Category: Colossians

I have a confession to make: I get impatient assembling complex things. I don’t have the problem when I am working over a long time to build a program or write some research – those are puzzles I seem to enjoy. Yet, when it comes to assembling something with dozens of tiny parts, I get frustrated easily. Part of the problem is that I don’t want to invest the time necessary to really do the job – there are other things on my mind. The other part of the problem stems from reading directions written by someone with only a vague knowledge of my language, using sentence structure of which I am not familiar. The combination of complex design, a multitude of parts and poorly written instructions make the job incredibly frustrating to me.

Here is what I know about a complicated assembly: the details matter. The manufacturer may give you some extra nuts and bolts in the package, but it is far more likely that you have forgotten step 126, and left a tiny part out. You will discover that after the full assembly doesn’t work as it should, and begin to undo all the steps back to 126.

Let’s just accept the fact that in everything that is complex, the details matter.

Why is that important? It is essential to recognize because a walk with God is a complex operation.

By the way, not every believer treats it that way. Some speak of the Christian life in passive terms – as if God overwhelms you and does it all for you. There are verses that demonstrate God is the One Who transforms us, but those aren’t the whole story. In fact, the many commands of Scripture make clear there is a part of the process I am personally responsible for as I become what Jesus intends me to be.

Let’s say it this way: No one slides into spiritual maturity. Though spiritual growth IS God at work in us, it is NOT strictly a passive endeavor. God promised to change my life from the inside out, but it is a “room by room” process. He demands that I consciously open the door to each “room” within for His inspection and His work of change.

If that is true, I need some clear and careful instruction on how to know what God wants access to inside of me, and how to allow Him to initiate change. Here is the truth found in the first part of Colossians 3…

Key Principle: To mature in my faith, I must attentively allow God to change my mind and my actions.

Since we know the details matter, let’s look closely at the two areas where God revealed He desires us to open the first doors.

Gain a new perspective: Change your mind.

God wants to begin with our thinking, and where we focus our view. In short, we are to set our focus on one specific chair in Heaven.

Colossians 3:1 Therefore, if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.

Paul started with a simple word about what the Colossian believers were focused upon. Note the exacting detail of the description of where in Heaven a believer is supposed to fix their gaze – at His throne.

The point is that Paul called them to train their thinking to recognize they live to please the King!

The “seeking of things above” isn’t just “dreaming about Heaven” and getting warm and fuzzy. It isn’t dreams of little cupid-like angels floating from cloud to cloud. It isn’t anticipation of seeing our beloved great grandma once again and hugging her tightly. Paul’s call was clear: “Look at the place of Jesus seated on the throne.” If we have claimed His death as payment for our sin, and recognized His Resurrection as God’s acceptance of that payment, we must refocus our mind to deliberately surrender ourselves to the proper Prince of our heart’s throne. He rules Heaven, and He is supposed to rule us.

Just as Colossians 3:1 called believers to focus on the ruler of their life, Colossians 3:2-4 called them to persistently connect how Heaven later affects choices now.

This is a second step, and an essential detail of the practical side of the elusive nature of “letting Jesus control my life.”

Don’t skip past the verses. Paul wrote:

Colossians 3:2 Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. 3 For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.

Clearly our mind must be reset. The key to practicing the rule of Jesus in me is found in how I train my mind. God has promised help in re-tooling, but He left commands because we must give Him access to our thinking. Read the verses carefully and you will discover that Paul drove home a simple point.

To engage the transformation process I must train my thinking to get satisfaction when He is satisfied (3:2). Any desires that don’t meet with His approval must be “put to death” and subjugated to His desires (3:3) so that when Jesus comes I will stand with Him as part of His loyal host (3:4).

In short, I have to change WHO I live to please.

If I want to be a part of those who stand in the host of Heaven’s army, loyal and trusted among the companions of my Lord in the future, I have to change my thought life. If I make my daily choices based on my own feelings and live to please ME, then I am not fit to call myself one of HIS.

In practical terms, every believer would do well to begin each day acknowledging the ownership of His Lord. He or she will want to frequently ask for direction, purchase any item with His nod of approval, and constantly speak with a keen awareness that the Master is listening.

When I train myself to realize the nearness of God, I walk in harmony with God.
I truly believe what Bonhoeffer observed long ago: “When the enemy moves in to tempt us, he does not get us to HATE God, but to FORGET God.” If that is true, frequently recalling His presence and seeking His approval for choices will help me steer away from disobedience and forgetfulness. A walk with Jesus starts with mindfulness of Jesus.

The simple truth is that how we think directly sets up how we behave. Let me illustrate:

“When VICTOR SERIBRIAKOFF was only fifteen years of age, his teacher told him he would never finish school and that he should drop out and learn a trade. Victor believed the counsel, took the advice and for 17 years he became a handyman. He was told he had little academic aptitude, so for seventeen years he lived in that role. At about age 32 an amazing transformation took place in his life. A detailed skill evaluation revealed that he appeared to be a genius with an IQ of about 161. Almost from that moment, he began acting like a genius. Since that time, he became author of a number of works, secured a series of patents on products he invented and became a successful businessman selling his knowledge and inventions. Perhaps the most significant event for the former drop out was his election as Chairman of the International Mensa Society. The society has only one membership qualification – an IQ exceeding 140.” Victor changed when he believed he was different – and you will too.

When you recognize daily that Jesus is in charge, your choices will begin to change. Perhaps you need more! How can I practice placing Jesus in charge? What a good question! The truth is, once you KNOW you need to do that, you will need to allow God to renew something else inside. You will need to open the door to some old ways of thinking and allow God to hit the “reset button” on them.

Crush old defaults: Change your assumptions.

We do what we do because we think what we think. What we believe deeply is what we live daily – and those daily practices show where our heart truly is. Look at three assumptions that God must reset in you to allow the maturing process to take hold.

Assumption #1: I should be led by my heart. This is a tremendous lie the enemy has seated so deeply within our culture that we now allow our feelings to overturn any other belief system. In modern America we determine truth by our feelings. The truth is that I must shut down unquestioned control of my behavior based on my fallen hungers. Paul wrote it this way:

Colossians 3:5 Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. 6 For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience, 7 and in them you also once walked, when you were living in them.

Stop assuming that because you want it, you should have it. We could say it this way: I need to get a new diet – I don’t have to live by the old rules. These things are building to the day of God’s interruption and judgment (3:6). We USED to live in them, but transformation means they are drying up inside us (3:7).

Let’s be clear about the Spirit’s work and my choices. The transformation by God in every area of my life directly corresponds to the rooms inside I willingly open to Him. He can change anything, but chooses to change nothing unless I offer it to Him first.

• If I refuse to offer to God the access to my relationships – God will not transform them.

• If I refuse to hold out to Him an addiction – God will not empower me to push it out of my life.

Whatever I don’t offer to God I keep for myself – and I won’t grow properly in that area.

The simple truth about this transformation process is that I must ask God to empower me to force the desires of my past life to lose their power over me. The lost man has passions and lusts that drive them, but I must not (3:5). To be clear, Paul enumerated them (3:5b):

• Immoral practices: (porneia) defiled or unlawful use of sexual gift

• Impurity: (Akatharsia) ceremonial or moral impurity – living beyond the moral fences God set up

• Passion: (Pathos) used as one subject to – the idea of allowing something else to choose for me

• Evil Desire: (kakos epithumia) giving a “green light” to temptation in my mind. This is like “taking a moral mental vacation” and thinking about the forbidden.

• Greed (which is idolatry): (Pleonexia) an unending hunger for acquisition

If you look closely at the list above, oozing out of the words are the attitudes of selfishness. They are all about ego and fulfilling desires of the flesh. They are all rooted in lies.

• Sex won’t fulfill my God-given need for intimacy with others.

• Living “on the edge” may seem exciting, but it will be short-lived.

• Allowing passions to overtake me may sell well in a cheap thrill novel, but impulsive living leads to ruin in relationships and puts a stain on our reliability to others.

• An insatiable hunger for more will drive me to make both unhealthy and unholy decisions. Curbing inner desires is no different in substance than curbing bad eating habits. I must stop feeding on the wrong thing in the short term to realize health in the long term.

Assumption #2: My first answer is my best one. This is a lie we learned taking tests in school. It may work on an instinctive level when you study some academic pursuit, but it isn’t true when it comes to moral thinking – because my default settings didn’t begin in godliness. The truth is I must gain conscious control of my default reactions. Paul wrote:

Colossians 3:8 But now you also, put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth.

God’s call to the believer is to stop assuming that because it feels natural, it is good. Here is the truth: If I don’t rein in my feelings they will continue to run my life as they did when I was lost. Jesus will be supplanted from the throne by how I feel today.

Like everyone on the planet, my unsaved life was run by how I felt. If I am going to pass into the process of spiritual maturity, I must deliberately change my attitudes about people and make sure my responses reflect that change (3:8). I must deliberately choose to set aside:

• Anger: (orgay) untempered agitation of the soul

• Wrath: (thumos) heat; uncontrolled outbursts of burning frustration

• Malice: (kakia) depraved speech and thinking

• Slander: (blasphemia) speech that injures another

• Abusive speech: (aischrologia) debased speech, obscenities

I smiled when I read about this new believer who shared how God was changing her attitudes:

She declared, “I’m so glad I got a relationship with God. I have an uncle I used to hate so much I vowed I’d never go to his funeral. But now, why, I’d be happy to go to it any time.”

Assumption #3: The truth is often too hard to bear. There are many reasons we give ourselves to say something that is not true. The simple truth is that we must seek to shut down the inborn impulse to lie. Paul wrote:

Colossians 3:9 Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices.

Think of it this way: When my attitudes change, my words should change as well. People lie for many reasons. Some lie to gain status. Others lie to keep peace. We must stop assuming that because something we say could make us appear wiser or even if it would avoid possible conflict with people, it is right to say things that aren’t true.

Let’s be honest: No place are our attitudes so obvious as in our mouths.

Connect verse nine to verse eight for a moment.

When we let a matter burn within, a small amount of pressure will push out the feelings we have kept under wraps. These preserved and un-yielded bad attitudes inside, stirred up by outside influences of a fallen world (news, TV, etc.) will yield things I have to cover up. That’s where the lies become a part of my life.

May I suggest that we may need to withdraw from conversations with people who peddle in smut or gossip? I want to be a witness, but transformation focus requires that I understand who is being changed. If I am being pressed into the mold of the world, it is time to withdraw for a time of renewal and re-strengthening before I continue to reach out to that particular person or group.

To mature in my faith, I must attentively allow God to change my mind and my actions.

Sheila Crowe wrote: Dennis E. Mannering was teaching a class for adults, when he did the “unpardonable.” He gave the class homework! The assignment was to “go to someone you love within the next week and tell them you love them. It had to be someone you have never said those words to before or at least haven’t shared those words with for a long time.” Now that doesn’t sound like a very tough assignment, until you stop to realize that most of the men in that group were over 35 and were raised in the generation of men that were taught that expressing emotions is not “macho.” Showing feelings or crying (heaven forbid!) was just not done. So this was a very threatening assignment for some. At the beginning of our next class, Mannering asked if someone wanted to share what happened when they told someone they loved them. He fully expected one of the women to volunteer, as was usually the case, but on this evening one of the men raised his hand. He appeared quite moved and a bit shaken. As he unfolded out of his chair (all 6’2″ of him), he began by saying, “Dennis, I was quite angry with you last week when you gave us this assignment. I didn’t feel that I had anyone to say those words to- I had told everyone who needed to know that I loved them, and besides, who were you to tell me to do something that personal? But as I began driving home my conscience started talking to me. It was telling me that I knew exactly who I needed to say ’I love you’ to. You see, five years ago, my father and I had a vicious disagreement and really never resolved it since that time. We avoided seeing each other unless we absolutely had to at Christmas or other family gatherings. But even then, we hardly spoke to each other. So, last Tuesday by the time I got home I had convinced myself I was going to tell my father I loved him. It’s weird, but just making that decision seemed to lift a heavy load off my chest. When I got home, I rushed into the house to tell my wife what I was going to do. She was already in bed, but I woke her up anyway. When I told her, she didn’t just get out of bed, she catapulted out and hugged me, and for the first time in our married life she saw me cry. We stayed up half the night drinking coffee and talking. It was great! “The next morning I was up bright and early. I was so excited I could hardly sleep. I got to the office early and accomplished more in two hours than I had the whole day before. At 9:00 I called my dad to see if I could come over after work. When he answered the phone, I just said, ’Dad, can I come over after work tonight? I have something to tell you.’ My dad responded with a grumpy, ’Now what?’ I assured him it wouldn’t take long, so he finally agreed. At 5:30, I was at my parents’ house ringing the doorbell, praying that Dad would answer the door. I was afraid if Mom answered that I would chicken out and tell her instead. But as luck would have it, Dad did answer the door. I didn’t waste any time – I took one step in the door and said, ’Dad, I just came over to tell you that I love you.’ It was as if a transformation came over my dad. Before my eyes his face softened, the wrinkles seemed to disappear and he began to cry. He reached out and hugged me and said, ’I love you too, son, but I’ve never been able to say it.’ It was such a precious moment I didn’t want to move. Mom walked by with tears in her eyes. I just waved and blew her a kiss. Dad and I hugged for a moment longer and then I left. I hadn’t felt that great in a long time.” But that’s wasn’t his point or even my point. Two days after the visit, his dad, who had heart problems and didn’t tell him, had an attack and ended up in the hospital, unconscious. And the gentlemen didn’t know if his father would see tomorrow. But he had a peace just knowing that his dad knew he really loved him.

Here’s the point of transformation. In order to become what we are not in the flesh, we must open up to God and allow Him to empower us to change inside and out.

We are not working to be saved – we are opening doors to be transformed because we know Him.

His Spirit will do its work when we offer each part of life to Him.

Daily steps of conscious obedience aren’t “gutting out resolutions to live for God.” The whole thing is preceded by asking Him to lead in each part.

No one else can make you change. You and I must submit to the Person of Jesus and the process of empowering He gives. All the DNA of the butterfly is found in the caterpillar, and all the DNA of a God-honoring and transformed powerful believer is found in you and me. It is time we change our focus on WHO we are living for.

There are times the problems of life seem to be dropping like bombs on us.

We are out of coffee. The stove breaks and we can’t make our breakfast eggs. No worry, we rush out the door and think, “I will take care of the stove later and stop at the market for more coffee.” As we unlock the car door, we see the interior light is very faint and was left on all night. You turn the key, and… you guessed it! The car won’t start. The battery is dead. That late night dash out to the car to get the cell phone that dropped on the floor cost you a live battery, because you forgot to shut the overhead dome light off. Now you are hungry and don’t have a way to work, and it isn’t 7:30 AM yet.

Life on a fallen planet in a body that doesn’t always work is by its very nature unpredictable and hassle-filled. Not every day is that way, but far too many are. As it works at home, so it works at the job. Problems may assail your company. They may press your community and certainly fall like rain on our massive government. The area many forget to recognize as problem susceptible is… their church. Even your local body of believers experiences a steady stream of challenges.

By the way, that isn’t new. Shortly after the birth of the church recorded in the Book of Acts, the church faced members that told lies, authorities that pressed them to shut down and people with opposing views that tried to silence them. The Apostle Paul knew all about those efforts, because he led them before he met Jesus. After he was trained by Jesus in the desert as a young believer, he returned to a church under siege. It wasn’t only challenged by temple authorities in Judaism, but by Roman officials of the government.

In Colossians 2, Paul addressed three tests the local church was facing. He wrote to them to encourage them, but also to make sure they understood how to navigate through the issues. All three of the stated challenges were presented in the letter as the problem stated and a solution offered. Though the problems varied some, the solution always seemed to be the same: recognize Jesus as He is. Colossians 2 challenged the believers to recognize one truth…

Key Principle: The key to staying on the path of our faith is keeping Jesus at the center of all we believe and do.

Three words appear in the text of Colossians 2 that set the outline for the three problems. Note 2:4, where the word “delude” appears. Now drop your eyes down in 2:8 and note the word “deceive.” Go even further down in the text to 2:18 and mark the word “defrauding.” Do you see them? Apparently, some of the people at Colossae were facing a faith that was being obscured (deluded), while others were being pressed by deception, and still others were being handed a faith that wasn’t real to replace the authentic one (defrauded). Take a few minutes to look at each situation that was captured in the text as a lesson to us.

Deluded Faith

First, consider the problem of deluded faith. Paul opened with the words:

Colossians 2:1 For I want you to know how great a struggle I have on your behalf and for those who are at Laodicea, and for all those who have not personally seen my face, 2 that their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love, and attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God’s mystery, that is, Christ Himself, 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 4 I say this so that no one will delude you with persuasive argument. 5 For even though I am absent in body, nevertheless I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good discipline and the stability of your faith in Christ.

The Apostle offered three specific concerns related to a possible delusion in Colossae:

First, Paul’s struggle was that he didn’t have a personal relationship with some of the people of the region (Colossians 2:1). It is hard to effectively pass what a relationship with Jesus looks like from a distance. Christianity is much more caught then taught.

Second, He heard that some had come to faith, but was concerned they didn’t have a complete understanding of Who Jesus truly is (Colossians 2:2-3). The most dangerous form of faith is the one that has severe knowledge gaps that get filled in by untrue ideas. In the case of the Savior, when His life and work aren’t completely grasped, it is easy to take the massive volume of information and insert other ideas that obscure the truth of why He came and what He accomplished. Let me offer three examples I have personally observed in my years of ministry:

• Jesus the Good Example. There can be no doubt that Jesus did things that modeled honesty, helpfulness, servanthood and integrity. Even the most severe critic of our faith seems careful enough when it comes to critiquing Jesus’ behavior as it was made clear in the Gospels. There are exceptions, but they are relatively rare. People who emphasize, “He went about doing good,” (Acts 10:38) tend to press the point that Jesus was a helper. They don’t emphasize the more offensive things He said to people who thought themselves to be leaders at the time. Jesus can sound, when you listen to these folks, like an ancient loafer-wearing Mister Rodgers, building a happy neighborhood of moral sock puppets.

• Jesus the Social Revolutionary. Akin to the “good example” group are those who use Jesus to back their agenda for social change. These folks emphasize the way Jesus made startling remarks that shook His day for truth. They tend to be short on details on how Jesus didn’t set up His own soup kitchens and community centers, but they picture Jesus as One Who came from Heaven to fix the neighborhood with activism and community participation.

• Jesus the bringer of Wealth and Prosperity. One of the groups that emerged in my lifetime were those who found TV a perfect medium to offer the hope of a happy filled wallet life in the name of Jesus. They posited that Jesus came to bring “abundant life” and that was meant as a promise to multiply our bank accounts.

All of these groups “preached Jesus” without really making clear what Jesus was really all about. They emphasized an agenda they had and used Jesus’ face like a celebrity endorsement. Paul may not have faced these groups, but he had his own version in his own time. The ones he faced caused him deep concern. Paul expressed he felt some were being pulled away by someone arguing against their walk with Jesus (Colossians 2:4-5). Note the term “persuasive argument.” This wasn’t simple questioning of the main ideas of the faith in Messiah; it was a deliberate and well-constructed argument against their faith designed to pull them from it.

Paul made the point in verse three that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are found in Jesus – not in other places. The basic delusion seemed to be that Jesus shouldn’t be the center of the faith. His work for us in salvation and His walk with us in daily life somehow lacked fullness as the basis for our faith. This can be simply called the “Jesus plus” delusion. It is the notion that you need something more than Jesus to be complete in your faith-walk before God. For some people it seems to be some gift you must pull from the hands of God. For others, it is some participation in a practice unique to their fellowship.

Paul wasn’t making a call to toss out the Bible and sit on a rock and wait to “experience Jesus” apart from the instructions of His Word. What he was saying was there was nothing that needed TO BE ADDED beyond belief in Jesus and His work to the essentials of our faith. In a sense: Deluded faith here is diluted faith.

For Paul, personal faith in Jesus and His completed work was enough. He made it clear when he answered a straightforward question: “How should they respond?” Paul took the people back to recognize anew the Jesus Who saved them:

Colossians 2:6 Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, 7 having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude.

• Note from Colossians 2:6 that in order to be a part, one must receive Jesus (Colossians 2:6a). You don’t walk in Him until you have received Him.

• Second, watch carefully as Paul commanded them to show they were a part of Jesus by walking daily with Jesus (Colossians 2:6b). The Christian life isn’t simply a worldview, but it produces one. It isn’t simply a list of things we do, but we do end up living a list of chosen actions. It isn’t just a moral code, but it does yield one. The Christian life is the conscious act of knowing, loving and inviting Jesus daily into the course of our life, allowing Him to lead us through the day.

• Third, note that Paul made clear their walk with Jesus was based on deeply rooted truth that encourages us and keeps us stable (Colossians 2:7a). The Gospel doesn’t get re-invented based on issues of social change. Jesus saves people in every walk of life on every corner of the globe the same way.

• Finally, note that he called upon them to have their walk with Jesus characterized by following His instructions in the Word while gushing with gratitude for Him (Colossians 2:7b)!

Deluded faith is avoided by so filling ourselves with Him, there is little room for another to be poured into our life. When we celebrate Jesus and His work for us, we don’t seek another solution for our sin – because we recognize what we found. You stop looking for your keys when you find them. You stop looking for a way to God when you know Him.

Deceived Faith

Next, Paul mentioned deceived believers when he wrote:

Colossians 2:8 See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.

The heart of the deception point seems to have related to the words “traditions of men” and “elementary principles of the world.” Don’t let those words slip by you or you will draw false conclusions about both the problem and the solution.

Some conclude the passage is speaking of the sacrificial system and its entry requirement, circumcision.

Some hold Paul was referring to the Torah, the Law of Israel. They connect the phrase being “under the Law” in Gal. 3 with “under the elementary principles of the world” in Galatians 4.

Others support the notion that Paul referred to demons which originated the false teachings which Paul refuted. The terms “the elementary principles” were sometimes used in extra-biblical literature to refer to the spirits and Paul later spoke of “the worship of angels” as part of the heresy associated with the “the elementary principles.”

When you step back and look at it, there seems to be a mixing of two things: some commentators don’t seem to keep a line between what God said and what men added to what God said. Be very careful about your criticisms, because the same can be said for MOST Christians that cannot separate between the Bible and the rules of their denomination or fellowship.

• Let me be very clear. Men didn’t command circumcision to access the place of atonement (Tabernacle or Temple) – God did.

• Men didn’t invent the Atonement Laws that required the killing of animals in the sacrificial system – God did.

• Lumping the Law into “traditions of men” is not correct.

The issue seems to be the rabbinic rulings that added to the Law, not the Law itself. After all, God didn’t say atonement sacrifices were permanent, even in Leviticus where they are instructed. The use of the term “forever” is quite limited in that book!

