Morning Message Text: Colossians 1: 1-14
1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,
2 To God’s holy people in Colossae, the faithful brothers and sisters in Christ: Grace and peace to you from God our Father.
Thanksgiving and Prayer
3 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you,
4 because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God’s people—
5 the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel
6 that has come to you. In the same way, the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world—just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God’s grace.
7 You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf,
8 and who also told us of your love in the Spirit.
9 For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives,
10 so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God,
11 being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience,
12 and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light.
13 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves,
14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
Morning Message:
We should begin this morning by reading a little more scripture. Verses 15-17 were not included in today’s reading, but they help bring clarity to the message. Verse15: The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. The fact that Jesus is God is inescapable if you study scripture. Verse16: For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. Jesus is not just the Savior of mankind but also the creator of all things. This reminds us of the first verse of John’s gospel. “In the beginning was the Word, Jesus, and the Word, Jesus, was with God, and the Word, Jesus was
God.” Verse17: He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. For centuries there have been people who have tried to separate Jesus out from the Holy Trinity in order to make Him less than God. Why do they do this? To convince people that Christ is not enough. That His sacrifice is not sufficient. The best way to separate you from Jesus is to convince you that you need more than Him. It is human nature to constantly struggle for more. This struggle is different for each of us, maybe stronger for some and easier to overcome for others, but it is there to some degree in all of us. It is not always greed that causes us to want more, it is a basic survival instinct that says to us, if you are comfortable with what you have, just think how much more comfortable you would be with a little more. This can become an unending process, always seeking to be more secure. I remember a scene from a movie, I don’t recall the movie, but I remember this brief encounter between a rich man and a poor man. The rich man says, “I have always been rich, but I have seldom been happy.” The poor man responds, “I have never been rich, but I have mostly been happy.” The point is whether you are rich or poor or somewhere in between you must find a place of contentment, a place where whatever you have is enough.
Paul may have never even visited this small town 100 miles east of Ephesus, but at least in one way his heart was joined to Colossae. Apparently Epaphras, a native Colossian and most likely Paul’s convert, had journeyed from Colossae to Ephesus, received the message Paul preached, and took that message back home to share with others. As a result, scholars have credited him with founding the church at Colossae. Epaphras visited Paul in prison in Rome ten years later. He was worried. The church for whom he wrestled in prayer was under attack. Some attractive and destructive teachings had wormed their way into the Colossae fellowship, and Epaphras may have believed he lacked the theological firepower to refute them. In response, Paul wrote this compelling and powerful letter to confront and correct this false teaching. What we preach and teach in the church must be biblically correct. When we study Paul’s letters, we don’t find teaching based on feelings or emotions, we hear God’s Word, and he always gives biblical references to back up his teaching.
What exactly is Paul addressing in this letter? Paul’s letter to the Colossians deals with a problem peculiar to that church, but one that permeates the Christian church today: a heresy that is promoted which challenges the deity and sufficiency of Christ. The simplest way that I can communicate this to you is to say, “Christ is enough.” I get myself into hot water when I preach like this, but I have become comfortable in hot water. After all, I have been married for a very long time. At least for me hot water seems to come with the territory. But even when I preach, I don’t try to avoid the hard truth of the gospel. Every denomination in the Christian church can find itself on the wrong side of this issue. Ritual is no substitute for accepting Jesus Christ, nor is it necessary to be added in order to be saved. I’m sorry, but I take offense at prayers being offered through anyone except Jesus. Hearing someone say that you must be baptized to be saved makes my Christian skin crawl. Even little things like thinking you have to add kindness, caring, and have a heart for the poor, or you are not a Christian. Those things can and should come from a Christian heart, but they don’t determine your salvation, and thinking that way can hinder our faith.
The book of Colossians, like all of Paul’s letters, is full of teaching that would be beneficial for the church today. I don’t have time in one sermon to cover everything, but most of it points to that very simple sentence: “Christ is enough.” Paul could have combated these heresies like an apologist: dismantling the false tenets one by one. Instead, he went on the offensive, presenting Jesus in all His glory and majesty, declaring that Christ is the image of the invisible God and that God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things. Paul resets the Colossians understanding of Christ and the spiritual freedom to be found in him. I am a big believer in resets in a Christian’s life. We all find ourselves from time to time drifting away from our faith, getting into bad habits, maybe even getting comfortable adding other things to our faith in Jesus and we start to feel like those things are necessary. Christ is enough.
Again and again, Paul underlines the central truth of all creation: Jesus Christ is Lord overall. He is Lord over creation, the cosmos, spiritual powers, and human rulers and their regulations. In fact, humans can find the fullness of God in bodily form in the person of Christ. In Christ we have freedom. It is not necessary to submit to human religious traditions in order to gain access to God or to reach spiritual maturity. Christ is the fulfillment of the law, and He stands in judgment over those who would judge others on the basis of false doctrine and mere religion.
Because Christians are raised from the dead to new life in Christ, and because He is now seated at the right hand of God, their focus should be on him: a heavenly focus, not an earthly focus. Those who are in Him are hidden with Christ in God. Christ is enough. No need to focus elsewhere. In light of every believer’s heavenly position in Christ, life on earth should reflect Christ and his life: personally, in the family, in the workplace, and in the church. No matter what life throws at you. No matter what your income, social status, or anything else that might try to draw you away in some other direction, remember these two sentences from today’s message: Jesus Christ is Lord over all, and Christ is enough.
In Christ’s Love and Peace,
Pastor Bob
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