Paul’s Closing Encouragements

Colossians 4:10–18 NASB95

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); 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. 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. For I testify for him that he has a deep concern for you and for those who are in Laodicea and Hierapolis. Luke, the beloved physician, sends you his greetings, and also Demas. Greet the brethren who are in Laodicea and also Nympha and the church that is in her house. 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. Say to Archippus, “Take heed to the ministry which you have received in the Lord, that you may fulfill it.” I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand. Remember my imprisonment. Grace be with you.

a. Continue in loving one another (4:10-13)

b. Continue in encouraging one another (4:14-18)

1. INTRODUCTION

2. BODY

a. Continue in loving one another (4:10-13)

i. As we close the letter of Colossians, I was reminded of how the book actually started. Paul opens Colossians by thanking all the saints for their faith in Christ (1:4) and for continuing their walk in the Lord (1:10). He closes the opening section by giving thanks for calling them into the light (1:12).

ii. The next section that starts in 1:13-2:23, Paul goes over what Christ has accomplished on our behalf. Paul goes into detail to explain what God had done in Christ and how we are to properly respond. One of the great themes throughout the book of Colossians is rejoicing found in Colossians 1:24, and how he rejoiced in his sufferings for the sake of the church because the church was the body of Christ.

iii. This is one of the great themes in the book of Colossians and it is no different in the way that Paul closes the letter. Paul opens the letter of Colossians reminding the church how they are to be thankful in the Lord and also closes the letter by reminding the church that we are to love one another. It seems there are three ways to love each other in this section. Paul tells the church to greet each other, to pray for each other and to show concern for each other.

iv. So how are we to love each other? We are called to greet each other. Verse 10-11 shows us this.

1. Paul tells the church at Colossae to love each other by greeting each other. I love this greeting section because it reminds me how we are to be thankful for one another. Greeting each other might not seem like a big deal, but when you realize how much some people are suffering for our good, we should greet them. When we see how much someone is laboring on our behalf, like the way Paul was imprisoned for the cause of the Gospel, and these men who were sacrificing so that they could be updated of what God is doing, it’s because of these men that the churches were able to hear of the news going on and be encouraged.

2. This section dealing with the greetings remind me how thankful these men truly were, how much they really enjoyed the Gospel ministry. I was listening to an interview recently with one of my favorite pastors, and he was talking about the Gospel ministry. And a question was asked to him. “How do you deal with discouragement in Gospel ministry?” And he answered, that he battles with discouragement by reminding himself that this is his dream job. He says to other pastors, you really have to love the ministry to keep doing it. If you don’t, you will eventually quit. This last section just reminded me of how much love for the ministry these men had. No matter how hard or difficult it was, they loved doing it. So he was telling the church to greet him, show him love and appreciate them for their ministry.

v. So who is this person we are to greet and appreciate in verses 10-11? Paul starts with Aristarchus.Aristarchus appears 5 times in the Bible. He appears in Acts 19:29, 20:4, 27:2, Colossians 4:10, Philemon 24. Aristarchus based upon Acts 19:29 and Acts 20:4 show that Aristarchus was from Thessalonica. Paul mentions Aristarchus to show he was a loyal worker in the Lord and a faithful man in preaching the Gospel.

vi. Secondly, Paul mentions Barnabas’s cousin Mark. We hear about Mark in Acts 12:12 where it says that his name was also John. This is the section where Peter was in jail and Got released him from jail and the people would not believe that Peter was waiting outside the house. The house Peter was trying to enter into was Mark’s home. It says the home of Mary, the mother of John. This is also the same Mark that caused Paul and Barnabas to have a sharp disagreement over in Acts 15:38-39 where Barnabas wanted to take Mark but Paul didn’t so Barnabas and Paul split ways. Barnabas took Mark to Cyprus and Paul took Silas to Syria and Cilicia.

1. We see by Colossians, Paul had forgiven Mark and here we see Paul telling the church to welcome him.

vii. Lastly, we see Justus and we know very little about him but here in this section. One thing that he does say after introducing Justus is that these are the only workers that he has met that are Jewish and they have brought him encouragement. This means, all the others who served with him, those others like Tychicus and Onesimus, they were not Jewish. But here, Aristarchus, Mark and Justus, these men were Jewish who encouraged him. Based on the context, we can see that during Paul’s imprisonment, these three men helped him greatly.

viii. Now in verse 12, Paul introduces Epaphras who like Aristarchus, sends you his greetings. We heard about Epaphras in Colossians 1:7 it is understood that he was the first one to bring the gospel to Colossae. Also in Colossians 1:7, it is where Paul introduced him as a dear fellow servant and faithful minister of Christ. We can see from that introduction that Epaphras was not only a great helper to Paul, but a man of great faith. Again, this closing section helps us to recognize how much help Paul had in building the church. We forget to make mention of this, but God used many men to help Paul in his Gospel ministry.

ix. The second way we are called to love one another is to labor in prayer for each other.