The fact is that atonement law offered animal blood to temporarily abate the wrath of God (turn Him away from holding sin to an account). Sacrifices were NOT mere “ritual” even though they were temporarily in place. The issue was this: Atonement Law was fully replaced by justification. To go back to the atonement sacrificial system (as offered by the temple authorities of the time) could only lead to slavery.

In Messiah, all foreshadows lost their significance and needed to be discarded.

Let me say it this way. You took a trip to Hollywood and wanted to walk along the areas where celebrities were celebrated. By a newsstand, there was a life-sized cardboard cutout of your favorite movie actor or actress. You rushed over to get a picture taken as you stand posed beside the cutout. While you are standing there, that very actor walked out of the shop and was standing there watching you get your picture taken. When you realized the actor was there, you abandoned the cutout for the actual human being. To walk away from the actor and go back to the cutout would have been ridiculous.

Paul wanted people to walk with Jesus, but abandon their sense of need for the atoning sacrifices that were a cardboard cutout of Him.

By Messiah’s death, He brought total justification to us (wiping clean our account before God without any act performed by us beyond the acceptance of His work). He offered a “once for all” offering that forever replaced the need for atonement sacrifices. However, it is demeaning to lump “Old Testament” and “ritual,” not to mention “traditions of men” together when referring to the Law God gave to Moses.

Rabbis that made the temporary into the permanent added to the Law given to Moses.

The term elementary principles actually meant “what belongs to a series.” In 2 Peter 3, the Apostle referred to the physical elements of the universe set for destruction by the Lord at the end of the age. In Hebrews 5:11, the author used the term for the “basic truths” of the oracles of God the people needed to hear. In Colossians, it appears to be “things added to God’s Word.” These things are enumerated later in the passage as:

• Various rules about what a Colossian could eat or drink (2:16a). God commanded Israel not to call some animals food, but it was the rabbinic courts that sought to add that restriction to Gentiles.

• Rules about how and when to celebrate various calendar festivals, including Sabbath (2:16b). Again, God instructed Jewish people to meet Him at appointed times, but never included the Gentile world under the command. Men added that.

• Rules about “giving things up” in self-discipline of rules made by men (in 2:18a, 21-23). God called on Israel to walk in holiness, but the specifications of HOW were largely written by men.

• Rites that included worship of angelic beings (2:18b). Some cults and practices of the first century called for mystical rites common to the Roman world. Men made those up.

• Regulations of the behavior of other believers based upon personal spiritual visions (2:19). Men claimed a vision and then told everyone else their word held the authority of God’s Word.

When you argue that something must be added to trusting the work of Jesus for salvation, the basic composition of saving faith changes.

• For some, it is the continual return to the “Mass” to be among the saved at death.

• For some, it is whether or not you were baptized after you were saved that guarantees eternal salvation.

• For some, it is whether or not a priest offered you “last rites” at the time of your passing that secures the way.

• For others, no one who exhibits any behavior that should drop away as one matures will be in Heaven.

• For one group, anyone who worships on a day not Saturday cannot claim to be one of God’s people.

• For another group, only those who keep the festivals and feasts of the Lord truly understand what salvation means.

There are a ton of “Jesus plus” options out there. Paul’s admonition was simple. Keep Jesus at the center. He simply told them to stand in Jesus as the total answer.

Colossians 2:9 For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, 10 and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority; 11 and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; 12 having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.

He also told them to look at the judgment postings at the Judicial Dias.

Colossians 2:13 When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, 14 having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

Because this refers to Roman customs, it may take some explanation…The illustration was from Roman law. Based on their writings, it seems Romans believed they were destined to bring law and order to the chaotic world. Virgil wrote in the Aeneid:

But you, Romans, remember your great arts; To govern the peoples with authority. To establish peace under the rule of law. To conquer the mighty, and show them mercy once they are conquered.

Because Paul was a Roman, he knew that if he was to make sense to Romans of his time, he had to make a legally structured argument.

Consider what he was saying as a Roman would have heard it.

In Rome there were juris prudentes (men wise in law who formed the judex), and advocati (men summoned to one’s side) and causidici (speakers of cases), who, argued the cases themselves for their clients (after C2 BCE).

In most cases, a magistrate defined the dispute, cited the law in question and referred the problem to a judex, a reputable authority in the community. The judex (with some advisors) listened to the arguments of the causidici, weighed the evidence and pronounced the sentence. Roman authorities posted the judicial notice on a board beside a platform known as the JUDICIAL DIAS where the words revealed how the judex settled their case.

Paul called on the people to go to the board and see what it said.

• He told them Jesus cancelled their debt.

• He wanted them to celebrate that Jesus took every charge against them away!

Then, without a breath, Paul changed the metaphor from the dias and called the people to another Roman image. This one found in a parade called a “Triumph.”

Colossians 2:15 When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him.

When Rome subdued a neighbor, it held a massive victory celebration – The Roman Triumph. In the city of Rome, the procession wound its way through a series of victory arches. In a procession, there was an order:

• State officials and Roman Senators usually preceded the parade, followed by trumpeters.
• The spoils of the war (i.e. The Menorah, local shields, etc.) were displayed.
• Pictures of the conquered land, models of ships destroyed, and citadels captured were set on floats and paraded.
• A white bull was usually publicly sacrificed.
• The captives walked behind in chains: enemy princes, generals and leaders to be executed.
• Roman Lictors: minor officials bearing fasces (bound rods) who cleared the way for the person(s) to be honored.
• Behind him were musicians, and priests carrying censers of perfume.
• Finally, the general was drawn in a chariot by 4 horses. He wore a purple tunic with gold palm leaves and over it a purple toga with gold stars. He led his family and some key soldiers of his army wearing their decorations and shouting “Lo triumph!”

Beside the triumph were a line of soldiers holding flowers and soldiers holding urns of burning incense. The aroma would be sweet to the victors, but signal death and enslavement to the captured.

Paul called the Colossians to walk the triumph of their Savior, and recognize His victory for them!

Defrauded Faith

Finally, Paul warned them they may have a defrauded faith. They may have WON, but been told they did not. He wrote:

Colossians 2:16 Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day— 17 things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ. 18 Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind, 19 and not holding fast to the head, from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God. 20 If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees, such as, 21 “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!” 22 (which all refer to things destined to perish with use)—in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men? 23 These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence.

Paul wrote thirteen epistles (at least) and wasn’t afraid of telling people what God wanted them to do. He didn’t hate rules. He wasn’t calling people to a “free for all” walk with Jesus. What he WAS doing was making a point: the Gospel is settled. Jesus paid for your sin. Any call to follow Jesus plus was a call to get control of your life in the hands of some power-hungry group.

The key to staying on the path of our faith is keeping Jesus at the center of all we believe and do.

He was sixteen when he came to Jesus. He had some baggage in his life. His girlfriend was not a Jesus follower. His music selections left something to be desired in the purity department. His hair was too long and his mouth was often foul. When he came to Jesus, he wasn’t sure what was going to happen. At first, he started to read his Bible and pray. Soon, religious leaders told him he needed to get rid of his albums, cut his hair and join a Bible study group. By seventeen, even his family couldn’t recognize him. He was clean cut, well-spoken and… a Pharisaic legalist. He preached to everyone he saw. He picked on their clothing. He derided their immoral way. He offered condemnation with every sentence. The sweetness of grace and the message of Jesus were buried under a pile of religious requirements. A few years passed. He was cut out of the lives of virtually all of his former friends. Even his family dreaded having him at holiday seasons. Then something happened. On the job, he tried his tough words on a Jesus follower who was mature and happy in his walk with Jesus. At first, the young man’s words were harsh, but after a while in desperate need of friends, he settled down. The older and more mature believer pulled the young man to his office and sat him down privately. He gave him only one piece of advice – but it changed the young man’s path for the rest of his life. He told him, “Stop following a list and start inviting Jesus to walk with you every day. You were right to trust Him for your salvation. Trust Him for your daily walk. Read His word with thankfulness for what He has done. Ask Him to challenge you, rather than using His name to challenge others.”

I met that young man years later. He was one of the key men who helped to mold my life to follow Jesus. I am glad he listened and put Jesus at the center of all he wanted to do.

Did you ever wish as a kid you could grow up to be a “secret agent?” Some people seem to be caught up in the superhero phenomenon, but I always thought it would be cooler to be a “behind the scenes” kind of agent. You know the type: 007, The Man from Uncle or Maxwell Smart…well probably not so much Maxwell Smart – but you know the type. While I was living in the Near East, I kid you not, some of my family actually thought I may have had a job in such a field. I am not making that up! I thought my sheer lack of athleticism, combined with my middle-aged pudgy center would have given them a clue. You never saw anyone in a “James Bond” movie that looked like me, and there was a good reason for that!

I don’t know much about being an agent. I have read that businesses sometimes hire what they refer to as “change agents.” A change agent is a man or woman who helps their organization or business to improve business processes and teamwork. Apparently, they are leaders focused on change management. I have read about them, but it isn’t clear to me how they differ from other managers in an ever-changing world.

What I DO KNOW about agents is this: because of our salvation, we are led by the ultimate “Master Agent of change.” Our encounter with Jesus not only changed our destiny, it changed the path on which we walk right now. As we grow to maturity, we slowly learn in our Christian life how to cede control away from our cravings and inner instincts into the control of the One Who made us. The Spirit guides our steps as we invite Jesus to lead us daily.

Something else I know… change isn’t always popular. Alvin Toffler wrote: “Change is the process by which the future invades our lives.” Isn’t that right? Doesn’t change sometimes seem like an unwanted invader? It causes us to break out of the comfortable. I think it is fair to say that change is difficult for most people. Woodrow Wilson once quipped: “If you want to make enemies, try to change something.” Much change is unwelcome. At the same time, consider the alternative. Harold Wilson reminds us of the opposing truth: “The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.”

With that in mind, let’s simply concede there is a great deal in life we cannot change.

• We cannot change our past.

• We cannot change the uncertainty and unfairness inherent in a fallen world.

• We cannot change many things that come our way.

The good news is we can change our attitude about what we encounter. We can ask the Lord to lead us through the day. We can focus our minds in ways that will help us to move forward in the face of troubles.

Let me offer you more good news from the opening of a writing of the Apostle Paul known as the “Letter to the Colossians.” Maturing in your faith will be a journey of change led by the Master Agent of change. Colossians 1 makes the lesson clear…

Key Principle: Mature believers learn to thank God for salvation (what Jesus did), wonder at the Savior (Who Jesus is) and experience His sanctifying power (how Jesus changes us).

If you are growing in Christ, these three ideas are a part of your life in greater and greater ways. To follow these ideas, let’s look at how Paul opened the letter…

Paul wrote to people who were already walking with Jesus.

This is a letter to believers, not to everyone in the world. He wrote:

Colossians 1:1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, 2 To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ who are at Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father.

The term “saint” was widely used in the New Testament for those who walked daily with God. They weren’t perfect, but they were growing and walking in the faith of the Lord Jesus. Paul added in verse two they were also “faithful brethren.” Keep reading, and you will see that Paul began with positive words…

He began by sharing his personal celebration concerning them before God.

Colossians 1:3 We give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, 4 since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have for all the saints; 5 because of the hope laid up for you in heaven, of which you previously heard in the word of truth, the gospel 6 which has come to you, just as in all the world also it is constantly bearing fruit and increasing, even as it has been doing in you also since the day you heard of it and understood the grace of God in truth; 7 just as you learned it from Epaphras, our beloved fellow bond-servant, who is a faithful servant of Christ on our behalf, 8 and he also informed us of your love in the Spirit.

Clearly, Paul’s celebration focused on three primary ideas of celebration:

• They evidenced faith and a loving spirit (Colossians 1:3-5) – and that was evidence that God was working among them. You may have noticed that many people in the world are stirred up about life. They are worried about the future, angry at the political climate and uncertain about the economic environment. Believers start life in the same worries, but grow to trust that God is at work in people on every level. That won’t mean everything will be good in the short term, but it does mean it will all end well.

• Changes in them came when they received the Gospel and began bearing fruits of faith (Colossians 1:6). The Christian life is a growth. It is measurable, but at times slow. You can see it primarily through attitude and choice changes in the life of one who seeks to follow Jesus.

• Paul made a notable mention of Epaphras who bore testimony of their actions to Paul and (at the same time) taught the people faithfully how to follow Jesus (Colossians 1:7). The teaching of Jesus and the modeling of life change is part of the discipleship process and Epaphras was busy helping with that progression.

Paul shared the heart of his prayer for them: the fruit he hoped to see.

Because the faith is modeled and gradually takes hold, Paul wanted the Colossians to see what he was hoping they would become. He wrote:

Colossians 1:9 For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10 so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; 11 strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light.

Look at Paul’s hope for them:

First, Paul prayed for internal knowledge. He wanted them to become dominated by God’s will for them as a group (Colossians 1:9). He desired the Colossians to willingly submit to God’s Spirit as it directed them internally to a discernment of God’s directive will.

Second, Paul prayed the internal knowledge would show in external choices. They would take the will of God within and choose to live it without – taking care to please God in how they walked (Colossians 1:10).

Third, Paul asked God to stabilize them to the point they would be immoveable in the faith (Colossians 1:11). He longed to hear they showed the ability to remain under the pressure and yet fully trust God.

Fourth, he prayed fervently they would exhibit a thankful spirit in all circumstances for what God was doing in them (Colossians 1:12).

That’s a list we can all desire, isn’t it? Wouldn’t YOU like to say you truly understood where God was leading your life? Wouldn’t you like to see a pattern of choices in your daily walk that clearly showed your allegiance to God as He both helped you make the goals and then empowered you to attain them? Wouldn’t you love to be known as a steady and stable influence in the faith among your brothers and sisters in Jesus? Wouldn’t you LOVE to hear that people thought you were one of the most thankful people they knew? Paul’s desire for the Colossians looks like a laundry list of what most of us wish were true of us.

Paul had many of these character marks himself. Have you ever wondered, “How did he get them?” Fortunately, the text revealed the secrets…

The heart of thankfulness came from Paul’s clear understanding of three things: What Jesus did for all of us, Who Jesus truly is before all of us, and what Jesus was doing in His own life.

The same pattern will work for you. Follow Paul’s record for a moment…

First, there is the true record of what Jesus did. He became our Savior:

Colossians 1:13 For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Four acts are highlighted:

• He rescued us. We MUST remember the Gospel is not about adding a moral set of guidelines to our life – it is the rope that holds us from plummeting to an abyss. The casual understanding of lost-ness is the biggest problem we have in getting people serious about evangelism.

• He transferred us. We MUST consider that we no longer belong to the kingdom to which most around us swear full allegiance. They will fight and die on hills for values that are no longer ours. Jesus snatched us from the kingdom we once supported, and calls on us to walk in a way that shows our prime allegiance to Him.

• He purchased us. We MUST consider our sense of “freedom” to be our unfettered opportunity to serve Jesus with all within us. We were not bought to become free men. We were bought to change the house of our servitude. That offends American sensitivities, but is abundantly clear in the teaching of the New Testament. You were bought to be a servant of Jesus Christ, not yourself – your cravings, your desires, nor your wants.

• He bought for us forgiveness. The term is áphesis (from aphíēmi the word to “release, send away or forgive”) – this was the word for releasing someone from service to repay a debt. We MUST recognize the release. Jesus paid our debt, so we serve Him, but not the old life and the old obligations to the flesh. You CAN walk away.

What Jesus DID is remarkable, but pales in comparison to WHO Jesus is.

Second, there is a true record of Who Jesus is.

Our Redeemer began His work under the auspices of His Father.

He is the authorized inheritor with the Father’s full authority.

Colossians 1:15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

Don’t get confused. The term “first born” in the text isn’t intended to say the Eternal Son of God was “born first.” The expression isn’t about Jesus being “created,” though in the Godhead He IS the only one Who experienced the process of physical birth!

The word had everything to do with RIGHTS and PRIVILEGES in the time of the Apostles. The FIRST BORN was the one who represented the Father in negotiations and contracts. He was the inheritor of all of his father’s estate. He held a position of greater authority than any other family member, any employee, any representative. Jesus is the EXACT REPRESENTATION of the Father (Hebrews 1:4). He is the image stamp. He looks, in every respect, like the Father. He said it this way: “If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father.” The term firstborn is a term about the right to fully represent the interests of His Father… and Jesus CAN.

He is the Agent of the Father’s will in Creation of all things.

Colossians 1:16 For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him.

When Genesis 1:1 said, “God created the heavens and the earth,” the specific agent of that creation was our Savior. That would be like saying, “I built this machine” when you were saying your team did it. Jesus did the work at the behest of the Father. He is the agent of Creation, but He is more…

He is the mechanism of beginning and maintaining the cosmos.

Colossians 1:17 He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.

Jesus literally, chemically, biologically and physically holds the cosmos together.

He is the initiator of the “body of the called out” of the world who became the first fruits of new life.

Colossians 1:18 He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead…

He was the first fruits of the Resurrection that guarantees our future (1 Corinthians 15). He is the Originator and the Supreme Head of those set free from sin.

He is the One Who will be recognized as Supreme in the end of all things.

Colossians 1:18b “…so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything.”

At the end of all things, every ruler will bow. Every leader will acknowledge His supremacy…

He was chosen by His Father to bring such reconciliation to us.

Colossians 1:19 For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, 20 and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven.

God placed Him in the role of Savior…

He is the One Who brought in some of the worst rebels and joined them to God in salvation.

Colossians 1:21 And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, 22 yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach— 23 if indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, was made a minister.

Three truths jump from these verses, and each offers a challenge:

• The message of the church is not about the church but about the Savior. We are not a display case of our own goodness, but rather a dazzling display of God’s grace bestowed on the least deserving.

• The message of the church is not about how we can accept you as you continue participation in evil deeds, but how encountering Jesus causes you to kill off the domination of fleshly desires that do not show you have been redeemed.

• The message of the church is not about how a momentary commitment (an aisle walk) can save you when you refuse to have the Spirit do a work in retracing your choices of life.

Beyond the work of Jesus, Paul celebrated the PERSON of Jesus. Then he made the whole thing more personal…

Third, Paul rejoiced in what Jesus was doing in and through HIM:

It wasn’t comfort Paul experienced, but it was a sense of purpose. He wrote:

Colossians 1:24 Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of His body, which is the church, in filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.

He didn’t enjoy trouble, but he saw his life, his pain and his work as all purposeful to God. A million years from now, any cost your faith places on your life right now will still be worth it. Ask a mom of a toddler if the pain of childbirth was worth what she has. She will tell you! The pain had a purpose, and that is why it was bearable. So is your trouble in this life.

It wasn’t leadership and perks he experienced, but it was a call to servanthood and stewardship that thrilled him.

Colossians 1:25 Of this church I was made a minister according to the stewardship from God bestowed on me for your benefit, so that I might fully carry out the preaching of the word of God, 26 that is, the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations, but has now been manifested to His saints, 27 to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Paul was given a message: Gentiles can come to faith without an earthy High Priest or a trip to Jerusalem’s Temple. It didn’t matter how many experts in the Law disagreed with him – he was given a message by God to deliver. It didn’t matter if he was popular because of what he shared – because he was a steward of what God told him.

So are you. It is also worth remembering…

It wasn’t a program of change Paul brought to people, but it was a Person Who would change them.

We preach Christ. We preach HIS change within men and women. Paul wrote:

Colossians 1:28 We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ. 29 For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me.

Don’t misread this. You don’t get perfect so that you can meet Christ – you meet Christ and get completed IN Him to meet the Father.

He brings with Him a new hunger to walk differently. He shows you why the disciplines of this life are worth it in His service!

In the end, Paul made it clear…

Mature believers learn to thank God for salvation (what Jesus did), wonder at the Savior (Who Jesus is) and experience His sanctifying power (how Jesus changes us).

The pattern is set. Come to Jesus and thank Him He has made your new life possible. Gaze at Him in wonder that He would do this for you. Grab hold of his empowering as He leads you to grow in Him.

She was in her mid- twenties and had passed through her college experience when I first met her on a trip to Israel. Her aunt brought her because in college she learned the Bible was a tale of myths and there simply was no evidence for its words. Her aunt asked me on the second night of the trip to have a talk with her. We sat in the middle of a plaza by the sea at Netanya and she expressed a litany of complaints about the Bible. I listened and promised her that I would do my best to address each of the things she pointed out. Then I asked her a question: “Who do you think Jesus was?” I wanted to know if she ever stopped to consider what He claimed and what He did. I wanted her to answer how it was that in her own family several members close to her had been dramatically changed by Him. That opened the door to her heart, and Jesus was standing there waiting to go in. I wish I could share how much God has done in her life and her family from that day – but someday you’ll meet her in Heaven. She will be there with a smile and real confidence in her Savior.

There is no secret in the fact that America’s families are changing. We are changing the definition of family, and we are changing the expectations that are packed into the word “family. Here is the question: “Does God have clearly defined expectation of how people should relate to one another both in the context of the family, and in the context of the community?” The Scripture text for our lesson today clearly demonstrates that He does.

Key Principle: God has clearly defined His expectations of behaviors in our relationships as Christians.

The small letter of Paul included three parts that can help us recognize God’s plan for our growth and influence on the community:

• In Colossians 1, God revealed that He has both GOALS for believers and the RIGHT to demand our obedience – because of what He has done and because of WHO He is.

• In Colossians 2, God revealed some of the OBSTACLES that hinder us from following Him in obedience.

• In Colossians 3 and 4, God revealed the BENCHMARKS of transformation. We looked at a list of them in the previous lesson, and preserved only one for this week – the transformation in our relationships, found in the final part of Paul’s letter to Colossae.

The last section of the letter can easily be divided into two simple parts – instructions on the transformation of relationships by Jesus (3:18-4:6) and information concerning Paul’s affairs and companions (4:7-18). Take a few moments and examine what Paul wrote, under the influence of God’s Spirit concerning relationships we have as we are sculpted by Jesus into a new man or woman. Paul began with the married women in the Colossian church…

Wives:

Colossians 3:18 Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.

Despite our culture’s criticism of their concept of Biblical injunctions in this area, we would do best to look carefully at this command and not tune it out. Remember, it is the work of the church to carefully point to those things that will help us be effective in following Jesus and coming obediently under the scalpel of our Master Surgeon as He cuts away the “old man’s influence” on our decision making. The world has no interest in distinctions between men and women – and sees any Biblical statement about them as increasingly hostile to their militant and exclusive indoctrination of all that any distinction in role is tantamount to inequity in value. Our world seems to plead for a family that is not led by anyone – a government of the home is as paralyzed in leadership as in every other institution. There was a time when it appeared they feared MALE leadership, but there is ample evidence that they fear leadership of ANY KIND – as children are increasingly being made equal to parents. These are the times that require we hit the “reset” button and return to God’s stated intent if we are to be an example of His transforming work in our midst. Don’t shy away. Look carefully. God has our best in mind in every command of every relationship.

