The Overview Effect: Colossians 1:1-14

Introduction

The Overview Effect

There is a phenomena that occurs in many astronauts the first time they enter space.

As they leave the earth for the first time and are able to look back on their home planet and see its entirety against the backdrop of the cosmos, they experience what is called “The Overview Effect”. This experience of looking on the whole of the earth instills a greater perspective about life and living on this “pale blue dot.” In that moment of experiencing the Overview Effect the fragility of life can be felt, the boundaries of nations seem trivial, and the petty concerns they once held are drowned out by a cosmological perspective on all of life.

It is said to be overwhelming. When William Shatner, Captain Kirk from Star Trek himself, stepped off of the SpaceX shuttle he said he wept because of the change that happened within him from the experience.

This is what the book of Colossians does for those who take the time to read and understand it. This is God’s Overview Effect.

God’s Overview Effect: The Book of Colossians

The book of Colossians is not a book so much as a letter. In Greek it’s called an epistle, so if you hear me use that word, epistle, just know that it simply means letter.

It is a letter written sometime around 60 AD by the Apostle Paul while he was in prison to the believers in Colossae - an ancient city in the Roman Empire, not too far from Ephesus, Smyrna, and Laodicea. Now, if you know the book of Revelation much at all you know that there are letters to churches in each of those other cities mentioned, but there’s no letter for Colossae.

If you go to Colossae today hoping to walk the paths that Paul’s letters went you will be rather disappointed. There’s just a big hill there with some masonry poking out because only a few years after Paul sent his letter there was a catastrophic earthquake that destroyed the city and it was never rebuilt. Colossae didn’t get a letter in Revelation because it no longer existed when the Apostle John was exiled on the Island of Patmos.

In a very real sense, the only legacy that remains of the once thriving Colossae today is this letter to the young Christian church. As far as we know, Paul never actually was able to visit with them before his execution in 67 AD, but that doesn’t diminish the impact of this letter because Paul knew exactly their situation. They were Roman subjects living in Caesar’s world.

The Roman Empire was constantly reminding their subjects that the peace they experienced was a gift from Rome and they could remove that peace as well. The Latin word pax (peace) was written everywhere, from walls, to gates, to documents. The coins had Pax, the goddess of peace on one side and weapons on the other to show that this peace was held by the blood of the sword.

Roman citizens were expected to revere the emperor as a god. From the time of the first Emperor, Caesar Augustus, the poet Horace declared that he had “brought back fertile crops to the fields” and “wiped away our sins.”

The Roman Empire demanded its citizens recognize Caesar as the provider of peace, provision, and forgiveness.

But in Colossians we see that Christians are so much more than simply citizens of an earthly nation. The Colossian Christians were not just Roman citizens living in Caesar’s world, before that identity they were Christ-followers living in Jesus’ world!

More than anything else, Paul encourages this church he had never met to remember this fact. This letter is bold and courageous and calls its readers to remember how important it is that we recognize that Christ truly is before all. It’s a dangerous message and most people miss how dangerous and subversive it really is.

In ancient Rome, and in our own nation today, this message is shockingly politically incorrect. Paul writes to people he has never met, going just off the report of a mutual friend, and he has the audacity to write about their lives and faith, and to instruct them and even challenge them! But his challenge is to remember that Christ is before all things and that fact should change everything about our lives. Christ is King and Paul could confidently exhort the Colossian strangers because his faith was in the King! It gave Paul the ability to face all sorts of persecution throughout his life and he knew it was the only thing that would supply the perseverance that these young Christians so desperately needed.

It is Christ, not Caesar!, who has delivered peace, provision, and forgiveness. But proclaiming this message meant that you were an enemy of the state! That never mattered to Paul, though, because he knew something about the reality of the universe that had shaped his mind and heart so much that he was willing to face all manner of torment, and even death!, to proclaim it’s truth. Jesus is LORD of the universe!

So as we read this letter, you can really judge your grasp of it by how much it causes open-mouthed astonishment in you. This letter is all about the glorious truth of Christ and if your response to it is anything short of “WOW!” you’re missing something.

