Pentecost 8 (3)
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1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, 2 To God’s holy people in Colossae, the faithful brothers and sisters in Christ: Grace and peace to you from God our Father. 3 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4 because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God’s people—5 the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel 6 that has come to you. In the same way, the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world—just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God’s grace. 7 You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf, 8 and who also told us of your love in the Spirit. 9 For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, 10 so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, 11 being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, 12 and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. 13 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, 2 To God’s holy people in Colossae, the faithful brothers and sisters in Christ: Grace and peace to you from God our Father. 3 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4 because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God’s people—5 the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel 6 that has come to you. In the same way, the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world—just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God’s grace. 7 You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf, 8 and who also told us of your love in the Spirit. 9 For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, 10 so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, 11 being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, 12 and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. 13 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. 15 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. 21 Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. 22 But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation—23 if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant. 24 Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church. 25 I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness—26 the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord’s people. 27 To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. 28 He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ. 29 To this end I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me.
As he often does, St. Paul begins this letter to the Christians in Colossae by giving thanks to God for them. This is a good pattern for us to follow. We encounter many people in our lives from relatives, to schools, to work, to neighborhoods and as Christians, fellow members of our congregation as well as other Christian congregations. Undoubtedly, we have different opinions of those individuals and groups of people.
Do they irritate us?
Do they frustrate what we are trying to do?
Do we find it hard to get along with them?
In Galatians, St. Paul had warned against fighting amongst ourselves. (NIV)
13 You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. 14 For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.
James had noted this sin as well: (NIV)
1 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
On the other hand, Paul begins this letter commending these Christians to God for some very important attributes: We do well to thank God for the fruit of the Spirit we see in others rather than focus on their short comings and sins.
Faith in the Lord Jesus.
Love they had for all of God’s people.
The fact that the gospel was bearing fruit among them.
He also notes that Jesus’ parable of the mustard seed was coming true. That even though the church would start small, it would become very large. History has shown the spread of the gospel throughout the world and how it continues to spread to peoples who were once outside of God’s kingdom such as in Vietnam. Paul heard about this by way of mouth or letters. Who can we learn about how the gospel is spreading throughout the world? Our synod regularly publicizes what we are doing in missions through Forward in Christ, special mailings, and the internet. Other Christian denominations are certainly involved in spreading the gospel as well.
In verses 7 and 8 he reflects on whom God had used to bring them the gospel.
Whom did God use to proclaim the gospel to you in addition to your family members? Hopefully, we all have fond memories of the pastors that God used in our lives to nurture us in the word in spite of their own sinful quirks and idiosyncrasies. I appreciate how as members of the WELS we can often talk about pastors that we know mutually. Rev. Mutterer, Rev. Unnasch, Rev. Schmeling, Rev. Strobel, Rev. Straseske, Rev. Heins to name just a few. Epaphras also spoke highly of the Christians in Colossae. We do well to speak well of our fellow Christians to others.
Who was Epaphras?
Epaphras was a native of Colossae and was undoubtedly one of Paul’s converts. Paul assigned him to preach to the Colossians and in the neighboring cities of Laodicea and Hierapolis.
When Paul wrote the letters to the Colossians and Philemon he was in prison, and Epaphras had been imprisoned with him. It was through Epaphras that Paul knew of the problems in Colossae about which he spoke in his letter.
Epaphras was obviously held in very high esteem by Paul, who referred to him as his “fellow servant” and as a “servant of Jesus Christ.” These were appellations that Paul used very rarely and only for his most honored companions (another being Timothy). In his letter to the Colossians Paul praised the work of Epaphras in the three cities.
Losch, R. R. (2008). In All the People in the Bible: An A–Z Guide to the Saints, Scoundrels, and Other Characters in Scripture (p. 107). Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
Losch, R. R. (2008). In All the People in the Bible: An A–Z Guide to the Saints, Scoundrels, and Other Characters in Scripture (p. 107). Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
So Paul thanks the Lord for these people and their faith and love. He also prays for them to improve. What does he ask for?
Know God’s Will
2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Some people seek to know God’s will by extra biblical means. They look for signs or what the majority thinks. We need look no further than the Bible. A quick search of the Bible shows what God intends for us. God wants all men to be saved and he wants all those who are saved to live for him in thankfulness using the gifts he has given us. St. Paul also summarizes it in this way:
Live a life worthy of the Lord
bear fruit in every good work
grow in the knowledge of God
be strengthened so you can have great endurance and patience
give joyful thanks to the Father
Application: We may have many goals in our lives. As Christians, I would pray that our number one priority is to model what it is that St. Paul thanked God for in their lives and prayed that they would improve on.
Why? Because he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and we have redemption — the forgiveness of sins.
Have you ever been rescued from danger? I drove my car into a snow bank at our home in North Dakota. Within minutes five men from the congregation were there to push me out. I was somewhat embarrassed by thankful that they had rescued me. We might be rescued from an accident, a fire, an attack, or the effects of disease. Sometimes we are embarrassed because of how we got into that situation. But in the end we are grateful and want to thank those who rescued us.
At one time were were so completely under the power of our spiritual enemies that we desparately needed rescuing. We may even have been ashamed that we go into such a situation. St. Paul calls it the dominion of darkness. What does this mean?
52 Then Jesus said to the chief priests, the officers of the temple guard, and the elders, who had come for him, “Am I leading a rebellion, that you have come with swords and clubs? 53 Every day I was with you in the temple courts, and you did not lay a hand on me. But this is your hour—when darkness reigns.”
4 The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5 For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. 6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.
17 So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. 18 They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. 19 Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed.
But we are no longer in the dark because Jesus has rescued us. We know how he did this and should rejoice in it every day. Without his work, we would be be in darkness forever.
But we have been rescued and can now live for him in the ways described above.