First, the terms for wife and husband help define the context of the command. The word “gun-e” is a generic term for women unless used more restrictively (as it is here) with reference to a specific man as husband. In the same way, the term “andros” is a generic term for man – but when used together in this way the term is more defined by the relationship. This woman and this man are connected by relationship and covenant, and in that context the command is given. This is not a statement that women are to place themselves in subjection to men outside of the context of marriage. It offer no command on workplace relationships or other contexts.

Second, this specific direction of the command is not given to men, but to women. The term “hupotasso” is a well-known Greek term (from “hupo” which means “under” and the verb form of “tasso” or to “arrange”. A painfully literal translation instructs a woman to “thoughtfully arrange herself under her husband in rank”. The Biblical story of her origin as his “help-meet” appears in view here. This should press us to recall two important corollary truths. Remember, the issue of subjection is not personal worth or value, but of function. In armed services, a rank insignia affords a marker of respect, but does not mean that the person of rank is personally of higher value as a human being. The issue is function and role, not intrinsic value. In addition to that, also note that the woman is called upon to choose to see her husband as leading in the family; it is completely beyond his ability to force her to do so. This is something a godly woman chooses to do, not something her husband MAKES her do.

Third, the purpose of the command is to “bring something to completion” or “due what is suitable” in God’s arrangement. The term “aneko” is translated “as is fitting”, but the expression is derived from a compound word from “ana” or “completing a process” and “heko” or “come”) – roughly to “do what is appropriate”. The woman was to choose to see her husband as leading in the family because it was appropriate to do so. The word used here is in an “imperfect tense” and can be translated “was fitting”. I mention is because grammarians such as J. B. Lightfoot have noted, this “implies an essential (a priori) obligation” of what was “owed.” This means the woman has a choice, but the right one is unambiguously give to place herself in this functional position in keeping with her obligation to her husband and to the Lord.

The clear instruction from the Lord concerning a wife is this: Choose to honor the Lord by serving your husband. Actively become his helper. Don’t tug for power – help him make good decisions and lead well. Acknowledge in front of him that God placed him in that position, and that you will both honor it and see it as part of your expression of love for your Lord and Savior.

Husbands:

Colossians 3:19 Husbands, love your wives and do not be embittered against them.

Again we must observe the context of the command, and not that in addressing husbands, the same term is used of the man that was previously used – the one that is defined by the relationship. This is given to a man with a specific relationship to a specific woman in marriage. Though common etiquette can provide an opportunity to treat women with special care, this command to love is given in the context of one covenant couple.

Note that the command to the man is in two parts. The first of those is that a man must choose to “love” his wife. The term is a form taken from the word “agape”. It means “to prefer” as a means to choosing what God chooses for us and thereby obeying Him. We are to do what God prefers as He “is love” (1 Jn 4:8,16).

1 John 4:8 The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love…16 We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 17 By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world.

Observing carefully, it appears the case can be made that LOVE of a husband includes actively demonstrating a servant relationship with the Lord. A man who loves God and obeys God loves his wife. Second, that love appears to be a response to what the Lord has shown us – we pattern our love after His kind of love. Our affection, our deliberate choice and selection appears to be part the signal that Christ is living His life through us – and that we are examining His work closely to gain our understanding of how to live. It also appears to bring us specific confidence that when we are called to account before Him at the time of judgment (the Bema seat) of our life’s work, we will be commended for such a choice.

The second part of the command is “do not be embittered against them” which requires some explanation. The term used here is found four times in the New Testament – three of them in the context of making something bitter. One appearance revealed wormwood that embittered the water it struck (Revelation 8), and two concerned upsetting a prophet’s stomach in Revelation 10. The term was used in Greek literature as a metaphor for “becoming exasperated, irritated and grieved.” Perhaps a general term that captures the sense could be “frustrated” – i.e. Don’t be frustrated and irritated in your dealing with them.

Why would Paul add this warning? Concerning her book The Male Brain, Dr. Louann Brizendine quipped: “When I came up with the idea of writing on the male brain, nearly everyone made the same joke: ‘That will be a short book!’ It seems that our culture has come to believe that men are rather simple creature, biologists tell us nothing could be further from the truth. Her research as a neuropsychiatrist and professor of clinical psychiatry, convinced her of the unique brain structures of men that “create a male reality that is fundamentally different from the female one.” Geneticists are utilizing brain mapping technology, but we are at the beginning of this long road to understand the mind.

One area that was carefully studied was that of natural attraction. Men are naturally wired to spot any attractive woman that enters the room, and must carefully learn to redirect their attention from “autopilot” mode to deliberate focus on God honoring pursuits. He may not mean it as a threat to your relationship, but women will often interpret it in this way – and the line between the nature to “notice” and the fallen nature to “lust” is very thin. A good rule of thumb: the first look is a query, the second an invitation to sin in the mind. Don’t frustrate your wife by looking at other women – learn to control your mind and then extend that control to your eyeballs.

One classic complaint persists: men often accuse women of undue emotionalism while women retort that men aren’t thinking enough about emotional life. It may help to know that we were designed differently – our nature is not all nurture (we aren’t just how we were raised, though that did make a contribution. Dr. Brizendine pointed to research which suggests that our brains have two emotional systems that work simultaneously: MNS (which allows empathy with people); and TPJ (which seeks solutions to emotional problems, or cognitive empathy). In the limited studies we have, the male brain uses the latter far more – men want to find a solution to the problem presented. The direct extension into problem solving appears to hinder thought processes from seeking emotions to help them consider options as these appear to the mind to be a distraction from the task. That can make men appear uncaring.

For reasons scientists cannot yet truly understand, the female brain remains fixed in empathy mode much longer, and her presentation to a male can appear to him to be unduly wallowing in anguish while he is seeking a practical solution to relieving the pain. He thinks he IS caring for her by finding a resolution while she interprets his lack of desire to dwell on the emotional aspects of the problem as a sign of an uncaring and unemotional nature. Don’t get frustrated with her, understand her and SLOW DOWN when it comes to solving presented problems. Listen to her and allow her to echo her frustrations and emotions. Learn to use her ability to feel the problem to bring more sensitivity to your solutions. Learn to hear the heart of your wife if you want to invite her into respecting you and following you.

The clear instruction of the Lord to you, husbands is this: Choose to demonstrate loving preference for your wife above all others. Be patient with her and listen to her heart. Take your time in considering solutions to problems in the home, and don’t try to solve the issues too quickly. Let her emotional warning bring you to a place of greater sensitivity as you solve issues you face. Provide an atmosphere where her value to you is unquestioned.

Children:

Colossians 3:20 Children, be obedient to your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing to the Lord.

The first thing we see in this command is the addressee – and that defines the “scope” of the command. As with the term for wives and husbands, so here Paul uses the generic term for “children” “téknon” used in the Greek language with frequency. There are three senses the word is used in the New Testament. The most common is the term for a son or daughter not yet of adult age – a boy or girl is a child, and man or woman is not. The second is a figurative use for anyone living in dependence upon our Heavenly Father and illustrates a believer’s need to draw guidance from God – a believer is to be “God’s child”. A third use emphasizes an adult that learns “a childlike” of trust and joyfully submits to the Father’s plan – have “a child’s trust” as we seek the Lord’s will. In this case, the grammar and context appear to completely favor the first definition – that of a “boy or girl”. The text demands obedience, but does not appear to have in mind an adult son or daughter – only a child still under the parent’s care in the home. The term we would apply to the adult child would be to “honor” or “respect” a father or mother – as opposed to OBEY. At fifty-three years of age, I honor my father’s wishes and try not to offend him in any way – but he does not command obedience in my home.

The direct command was for a child to “obey in all things” – a direct and broad-encompassing directive. The word hupakoúō is an intensified form of the verb “to listen” and means to carefully observe the instruction of one and act under their authority with precise accord to what they instruct. Unless the instruction is illegal or immoral, children need not wonder if they are to follow it.

The last part of the instruction offers the underlying purpose – to live a life that is “well-pleasing” to the Lord. That term, euárestos means gratifying and fully acceptable behavior – because it denotes the way of living God mandated for a child. Some choice came from a response to the Fall in the Garden – but not this. God’s plan was always, from the beginning, to have children understand the idea of authority by beginning life with parental authority. It is that area that was first inhibited in our society, and that lack of clear authority line has left us with intensifying rebellion. In societies where authority and obedience to it is not stressed, rebels will flourish. Eventually the society loses both the benefits of order that come from the knowledge of authority and the ability to recognize the root cause of many surface troubles. To have a peaceful society, people need to recognize authority and be prepared to yield to it. People trained to disregard authority are not innovative, they are ultimately destructive.

The clear instruction to children is this: know that God placed you where you are, and that His intention is that you would obey your parents. Unless they direct you to do something that is illegal or immoral, you should simply accept their right as your authority to instruct and direct you for the years you are under their care.

Before we leave this aside, let me say this: some people have the right to be wrong. I don’t mean they have the right to harm you or cause you to do wrong – I mean they have the right to tell you to do it in a way that you deem the wrong way. The coach on the basketball team may not desire your advice from the bench in the last minute of the game – and as the recognized authority of the team he doesn’t have to listen to your brilliant insights. Your boss may tell you to do something in a very inefficient way, simply because he wants you to do it his way – and that is his right. Your parents may restrict you from going somewhere because they don’t have a good feeling about it –that is their prerogative. Obedience for a child isn’t a luxury – it is the foundation of that child’s understanding of authority.

Fathers:

Colossians 3:21 Fathers, do not exasperate your children, so that they will not lose heart.

The fourth instruction is to fathers – those who had inordinate power under the Roman system. A Roman father in an equestrian or patrician home was considered the “paterfamilias” of the family. He was the legal authority in the home over women and children – but also over the slaves. When a baby was born it was placed at his feet – and he could accept the responsibility for that child or order the child left exposed until dead outside the village. He could beat slaves even to the point of death – and there was no reprisal in the courts. Yet, if he did so in a house full of slaves, he probably should sleep with one eye open and have someone test his meal before he eats… Here is the point: because of the apparent absolute nature of his authority under Roman law, it was easy for him to forget the proper limitations place upon him. Here God made a limitation clear: don’t exasperate your children.

The word “exasperate” erethizó (er-eth-id’-zo) which means to stir up, arouse to anger, or incite. It is possible to stir up a child, and it is possible to break the spirit of that child – if you do not handle the child with understanding. Children are not simply “little adults”. They do not possess the necessary experience to process your stress from work – they think it is about them, something they did to make you mad. Many of them don’t possess the emotional means to process disappointment. When we set the bar high, we can help them. If un-affirmed, that same bar can be used to frustrate them.

The simple command to fathers is this: handle your children with extreme care and understanding. Set goals that are high, but realistic. Not all students are “A” students, but most all can be trained to get all their assignments in on time. Not all can rake a huge yard at the stage of responsibility they are at, but all can be encouraged to do a part that has been selected with care and consideration of their abilities. We must communicate an unbreakable bond of love while creating an expectation of good behavior – all with sensitivity.

Slaves:

Colossians 3:22 Slaves, in all things obey those who are your masters on earth, not with external service, as those who [merely] please men, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. 23 Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men, 24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve. 25 For he who does wrong will receive the consequences of the wrong which he has done, and that without partiality.

American Christians are not comfortable with passages on slavery. Some think it embarrassing that the Apostles didn’t try to overturn the slave system. In our activist culture, it doesn’t occur to people that while they were facing the need for the first generation of Christ followers to reach a lost world, the economic reality of slavery wasn’t their first priority. The leaders of the Christian movement obviously recognized the danger of attempting to dislodge a system that was approaching 50% of Rome while 99% of the Roman world was still lost. They had other fish to fry.

At the same time, what slaves were called on to do in this passage is instructive – not only to cultures that allow such servitude – but to all of us. The attitudes are important, and the commands can be attained only when these attitudes are in place.

• First, they were called to heart obedience – not simply external obedience in appearance. They were called to serve sincerely (not hypocritically) and to remember than Jesus is watching.

• Second, they were told to do work with great intensity (heartily is from the word pseuche – or soul as in “put your heart into it!”) and do it all for Jesus.

• Third, they were admonished to recognize that their true reward didn’t need to come from their earth master, for their Heavenly Master would one day reward them adequately!

• Fourth, they were warned that if they didn’t do these things – work with a right heart, doing their best, seeking no earth reward – they would be truly chastised when they stood before the Lord.

The clear command to the servant was this: serve your best as though you are serving Jesus by serving others. What a great work ethic!

I was blessed to hear a story at a banquet some time ago. A man sitting beside me shared his testimony, how he came to know Jesus Christ as Savior. He told the most remarkable tale. He shared that he was a vile man with a terrible mouth. He was filled with racial hatred, obnoxious to the core. One day he got an employee transferred to his department who was a Christian. The man was quiet, respectful and hard working. The man I was speaking with told me that he knew he hated the man. He was the wrong color and on top of that he was a “religious nut”. The Christian worked for this man for months. He took everything his boss threw at him. He gave him the worst jobs. He taunted his faith. He called him racial epithets and openly smeared him at every opportunity. One day on the shop floor, one of the men was badly injured. Blood was everywhere as the man was pinned beneath a piece of fallen equipment. The Christian man got on the floor next to the man who was hurting, held his hand and prayed for him while the paramedics came. He helped them pull the man from beneath the machinery, and then stayed and cleaned up all the mess. When the boss looked at his time card, the Christian man had “clocked out” early – before going to the man’s aid. When questioned, the Christian employee replied: “I didn’t want to presume that you would want to pay me for helping the man or cleaning the mess, so I clocked out and went to help.” That changed the boss. It took some time, but it was that day he decided this man had something in his life he couldn’t understand.

We need to remember that Jesus’ hands are most often shown before His voice is heard. When believers act as Jesus instructed them – they can often earn a hearing in the ear of an unbeliever.

Masters:

Colossians 4:1 Masters, grant to your slaves justice and fairness, knowing that you too have a Master in heaven.

Though it is true that we are reading another’s mail from long ago, and that mail is set in a cultural context that is different than mine – we mustn’t see the instructions as entirely worthless. A good case can be found in that of the “master’s commands” in the opening of chapter four.

Note the values that were communicated in words like “justice” and “fairness”. Slave owners were to “grant” (parecho is to provide) an environment of “justice” (dikaios is judicially approved by God) and “fairness” (isotés or “ee-sot’-ace”) is proportionality and equality of treatment. Note also that masters were told to see themselves as having a shepherd, or Master themselves. No one is above civility. No one is above the law. No one should consider themselves without accountability for how they treat another. It may not be apparent right away – but people are God’s creation – and He alone gets to be ultimately in charge of all.

The clear instruction to these slave owners was to provide an equitable living situation for their people – a situation which seems to have been reasonably rare in antiquity. Dr. Robert S.J. Garland, Professor of the Classics at Colgate University. shared this about common Roman slave conditions:

“Imagine working down a mine 10 hours a day and then being shackled for the other 14 as you try to catch a bit of sleep or simply huddle with your fellow slaves to keep warm. Or, if you happen to be in a more “favorable” situation, imagine hearing with unimaginable dread your master’s heavy tread and knowing that he is about to force himself upon you yet again, as he has four nights in a row. Or, imagine you’re feeling sick, too sick to get up. You know, however, that if you don’t get up and do your job, your master or your supervisor will leave you to die, whereas if you do manage to struggle up from the ground, he’ll have you beaten yet again for failing to do your job properly. Your bruises haven’t properly healed from last time.” (Lecture: “Being a Roman Slave”, The Great Courses).

All the Church Family:

Colossians 4:2 [All Church Family] Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with [an attitude of] thanksgiving; 3 praying at the same time for us as well, that God will open up to us a door for the word, so that we may speak forth the mystery of Christ, for which I have also been imprisoned; 4 that I may make it clear in the way I ought to speak. 5 Conduct yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders, making the most of the opportunity. 6 Let your speech always be with grace, [as though] seasoned with salt, so that you will know how you should respond to each person.

Finally, Paul’s injunctions were to all the believers of Colossae. He told them:

• Devote yourselves to prayer.
• Put energy in keeping a positive and thankful tone.
• Keep prayer flowing for the mission beyond your four walls.
• Pray for those who are hurting because of the Gospel.
• Pray for the vigilance and clarity of those believers in peril and captivity.
• Watch out for your testimony before the world.
• Remain open to spotting opportunities to share Jesus with others.
• Speak in loyal ways about other believers and be gracious!
• Let that grace and loyalty instruct you as to how to speak of others.

Look at that list for a moment. Churches are to be about prayer – devoted to it. It cannot be a marginal pursuit if we are devoted to it! Believers are to be positive and thankful in their foundational tone. When hard things must be said, it should pain them – and be unusual. Some people think God has literally called them to complain incessantly about our world, our government, our youth… on and on. That isn’t so! Believers are supposed to care about THEIR CHURCH but also about the church around the world! Those who are suffering persecution should get our prayer attention. Believers are supposed to be seeking ways to share Christ. Believers need to be careful about how we speak of one another.

God has clearly defined His expectations of behaviors in our relationships as Christians.

Instead of a cute story to end, I want to offer a few words of practical wisdom that I think apply some of these truths to each of the people mentioned in the list we have studied:

• To wives: Work hard to show respect to your man – it is what he most needs in a world that makes him feel small all the time.

• To husbands: Thank God daily that He gave you a woman who thought you were good enough to marry. You probably weren’t. If you are smart you intentionally married up. If you are not, don’t worry. She is still smart enough to make you think it was your idea.

• To children: Don’t feel it is your job to evaluate why your parents told you what they did – you don’t have enough experience to understand the command – but someday you will.

• To parents: Don’t feel betrayed when your children become their own people – that is what you were raising them to be! They may not show how much like you they are – but if you get to stick around for a few decades – you will make a comeback in their looks, and probably some of their values and attitudes.

• To workers: Remember that your time has been bought at the job – so give your boss the best you have. Don’t try to run your busy personal life on his or her time.

• To bosses: You aren’t there to make work easy and fun – but you can make the atmosphere enjoyable while everyone works very hard.

I love to take baths – my wife will attest to the fact that I can take a book and monopolize the bathtub for an hour almost anytime – but especially when it is cold and rainy outside, (which is twice a year in our little Florida town)! For reasons I don’t completely understand, I love to read in the bath, and a “hot tub” is a special sanctuary of relaxation for me. I should admit, however, for the sake of honesty, that it was not always so. I used to hate bath time (at about age ten!) There was a time in my early life when we didn’t have a bath – but a shower – and showers were for daydreaming – not for getting clean. I loved to fill the room with steam even as a child. I loved the way hot water always felt good on my skin – even if I ended up looking more like a steamed crustacean than a Smith child. In the process, I was SUPPOSED to use the soap that was provided to actually wash myself. I cannot say why, (perhaps it was the memory of my mom who could remove your skin at bath time to make you fully clean) but I often didn’t wash at all. I stood there and used up a perfectly good hot water heater’s full of steamy water. When I came out, I was red, wet and relaxed. What I wasn’t – was CLEAN. I know this because I failed “mom inspection” on a number of occasions. What I couldn’t figure out was how my mom could wipe behind my ears and figure out if I used soap and a wash rag. As a parent, I now know that she may have been bluffing – but then…those were simpler times, and I was simple enough to match them!

In the end, what I learned from being ten and hating soap was this: cleansing leaves signs – or marks. It produces an effect; a change. Any soap worth its weight cuts through dirt and even changes the aroma of the skin to which it has been applied. Good bathing shows in the “afterglow” and passes a “mom inspection”. I also learned a truth that I can now easily apply in my spiritual life: If I have truly been cleansed, you will be able to tell on a close inspection. Paul taught that in the end of Colossians to believers long ago…

Key Principle: Jesus didn’t just SAVE us, He CHANGES us. Real time with Him leaves the marks of ongoing transformation.

I am not the caterpillar I was when I was born; nor am I the butterfly I am going to be when the transformation renews me. Right now, I am in a state of change – a transformation from the old man’s domination to the Spirit’s change. Paul wrote to the Colossians long ago, while awaiting a tribunal before Nero, and he noted the evidences of transformation. Before we study it together, it is worth recalling the first two chapters of Colossians offered five major ideas:

The first idea is “God’s goals for His children.” The answers to this particularly question are obvious from Paul’s elegant prayer for the Colossians 1:9-12, where he shares the POINT of God’s work in and through a believer – one who has truly trusted Christ for salvation.

• Understanding: God wants us to know His desires.
• Impact: God wants our life to count.
• Discipline: God wants us to curb our appetites.
• Resolve: God wants us to get stubborn about doing right.
• Trust: God wants us to get our smile back on and trust God in difficulty.

The second idea is “God has a right to “impose” His goals on us” found in Colossians 1:13-29, where God offered through Paul’s quill two basic reasons God’s rights to our lives makes sense.

• First, it is because of WHAT GOD DID FOR US (1:13-14). God orchestrated in Messiah three specific acts that are outlined by Paul: God entered the prison of darkness in Satan’s dominion and set me free (1:13a). God relocated me to a new Kingdom that was part of the estate of His much loved Son (1:13b). God set aside my guilt by considering payment in full through the work of Messiah for me (1:14).

• A second reason is given to explain why God cold expect me to follow His plan for me: WHO OUR SAVIOR IS (1:15ff). It is clear that God has the right to ask each of us to surrender our will because we follow the Incomparable Christ.

Following the “goals” and “rights” discussion, Paul moved in to frame the answer to a problem: “What hinders us from surrendering to Christ?” Chapter two identifies some obstacles:

• First, some of us get our signals (improperly) from the circumstances – but we can’t reliably see the truth through the problems (like the fact that Paul was under arrest didn’t signal anything about Christianity’s future). Some believers attempt to figure out God’s direction based on what they observed in the daily news – and that doesn’t work well (2:1-7).

• Second, like to feel like they “earn standing with God” and that leads them to desire something “more than Jesus” to fulfill their religious impulses (2:8-15). Unsatisfied with Jesus alone – they acted up.

• Third, believers too often seek affirmation from other men and women, allowing others to dictate their practices in following Christ (2:16-23). We can easily seek the “like” button of friends on our life over the approval of Jesus above all.

God has goals and rights, and I must recognize that I will be hindered if I seek His direction through the news and not His Word; I will be delayed if I place religious practice higher than strengthening my relationship with Jesus daily; and I will be stalled if I seek the approval of men over the Divine nod.

Let me pose the questions that I believe dominated the rest of Paul’s thinking in Colossians… What will transformation actually look like? If Jesus is changing me, how can I tell? Can others tell as well? Are there “benchmarks” for the changes?

It all starts with PERSPECTIVE (Colossians 3:1-4).

Paul called people to have eternity’s values in view in this life’s behaviors and decisions. He told them to deliberately make every effort to train their minds to see things from a Heavenly perspective.

Note the words of Colossians 3:1 Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. 3 For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.

