrase perhaps, because I know as time goes on, I'll run out of time and I'll have to throw some things overboard. But that's the basic approach, phrase by phrase. And let me read it through first, just to give you the flow of the passage. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God, and Timothy, our brother, to the saints and faithful brethren in Christ who are in Colossae, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. We give thanks to the God and Father of our 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 heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel, which has come to you, as it has also in all the world and is bringing forth fruit, as it is also among you since the day you heard and knew the grace of God in truth, as also will learn from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf, who also declared to us your love in the spirit.

8:25 For this reason, we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will and all wisdom and 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, strengthened with all might according to His glorious power, for all patience and long suffering with joy, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints and the light, who has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption, through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. And that's where we'll stop for today. Next week, Mr. Pyle is in the will of the Lord. We'll be picking up at verse 15.

9:20 This is a passage of scripture, one of many that I call a cheesecake passage. It's so dense and so rich and so satisfying, you can't just, it's certainly not angel food passage where you can eat half the cake at once. It takes time to just take one bite at a time. And I had so much joy in working through this passage over the recent weeks and just looking at each phrase, and I'll try to share some of those highlights with you now. Right back at the beginning, Paul was an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God.

9:54 Essentially, he was a missionary from God to the world to bring them God's message. It wasn't, and Galatians makes this clear, he wasn't teaching his own message, it was a message that he received from God by God's authority to share with the world. And it was a message of Jesus Christ. Timothy, our brother. Timothy was a coworker of Paul at this point.

10:20 Other places in scripture, Timothy is called my son... Paul calls him my son in the faith, but this reminds me, reminds us that all of us are on an equal footing before God. We have different tasks to do, different responsibilities, but as Christians, we don't elevate one another above each, any of us above another. We're all Christians that work together in our God given roles. And he's writing to the saints and faithful brethren in Christ who are in Colossae.

10:57 He's writing to Christians. He calls them saints, which means they were believers, and he calls them the faithful brethren in Christ. One of the books I looked at on this says that there's sort of a, Paul's working in a compliment of sorts there, faithful brethren in Christ. They had not abandoned the faith, but they were being confronted with those different false teachings, and they were vulnerable to taking some wrong pathways. And Paul, by calling them faithful brethren, is reminding them that they need to stick with the truth.

11:44 In a sense, I can explain it this way, when you say those of us who are parents want one of our children to do something, we might say something like, Timothy, my wise and obedient son, will you please take out the garbage? How could he say no to that? I'll keep record if I can, but he's very creative. But he's not shaming them into something, but he's planting a seed there. Second part of verse two, Grace to you in peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

12:26 Grace is a unique feature of Christianity, and I appreciated what John Ashcroft, our former Attorney General during the days of nineeleven, observed about how true Christianity is where God, or to use another term, our deity of choice, which I don't like that, but that's what I want to use for the sake of illustration, where our deity gives of his son for the well-being of his subjects, of the sons, whereas, and he was contrasting this to the wicked and progressive elements of Islam that are asking them to give themselves for deity. It's just a tremendous contrast. Grace to you in peace. Grace is a unique feature of Christianity. And because of that grace, we have peace with God.

13:23 Romans five:one, Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Also, this peace that we get from God is talked about in Philippians four. I'll just make a note of it. We won't go there, but Philippians four verses six to nine. You you know the verses, Be anxious for nothing, but with prayer and supplication, let your requests be made known unto God, and the peace of God shall guard your hearts.

13:52 That's a peace that we have by being His children. And then later on in that portion, it talks about the God of peace. It's double edged protection of God's peace. Also, grace to you in peace from God, our Father. Think about that.

14:25 But God, our Father, is a relationship that cannot be broken. It can be stressed. We can wander from Him and get into trouble. But He is always there, always faithful, always desiring to be involved in our life and to guide us. Now, we better move on or we're not going to get very far.

14:51 Okay, verse three. Paul, after he had received this report Paul had not been to the church there at Colossae, but he had contact with Epaphras, who we believe was with Paul in Ephesus. So they had that relationship, and Epaphras had went out into that region about 100 miles from, forget I where it was 100 miles from, but it was not where Paul had been and preached the Gospel and saw different churches established. So Paul is rejoicing when he hears that the Gospel went forth and people had gotten saved, and that's why he gives thanks ultimately and primarily to God the Father, who is able to, who first of all gave the Gospel, was that Gospel that Paul was preaching and that had brought salvation to the people. So we give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you.