However, even if you do respond in astonishment, but do not allow this truth to change everything about your life, then you’ve equally missed the message! If Jesus is the cosmic Lord, how could we possibly walk away from that truth unchanged?

This letter from the Word of God has the ability to grant us the experience of God’s “Overview Effect,” if we’re willing to hear it and believe it. When we see how glorious Christ is and how clearly he is King of everything, nothing can never be the same again.

Sermon

Colossians 1:1–14 ESV

1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, 2 To the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father. 3 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4 since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, 5 because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, 6 which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing—as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth, 7 just as you learned it from Epaphras our beloved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf 8 and has made known to us your love in the Spirit. 9 And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10 so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; 11 being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. 13 He has delivered 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.

From the very beginning of the letter Paul makes it clear where his allegiances lie. He is not Caesar’s man, he is Christ’s man and he is going to make the case for the Colossian church, which has only been in existence for a couple of years, to join him in that sole allegiance (1).

And he’s not doing this because he doubts their commitment, but because he wants to strengthen their commitment.

As humans we often need to hear messages multiple times from multiple people. We need to hear the gospel everyday, not because we do not know it, but because our hearts can be fickle things and need to be reminded of it’s truth. So, may our attitudes never become “I’ve heard all this before and don’t understand why they keep talking about the same old stuff.” The gospel is not just for lost people, it is for Christians too. It strengthens us and reminds us to hold fast to our conviction that we will not allow anyone to have our final allegiance except Christ alone!

Paul recognized that need for reminding and further instruction clearly and wrote this letter with that firmly in mind.

And he wrote this letter to who? To the saints and brothers in Colossae (2). These are no empty words, instead they are the very bonds that connect Paul to these people he has never met before.

The word “saint” - not a Roman invention

It means “holy one” and this has way less to do with morality, it isn’t about how high up the righteousness ladder you have climbed. It isn’t about being a person who “doesn’t drink, smoke, or chew and who doesn’t run with girls (or boys) who do”.

To be a saint also doesn’t have the weird ecclesiastical mystical requirements that the Roman Catholic church has placed on the word.

When Paul calls someone a saint he is simply making a statement of the fact that they have been made holy in Christ! It is a declaration of what God has done in their lives. Their holiness and faithfulness to Christ are the result of their being in Christ!

And as we read this letter we see that this is what binds Paul to them as brothers, and this is the very foundation of all the earth!

And Paul writes with a Deep Gratitude for the new believers in the Colossian church (1-8)

Their belief was made evident in their lives and Paul expresses gratitude for them in specific ways. In verses 4-8 we see that

They exhibited everything you should always expect to see in new believers as a testament to the truth of their regeneration. (4-8)

And Paul structures this section in a familiar, though also different, formula. He points out their faith, their love, and their hope.

Their Faith in Christ Jesus (4a)

Colossians 1:4 (ESV)

4 since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus

Paul was encouraged to see their confidence in Christ, because he knew this gospel message they were sharing was counter-cultural and world-shaking for the world they lived in. They were not simply acknowledging Jesus as Lord and God, they were also rejecting all the gods and ideologies of their own culture.

We should expect to see this culture-rejecting, sacrificial faith in Christians both young and old.

And this newfound faith wasn’t just something that was exciting and new for the people of Colossae. They weren’t just chasing a religious fad that would soon die out. This was not a church that was filled with false converts.

Their true faith was being exemplified in their love for all God’s people as we see in the rest of verse 4.

Their love for all God’s people (4b)

and of the love that you have for all the saints,

Their new allegiance did not simply bring them into some sort of super-personal faith that is just an internal reality. The Colossian believers had been brought into a family, a defined group of people, and they showed their new allegiance to Christ in their love for the people of God.

And this is not a cheap love, it is a costly commitment. They identified themselves with “all God’s people” or “all the saints” and sought to meet their needs. Epaphras must have told Paul that they were not showing favoritism, instead pouring out of themselves for one another.

And this is something that we also should expect to see in Christians! Do we love one another, refusing to show favoritism? Past that, when we are members of a church where all the other members look like us and come from similar backgrounds, it is easy to think we are doing a good job loving all God’s people, but it is much harder to prove.