Without clarity on this point – nothing else Paul wrote will make sense. We have to see life from Jesus’ perspective in order to make priorities that please Him. We need to ask the question, day after day, “What is Jesus doing in this circumstance? What I am to learn from it? How would He desire me to respond to it? What proactive action or reactive response would show that I have taken the time to see it from Heaven’s point of view? If that isn’t clear enough, keep reading, because Paul offers yet more clarity…

Transformation is changing my view of “ME” (my body and its “needs” – Colossians 3:5-7).

Paul turned the attention of how a Heavenly perspective is seen directly toward discipline of our thought life, and intentional curbing of our desires. He wrote:

Colossians 3:5 Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. 6 For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience, 7 and in them you also once walked, when you were living in them.

Let’s say it again: There is no accidental holiness! Paul picked out key areas of temptation and self-fulfillment that blanket the advertisements of our day. “You NEED this!” they beckon. “Why wait?” they ask. “If you feel so strongly about it, why deny yourself?” they query. Yet, God made clear that as we are being transformed, our “Heaven glasses” will see more clearly. Look at the five symptoms of the old life Paul mentioned:

• Immorality: porneia, derived from pernaō, “to sell off” – surrendering to body hungers and selling off Godly values.

• Impurity: aka-tharsía, from two words – “not” and katharós, “unmixed, pure” – it holds the idea of mixing sewage in your brownie mix and then claiming that it is just a small amount, so it won’t hurt you!

• Passion: páthos or “raw feelings”) – which refers to being driven by hungers and emotions that are not guided by God (like consuming lust) nor checked by your disciplines. This is the “Give yourself to it – you KNOW you want it!” philosophy.

• Evil desire: kakós from the root for “inner malice” – it is about hungering for things that are innately unsavory in character. This is the one who longs to run off and live “beyond the tracks” and “sow the wild oats” for a time.

• Greed: pleon-eksía from pleíōn, “numerically more” and éxō, “have” – properly, Chasing a driving hunger to have MORE.

Let me be absolutely clear: You cannot claim you have Heaven’s perspective if you are constantly chasing earth’s hungers. You cannot claim to be a growing Christian and have your behavior ever directed by so-called “felt needs”. We must place even our inner hungers under the subjection of Jesus Christ. Do we not remember that our Savior felt the nails and the lash in spite of despising the shame and hating the pain? Why must we insist that Jesus came to feed our feeling, furnish our lust and nurture our unquenchable thirst for more in this physical life? In historic Christianity this message was easily spotted and rebuffed; today it has become enshrined and preached. We cannot be blinded: Jesus didn’t come to transform us into worldly people, but men and women with Heaven’s value system.

Transformation CAN BE HEARD! (Colossians 3:8-10).

Paul made clear that to have new hungers prevail, I must allow the Spirit’s power to be directed in my WORDS… My SPEECH will change…

Colossians 3:8 But now you also, put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, [and] abusive speech from your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its [evil] practices, 10 and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him—

Don’t get all mystical about growing up in Christ. The Spirit isn’t going to change the channel or the website, nor choose your words as you speak – those are YOUR JOBS. Changing clothes for a Roman was something he or she may have anticipated HELP WITH, but it still required their active and deliberate personal participation! In the same way, each of the following SIX ITEMS are ours to TAKE OUT of our mouths:

• Anger: orgḗ – vehement opposition that rises from stubbornness.

• Wrath: from thymós – passion-driven speech.

• Malice: from kakía – underlying evil intent in your words.

• Slander: from blasphēmía which is two words: blax, “sluggish/slow,” and phḗmē, “reputation, fame”). It is to be slow to call something good (that really is good) – or identify what is truly evil as such.

• Abusive Speech: from aischrologia (say: ahee-skhrol-og-ee’-ah) which simple meant “filthy speech” or “foul language”.

• Lying: from pseúdomai – to falsify, lie or willfully misrepresent or mislead.

These items (in this context) regard TONGUE ISSUES, and are the personal responsibility of every believer. We need to learn to speak truth, curb outbursts and kill bad language. This isn’t to earn a place with God, it is because it is evidence of a life being transformed by Christ. Be clear: you can hear a Christian. You will know them, in this context, by how they speak. It isn’t ONLY that, but it SHOULD INCLUDE that!

Transformation KILLS old prejudices and helps me see people in a new way (Colossians 3:11).

As Jesus transforms my life, I stop seeing people as “us” and “them” based on RACE and SOCIAL STATUS – but see the world as those who BELIEVE and those who NEED JESUS. Paul wrote:

Colossians 3:11 [a renewal] in which there is no [distinction between] Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all.

People are either believers or they are ensnared and perishing. They are either brothers and sisters in Christ or they are the object of God’s love not yet freed. It is UNCHRISTIAN to view a person of color as less than I am, but correct to view an unbeliever as different than I am. No man or woman is worth less than I am, nor more. Yet, not all will be treated the same by me. Brothers hear different things than neighbors. I share my most intimate thoughts, needs and feelings with family, not the world I am trying to reach. Believers draw a line of distinction around other believers – not based on ethnicity and social status, but based on belief alone.

There is another way that transformation changes my view of people. If Jesus is changing me, I will not see people as “stuck in my way” but “placed by God in my life”:

Colossians 3:12 So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; 13 bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. 14 Beyond all these things [put on] love, which is the perfect bond of unity.

Our eyes are the windows through which we look at life. People who are transformed by Jesus gain a new perspective by a spiritual “eye replacement” surgery – they see life differently. Paul made clear that we begin to see each other with love and compassion – because we recognize how much we have received in compassion from an absolutely perfect and holy God.

• He reminds them, first of all, that their brothers and sisters have been chosen of God.

• Second, Paul reminds them that each were distinct and beloved of God.

On the basis of those two ideas – believers were chosen and separated out by the love of God – Paul placed a list of eight commands of things to PUT ON:

• Put on a heart (splangkh’-non) of compassion (oyk-tir-mos’): includes two Greek words – “bowels” and (oiktirmós) or emotional pity. This is empathy for someone’s difficulty or misfortune.

• Put on kindness (chréstotés): A good way to think of this is “useful kindness” – a fruit of the Holy Spirit (Gal 5:22) whereby the believer is empowered to meet the practical needs of another.

• Put on humility (tapeinophrosuné): two terms – tapeinós –”lowly or humble”, but implies becoming God-reliant rather than self-reliant (which ironically brings us true worth, cf. 1 Pet 5:6); and phrḗn – referring (figuratively) as “the parts around the heart”.

• Put on gentleness: praótēs, from pra- (emphasizing the divine origin) and the term meekness, or “gentle strength”. This is a word for power with reserve, ever exercised in controlled measure.

• Put on patience: makrothumía from makrós, “long” and thymós, “passion, or outbursts of anger”. Become one who can wait sufficient time before expressing anger, thus avoiding the premature use of force or retribution.

• Put on “bearing with one another”: anéxomai is from “completing a process” and exō, “to have” – properly it is translated “forbearing” but actually means to “bear up while understanding a process is in action”.

• Put on forgiveness for one another: xarízomai is literally “favor that cancels”. The term is used of God giving His grace to pardon, not based on any merit of the one the gift.

• Put on love – the superglue that holds us together: agápē – properly, love which centers in moral preference.

The point is that we need to deliberately PUT ON HEAVEN GLASSES AND SEE differently. Instead of convincing ourselves that we were somehow BETTER and MORE APPEALING to God than other people around us – we must recognize that we have been the recipients of God’s love and care. He pulled us to Himself because of love – and we must see each other as valuable. God said that those who are around you – other annoying believers that you worship with – were worth His love, His purchase, His selection, His Son! If that is true, we must SEE EACH OTHER through the new eyes that reflect that value. Then we must ACT ACCORDINGLY.

Transformation helps us GET ALONG with other believers (Colossians 3:15).

People who are transformed by Jesus are to learn to allow the peace of Jesus rule their heart.

Colossians 3:15 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body;

The word PEACE is the New Testament term eirḗnē, taken from the word eirō, “to join, tie together into a whole” and means wholeness, a completion. Something is wrong with a church of believers who are constantly stirred up – they seem to be lacking something. I have been talking to believers, trying to figure out what is keeping them stirred up. Here are a few of the WHOLENESS ROBBERS I have discovered:

• Fear of loss of the past: A great many people in America today live with the constant fear that new government programs, new propaganda planted in our educational system, and an emerging new moral system that is casting off the most basic constraints are about to topple our way of life. They may be right, but the response of fear and constant complaining is not.

• Fear of coming troubles: Akin to the loss of the past is the ever threatening voice of “their going to take your guns”. They are going to take away our religious freedoms. They are going to come and make our children do wrong. You know what? I think you may be right, but that cannot be my focus. My years on this earth are limited, and my purpose is primarily to see that those who need to hear about Jesus, do.

• Fear of loss of control: From health care to guns, from school curriculum to state welfare – we are constantly being campaigned to join a cause. Let me advise you to pick what you are concerned about, and find a practical way to make a difference in that area. Leave the rest for prayer. God is not going to hold you personally responsible for the end times.

During the Second World War, servicemen heard the prayer that originated by Reinhold Niebuhr. A version of it is still circulated in AA meetings:

God, give me grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, Courage to change the things which should be changed, and the Wisdom to distinguish the one from the other. Living one day at a time, Enjoying one moment at a time, Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace, Taking, as Jesus did, This sinful world as it is, Not as I would have it. Trusting that You will make all things right, If I surrender to Your will, So that I may be reasonably happy in this life, And supremely happy with You forever in the next. Amen.

I am not declaring you all alcoholics, but I am saying there are too many believers that are too stirred up, and we are commanded to put on the ruling mastery of peace. Note the language of the text that carefully calls us to allow God’s gift of WHOLENESS to take charge of our heart. It is simple rebellion to resist the ruler ship of peace and turn over the realm to worry.

Transformation can be seen in APPRECIATION! (Colossians 3:15b).

When we learn to see each other differently, and let peace stabilize our daily walk, the third mark will show profoundly… We will learn to be thankful!

Colossians 3:15b “…and be thankful.

The word “thankful” is euxáristos, taken from eú, “well” and xarízomai, “grant freely”. It means you become “thankful for God’s grace working out what is (eternally) good”.

Let’s be honest. You and I have no control over the issues of life. Forget that you don’t control the government… as we age we are struggling to control our own “plumbing”. Don’t be embarrassed by the fact that as we age, we realize that control is an illusion lived in the minds of the young. Yet, we are not to panic – we are to face facts. We were NEVER truly in control! A thankful heart isn’t about having control, but about being grateful you know Who does. You DO know what His big purposes in the world are, if you know His Word. If you know Him, how can you look at eternity with Him and not be unbelievably thankful?

Transformation makes me HUNGRY for His Word! (Colossians 3:16).

With a thankful and peace guarded heart, I must learn that as a follower of Jesus I need to fill my mind with the Word of Christ daily. When I do that, I will want to recite it in three ways:

Colossians 3:16 Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms [and] hymns [and] spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

Did you see the three recitations of God’s goodness? They are found in the words “Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs”. What are they?

• Psalms: the term “psalmós” was originally Scripture sung and accompanied by a plucked musical instrument (typically a harp). It was an old Hebrew tradition that made its way into the early church.

• Hymns: hýmnos is a word taken from hydeō, which means “to celebrate”. In antiquity, these were generally songs that praised heroes and conquerors. The emphasis was they were “historically well known” songs. Many church hymns were set to tunes known in celebrations and even pubs. Luther encouraged the German church to place Christian words to already popular tunes.

• Spiritual Songs: An ōdḗ was a ballad that wove a tale with a moral exhortation. In some ways, it was like a ballad that unwound a story in song. The term was used of spontaneous, impromptu (unrehearsed) melodies of praise, giving testimony about a walk with God to other worshipers.

Whether we sing out the Word of God (something I wish we did even more than we do), sing historic and well-structured hymns and songs of the faith, or whether you are simply “making music as the Lord leads” in “spiritual songs” about your journey with Jesus, your mouth will reflect what is going on inside – transformation!

Ephesians 4: 29 reminds: “Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear.” For those who have struggled with a “bad mouth” before Jesus (and sometimes after), I suggest you change your musical diet. Sing God’s Word more! Sing Praises more! A new vocabulary comes with practice!

Transformation changes my PURPOSE! (Colossians 3:17)

When I look at life through HEAVEN GLASSES, and I allow Jesus to work in my transformation – I start doing all that I do to please Him, to glorify Him, to honor Him!

Colossians 3:17 Whatever you do in word or deed, [do] all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.

Note that Paul carefully covered every word and every deed. Your faith on Monday should sound like your “church faith” on Sunday. Also note that Paul talked about a testimony of acting out truth – DOING SOMETHING thankfully.

The final way you can see transformation is for our next lesson: It changes my relationships in life! (Colossians 3:18-4:18).

Colossians 3 says that the redeemed show it in actions and attitudes – not just labels and memberships…

Jesus didn’t just SAVE us, He CHANGES us.

Let me close with a story and a request…There is an old tale an eagle that had been captured when it was very young by a farmer who snared the bird to keep it from growing and harming his small animals. He put a restraint on the eaglet so it couldn’t fly, and loosed to roam in the barnyard with his chickens. In short ordern the eagle began to act like a chicken. It scratched about and pecked at the ground. A majestic bird that for a short time soared high in the heavens became satisfied with live in the barnyard. One day the farmer was visited by a shepherd, who lived in the mountains where the eagles lived. Seeing the eagle, the shepherd said to the farmer, “What a shame to keep that bird hobbled here in your barnyard! Why don’t you let it go?” The farmer agreed, and they cut off the restraint. Yet the eagle didn’t leave! It continued to wander about the yard, scratching and pecking. The shepherd picked up the bird and took it up to a high precipice. As the eagle saw from its former height perspective, it lept into the grand expanse of blue sky and flew toward the glowing sun. With wings spread, it soared off into a tremendous spiral flight. Finally it was acting like an eagle again.

Man was made to walk with God, and to live a full life with Him. Jesus came and took off your restraint. Isn’t it time you took off back to the high place to which you were called? Why not drop the idea that something is blocking you, and look at your wrists – your chain are gone. It is time to fly again!

When we lived in a village on the southern edge of Jerusalem, we had an olive wood stove that warmed us during the cold and rainy winter months. I loved that little stove! It sucked the dampness out of the air, and filled the whole house with a sweet smell that wafts from that oil-laden wood. Because trees in Israel are in short supply, I bought wood chips and refuse from the shops in Bethlehem that carved olive wood figurines for the pilgrims that came to learn about Jesus in that town. The spare parts of the wood were excellent for burning, and they could be purchased relatively cheaply. In the pile of throw away pieces were any figurines that were improperly cut or marred in the process of carving. Some were only half carved.

One day I asked my son to get me some of the wood chips from the bag, and he brought me a little Jesus figurine that was holding a lamb across His shoulders. Aaron asked me what it was, and I described it as a “little Jesus” from the “Good Shepherd” teaching of John’s Gospel. He giggled! He thought the idea of a “little Jesus” was one of the funniest things EVER. Though he grew up in Jerusalem, the Jesus he knew was a powerful and immense Savior – and while this figurine displayed gentleness, this little statue didn’t communicate any of that power he heard about – and it didn’t SEEM like Jesus to him. Yet the truth is that a tiny Jesus (in the lives of those who claim to follow Him) isn’t nearly as uncommon as you may think. MANY people, even many Christians, have a “tiny Jesus”. They recognize the baby in the manger, and they identify with the lifeless crucified form on a cross – but they don’t see Him as He is – the powerful and High King of Heaven –the Master of salvation. Lost in the Lamb, they cannot see the Lion of the tribe of Judah.

It is worth noting that marred view began shortly after the church spread from those who saw Jesus after the resurrection to other places in the Roman world. The message spread about His Resurrection, His power and His glory in the Heavens, but believers struggled, almost from the beginning, to see the Master more clearly than the earth and its powerfully tugging fleshly enticements. The Apostle Paul could see it clearly as he traveled and encountered the “tiny Jesus” problem. Too many believers were too fixated on this world – and the problem became clearer as visitors came describing the events of the first century churches to Paul in chains. He knew that believers needed to be encouraged to see the physical world properly – by seeing it through the “lens” of a powerful Savior. Here is a truth he taught to the believers at Colossae, a truth we touched on in the previous lesson…

Key Principle: When we see the Savior clearly (as He truly is!) we see life clearly. We must learn to see earth and its history in the perspective of its larger Heavenly context – or we won’t understand the story properly.

Let’s face it – life here doesn’t make sense without the record of our true origin from above – out of the mind and purposes of God. I am not saying there is no other posited explanation for humanity – I am saying that all explanations come down to the same thing. We are here. We exist. The material world is here – and it either got here from nothing and has no purpose or plan – or it got here by intelligent intention. I believe unapologetically that we who believe in the Bible as God’s proclamation and trust in God’s prophecy of the destiny of all things are not casting into a dark sea without solid evidence – quite the contrary.

Men and women, left to themselves, will use the modern conventions they are inventing to paint themselves into awkward corners and be quickly be reduced to absurdism. A story was related to me last week of a man who stood before a local council asking that he be granted “special minority status”, with all the privileges it entails for assistance to his business, because he feels as though he is African-American. There he stood – blonde hair, blue eyes, and boldly claimed if he could not be denied rights to a women’s restroom based on what he “felt about his own sexuality” then he should be able to claim “minority rights” provisions under the council if he felt himself to be a person of color. The council deliberated and could not find a way to deny him the special provisions without hindering their other accepted positions. Do you see where we are going? The absurdity of self-definition erases logical identity – and we have only begun to step off the precipice. Soon, anyone who feels like they are a horse will claim they should be given “stable privileges” – and there is little in the modern thought process to stop them from getting what they request. Reason dies – not with belief in God – but with the absence of God and His implanted moral definitions.

My point is simple: either there is a Creator or there is not. Either there is an objective definition of right and wrong that transcends popular vote and strong opinion, or there is not. That leads us to the Bible. So that you will grasp our approach, we are going to state up front that we believe we were created by a personal, loving and purposed God. We believe He both created earth and later came to earth. We believe He spoke and that He preserved His words. It is to those words we turn to learn from whence we have come, why we are here, and to what end we have been made.

With our Bibles open to Colossians 2, let me admit something. In our last lesson, we went too quickly (in my view) through something that is far too important for our time…so I want to re-visit a teaching of Paul from the second chapter of Colossians. For simplicity, if you reduce the chapter to its essential components, Paul related that there were essentially three problems the early believers in that time were facing that I believe we can still readily relate to:

• Some believers were confused by the circumstances and couldn’t figure out God’s direction based on what they observed in the daily news (2:1-7).

• Other believers were distracted by a focus on “their felt needs” that led them to desire something “more than Jesus” to fulfill their religious impulses (2:8-15). They weren’t satisfied with Jesus alone – and that was pushing them to act up.

• Still others were frustrated by seeking affirmation from other men and women, allowing others to dictate their practices in following Christ (2:16-3:1). They wanted to fit in, and that meant they sought the “like” button of their neighbors instead of the approval of Jesus above all.

If you look at these three issues, they have one root – where can the truth be found that will affirm us and guide our thinking? That is at the heart of this chapter – and it is worth more time and consideration. Consider these important questions:

• Do circumstances always reveal what God is doing? Paul addressed that is 2:1-7.

• Since life is relatively short and the end of it is certain (I have never met someone who is 212 years old), should I chase my inner hungers, feelings and desires to find purpose and truth – and then somehow hope I have “done enough good” to be recognized and accepted by God as I leave this life? Paul peeled that open in 2:8-15.

• Since the sea of life is so big and I feel my boat is so small – shall I simply lean on the wisdom of others and seek to follow a path that pleases them? Paul unpacked an answer in the balance of the chapter.

Paul simply addressed the answer to a HUGE question people face…How do I move through life with meaning, purpose and anticipation of an end that will offer me grace and not reward my true inner selfishness?

Distracted by the Circumstances (2:1-7)

As we open to the first seven verses of Colossians 2, don’t forget that Paul was under a “light chain” of arrest, awaiting a hearing before Nero. He waited two years, and that slowed his travel plans and made it difficult for him to be on the front line of spreading the Gospel. Add to that, some were making noises in the church that Paul was actually in hiding, or afraid to be bold during his incarceration – as if any of them could have done better. The cheap seats are often occupied by loud critics!

Paul knew that every believer could get distracted and lose a clear understanding of the work of Jesus in the pile of confusing circumstances. In fact, when we see life through the lens of this world alone – we lose HOPE, we lose PERSPECTIVE and we can even lose our grip on THE TRUTH. Mature believers CANNOT let circumstances shape their view of the world. Take a look…

Colossians 2:1 For I want you to know how great a struggle I have on your behalf and for those who are at Laodicea, and for all those who have not personally seen my face, 2 that their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love, and [attaining] to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, [resulting] in a true knowledge of God’s mystery, [that is], Christ [Himself], 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 4 I say this so that no one will delude you with persuasive argument. 5 For even though I am absent in body, nevertheless I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good discipline and the stability of your faith in Christ. 6 Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, [so] walk in Him, 7 having been firmly rooted [and now] being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, [and] overflowing with gratitude.

Three truths are perfectly clear.

First, Paul was greatly struggling in 2:1a – that is what the text said. Did that mean the message he was preaching was unreliable, because he emotionally struggled? Not at all! On our best day, we who know and love Jesus are broken vessels carrying a whole and perfect truth.

Second, Paul made clear his concern that some had never seen him or met him face to face in 2:1b-3. Did that imply they would be unable to grow to full maturity in his absence? If you read the verses carefully, Paul recognized that his work among them would be encouraging, but was not necessary for them to be fully completed in Christ. No man provides what God can do without a man. His Spirit and His Word can bring us into completion – and the body of Christ will shape us in our gifts and service functions. We are blessed to have each other – and we do help each other grow – but the reality is that God is doing the work. Paul’s concern was that “their hearts may be encouraged” (that is that they would have full and positive HOPE), that they would join with the others in the body “having been knit together in love” and that they would grow into a full and intimate understanding of Jesus “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” They needed to see Jesus clearly, not Paul. Godly leaders know they have a function – but it is NOT to give you more of THEM. They are to point you to Jesus – because He is Who you need.

Paul had a third concern. His emotional struggle surfaced because some were being misled (2:4-5) by evil men who were trying to pervert the truth for their own purposes. Did that mean the Colossians would be lost to persuasive arguments and perversions of truth? Not necessarily! Without Paul’s presence, yet some were exhibiting “good discipline and the stability of your faith in Christ.”

Here is the point: Men can mislead when troubles arise. Things aren’t what they seem to be – they are what God says they are. Close up, you cannot often see the truth – so God has revealed it in His Word.

The day that Jesus was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane – the devil danced and those who knew the One Who is truth incarnate were pushed aside and wept in hiding. The night Jesus was slapped about in the house of Annas and Caiaphas, He looked stripped, broken and weak while those men looked powerful in their colorful religious costumes. The early morning when they drove nails in the hands of the Savior as He cried out in excruciating pain, Rome looked powerful, and Jesus looked weak and broken… but things aren’t as they appear, they are as God declares them in His Word!