15:49 We know a lot about Paul because he wrote much of the New Testament. Paul's business was the Gospel. In Philippians chapter one, he says, For me to live is Christ and to die is gain. Also in Philippians one, remarked, even though some his peers or some of the Christians there were preaching the Gospel out of improper motives, he said, In every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached, and in this I rejoice. And Paul understood that the power of Paul understood that the Gospel was the power of God to salvation.

16:27 He knew that only God could save. And he was grateful for the report that these folks in Colossae had heard that word and had placed their faith in it and had been saved. And he commends them, or he had heard from them four, Since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and your love for all the saints, love we have for each other is evidence of our conversion. Sam read that verse in John 14 verse 30. There's a similar verse.

17:11 John thirteen thirty five, By this will all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another. And one of the powerful evidences of somebody getting saved has changed lives. Many of you have probably read Josh McDonald's book, Evidence That Demands a Verdict, and at the end of that book, he has dozens of testimonies of people that have come to faith in the Lord Jesus and it's changed their life and their friends have noticed. This Gospel that Paul preaches gives us a hope, verse five, because of the hope which is laid up for you in Heaven. Adam and Eve started out just fine in the Garden, but when they sinned, they were lost.

17:59 But God, even back there in the Garden, gave them hope when He pronounced that curse upon Satan, saying that you'll bruise on the heel of the Savior, but He's going to crush your head. That gave them hope. And probably they were thinking when Cain was born that this would be their deliverer, but they were mistaken, obviously. The deliverer would not come through the seed of man. It would be the seed of, as we read in the New Testament, conceived of the Holy Spirit.

18:36 It had to have its source from God. It couldn't be through the chain of human beings. Simeon's exclamation in Luke, chapter two is precious to me. He remarked, For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared before the face of all peoples, a light to bring salvation to the Gentiles and the glory of your people Israel. And also, first Peter, first epistle of Peter, chapter one, verse three, Peter starts out by saying, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope.

19:20 His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. And it goes on from there to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that faith is not a way reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith. These are truths that are absolutely unique to Christianity. There's no other religion, so to speak, in the world that has anything close to that to offer that has any evidence to back it up. The paradise that has promised for Islamic martyrs just saddens me that there are people that believe that.

20:06 There's no hope, there's no love in so many of the man made religions and why people turn to it, it's just a matter of the power of darkness. So, Paul is rejoicing that these people have come to faith in the true Gospel. The truth of the gospel, the end of verse five. The gospel, as many of us know, literally means good news. And in classical Greek, I hadn't realized this before, it was used to express the good news of victory in a battle.

20:50 And the Gospel that comes to us from God is the possibility of having victory in the ultimate battle of sin and death. One of the things we talked about in TNT this year, our council time, was that as we trace, really, the Gospel through the whole Bible, was the law of sin and death. And Adam and Eve came to a brutal realization of the laws of sin and death, and the Gospel is the only victory from that law of sin and death. Okay. Let's move over to verse seven.

21:41 Epaphras is given a complimentary tribute here. If you look at those words, as you learn from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant who is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf, And Paul, through the inspiration of the scripture in chapter four, also gives him a great tribute. Let me read that for you. Verse 13. For I bear him, speaking of Epaphras, verse 12, 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.

22:30 For I bear him witness that he has great zeal for you and those who are Laodicea and those in Hierapolis. Epaphras was a devoted and faithful minister of Christ for the sake of those people. And that's an opportunity that we can have too, to faithfully serve Christ in whatever sphere he has given us, whether it's a public ministry like Paul had or whether it's more quiet ministry like maybe a preface. It says he was praying diligent in prayer, and that's something all of us can do. We can be diligent in prayer.

23:09 We can be active in prayer. One of the things, Bob, with the mind going is you miss a lot, but I think of many of you throughout the week. And when I instead of just thinking about you, when I think of you, whether it's George or Gordon or Will or Wayne or the other guy in the back, I pray for you at that minute. I'm just giving Matthew a hard time. Matthew's not as old as us yet.