1. Interesting about Epaphras is that he writes that he is one of your number, again, similar to Onesimus, he was from the church at Colossae and this man, sends his greetings, please tell them hello and that he is always laboring earnestly for them in his prayers.

2. When I read this, I was reminded of the conversation I had with an older woman who was my patient and she told me that she wanted to die. She told me I’ve lived long enough, I wish God would call me home. And I remember telling her, grandma, if God wanted you home, He would have called you home. But the fact that He didn’t call you yet tells me that there’s something left for you to do. She responded by asking me, “I can’t do anything, I can’t walk, I can’t do anything of the things I was able to do when I was young.” I responded to her, you could always pray.

3. I picture Epaphras as that old man who continually is up praying for the church at Colossae. The phrase here “laboring earnestly for you” means wrestling in prayer, which could also be understood as agonizing on your behalf. He is continually stressing and worried for you which causes him to pray more for you. Even though Epaphras was far from you, he can’t help but think of everyone who was at home and pray for them. What was he praying for? He was praying that they might be able to stand perfect and fully assured in all the will of God.

4. What does this mean? This is the same prayer as Paul prayed for the church at Colossae. We see this prayer in 1:28, where Paul says “We proclaim Him, We preach Christ, encouraging every man and teaching all men wisdom, the Gospel, so that they would these people would know the fullness of the Gospel and to know what it means to be in Christ.

5. Why was this verse important? Because of what Paul writes in 2:8. The church of Colossae was being attacked by a lot of philosophy and false teaching and Paul’s prayer and purpose in preaching to them was to help them to understand the fullness of being in Christ. Admonish here is dealing more with warning for Christians who might be tempted to stray. It is not just to urge them firmly, sometimes even to the point of arguing with them. We have to recognize Paul’s statement in light of the New Testament. Paul has given us a glimpse of this by telling us in verse 24, to rejoice in his sufferings. The reality of Paul’s statement informs us that there was adversity not only to Paul but for Christians in general. We know from history regarding the persecution that Christians faced. This idea of warning to stay the course fits into the context of Paul admonishing believers to continue to press forward. Paul tells us in 1:23, that we are to continue in the faith and not be moved away from the hope of the Gospel.

x. Lastly, the way the church loves each other is to show concern for each other. Paul says in verse 13, Paul testifies and acknowledges Epaphras’ deep concern for them. Epaphras was not simply just praying for them. Epaphras was consumed with his prayer on behalf of the Colossians.

1. It is the same concern that Paul had for the church at Colossae (2:1). Paul writes the same thing. What is Paul’s great concern? Colossians 2:2. It is that their hearts might be encouraged by understanding the love of Christ and having full assurance in the true knowledge of who Jesus Christ is and what He has done.

2. Paul and Epaphras was consumed with the fact that these people might not turn away from their faith and find genuine joy and happiness in Christ. Many people had heard about philosophy and we hear those things today. We hear all types of arguments about creation and evolution and everything else that would cause us to doubt whether the Bible is true or not. There are so many gospels, so many religions that people think are true. Some people were led astray as we see in Colossians 2:8. Make sure nobody takes you as slaves and builds strong arguments for why you should believe in something. Rather, Paul and Epaphras are praying that they would find true assurance in knowing Jesus Christ Himself. It is that they would attain the same encounter with Christ as Paul experienced in Acts 9 on the road to Damascus.

3. Paul is not just speaking about knowledge. Knowing things about Jesus is not the same thing as having full assurance. Full assurance comes when you have suffering. When you suffer and you ask yourself the question, “Why do I believe in this?” That’s where full assurance comes. Paul is saying, I hope you have this type of assurance, when you are so broken and you have nowhere to go and you are left to yourself and Christ is the only person you have left in your life. And when you cling to Him and He sees you through, when He watches over you and you feel His love, through others, through the moment that you are suffering, when you feel the words of the Bible come to life, that’s what Paul wanted for his people. Don’t just know things about your savior, Know your savior. He wanted them to have a relationship with their savior.