Rome was ridding itself of a nuisance. The High Priest was removing a public challenge and political distraction. Crowds spat and cursed to hurl insults upon another and hope they could feel better about themselves. Yet that wasn’t what was truly happening at its core. You see, in a place of filth God was saving mankind. It didn’t look like Jesus was King – but He was, and He is still.

Fast-forward to Paul’s time. He was under arrest. He couldn’t be with them, and others were preying upon young believers and confusing them. It looked like the Christian message was about to meet its end in Colossae – but it didn’t. Paul told them: “6 Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, [so] walk in Him, 7 having been firmly rooted [and now] being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, [and] overflowing with gratitude.”

He said: “In the same way you accepted by faith”, now they must daily walk in light of that faith.” They were told not to look at the circumstances – but to look more deeply at Jesus as God had revealed Him and live according to the knowledge that He is alive and at work changing them! “Just as roots grew in the tenderness of your heart”, Paul said, “so they should encourage those roots to grow deeper and stronger.” Just as they learned first steps in Christ, now they should allow each new lesson to take hold. They needed to add back the WONDER and the OVERWHELMING GRATITUDE they had when they first recognized Who Jesus is and what He did for them. Can we do any less?

Dear ones, we must not build our faith upon men – but on a deepening of our surrendered walk to Christ Himself. Don’t despair as God’s men lose their voice. Billy Graham’s voice is now all but silent – but Jesus is still speaking loudly to those who are lost and in need of a Savior. As you mature, more and more, walk on the solid words and teachings of Jesus – and spend your time listening to His voice from His Word. In Heaven you will have neither a Pastor nor a teacher – you will have Christ Himself. As you grow, get more and more used to the sound of His voice. You will find it in His revealed Word.

Discontented by Choices (2:8-15)

For some people, they matured past the point of looking at the circumstances. They were mature enough to know that whether it looked positive that day or not – God was very much at work. Yet there was still temptation to be drawn away from fullness in Christ. They weren’t distracted as much as discontented… and it was still rooted in their desire to be affirmed and accepted by others. Discontent was planted in them by men who desired to draw them away from Christ. Look at the words Paul wrote to them. As you do, notice the difference in the TONE from what we read in the first seven verses:

Colossians 2:8 See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.

Did you notice how much more DIRECTIVE the sound of Paul’s speech when he addressed this second problem. The first paragraph was tender and concerned – but this paragraph was more like a dictate than an encouragement. There is a good reason.

Truth isn’t something you can negotiate. You can’t add a little sewage to the water and still have a safe drink from that fountain. It takes more diligence, more tenacity to get to the truth and block the diseasing influences of the lies of the fallen world. Think of it as “spiritual hygiene”. Do you want your doctor to use clean tools in your surgery? If you do, then do you also want your teacher to use the cleanest moral tools in the training of your heart?

Paul cited specific traps that were set for them:

First, there were deliberate deceivers at work to trap them while appealing to “sensual tug points” in their still fallen hearts. Just because we love Jesus and trust Him for salvation does not mean we won’t still be tugged toward sinful practices – as though these will fulfill us. Paul warned: 2:8 “See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.” The term “taken captive” implies a hunter is at work, and they are intentionally looking to ensnare your life. In truth, captivity necessitates a hunter, a plan and an ultimate goal.

Let me say it plainly: As a believer, you walk with a target on your back. The enemy of Christ is the enemy of Christ’s people – never forget that. The brutality of that enemy on Jesus during the passion is no more content today than two thousand years ago. He wants to destroy you, your family, your testimony, your nation – everything you treasure. He wants to frustrate you, make you impatient for God’s assistance, and push you toward doubting God’s goodness. If he cannot have your soul in eternal destruction (because you have trusted Jesus as Savior) he will work to cut your progress down, and punish your every disciplined step if he is able.

Don’t forget also that he has familiar agents. Some come in lab coats and professor’s robes. I had a fifth grade teacher who did all he could to persuade me the Bible was false, and I was just a child! Some have erudite speech and persuasive arguments – but they do not know where man came from, why man is here and where mankind is going. They are both smart and clueless, educated and ignorant. They offer the best the “tradition of men” can dispense – but without Christ they do not offer life. They have the ABC’s of the world – but lack even the first syllable of an eternal vocabulary.

Second, Paul made the point that some of the most profound traps are found in philosophical systems that are carefully constructed to compete with and even attempt to defeat a Biblical world view. These “air filled” systems are carefully constructed deceptions that offer a life devoid of any eternal values, push against any personal accountability to God, and even distort temporal value systems. We live in a time when “smart men” can argue wrong into being right, and right into being silly. We are spending millions to invent a morality without God, and an existence without a Creator. Modern philosophies of naturalism (hoisted over an obviously created world), hedonism (as if one can ever get enough pleasure to stop focusing more and more on SELF), and humanism (as if some new technology can take away our basic penchant for violence, hatred and injustice) – all these have been carefully placed in our path to replace God and His Word in our public square. Some of our most educated men and women act as if all that was created on this continent was done by godless men – when the opposite is the record they left behind for us to follow. They need only read of William Bradford’s commitment to Christ to recognize they are fabricating their own history.

Bradford completed a work on the “Plymouth Plantation” in 1651, some six years before his death, and told us why he did what he did: His driving force was “a great hope and inward zeal they had of laying some good foundation, or at least to make some way thereunto, for the propagating and advancing the gospel of the kingdom of Christ in those remote parts of the world–yea, though they should be but even stepping stones unto others for the performing of so great a work.” Find that in a modern text book. You won’t, because it doesn’t fit the pagan narrative re-written for the upcoming generations. Modern history books are far too often fashioned on cleverly devised mythical scenarios – but the truth lives in the quills of our founders – and that truth can be a stubborn thing.

Note that 2:8 makes a clear statement that the goal of worldly philosophies is singular – to reduce the world to THIS LIFE. The goal is to ERASE any real thought of a spiritual world – to relegate it to the “hocus pocus” of superstitious fools. Look at the prescription Paul left – the inoculation every believer can have that will gain them resistance against the virulent power of the lies… It is the Person, work and Word of Jesus Himself.

Paul made clear that Jesus was the agent of Creation – so in Him the answers about origin, purpose and destiny lie open in the book of the past. The point of Colossians 2:9 “For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form…” is that He has all that we need to get to the truth – because the Truth is His very name.

He is enough – we need nothing more. Paul wrote in Colossians 2:10 “…and in Him you have been made complete…” there is nothing more, nothing better, no additional parts necessary. Jesus alone will bring you safely home to God when life’s journey is done.

He cannot be overruled – as Paul continued in Colossians 2:10b “…and He is the head over all rule and authority.” No other prophet, book or work needed to be completed for salvation to have its full effect. Buddha offered nothing more. Joseph Smith didn’t need another document to explain the contribution of Jesus. It was over when Jesus was done speaking His Word.

Note as well that He isn’t “part” of your sin solution – as Paul made clear in Colossians 2:11: “…and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; 12 having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. 13 When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, 14 having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.” There was no need to add practices, even good ones, to the payment Jesus made. He cancelled the full debt of our sin. He took the dead and gave them life.

Jesus triumphed over every spiritual authority – Paul made clear that we march in a triumphal procession because the war has been won. He wrote: “15 When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him.” Jesus isn’t competing with the devil for the world – He patiently awaits the devil to play his last card. His Father will raise His hand from Heaven’s throne and in a mere hour the religious rebellion around the world will be stripped of power and splendor. When the Father speaks, the markets of the world-wide economy will be crushed in short order. Jesus has won, and in a day soon, every knee will bow –without exception. No one is powerful before the Creator. No one is His rival. No one else will win in the final day. It will be as He has promised. The text of 2:15 declares there is a public spectacle coming when the world will marvel that it followed the enemy after he has been broken by the Savior.

Let me get to the point: If you want more than Jesus, it is because you do not truly understand Who Jesus is. You only want something other than Jesus because you neglected truly grasping the Person of Jesus! The careful gaze upon Christ will quench the thirst of your heart. We must come to recognize the great prize of salvation is not Heaven – it is Christ Himself. When we DIE to self, we are raised in new life with Jesus. He becomes our life, our hope, our satisfaction. That brings us to the last concern… some were…

Derailed by Consensus (2:16-3:1)

We don’t get salvation from others accepting our way to doing things. We don’t get it from religious accolades and lists of rules that define us. We are defined by Christ, by love for Him and trust in His Person and work alone. That is why lists don’t replace relationship with Christ. That is why though we are called to love one another, and to respect one another – we must carefully follow what Jesus told us to do in His Word, and not to take our cues from those who cannot show us from Scripture the path we should take. He argued:

Colossians 2:16 “Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day—17 things which are a [mere] shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ. The celebrations God called upon Israel to learn of Him were no replacement for the relationship with the Savior God gave to the Colossian believers. They were given to Israel to help them see Who God is – but they were not intended to replace God in them.

God wasn’t against the disciplines, rules and celebrations He instituted in the Law. He simply didn’t want people to think that by following them people cooperated in their own redemption. We don’t. You and I do NOTHING to make God happy with us but believe Him and trust the payment Jesus made on our behalf. The bottom line is that anything that tries to provide “something more” is a FRAUD. People who bind us into other things DEFRAUD us from the prize – having and trusting Jesus for our salvation. Paul said it this way:

Colossians 2:18 Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on [visions] he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind, 19 and not holding fast to the head…20 If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees, such as, 21 “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!” 22 (which all [refer] [to] things destined to perish with use) — in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men? 23 These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, [but are] of no value against fleshly indulgence.”

Here is the issue:

• Some will offer a prescription of DENIALS – acceptance by NOT DOING a list.
• Others will offer a perversion of WORSHIP – seeking another in the place of Jesus.
• Still others offer a personalization of TRUTH – THEY ALONE saw and heard from God – and you need to trust THEM to get to HIM.

People often prefer to obey rules instead of seeking Christ. Why? Because some religious lists appear to offer wisdom and make us look humble and austere as we harshly treat ourselves in self-denial – thereby making an attempt to earn God’s favor. The truth is that ANYTHING WE DO THAT REPLACES CHRIST’S WORK IS SHEER IDOLATRY – no matter what it looks like. When we look at life – we need to see it through the lens of what God says is right – not what others say. Chapter two tells us WHY we need to see life through Jesus – because circumstances cannot lead us; because a choice for anything other than Jesus will lead astray; and because there is no other consensus we need to be affirmed by other than Christ Jesus.

Chapter three opens with two verses that are not about WHY, but rather about HOW! How do we see life properly? We look at here through the lens of there.

3:1 Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth.

That is the way to view life… I was sorely tempted to close this message with a cute story – because it has been heavy. I will tell you a story, but it isn’t cute – it was a real story.

Let me tell you of a man who made his living as a fisherman until he met Jesus one day. He followed Jesus, sometimes incredibly badly, but he kept at it. God used him mightily, though his flaws and weaknesses were ever obvious. He was with Jesus. He walked on water with the Savior. He saw Lazarus raised from the dead! He ate bread multiplied by the hands of Jesus Himself…and one day, he heard God’s voice over Jesus’s head, declaring Him to be God’s Son. Peter told the story until he was ready to die. His last letter made it clear:

2 Peter 1:12 “Therefore, I will always be ready to remind you of these things…14 knowing that the laying aside of my [earthly] dwelling is imminent…16 For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty. 17 For when He received honor and glory from God the Father, such an utterance as this was made to Him by the Majestic Glory, “This is My beloved Son with whom I am well-pleased”—18 and we ourselves heard this utterance made from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain. 19 [So] we have the prophetic word [made] more sure, to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts.”

Peter was dying, and he wasn’t lying. He knew Jesus was real, and that made everything else in life clear – including his life’s purpose. When we see the Savior clearly (as He truly is!) we see life clearly. We must learn to see earth and its history in the perspective of its larger Heavenly context – or we won’t understand the story properly.

Are you concerned about people who TEXT when they drive? Have you ever found yourself focused on something other than the road ahead WHILE you were driving? In this lesson, we want to look at the road ahead, and we want that road to have our full attention – undistracted.

If you are involved in training young people in the church, these are exciting days to live in! I believe a new wind is blowing in the church of the west, and God is raising up young people who are preparing to take a firm commitment to Jesus Christ into a world where even western culture has grown hostile to its historic roots. These young ones are not giving up, and we mustn’t give up on them. In the coming days you will see they are not moving into the world unarmed – but with the Spirit of God, a commitment to the Word of God and a renewed grasp of the scope of the battle they are pressing outward. The fog is lifting!

It appears many of us inadvertently allowed culture to slide into moral morass while our churches were distracted by side issues. Some churches worried about hymnals and drum sets while the world removed the “stigma of divorce” and redefined “sexuality and marriage” right under our noses. While the church thoughtfully attempted to preach a more relevant message blending Scripture with psychology and self-affirmation (in many cases trading Scripture to do so), the world redefined the story of the origin of the cosmos as a random and meaningless adventure going nowhere. Now, many of us are increasingly pleased to see a new and dynamic generation of young people who seem to see more clearly. We are approaching a new day, should the Lord permit – a time to send out God-loving, Word-grasping, Spirit-dependent youth is coming close. God isn’t done yet, and we mustn’t become weary in well doing.

Key Principle: The road ahead has obstacles that cause some to falter, but a focus on our incredible Savior and His purposes will keep us moving toward our goal.

More than any other fight we may be engaged in today – our culture is fighting for its future; and it is a fight worth waging. Our “ships of state” appear heavy-laden with prophets of self-satisfaction, preaching “Do what feels good” to the masses. The infection has taken hold throughout our morally drifting university system, and has followed the blood lines all the way into the hallowed halls of our own national Congress. As a people, we seem to be making one decision after another without regard to the long-term future of our people. Here is the problem: Self-centered people think of their own satisfaction long before they carefully consider the impact of any decision on the generations who follow them.

There are observable symptoms to this problem. Such a culture will casually borrow the resources not yet earned to fund their current pleasures, loading a heavy debt on their children without much apparent concern. They consume natural resources at alarming rates without sufficient regard for how their children will make due. They make moral decisions based on what will satiate any immediate desires (no matter how destructive in the long term), without careful consideration of how their actions will harm the generations behind them. In truth, they are less interested in the “one day” than the “now”. If we carefully examine it, at the center of “selfishness” is a false urgency for complete and immediate happiness at the expense of all other values. Is there any doubt we are watching selfishness become a virtue in our day? No, but we are deliberate in our push back against it.

One thing you should be aware of – the struggle is not new to us, nor the strategy to wage war against it. The enemy has few new strategies, but replays the old – over and over. More than anything else, mature believers are called to deliberately work to leave behind those who are seeking to follow Jesus and lead others to Him no matter their social climate or culture. If that doesn’t happen our movement is finished here, no matter how big our buildings or famous our leaders – Christianity will die in our land – and God will raise it up in another place.

The Apostle Paul was well versed in that truth, and in our last lesson, we explored touch points of his mentoring and discipleship from the opening chapter of Colossians – particularly the spiritual form of growing people in Christ to spiritual maturity. Let’s remind ourselves of the setting of this essential writing on discipleship… You may recall that we left Paul stuck in Rome waiting for two years for his hearing before Emperor Nero in our story. During that long wait, he wrote letters, sent messengers and engaged young followers in Jesus. In the Colossian letter (written during that time), we spent a few moments looking at two realities from the first chapter:

First, God has stated goals for His children.

In Paul’s elegant prayer for the Colossians in 1:9-12, he shared some important GOALS of God for believers:

• He wanted young believers to be “dominated by a precise knowledge of God’s true desires.” Because God expressed what pleases Him we concluded that Christians must labor for a Biblical world view if we are to provide our communities with a true moral compass.

• God also expressed that believers would apply their knowledge and “10 …walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please [Him] in all respects…”

• We are called to conform our desires in every area to produce a life that shows the world Who God is and what He has said. When we are “…bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God” we go through the buffet line of life choosing for our plate not according to our fallen taste buds, but anticipating what GOD wants on the plate – since it is FOR HIM. Let’s be clear: It simply ISN’T CHRISTIAN to live to please ourselves, but rather we live to please our Creator – and that brings to our life significance and impact.

• With pleasing God in mind, we must remember the goal is not simply WHAT WE DO as much as what we learn about God Himself. Our life will be a rich, growing experience when it is deepened by an intimate and thorough knowledge of God Himself! My life is a relationship with God, and when I know Him as He is, I will naturally adjust my appetites to things that please Him.

• Paul pointed to another important truth: God wanted to empower believers daily according to the measure of God’s great power so that they would be immoveable and patient in the process. He doesn’t want believers to “tough it out” in their own will power because His is an inexhaustible reserve of power to draw from! We are to gain the ability to remain under pressure and be able to endure trouble.

• Finally, we noted that God wants us to “get our smile back on” and (as Paul wrote it): Colossians 1:11b “…joyously 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light.” We are to celebrate the fact that God saved us, and wants us for Himself! We must learn to be thankful – vocally thankful – for the gift He gave us to be inheritors of new life! (1:12).

Second, as our Creator, God has every right to “impose” His goals upon us.

God wasn’t asking TOO MUCH when He stated goals for us that included our surrender to Him. Paul argued that God could lay out His goals for us for two important reasons: what He did for us, and WHO He is.

Look for a moment at WHAT GOD DID FOR US (Colossians 1:13-14).

God orchestrated in Messiah three specific acts that are outlined by Paul in Colossians 1:13 “For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

• God entered the prison of darkness in Satan’s dominion and set me free (1:13a).

• God relocated me to a new Kingdom that was part of the estate of His much loved Son (1:13b).

• God set aside my guilt by considering payment in full through the work of Messiah for me (1:14).

Not only did God DO great things, but His plan for me comes complete with a view of WHO OUR SAVIOR IS (1:15ff) – and intimate knowledge of Him changes EVERYTHING! It is clear that God has the right to ask me to surrender my will because I follow the Incomparable Christ.

Let me pause to remind you that just knowing the glory of Christ is an end in itself, not a means to something more. Christ is not glorious so that we get healthy, wealthy or famous – or even that His church is victorious. The glory of Jesus Christ is such that whether rich or poor, sick or sound, prosperous or persecuted – we are able to find total satisfaction in Him – and the Father Who sent Him. Let us be clear: Jesus is worthy of worship if He had never done any of the things the Gospels assure us He did. His is an intrinsic worth!

In Colossians 1, The Savior was described in remarkable terms. Colossians 1:15 “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created, [both] in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities– all things have been created through Him and for Him. 17 He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.”

• The Master possesses the unique and privileged place of “oldest son” with all its rights and titles of the ancient family structure (1:15).

• He is the Creative agent of the Father (1:16a) who did His Father’s bidding in the creation of the world.

• He is the Owner of all things (1:16b). He has authority over creation because His Father has given Him ownership over all of it. He made it, but His Father said He could make it “for Himself!”

If that is true, then all things were made BY HIM and FOR HIM – PERIOD. I am made for Him. My life was initiated for His purpose. Knowledge of that truth gives my life meaning, purpose, focus and direction. God gave me life and then exposed my goals for living.

There it is. Paul argued effectively in Colossians 1 that God has goals for my life that are wrapped up in surrendering to Him and knowing His Word. He has the right to demand my life be lived to please Him, because He is my Creator.

Abraham knew it. David knew it Daniel and his three friends knew it. Jesus preached it: “Give your life to gain your life, hoard your life to lose it.”

Yet, sadly, somehow this has become the message UNCOMMON in the modern church. We are called to live for fulfillment and not Christ. We are called to give to multiply our riches, and not solely to delight our Father. We are told to think positive thoughts about our day, rather than set our affections on things above. Our voices must be re-tuned to Heaven’s anthem. The choir is set. The time is now…

Our message must be to communicate WHO JESUS IS, not simply rehearse, time and again, the benefits of salvation. John 3:16 isn’t our only theme, as wonderful as it is! Apart from a knowledge of WHO God is and what He is doing in history, “Heaven” and “salvation” have little context. Paul made it clear in Colossians 1:28 “He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ.”

The goal is maturity, not a temporal and trouble-free life. The goal is to be “presentable to our Savior” not simply “pleased with ourselves”.

Look at the verbs, the action words of these verses: proclaim, admonish, teach, present. Here is a great message of Paul’s simple but powerful vision. What began with a simple announcement of the truth of Jesus’ life and work, became a warning that response to the gift of God MUST come. After that response, the acceptance of Jesus, there followed the need to teach men and women of a walk with God. All of this work – the preaching, the teaching, the warning – had a single goal – to present those reached as followers that delighted Jesus, and completed the work in them!

We must, at this moment in church history, ask the important question: “Do we really CARE if those in the body of Christ are getting ready to meet Him?” Do we even think – with our culture so thoroughly soaked in the “It’s nobody else’s business but mine what I do” that we SHOULD care about whether our brothers and sisters are becoming stronger in their ability to live and work for Jesus?

Individualism is the world’s way – body is the Bible’s way. Paul stood opposed to individualism that allowed people to name Jesus as their Savior without responsibility to the body of Christ in their daily walk. With so many churches – many built on the ego of men and women – people move about without any real accountability and think they have founded a new “individualist Christian way of life”. Paul would have clearly argued they were completely wrong. Only a believer who thinks himself or herself accountable comes under admonishing preaching and teaching – and checks each word in the text. The others ignore it, and live a half-surrendered, self-made version of the original Christian message.

Third, God made clear what was blocking the path to our maturity.

Paul made clear the issues that stood in the way of presenting them to Jesus fully mature.

For some, the issue was a distraction of the circumstances:

Some Colossian believers were unable to recognize the issues behind the struggles of Paul, and didn’t know him (2:1-5). They were tempted to listen to voices closer to home:

Colossians 2:1 For I want you to know how great a struggle I have on your behalf and for those who are at Laodicea, and for all those who have not personally seen my face, 2 that their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love, and [attaining] to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, [resulting] in a true knowledge of God’s mystery, [that is], Christ [Himself], 3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 2:4 I say this so that no one will delude you with persuasive argument. 5 For even though I am absent in body, nevertheless I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good discipline and the stability of your faith in Christ.

It is obvious to me that Paul craved the personal touch in ministry, not a long-distance ministry aided by secondary methods. I think he would have used electronic ministry methods, but as a disciple maker, I think he would have disdained the impersonal nature of them. He used writing, because it was the best option available to him at the time.

His objective was clear: Paul did not want his temporary incarceration to distract people into believing he didn’t want to be with them. He wanted to be there sharing Jesus with them. He frustrated over distance and delay – just as we all would – but he recognized the work was getting done in God’s way.

Beyond distraction, Paul also knew there were powerful enticements that were pulling on people:

Enticement One: The Deception of Something More (2:6-15)

Colossians 2:6 Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, [so] walk in Him, 7 having been firmly rooted [and now] being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, [and] overflowing with gratitude.