23:46 But sometimes I pray around the circle because as creatures of habit, we all sit in the same places usually. So, if I can't sleep at night or if I'm driving somewhere and have time to waste, I think of, I can think of you and pray for you. So, I'd encourage you to use a little bit of creativity in your prayer life, because if you're like me, you can use it. But I'm thinking that Paul, as he went through, as the years of his ministry went by, his prayer list must have been huge, because every church he goes to, he's praying for the people. So that's a great blessing that we can utilize, too.

25:13 And that prayer will lead us into next week's text, which will talk about the majesty and preeminence of Christ. So, verse nine. For this reason, since the day we heard of it, we did not cease to pray for you. To ask, and there's, I have four items in this prayer that I want to highlight. The first item, that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will.

25:45 And the keyword there is His will. And that's an intentional statement. The keyword is His will. Many of you have heard the phrase, The Word of God is the will of God. And two Timothy three sixteen-seventeen backs up that statement, All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction of righteousness.

26:16 So, if you want to know the will of God, the first step is to be in the scriptures, to know the word of God. I appreciate what the book of Proverbs says, and it's very, very true. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, or sometimes it says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. And in verse nine, verse 10 of Proverbs, it clarifies and expands on that, And knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. So it's through the Word of God that we know His will and that we understand what we need to know.

26:55 Okay, so that we know the will of God, second item, the spiritual, I need to back up a second, that spiritual, that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. That's not calculus or economics. It's the Word of God. Second item, that you may walk worthy of the Lord. The term walk worthy means to, literally, to weigh the same or to be in balance.

27:29 And the question we need to ask ourselves is, Is our character and demeanor Christ like? Is our character and demeanor Christ like? And that's something that requires daily contemplation and correction because left to our own doings, we can get off track really, really quickly. We have just been through... We're in the first Peter three in our Tuesday morning study, but we spent quite a bit of time in first Peter two, particularly toward the end of that chapter.

28:03 In verse 21 of First Peter two says, For to this you were called because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that we should follow His steps. If you want to walk worthy, you'll never go wrong if you follow the steps of Jesus. And when we do walk worthy, there'll be three benefits that are specified right here in the verses. We will fully please Him, we will be fruitful, and we will be increasing in the knowledge of God. Now, I was thinking about the phrase fully pleasing Him, that we would fully please Him.

28:43 And I couldn't think of any place, and if I'm just mistaken, please let me know, I couldn't think of any place in the scriptures where Christ asks us to gear our ministry toward pleasing Him. I do, I mean, this, you might say, Well, Roger, you're looking at it right here, that we might be fully pleasing Him. But my observation or point is that He gives us principles that He wants us to follow, and when we do that, it's inevitable that we will be pleasing Him. And secondly, being fruitful. Nor can I think of any place where Christ tells us to be fruitful?

29:22 However, if you consider those analogies or those pictures in John 15, when we abide in Him, then we will bear much fruit. Also, like what Peter wrote in Second Peter, chapter one, verse five to 11. Let's take a little detour there to read those. Second Peter one, five to 11, about being fruitful. Paul talks about the like precious faith that we have.

30:54 That's in the verses to follow there. So those are some things. If you want to know how you can be pleasing to the Lord, those are some concrete things that you can adorn yourselves with. And a third consequence of walking worthy is that we increase in the knowledge of God, or in other words, that we grow spiritually and mature. We can't grow or maintain our spiritual health without the scriptures.

31:33 And it takes time to spend time in the word. But think about the correlation to the physical world. I think most of us probably eat at least two or three times a day. Why do we do that? Because if we don't, we're going to get weak and sick and die.

31:53 And I can't help but think that God gave us that, forgive me for saying, monotonous reminder. Sometimes I wish I didn't have to stop and eat, but that's another story. To remind us of our dependence on Him for spiritual, the spiritual realities. So, as we walk worthy, we can fully please Him, we can be fruitful, and we'll be increasing in the knowledge of God. Okay, the third item in this prayer is that with that spiritual maturity comes stability, strengthened with all might according to His glorious power for all patience and long suffering with joy.