Love for people who are different from us (whether they are Christian or not) is so counter to human nature that to have a love like Paul describes here in verse 4 must be the work of the Holy Spirit. Where else could it come from?

I think it should only take a little self reflection to realize that in yourself you want to be comfortable. You want to be able to speak freely and not have to be concerned with how people will act because you all are thinking the same way. So then, how does it feel when you start to interact with someone who is different from you?

Lord willing, this church will be fortified with more and more members who love the Lord and love the Bride of Christ. But with more people comes more understandings of the world and how we are to live in it as Christians. How do you respond when the Christians who are fellow members of your church think and act differently from you because they come from another culture?

If you thought they would be more similar, but then they disagree with your opinions on something that you thought was an accepted fact, it’s gonna make you uncomfortable. I’m sure I’ve made you uncomfortable sometimes and you have made me uncomfortable at times. Discomfort does not automatically mean that something is wrong with what is causing that lack of comfort.

God often uses discomfort to show us there is something wrong in us.

And when you face that discomfort, where is your heart?

Do you feel a love for this person, desiring to honor them as more highly than yourself? Or do you feel the need to make your point and make sure you are heard?

Are you ever willing to be wrong? To realize you have made a decision based on ignorance? Are you ever willing to hear people correct that ignorance or do you write them off as just not understanding?

Brothers and sisters, if we are to be a biblical church, then we should seek to exemplify a love for all the saints. Especially the ones who make us uncomfortable.

It is in this love for all the saints that our faith is revealed to be true.

Now, when Paul uses this formula of faith, love, and hope in 1 Corinthians 13 it is in a different order with love at the end because Paul is placing an emphasis on the need for love.

Here in Colossians 1 he instead is placing an emphasis on hope, making the argument that their faith and their love is rooted in their hope in the promises of heaven.

Their hope in heaven (5a)

Colossians 1:5 (ESV)

5 because of the hope laid up for you in heaven...

There is a saying that “Some people are so heavenly minded that they are of no earthly good.” It is sometimes a fair critique because of the way some who bear the name of Christian act...

But for those who are truly heavenly minded are the ones who will be of the most earthly good.

C. S. Lewis says in his book Mere Christianity, “If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next”

Devoted Christians such as John Newton and William Wilberforce worked tirelessly to abolish the slave trade in England. Christians such as missionary Amy Carmichael, philanthropist George Mueller, and journalist Robert Raikes rescued children in peril, founded orphanages, and established schools.

History is full of Christians who positively impacted the world because not for social justice itself, but for their heavenly hope! Hope for heaven is the motivation for our faith and love now.

It is only when we get a high up perspective that God’s overview effect can occur in us and we can realize the true importance of our faith, love, and hope! It is not something that is to be internalized, but rather it is to be externalized and blasted outward from us.

Our faith in Christ and our love for others will only last and be visible if it is rooted in the true hope in heaven that one day we will bow down before our God, in his perfect presence, singing his praises with people from all over the earth who do not look like us, or sound like us, but who have put their faith in Christ alone for their salvation and so they are united to us in him!

In that day we will look over and recognize the people surrounding as our brothers and sisters and will feel a kinship with them that is stronger than any we have ever felt with our families and friends on earth who are not Christians because we will be united as the family of God, as co-heirs with Christ himself!

It is this hope that helps us overcome our earthly fears. Why should I be afraid to be bold in my faith? Why should I fear earthly powers? I know that even if I die, my God has saved me. So, why should I fear man?

I ask you this morning, how would people report on your Christian walk?

Do you show others that you are a saint in the ways that you talk about other people?

Are you marked by a love for the image of God in others? Do you treat fellow church members with respect and love?

Do you seek their interests above your own and do so filled with joy, without an ounce of bitterness?

When you realize that you have not loved others as Christ has loved you, are you quick to repent and confess before God and the person you treated poorly? Or do you double-down or hope that they forgive and forget without you having to humble yourself that way?