Paul took the believers back to where they began. They were taught to live IN CHRIST. They were told to find their rooted security IN HIM – not is their self-importance, their bank account or their political freedoms. They were strengthened by HIS WORD and built up in HIS SPIRIT – not trained to draw their significance from their peers, their children or their church. It was a life dependent on the Word of God, and the WORK of God in them… and it popped out of their mouths in thankful words. If you are grousing and complaining all the time – you need TIME OUT in the corner with God. You need a cleansing of the inside that comes when you are again worked from the inside out by Jesus.

The truth is, many people don’t want that. They want something more IMMEDIATE, something that meets the demands of their FLESHLY DESIRES in the here and now. Paul wrote:

Colossians 2:8 See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.

In a world where Romans greeted their departed ancestors daily in the atrium of their house, where they prayed for their spirit guidance and looked for assistance from the long dead for matters ranging from crop planting to child-rearing, ancient Romans were always tempted to look back into their traditions for answers. Philosophies abounded on the street in the multi-cultural polytheism of the Roman city. The temptation to hear of “something new” and “something more” abounded everywhere.

The sad part is that two thousand years later, many a believer has fallen prey to the same type of speculation. Instead of carefully studying God’s infallible Word on the issues of life after death, they scoop up the books on the market shelf about people’s speculative ventures into Heaven from an operating table, and think they can now prove the truth from some “slice of life” biography. Woefully ignorant of the context of many passages of Scripture, they swallow false prophetic visions and gleefully claim promises God never gave them – when the promises God HAS made for them are marvelous and rich. We must never forget that religion is a cold imitation of a real and vibrant relationship with Jesus Christ. It is not WORK FOR HIM that we desperately need – it is Christ Himself, gently invited into our heart to share the pains, ponderings and plans of our life. Paul reminded them of all that Jesus truly is in the verses that followed (look at these words cut from the total paragraph):

• 2:9 For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form,
• 2:10 and in Him you have been made complete,
• 2:13 When you were dead …He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions,
• 2:14 “[HE] canceled out the certificate of debt … having nailed it to the cross.
• 2:15 When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him.

When you read the words, the point is clear – Jesus paid your debt, and your account is clear.

• STOP living as though your need to impress people with your body is important – that is short lived nonsense.

• Stop living for the next party – that won’t satisfy.

• Stop moving from one hunger to purchase something to another – your addiction only satisfies the people making the JUNK you are buying. Stuff is just stuff.

Fortune, fame, power and pleasure in this life pale in comparison to following the call of God with your whole heart. WHAT a Christ you serve! Fully God! Fully Giving! Fully Satisfying – if we stop running around looking for another way to be made complete.

Enticement Two: The Defrauding of False Judgment (2:16-23)

Another enticement was the deception of living under the false judgment of controlling religionists:

Colossians 2:16 “Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day—17 things which are a [mere] shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ. 2:18 Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize…”

Look at how quickly a walk with Jesus is torqued by some to become an issue of CONTROL. They want to tell you what to EAT, what to DRINK, when to CELEBRATE, how ANGELIC WORSHIP will bring you “good luck” or how some vision they have seen should change how YOU live! Keep reading, and it will come down to RULES: Don’t touch this! Don’t taste that! Paul said: “They look and sound wise!” but they will all be like a balloon suddenly popped. Don’t be distracted by those who are impressing rules on you that cannot be clearly and carefully shown from the Word of God itself

Don’t misunderstand me. There are rules to relationships, even those with the Lord Jesus. He didn’t save you to empower your sinful rebellion. The problem is that too many people want you to live by THEIR RULES, and not by the Spirit-affirmed, Scripturally-mandated truths of life. Eat what Jesus says you can. Drink what Jesus says you can. Celebrate what and how Jesus says you can. Let me say it clearly: Christianity is following Christ as He is revealed in His Word. If it isn’t what the Word says – seek the Spirit’s personal counsel to you and follow it uncompromisingly – and God will bless you.

I need you to make me a promise…Don’t believe me if you cannot what I am saying in the text of Scripture. Don’t take it from the book by the latest author or the lyric of your favorite singer. Get into the Word and check EVERYTHING by that – or keep walking on. Please Him. Please Him…. Not yourself… nor please those you wish to impress on this earth. Please Him!

Enticement Three: The Distraction of Temporary Values (3:1-4)

Colossians 3:1 Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. 3 For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.

Some are content with Jesus, and can discern the Scripture in a way that they are not led into the controlling hands of the legalist… but they are still distracted. The siren that captured their heart is the focus on the PHYSICAL WORLD.

• If you endlessly crave constant good feeling – move your eyes from LUST to Heaven.

• If you dream, day after day of the next shiny toy – move your eyes from GREED to Heaven.

• If you rage, day after day, over the latest shock from political world – move your eyes from POWER to Heaven.

Believers can be distracted to LIVE THE WRONG LIFE. They can easily love the wrong things, because they learn to crave the fleshly over the things from above.

Enticement Four: The Dirtying of Mud Pulls (3:5-11)

Colossians 3:5 Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. 6 For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience, 7 and in them you also once walked, when you were living in them. 8 But now you also, put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, [and] abusive speech from your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its [evil] practices, 10 and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him—11 [a renewal] in which there is no [distinction between] Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all.

Paul offered word of yet one more distraction… the hunger to satiate the flesh. In a way, it is a more exaggerated form of the distraction of temporary values we just talked about. In another way, a very personal way, it is the deep and driving appetite that is for many an addiction. As a Pastor and Bible teacher, I am not unaware that some who are encountering this lesson have as recently as the last twenty-four hours found themselves hiding from others and indulging in pornography. Perhaps you listen to this lesson as some strange form of Bible penance. Here is the truth: Your desires CAN be put away by accessing the power of Jesus.

At the heart of the problem is a single lie. You may be listening to the voice of the deceiver, who wants you to be these words: “YOU NEED THIS. YOU CANNOT STOP. YOU MUST HAVE THIS TO MAKE IT THROUGH THE DAY.” He is lying, and deep inside you know he is. If you were stuck on a desert island, you wouldn’t die from a lack of porn. The practices of the life lived for self-pleasures that bring enormous guilt must be put to death in Christ. One more thing: The “fifty shades of grey” are more darkness than anything else. Black dressed as grey fools no honest man. Paul applied that same word to bad mouthing, angry outbursts, and filthy speech. Stop saying that Jesus has the power to take away your sin, but hasn’t the power to help you stand against the lie that you need dirt to fulfill your life. You don’t. There is a way of escape – it is in Jesus. When you invite Him, He provides the power to stand. He won’t leave you withering if you ask Him to rescue you!

During World War I, two friends enlisted who were inseparable. They trained together and were shipped to the front together. They fought side-by-side in the trenches. During an assault, one of the men was critically and unable to crawl back to his trench. Blistering and constant enemy fire made it suicidal to reach him, but his friend decided to try. As he began, his sergeant yanked him back inside and ordered him not to go. “It’s too late! You can’t do him any good and you’ll only get yourself killed.” As the sergeant turned his back, the man scurried after his fallen friend. Moments later, he staggered back, mortally wounded, with his friend, now dead, in his arms. The sergeant was both angry and deeply moved. “What a waste,” he blurted out. “He’s dead and you’re dying. It just wasn’t worth it.” With almost his last breath, the dying man replied, “Oh, yes, it was, Sarge. When I got to him, the only thing he said was, ’I knew you’d come, Jim!” (Original source unknown).

Remember this: The road ahead has obstacles that cause some to falter, but a focus on our incredible Savior and His purposes will keep us moving toward our goal.

When a brand new baby is first placed into the arms of a new loving parent, a universe of dreams is ignited. This much I have seen: new parents handle the baby with such care, you can tell they believe the child is far more “breakable” than they really are – but that is fine. It is better that they learn to be gentle than they learn how resilient that little child truly is. The first days, new parents often share with me that their fears are NOT about the baby, but about their ability to be good parents. They want to do things the “right way”. Should their little boy be circumcised? The hospital asked and they never thought about that. In the coming months, should the child get vaccinations when the time is right? What is the safest car seat on the market? Are all the garments for the baby made from the right materials? Is the crib really put together properly and is it safe? The list goes on and on…

The first part of parental life is about protecting a child – and new parents are painfully aware of the pitfalls of neglecting in that stage. Yet, that isn’t all there is to parenting. The second task, the one that emerges as the child grows through the stages of development, is increasingly to prepare a child – to help them become a self-sufficient yet God-dependent individual. Part of that process is helping them understand the POINT of life. The real dream most parents have for their children is for the child to become a happy, fulfilled and positive contributor to society. To do that, they must come to understand what life is all about – they must learn the POINT of the whole human experience.

Money will help them on the journey, but money cannot be the object. Reputation is important, but they cannot make life all about “being known”. Becoming competent and empowered to care for self is very important, but life cannot become simply about how much you can do, what you can build or what you can create. Joyful experiences are wonderful, but life cannot become focused on a mere series of fun engagements without a balanced role of responsibilities that bring about the greater long-term goals. Teaching a young man or young woman the POINT of life is one of the greatest pursuits an older person can engage.

At this point we should entertain the notion of mentoring and discipleship – but our thoughts are not about physical parenting – rather we have in mind a spiritual form of growing people to maturity. In fact, the story of Paul’s life and journeys that we have been pursuing over these past lessons, is very much a story about mentoring and discipleship. We left off in our story with Paul stuck in Rome awaiting for two years for his hearing before Emperor Nero. During the long wait, he wrote letters, sent messengers and engaged young followers in Jesus. We have been following those letters – those we now call “Epistles” – t0 make one point very clear: The Bible is concerned with the POINT of life, and so is disciple making. Here is an important truth…

Key Principle: God gave us life and then exposed our goal for living. We must learn a practical love for Him that works its way into our daily life choices.

Let’s be honest: Even a lot of believers don’t seem to get the POINT of our Christian walk – and that becomes painfully obvious when you examine their lives. In fact, some who once could be found careening through the unmarked road of life with great zeal in the beginning of their walk, are now pulled over into the rest stop called “life compromise”, while others have clearly crashed into the guardrails of public sin and disgrace. Some have moved toward the goal, but many have not. Some have produced spiritual children and the fruits of righteousness. Others have run out of spiritual fuel and sit beside the road in well-dressed but concealed spiritual boredom, waving on the passers-by, as thought this were a mere “rest break” on their arduous journey. They are stuck and they know it. They have lost the clear direction. Some don’t get the POINT of this journey at all.

Paul was concerned about the young believers who felt they were praying only to the ceiling, weakly walking in the power of their flesh and feeling spiritually overwhelmed and depleted? That burden grew inside the Apostle, when he heard about the small community of believers following the teaching of Epaphras at Colossae. Because the letter offers such important words that can be confusing, we want to take a few lessons to untie what God used Paul to tell a church struggling to get back on track.

Before we study it together, it is worth recalling the first chapter of Colossians can be broken into two major ideas:

• The first idea is “What are God’s goals for His children?” The answers to this particularly question are obvious from Paul’s elegant prayer for the Colossians 1:9-12, where he shares the POINT of God’s work in and through a believer – one who has truly trusted Christ for salvation.

• The second idea is “Why God has a right to “impose” His goals on us?” The answers to this question are particularly found in 1:13-29, where God offered through Paul’s pen some basic reasons He has rights to us.

God unlocked, through the prayer of Paul for that small church by the Lycus River, some very practical goals for a believer we want to lay bare today. Before we do, let’s get there in a quick read of the beginning of the letter:

The letter reads:

Colossians 1:1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, 2 To the saints and faithful brethren in Christ [who are] at Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father. 3 We give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, 4 since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have for all the saints; 5 because of the hope laid up for you in heaven, of which you previously heard in the word of truth, the gospel 6 which has come to you, just as in all the world also it is constantly bearing fruit and increasing, even as [it has been doing] in you also since the day you heard [of it] and understood the grace of God in truth; 7 just as you learned [it] from Epaphras, our beloved fellow bond-servant, who is a faithful servant of Christ on our behalf, 8 and he also informed us of your love in the Spirit. 9 For this reason also, since the day we heard [of it], we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10 so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please [Him] in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; 11 strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light.

Now squeeze the text to it’s essence. It may read something like this:

Paul and Tim to Colossian Saints (1,2):

We thank God for you in our prayers! We heard about your faith and your earnest expectation of Heaven that you accepted in the Gospel message. That message is growing and it is producing fruit in your lives. Epaphras shared that truth with you, and word of you with us. (3-8).

After he shared, we ceaselessly began praying for you:

• That you would be filled with knowledge of God’s will.
• That you would live according to that knowledge – pleasing Him in every way and bearing all the fruit that delights Him.
• That you would grow in strength by His power to become steady, patient and joyful givers of thanks.

Stop there and consider more closely the prayer of Paul for these believers. What does the Apostle’s prayer reveal about God’s GOALS for a believer? I read several important words concerning these goals…

God wants us to know His desires

First, God expressed through Paul that these young believers ought to seek to be filled with the knowledge of God’s will. Note that he didn’t say “that you would know what God’s will is” – he said something far greater in Colossians 1:9. Let me offer a painfully literal but long sentence of what he said:

He prayed for “filling” (playrao) which is better translated “domination by” the knowledge (epi-gnosis) which is literally “to know around”, i.e. to ascertain the precise and correct knowledge of God’s will (theleyma) which is rightly God’s desires and pleasures with wisdom (sofia) or practical ability and understanding (sunesis) that which brings it all together. In plain words, Paul desired that the people would become “dominated by a precise knowledge of God’s true desires with an understanding of the truths that tie all things together.”

Let’s say it this way: God’s first goal is that He wants believers to be knowledgeable of what pleases Him and with that to work out practical ways to live that way. We weren’t made to fumble around about the will of God.

How exactly can we do that? It helps if we know His family well, but it is critical that we know the acts in His past that are found in His Word. Jesus said in John 17:17 “Set them apart by Your Truth; Your Word is Truth!”

The Savior identified that it is the Word of God that was to set apart believers – because they believed it, followed it and tried to make it their rule for faith and practice. Take a moment and consider how whole groups of Christians – denominations, churches and other groupings have so wildly changed their positions over the past few decades.

Let me encourage you: Christians must labor for a Biblical world view if we are to provide our communities with a true moral compass. Moral ideas formed apart from the revealed boundaries of God’s Word eventually lead to an “alternative” way of looking at the world – one that inevitably will oppose God’s ultimate goals. Let me draw a line:

There is a direct connection between churches, denominations and fellowships that lose a careful focus on clearly transmitting the Scriptures to and through their followers, and the “social justice” crowds that grow from that old Bible root but move forward in their own sense of “compassion” to tolerate and promote the opposite of God’s stated agenda. They began with the position that matched the text of Scripture, now they proudly stand against clear, black and white text, to show they are truly “loving”. How did they move so far, so fast?

Let me say clearly that they don’t do it because they are bad people, they do it because they honestly don’t know what God said about many things, because their circle hasn’t been teaching that for some time. After a while, they take their spotty knowledge of the text and “fill in the gaps” with their own sense of morality that was formed without keeping God’s specific cautions and directions in mind. This is how a church can move in one century from proclaiming one set of values from God’s Word to proclaiming “morality and justice” that is in direct opposition to the clear reading of the text some years later.

Here is what we must remember: We are not more compassionate than God. We do not have a greater sense of justice than He. We are not more knowledgeable of truth or equity than our Creator- and He wrote His Word. To form standards of justice, mercy or tolerance without a carefully fixed understanding of God’s Word is terribly dangerous – and that isn’t God’s goal for us. He wants a people who KNOW HIS DESIRES based on His revealed truths.

God wants our life to count

God has a second goal that was expressed in the first part of verse ten: “10 so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please [Him] in all respects…”

Look closer at those words. Literally it says that our walk (peripateo) lit. “about-tread” which refers to the “course of your life journey” is to be in a manner worthy (axios: “with proper weight”) of the Lord. In a word, God wants our life to be Impacting. He desires the course of our life to have the impact that He can bring to it!

Again, we should ask the timely question – how? How can God make my little life count for an eternal purpose? In essence, the method is for me to walk where He wants, be there when He wants, and act in that place how He wants. Let me explain:

Most of us probably haven’t heard of a woman named Henrietta Mears. Henrietta was an education director in a church in California. Through her influence many in her church, including two prominent Christian leaders were influenced for Christ. Henrietta was faithful in many small ways to God and God blessed her work. One of the men she influenced was Bill Bright. He was President and founder of a group called Campus Crusade for Christ. It is believed that that group is responsible for over 2 billion people hearing the gospel message. Another man was none other than Billy Graham. We all know who Billy Graham is. He’s probably witnessed to more people in more places than anyone alive. Who knows how many people Henrietta influenced over the years by her impact on those who men alone. She was faithful to the task God called her to and God used her in awesome ways. (Story taken from In Touch Magazine, “Our Circle of Impact”, November 2003, pgs.8-9)

Here is what Paul wanted the believers to know: Our walk should “please” the Lord, a term (areskeia) that means “to conform one’s desires to bring joy to another”. This term was used of musical slaves in the period. They were to play in such a way as to “soothe” or “please the ears” of the guests at the dinner party. We are to do this for God’s pleasure in all respects (pas), literally in every area. Let me say it plainly: If you and I live with a focus on God’s desires and joy through the deliberate obedience of our life – God will get a “soothing break” hanging out with us. Even clearer: You can live for your pleasure or you can live to bring God pleasure – but you cannot do both. If you focus on bringing Him delight – the byproduct is that He will offer you a depth of satisfaction you could NEVER find search apart from Him. Jesus said if we try to keep our own life, we will lose it.

God wants us to change our appetites

Because we have a relationship with God through Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf, you and I are called to conform our desires to His in every area of life (1:10b). The terms in Colossians 1:10b are: “…bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.”

Let me make this plain. Did you ever go to a buffet and bring back a plate for someone else? The issue isn’t what YOU LIKE, but rather what THEY LIKE. Scripture teaches that we are to choose from the buffet of life as though we are bringing the plate back to the table for God’s enjoyment, not our own. How exactly are we to do that?

In well explored passages like Romans 12:2 we are reminded that we are not to be “conformed to this world…” In Colossians 1:10b, the believers were told to be busy bearing fruits (karpo-foreo) “deliberate outcomes” in every good work (ergon) performance or endeavor). We are to deliberately work toward things are productive. Let this be clear: God desires that your life produce something in each of your life endeavors (1:10b).

There are a number of ways we can do this. One that stands out is in the very famous “fruit bearing” passage found in John 15:4-8. Jesus presented a picture of a vine (Himself) and branches (His followers). He told them they could not produce fruit without “abiding” or “drawing life” from Him (15:4-5;8).

Look at the end of verse ten, where it says: “increasing in the knowledge of God.” Our life will be a rich, growing experience when it is increasing (auxano), literally “having a life deepened and augmented by” an intimate and thorough knowledge (epi-gnosis: lit. “to know around” precise and correct knowledge) of God Himself! When I know God, and I live to please His desires, I will naturally adjust my appetites to things that please Him.

God wants us to get stubborn about doing right

If you keep reading from Paul’s prayer in Colossian 1:11 he wrote…

Colossian 1:11 “…strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience…”

Paul wrote that God wanted their ability to be empowered (dunamoo) literally “strengthened or powered by” daily according to the measure of God’s great power (kratos: force), so that they would be immoveable and patient in the process. God doesn’t want believers to “tough it out” in their own will power. He has all the power we will ever need to accomplish a life that pleases Him. God’s desire is that we have an inexhaustible reserve of power drawn from Him! Our use of His power is specific: We are to become unmoved (hupomene) ability to remain under pressure) and able to endure trouble (makrothumeo: “long heat”). Our life will face pressures to buckle, but God desires to offer us a power that will help us endure and remain faithful.

I recently read an article that told this story, “The most sacred symbol in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, is a tree: a sprawling, shade-bearing, 80-year-old American Elm. Tourists drive from miles around to see her. People pose for pictures beneath her. Arborists carefully protect her. She adorns posters and letterheads. Other trees grow larger, fuller — even greener. But not one is equally cherished. The city treasures the tree not because of her appearance, but her endurance. She endured the Oklahoma City bombing. Timothy McVeigh parked his death-laden truck only yards from her. His malice killed 168 people, wounded 850, destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, and buried the tree in rubble. No one expected it to survive. No one, in fact, gave any thought to the dusty, branch-stripped tree. But then she began to bud. Sprouts pressed through damaged bark; green leaves pushed away gray soot. Life was resurrected from an acre of death. People noticed. The tree modeled the resilience the victims desired. So they gave the elm a name: the Survivor Tree.”

God gave that tree more stability than that blast could take away – and He wants to do that to your life as well. Jesus rose from the rubble, brimming with life. He walked out of a graveyard a whole new man – because the Father possesses the power to do that to a lifeless body. God wants that power to be in your life.

God wants us to get our smile back on

Look at the end of the prayer…

Colossians 1:11b “…joyously 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light.”

Note that He wants to see us rejoice in all things, praising (eucharisto) saying thank you to the Father. He wants believers to learn to be thankful – vocally thankful – for the gift He gave us to be inheritors of new life! (1:12).

Cecil Conrad was a farm boy, tired of waking up at the crack of dawn to clean up after cows. He lied about his age, joined the Army and helped free Asia from the Axis. But it was in the next war, battling Communists in Korea, that Conrad might truly have regretted his change of career. In a too-shallow foxhole, somewhere north of Seoul, the 188th Airborne Division soldier held his gun close to his head, trying to shield himself from fast-flying ordinance that “whistled through the air like birds tweeting,” he said. Then the world exploded in his face. “It was like being smacked with a baseball bat. It knocked me backwards,” Conrad said. Dirt hit him, a chunk of sod flung up by a shell, Conrad thought, as he gradually accepted the fact that he was still alive. Then he touched his helmet, and felt the hole that a shell had torn out of the steel. “I knew a piece of sod couldn’t do that,” he said. By the laws of nature, that big bullet ought to have kept on going, making a fatal journey through his skull and brain. Instead, it struck the steel at such an angle that it cut through the metal and then deflected away. He had a bruise and a headache, but he lived to tell the story. Conrad still has that old helmet, with its tell-tale furrow in the brow. He is one Korean vet thankful for the helmet that saved his life. SOURCE: From “Korean Vet Thankful For The Helmet That Saved His Life” by Cliff Davis.

Here is the funny thing. Long after the engagement was over, he couldn’t put the dirty thing down! He CLUNG the helmet, because it saved him from certain death. I wonder if that isn’t what Paul had in mind when the Spirit nudged him to write how we would joy over the Father that gave us the one thing that saved us. We could never have breached the gulf of unrighteousness. We would surely have been lost.

Let me offer these simple words… God didn’t say life would be easy. That teaching isn’t growing spiritual people that press toward God’s real goals!