32:44 This is according to His glorious power, and that the phrase according to has reference to His power, not our need. Power, not our need. His resources are inexhaustible. I love that passage, that portion in Ephesians chapter three that talks about, Now to him who is able to do exceedingly, abundantly above all that we ask or think. One of the things I had wanted to do on my vacation that I was not able to do was to visit with Phil Andrachek's sister, Dottie.

33:21 She's a couple years older than him and I've also done some work for her. Just a real cheerful and happy lady who winners in the Phoenix area. So I said, this is great. Jennifer and I can get together with her for lunch and have some fellowship and just enjoy each other's company. And we just couldn't do everything.

33:41 And I think I might have prayed about it, but don't remember. So I was disappointed about that but still had a great vacation so I wasn't depressed at all. But, and here's the amazing thing, we get on our plane to come home, Jennifer and I are on Row 31, Seats A And B, and Dotty tickles in Seat C. Not only on our plane, but in our row. So we had a great visit after all, and I could show her some pictures.

34:14 So pray for Dottie. I'm not sure if she knows the Lord yet, but just a wonderful woman that God just literally put in her lap, so to speak. So never underestimate the provision of God's glorious power. And indeed, we're going to need that. Some of you have gone through some really tough times.

35:31 And we can have joy in bearing each other's burdens, Galatians six:two. So it's a joy that's because of one's perspective, not necessarily of circumstances. For me, hindsight of those things is what brings me joy, not being in them, getting through them. Let's move on to verse 12. Paul is giving thanks again to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.

36:14 Qualified means to make sufficient or to authorize. And this qualifying work of the Father has the work of Christ in view, not our Christian character. We were dead in sins, but God was rich in mercy because of His great love with which He loved us made us alive together with Christ. He has qualified us to be partakers. First Corinthians fifteen fifty, Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God.

36:44 But verse 57 says, Thanks be to God who has given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, 13, He has not only qualified us, but He did the transplanting, too. And this idea here of delivering us includes the thought of rescue. One of my favorite types of book to read is books of rescue, great rescues. And this is the ultimate rescue.

37:16 We were captive in the power of darkness. We couldn't save ourselves, but God delivered us and conveyed us into the Kingdom of the Son of His Love. The power of darkness, one of the commentators termed that as the tyrannical rule of Satan and his demons. He's rescued us from that. Well, actually, we've had a very dramatic rescue this week in Cleveland, if you think about it.

37:46 That's a good illustration for this, of those women that were delivered from that situation and conveyed to freedom. But how much greater is our deliverance from spiritual death to spiritual life? The Kingdom of the Son of His Love. What an incredible contrast here. John MacArthur, in his study Bible, has a note that in regards to this, the Kingdom of the Son was loved.

38:26 The Father gave the Kingdom to the Son He loves as an expression of eternal love. That means that every person the Father calls and justifies is a loved gift from him to his son. That's an amazing thought, really, if you think about it. That God has delivered us personally, me, you, whoever has placed your faith in Christ and has given us into the Kingdom of His Son, is a love gift. That is one thing that motivates me to, as we've read today, walk worthy of the calling and to be faithful to Him.

39:54 Paul, in combating those false teachings in that era, just pointing everybody back to the truth of the Gospel, the person and work of Christ, demonstrating the hope that the Gospel has, the universal application. It worked in Ephesus, it worked in Antioch, it worked in Colossae, and the benefit for all, that spiritual wisdom and understanding is the key to spiritual growth, not human doctrine or reason. And the challenge for us, or the need for us, is to keep our focus on the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the one that we have a relationship with. The other thing that the Lord spoke to me through this preparation was the power and the need for diligent prayer. Epaphras was commended for his prayer in chapter four.

41:22 We know in this busy society in which we live and the habits that we make often pull us away from Your Word just by simple busyness. But help us to be reminded of the blessing of being in Your Word and to be strengthened by it. We pray that You help us to be witnesses for You in these last days, that we might be able to tell people about the provision that you have to transfer people from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of your son, the Lord Jesus. And we just give thanks and pray in his name. Amen.