This is what it looks like to be a Christian, to be filled with faith in Christ and love for his people because of the great hope offered to Christ’s people in heaven.

But what made it so that the Colossian believers could have faith? That their hearts could be regenerated to hate the evil and love the good?

Colossians 1:5–6 (ESV)

5 … Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, 6 which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing—as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth,

The saving work of the gospel! And how were they saved by the gospel?

Through the Faithful Work of Epaphras (7-8)

He was the one sent to preach the gospel so that the people may hear, believe, and call upon the name of the LORD for salvation.

Romans 10:14–15 ESV

14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”

And he was faithful and he saw the gospel fruit in the lives of the Colossians

They didn’t just hear the gospel, they understood it in truth and saw the fruit of it in their lives through their faith, hope, and love! (6)

ii. Messenger of the gospel (1:7-8)

Colossians 1:7–8 ESV

7 just as you learned it from Epaphras our beloved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf 8 and has made known to us your love in the Spirit.

Brothers and sisters, may this be what we are known as, faithful ministers of Christ, and messengers of the Gospel.

A New Commitment (9-14)

This new commitment leads us to walk in the LORD. In this sense, there are works that that should follow our salvation and there are works that lead to our salvation. Now before Jordon starts turning off my microphone for preaching what sounds like a salvation based on our works, let me finish.

Paul spends verses 9-14 talking about his specific prayer for the Colossians and it is in two parts, the works that follow salvation and the works that lead to salvation. In 9-12 he focuses on the works that follow salvation

1. The works that follow salvation (9-12)

Colossians 1:9–12 (ESV)

9 And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10 so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him:

A. “Walk in a manner worthy of the LORD” by

1. “Bearing fruit in every good work” (1:10b)

Paul expects good works to flow from the faith of the Colossians

2. “Growing in knowledge of God” (1:10c)

One commentator I read on this section, without a hint of irony said

Colossians & Philemon for You 1. From Knowledge of God to Worthiness for God

It may seem bizarre and hard to imagine, but some Christians claim to find theology dull and irrelevant.

And personally, I’m with him. I don’t find theology boring in the least. I find it exciting and fulfilling. But I know too many people who do find theology boring for it to be “bizarre and hard to imagine.” But he continues

Colossians & Philemon for You 1. From Knowledge of God to Worthiness for God

how can delving into the depths of who God is and what God does ever be boring?

This ceaseless prayer of Paul’s, that they would be increasing ing the knowledge of God, is that they their theology would grow deeper. And this isn’t the only place in this passage where Paul prays for them to grow in the knowledge of God. In verse 9 he prays that they would be filled with a knowledge of the will of God through spiritual wisdom and understanding.

Now, it is important that we don’t just seek knowledge for knowledge’s own sake. That is a ditch of empty knowledge that will not lead us to salvation. It leads us to pride and arrogance thinking that we know better than most everyone else. The head is filled with knowledge, but never actually acts on that knowledge.

W should be quick to want to learn, but we should also be quick to check our hearts in our learning to make sure it is not a point of pride within us. We should act on our learning - if we know the things of God, why do we not do them?

On the other side of the road is another ditch that devalues learning and education. “All I need is the Holy Spirit and that’s enough. Knowledge, theology, and deep study has a tendency to squelch the leading of the Spirit. I can hear the Spirit’s leading all by myself. I don’t need help from scholars.”

And this ditch is not filled with empty knowledge, but instead is filled with empty heads that are fooled into think they are wise. These empty heads are able to be filled with all sorts of ideas that sound true, but how could they ever know? They haven’t ever actually studied the true word of God.

Sure they read it, at least some parts of it, and they’ve probably heard preachers preach it, but they’ve never actually put in the work themselves to know the things of God and the ways brothers and sisters have wrestled with these things throughout the millennia.

And I have fallen into each of these ditches throughout my Christian walk. Neither of these is the knowledge, wisdom, and understanding that Paul is speaking of.

Paul wants believers to know God so that they may walk in a manner worthy of God. Knowledge of God is vital to the believer’s daily life and must be relentlessly pursued through whatever means possible if we ever wish to reach Christian maturity. We are far too comfortable with the idea that people can remain “baby Christians” their whole lives. The Bible does not speak like that.