In the foreword of his book, Inside Out, Larry Crabb wrote: “Modern Christianity, in dramatic reversal of its biblical form, promises to relieve the pain of living in a fallen world. The message… is too often the same: The promise of bliss is for NOW! Complete satisfaction can be ours this side of heaven….. We are told, sometimes explicitly but more often by example, that it’s simply not necessary to feel the impact of family tensions, frightening possibilities, or discouraging news. [We are told that] life may have its rough spots, but the reality of Christ’s presence and blessing can so thrill our soul that pain is virtually unfelt. It simply isn’t necessary to wrestle with internal struggle and disorder. Just trust, surrender, persevere, obey. “The effect of such teaching,” continues Crabb, “is to blunt the painful reality of what it’s like to live as part of an imperfect, and sometimes evil, community. We learn to pretend that we feel now what we cannot feel until Heaven. But not all of us are good at playing the game. Those whose integrity makes such pretense difficult sometimes worry over their apparent lack of faith. “Why don’t I feel as happy and together as others? Something must be wrong with my spiritual life.” To make matters worse, these people of integrity often appear less mature and their lives less inviting than folks more skilled at denial. And churches tend to reward their members who more convincingly create the illusion of intactness by parading them as examples of what every Christian should be. [But] beneath the surface of everyone’s life, especially the more mature, is an ache that will not go away. It can be ignored, disguised, mislabeled, or submerged by a torrent of activity, but it will not disappear. And for good reason. We were designed to enjoy a better world than this. And until that better world comes along, we will groan for what we do not have. An aching soul is evidence not of neurosis or spiritual immaturity, but of realism.

It seems like so few get to the place that God desires, a place of fulfillment in Him and productivity in their spiritual walk. Yet the goals that Paul shared with Colossae so long ago tell us that the battleground is the WILL. We can shed our condemning past, trim off the expectations of those about us in the present and starve out the inner lusts that trip us up. Yet we can do NOTHING without allowing God to work in our WILL!

Paul argued that God could lay out His goals for us because of WHAT GOD DID FOR US (1:13-14). God orchestrated in Messiah three specific acts that are outlined by Paul:

Colossians 1:13 For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

• God entered the prison of darkness in Satan’s dominion and set me free (1:13a).

• God relocated me to a new Kingdom that was part of the estate of His much loved Son (1:13b).

• God set aside my guilt by considering payment in full through the work of Messiah for me (1:14).

Beyond what God did for us, a second reason is given to explain why God cold expect me to follow His plan for me: WHO OUR SAVIOR IS (1:15ff).

It is clear that God has the right to ask me to surrender my will because I follow the Incomparable Christ.

He is at the center of our worship – and that is as it should be. As we mature, we must recognize one of the greatest truths concerning the study of the Bible is this: Knowing the glory of Christ is an end in itself, not a means to something more. Christ is not glorious so that we get healthy, wealthy or famous – or even that His church is victorious. The glory of Jesus Christ is such that whether rich or poor, sick or sound, prosperous or persecuted – we are able to find total satisfaction in Him – and the Father Who sent Him. Let us be clear: Jesus is worthy of worship if He had never done any of the things the Gospels assure us He did.

In Colossians 1, Jesus is described in remarkable terms. Though not an exhaustive list of qualifications and qualities, it is an impressive list that should lead us to understand God’s right to our submission of will. That is the point of Paul’s sharing it!

Colossians 1:15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created, [both] in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities– all things have been created through Him and for Him. 17 He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.

Jesus possesses the privileged place of “first born” with all its rights and titles (1:15), He is the Creative agent of the Father (1:16a) who did His Father’s bidding in the creation of the world. He is the Owner of all things (1:16b). He has authority over creation because His Father has given Him ownership over all of it. He made it, but His Father said He could make it “for Himself!” If that is true, then I am made for Him. My life was initiated for His purpose. Knowing that gives my life meaning, purpose, focus and direction. God gave me life and then exposed my goals for living.

One of the greatest scientists of our time was Albert Einstein. He was a man who was so focused on his scientific theories. He was so focused, he often neglected even the simplest things of life, such as personal appearance (as evidenced by his hair). One time, Albert Einstein was taking a train out of town for a speaking engagement. As he sat in his seat engrossed in his work, the conductor stopped by to punch his ticket. Looking up in shock, Einstein realized he didn’t know what he had done with his ticket. Frantically, he began to search his coat pockets, and then his briefcase. Gently, the conductor said, “We all know who you are, Dr. Einstein. I’m sure you bought ticket. Don’t worry about it.” But, as the conductor moved along, he looked back to see Einstein on his hands and knees searching under the seats for his ticket. The conductor walked back, “Dr. Einstein, please, don’t worry about it. I know who you are.” Exasperated, Einstein looked up and said, “I, too, know who I am. What I don’t know is where I’m going.“

Though Dr. Einstein was unsure, I am not – and you don’t have to be either. You can know why you are here, and where eternity will take you – because of Jesus.

Sitting in the room as the man took his final breath, I held his hand. I watched as those who loved him throughout these last days of his life wept, held each other, and sought the comfort of another amid the searing pain of loss. The last few weeks, with their joys and laughter over shared memories, as well as their deep pains – piercing outward after a long burial in the back of the family closet – were now brought to a peak as the one around whom they gathered made a quiet exit from the body and the room. The pent up emotional anticipation could now be released in a tumble of tears. There was pain, but there was sweetness in that place. You could feel the blanket of soft tenderness and the warmth of love behind the pain of parting. These were people who were, in part, held together by the one they had just lost. These were those who had common experiences, shared life happenings built around one who was now represented by the empty chair.

Our lives are a puzzle of people and events that fit together uniquely from the vantage point of our own heart view. Yet, they are more than that. We can neither fully grasp the meaning of people in our lives in real time, nor do we often see the point in many of life’s moments – until our lives are completed and we are in the presence of our Savior. Not only that, but we can forget the size of our attachment to each other. In Christ, we have a vast family that extends beyond the biological one – a community not bounded to a spot on the globe. We are a part of something that extends outward around the world, and backward through time – we are connected to “the communion of the saints” now in the presence of the Savior. We are linked to a fraternity that is broad in its size and varied in its makeup and deep in its connection around common values of our one Father. We find the wholeness of our identity in Jesus – One not represented by an empty chair –but by an empty TOMB. It’s true, as followers of Jesus, we are a family of sorts – with all its laughter, its beauty and all its embarrassing moments.

Key Principle: A proper walk with Jesus is about fitting life together with other believers, and making an impact together that we cannot make alone.

Paul knew ministry was about TEAM. He knew that his life was an essay in working together, sharing together and accomplishing together. The end of virtually every letter of Paul was about the people he was connected to in Christ, and his desires and hopes for them. Look at the close to the Colossian letter:

Colossians 4:7 As to all my affairs, Tychicus, [our] beloved brother and faithful servant and fellow bond-servant in the Lord, will bring you information. 8 [For] I have sent him to you for this very purpose, that you may know about our circumstances and that he may encourage your hearts; 9 and with him Onesimus, [our] faithful and beloved brother, who is one of your [number]. They will inform you about the whole situation here. 10 Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner, sends you his greetings; and [also] Barnabas’s cousin Mark (about whom you received instructions; if he comes to you, welcome him); 11 and [also] Jesus who is called Justus; these are the only fellow workers for the kingdom of God who are from the circumcision, and they have proved to be an encouragement to me. 12 Epaphras, who is one of your number, a bondslave of Jesus Christ, sends you his greetings, always laboring earnestly for you in his prayers, that you may stand perfect and fully assured in all the will of God. 13 For I testify for him that he has a deep concern for you and for those who are in Laodicea and Hierapolis. 14 Luke, the beloved physician, sends you his greetings, and [also] Demas. 15 Greet the brethren who are in Laodicea and also Nympha and the church that is in her house. 16 When this letter is read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans; and you, for your part read my letter [that is coming] from Laodicea. 17 Say to Archippus, “Take heed to the ministry which you have received in the Lord, that you may fulfill it.” 18 I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand. Remember my imprisonment. Grace be with you.

Look at the list of people Paul mentioned.

• Ambassadors: Some were with him until he sent them with this letter: Tychicus and Onesimus (the runaway slave who also carried his own letter to his master Philemon).

• Local Coworkers: Some remained behind, like Aristarchus, the fellow prisoner. Others stayed with Paul as much as possible to help him, like Epaphras the prayer warrior, Luke the physician, and Demas another companion.

• Disciples and Assistants: Some were in Paul’s presence, but may have left him in Rome by the time the letter was received in Colossae, because Paul directed them on errands, like John Mark, the cousin of Barnabas and Jesus called Justus – some Jewish believers that encouraged Paul in his condition.

• Family far away: Some were on the receiving end of the letter, like Nympha the hostess and Archippus, a local church leader.

So that we don’t get lost in the list of people, let’s identify that Paul outlined seven types of people in the community of faith that are essential in navigating life well with Jesus before a lost world. We cannot do it alone, and we are not natural about the attachment of the Spirit in a fallen world. We must recognize the unity God gave us, and then endeavor to strengthen it.

Seven Brothers and Sisters Essential to Navigating Life Well

1: Loving brothers:

The first kind of partner in life you and I need are what I am simply calling LOVING BROTHERS OR SISTERS. Here he included Tychicus (4:7) who was called “beloved brother” (agapes adelphos) as well as Onesimus (4:9) who was also addressed by that title. Luke was mentioned in this way as “beloved” (4:14).

We all know we need loving family to grow in Jesus. Our lives are interconnected, and what we become is often very related to WHO we have partnered with to grow. For Paul’s circle, one man was a doctor, (Luke) another man was a freeborn Roman (Tychicus) and the other a runaway slave found by Jesus (Onesimus). It didn’t matter how they came INTO the faith, what level of capability they had to help the others or what baggage they brought – it matters that they found in each other a family, and in God’s love a home. They found a place where people could LOVE them while they learned to grow into their walk with Jesus. Love isn’t the sole foundation of our walk together, however. It is important we recall that Peter carefully sketched out, under the Divine move of God’s Spirit, “God’s process for us in following Him together” as expressed in 2 Peter 1:

1:5-7 offers clear and eight deliberate steps should a believer should take to grow as a part of the body of Christ:

1. It all starts with Faith (pistis) the vision of what God says is true. A believer must conform our personal opinions and ideas to what God says in His Word, or we will be tossed about and not able to build on that foundation. These ideas form a new “world view” that is Biblical. The method is the transformation of our minds through the careful understanding of God’s Word.

2. Next, I must add to this Biblical world view specific chosen acts of moral excellence (areetay) a word from metallurgy that was commonly used for purity. My Biblically shaped world view must show in my moral choices and acts of truth and purity. Believers who live immorally cannot grow properly. Choices affect proper growth spiritually as dramatically as abuses of the body affect proper growth phytsically. One mirrors the other.

3. As I continue to grow, I must next focus on adding knowledge, (gnosis: add learning strategies and life experiences that enhance specifics of God’s teachings and wise experience). The experience of the Christian life is to be a shared experience. I can’t accomplish God’s desire for me if I don’t spend time with those who know more about how to be successful in the walk – it is the best way to grow.

4. Surrounded by others and walking in that Biblical world view, I need to focus on the constant discipline of self-control, (eng-kratia: one who masters his impulses) I must learn strategies to control impulses for God). Even though I will increasingly shape a more Biblical world view, it will be constantly challenged by my rebellious and undisciplined nature. I need to learn how to address that part of me as well. This will include learning to control my thought life, my mouth, and my behaviors.

5. Dealing with my disciplines I will be challenged by life’s difficulties. For these I must learn to persevere, (hupo-meno: stand by the difficult and remain under rather than try to escape the uncomfortable). I will want to quit, but I must stand under the load and not abandon my post. Those who go the distance see the prize, those who quit half way see only the troubles of the journey.

6. While I stand at my post and pass through troubles, I will deepen in reverence under God’s gentle and powerful hand. I will learn to see God and revere Him in a deeper way, (godliness: eusebace; reverence and worship). It takes experience with God to really appreciate Who He is and what He has done.

There is a common error in our churches that must be addressed. Many want to start with some form of musical or emotional worship today, but Peter makes clear that real worship is built on other things that must be settled first. This list in 2 Peter 1 is an ORDERED ONE. Coming to WORSHIP and seeking God is preceded by BELIEF in what He says, MORAL CHOICES that are in harmony with what He said, LIVING STRATEGIES of His Word, CONTROLLED IMPULSES in my lifestyle, and an understanding that it may take PERSEVERANCE to really connect with God amidst the distractions of life. Worship isn’t easy, but nothing that is truly impacting and extremely important is!

I am not suggesting that a believer needs to be PERFECT to worship – or none of us would. I am suggesting that the soul mimics the Spirit, and we will not be sure that we are, in fact, acceptably worshiping and effectively seeking God if we start with that.

7. When I really am experiencing God’s grace and worshiping His presence in my life, I will have endurance and grace in my striving with others. (Phildelphos: brotherly kindness, operate in grace to pull others up). How I treat others is a reflection of my walk with God. Bad relationships are a symptom of a deeper problem, not the key problem, and that was James’ point in the fighting between believers in the early Messianic movement.

8. When I am experiencing God’s power and grace, and I am reflecting His attitudes in my life, I am able to give myself away to love. (agape: unconditional and whole love; wholly caring for others before self). A right application of true love comes from a whole and complete lover. My maturity has everything to do with my ability to truly love another. If we start with LOVE, we may be attracted in LUST and not in God’s love. Moral choices will be compromised as we miss-order the list we were given.

In public discourse, the Bible follower has been placed on the defensive as more and more people are applying a misconstrued idea about what LOVE. In almost any discussion about moral limits in the public forum today, someone echoes the notion that Christian’s shouldn’t JUDGE, but they should LOVE as Jesus and His Disciples taught. That brand of so-called love is applied liberally to force acceptance of any practice that has been historically shunned by Bible believers, even when the practice is clearly outlined in the text of Scripture as reprehensible to God. Is that really LOVE as Scripture teaches? The text argues clearly that it is not. Peter said it ever so clearly in the beginning of his second epistle. He URGED LOVE – but a love that was defined and clear. He claimed that TRUE LOVE sits on TOP OF OTHER UNDERLYING TRUTHS.

Peter claims that TRUE LOVE must be based on a Biblical world view (he used the term “faith”, corresponding moral choices (“virtue”), knowledgeable strategies of working them out, self-mastery, perseverance, reverence, and practical kindness. He claims that people who violate that progression and try to put LOVE first will become unproductive and unsure of their true relationship with Jesus. That’s his argument, and it makes sense to anyone who has children. Love places limits or lives with the consequences of unruly and unwholesome living. The call for LOVE today is often nothing more than a version of TOLERANCE of behaviors that were unacceptable in the Scriptures – redressed in a garb called “love” – but it is a charlatan’s trick.

The list Peter provided clearly illustrates that Biblical love isn’t an inoffensive, warm and fuzzy tolerance – it is genuine caring about everyone’s welfare by following God’s declarations of the clear fences that mark proper conduct and unacceptable behavior.

In the end, we need loving partners, but that isn’t as simple as it would seem. It includes people that have been deliberate about their growth in Jesus, and have been following the path He placed before us. The bottom line is this: we need loving brothers and sisters to hold us up when our arms are too tired to do what we were called to do.

2: Faithful partners:

Tychicus is mentioned as FAITHFUL (4:7) and again Onesimus (4:9), but the list continued. Jesus called Justus was included (4:11). Epaphras was called out in a particular area of faithfulness – prayers for their completion in Christ and understanding of God’s will for each of them (4:12). It didn’t matter how far they were from one another – they could lift the other before God though miles away. Faithful partnering isn’t always about physical presence, but it is ALWAYS about consistent and deliberate help to the other.

The term FAITHFUL is “pistós” (an adjective that is derived from peíthō, “persuaded”). The word is used interchangeably with loyalty to the faith. Don’t skip the derivation of the word. I walk in faithfulness when I am FULLY PERSUADED of the rightness of the path, and the benefit of endurance.

• People leave a marriage because they are NO LONGER PERSUADED they cannot live without their partner.

• People become disloyal to their country, and trade secrets, because they are no longer persuaded the nation they have served is worthy of their trust.

• People leave a company because they no longer believe that work environment will offer them what they truly want in advancement and environment.

Faithfulness is rooted in being persuaded. Faithfulness to God is rooted in true and honest belief that God is Who He says He is, and will do what He says He will do. You need people in your life that have that long view of God. David Owens illustrates God’s ability to do what He said:

A man named Russell Edward Herman left trillions of dollars to thousands of people he’d never met. What was the catch? Russell Edward Herman didn’t have trillions of dollars. He was just a simple, poor carpenter. While the wild, wild will of the late Russell Herman never paid off for his “beneficiaries,” it certainly enlivened conversations. Take the tiny Ohio River town of Cave-In-Rock, for example. Herman bequeathed $2.41 billion to them. Cave-In-Rock’s mayor, Albert Kaegi had this to say, “It’s an odd thing to happen, isn’t it?” While the will would never pay off, the mayor had no trouble imagining uses for the willed imaginary monies. Russell Edward Herman had great intentions, but he lacked the resources needed to make them a reality. The greatness of God, however, stands in sharp contrast. God not only has made great and precious promises, He has the ability to follow through on every single one of them.

Faithfulness to God is rooted deeply in persuasion ABOUT God. If He is able to deliver on salvation, following Him is worthwhile. If I am not convinced, then why would I give up the pleasure of living for self for this season in the hope that He will see my surrendered heart? I simply wouldn’t.

Faithful partners in Christ are people who are first faithful to the Master, and then as a consequence of that belief faithful to serving a brother or a sister. If the faithfulness to Christ isn’t first, the enemy will be able to introduce something into the relationship – a hindrance or trouble – that will wedge between you. The faithfulness will fail when the enemy is able to convince either or both of you that you are being taken. All it takes to destroy the relationship between Ruth and Naomi is for the enemy to convince Naomi that Ruth is only her friend to get her farm and her heritage. If Naomi believed the poison, the book would have finished entirely differently.

Here is the warning: surround yourself with people who are endeavoring to be faithful to Christ in their choices, and who will push you to be as well. Don’t let the enemy fill your ears with ulterior motives – spend time with them, and cherish them. Affirm every faithful step they take and stay close to them.

3: Encouraging guides:

Along with those who will faithfully partner is the mention of one who needed encouragement to continue to follow Christ with their full efforts – like Archippus (4:17). He was apparently tempted to distraction from fully working out his giftedness in faithful service. The warning of Paul was a public one, read in the openness of the assembly as an encouragement to stay by the task assigned to him. Many BEGIN serving Jesus, but some need to be encouraged to STAY WITH the task until it has been completed in and through them. Paul used his gift of exhortation to warm and guide him.

For those who possess exhortation as a gift, we must be warned: the gift of exhortation can become caustic if not immersed in the control of the Spirit of God. That same gift was dispensed because it is essential to the fitting together of the body. Exhortation must be tempered by wisdom, and that comes with experience. If God has gifted you with the ability to see clearly where others cannot, and speak to the issue effectively when others do not – you must steward the gift very carefully – so that you don’t become unnecessarily critical and unduly harsh.

Remember that people in our “always affirm” society don’t handle criticism very well, so it must be delivered carefully. Most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism. We also need to do a personal eye check for logs before we start exhorting anyone about anything. We need to have God at work in us, in a way that others can tell we are truly speaking for their good, and not out of our annoyance. Vance Havner once rightly said: “We are not going to move this world by criticism of it nor conformity to it, but by combustion within it of lives ignited by the Spirit of God.”

People are hungry for encouragers today – not just hollow affirmers. I treasure people who give difficult feedback to me, and some of you do as well. Encouragement keeps us looking forward, because we feel like a team is PULLING FOR US. Encouragement keeps us smiling in a world that is frowning. In “Laugh Again”, Chuck Swindoll made the observation: “I know of no greater need today than the need for joy. Unexplainable, contagious joy. Outrageous joy…Unfortunately, our country seems to have lost its spirit of fun and laughter. Recently, a Brazilian student studying at a nearby university told me that what amazes him most about Americans is their lack of laughter. I found myself unable to refute his criticism”. We are not just sad because we forgot how to laugh. Americans are worried. They are nervous. It is time for believers to learn to encourage, and fill our rooms again with laughter!

4: Competent companions:

Some people are particularly encouraging because they are LIKE US in some important way. For Paul, three men represented the Jewish believers – Aristarchus, Mark and Yeshua called Justus. We need people who understand our background, our thinking, our needs – they will encourage us in deep and significant ways. Paul had some Messianic believers around him that understood the lifestyle of a Jew in the Roman world.

It isn’t wrong for you to seek to be with those who are like you. You should always be kind and hospitable, but it isn’t a flaw that you prefer to hang out with people that are similar in background and culture to you. That is natural, ever since the Tower of Babel yielded divisions into nationalism. Those who know how we are raised are often able to speak more deeply into our hearts. That is no secret. If multi-culturalism has taught us ANYTHING, it should teach us that we don’t understand as much as we think we do about other people around the planet, and other cultures they come from. Truly competent people know their limitations. Unfortunately, there are a lot of incompetent people out there today. I read this last week:

Most incompetent people don’t know they are incompetent. In fact, researcher Dr. David A. Dunning of Cornell University reports that people who are incompetent are more confident of their abilities than competent people. Dunning and his associate Justin Krueger believe that skills required for competence are the same skills necessary to recognize that ability. Krueger writes in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, “Not only do [incompetent people] reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it.” SOURCE: Hank Simon, Catch-22 of Incompetence, Belleville, Illinois. Citation: New York Times News Service, Belleville [Illinois] News-Democrat (1-18-00.)

Even in our own country we are having trouble speaking to each other. Why would we believe we truly understand those half a world away after a thirty second news segment? Brothers and sisters, we must be slower to conclude that we understand things. Too many people are making decisions that shouldn’t be – and too many decisions are being made that are damaging our future. You see, in a democracy, good will without competence and competence without good will are both equivalent formulas for community disaster.

Our problem carries to the mission field as well, because we make a mistake when we think that we can casually adopt another world view and truly understand what someone else is saying because they have learned our language. We need to slow down and recognize that we may grasp their words, but entirely miss their meaning. Some of you know that I was almost married once, entirely by accident, because I thought the Arab community of East Jerusalem was just like my little town in New Jersey. It was a time that marked dramatic learning in my life.

We don’t need people who THINK they know us – but close friends that share life perspective – especially when we are hurting. We don’t want to have to explain from our pain. Truly competent team members know what you mean by the grunt of the groan. You need friends like this, and so did Paul.

5: Caring providers:

It appears, according to some records that Dr. Luke cared for Paul’s needs in his house arrest, and acted as an amanuensis, or secretary for Paul. Nympha (4:15) provided for believers in her home as a hostess for the local fellowship. Every believer needs these kinds of people in their lives – those who will see a need and not wait for a new program to start meeting it. Ministry is messy, and there are as many needs as there are people. Some of those who come in the door are deeply hurt by what life has delivered to them. They hurt in every direction. Some of YOU are gifted to be the caring providers.