4. I am not interested in hearing the right answer. I am only interested in what you truly believe. That’s what Paul and Epaphras were concerned about. They wanted to know that the church in Colossae truly believed in Christ not because it made sense, or it sounded nice. They wanted the church to believe in Christ because they truly believed that He was God and that He truly died and rose for their joy.

b. Continue in encouraging one another (4:14-18)

i. Not only is the church called to love one another, but it is called to encourage one another. In verse 14, Paul mentions Luke who is the author of Luke and Acts as well as Demas. Demas is an interesting character because we later hear that Demas leaves having loved this present world (2 Timothy 4:10). This seems to go with what Paul was preaching in Colossians 1:24-2:8 where he was telling them to keep going down that path. What was that path? We could see from this that it was persecution. Demas was seeing persection all around him, he probably had heard his friends were killed because they were Christian and he was afraid to die. It doesn’t say that Demas left the faith, but rather left Paul personally. He doesn’t mention that he handed Demas over to Satan like he had done with Alexander (1 Timothy 1:20).

ii. Paul then goes on in verse 15 to tell those who are in Laodicea and Nympha and the church at her house. We can see from verse 15 that there seems to be more than 1 church in Laodicea. Paul wanted the church at Colossae to greet those in these churches.

iii. How are you to greet them? When you have this letter read to you, also tell the church at Laodicea about this letter and let them read it for themselves. Make sure to share the letter not only with yourselves but also with the Christians at Laodicea.

iv. We have seen the greetings but I want to highlight verse 17. The church’s role is to encourage each other to fulfill our ministry. By the context, we can tell that Archippus was someone that the church at Colossae knew but more importantly, it is more likely that he was serving at the church at Laodicea. Although we don’t know much about Archippus, we heard of him in Philemon 1:2. Paul addresses him there as a soldier in Christ.

v. As I read this, it reminded me the calling of ministry. But it didn’t just remind me of my ministry, but the encouragement of understanding the reality and seriousness of the ministry. Verse 18 tells us through Paul’s own writing by telling them, remember my imprisonment. Remember that the call to ministry will be difficult. This echoes back to 1:24. The call to ministry is a life of suffering. It is a constant reminder that living your life for others will be hard and difficult. But at the same time, be encouraged. Remember when Jesus was telling his disciples in John 16:16-22 about His death and resurrection. The disciples didn’t understand when Jesus was telling them He would be leaving them. Jesus concludes this talk by telling them, I’m telling you these things so you have peace. He then says that the in the world you will have tribulations, but take courage. Be encouraged because I have overcome the world.

vi. This reminded me of the days when I was preaching through 1 Timothy and how God used that book to remind me of my calling into ministry. I was reminded of 1 Timothy 4:14-16. In 4:14, Paul reminds Timothy to not forget how other men laid their hands on him and God used these men to call him into the ministry. This laying of hands and the spiritual gift in which God had called Timothy into the ministry, Paul was reminding him that his calling into the ministry was for the public reading of Scripture and exhortation and teaching. Paul was reminding Timothy to take pains in studying the scriptures to preach and teach and verse 16, pay close attention to your teaching, but not only in his teaching, but also to his life. He says pay close attention to yourself, watch yourself on how you are living. Then the most important phrase, persevere in these things. Stay the course, don’t stray away from the calling in which God has called you. Keep going and keep trusting in God and when you do these things, it will ensure salvation to both yourself and others when they hear you. How? Because the message that you preach will be so clear and evident to those you are preaching, that they will be convinced of the truth of the Gospel.

vii. One of the most important characteristics of preaching that I’ve come to love is the passion in preaching. When pastors are passionate about what they are preaching, they are passionate because they believe in what they are preaching. Paul is telling Timothy be passionate in his belief of who God is and preach with that passion. When people see that passion, and they see your life, they will be convinced of the message that you are preaching.

viii. We might think well I am not a preacher, what does this have to do with me? Although not all have been called to be preachers, all who follow Christ will suffer in this life. Whether it be through difficulties in life because of the difficulties of life or the difficulties we will face for our faith, everyone will face trials. But even in these trials, what Paul is reminding all of us is, stay the course. Just as Paul tells Archippus in Colossians 4:17, Paul is telling all of us to not forget what God has called you to do. Take heed of the ministry, pay attention to the ministry that God has placed in your life currently. Whether it be your family or your profession or whatever God has called you to this season of your life, pay close attention that God has placed that on your life and accept that God placed you exactly where He wants you. It is not a mistake that things are happening in your life the way they are. God is not confused. But be encouraged that God is working in your life and it is our job to pay close attention to

3. CONCLUSION