But if that knowledge never progresses to wisdom in living, then it’s worthless.

3. Being strengthened (1:11)

with all power, according to his glorious might,

WHY?

for all endurance and patience with joy

The goal here is less about strength and more about joyful endurance and patience.

Christian, you will never be strong enough to endure without the glorious might of God.

Non-Christian, you are living in a world that encourages you to look to yourself for strength, that you are enough. As someone who believed that for a time, will you please hear my warning? You are not enough. You never will be. And that’s okay. If you strive to be enough you will only find that, after a time of arrogance if you deceive yourself into thinking you’re good, you will face something that completely disrupts what you thought you had built in yourself and you will fall. It will be painful and it can make you doubt all of your life.

Before you have to face that, humble yourself, recognize the reality that you will never be enough, and that there is only one who ever was enough. That’s Jesus Christ, who is strong enough and good enough to lift you out of your weakness and cleanse you of your wickedness. He is worth trusting and following. I beg of you to consider doing so today before you find the point where you are not enough and it is too late.

The final work that Paul mentions that follows salvation is

4. Giving thanks (1:12)

To the Father.

gratitude (attitude) vs. thanksgiving (action)

2. The Works that LEAD to Salvation (13-14)

A. The Work of the Father (1:13)

Colossians 1:12–13 (ESV)

12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. 13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son,

What work does the Father do?

Qualifies Us to share in inheritance

God is the one who qualifies us! Not our deeds or our physical heritage. We can rest and take joy in the fact that God saves us to share in the inheritance of the saints, if we are truly saved!

Delivers us from the domain of darkness

We who are Christians were once lost, bound in darkness and sin, and we have been delivered by the work of God himself! He is the one who broke our shackles and freed us to new life! He is the one who did the work necessary for our salvation!

And though we may still feel its draw, we know that we are no longer slaves to the domain of darkness. We can know and love the good and hate the evil! This is a reason for a time of confession every week in our gathering! We recognize that though we have been saved from the darkness, it still pulls on us and tries to draw us back!

But when we confess before God the sinful draw that we feel and still give in to, we identify it, label it as the sin that it is, and then drag it into the light of God’s glory so that he may kill it. As we do so, we will always find that more sin is waiting to pop out and we just didn’t notice it because we allowed it to hide behind a different sin. And sometimes the sin that we thought we had destroyed was hiding and growing like a cancer to pop out again when we think we think we are safe.

And though we have a time of confession every week, make it a daily worship in your life. Name your sin before God, trust in his willingness to forgive, and drag your sin into his glorious light.

God has delivered us from the kingdom of darkness. May we be ruthless in driving out the stowaways that are hiding within us.

But God doesn’t just deliver us, he also...

Transfers us to the Kingdom of his Son!

We have been taken out of darkness and brought into light! We are not just left on our own to wander, we have been transferred into a kingdom! And in this kingdom we see the work of the Son that leads to salvation.

B. The Work of the Son (1:14)

In verses 13-14 we read

Colossians 1:14 (ESV)

… and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son,14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

What has the son done? He has brought us Redemption, the forgiveness of sins! What a gift for those who believe in him! What a

Conclusion

Turn your gaze upward. Seek God’s Overview Effect that will give you a view and a perspective that you’ve never had before.

My prayer for you is to be able to see more clearly what God has done and is doing, and that it would lead you and change everything for you.

Let a grand view of God lead you to increase in faith, love, and hope. Let it lead you to be an unwavering faithful servant of the gospel.

Let it lead you to walking in a manner worthy of God: bearing fruit in every season, growing in knowledge and wisdom of God, being strengthened in joyful endurance and patience, and living a life of gratitude and thanksgiving.

Let it lead you to thank the Father in Heaven who has qualified, delivered, and transferred you into his kingdom. And let it lead you to look to Christ and him alone for your redemption and forgiveness of sins.

Let’s pray

Assurance

Colossians 1:12–14 ESV

12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. 13 He has delivered 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.