Marc Axelrod mentioned this story in one of his writings: “There’s an old story about Dr. Benjamin Warfield. He was a theology professor at Princeton Seminary. While he was still at the height of his academic powers, his wife got sick. And she became an invalid. He took care of her for ten years. During that ten year period, he never spent more than 2 hours away from his wife. Even though she was handicapped, she still loved to read. And so Dr. Warfield would sit at her bedside day after day. And read to her. He was always gentle and caring with her. One day, someone asked him, “Have you ever thought about taking your wife to an institution?” Then you could write bigger books and have a bigger ministry.” But Dr. Warfield said, “No way. My wife is my ministry. I will never leave her side. I am going to love her and take care of her as long as God grants us life.”

Don’t we ALL hunger to have someone in our lives that will be that caring provider when what we add to their lives is so much less than what we ask for from them? We all need caring providers, and some of us are especially gifted to be one in the lives of those in the body around us.

6: Fellow servants:

Tychicus (4:7) and Epaphras (4:12) are noted as fellow slaves or servants. The term “doulos” that Paul routinely used of himself was a loaded term in a society where nearly half of all the empire was populated by slaves. Paul was BORN a free man of Rome, but DIED a slave of Jesus. No man or woman of God could want more. Yet some do… Demas (4:14) served for a time, but eventually peeled away from Paul (2 Timothy 4:9 “Make every effort to come to me soon; 10for Demas, having loved this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica; Crescens [has gone] to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia.” The sad fact is that some will serve for a time, but be pulled away.

Slaves keep their tastes simple, and their eye on pleasing their Master. They are those who SEEK to find a way to help. They may have limitations, but they are undaunted in their zeal to live to please the Master.

Bishop J.C. Ryle, the first bishop of Liverpool, wrote about servants of Christ and said: “[Their] zeal is a burning desire to please God, to do His will, and to advance His glory in the world in every possible way. A zealous man is preeminently a man of one thing. He is more than earnest, hearty, uncompromising, wholehearted, and fervent in spirit. He sees only one thing, cares about one thing, lives for one thing, swallowed up in one thing, and that one thing is to please God. Whether he lives or dies, has health or has sickness, whether he is rich or poor, pleases people or gives offense, whether he is thought wise or foolish, gets the blame or the praise, whether he receives honor or is given shame, He burns for one thing, and that one thing is to please God. Such a one will always find a sphere for his zeal. If he cannot preach, he will work and give money, he will cry and sigh and pray. If he cannot fight in the valley with Joshua, he will hold up the hands of Moses until the battle is won.” (From a sermon by Robert Stone, The People God Can’t Forget: Nehemiah, 5/28/2011).

The church has produced clergy, professionals, publishers and prima donnas – but it lacks servants around the world. Are you one? We need them, and when we see them working – it is a breath of fresh air!

7: Fellow prisoners:

Aristarchus (4:10) was another believing prisoner that shared the hardships with Paul. Sometimes what you need more than anyone else is someone who has the same problems, same struggles, and same needs as you do. They may not be able to remove your need or satiate your hunger, but a shared sorrow is half a sorrow. Seek out those who understand, because they are going through it just as you are.

Widows, seek out those who have survived the process. Widowers, spend more time listening to those who have walked through the fire. If you are sick, make a prayer partner out of someone else who is, and call each other every day to chat for a few minutes. Hearing about someone else’s problems helps to keep life in balance. Sometimes you need a fellow prisoner to listen to your pain.

In the end, we need a variety of people – and we need to be at work helping others on our team… but we have a problem:

Every team in the NFL has players that know what their role is on the team. Some are part of the offense – the part of the team that puts points on the board. Others are part of the defense, those who hold back the opponent from moving the ball down the field in the “wrong” direction and scoring against their home team. What we are doing is MUCH MORE than a game – but it DOES have an opponent, and that opponent does have a team. He has a strategy called in Scripture his “schemes”, and he has an objective – to thwart the work of our Master. How is it possible that many of us don’t know – years into the service of our King – what our role is on the team?

A proper walk with Jesus is about fitting life together with other believers, and making an impact together that we cannot make alone.

Children have to learn to pay attention. They have to be able to spot a car that may have an inattentive or distracted driver, and stay at the curb until danger passes them by. The safest child is most often the alert child – one who has learned to keep his or her eyes watchful for trouble before it comes. We don’t want to make our children paranoid, but we want them to know WHEN to look, WHERE to look, and WHAT they should be looking to see before it comes. That same caution existed in the Apostle Paul’s heart when he instructed the early church about the challenges that lay ahead.

The Roman world at the time of Paul’s preaching and the church’s establishment was a world in transition. The Principate – the scholastic term for the Roman Empire – was tottering with a madman at the helm. The government projected stability, but the Palatine hill was occupied by a man who NO ONE thought was stable by the year Paul wrote the letter to the Colossians. Paul could have written about the need to collect non-perishable goods and hide in the caves of Cappadocia – but survivalism wasn’t the point of God’s work – testimony was. Under the direction of the Spirit, Paul wisely cautioned believers to keep their focus in two directions to make an impact – not just one.

It was a call for a balance that was rare then, and even rarer now. Why? Many churches form their program around the chief gifts of their leaders.

• In a church that is led by an evangelism-gifted leader, growth will often be spectacularly fast, but the church will expend huge amounts of time, energy and material resource on the outreach. Administration will often be weak in such a place, as the workers are overwhelmed with new outreach vision on a weekly basis. Ever expanding in outreach, just keeping the facility able to hold the people and keeping the leaders aware of the next waves of activity is difficult, let alone keeping the place prepared and accessible.

• In an administrative-led ministry, the property is well kept. The constitution is completely and carefully followed. The bulletin is flawless. The ladies’ room is always supplied. If someone visits, they get the visitor’s packet. If someone makes a commitment, there is a chart for follow-up.

• In a compassion-led ministry, the property needs work, because the resources have been heavily allocated to those who have less. A food pantry is given more attention than a Sunday School class. Soup kitchens are often defined as “real ministry” – and the focus is often placed on a hurting world outside the church.

• In a teacher-led ministry, the emphasis is placed on the Word and its careful dissemination. People come because they want “depth” in the teaching. The team evaluates every presentation on whether or not the material is explained thoroughly, while being presented in a relevant and timely way. The study becomes the point of the whole presentation, and the worship in song seems more like “preliminaries” to the presentation of the meat to a hungry and often weary traveler.

Paul advocated a team ministry, and he argued that no ministry was what God wanted it to be if it only focused on one direction. It was imbalanced and as unsafe as a child crossing the street only having looked in one direction.

Key Principle: Team ministry and disciple building require looking in two directions – growth inside the work and impact outside the work.

If you listen carefully to the five verses near the beginning of what is now the fourth chapter of Colossians, you will pick out six priorities of a healthy body of believers. If you distill the six, you will see both directions they are to focus – inside and outside the body. Look at the verses for a moment:

Colossians 4:2 Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with [an attitude of] thanksgiving; 3 praying at the same time for us as well, that God will open up to us a door for the word, so that we may speak forth the mystery of Christ, for which I have also been imprisoned; 4 that I may make it clear in the way I ought to speak. 5 Conduct yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders, making the most of the opportunity. 6 Let your speech always be with grace, [as though] seasoned with salt, so that you will know how you should respond to each person.

First, Paul offered an “INSIDE focus” (between believers) in three priorities:

1. God’s Work is God led – so PRAYER is essential (Col. 4:2a).

Anyone can do philanthropy – with or without the leading of the Holy Spirit. They can do GOOD work – but they cannot truly do GOD’S work – because they aren’t being led by God. There is a flesh alternative to almost every spirit work – and we must be wise to recognize which is God’s direction and path.

Colossians 4:2a: Devote yourselves to prayer. What a simple statement. It doesn’t say, PRAY. It says “devote yourselves”. The term proskarteréō is a combination of a prefix “pros”, which in this context means “towards, interacting with” and “karteréō”, a word of some intensity that can be translated to “show steadfast strength”. The idea of kartereo was derived from krátos, which means the FINAL JUDGMENT that comes by “prevailing strength”. The word DEMOCRATIC is from this word, and means “gets its judgment strength from the common people”. In the Scripture, the idea of DEVOTING OURSELVES means “to continue to consistently do something with deliberate and intense effort, with the implication of expecting resistance and difficulty – as in the idea ‘to persist’.

The believers needed to be instructed that God’s empowering followed the believer’s requests for that power. The requests were to be steady, deliberate, consistent, and resistant to distraction.

Does that describe your walk with God? Does it describe our church?

What are we asking God to do in this place, and how consistently are we asking Him to do it? How SET are we on the life of prayer?

2. God’s Work is God filtered – so events must be viewed through the lens of God’s goodness (Col. 4:2b).

Events that challenge our life will always be on the horizon. Troubles fill our fallen world until the Savior calls for the end of all of this. Yet, believers were told to view their world through a different set of glasses. They were not “rose colored” – but they were GOD COLORED! That is the secret to the words found in Colossians 4:2b: “…keeping alert in it with [an attitude of] thanksgiving.

The phrase follows the command to pray consistently, and cannot be grammatically separated – it was a phrase that described HOW a believer should prayerfully tackle life. Look closely at the description as Paul wrote the words: “keeping alert”. This is the term grēgoreúō – the word we get the name GREGORY from. It literally means to “stay awake”, and comes from the guard duty of a soldier. It was figuratively used to command one to “be vigilant and watchful”.

Think about that for a moment. Paul didn’t say “be thankful”, he said “keep your eyes peeled with an attitude of thankfulness”. When we read these words, there is a natural question: “What am I watching for?” The answer isn’t as simple as you might think.

• We need to watch for those attacks of negative attitudes that will leave us grumbling and unthankful.

• We need to watch for coming difficult things that will challenge us, so that we can pray about them and search for some possible uses God can make of things meant for our harm.

• We need to recognize that with an overwhelming number of troubles, our temptation will be to disengage, and keep ourselves happy and numb – but that isn’t being watchful.

Paul told the Colossian believers they were to PRAY consistently and diligently – but with pray with their EYES OPEN. They were to be ever watchful of the coming troubles on the horizon, gazing at them through ‘God-colored glasses’. The purpose of watching the horizon was NOT to grouse and moan, but to plan. If I cannot ignore the coming troubles, and I cannot grumble about them, what CAN I do? I can pray fervently with my eyes fixed on the horizon. I can see what appears to be coming our way and look for ways God can use it to further His Kingdom through our lives. I cannot moan, but I can plan. I cannot control, but I can pray! The true weakness of the modern church in this hour is that we prefer personal complaint and public protest to consistent expressions of thankful prayer. That is painful for us to admit, but we are constantly tempted to fight a spiritual battle with a political alternative – and that simply won’t work. Political cause can often fill an auditorium, while prayer meetings can just as quickly empty it.

3. God’s Work is Vast – so keep your eyes open to the fields outside the one you are working within (Col. 4:3-4).

Paul told the believers they were to pray consistently and expectantly – but they were also to pray generously. Their prayer time was to be balanced between anticipation of both challenges and blessings from God, and looking TO OTHER PLACES where God was at work. He was careful to tell them WHERE to focus, as well as WHAT to focus upon. Look at his words:

Colossians 4:3 praying at the same time for us as well, that God will open up to us a door for the word, so that we may speak forth the mystery of Christ, for which I have also been imprisoned; 4 that I may make it clear in the way I ought to speak.

Paul didn’t want prayer to become an exercise in INTROSPECTION ALONE. Immature believers spend all their time focused on THEIR OWN NEEDS, praying with the urgency of people who think that prayer is about INFORMATION. God KNOWS what you need. We don’t present it to inform God – but to conform to God’s work and plan. We KNOW God can work, but we want to be a part of that work.

Along with praying for our own needs, which is something we should and will do, we should pray for those outside our immediate circle of life. Paul urged the people to pray for HIS TEAM as they moved about with God’s Word. He implored them to seek God’s aid as they shared reveled truths to those who had not received them yet. He asked them for one specific request – that Paul would be clear and speak as he ought.

This is the call for those of us who speak for God – that we not ad lib, that we not obscure – but that God’s Words are faithfully, carefully and distinctly set in front of people. We must be careful about our commentary, and clear in our delivery. We should not seek, nor should we hunger to have our words and thoughts remembered – but HIS words and thoughts. Our job, on our best day, is to relay a message from God’s Word, delivered in harmony with the empowering of God’s Spirit. Our message is to be Biblical, practical and clear – and that is what Paul asked people to pray for concerning his work.

Let me ask a pointed question: “How much time have you spent asking God to get the message of the Word out from this church, its mission staff, or from any other work God is doing on the globe?” Can I kick a Biblical truth around for a moment? If the empowering of the work is through prayer, how much power are we expecting to see when we invest little in asking? I think you see where I am going with this. Let’s just agree that we will see more when we SEEK more. Sometimes, we have not, because we ask not.

Take a moment now, and review the three INSIDE FOCUS priorities, and then we’ll move on in the text:

• The people were called to devote themselves to prayer. Prayer is the engine of God’s empowering, the check of self-will, and the typical expression of a heart dependent and thankful.

• The people were implored to be alert with an attitude of thanksgiving. A piercing look at life through the lens of God’s goodness fuels a thankful heart, an appreciative spirit, a renewed reliance of trust in the intrinsic righteousness and sound wisdom of our Master.

• The people were told to pray for others in the fields beyond their own. A sweeping view of the whole horizon of God’s work among partners around the globe guards us against tunnel vision, and invites us to celebrate the body world-wide.

Next, Paul offered an “OUTSIDE Focus” (toward the world) in three other priorities:

1. Believers must be circumspect and wise in deportment – we must conduct ourselves in an exemplary way (Col. 4:5a).

People take their first step toward Christ, very commonly, watching someone who already belongs to Him navigate difficulties of life. That isn’t always the case – but most of the time, that is true. People watch believers before they see Christ. When Paul admonished in Colossians 4:5 “Conduct yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders…” he was really calling the followers of Jesus to two things:

Watch out that you walk with a view toward your testimony – don’t be unwise in your life in a way that will cause the name of Christ to be defamed. In difficulty, you don’t choose your circumstances – but you do control your choices. Because mature people recognize that life in a fallen world isn’t fair, and that you didn’t necessarily contribute to the disasters that come into your life – they will be slow to blame you for the circumstances – but they will watch your response in attitude and action.

You have faithfully, as best as you were able, walked through a marriage, with all its normal rough spots. You came home and find your spouse with someone else intimately. Your heart is broken. Is there anyone who would blame YOU for the failure? Probably there are, but no one with much life experience. Immature people are quick to judge. Those who live longer know better – simply by personal experience.

Rather than feel like a failure, or try to fit a “D” on your forehead, think about something for a moment. Isn’t the real test of your faith how you respond to this crushing blow?

You worked hard to keep the business on track, but the government began selling in your sector and undercut your prices. Social policies that make an ever-expanding government take over every responsibility of life from feeding children breakfast to backing our home mortgages just decided your trade was a good one for them to invest in. Now they have inadvertently undercut your ability to compete because they use your own tax revenues to defeat your business plan as they underprice and undervalue your service. Your once thriving business fails, and you are forced to release your workers, though you gave all you had to make things work.

Rather than sit and stew at the part of society that votes to destroy your livelihood so that they can seem to get some temporary benefit – you can choose a path of peace and productivity. You are angry, and you feel unjustly broken down. That makes perfect sense to all of us. Your testimony will be seen, though, in how you get up off the mat.

Believers will have greater chances to share Christ from the ashes of their own lives than from the platforms of victory – because far more people draw inspiration from those who rise in spite of the circumstances than those who gloat at award ceremonies because of their victories. We should live in such a way that we use our defeats, our challenges and our victories to reflect God’s values – not in self-exaltation, but in a fixed view toward a positive testimony about HIM to the world. Yet, that is not all that Paul was saying in his call for believers to conduct themselves wisely in the world. There was another aspect to that command…

Watch out for what the outsiders will do to harm God’s church – keep private things private. Paul divided the world in the statement “Conduct yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders…” – can you see that? Paul split the world between those INSIDE and those OUTSIDE. He made the point that some things don’t belong being aired before the world. The intimate workings of God’s people, and in particular the disciplines that sometimes must be applied to God’s family, must not be placed before a lost world. We must learn to keep family business inside the family.

A Bible study leader was pulled over by a policeman on his way back from a family birthday barbecue and cited for being over the limit in blood alcohol. He gets home and calls his Pastor and says that he was wrong, and he would like help. He isn’t an alcoholic, but he used poor judgment, and he now recognizes that he needs to place very tight limits on his life. He also goes on a diet, and cuts down his media and television time. He and his wife begin a program of accountability with each other on a series of disciplines. A few months pass, and the Pastor checks in on the couple by phone and gets a “two thumbs up” and puts him back in the rotation for teaching the Bible study. Someone who reads every day’s police blotter in the local paper, without speaking to anyone in leadership about the issue, begins to raise concerns with people both in the church, and in the trailer park where the Bible study is held. Unbelievers are informed that this is a “compromised” Bible study, and the attendance drops off. People from the park ask the Bible study leader to step aside, and the whole group becomes known as the “drunkard’s study”, killing the outreach. One believer, thinking they were doing “God’s work” of keeping people righteous, ended up killing the outreach opportunity. All they really needed to do was sit down with their Pastor and check that the situation was being addressed properly by leaders. Instead, they exposed a brother to ridicule, and brought the work of Jesus to a standstill in that place.

It is essential that believers understand that even their good friends in the world don’t have the same Spirit, and therefore don’t share the same ultimate realities and ends. They may be affirming, but the spiritual aspects of life aren’t fully grasped without the work of the Spirit of God within – and they don’t have that! It is true that believers fail to live the standards of the Word – it is equally true that we need to provide a SAFE PLACE where correction can occur without the public grandstanding of the Pharisee that cries out: “Thank you Lord that I am not as these sinners are!”

2. Believers must keep watch on the time clock – our opportunities slip away swiftly (Col. 4:5b).

Men and women of God must watch out for their testimony – that much is clear. Yet, there is another enticement that is equally alluring – the idea that we have MUCH TIME to begin to live for God, to share God’s salvation, to show love to people in the world around us. Paul wrote to the believers in Colossians 4:5b “…making the most of the opportunity.”

Some among us will “perk up” when we hear that this term for “making the most” is actually an ancient SHOPPING TERM. The word eks-agorázo is take from ek which means “completely out from” a prefix which intensifies agorázō – the term for “buying up at the marketplace”). This is a word for the shopper that finds the incredible sale seizes that buying-opportunity, This is the man who bought twenty cases of dog food because it was “practically a give-away price” – (fat pooch to follow).

The simple point of the word is this – we think we have more time than we do to get God’s things done. The word kairós is translated time, but it has a greater meaning. It is more properly the word “opportunity”. The word kairós (“opportune time”) is derived from kara (“head”) and refers to things “coming to a head. God brings about the “favorable moment” in our lives, and desires that believers look for the opening.

The difference between a good running back in the NFL and a great running back is this: one can spot the openings in the other team’s defensive lines. All the players on the field are strong – or they wouldn’t have made the cut. All the players can run – or they would be of no value to their respective franchises. What makes some men particularly valuable is they can see the play in their head before it happens on the field. They ANTICIPATE the opening, and get ready for it.

Not everyone can relate to athletics. Some of you may see it better this way:

The greatest benefit to playing chess is that when one learns the game well, you learn to think five, and even ten moves out. Strategy is the ability to see the range of responsive moves your opponent will make, and plot an alternate response to each – ending in your win.

Believers don’t simply need to read the second part of Colossians 4 and say, “Gee, I need to really use time better!” That isn’t the whole point. What Paul was calling for was “watchfulness” – not regret. We are called here to live strategically, looking down the road at the ways we will live out a testimony in the different circumstances that appear to be emerging on the horizon.

3. Believers must learn to guard our mouths – speaking in a way that covers our brothers and sisters (Col. 4:6).

One of the chief places believers damage God’s work today is the use of our mouths. I do it, and you do it too. We say the wrong thing, we say the right things insensitively or at the wrong time, or we speak the truth to the wrong people for the wrong reasons. Paul urged: Colossian 4:6 Let your speech always be with grace, [as though] seasoned with salt, so that you will know how you should respond to each person.

We have spoken about salt and the “salt covenant” in the past a number of times. Remember that salt was a commodity in antiquity that was traded for all kinds of goods. We get the term “salary” from salt. We get expressions from our past, like “He’s not worth his weight in salt!” as a way of expressing someone is marrying a man less worthy of the covenant.

Salt was used to preserve meats and vegetables, but it was also used in the Near East as a covenant symbol. For the Levites (Numbers 18) salt was a reminder that God promised to be faithful to them if they shared God’s truth with the tribes who were apportioned property. God would not forget them – He would be LOYAL. In the Davidic line, salt was a symbol of the LOYALTY of God to the promise He made concerning David’s line – a point that King Abijah made to King Jeroboam when the tribes of Israel attacked the household of David in Judah (2 Chron. 13).

When Jesus said that His followers were the “salt of the earth” in Matthew 5:13, He also spoke of LOYALTY – though in Matthew it is hard to see it. In the cross reference in Mark 9:50 it is clearer, where Jesus followed the saying with “Have salt in yourselves, have peace with one another.” (Mark 9:50). The clear statement was that LOYALTY between believers should bring PEACEFUL RELATIONSHIPS in the same place.

This is a very old idea, and one that Leonardo da Vinci knew when he painted “The Last Supper” in what is now the refectory of the Convent of Santa Maria della Grazie, in the northern Italian city of Milan. He began the work just after Columbus discovered the New World – painting around 1495 for his patron Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan. If you look very closely on the table – there is a HINT that Jesus has told the men that “One of you is going to betray Me!” You can see the troubled faces. You can see that Judas has left. If you look closely, you will see the salt container is spilled out on the table – because the loyalty of a disciple has been broken.

Don’t get lost in the history. Remember the simple call of Paul. Our speech is to be gracious, but our speech is to be LOYAL. We should speak of each other in a way that is not demeaning, and not disclose personal problems without the most urgent need to do so. People will ask about the other people we know – and we need to know how to respond graciously and loyally, but truthfully and honestly. We must represent Christ in our mouths as much as any other part of our lives. James exclaimed: “See how great a forest is set aflame by such a small flame!”

At long last, we can see that believers must not only look INWARD to the needs and actions of the Body of Christ, but also OUTWARDLY to the world.

• We need to be circumspect and wise in our conduct – the world is watching how we live.

• We need to be watchful for opportunity – the world is fading away quickly.

• We need to be careful with our words – the world is listening to how we speak, even of each other.

Team ministry and disciple building require looking in two directions – growth inside the work and impact outside the work.